The best thing that Beto can do now is not run for Senate: a pitch. It’s tempting, now that he’s officially out of the presidential race. There’s an obvious race for him to enter, and we don’t doubt, at least, his ambition, regardless of what we think of his platform. Cornyn seems like he -should-…

As a die-hard Cleveland sports fan, Lebron James holds a special place in my heart. Not just for 2016, mind you, but for what else he’s done. His recognition of his own upbringing led to his opening of the I Promise School, a whole-child approach to K-8 schooling, in 2018. He could easily have opened…

Tonight is the third debate. The first two debates have been rather as expected, with certain candidates performing well and others falling by the wayside. Here’s a sampling of the things I’ve heard from people about how the first two debates have gone: “Julián Castro was too aggressive in the first debate. I don’t think…

The day after the 2016 election, I said, without a hint of irony, that Kirsten Gillibrand would be considered a frontrunner for the 2020 nomination, but I hoped she didn’t run. While I was adamant that a woman could win the general election, I was worried that she would remind people too much of Hillary…

Presidential elections in the United States are odd birds. They receive disproportionate media attention, for one. This is for a number of reasons, but given that the power of the federal executive has been consistently increasing for a century, it’s at least somewhat understandable that people want to talk about them. Talking about them, though,…

In the middle of coal country, a fire burns. Not an ordinary fire, mind you. This fire smolders slowly, underground, out of sight and mostly out of mind. It only makes its presence known through the steam that it vents and the occasional collapse of a portion of the ground it sits under. This fire…

My job transition last August was…hectic, and I’ll leave it at that. But one of the things I wanted to talk about most before losing my free speech was a quick lunchtime visit to the African Burial Ground on Broadway in downtown Manhattan. I’ve sat on those thoughts for almost a year, now, but it…

There have been a lot of conversations recently about the growing urban/rural divide. And that divide is definitely worth exploring. But while a lot of ink has been spilled regarding the changing demographics of cities (and the perils of gentrification, suburbia, and numerous other urbanist issues), there seems to me to be less interest in…

A few months ago, I was talking about Korean food at a social gathering with people I had mostly just met. Somebody else at the gathering, making small talk, tried to be helpful: “I really, really want to visit South Korea, but as a vegetarian, I worry about the food I’d be able to eat.”…