Opinion
What We Owe the Next Generation
There is a kind of conversation that has gone out of fashion in this country, and we are paying for its absence. It is the conversation older people used to have with younger people about […]
Opinion
Opinion
How to Spot a Real Leader: A Four-Pillar Test
Most of the leaders we hand power to in this country are picked the wrong way. We pick them by charisma. We pick them by name recognition. We pick them by who looks the part […]
Opinion
Reading the News Like a Citizen: A Media Literacy Field Guide
There is a difference between consuming news and reading the news. Most Americans do the first. Hardly anyone does the second. Consuming news means letting whatever happens to surface in front of you, on a […]
Opinion
Why Outrage Killed the Argument
There used to be a thing in this country called an argument. Two people, often disagreeing strongly, would sit in a room or stand in a parking lot or write back and forth in letters, […]
Opinion
Personal Accountability Before Public Outrage
There is a strange habit that has taken over the way Americans talk about wrongdoing. The moment something terrible happens, the first instinct is not to ask what we should learn from it, but to […]
Opinion
Reflecting on Dr. Bernice King’s Message of Building Bridges, Not Walls
Originally published in The East Tennessean, East Tennessee State University’s student newspaper, March 26, 2017, following Dr. Bernice King’s lecture at ETSU during Civility Month. Reprinted on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2026, because the […]
Opinion
The Long Surrender: How Comfort Becomes Complicity
Most of the people who watch a country slide into something terrible never thought of themselves as participants. They thought of themselves as bystanders. They had their own lives. They had their own problems. The […]
Opinion
Standing in Silence
I have never seen so much noise in my life. Everywhere you look, people are repeating shallow takes, half-truths, and emotional reactions as if they were wisdom. We are drowning in surface-level thinking. And that […]
Opinion
The Fantastic Voyage
This is the fantastic voyage, and it begins with a majestic vessel floating on the deep sea, steady and strong. The boat carries people from every walk of life—different faces, different skills, different beliefs. Yet […]
Opinion
The Ticking Clock of Transformation: How Ignorance Shapes a Nation
In the United States, a child’s journey into adulthood unfolds not as an isolated event but as a continuous, relentless process. Approximately every 8.76 seconds, a child marks their 18th birthday, taking their initial steps […]