Navigating Public Policy, Technology, Health, Data, and Innovation for a Fairer Future
Politics tends to flatten people. Over time, complex lives get reduced to a handful of talking points, a voting record, a few viral clips. The result is a public square filled with cardboard cutouts rather than human beings shaped by craft, habit, and moral formation. Rand Paul is often treated this way, usually as a Read More “Who Is Rand Paul and Why You Want to Know”
Hoosier politics has long operated on a kind of practical decency: the conviction that even when national passions run hot, Indiana should keep its feet planted on stable ground. The vote that derailed President Trump’s aggressive redistricting push this week reflected that old temperament. It also illuminated, in an unexpected way, the civic example Mike Read More “The Unlikely Dignity of Mike Pence”
Big Yellow Taxi begins with a lament. Joni Mitchell warns that “you do not know what you’ve until it is gone”. A line that has become cultural shorthand for the unnoticed blessings of daily life. Monetary stability belongs in that category. It is the background hum that makes everything else possible. It is also something Read More “Big Yellow Taxi Economics: A Letter of Gratitude to Jerome Powell”
For more than six decades, the National Defense Authorization Act has been one of the quiet wonders of American governance. While much of Washington cycles between theatrical crisis and procedural drift, the NDAA has marched forward every year like a metronome. It is the legislative embodiment of something we rarely acknowledge anymore: the capacity of Read More “Understanding the National Defense Authorization Act and Why This Year Is Different”
The first cold snap always carries a kind of civic honesty test. There is that familiar moment when the furnace clicks alive, sending warm air through the vents and a quiet warning through the household budget. We spend most of the year talking about energy policy as if it were an abstraction measured in megawatts Read More “Why Energy Policy Feels Different When Winter Arrives”
People gather in kitchens across America today. Someone is checking the turkey, another is trying to find the good plates, a niece drifts into the room with headphones and slides back out again. Families arrive with their private burdens tucked under their arms. They bring anxieties about money, worries about illness, or the unspoken tension Read More “Hope as a Political Act, A Thanksgiving Reflection”
Thanksgiving week in Indiana always tells a story. Highways fill with families, pickup trucks, and the hum of engines that shaped the state’s identity for generations. The American car has been more than transportation. It has been freedom, pride, and a ticket to the middle class. That is why a quiet shift in the global Read More “How Much Longer Will Americans Pay the Premium? Thanksgiving Reflections from the Crossroads of America”
Some ideas show up so simple that you almost miss how good they really are. Melladee was one of those for me. A little program, I wrote a few years ago, it plays MP3s, it shows JPGs, and it keeps the two in sync. That is the whole thing. No menu maze, no software trial, Read More “A Melladee and an Eight Dollar Pi”
Commissioner Engelbert, WNBPA leadership, team owners, and members of the basketball community: I am writing as a longtime supporter of the WNBA who believes that the league is entering an important moment in its history. The momentum around women’s sports has never been stronger, and the WNBA stands at the center of a cultural shift Read More “An Open Letter to the WNBA and Its Stakeholders”
Parents usually ask for practical gifts. A working coffeemaker. A night without chores. Something wrapped. This year there is a new contender for Most Useful Gift, and it does not come from a store: a VLAN. A VLAN is simply a way to separate your devices into different digital rooms. If you have ever used Read More “A VLAN for Christmas: The Smart Home Upgrade Parents Don’t Know They Need”