Navigating Public Policy, Technology, Health, Data, and Innovation for a Fairer Future
There is a quiet, slow erosion happening across American cities. It is not an earthquake or a sudden crash. It is more like rot in the beams of a house, hidden until, one day, the walls sag and the structure fails. For generations, we built a civic infrastructure based on assumptions that once felt unshakable: Read More “Why Our Cities Are Quietly Breaking Down”
Leadership is not simply about holding power. It is about knowing when to pass it on. Senator Dick Durbin’s decision to step aside after a lifetime of public service is an act of true leadership. At a moment when many cling to office long after their energy wanes, Durbin chose instead to strengthen democracy by Read More “A Thank You to Senator Dick Durbin”
When you live in Indianapolis, motorsport is more than spectacle, it’s civic texture. On Memorial Day weekend, the roar from the Brickyard isn’t just noise. It’s history echoing at 230 miles per hour. The Indianapolis 500 remains the world’s most prestigious single-day race. Formula 1, on the other hand, is something else entirely. It is Read More “From Gasoline Alley to the Grid: What GM’s Formula 1 Engine Means for American Manufacturing”
A funny thing happened on the way to the startup revolution. We built an entire mythology around the entrepreneur, but forgot to fund the human being behind it. For decades now, the entrepreneur has been hailed as a kind of American folk hero. Gritty, self-reliant, bootstrapped. A doer, not a dreamer. The stories are everywhere: Read More “America’s Innovation Economy Runs on Unpaid Labor”
Somewhere between staying current and staying employed, there’s a gap most people don’t talk about. It’s the space between what you used to be great at and what your profession suddenly expects you to know. It’s a quiet, dangerous space. Not because people fall into it, but because they quietly age inside it. One day, Read More “Mentorship as Infrastructure”
The architecture of mass incarceration is evolving, and it is wearing a suit. This week, a plan emerged from the shadow corridors of militarized entrepreneurship. Erik Prince, the controversial founder of Blackwater, is now proposing to detain and deport undocumented immigrants by building a for-profit prison system not on American soil, but in El Salvador. Read More “From Wall Street to Cell Blocks: The Monetization of Detention in a Globalized Fear Economy”
Today is my mother’s birthday. She’s not just the woman who raised me. She’s the woman who raised four college graduates, each of us with a degree from a historically Black college or university. That is not a coincidence. It’s the result of vision, grit, and a relentless belief in the power of education as Read More “For the Woman Who Believed We Could Go Further”
Some moments in sports feel too perfect to be real. Last night, Alexander Ovechkin broke the NHL all-time goals record. That alone is history. But the symmetry behind it is what stops you cold. Wayne Gretzky broke Gordie Howe’s record exactly 31 years ago. Now, 31 years later, Ovechkin breaks Gretzky’s. Same record. Same time Read More “Three Legends. One Timeline.”
Tornadoes ripped through Central Indiana last night, leaving wide swaths of the region without power. In times like these, communication becomes a lifeline, literally. Yet for too many families, that lifeline has frayed. My parents, both older adults, lost their landline service. When I attempted to report the outage to AT&T, I found myself in Read More “The Disappearing Dial Tone: Why Basic Customer Service is Now a Premium Feature”
A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece on a comparative analysis of 3 rural health literacy programs. Today, we revisit the topic. The rolling plains of rural America have long been romanticized as the heartland, a place where small towns thrive on community ties and quiet perseverance. Yet for millions living in these Read More “Bridging the Gap: How HRSA and Local Initiatives Are Transforming Rural Healthcare”