“Sumawka Caller”

Walk into any house tonight and look at what people are doing. Most of them are watching something. A short clip. Then another. Then another after that. The thumb moves, the screen changes, and the evening is gone. Now ask how many are reading. Not a headline. Not a caption. Actually reading something, one line…

Most of us remember the movie. A state hospital. A quiet ward. A nurse with a soft voice and an iron grip. Nobody in that ward was chained to a wall. They were kept in line by routine, by kindness that never bent, and by a calm voice that always knew best. That is what…

There was a time when a man’s word meant something. You shook a hand and the deal was done. Nobody needed forty pages of fine print. If somebody broke his word, the whole town knew it by supper. That was the way we were. It wasn’t perfect. Folks got cheated back then too. But we…

When I was coming up, folks kept a porch light on at night. It wasn’t for show. It meant somebody was home. It meant if you were out late, or lost, or just tired from the road, there was a place that knew you were coming. A little light against a whole lot of dark….

Five days out, and the word “federal” is showing up in a lot of election stories. Federal monitors. Federal agents. Federal lawsuits. It’s easy to hear all of that as one big storm cloud. But it isn’t one thing. It’s three different things. If you want to keep your head on Tuesday, you need to…

A historian called it a cult this week. You’ve heard the word before, and you’ll hear it again before Tuesday. It’s a strong word. It feels good to say when you’re angry. But I want to slow down and ask whether it’s the right word. Words matter most when the stakes are high. A cult…

Five days. That’s all that stands between us and Tuesday. Five days after months of work. A lot of people are tired right now, and they have every right to be. They’ve knocked on doors in the heat and in the rain. They’ve made phone calls to strangers who hung up on them. They’ve given…

Today we covered a lot of ground. We talked about the people holding Congress to account. We talked about prices that don’t add up. We talked about machines that ask you questions and can’t hear the answer. There’s one thread running through all of it. Somebody always holds the leash. The only question is who….

This morning an email showed up from the bank. It said a purchase over five dollars had posted to my store card. Then it asked me a simple question. Did you make this purchase? I didn’t. So I did what any reasonable person would do. I hit reply and said so. No, I did not….

What have you stopped buying because life got too expensive? I didn’t read a list. I read a mirror. A woman in Chicago said she used to send about 80 Christmas cards a year. She got about the same back. Now she sends a picture by text. The card and the stamp just cost too…