NPR Columns: Simon Says Podcast

In recent years the word "curate" has been plucked out of museums and pasted onto everything from cosmetics, furniture and fashion lines to recipes, music- and photo-sharing websites and cat videos.

A lot of Americans identify themselves by their work. It used to be a kind of identity stamp, but the economic crisis may have hastened a change that was already under way: more people living with a series of short-term jobs instead of lifetime occupations.

Phyllis Diller, who died at the age of 95 this week, broke down doors in comedy — not just for women, but for the middle-aged.

NPR's Scott Simon says voters and candidates might benefit if more politicians took real vacations — if they went somewhere, for at least a short time, where no one knows them. Where they don't have to ask for votes, money or spout talking points.

The Olympics have a long history of including some games and discarding others. In this accelerated digital age, there are a few new competitions that might be more familiar than trampoline maneuvers like the fliffus.

Bob Greenberg died this week at the age of 67. He was a sportscaster who happened to be blind. When I've told people he's one of the most extraordinary people I've ever worked with, there's usually polite incomprehension: A blind sportscaster?

Over the years, I've come to see good sense in my mother's advice: "If you're always slightly overdressed, you're never underdressed." If you begin with "Mr." or "Ms.," you may offend someone with sharp or silly questions, but not with discourtesy.

A wedding ring that proposes to imprint "I'M MARRIED" on a would-be philanderer's finger is sparking a lot of attention — and outrage. I'm merely skeptical.

The Pew Research Center says Asian-Americans are now the fastest-growing ethnic and immigrant group in the United States. Pew says Asian-Americans also tend to be the most educated and prosperous. But every Asian group here has a different immigration story.

Mobster-turned-FBI informant Henry Hill died this week of cancer at the age of 69. That's kind of young, but it's quite a few years older than what you might have thought he'd make.

Why should someone who wants a job have to confide their fears, flaws and darkest dreams to total — judgmental — strangers? A job interview is a professional encounter, after all, not psychoanalysis, a religious confession, a third date or family therapy.

This week, the British government reversed course on a plan to place a 20 percent tax on hot foods like pasties, a humble food more associated with the layman than a posh parliamentarian. Sometimes those politicians must eat their words.

This Memorial Day, Rose Mary Sabo will lay a wreath at the Vietnam War Memorial. Her husband, Leslie Sabo, died in the war 42 years ago, just a few months after she married the boy she met at a high school football game in Ellwood City, Pa., in 1967.

To be a parent is to be constantly reminded that almost everything you thought you were doing right for your children will one day turn out to be wrong. The latest revised revelation may be: Training wheels don't help kids achieve a sense of balance.

Politicians are often lauded in speeches for holding fast to their convictions. But history often honors those who change their minds. Perhaps it's too easy to automatically see political calculation as the only force that changes a politician's mind or heart.