David Cook: High school students… strike!
It doesn't have to be like this.

It doesn't have to be like this.

Only a few episodes into the popular zombie apocalypse series "The Walking Dead,''which is partial inspiration for this Tuesday online-only column, do we realize the title of the series does not refer to the zombies.

Thanks a lot, burger guys.
She used to be all there, nice and neat, until pieces of her started disappearing. I don't know where she has gone or even if she will be back. ... Her name was My Plan. -- Christian Bryant, senior English essay
Last summer, as the Thursday night music of Riverbend played across the water, the Wingfield family -- all 24 of them -- gathered to throw Frisbee, grill burgers and toss fishing lines from their six-acre lot into the warm Tennessee River.

Had you been a member of Congress in 1865, would you have voted to outlaw slavery?
WARNING: This column contains graphic images. Mild-mannered adults may wish to turn the page. Kids, however, will love it.
It has taken an auto manufacturer based in a country 4,700 miles away to speak the truth about schools here.

Each Tuesday, this online-only column called "The Walking David" looks at the intersection of three aspects of 21st century life: the zombie fiction of "The Walking Dead," the search for meaning and ethics in our lives, and pop culture.
The human heart is the first home to democracy. - Terry Tempest Williams