Navigating Public Policy, Technology, Health, Data, and Innovation for a Fairer Future
One of the quiet pleasures of middle age is scanning your own bookshelf, not for something new, but for the ghosts of what shaped you. The books are a map of who you’ve been, and sometimes, who you still hope to be. The other morning, I noticed a gap. My copy of Daniel Boorstin’s The Read More “The Subversive Power of Sharing Books”
I don’t typically write about the arts, but Gustavo Dudamel’s move from the Los Angeles Philharmonic to New York represents something bigger than a career change. This is a coast-to-coast story about how leadership works in America’s most traditional institutions. When Dudamel took the podium at Lincoln Center last month, he did something most conductors Read More “Mozart in the Jungle”
The man sits in his kitchen at 2:47 p.m. on a Tuesday in late August, laptop open, coffee cold, staring at a cursor that blinks with the persistence of a smoke alarm. He is 34 years old, a freelance something-or-other who has spent the better part of three years learning to delegate his thinking to Read More “GPT Ate My Homework”
Modern economies reward efficiency, not reflection. Our institutions—schools, platforms, governments—are calibrated to deliver outcomes, track progress, and benchmark success. In this landscape, the arts are often treated as indulgences: budget-line luxuries, extracurricular distractions, or marketplace novelties. Yet this utilitarian bias misses something profound. The arts are not ornamental. They are infrastructural. They construct emotional intelligence, Read More “Art’s Journey to Wisdom Travels the Path of a Public Good”
This year wasn’t about discovering the latest trends or binge watching a new series for me. Instead, 2024 became a year of revisiting the familiar, finding comfort and joy in things I’ve loved for years. It was a reminder that sometimes, the stories and songs that stay with us are the ones we keep coming Read More “2024 (music, movies, tv & stuff)”
What does it take to be an “influencer”? Not the kind that flood our screens with aspirational brunches and curated skincare routines, but the kind easily overlooked, the true change-makers. These aren’t people who crave the spotlight or want followers; they’re people with a purpose so fierce that it shines through, whether anyone’s watching or Read More “3 People You Need to Know: Diane Nash, James Balog, and Waris Dirie”
The 2024 literary scene has been dominated by a range of captivating books, from Kristin Hannah’s The Women to Stephen King’s You Like It Darker, offering a blend of genres that cater to diverse tastes. At first glance, these books seem disparate, from epic fantasies like Sarah J. Maas’s House of Flame and Shadow to Read More “Common Threads: What the Most Popular Books of 2024 Reveal About Us”
Software has eaten the world. Machines can produce music, paintings, and literature with startling precision, the question of human rights in the creative industry has become more pressing than ever. As AI-generated art continues to evolve, the boundaries between human and machine creativity blur, raising ethical concerns about ownership, authenticity, and, most importantly, the livelihoods Read More “Digital Art, Human Rights: Navigating the Ethics of AI Creativity”
Last night, under the warm August sky at the Lawn in Indianapolis, I had the immense pleasure of again experiencing Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit live. It was more than just a concert; it was a reminder of why Isbell is, in my opinion, the current poet laureate of rock music. His words, carried Read More “Rock’s Poet Laureate”
Image is everything. And there’s nothing quite like the street credibility of a gangster-turned-cultural icon. Enter Snoop Dogg: rapper, entrepreneur, and, surprisingly, a brand ambassador for the Olympics. Yes, you heard that right. The same man who once declared “Murder was the case that they gave me” is now hanging out with Olympic athletes, and Read More “Gangster Makes Good: Snoop Dogg as a Brand Ambassador for the Olympics”