She was like a cat: smooth moves, flexible and a tendency to always land on her feet. Most strippers have exactly that, and she wasn't an exception. I told my friend who was dating her that, because the first time I saw her, I knew right away he was a goner. Too much in love with the way she laughed and carried herself and, yes, she was stunning, so my opinion didn't affect their relationship.

Spring Arehart doesn't think about school shootings while walking around campus. That that needs to be said is troubling, actually. But it is true that the Hispanic music lover has chosen not to go to some concerts and festivals, out of concerns for her safety. "I don't think I'm going to be personally targeted," the University of Arizona graduate student says. "But if my chances in a mass shooting were one in 50 of being shot, I wouldn't want to risk being in that one.

Tune in to Black Women OWN the Conversation, an unprecedented "speak-easy" TV show produced by OZY and the Oprah Winfrey Network, on OWN each Saturday from August 24 to September 14 at 10 pm (9 pm CT), and catch 100 Black women discussing beauty, motherhood, love and mind, body and soul. Img 20190401 wa0011It was always about my weight.Everybody always made it about my weight, and I was always depressed because of it.

This is the latest edition of OZY's Huddle newsletter, which brings you a smart, flavorful conversation-starter for your next game watch party. No stale takes allowed. Add The Huddle to your OZY email subscriptions here.With in-state rivals Miami and Florida set to kick off the college football season this weekend, it's time for crystal ball projections to collide with real-life results.

OZY Newsmakers: Deep dives on the names you need to know.We're talkin' 'bout helmets?Capping a bizarre offseason for the ages, Antonio Brown has the sports world channeling its inner Allen Iverson, asking themselves why helmets - or Brown's unwillingness to wear the helmet the NFL is mandating he dons - continue to dominate the headlines, just a week after we were all talking about the temperature settings in cryogenic chambers.

The founders of Napster probably weren’t thinking about communism in 1999 when they made peer-to-peer sharing of digital audio files possible. But in doing so, they undermined one of the core elements of capitalism: scarcity. Without scarcity, prices drop to zero and markets stop working. So when people started duplicating and sharing songs for free, they destroyed the business model of record companies, one download at a time. Eventually, Napster was shut down by legal threats.

If the past is any guide … don’t hold your breath for a quick or easy fix. The Next Recession: Consequences of the next economic slowdown. The Next Recession: Consequences of the next economic slowdown. How will the federal government react to the next recession? The safest answer to this question since 1929 has been: “It’ll make it worse, deeper, longer.” But that wasn’t always the case.

Once central to the country’s mammoth oil industry, Maracaibo is now struggling to ensure it has enough gas for its cars. On a rundown street in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Lucho Torres leans on the cab of his ancient brown pickup truck and waits for gasoline. Ahead of him, about 30 drivers sit in a line of cars that snakes around the corner and out of sight. “Today’s not so bad. We should only be waiting an hour or so,” says Torres.

OZY Newsmakers: Deep dives on the names you need to know.If you were in the middle of a hurricane, you'd probably not need to be told that you were in the middle of a hurricane; the violent hysteria whipped up by the weather system would be enough.

What easily crawls into your head sometimes takes up an uneasy residence there, like the human toll of Hiroshima. For the past two decades, I’ve been recording Japanese war stories. The question I often get asked, at least by friends in the West curious about my day job: “What’s it like talking to an atomic bomb survivor?” Looking at a typical fieldwork session, I think it can safely be said, like nothing I’ve ever done before.