I Believe

First Dates and Fifty Years

Who should pay on the first date? People spend an enormous amount of time arguing about whether the man should pay, whether the bill should be split, or whether one pers

The Pickup Didn’t Fill Itself

Imagine a little girl sitting in a restaurant with her dad. They order lunch. She gets a soda. It’s enormous, like a bucket of coke. The city is worried about obesity, di

The Party That Forgot the People

We are a month away from the midterm elections, and the American people are poised to hold the party in power accountable. Republicans raised taxes on the American peop

Poverty, Work, and Dependency

Beautiful October day. I’m walking in the park for some exercise. The leaves on some of the trees have turned yellow, with small flashes of red. There’s a maple tree that

Equal Access, Equal Obligation?

I was cooking the other day when I thought about a lieutenant I haven’t seen in years. I don’t know why. That happens to me sometimes. A memory will just show up. Nothing

The Forethought of Grief

Everybody seems to be scared of artificial intelligence. Or maybe the press makes it seem like everybody is scared of artificial intelligence. AI is going to take our jo

Four Things This Week, From a Bucket of Hops

Hey, this is Joel. I’m sitting next to a pile of flowers in the yard. I spent some time this morning taking hops vines out of our hoop house, and now I’m sitting on a b

The Flying Officer

Thoughts from the week, in podcast conversation form. Joel: The watch is quiet. Dark. Day and night, you don’t know the difference. Joel: Every twelve hours, you set th

By Hand

The shovel rings. Every year a couple or three fence posts rot along the front lane. Enough moisture gets in the wood and maybe a beetle or two, and the Earth wants to

Heifers, Water, and Grass

Taking stairs down two at a time from the giant stone building, music thrumming in her AirPods. She rounds the corner and her pace slows to a walk. The Commuter Express i

The Shortcut Looks Like the Way Home

College girl. Blonde in a bright green shirt holding a clipboard, asking names and questions. Welcoming committee. What’s your major? Chemical engineering. Oh, you’re

The Night Shift | The Bottom 50% Own 2.5% of the Wealth of the Country

Moths circle the streetlights in the mostly empty lot. Blacktop. White parking lines. Road noise. Pickup doors slam shut. They’re supposed to park at the back of the lot

Dogwoods and Two Grand Lies

The dogwoods are blooming along the edge of the great lawn, dark pink and brilliant white. Below the hill, Brush Creek runs slow and clear past the parkway that shares it

A Yoke Built for Two | A Dead Hog, a Shovel, and a Fifteen-Year-Old

May in Missouri. Warm, not hot like it will be in July. Humidity in the air, mist at the bottom of the hill hiding the green grass. Bright white gravel under tires. He o

Return Tomorrow | A Warehouse, a Granddaughter, and a Great Society

Her eyes open at five twenty-eight. She lifts her head and switches the alarm off before it kicks on at five thirty. She’s up and moving. Chores to do. Coffee, dishwash

What Counts | A Rancher, a Charging Station, and a Twelve-Million-Dollar Letter

A family, driving north out of Denver. They left before light. Mom’s driving. Yellowstone tomorrow. Lamar Valley and the bison and wolves and trout. Tonight, the Sherid

Item Six

The agenda is one page. Somebody ran it through the copier this afternoon and the toner is going, so item six is fainter than item five. You can read it anyway. Outside

The Art of the Deal

The shouts pass over the water to Lincoln. He sits there, silent. The man who, more than any other, overstepped his authority in a time of war. Habeas corpus suspended.

Man Eaters

The mess. Mid rats. He came in a couple minutes early. He ate fast, at a table that became a hospital bed for the wounded, and then he cleared his tray and dishes and mo

Latrines

Behold again the stars. The light. The stairs down. Down. There are no windows in the basement of the residence hall. The light comes from tubes that hum in the ceiling.