The Parts of Running I Was Most Afraid Of
I think we should offer and expect our leaders to be human.
Retirement and Immigration Are Standing in for a Broken Labor System
What Is Law, Actually?
There’s a saying I come back to often: If the penalty for breaking a rule is a fine, then that rule only exists for people who can’t afford to pay it.
People understand that. They may not say it in policy language. But they feel it, and when that gap goes unaddressed for long enough, something shifts. Trust erodes, not all at once, but steadily.
What Safeway Is Teaching Me About Work
A tribute to Jerry Weigler
My dad was my first experience of politics. He confidently advocated his beliefs and was always willing to take on bullies (mine and in the public sphere) on behalf of things he cared about. Many people in Oregon will remember him, often fondly, or still slightly salty about his many public battles and the friendly coalitions that somehow survived them. My dad didn't do politics for personal gain. I come by my earnestness honestly, even though not many people got to see that side of him.
Violence Is a Public Health Crisis — And We Know How to Treat It
Treating violence as a public health crisis does not mean abandoning accountability. It means refusing denial.
Why DOGE Missed the Most Obvious Opportunity in Government
With genuine expertise in database management and UX design, DOGE could have approached tax filing the way a serious product team approaches a broken user experience: map the pain points, reduce unnecessary steps, build in real-time guidance, and design for the people who struggle most with the current system — not the ones with accountants and lawyers.
What Redesign Looks Like; Without Utopian Hand-Waving
The question isn’t whether redesign is possible.
It’s whether we are willing to stop protecting systems that benefit a few at the expense of everyone else — including the future.
We don’t need perfect answers.
We need leaders willing to redesign instead of retreat.
Attention Is Not a Personal Failure: ADHD and the Pathologizing of a Broken System
When attention failure is treated as a personal flaw, two things are quietly stolen; time, and dignity.
The Founding Tension We Never Resolved
There is a contradiction at the heart of the American project that we have never fully faced.
On the one hand, we claim that all people possess inherent dignity—that worth is not something you earn, but something you are born with. On the other hand, we built our economic system around a very different assumption: that dignity must be proven through productivity, discipline, and success in the market.
Balancing Capitalism and Democracy has created benefits for us as a Nation, but the tension between the two can only stand so much inequality before something breaks.
We Have Enough. What We Don’t Have Is the Will to Redesign.
If we started from the premise that:
every human life has inherent dignity
basic care is a collective responsibility
and work should serve life, not consume it
Then many of our “unsolvable” problems would look very different.