'Personal contentment, as well as national prosperity, lay in what one does for others'

'We look at the repentant Ebenezer and think: C'est moi!'

Roger Rosenblatt at The New York Times

Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" has "continued to speak to modern readers, offering moral lessons that have only grown more relevant over the decades," says Roger Rosenblatt. Ebenezer Scrooge, whose "sole concern is his own material enrichment," has such enduring appeal "because in many ways, he is us." We are all capable of "selfishness and greed," but "so too are we capable of fantastic generosity and selflessness," Rosenblatt says. "Dickens understood this."

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'From Washington to Hollywood, the gaslighting never seems to end'

Nicole Russell at USA Today

Actor Blake Lively has sued "It Ends With Us" director Justin Baldoni. "Lively alleges that Baldoni sexually harassed her during filming, then launched a sophisticated smear campaign to cover it up," says Nicole Russell. And "if the lawsuit's allegations are true, I also fell victim to the smear campaign's manipulations." In the entertainment industry, "like in the world of politics, we are constantly told what to think about the personalities involved," though they "trick us into believing that we thought of it ourselves."

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'I view the current vaccine controversies with dismay'

Roger Allen at The Philadelphia Inquirer

A lawyer "linked to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the incoming leader of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine," says Roger Allen. "Polio might seem like a disease of the distant past, but I know its dangers firsthand." Revoking governmental approval of the Salk vaccine — which "has been able basically to eradicate polio from the world" — would "pose a grave threat to public health."

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'This holiday, ask questions like a reporter'

Elizabeth Harris at The Atlantic

To avoid fighting about politics, "I decided to approach my family like a reporter," says Elizabeth Harris. "I wasn't looking to have a back-and-forth; I was looking for information. I wanted to know what they thought and why." While "none of my family members was so persuaded by our conversations that they switched their party affiliation," the discussions became easier, and "for everyone involved, it got harder to dismiss the people on the other side, whose views we often see in caricature."

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