In the dusty courtyard of a Dakar neighborhood, a griot once told me, “Truth is not only in the words—it is in who speaks them.” At the time, I thought he meant that experience shapes perspective. Years later, I see the sharper edge in his observation: that the authority to speak, to be heard as authentic, is not evenly distributed. It is conferred—or withheld—by culture, politics, and power.
Who Gets to Be an ‘Authentic’ Voice? Read More »
On a wind-swept ridge outside Medicine Bow, Wyoming, the turbines rise like white giants, their blades cutting the air with a low, rhythmic whoosh. From a distance, it looks like progress—clean energy spinning toward a low-carbon future. But down on the ground, among the ranchers, mechanics, and small-town shopkeepers, the story is more complicated.
The Hidden Cost of ‘Green’ Energy on Rural Communities Read More »
Every year, city councils from New York to Los Angeles pass resolutions vowing to “tackle the affordable housing crisis.” Every year, the gap between incomes and rents widens. The problem isn’t that leaders don’t see the urgency—it’s that they keep applying the wrong tools, or the right tools in the wrong way.
Why Cities Keep Failing at Affordable Housing—And How to Stop Read More »
For more than a decade, the global economy ran on money so cheap it felt almost free. From the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis through the pandemic years, near-zero interest rates and central bank asset purchases fueled an unprecedented era of borrowing. Governments financed stimulus packages without immediate pain, corporations refinanced at bargain rates, and households locked in historically low mortgages.
That era is over. And the transition will be neither smooth nor evenly felt.
The Era of Cheap Debt is Over—Now What? Read More »
By Marcus Havelock In the winter of 1992, I stood on a bridge in Mostar, notebook in one hand, frost crystallizing in my beard, and watched the river carve its indifferent way through a city on the edge of civil war. The air carried the brittle silence that descends when diplomacy has failed and artillery
The Balkan Playbook: Lessons the World Ignored in Ukraine Read More »
