“Sumawka Caller”

There’s a rule in Washington that never changes. To override a president’s veto, Congress needs two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate. Not a majority. Two-thirds. That number has stood since the Constitution was signed. On paper, that rule makes a president hard to stop. A party can win both chambers and still…

There’s a strange kind of lonely going around these days You can feel it in a room full of people. You can feel it with a phone in your hand that never stops buzzing. You can feel it with a hundred friends online and nobody to call at two in the morning. I want to…

Something strange showed up in my numbers this week. A thousand visitors came through one of my pages in a single day. That’s more than I usually see in a month. For about an hour, I thought I’d struck gold. Then I looked closer. Almost every one of those visitors read exactly one page and…

Seven days. That’s all that’s left. One week from today, the country votes. And if you’ve been watching the numbers the way I have, you can feel something moving under your feet. I’m an old man, and I’ve seen enough elections to know that hope is not a forecast. So I’m going to stick to…

A lot of new folks came through the door this week. I saw the numbers this morning. More people stopped by in one day than I usually see in two weeks. So pull up a chair. You’re welcome here. I won’t waste your time with a long introduction. You came for something, and I want…

I’ve got a routine. I do it every day. I don’t think about it much anymore. It’s like winding an old clock. You know the kind. The ones on a mantel or a wall that tick loud enough to hear in a quiet house. They don’t run on batteries. Somebody has to wind them. Skip…

There’s an old idea that sitting still is easy. Anybody can sit. The work is in getting up and doing something. I don’t believe that anymore. I think sitting with something is about the hardest thing a person can do. Think about the last time something heavy landed on you. Bad news. A worry that…

I learned the meaning of ridiculous from my mother. She never used the word. She just showed it to us. My two older brothers got into it one day. It was a regular sibling fight. They were mad and yelling, and neither one was going to back down. You know how that goes in a…

Most people think change is the hard part. It isn’t. Change comes whether you’re ready or not. The hard part is watching it once it shows up. That’s where we are with AI right now. The change already came. It’s in your phone, your email, your bank and your doctor’s office. Nobody asked your permission….

Empathy and Accountability Two words I want to put side by side today. Most people think they don’t belong together. I think they are only worth anything when they are. The first word is empathy. That’s the ability to feel what someone else is carrying. To stand in their shoes long enough to understand why…