The diversity of masks and their origins would be charming if it wasn’t yet another sign of official dysfunction in our collective approach to controlling a pandemic. 

My family of five popped into our hairdresser’s backyard for a quarantine cut. We got good cuts over good conversation, muffled slightly by our masks.

I planned five hours of my work week at Shelby Farms, waking up bright and early, packing up lunch, protective gear, my 7-year-old and heading from my Downtown home to the park. Before long I ordered a hammock from Amazon and found us a spot near Beaver Lake. 

I cherish the competitive newspaper environments that marked the early years of my career — in Jackson between The Clarion-Ledger and Daily News and in Memphis between The Commercial Appeal and Press-Scimitar.

While children are not now in traditional classrooms, they are learning lessons. Don’t be surprised if the next generation floods the health care industry with new workers whose knowledge and ideas will be married to selfless compassion.

The Tennessee Department of Education and Gov. Bill Lee should use federal stimulus money to restore our children and their schools back to the position they were in prior to March 20, 2020.

The city and county can loosen restrictions, but a tour of Midtown and Downtown neighborhoods shows businesses and potential customers still have decisions to make. 

“Going slow to go fast” describes a strategy of being measured and methodical in the early phases of a journey. Caution is vitally important now. Nothing would be more demoralizing than having to shelter-in-place all over again because we didn’t do the right things in these coming months.

“Faithless electors” – those who were elected to support the nominee of their party, then voted for someone else – have been rare. In the 13 presidential elections from 1964 to 2012 there were six. But in 2016 alone, there were seven faithless electors. 

Hundreds of people in Memphis will tell you that Brooks made life worth living again or saved their marriages. If ever I was in the dark pit, I called Brooks, and he talked me out.

Studies show that anxiety, heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate can be reduced by listening to music, and that music has been linked to better sleep while on a ventilator in the ICU. Health care professionals have described a reduction in stress and empathy fatigue from listening to music.

This month's playlist is accompanied by news about the Music Export Memphis COVID-19 Relief Fund, which to date has awarded more than $100,000 in grants to individual Memphis musicians.

For as long as we can remember, Ramadan has been a communal activity. Perhaps coronavirus is a sign that we need to slow down and remember what’s important in life. 

The boundaries between work and home have completely broken down, and life will not really return to normal as long as parents don’t have any place to send children during the day.

We can’t even stand up and come together as one to fight something that’s killing us for two or three months without falling apart. After all, we need our nails done and a haircut.

Watching Alisa Haushalter, director of the Shelby County Health Department, explain our new reality in a calm, measured and fact-based tone, I came away with more optimism than pessimism about our prospects for overcoming this ruthless pandemic.

Ask your doctor if the test you’re taking is specific to COVID-19 and have him or her review with you its limitations, particularly if the test is not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The past month has meant navigating a matrix of official restrictions and individual decisions, and so will the many months — maybe years — to come. 

Area mayors outlined a "Back-to-business" framework Monday. The framework did not include a definite starting date — and that's a good thing.

One reason riots and massacres can be hard to tell apart is that they usually begin and end in roughly the same way. It’s what happens in between that tells the tale.

Shelby County's path through coronavirus is a faucet not a switch: We'll gradually loosen the local economy, but will be prepared to restrict the flow of activity again if and when the virus spikes. 

As Tennessee begins easing coronavirus restrictions today, Memphis leaders continue to grapple with reopening plans. Has Memphis kept pace with peer cities in the region? And how do its coronavirus response and recovery plans fare with its great rival to the East — Nashville – which already has published a plan to reopen gradually over the coming months?

Downtown projects at One Beale, FedEx Logistics' headquarters and Union Row are working toward completion. What's missing in the pandemic is pedestrian vibrancy.

Many of the heroes who are attending to the sick and dying in our hospitals are immigrants: 25% of physicians in the United States are foreign-born, and 1.5 million immigrants are employed as doctors, nurses and pharmacists. 

A constant factor of Memphis life seems more pressing now than usual: To paraphrase Texas songwriter Joe Ely, we may walk the streets of Memphis, but we’ll have you understand, Tennessee is not entirely the state we’re in.