I've had a number of reasons recently — both personal and public — to sit back and think about the value of a life. What makes a life valuable? Is it financial success? Public accolades? Political impact? Promotion of personal values? I think it can be any of those things, although I'd ...

When you start talking about things that people feel strongly about, you get many different responses. I appreciated that after I published some thoughts last week about the importance of seeing the humanity of everyone involved in our current immigration enforcement processes. I talked about ...

Let's take a minute to do a little thought exercise. For the next couple of minutes, try to step back from the emotions and fears and political views and focus on the people. Imagine being an agent for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (commonly referred to as ICE) today. I'll ...

As the reports have come out about what is going on in Minnesota specifically but also in other places across the country, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the partnership between citizens and law-enforcement agencies that is needed to make society work. Conversations with local ...

I live less than a mile from a fire station. Our street is the main route to get to certain parts of our community, so seeing fire trucks and ambulances racing past with lights flashing and sirens blaring is a common occurrence. It has meant being awakened a few times — but it also means our ...

Saturday marks the third day of the new year and, so far as I can tell, 2026 feels pretty much the same as 2025. We've already had disasters, accidents and violence that have resulted in tragedy. We continue to have political posturing and disagreement. We see some good things in the economy ...