Mass layoffs produce big winners and losers. Most workers who remain are financially unscathed, even though their employer is struggling.

The civil rights and antiwar movements taught Americans to question authority.

Anti-New Deal rhetoric has never disappeared from American political life.

The blogosphere makes it possible to have a sprawling national conversation about the hard times - often among people who would never find each other offline.

Law graduates have always ended up in business, government, journalism and other fields. Law schools could do more to build these subjects into their coursework.

Regency romances end in marriage; zombie stories end in the zombies being vanquished. 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' delivers both.

In zombie horror, the juxtaposition of the calm world of the living and the menace of the undead inspires terror. In zombie comedy, like 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,' it is played for laughs.

There is a lot of talk in conservative circles about judicial modesty and deferring to the political branches. That view of judging often overlooks the important role that courts have in protecting people's rights. But if there was ever a time to defer, it is when Congress is protecting voting rights in the exact way the Constitution directs it to.

It was not until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s that Congress got serious about the assignment laid out in the post-Civil War amendments.

It is hard to imagine an area in which Congress has more express constitutional authority to act than in protecting the right of minorities to vote.