Twenty-five years ago today, on a beautiful clear New Hampshire morning, I stood in the parking lot of the meat-packing plant where I worked as a junior cost accountant. A bomb threat had been called in that forced us to evacuate. So we gathered and talked, enjoying the sun on our faces and the reprieve from work, knowing as you inherently do in those moments that it’s all just a false alarm. Slowly, from a car radio or two we started to learn of the horror of 9/11. Our build

If ever there were doubt that I am a bit of a geek, one need not look further than how I spent my summer vacation, because only a geek would spend a good chunk of July reading Supreme Court opinions and dissents. And if that weren’t enough, I washed it all down by rereading many of the Federalist Papers.

So today I procrastinate. Instead of polishing my blog on the Supreme Court, I started writing this piece about the lessons of sport.

This nation didn’t begin by winning a war. That would come. It didn’t begin with writing our Constitution. That too would come. No, after a slow simmer turned to a boil by a king holding on too tightly and some Common Sense, it began by announcing to the world in the Declaration of Independence who we are, what we believe, and, in large measure, what we will not tolerate. And that is what we celebrate this week. The document begins simply, with the words “In Congress.” Not

"And truth is like a punch or two. It hits you hard; it knocks you through." These are words from a song I like by Tired Pony called "Get on the Road." It's a song about...

I love words used well. And so I tend to spend an embarrassing amount of time polishing my posts to ensure I use the words just right. The result is that some things I write are never posted or are put aside to revisit when time permits. This Memorial Day, I sat polishing up a blog on insurance. But that wasn’t worthy of the day, so I set it aside to reflect on the sacrifices of those who died in service to our country, and whether our current leaders are honoring that sacrif

The annual White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Dinner is an event I always look forward to watching. Since 1983, around the time I began watching, the entertainer for the event has been a comedian. And laughter is good medicine. We seem to have lost a bit of the ability to make fun of ourselves. We take ourselves and most situations far too seriously. And that’s a shame, because the ability to laugh at oneself is a sign both of good character and good temperament.

We talk often of the dangers of poor public policy decisions or political divisiveness. But today I want to talk about another danger. And that is the danger of being “bad tired.” Bad tired is an idea I first heard decades ago on an old cassette tape while driving to high school. On it, Harry Chapin, the late great singer-songwriter, told this story. “My grandfather was painter. He died at age 88. He illustrated Robert Frost’s first two books of poetry. And he was looking at

Foreign policy is an interesting thing, though perhaps not as complicated a thing as we make it seem. It is, at its core, the practice of human relationship. And most of that is learned in kindergarten…you know, when you first ventured out into the world to learn the unfortunate truth that it isn’t all about you.