This is that story. Some of it may even be true. (All names have been changed to protect me)

About a year after my wedding, my wife “Dawn” and I decided it was time. And I’ll be honest: I was very good at this part. One month of trying, and we were pregnant. The clinical term is “spontaneous conception.” The locker-room term is “wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.” I mention both because nothing about my reproductive career would ever be described as spontaneous again.

Little “Boo” was incoming. Forty, maybe forty-one weeks later, there was considerable moaning in the hospital. Not mine. I was mostly standing there bewildered and wondering what to do with my hands. The father’s role in a delivery room sits somewhere between cheerleader and condemned. I offered ice chips. The ice chips were declined. I said, “You’re doing great,” with the frequency and conviction of a man reading it off some cheat sheet hurriedly scribbled down as the test began.

An emergency C-section followed a night of labor. Then she arrived. Seven pounds. Twenty-two inches. A perfect, squinting, furious, furry little nugget.

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Easy, right? Well. A couple of weeks of colic. But otherwise, honestly, yes. Easy.

Here’s the thing about parenting they don’t tell you: most of the terror is marketed to you. There’s stuff to learn, to be sure. But the industry needs you scared, because scared people buy things.

We took the classes. We sat through breastfeeding seminars where the word “latch” was said four hundred times and the word “chapped” not once, an omission my wife would later have opinions about. The truth is, instinct kicks in, in a weird way, and nobody profits from telling you that.

So the walking happened; the talking happened. God help us, the talking really happened and hasn't stopped since.

A couple of years later, we thought: two is a pair. Let’s do it again. And here’s where I have to drop the humor for a moment, or at least dial it down.

“Dawn” got pregnant. She miscarried. She got pregnant. She miscarried. Again. And again. I’m not a religious man. Not an atheist either, just someone still working my way through the majesty of our reality.

But when you see that little plus sign on a test, or two lines, or whatever it is, you start counting the chicken. You build the room in your head. You think of names. And then it’s gone, gone in a bout of mental and physical pain. It was someone you never knew, and it aches anyway. For the person who only had to help, to support, to stand there with inadequate words, it still aches. I can only imagine what it was for her.

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So we turned to IVF. We did this in NYC, the city so nice; for this, they bill you twice.

The Manhattan clinic we decided on had a water feature in the lobby. The receptionist wore a watch that made me a little envious, and I’m not a watch guy. Celebrities as well. Somewhere behind the expensive interior and hidden behind frosted glass and solid wooden doors, science was occurring at a rate of “fuck you” money. Hormones, injections, harvesting, plans, protocols. The science of assisted reproduction at diamond jewelry prices.

My wife’s side of the protocol involved injections, which meant my side involved administering them. It’s not phlebotomy, but what a great word, phlebotomist. I definitely drew some blood.

Alcohol swabs beside the salt. A sharps bin next to the toaster. A schedule that felt like a command from above. There was paperwork too. Forms asking what should happen to the embryos if we divorced, or died, or divorced and then died. Initial here. Romance and notarization. Warms the heart, chills the finances.

And then there was my other role. Not as super-super supportive mate, but specimen dispenser. I don’t know why that hadn’t occurred to me. Before anyone does the interesting science, the man needs to be checked out. I have no memory of most of what they checked. Blood. History. And blood flow to the sperm factory, which matters, and which, in my case, was checked by transrectal ultrasound.

It hurts to say.

I have dislocated knees. I have torn things and broken things. I want to be clear that the pain of this probe is something no prior injury prepared me for. Tears were shed. Not metaphorical ones. I wept quietly while a technician assured me it was almost over and explained the readings as sweat dripped off my forehead.

I should note, for the record, that my wife endured some version of this, plus hormones, plus wands, monthly, without writing a memoir. I did it once, and here you are, reading mine. The heroism gap in fertility medicine is real, and I am on the wrong side of it.

Then came the sperm samples. Many samples. This is, in theory, the fun part. In theory. The theoretical and practical are often misaligned.

Let me tell you about the rooms.

The first was in a well-appointed midtown office. Clean lines, good lighting. The kind of place where the countertops are so clean you feel vaguely ashamed of your own biology. There was also no other customer. Which gave me a sense of ease.

A nurse, a lovely man, Puerto Rican as he later told me, with some relevance, greeted me and walked me back to the collection room. After one door, there was another. A sort of antichamber between the two. The privacy zone.

In the, well, it’s not an exam room, self-exam room? A chair. Lubricants. Towels folded by someone who had made peace with their job. A treatment room in a fancy spa came to mind. Although this was a self-service operation. A specimen cup of optimistic depth and diameter, labeled with my name and date of birth, guarding against the epidemic of men taking credit for other men’s samples.

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A wall-mounted television with a DVD player and, yes, a VHS. Somebody at that clinic was responsible for maintaining a VHS library in the twenty-first century. The nurse explained the VCR, wished me well, and said there was no rush. I appreciated the encouragement. I don’t recall embarrassment so much as feeling like I was in someone else’s skin. Surreal is the word.

I will not dwell on the details. A few magazines were perused. A tape or two played. Work was done. A sample provided. Which you thankfully leave behind for someone to collect.

I emerged to find my friendly nurse waiting with what I can only describe as genuine professional curiosity.

“Do you mind,” he asked, “if I ask about the pornography?”

I said I did not mind.

He explained that as a gay man, buying heterosexual pornography was somewhat outside his expertise, and he had, in his own words, cast a wide net. This solved the mystery.

I told him, diplomatically, that some of the selections were perhaps more specialized than necessary. That the imagination benefits from a little editorial restraint. A Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, say. Rather than a trilogy that was, thematically speaking, entirely about feet. And not in a running shoe ad sort of way.

He nodded. He said, “Yeah, that’s the Puerto Rican in me.” I had no idea what that meant. He explained that folks from his island like things a little more... specialized. I remain unqualified to comment. I leave the data point here, unexamined, where it belongs.

Unfortunately, that was the high point of the sample-giving experience.

The second location was a basement. I will not mince words. It was a gas station bathroom in a building that appeared to have been abandoned, except the power company had neglected to turn off the lights. Security wire over windows that let a bit of dim sunlight through the grime. Rust on the stall doors. Pitted chrome. That puke-green tile and yellowing grout. Naturally, a cold toilet seat.

The general ambiance of somewhere a gym teacher goes when he has given up entirely.

I never learned why a clinic charging six figures dispatched its clients to this room. But babies require samples, and samples require effort regardless of ambiance, and so I did what needed to be done. Trudging is the word. Sandpaper is another. Neither is flattering.

Another occasion was at home. Sounds civilized, buckle up. My mother-in-law was visiting, the apartment was small, and the timing, medically speaking, was not optional. That is the part nobody warns you about.

Conception stops being romance and becomes scheduling. There is a window. The window does not care about your houseguests. I am a man of responsibilities, and I honor my obligations, and I honored this one in near silence, in a small room, while two women discussed the weather, or France, or flowers, on the other side of a thin wall.

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The home collection also has a second act: delivery. I may as well have had a kilo of coke on me for the suspicious way I executed my handoff.

Perhaps the most memorable collection came at an office where the door to the collection room opened directly onto the waiting area. There is an etiquette in a room like that. Every man knows why every other man is there.

No eye contact. No small talk. Everyone profoundly invested in an old magazine. The treaty does not survive the door opening. I emerged. The next man rose.

Our eyes met, in violation of everything. “All yours, mate,” I said, because under pressure I apparently revert to my leaving a bar stool in a crowded bar mindset, my happy place.

He did not thank me. I did not deserve it. I would not have thanked me either.

In the end, the results came back the way bad news generally arrives in American medicine: by phone, briskly, while I was doing something unrelated. My sperm, it turned out, had been graded. Count. Motility. Morphology. A report card.

Mine read, in essence, present but not participating. Low motility does not mean your sperm are lazy. It means they are not swimmers so much as men standing around a marina, admiring, envying, occasionally pointing at yachts they don’t own and never will.

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I was, to put it diplomatically, as much the problem as anyone. There was only one other person who could be the problem, so the math was not complicated.

IVF failed. A hundred thousand dollars, uncovered by insurance, vanished into the American healthcare system.

One child. One is good. One is great, actually.

And then our tremendous trio was visiting my mother in Ireland. And, well. Matrimonial relations. As they say.

A few weeks later, my wife, who is stubborn in the most magnificent way a person can be stubborn, took a pregnancy test. She came back with it. She said nothing. Her face said everything.

Positive.

We did not celebrate. We had learned not to celebrate. Four weeks. Six weeks. Eight weeks. Ten weeks. At twelve weeks, I got brave, or foolish, or stupid, the line between them being very thin. I suggested, gently, that she might consider visiting a doctor.

She went. She was pregnant.

Still, she was convinced it wouldn’t hold. Fifteen weeks. Twenty. Twenty-two. And then, improbably, forty weeks arrived. And so did a “Walker.” I am left to assume he was assembled from Irish country air, marital persistence, and, much like the rest of us, the majesty that makes up our universe.

“Walker” and “Boo” are twenty and twenty-five now. And I think about all of it sometimes. The loss and the luck. The sonogram I will not describe at dinner parties. The nurse and his wide net. The basement.

The moral, I suppose, is that family is built from grief and humor and bad rooms and good luck and occasionally, a challenging wank in service of something larger than yourself.

Worth every penny.

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LAST WORDS: I was going to title this “Challenging Wanks” as a tribute to the wise crack made by comedian Sean Lock. Then I didn’t. Here’s that moment.

In 2003, the iTunes Store declared war on friction. One tap and the song was yours. Companies everywhere bowed their heads and joined the play for smooth.

It worked. Goodness me, did it work. In time, online shopping went from “I wonder if I need this?” to a package at your door before you’d finished wondering.

Amazon had patented the one-click buy button in 1999. Then they licensed the trick, pardon, mechanism, to Apple for the iTunes Store. By 2011, Uber was on its way to upending an industry. No haggling, no flagging, no corner competitions as your flight’s departure time ticked agonizingly closer, just a bit of thinking, a tap or two, and the ride was on. If you’ve been around long enough to have had the misfortune of needing a NYC taxi around 4 PM, you know. A blessing, it was.

Every year since Jobs, we have sought to make rough surfaces smoother. That’s not new; eagerness for efficiency is an old habit. But the pace and race for it over the last 25 years has been unrelenting.

Remove the pause. Remove the thought. Remove the moment where a person might reconsider.

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The Pause Was Doing A Job

In our haste, we failed to remember the pause had a job. Our judgment, in some respects, lived there. And it worked well for us. But we spent a generation’s worth of venture capital hunting it down and killing it. Every checkout flow. Every app. Every “click here to continue.”

Turns out human beings, deprived of friction, don’t get more careful. They get worse. We conditioned an entire species to click first and think never. We made ourselves easy marks. That’s all well and good if you are making the purchase, ill-advised or not; you bought it. But this habit to click found other benefactors. Cybercriminals took note.

We were handed a phishing email formatted exactly like every other frictionless prompt. A website for our bank that appeared identical to the naked eye, the eyes attached to a body eager to just get it done. Conditioned to click, reply, act now, we did. And we do. Decades of conditioning will do that.

Recently, cyber insurer Resilience found that phishing, social engineering, and transfer fraud drove 85.3% of the losses in its cyber insurance portfolio this year. Not exotic malware. A person, click, click, clicking. Exactly as taught.

The field of behavioral psychology is an open book. Everything the supermarkets know about laying out a store to drive impulse purchases, the criminals know as well. We are conditioned to click, and that makes it easy for us to be tricked.

The bad actors didn’t have to build anything clever. They just imitated. Perhaps flattering. Definitely costly. Very costly.

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Let’s put a number on it. The number gets silly fast. Cybersecurity Ventures projected the cost of global cybercrime would hit $10.5 trillion last year. I’ve called it the Moby-Dick of statistics. A number so large it stops meaning anything. It is just big. Really big.

Plenty of serious people think that figure is inflated. Fine. Take a hatchet to it. Cut it in half. You’re still at $5.25 trillion. Hell, let’s cut it by 90%. That’s still one trillion and fifty billion. You’d hit the brakes and stop the car for that.

Smarter People Saw This Coming

Much smarter people than me have been banging on about this for years. Some of them have been dead thousands of years. Timeless wisdom is how it’s billed. Way back, Seneca wrote On Anger, arguing that delay was the only real cure for it. That the first impulse is always the worst one. That the waiting brings wisdom. Allows judgment to come back online.

We’ve baked the idea into our language. Look before you leap, sleep on it, count to ten, measure twice - cut once, don’t send the email tonight.

Take a breath!

We might be wise to embrace that I will call henceforth Zoneoutmaxxing (trademark pending); Utilizing the part of your brain that only switches on when you stop fixating on the problem. When you pause. Don’t think more. Don’t think at all about it.

Turns out these cliches, and my new yet-to-be-monetized, or even thought-out, maxxing trend, are more than just folksy wisdom. Neuroscientists call it the default mode network. This part of our brain lights up when we step away from the matter at hand; you know this moment of inspiration, in the shower, on a walk, half-asleep.

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A 2012 UC Santa Barbara study found people solved problems better after a break, while doing something boring and automatic, rather than grinding away. The brain needs the boring bit. It needs the pause where nothing is being asked of it. Call it your own organic agent, working away in the background while you rinse your hair.

Tristan Harris has spent a decade explaining that every screen is a slot machine with better lighting, engineered the same way a casino floor is, to get you to act, not think. Cal Newport keeps politely suggesting that maybe, just maybe, a species built for effort, and apparently for boredom, wasn’t supposed to live entirely without either. Shoshana Zuboff wrote the book on what happens when removing friction becomes the whole economic model.

Petitions or letters signed by many at AI firms have recently entered the conversation. A call for more thought. But multi-billion-dollar valuations and IPOs don’t blend well with go slow and be thoughtful. But the fear seems to be, for some, “we are going too fast, and we might break everything.”

Tech Age - Middle Age

Here’s the human angle. If you peg the 90s as the dawn of all this, the internet for all starting point, it’s right to say we have entered a sort of middle age. A time when, in the human context, a reckoning often happens. Our knees are a bit wonky. Burgers need to give way to some lentils.

In the sense of our technological lives, the “blood draw” has revealed a bit too much bad code. Call it an inflection point, to keep this billable. And a misspent youth, to some degree, is coming back to haunt us. We can buy almost anything from a toilet seat and have it delivered in days. But virtually everything about our tech is designed to make it work and be cheap.

Thirty years of software built on cheap, fast, frictionless. But not so secure. Secure was friction. Now the bill’s due. We click when we shouldn’t. All this payable in ransoms, wire fraud, and even when it’s legit, there’s the debt. AI, and specifically agentic AI, add a new specter to this, and the future that haunts many is one where this same unbridled drive comes at an ever higher cost than a few bitcoin to get your files unencrypted by a ransomware gang.

Time to eat the fruit and vegetables. Sprinkle in a pause button or two. Nothing fancy. Just enough grit to make the next click a little less automatic. We can do this, and we should do this.

We’ve had enough “click first, ask questions later.”

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Note: I’m also the Executive Editor of Cyber Insurance News & Information. My efforts there inspired the piece.

It was 1976. America was turning two hundred, and somebody had the splendid idea to fill the NYC harbor with tall ships and float them past the rest of us. I stood on a balcony overlooking the river, a small boy newly off the airplane from England. I’m on the left. My brother and parents are beside me. You can almost see the ships, if you know to look.

I have thought about that balcony a great deal lately. You read the polling, and it tells one story. Gallup charts it, a country pulling apart at the seams.

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Pew recently displayed this division more dynamically. The truth is, it looks more like, or feels more like, us versus them and them and that guy, oh, and those folks over there, too.

Then the World Cup arrived this summer and told another. Not one that negates our differences. But one that made it clear there’s much more to what unites us. What we let sit unnoticed. Not cherished. It’s not unlike the way bad lingers and revisits much later, while joy seems fleeting and a struggle to feel agian.

But first, the long way round.

I came over the pond with a proper English accent. Public school, “yes, mummy, no, mummy,” the whole performance. I am told I was teased for it, and that I shed it in a matter of weeks, which my wife has never quite forgiven me. We moved a lot. The city. Outside Boston. The suburbs, and then the suburbs again. I have been a little bit from everywhere ever since, which is a useful thing for a reporter to be.

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As, fundamentally, a journalist, I have, since 1992, made my living on the road, and the road has been generous. Take America. Forty-five states, most of them more than once. On more occasions than I can count, I’ve enjoyed the luxury of staying long enough to fall into the rhythm of a place. That is the quiet gift of this work. If you do it right, you skip the room service and the drive-through, and you find the greasy spoon, the church-basement fish fry, the fried chicken in Tuskegee, Alabama, that you will still be thinking about twenty years later. I’ve only actually ever done two of those; now back to the story.

Texas taught me barbecue, though Texas has competition.

Let me tell you about some more of them.

I spent time with Robin Olds in Steamboat Springs, which younger readers will have to look up and older ones already envy.

I drove to Bend, Oregon, and had my first microbrew. This was in the last century. Then I toured a decommissioned continuity-of-government bunker built for the Cold War. MAD days. I went up to Bremerton, Washington, to sit with a fighter pilot and ask him about the squadronmate he lost in the first Gulf War. A conversation I have never been able to set down.

From Amarillo, Texas, I drove through the helium country south of Guymon, Oklahoma. There, Pioneer Days, a rodeo and festival, was on. Cowboys enjoy a night out. Late. And loud.

One evening after dinner, I walked the Oklahoma City bombing memorial alone, which I would recommend to anyone who has forgotten what we are capable of doing to one another. Asked about my evening when I returned to my hotel, I mentioned how I’d spent my time. Silence followed. No words demanded.

Louisiana. Like nowhere else.

The Florida Keys gave me a man who swam, on purpose, with sharks. I watched him sit submerged for almost 9 minutes. Holding his breath, just to be clear. Ohio gave me the National Museum of the Air Force, which belongs on any honest list of the finest museums on earth, whatever your feelings about aircraft.

Nevada gave me two trips that could not be more different.

Once, I climbed a hill in the desert to squint at Area 51. Amusingly, two of the least undercover law enforcement officers ever shadowed the journey. Lucky for me. I got stuck in the sand on the way back, and there they were to help. Tax dollars at work.

Years before that, my very first road assignment as a reporter took me to a Las Vegas convention I covered from the “press riser” and emphatically did not join.

In Illinois, I sat in the audience for a Jerry Springer taping, then drove down into Indiana to meet the guests from the show. They all lived together, friends. The brawl had been arranged. Of course it had.

Idaho. Mark Furhman. Moving on.

West Virginia is as beautiful as anywhere I have stood. Virginia’s Blue Ridge runs it close. So many places do.

Washington, the city, is soaked in the history we are about to celebrate. Maine, all of New England. The start of it all. Well, much of it.

And Kentucky. A gas station attendant in Kentucky taught me a lesson I was fortunate to learn young. You are a fool of the least desirable flavor when you judge before knowing.

There are five states I have never set foot in. North Dakota and South Dakota. Montana. Idaho. Wisconsin. The open spaces. The parts of this house I have yet to visit. I’ve heard great things about all of them. I look forward to meeting. Till then, I’ll lather in the pleasant anticipation.

There is something humbling about a country so large that you can give it most of your life and still owe it five states.

So. The World Cup.

Football. Do I need to say soccer as well? Well, I have. It is, I will admit, a strange ball-run-kick game. I am joking. I love it. Like, I love baseball. Very similar games. And this summer, football did something the polling above does not reveal. No questionnaire. No data sets. It held up a mirror. Maybe the new cliché is: took a selfie of us.

They came in the hundreds of thousands, and a great many arrived braced for the country the headlines had sold them: divided, hard, unwelcoming. A great many left saying the opposite. The Scots took Boston so completely that people half-seriously renamed it New Scotland. Bagpipes outside Faneuil Hall. Kilts at Fenway. In honor of tradition, traffic cones adorned statues, worn like crowns. A blessed prank. We need more of that.

One Scottish fan, asked about his reception, said the city took him in with open arms, which was not the welcome he had been promised.

Argentinians came to appreciate Kansas City BBQ. They know meats. Germans adorned themselves with cowboy hats.

They met Americans. And we met them.

A sociologist at Florida State, Deana Rohlinger, watching the whole joyful mess unfold online, declared it “a live experiment in citizen diplomacy.” Ordinary people doing the work of statesmen. The kind of goodwill no government can manufacture. The angry, divided portrait we walk around holding turns out to be only part of the picture.

I do not want to be naive about it. There were imperfect moments. There will be. Searches. Seemingly avoidable confrontations. Nations are real. The disagreements are real. They are not all cooked up. People believe different things, fiercely, and they are entitled to.

But I have stood in forty-five of these states, and I will tell you what travel tells you every single time. It is almost never the people. It is almost always the few at the top who find the distance between us useful and who have learned that a frightened, divided public is easier to drive.

If we could somehow separate the corruption from positions of power, I suspect we would notice, fairly quickly, how little actually separates the man at the next gas pump from the man on the airboat from the woman frying fish in the church basement I’ve never actually been to.

John Kennedy said it in 1963, in the middle of a far colder time than this one. I know it is hard to believe. And it is not the most comforting fact. But it is.

I don’t like absolutes. Words like always, never. Certainty isn’t my favorite. But now on too an exception.

We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our future. Our children’s future. And we are all mortal. That is the whole list when you get down to it. People want to be safe. They want to love their families. They want the little time they are given not to feel punishing, wasted, or taken.

All America's flaws - that’s not right. All the things we are yet to do, to get right, will come. As we travel, new things arise. Demand us. Nowhere has ever seen so many provide so much to the benefit of a nation. Why? At its core, the genesis of the idea lies in the promise of what lies within all of us. If nurtured properly and given the chance, each of us can create brilliance.

I figure we get about 40% of the potential this nation possesses. That may seem dour. It might be. But think of the upside.

I wrote this a bit like America. A bit disjointed. Some good points and others that aren’t. Maybe some brilliant bits, and definitely some middle-school grammar oops. There are the WTF moments. Like America. A mosaic of moments that bends, sometimes excruciatingly little, toward the right path. But it does seek that path.

All the madness, brilliance, excess, sacrifice, and creation are down to the idea that kinda sorta started on the 4th of July, 250 years ago. But that’s not the story.

Happy birthday, America. Two hundred and fifty years. To another 250 spent imperfectly improving.

I am still the boy on the balcony, watching the ships. I have now seen almost all of you. I have five states left to go. I love you all anyway!

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Time told.

A little over a week ago , Joe Rogan told a story. Bare-knuckle brawls on the White House Lawn. A birthday party. Trump hits eighty. America pushes two-fifty. A shooting war on with Iran.

Rogan was nervous. Reasonable. Everyone who matters in one place, one time, a war. A bullseye.

He told the president his fear. “I hope we don’t die in a terrorist attack.” Trump answered, “We gotta go somehow.” Rogan laughed. “What the f—, dude?”

Here is the part that turns the joke cold. The bullseye was apparently real.

Around the party, men were planning. Explosive drones. Snipers, to fire on the people running. A stampede, turned into a shooting gallery. The feds caught it. The charges came days after.

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So the shrug was not aimed at a bad dream. It was aimed at the exact thing forming in the dark. He waved off the danger. The death. But not just his.

Sit with “somehow.” Not “sometime.” Sometime is for mortals. Somehow is for a man who stopped caring how he goes. Bullet, blast, ultra-processed sludge, whatever. Who is counting. It is the shrug of a man already out the door. While his body still sits at the desk.

A shrug from a private citizen is poignant. Maybe brave. A shrug from the man with the nuclear football, the codes, the army, the power to do anything he wants, is a different animal. All gas, no brakes. Not brave. Empty space where gravity used to live.

There is an old rule for this. When you surround an army, leave it an outlet. That is Sun Tzu. Do not trap an enemy with no way out. A cornered force with nothing to lose fights to the death. Give them a door, and most will take it. The door is mercy. The door is also strategy. It keeps the fight from going to the last man.

Hold that thought. We will need the door later.

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Defenders will say the whole room talked that way. True. A fighter on the card joked about dying in the cage. How legendary would that be. Rogan riffed that the crowd would remember it forever. Gallows humor. Fine.

But a fighter owns his own body. He was betting his own life. That is bravado. The man who said “we” was betting everyone’s. That is not the same bet. Not even close.

In December, I called it lost mojo. That was generous. Lost means you might find it. Lost means someone is looking. This is worse. The mojo did not wander off. It curdled. The same instinct that once made Fifth Avenue a threat now turns a birthday into a coliseum. The showman still shows. He stopped caring if the show ends with a body count.

And the press? Trump being Trump. Supporters call it candor. Critics call it Tuesday. That is the trick. Ten years of too many people filing the abnormal under quirk. Mock a war hero’s record, survive. Mock a grieving family, survive. The translation machine never broke. The habit even has a name. Sanewashing.

A machine that runs that hot forever is not a machine. It is a fire. Waiting for a spark.

Now look at the walls. They are closing.

A shooting war with Iran and no clean way out. Approval near the lowest of his life. Independents gone. The map that elected him sits underwater, state by state. Even on the reddest ground there is loss. Most of the country now thinks the economy is wrecked and getting worse. The mood is not sour. It is funereal.

The country is not turning on him. Worse. It is turning away.

The audience is finding the exits. The room dims. Not all at once. Just enough to sting. Here is what the numbers mean to him. Nothing about policy. Everything about disappearance.

A normal politician reads a bad poll as a problem. Fix the message. Win them back. He cannot read it that way. For this man, fading is dying. The show ending is the world ending. No country goes on without him at the center.

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So a collapsing poll is not a warning. It is a preview. The end, rehearsing in daylight, while he still breathes. That is the second war. Not Iran. Irrelevance. He treats them the same way. Somehow.

So why the easy shrug. The armchair crowd says narcissism past eleven. They are right, and it explains the rest. A normal man fears death because he can picture the world spinning on without him. A narcissist cannot. No such world. No after. Everyone else’s death stops being a tragedy. It becomes set dressing for his exit.

Listen to the words again. He did not say he has to go somehow. He said we do. The man with the codes looked at the crowd, the country, the war, the price tags, all of it. And waved.

A narcissist at peace with everyone’s end is not contemplating death. He is contemplating company.

Which brings us back to the door.

You cannot corner this man into surrender. Survival does not tempt him. Tell him the smart play is to fold and walk away, and you have told him to die early. He will not take that door. He will burn the building first.

So the door has to be a different shape. Not escape. Victory. The only outlet a man like this walks through is one that looks like a parade. He has to believe he won. He has to believe the crowd is cheering, not leaving. Hand him that, and he might step outside on his own.

Someone has to build that door. Not the readers. We cannot hand him anything. The people close enough to matter can. His circle. His party. The few he still hears. The job is not to beat him. It is to let him think he beat everyone, on his way out.

Having written that, I should mention I’ve been called naive in my life. I’ve also been called dumb. And optimistic. Usually by people who turned out to be right. But I’m not betting on anyone’s decency here. I’m betting on their fear. Self-preservation and fear have rarely let me down. That of my own and in this case, theirs.

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But here’s the thing about this door. It only goes one way. You can build it grand, gild the frame, let him believe he chose to walk through it. He still ends up on the other side. Outside.

The parade still ends. The crowd still goes home. And for a man who cannot picture the world without him, even this victory is just a slower exit. Still a door. Still the show going dark.

That is why the shrug should scare us.

He looked at a crowd and considered the real plot that circled it. Drones. Snipers. And he shrugged. We gotta go somehow. The danger was never the point. The company was.

Sun Tzu said leave the outlet open. Twenty-five hundred years later, it is still the only, bitterly unsatisfying, move. Build the door. Paint it gold. Pray he walks.

The fear is not that he means it about himself. The fear is that a man who cannot imagine the world without him will not leave it standing when he goes.

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A note, in case you think I’ve lost the plot

Maybe I have. I told you I’ve been called naive. This might be that. It might be hyperbole.

But look around. Normal left the room a while ago. The rules read like suggestions now. Like picking up after your dog in New York. Everyone agrees you should. Fewer and fewer do.

What I’ve laid out is an extreme. These are extreme times, and they are not done getting worse.

So here is the part I’m sure of. This month, the man posted a document rating him “the most powerful man that the planet has ever known.” His power above Mao’s, above Stalin’s, above Hitler’s. His response, “Sounds good to me!” When someone tells you that, to your face, the work is not to be shocked. Not amazed. Not to marvel that he said it out loud. The work is to get past all of that. Believe him.

Epilogue to the Note

I had hoped to post this two days ago, on Friday, but events conspired against me. I also hedged; wasn’t loving parts of this. Then Trump posted this image. He sees himself as holding up the world. The implication is that in his absence, we all fall. Also, get the flag off the ground…

Buy Me A Coffee

We are, as a profession, far better at the solemn declaration. Elegant prose. Written with all the belief that it will penetrate your mind and alter your soul. The TV types are the best at it. The grave nod. The paper shuffle. The anchor is seated behind a desk in a studio that costs more than your house. The trappings and no small amount of marketing help radiate the quiet authority of someone who definitely knows things. We have spent decades, and considerable hair and makeup budgets, and the clothes, persuading you that we have a handle on the truth. The whole truth. Straight, no chaser.

I’m of the opinion it’s one reason the industry is in decline. One among many. The image of an arrogant know-it-all journalist lecturing the masses is an exaggeration. A caricature. Based on my experience, it’s an honest one. It certainly doesn’t represent the majority of those in the profession. But it only takes one bad one to spoil a whole bunch.

Buy Me A "Coffee"

I’ve been in the business all my life. Sort of. The son of a journalist, I grew up in an era when the morning news shows were news, not marketing. When the kitchen table was covered in newspapers of every type. Tabloid, broadsheet, and financial. From Page 3 to The Marketplace section, to The Star, to Seventeen magazine, the firehose of information, and I go back to the crib.

Then I went into the profession after college more than 30 years ago. I’ve searched for the truth. And let me tell you that fucker is hard to find. So, about the truth….

“The Truth Is Hard”

A big thanks to The New York Times is due; in 2017, they launched a marketing campaign with the tagline "The Truth Is Hard." It sure is, and the point I’m about to make wasn’t on their radar. But too bad, once you set the words free, people get to use them how they see fit.

The truth is hard. We don’t really have a handle on it. Nobody does. Sure, we can have facts. Truth comes in some forms. It happened today. It rained. But the bigger parts and the combination of facts only build a case for the truth. And the sooner we all admit that, the better everyone’s blood pressure.

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Here is what journalism actually is a lot of the time: ideally, the honest attempt to describe something that has already happened, using evidence gathered by imperfect people, from imperfect sources, under time pressure, for an audience that can’t be bored. Bore them and they ain’t the audience anymore. That’s it. That’s the whole enterprise. Journalism is not the truth. At its best, it is an honest effort to approach the truth. The distance between those two things, honest and true, is where most of the trouble lives.

What to do with this? Well, at times I took it to the visual as a way to indoctrinate, I mean, on board, new staff. I would stand at a whiteboard and draw my Circle of Honesty, and then explain. This is when I suspect most people thought. “He didn’t seem unhinged during the interview.” You can leave now. Only the brave stay. But you’ll miss the graphics…

The Circle of Honesty

The Circle, Explained Without a Whiteboard

Picture an event, any event. Let’s start small. A man walks into a diner and buys a cup of coffee. Simple. Verifiable. The kind of thing you’d swear could be reported accurately.

Now here’s the problem. That event is gone. The moment it happened, it became the past. You cannot go back. What you can do is circle it, like a detective walking the perimeter of a scene, gathering whatever evidence the present holds about what the past contained. Witnesses. Receipts. Security footage. The diner employee’s memory. The buyer’s account. The smell of the cup.

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This is the Circle of Honesty. The event, whatever it is, sits inside the circle, at the center. Call it The Thing (TT). Around it, the perimeter, is the Area of Examination: everything a journalist can actually reach. Now math. The bane of journalists. A circle has infinite points. Countless points to travel to and see what you can see and learn. A journalist has a deadline. Time is tight. Money is tight. You go to as many points as you can, you look in at the event from each one, and eventually you report what you found. Not the truth. An honest picture of the truth, built from the evidence and resources available to you.

How many points did you reach? If you are the reporter, how transparent are you about the ones you missed? Or couldn’t reach. You know the phrases. The Pentagon declined to comment. Mrs. Smith did not reply to repeated requests for an interview.

Breaking News: When the Event Is Right in Your Face

Now scale the problem up. A breaking news story or an unfolding story doesn’t sit quietly at the center of the circle. It erupts. It fills the frame. When something large and sudden happens, the event is so close to the Area of Examination that it can block your view entirely. Whether a mass shooting or a massive parade. You see fragments. You see the parts nearest to you with terrible clarity, and almost nothing else.

This is why breaking news is often incomplete and so frequently wrong. Not dishonestly wrong. Urgently wrong. The information exists in pieces, arrives out of order, and must be reported before the shape of the thing is even knowable. The honest journalist admits this. The less honest journalist projects confidence they don’t have, because the anchor’s job, traditionally, has been to project confidence. It’s in the title. An anchor holds things in place. It is not, you’ll notice, a professional title named for someone who says “we genuinely don’t know yet.”

History: When the Event Is Very Far Away

Go to the other extreme, and the problem inverts. In historical reporting, the event is not too close. It’s too far. The event is so distant from the Area of Examination that evidence has had decades, or centuries, to disappear. Records lost. Witnesses dead. Memories of memories of memories, laundered through the natural human tendency to make a good story better.

This is not lying. It is something more forgivable, yet still dangerous: narrative has gravity. A pull. The better the stronger the draw. Stories want to be better stories. They smooth their own edges over time.

Alternatively, information can appear years or even decades later. Records are declassified. Witnesses come forward. A reminder that information is both perishable and imperishable.

The journalist, or the historian, working a cold trail must account for all of this.

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Memory and Manipulation: Your Least Reliable Witness

Now add the human brain to the problem, and things get genuinely interesting. Call it the fog that can envelop the circle. Research on eyewitness reliability has been systematically damning for decades. A landmark study by cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus demonstrated that memory is not a recording. It is a reconstruction, and a creative one at that. Details shift. Timelines compress. Emotions color everything. The confidence of a witness bears essentially no relationship to their accuracy.

I learned this not from a journal but from a foxhole. Not my foxhole. Years ago, while producing a documentary on the Korean War. I interviewed two veterans who had shared the same fighting position during the same battle. They were warm, honest men with no apparent agenda. Their accounts of the same night differed in ways that were not minor. It was not an argument. It was something more unsettling: two completely genuine, completely incompatible versions of one event.

Neither man was lying. They were just human. Which is the whole point.

This can also impact records. Data entry requires precision. And reports need to be done well to be useful years later. Simple things like filing methods and the quality of maintenance, whether physical or digital, can make a document impossible or easy to find.

There is another human factor that alters what a reporter might learn. Not cognitive. Bias. I once struggled to produce a documentary on The Tuskegee Airmen. Why? During World War II, the military limited media coverage of the unit for fear of public uproar over training black men to fly. The practical result is far fewer films and photographs in the archives. So we set out to explore the Area of Examination. The team traveled to more spots around the circle, asking every veteran of the unit for any pictures they might have. It worked.

Cultural. Race. Creed. Or sometimes it’s just run-of-the-mill animosity. And sometimes the story wasn’t tainted. It was written that way from the start.

Some accounts are not imperfect recollections of an event. They are constructions. PR. Marketing campaigns. Political narratives. Staged moments designed to be seen a particular way. The thing at the center of the circle is sometimes deliberately placed there, shaped before the journalist arrives. The event itself is the manipulation.

This is where the circle model has to do heavy lifting. Was the event built to produce a particular set of evidence? What if the witnesses were briefed, the footage curated, the access granted only to those likely to report it a certain way?

The journalist still circles. But some of the points on the perimeter lead not to the truth but away from it. And the confident witness, the clean document, the well-lit press conference, they are not signals of reliability. They may be the opposite.

The honest journalist learns to ask not just what happened but who benefits from this version of events.

The Circle of Honesty - Three Scenarios

What This Means for You

The news anchor is not omniscient. The newspaper is not infallible. Neither is the podcast host, the documentary filmmaker, nor, I say this with honesty, the person writing this essay. Trust me on that, I’ve traveled the area of examination on the topic.

What you can do, and what I’d suggest you do, is run your own circle. On a story you care about, go to several points on the perimeter. Read the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Watch the BBC. If it’s a foreign story, find a local outlet. Go to enough spots around the event, and you’ll find your own honest picture beginning to assemble itself.

And when a story arrives too cleanly, too well-sourced, too consistent, too convenient, ask who built it. Ask why.

It takes more effort than doomscrolling. It requires more tolerance for uncertainty. It can demand that you question what you thought you knew to be true. But let’s be honest. What do any of us actually know? Certainly not everything about anything. And that’s at the core of this.

Life is largely about maintenance. We are creatures, and doing and redoing is vital. Persistence matters. You don’t eat once. You don’t sleep once. You don’t exercise once. And you shouldn’t learn about something once and expect to know forever.

The truth is hard to put your hands on. Seek an honest account and remember the perishable nature of information. Take a break. Have a coffee. Add to the account over time. It is the best any of us can offer, and the least any of us should accept.

A Note To Readers - especially journalists: This is what you might call the 30,000-foot take on The Circle of Honesty. The seams and threads you might pull, and thus expand any of the scenarios, are significant. Probably more than I alone could identify. For the readers - Happy to kick the idea around. Let me know if you’d like to.

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Every year, Sapien Labs publishes one of the most quietly alarming reports in the world. Not about war or markets or elections. It is about the state of the human mind.

The Global Mind Health Report 2025, based on responses from more than 2.5 million people across 85 countries, measures something Sapien Labs calls the Mind Health Quotient, or MHQ, a composite index of emotional regulation, focus, social functioning, resilience, and cognitive ability.

In other words, our ability to navigate all that life is and isn’t. The results this year are sobering.

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The Higher Your Score, The Better

The global MHQ average sits at 66. But that number hides a generational divide that looks less like a gap and more like a cliff. Adults 55 and older score about 101, exactly where researchers expect a normal population to land. Only about 10 percent report clinically significant mental health challenges. Among adults 18 to 34, the average MHQ drops to 36, and 41 percent report struggles serious enough to impair daily functioning.

That is not a small dip. That is a generational collapse.

Sapien Labs has tracked this trend since 2019. It existed before COVID. The pandemic made it worse. The recovery never really came. Young adults report trouble focusing, trouble regulating emotions, trouble navigating relationships, and trouble managing stress.

In other words, trouble doing life.

The world is seeing a progressive slide in mental capacity from generation to generation. The report explores several possible drivers.

• Smartphones.

• Ultra-processed foods.

• Weakening family bonds.

• Loss of spiritual and community structures.

None of those explanations are especially comforting. They also ring uncomfortably familiar. Even without the science, far too many of us, young and old alike, are left mumbling or muttering some version of internal bewilderment. Mine?

Good God. What the hell is going on?

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The View From The Middle

I turned 55 recently.

Which means, according to Sapien Labs, my generation’s minds are functioning just fine. Thank you for asking. I’m not sure.

Standing here in the middle of the timeline, looking backward and forward, the world does sometimes feel like it has lost the plot.

If you are young right now, the view ahead can look bleak. You are told to build a career. Buy a house. Start a family. Save for retirement.

Meanwhile, the cost of everything keeps rising.

Owning a home now looks less like a milestone and more like a luxury product. Ten years ago, the average house in the US cost about $233,800. Now it sits just north of $400,000. Average pay rose, too, from about $52,000 to roughly $70,000, but not enough to make it seem sane.

It ain’t the lattes.

Healthcare now requires its own financial planning department. Medical debt in America stands at about $220 billion. That number still misses the people who delay treatment, skip appointments, or simply live with pain because they cannot afford the bill.

Student loans still hover over millions of lives. That debt is now pushing toward $2 trillion.

Then there is the climate.

Can we even distinguish between peacetime and war?

This is not exactly the brochure version of adulthood.

You graduate from college and walk straight into taxes, HR paperwork, insurance forms, retirement accounts, aging parents, friends moving away, friends getting married, and friends having existential crises. Not to mention your own.

Somewhere in there, you are supposed to find meaning. And stay mentally balanced while doing it.

No pressure.

It also feels, at times, like everyone has picked up a hammer.

Politics feels angrier. Economics feels more unequal. Social media amplifies outrage.

At every level, people seem to be smashing things in frustration. Governments. Institutions. Each other. The pillars of our society are under assault. By a new force and their old and tired ways. There is a sense that the pillars are crumbling, and our foundation is unstable.

You are left standing there watching and think: how exactly is this supposed to work?

It is not hard to see why younger generations might look at the present and wonder how any kind of future is supposed to unfold inside that mess.

No, thank you. I’ll pass.

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The Opportunity Hidden In The Crisis

Here is the strange twist in the Sapien Labs findings. Buried inside the bad news is something better than despair. There is a set of handles.

Early in the report, Sapien Labs asks: “As these younger adults grow older, what will society become?”

Fair question.

From where younger people sit, the modern world can look less like a civilization and more like a self-checkout machine that keeps wanting to charge you the organic produce price.

And yet history has a habit of knocking generations flat, then watching them get up meaner, smarter, and less impressed by official explanations.

Not every crisis produces wisdom. Some produce charlatans, slogans, and expensive nonsense delivered by people with suspiciously tight pants and a slide deck.

But a crisis does have a useful habit. It can reveal what no longer works.

The Black Death did not deliver a miracle. It delivered horror, collapse, and a destabilizing shock to the old order. Over time, it weakened feudal labor structures, intensified pressure on old hierarchies, and opened space for later political and intellectual change. What came in time was not rescue, but transformation.

Now you might be saying this isn’t as bad as that Martin. The Black Death killed upward of half the people in Europe. Agreed. But the truth is, we know more now; our knowledge of the past, while imperfect, is more perfect. We don’t need to let things get that bad or encounter something that horrifying to move forward to improve.

COVID did something similar in miniature, and at high speed. The mirror image of our world we glimpsed during the pandemic should be enough to make us realize how incredibly fragile our world still is.

It revealed much, and much of that revelation was a major-league WTF.

A stress test of historical proportions will break things. But in the wreckage are clues. Clues to what was wrong. Clues to what might be right. Clues to where to push next.

That is what makes this part of the Sapien Labs report more interesting than a routine sermon about decline. It does not just describe the damage.

It points to levers. That word matters.

A lever is not a wish. It is not a hashtag. It is not AI slop masquerading as wisdom.

It is a tool.

It is what you reach for when the thing in front of you is too heavy to move with your bare hands.

The report “sheds light on four strong predictors of mind health status that represent key levers to reverse course.”

Family bonds. People without close family bonds are four times more likely to struggle with mental health than those who have them.

Spirituality. A sense that we are subject to a higher power. Meaning beyond the self.

Smartphones. Smartphones are widely seen as a major driver of worsening mental health in young people, especially as children get them at younger and younger ages.

Ultra-processed food. These “foods” have become a daily habit for many young people and are linked to worse mental health.

Not glamorous. Not futuristic. No billionaire gets onstage to unveil them under blue lights.

But there they are. Too much of some hurts. As does too little of others.

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The polling hints at something. A 2024 survey found 93% of voters across party lines agree that the mental health challenges facing young people are a serious issue.

Gallup's own data show that religiosity consistently correlates with better mental health outcomes. And school phone bans have united politicians who agree on almost nothing else.

It's not a shared diagnosis, and it's certainly not a shared cure. But the concern? That part seems to cut through.

Real pressure points. Real places to push. Real areas where parents, schools, communities, and policymakers can do more than issue pamphlets and pretend to be surprised.

That does not solve everything. It does not erase debt, fix housing, calm politicians, or stop the internet from acting like a chemical spill with push notifications.

But it does mean this generation is not standing in front of a locked door.

It is standing in front of the machinery.

Complicated machinery, badly maintained by people who often confuse management with wisdom, but machinery all the same.

And once you can see the machinery, you can start reaching for the levers.

That is how history moves.

Not because one generation was handed a better world.

Because at some point, enough people looked at the existing mess and said, "This is stupid, this is cruel, this is broken, and we are not doing it this way anymore.”

That is where hope lives.

Not in denial. Not in slogans. Not in some chirpy little speech about resilience delivered by people whose only clear gift is the gab.

Hope lives in the moment when the mess becomes visible, the old excuses stop working, and people begin to understand that the future is not fixed.

It is awkward. It is unfinished. It is probably held together with duct tape and wishful accounting.

But it is still there to be made.

The Advantage Of An Unfinished Mind

This generation did not get a soft world. It got the bill.

The bill for decades of deferred decisions, borrowed time, and institutions that confused their own survival with the public good.

That is a brutal inheritance. It is also, in the oldest sense of the word, a calling.

Not because suffering is noble. It isn’t, it sucks.

But because the generations that changed things were never the ones who had it easy. They were the ones who could not pretend. Who ran out of the comfortable explanations before the comfortable people did.

History does not remember the eras that were fine. It remembers the ones that weren’t, and the people who refused to leave them that way.

The data says this generation is struggling. It also says they are standing at every pressure point that matters.

That is not a coincidence.

That is position.

The world is not finished. That is not a consolation.

It is the only invitation that has ever meant anything.

An unfinished world is still a world that can be made. But only by the optimism that pushes back, not the kind that waits. That will not accept that the locked door is part of a load-bearing wall.

And when the age tries to convince you that nothing can change, remember that history has heard that line before. It hears it in every tired era, from every comfortable cynic, from every guardian of a failing order.

And history, more often than not, answers with a generation that changes the world anyway.

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All that put into pictures.

Not a full six days, mind you. On Sundays, I would wander into the office for a live TV political news panel I produced. The show aired in the evening, so most of the day was mine. Sometimes I would stroll from my apartment down through Central Park toward Times Square.

It’s a fine walk if you have the time.

But me a "Coffee"

One Sunday, October 13th, 2013, to be specific, I came out of the park near Grand Army Plaza. That’s by the Plaza Hotel at the corner of 59th and Fifth Avenue. If you know the spot, you know the scene: horse-drawn carriages, tourists with cameras, and vendors selling everything from snow globes to hoodies to paintings of the skyline.

I often pause there. I pause a lot to take things in.

Sometimes I even linger. Never lurk.

That day, something caught my eye.

An older man sat quietly by a table displaying a handful of minimalist paintings. Spray something was written on a sign. They weren’t New York scenes. They were contemporary, stark, a little mischievous. The kind of art that makes you tilt your head and think, “That’s interesting.”

The price was posted. $20 or $40, I didn’t recall.

It was $60, it turns out.

I do remember reaching into my pockets.

Nothing. No cash.

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This was more than a decade ago, before QR codes and Venmo and the magical ability to pay strangers with a tap of your phone. It was cash or walk.

So I walked.

A few days later, I learned that the man selling those paintings had been part of a stunt by the anonymous street artist Banksy. The works on that folding table sold to unsuspecting passersby were real.

It was reported that some were valued in the tens of thousands. Who knows.

I told the story often after that. Humorously, as one does when recounting one’s own stupidity. Well, I guess it’s misfortune. Even when recounting a fall, we tend to find a way to make ourselves sound good.

Or at least come out on top.

“Imagine,” I’d say, “not having a few bucks for a Banksy.”

A missed opportunity.

But opportunities are like street corners in New York. There’s always another one coming. My next Banksy opportunity would take quite a stroll.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago.

My phone rings while I’m at my desk. It’s my wife, Stephanie, walking through Midtown Manhattan. She knows the Banksy tale well.

She says. “There are paintings leaning against an empty storefront. There’s a handwritten sign.”

“What does it say?” I ask.

“‘Banksy For Sale. Raise your hand.’”

I laugh. Namechecking Banksy is a bit of a red flag.

“Raise your hand,” I say. “Why not?”

So she does.

A man approaches and explains the system. Some paintings are $20. Some are $40. She chooses one and texts me a photo.

“I got one,” she writes. “Maybe it’s real.”

The man gives her a website where, he says, the painting can be authenticated.

When she gets home, she hands me the information. A little digging leads me to the official verification service run by Banksy’s studio, Pest Control Office. They are the only authority that confirms whether a piece is genuine.

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Here’s the catch.

If the work is authentic, the verification is £150.

If it’s not authentic, a “fake,” they charge you nothing.

That’s pretty agreeable.

We placed the piece on our mantle. And here is the curious part.

I have not sent it in to the pest people.

Partly because £150 is not nothing. But mostly because something interesting happens when uncertainty lives in your living room.

Right now, the painting might be “fake.” But it also might be real. That possibility has a certain value.

More than that, the story has value. Once, I walked past a table selling Banksys for sixty dollars.

The second time, my wife raised her hand.

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People often say success is about being in the right place at the right time. That’s only half the truth. The other half is simply moving through the world enough that the right place eventually finds you.

Opportunity, like art, sometimes repeats itself.

But only if you keep walking.

The writer Kurt Vonnegut once advised people to practice art even if they weren’t good at it. Draw a picture. Write a poem. Sing in the shower. Not because it would make you rich or famous.

The act will grant you “an enormous reward.” The creation of something.

Art is a bewildering thing. How it can make us feel. By just being. A painting hung on a wall or tilted back on a mantle. From the mind of another into the world, where it makes the minds of others whirl.

That little painting on our mantle has been doing something like that for me.

It reminds me that life is full of small decisions that can seem meaningless at the time. There’s an art to navigating it.

Go or stay.

Speak or remain silent.

The clarity of hindsight can often find us looking back and seeing these tiny moments as more crossroads than trivial times.

All this collided recently with the reporting that Banksy had been identified. Reuters published an extensive investigation, I mean thousands of words and international travel. Extensive. Worth a read.

That’s a lie. I don’t know.

I didn’t read it. I didn’t read it for exactly the same reason I can still ask, “Is the Banksy on my mantle real?”

I don’t want to know who Banksy is. The mystery is more fun.

The intrigue. The magic. The trick. The surprise. All that goes if I know.

Maybe one day I’ll send it in and answer the question about my “Banksy.” Feel free to become a paid subscriber and help the effort.

But there is a strange possibility I’ve begun to consider.

The painting is worth a story.

Practicalities of money and life aside, I suspect living a life full of stories to tell may be the best investment.

To be continued...

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Is it wonderful? Is it terrible? Will it save humanity? Will it fire everyone?

These questions arrive daily. They arrive breathless. They arrive as if someone misplaced their instruction manual for the future.

Relax. There isn’t a manual.

The truth about AI is blunt. Nobody knows what it turns into. Nobody. The future has its own playbook. And it’s not sharing.

The machine has its own path. Sort of. It’s like sticking a novice rider on a stallion. You might momentarily think things are fine. Then the horse takes over.

People hang on, white-knuckled, hoping not to get thrown. They are traveling forward. But toward what?

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This has happened before.

Go back to about 1700. The world meets a clunky machine called the atmospheric engine. It hauls water out of mines. It burns coal like a drunk drinks. It crawls. Nobody writes poems about it. Yet.

But they get the potential of “The Miner’s Friend.”

In 1699, British lawmakers passed the “Fire Engine Act” and gave the inventor a 21-year extension to the existing 14-year patent. They recognized innovation.

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Then the tinkering starts. Someone adds a valve. Someone adds a crank. Someone bolts on a flywheel. James Watt shows up in the 1760s and slaps on a separate condenser. Suddenly, the engine wakes up.

Now the machine spins. It stops wheezing.

Factories flourish. Mills hum. Mines deepen. Trains roar across continents. Steam engines eventually power ships, locomotives, blast furnaces, and printing presses.

Congratulations. You have invented the Industrial Revolution.

You have also invented child labor.

You have invented smog.

You have invented industrial accidents, crushed miners, poisoned rivers, and the occasional rail disaster that rearranges entire towns.

Progress can be like whiskey. A little warms the soul. Too much darkens it.

This is why the current AI debate sounds so familiar.

Some executives talk about AI like it’s a magic door to a productivity paradise. Machines will write code. Diagnose disease. Design drugs. Catch hackers before they finish typing.

Fair enough. It may well, as steam did, power us into a new age.

Large language models already work like exoskeletons for the mind. They boost thinking. They pull up facts faster than an intern. They crush a galaxy of data in seconds.

That is the glass-half-full version. Unless you are the intern.

The other half of the glass contains something darker.

Automation can wipe out jobs. Algorithms can crank up stupidity. Whole societies can hand over their thinking to machines.

Consider the arch of social media. From unite the world to doom scrolling.

And there is a bigger risk.

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History shows people say yes to powerful tools before they ask if they should.

Coal smoke seemed harmless until cities turned black.

Factories seemed efficient until children worked twelve-hour shifts.

Chemical dumping seemed convenient until someone invented the term Superfund site.

Technology rarely arrives with wisdom attached. Wisdom takes time. It is always catching up.

Tech ships without guardrails. Those appear later, usually after a few spectacular disasters.

AI will likely follow the same script.

Simultaneously, it will bring remarkable progress. And it will also produce regrettable outcomes.

This is how revolutions behave.

But, the difference today is that we possess something the steam-engine crowd lacked.

Memory.

We record everything. We document mistakes. We catalog disasters with obsessive detail. We know the consequences of unrestrained progress better than any generation before us.

We have seen great advancements arrive. Navigated my humanity, we have seen them do good and bad.

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That knowledge does not guarantee wisdom.

But it helps.

A clever fella once said to me, “The glass is never half empty. It is always full.”

Half water. Half air.

I noted earlier that there were no poems.

There were in the end. Or at least at the peak of the Industrial Age.

Published in 1898, McAndrew’s Hymn, an ode to steam power, by Kipling, begins like this:

Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream,

An’, taught by time, I tak’ it so - exceptin’ always Steam.

From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God -

Predestination in the stride o’ yon connectin’-rod.

“Thy Hand, O God.”

With history and our humanity as guides, it seems likely artificial intelligence will work the same way.

Half miracle. Half trouble.

The glass is already on the table. We’ll do what we do. And hope the trouble is one we can bear.

A person ran onto the track.

Not a driver. Not a mechanic. Not a billionaire team owner in pursuit of his young daughter. Or maybe it’s the wife.

Just a person with a green flag.

Just before the race began, they jogged across the back of the grid. Waved the flag. Ran off. Twenty-two cars screamed away seconds later.

Cool as ever. But I thought: Who the hell is that dude with the flag?

Formula One is the most advanced sport on earth. The cars make 1,000 horsepower. They hit 200 miles per hour on the straights. On the cars? Hundreds of data collecting sensors.

Computers monitor tire temperature, brake wear, fuel flow, battery deployment, and aerodynamic balance. All told, about a million data points for engineers and others to obsess over.

And yet.

Right before the start of the race…

A human runs across the track and waves a flag.

It feels like riding a bicycle on the autobahn. I’ve tried it. People do not approve.

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Back to the green flag. It’s not pointless theater.

That marshal’s green flag means every car is in place. Stopped. The grid is set. Once the signal comes, the starter hits the red lights. The race begins. Yes. Red lights going out start the race.

In other words, the entire race waits for one person with a flag.

That job exists because motorsport still needs human marshals. Thousands of them. Most are volunteers. They stand trackside. They wave flags. They clear debris. They run toward burning wrecks when everyone else runs away.

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And I hope that job never goes away.

Not because it’s efficient.

Because it’s human.

The debate over AI replacing jobs usually centers on economics. Productivity. Cost savings. Optimization.

Fine. Those arguments are real. Important. Whether AI is a red flag or a green flag.

But this is selfish. I want to meet that “green flagger” someday.

I want to sit next to them on a plane. Or at a bar. Or at a game. And hear them casually say:

“Yeah, I once waved the green flag at a Formula One race.”

Now we’ve got a conversation.

Do you smell the fuel?

Do the engines shake your bones?

Do you worry about getting run over?

Is the flag heavy?

Can you keep it?

Who picks who does it?

Did you walk off the track like a tiny celebrity?

I want the facts. I want the story. One that exists because people do the job.

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Replace that person with a sensor and a blinking light, and the story ends.

No one leans across the bar and says, “Once I was the automated start verification system for F1.”

That’s not a story.

That’s a legacy system operating in the background.

Technology makes Formula One possible. But people make it interesting.

Drivers tell stories. Engineers tell stories. Marshals tell stories.

And somewhere out there is a person who once ran across a racetrack holding a green flag while twenty-two of the fastest machines and people on earth waited. Waited for them.

I hope that job never becomes software. Or hardware

Because someday, I want to buy that person a beer and hear, firsthand, what it truly felt like to hold the start of a Grand Prix in their hands.

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True or not, the crash came. The Great Depression followed.

I have a modern version. Fewer suits. More puffer vests.

It’s when Oscar-level talent starts turning up in ads. Phone plans. Tax software. Cruise ships. Website domains. Not couture. Not even a European fragrance. Just pure, mass-market utility.

The CEI, Celebrity Economic Indicator - As the share of A-list or celebrity talent in TV advertising rises relative to unknown actors, the probability of economic contraction increases.

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Yes, this is a silly theory. My silly theory. I won’t be pitching it to the Fed.

But. It is real. Emma Stone, an Oscar winner, fronted a Squarespace spot. Sure, it’s all arthouse vibes with its black and white. Everyone, even capitalism, gets good cinematography.

Adrien Brody has an Oscar, too. But not for his TurboTax pitch. In fairness, TurboTax: The Last Exemption has 80s action movie energy.

This isn’t moral panic. This is trend-spotting with a smirk. I like ads. I grew up in TV. Worked in it. I understand the deal.

In the 90s, I worked at Inside Edition. We loved a bit of celebrity. It was a big deal when a worn-out VHS tape arrived from Italy or Japan. De Niro pitching pasta. Maybe it was Harrison Ford and Whiskey. Whisky?

In the 1990s, the celebrity economy ran on a different engine. The box office had muscle. Home video was a Blockbuster. Network television could gather us on the hour and the half-hour. Fame stayed scarce. Celebrities didn’t have to keep “showing up.” They would vanish. At least for a while. Scarcity worked. And paid

Today, scarcity is dead. The feed is hungry. The audience is chopped into confetti. Then blended and burned. Ashes spread about the globe.

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Look at the basic economics. Or don’t. I’m not here for hard numbers. The vibes are down, and so are the dollars. “Grandpa, did they really have movies in malls?”

Here’s the punchline. When the economy’s cash flow fractures, the celebrity paycheck does too.

So stars do what rational adults do when the main gig gets weird. They diversify. They take the check that clears. Advertising pays up. It buys reach. It offers scale that movies and TV can’t promise anymore.

It’s not just “high concept” spots. We’ve got stars like Orlando Bloom showing up in cruise advertising with Drew Barrymore. Bloom and Barrymore aren’t the point. The point is the category. Cruise ads used to be for talk show hosts or no body in particular, which is to say, nobody.

Times they do change. Ben Affleck is selling me donuts. Clooney is hawking espresso pods. Matt McConaughey is pushing Lincolns.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s just fun. Maybe Emma Stone really loves web hosting, and Adrien Brody has strong feelings about itemized deductions.

Maybe it’s just about the money.

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Famed writers Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller were at a billionaire’s party on New York’s Shelter Island. Vonnegut turns to Heller and tells him it’s likely their host “made more money yesterday” than his novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history. Heller says, replying confidently that he has something the billionaire will never have.

Vonnegut, incredulous, asks, “What is that?”

Heller says, “I’ve got enough.”

Is enough ever enough? Or is the ghost of the shoeshine boy whispering from the grave?

“I don’t know how long it’s going to be great for everybody. I see a couple of people doing some dumb things.” That’s what Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan, said today.

When you see Oscar winners pop up in ads for domains and deductions and phone plans, don’t just think “dumb commercial.” Think “labor migrating to get the money while they can.”

Is it a harbinger? Stock up. Stocks are going down.

Dimon has been here before. In a 2006 letter to shareholders, he wrote, “The subprime business is a great example of what happens when something good is taken to excess.” Mortgage defaults were ticking up. House prices were ticking down. The 2008 and beyond economic crisis was getting its pants on.

Dimon’s warning is the formal version. He’s looking at risk, leverage, and competitors “doing some dumb things.”

Maybe nothing is coming. Maybe this is just capitalism doing jazz hands. I’m not predicting a crash. I’m not starting a bunker. I’m just saying Dimon’s line, “dumb things,” is how trouble always introduces itself. Not with sirens. With normality stretched a little too far. When excess feels ordinary.

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I’m just saying, consider the Celebrity Economic Indicator (patent pending).

Heller had “enough.” Most people don’t. And in business, “enough” is a borderline-banned word. Maybe it’s just about the money. It wins.

But.

When the most expensive faces in the culture start renting themselves to ordinary products, it tells you the weather. The weather is turning.

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But there is another problem buried in that episode. It is dangerous too.

The video posted by the president or his staffer, if you believe him, shows the offensive footage for about a second at the end of a roughly 60-second clip. The rest is a documentary-style production. It’s about the 2020 election being stolen. The location of the offensive bit. That’s what caught my eye. The rot is at the end.

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In the clip’s first ten seconds, you get it. It’s about the 2020 election being stolen. A favorite gripe. They (whoever it was) saw the opening. They liked the tone. They agreed with the target. Send it!

If they watched to the end, the post never goes live. The grotesque image at the end crossed an already pretty low bar.

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Watch to the end. Details matter.

No one watched to the end.

Now, a moment of self-doubt. There are racists in government. In this administration. As we are focused on details, my current favorite detail on this matter… The Labor Department’s affection for the Fraktur font. It’s all over their social media. That’s the font used on the cover of the original Mein Kampf. Written by Adolph Hitler. Coincidence. Perhaps. But it isn’t a default font in Canva or Microsoft Word. Another detail.

That said, I’m pretty confident they didn’t watch it. Why? You can tell by what followed the posting. People close to the President recoiled. Defenders went silent. And in a rare moment, the President admitted a mistake and deleted the post.

It’s always the deletion that gets you. ‘Never apologize’ meets the panic button.

That deletion matters. It shows recognition. Not moral clarity. Recognition. Recognition that something went too far. That it was wrong. In this context, “Wrong” means bad for the President. Not morally wrong.

So how did it get posted at all? Anyone competent watches the full video. Anyone serious vets it. Anyone with judgment stops it. They didn’t.

This is laziness. Incompetence. Half-ass governance in a single post. This country runs on trillions. It manages alliances, wars, trade, energy, public trust. And the people at the controls can’t be bothered to finish a 60-second video before blasting it to millions.

That failure is not a one-off. It’s a pattern. Sloppiness with power. These are TV personality retreads, governing by impulse and grievance. And vanity. Always the vanity.

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Speed feels like power. It isn’t. It’s usually just sloppiness on a schedule. Speed is not competence.

The newhounds reading this might be thinking, “But Marty! Yesterday, a week later, Trump again refused to apologize.” That’s true, but what did he do? Exhibit his dwindling mojo.

When asked, he said, among other things, “That was a video…on voter fraud. A fairly long video. They had a little piece that had to do with ‘The Lion King.’” Just to make it clear, he added, “That was a very strong piece on voter fraud.”

He did not say, ‘Here’s the full film. Here’s my proof.’ He did not seize the moment by offering a link. Nothing so detailed. He just circled back to last week’s script. The spotlight’s glare fell on his cherished unicorn, and he didn’t feed the moment with his message. Another chance, wasted. No. Fumbled.

We can’t reach the President. We can’t fix social media. There will be no national program for poise. No bipartisan bill for taste. You can’t legislate dignity. You can’t fact-check someone into refinement. You can’t shame a performer out of performing. This is how modern life trains us. Swipe. React. Share. Move on. The point is not to know. The point is to post.

The racism is the headline. The incompetence is the subhead. The deeper story is the mirror.

The warning isn’t really about him. It’s about us. The same habit that posts a clip without watching the end is the habit that shares a headline without reading the piece. It’s the habit that forms convictions from previews, thumbnails, vibes. It’s the habit that makes adults govern, vote, hire, fire, and judge by impulse.

A government that won’t watch a minute can’t be trusted with a year. A citizen who won’t read to the end can’t be trusted with the truth. We don’t need to become saints. We need to become thorough. Watch to the end. Read the whole thing. Verify the claim. Then speak.

Details matter.

EPILOGUE: You reached the end. Here’s your reward: ChatGPT and I tracked down the documentary’s name in under a minute. The filmmaker? A hint. He’d love it if you bought his pillows.

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The Epstein files sit squarely in that tradition. They are not gossip. They are not tabloid junk. They read like a moral audit of people who assumed the audit would never come. They don’t just shock. They explain how wealth and status harden into impunity. How we are corrupted by power.

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The staying power of this story comes from more than lurid detail. It is now fuel for the distrust of power. A long-standing suspicion modern life seems to reinforce for so many so often. In a recent poll, 67% of respondents said they believed the government was withholding information. Only 6% of those surveyed were satisfied.

Part of that is because many of us know people who abuse their authority. We recognize the type. People who treat their status like destiny. People who cannot be wrong because the world keeps rewarding them. People who move through consequences the way smoke moves through a room.

And this is the point that matters most. Power does not corrupt alone. It tends to corrupt in groups. It recruits. It normalizes. It builds a social weather system. One where everyone breathes the same bad air and calls it climate.

Jeffrey Epstein did not build his world by himself. He built it because others let him. Some enabled. Some enjoyed. Some looked away because the wine was good and the plane, like the island, was private. The grotesque does not survive on appetite alone. It consumes permission to survive.

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The grotesque details matter. Not for shock. For what they reveal. Habits. Logistics. Payrolls. Fixers. Lawyers who turn consequences into paperwork. Institutions with ethics that vanish on contact. This was not rebellion. It was routine. Not transgression. A system.

Lord Acton warned that power hates limits. He was right. People get rich inside a world built on laws, labor, and trust. Then they decided the rules were for other people. Courts for contract disputes. Police for the poor. The tax code, always flexible. Morality? A mere accessory. One you never notice missing.

There is something extra insulting about that move. Winning is not enough. They have to flip the board. They take value from the world, then mock the world that made them. Regulation becomes oppression. Accountability becomes envy. Victims become liars. If you lack the lawyers, too bad.

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This is where Acton still bites. He rejected the idea that greatness excuses sin. He rejected the idea that results excuse method. Moral judgment should rise with power, not shrink. The higher the throne, the sharper the ethical edge. That edge is not gone. It is just unfashionable.

The Epstein saga offends because it shows a class that stopped believing in shame. Not revolutionaries. Vandals with drivers. They break things quietly. They break people quietly. They bet on silence. And they usually win. Silence is a poor match for money.

Maybe money and power make people more of what they already are. Fine. Acton thought it tended to. Then this story becomes even darker. It doesn’t just amplify character. It reveals contempt. It reveals boredom with the social contract. It creates people who see the world as a theme park, staffed by disposable humans.

I suspect Acton would have seen the pattern. He would have judged it harshly. He would have said power’s crimes deserve more scrutiny, not less. The real obscenity is not the excess. It is the assumption of exemption. Beyond the lurid details. That is what should worry us most. Not just what’s happening now.

What comes next?

Acton wrote his famous line in 1887. That’s almost 140 years ago. It remains relevant because it is about all of us. That without rules and adherence to them, any one of us will tend to abuse our power. The phrase “give a little person a little power” springs to mind. You’ve waited in that line only to get to the window of some bureaucratic infuriation and bite your tongue as a condescending clerk makes it clear they control your destiny. Well, at least that of your paperwork.

The accusations made about Epstein and those in his files are on another level. But it is not some incomprehensible evil. We, as humans, are capable of evil. But we are also capable of correction.

So what next?

Bring back moral judgment as a public service. Not the cheap thrill of scandal, but the adult discipline of standards. The founders of America understood this problem and built checks and balances for a reason: power needs limits, even when it wears a smile and makeup. Indeed, 100 years before Acton, in Federalist 51, Madison notes that people are not “angels.”

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” - Federalist 51

Before Acton and Madison, Montesquieu, Juvenal, Aristotle, and Plato, to name a few, raised the same red flag. People will do the things people have always done. The solution? A set of rules that everyone follows. Or else.

Apology, repayment, punishment, reform, those should be the ladder back, not PR and silence. If power tends to corrupt, then accountability needs to come for those who feel beyond the rules. Otherwise? We will keep building thrones and acting surprised and annoyed when people act like kings.

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He tested the limits of political gravity. He bragged he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. He picked that street for a reason. Fifth Avenue signals money. It signals status. It tells outsiders to stay outside. Trump knew how to turn a place into a message.

That instinct looks dulled now. This week, Trump responded to the killing of filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife with contempt, not condolence. He mocked a grieving family. He blamed “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” He made a double homicide about his own ego.

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A sharper operator would have linked the tragedy to policy. Trump has spent months talking about drugs, borders, and even military action tied to narcotics. He has floated escalation around Venezuela in the name of stopping fentanyl. If he believes that story, he could have said so.

He could have framed Reiner’s death as a warning about addiction and collapse. He could have argued that the country needs order, treatment, and enforcement.

He did none of that. He chose personal venom. He chose the cheap thrill of a dunk. He handed opponents a simple line: this man cannot summon basic decency. And he’s hearing that tone from supporters and opponents alike.

And yes, Trump has survived uglier moments. He mocked John McCain’s war record and kept winning. He insulted rivals, judges, reporters, and whole cities, and he thrived. America kept absorbing it. His supporters kept translating it. His critics kept normalizing it as “just Trump.”

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But change comes in weird ways. Sometimes it arrives in a single, needless sentence. Sometimes it arrives when the cruelty stops being strategic and becomes sloppy. This may be that moment. Not a scandal. Not a policy fight. A simple failure of human tone.

Reiner spent his career showing how quickly life turns when character shows. In A Few Good Men, one truth line breaks the room: “you can’t handle the truth.”

Trump once handled his own truth with skill. Now he seems trapped inside it. This feels like the Rubicon. The day the mojo walked out.

Or maybe it’s not… only time can tell us.

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You know the clichéd critiques, oddly similar, about low-scoring games being boring and lacking action. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good rivalry, as I love both games. An argument for argument’s sake. The unwinnable arguments are the most entertaining: Who was the best, the greatest? Which game is better?

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They aren’t that different, about 10 people per team, a field, a ball, some very basic concepts, combined with some truly odd rules or, in the case of soccer, laws. But they are discussed by devotees as if they were opposites; cats and dogs, hot and cold, rock and paper.

Consider the classic soccer/football match ending 2-1, a masterpiece of tension and restraint. Fans are on edge the entire game, gripping their scarves tighter with every near miss or diving save. Likewise, a 2-1 baseball game, a pitcher’s duel, is an exquisite ballet of tension. Stunning defensive grabs and pitches that catch the corner. In both games, moment after moment, whether a cross or a pitch, carries the promise of brilliance or disaster, a silent agreement that one moment of lapse or genius defines everything. In both sports, games like this are sparse on scoring, but the drama? Abundant!

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Go the other direction and enjoy the points as they pile up. A game where the lead changes hands again and again, and announcers utter phrases like, “They can’t stop scoring,” as “Momentum swings again!” Whether a strike from 25 yards that grazes a keeper’s fingers or masterfully passing sequences, the ball seems to be a willing participant. Or seeing-eye singles that find every gap, hits by inches extending streaks, and a team that bats around both baseball and football can propel you to height after height of exhilaration.

Close calls provide the lifeblood of both sports. In baseball, a towering shot sailing just foul past the pole elicits gasps and moans, much like a soccer ball grazing the top of the crossbar. Both moments leave spectators with hearts in their throats, gasping at the cruel whims of physics and luck. These magical near-misses are where legends and heartbreak are born.

Then there’s the brilliance before the disappointment. Soccer’s mesmerizing dribbles, weaving effortlessly past defenders, often end abruptly with a simple catch by the keeper. Or the “scuffed” shot sent careening into the stands. In baseball, a hitter battles fiercely, fouling off pitch after pitch, extending an at-bat to epic proportions, only to pop out harmlessly to second base.

Luck, of course, has its part to play. Soccer fans in some parts of the world often yell “unlucky!” when an effort fails. A hat tip to the uncontrollable in life. In baseball, too, there’s recognition that you can do everything right, timing your swing beautifully or delivering the perfect pitch, only to see luck abandon you. The well-struck ball hit right at a defender. Both games echo life’s simple truth: sometimes you do everything right, yet fortune laughs cruelly from afar.

Damned if it isn’t fun to watch.

But in both cases, the effort, while failing to put points on the board, has produced a measure of success. A pitcher is drained by the added efforts, more vulnerable in moments to come. Likewise, a defender is now wary of being caught out again by a quick winger. Perhaps they will rise to the challenge, or falter. Time will tell.

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Striking the ball itself brings another layer of similarity. In soccer, perhaps the hardest shot to execute is a volley. A spinning, bouncing ball falls to a player who must, in a single fluid motion, strike near perfectly to place a shot on target. In baseball, batting is often called the hardest act in sports. Facing a 95 mph slider or splitter, a batter has a fraction of a second to coordinate mind and body based on a lifetime of coaching and practice. Both scenarios share a poetry of precision and uncertainty: the ball may soar gloriously into the stands or ripple the net, or it may wobble humorously and harmlessly foul or out of play.

Cruelty, of a fashion, exists in both games as well. The most haunting moments come when players of extraordinary skill and experience make hard-to-understand mistakes. Bill Buckner fails to field a simple ground ball in the 1986 World Series. I was at that game and others during that World Series, wow! On the football pitch, this moment is found as Roberto Baggio blasts his penalty over the goal, handing Brazil the 1994 World Cup. Failure in those moments is inexplicable to me, and perhaps to many. You need to stand on the spot, or have the ball coming at you, in a moment of pressure that few experience, to truly understand.

And it’s not all about the ball. What goes on away from the central action is critical. Baseball’s subtle shifts and sacrifices mirror soccer’s off-the-ball runs designed to dismantle defensive shape. Positioning matters immensely. Players, quietly orchestrating space, set the stage for moments of drama and possibility. The sacrifice bunt in baseball might seem trivial to outsiders, just as the unnoticed run pulling defenders wide in soccer appears meaningless. Yet both are tactical masterpieces hidden in plain sight. Executed in the right moment, or used to wear an opponent down, fans of either sport know the importance of these far from glamorous actions.

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Both sports embrace patience as a virtue. Soccer’s slow build-ups, patiently probing for gaps, echo baseball’s meticulous inning-by-inning strategy that considers what pitches to throw to who and where the defenders should be based on the habits of the hitter. Neither game inherently rewards impatience or recklessness, though both encourage daring at just the right moment. A runner rounds 3rd base. Will they beat the throw? Or a winger going at it alone, dribbling right at defenders, split-second decisions, all part of the chess-like grace.

Culturally, baseball and soccer seem worlds apart, entrenched deeply in national identities. Americans proudly claim baseball as “their pastime,” while Europeans and many others around the globe live and breathe soccer as “the beautiful game.” The sports are made rivals not by gameplay, but by geography and stubborn pride.

Yet, truth be told, each offers beauty, drama, tension, heartbreak, and joy in remarkably similar measures. Baseball and soccer, in their purest form, teach patience, precision, and the cruel randomness of fate. Fans yelling obscenities in Yankee Stadium or Anfield may never admit it, but they’re passionately embracing the same essential truths.

So, let’s admit our beloved sports are two sides of the same wonderfully frustrating coin. Baseball and soccer aren’t rivals; they’re siblings separated at birth, arguing endlessly while secretly imitating each other’s style. After all, when we shout at our screens, clutching overpriced beers and praying for miracles, we are all chasing the same fleeting thrills.

NOTE: This was inspired in no small part by tonight’s World Series Game 7. The Dodgers were the favorites, but in the end, an almost 200-game season will come down to one game. And in both sports, anyone can win or lose in a one-game scenario. You gotta play the game!

Airports, terminal coffee even when good too expense, pastries unwrapped and forgotten. Dublin to Copenhagen, one flight blending in with countless others, seamless and simple yet layered with a thousand complexities. My mind drifts, wandering corridors of memories, how wars have shaped, us, me, professionally and personally. Military histories, wars past and present, the meticulousness of my fascination colliding with my revulsion. From grandfathers at sea, mostly evading torpedoes, and beneath The Blitz transfixed by Buzz Bombs, to new acquaintances in the countryside of Vietnam and retirement homes in the desert. Sebastian brings clarity amidst my scattered thoughts.

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Here I am. On a day sandwiched between the 80th celebration of VE Day and America’s Memorial Day. Why him? Why Denmark?

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Sebastian, part of that small, brave country which responded so swiftly when towers fell and our world, as we'd known it, shattered. Denmark: highest per-capita losses. If you're Danish, the chances are great that you've buried someone you loved. Someone you knew. The chances are greater than any other. Close your eyes and imagine Sebastian’s face.

The world moves past this rise to our aid far too swiftly, grasping at GDP NATO percentages, political calculations, the mathematics of burden-sharing. Too many with power and means seem willing or perhaps even eager to discard the value of those who make their perch possible. And lost in all this arithmetic are men like Sebastian, who volunteered, who went willingly, who believed.

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I remember that day vividly, standing in New York City, my city. The towers crumbling, surreal against a flawless September sky, and the peculiar smell afterward, grotesquely bitter and sweet. A burning, acrid mixture lingering for weeks. A constant grim reminder. I recall the fear, the anger, the helplessness. The suffering. Seeing others, hours spent, desperate for news of family, of friends. My own brother survived by the slimmest of margins. The rawness of those moments never truly fades, etched deep into our collective psyche. Time heals, and then you are reminded. Then you are there again. Sebastian's journey to Afghanistan was a direct line from those events, connecting my home's pain to his sacrifice.

Stepping onto Copenhagen's streets for the first time feels oddly familiar. Impossibly calm and quiet. The sun is bright. The deceptive warmth of a northern city heats me. Soon I'm lost amid a language that wraps around me in friendly confusion. I wander to my first stop. The Citadel, an old fort. Within it is what draws me.

The memorial. Names upon names in tidy, relentless columns, clean and brutal in their simplicity: Martin, Johnny, Mark, Alexander, ages 21, 24, 26, all too young. And Sebastian, nestled amid them, silent and profound. Fifty-two lives in all. Lost far from home because of an act far from home. Because a friend asked for help. And they replied, "let's go." What were their lives like?

Wind rustles through unfamiliar trees, a subtle backdrop. The city's pulse continues around me, ignorant of my pilgrimage. I'm reminded of other memorials I've visited, minimal, stark, powerful. The Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC, every name exact and unyielding. Others less know. Billy Fiske's grave, an American Olympian buried quietly in England after he crossed an ocean to fight fascism before the country he loved rose to the challenge. Some people understand there are sometimes things larger than themselves. Sebastian, too, understood.

I read about him before coming. A wonderful article. Sebastian's parents speak of signs that comfort and puzzle them. His father, Niels, says, "Some signs appear that are hard to explain. And you become very aware of that when you lose someone you love so much." Rainbows and shooting stars above Sebastian's grave have become part of their lives, moments that feel significant and reassuring. Elena, his mother, dreams of him vividly, always waking happy, as if Sebastian's brief appearances keep him alive within her.

Later, after the memorial, laughter at my hotel, no, hostel. My first encounter. Why? The novelty. To say, "I have." In this case, a capsule, tiny and high-tech, embarrassingly novel to someone like me, decades removed from the typical guest. Alone in my small pod, claustrophobia pushed away by the gentle amusement of this situation, I reflect: Sebastian, somehow, has given me this moment. A small, unexpected joy in his quiet legacy. A silly moment. Perhaps we linger best in small anecdotes - quiet impacts rather than towering statues.

Night falls late, slow northern twilight drawing out conversations and casual gatherings. I sit outside with my Carlsberg, savoring a simple dinner amid the murmurs of locals and tourists. Tomorrow, I'll travel deeper into Denmark, towards Sebastian, but tonight, I merely exist in this gentle atmosphere. A marvelous collision of old and new because of Sebastian.

Morning arrives bright, clear, I slept well. Navigating Danish trains and buses is like revisiting younger days when maps were paper and words had to be translated through phrasebooks. A short coffee in a beautiful old station, an amusingly broken conversation with the server. There's a quiet bravery in being a stranger, in needing help and accepting it gracefully.

Outside the bus, the countryside unfolds, green and calm. I step off into uncertainty, consulting my map I travel 30 meters or so. Then a right turn. Down a path that enters some trees. A windmill fitting in my sight. Horses watch me pass, indifferent, majestic. Songbirds narrate my journey. The path ends and a right turn. A few hundred meters to go. A road lined by homes. Quiet. The church appears. I turn the handle on the gate and begin to search. It was brief. There behind the humble building, I find him. Sebastian's grave is modest, marked simply. Beautifully adorned by nature itself.

Sebastian, or "Seb" or "Sebber," as his family called him, was known for his voracious appetite for life. His mother recalls, "He lived life as if no one in the world could knock him down." Niels admired his son's unwavering positivity, once saying, "If everyone was like Sebastian, there would be no war in the world."

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Laying flowers and a note, I sit nearby. Suddenly anxious. Is this intrusion? Presumptuous? Will Sebastian's family understand my gesture? Yet, having read enough, I trust they might see the sincerity. Silence envelops the scene, but for the church bell, the birds and distant children caught between laughter and dispute.

I contemplate Hemingway's harsh truth about war, no glory, no valor, only death and loss. Afghanistan and Iraq present the same. Why? Was it worth it? It is always the worst thing we do. Yet war persists, and we argue its morality endlessly. But, pacifist and warrior alike should realize, remembering those lost can support either argument. Their sacrifices underscore both the necessity of peace and the necessity of courage.

Sebastian gave me more than anticipated, a humorous hostel experience, a journey through landscapes I'd never imagined visiting, a moment of peaceful solitude and reflection at his grave. Perhaps this is how he would prefer to linger, not as a towering figure demanding awe, but quietly shaping subtle moments in lives he never knew.

I began by saying it all starts with Sebastian. But that's not entirely true. We seem to live in an age where "please" and "thank you" are a distant follower, too loud and ignorant. There are numerous examples of this. They come from all quarters. But the recent Signal chat escapade exposed the level of disrespect some in the heights of power hold. There are genuine debates to have. Important policies for serious people to settle on. But the use of the word "free-loaders" to describe European contributions to defense stuck with me. It reminded me of another phrase, "freedom isn't free." Who has paid a greater price than the dead? What load is borne by their loved ones? Their mothers. Their fathers.

Sebastian and his fellow Danes fought for something bigger than themselves; they left us enriched. In forgetting that we dishonor ourselves. In insulting them, we expose ourselves as unreliable.

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In remembering them, we remember ourselves - our choices, our morality, our humanity. We remember the friends who stood by us. And in the end, perhaps that's enough. We just need to do it and act accordingly.

Some say we live in hopeless times. I do not agree. But I understand. If you need a reminder that the world is full of good things, maybe your next journey can include finding your own Sebastian. They are everywhere. Someone you never knew existed, yet whose life might quietly enrich your own. On the way you might have a laugh somewhere new. Get lost and meet a stranger who helps. Be carried by songbirds. Visiting your "Sebastian" might even give you hope, not in history, but in the fact that the world is full of good people.

I’ve been, or was, in London, riding the subway. It had been a long time since I’d taken The Tube. I looked at my phone, checking directions. The train wasn’t crowded. Just scattered people sitting quietly.

I’d boarded with all the weight of being right and on time in my mind. But, as ever, watching. I noticed a woman standing nearby. Her back to me. I must have noticed she was tall, taller than me. Leaning over her bag. Quickly, I realized she was crying. It was loud enough to notice but quiet enough that most did not or pretended not to hear.

She was speaking on her phone. It’s unfair to I heard. But I heard enough.

“It’s my father,” she said. “He has cancer. They say tonight might be it. I’m on my way to catch a flight.”

She paused, sobbing.

“But the dog. He can’t stay alone. I can’t get keys to my boyfriend. Can you let him in?”

I listened. It made me remember my mother. She had cancer. Four weeks after diagnosis, she died. The pain was sharp, sudden, lasting.

Buy Me A "Coffee"

I listened more; she, despite it all, spoke with clarity and purpose. The dog must be cared for. I can’t. My boyfriend can. But he needs access. I know he’s not on the lease, but given it all… she was left on hold.

The train slowed. My stop was next. I hesitated. I wanted to help but wasn’t sure how. I didn’t want to intrude. Touch a stranger. From behind. I recall half-deciding. I’m still not sure.

I reached out and touched her shoulder.

She turned, not startled. Calmly. Tears on her face and in her eyes.

“Good luck,” I said quietly. It felt meek.

She straightened a little. She reached, my hand on her shoulder she grasped my elbow. It feels still.

“Thank you,” she said softly. I can’t remember what I thought. I know I had thought about saying something. Something that helped.

“He’s lucky to have you as a daughter,” I said. We parted.

I stepped off the train. It moved away, toward the airport. I guess. I stood on the platform and watched it go.

Later, I sat on a bench. Early for a meeting. I recorded a few thoughts. Wrote a few notes. Mostly, I thought about all we endure. All that we carry. About kindness. About my faith in collaboration. How simple actions, one after another, piled on each other, can matter. How, I hope, we’re never truly alone. How I hope I helped this stranger take a few more steps toward a time beyond that dreadful moment.

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All that put to poetry.

The Crying Woman

I boarded a London Carriage, And met a Backward Face

She bent above her Luggage, Seeking a moment of Grace.

Her Phone against her Cheek, Did whisper then implore,

A Dog too small to meek, Alone behind a Door.

Her Voice a fraying Ribbon, Between a Plea and Sigh,

To Letting Men with ledgers, Could Mercy justify.

No turn possible, Another had hold,

Her Journey was ahead , Her Father near the Threshold.

With only Night to tread, Her Worlds Loves colliding,

Of new and Last Farewell, Of Love tethered breathing.

Pain of Love that can not dwell, I reached and touched her Shoulder,

She turned a Salted Glance, I offered fortune as a meek placeholder.

“Thank you” returning touch offered as if Embrace,

“He’s lucky, to have you as a daughter” I offered hoping grace.

I left for my day’s bubbles, The Crying Woman stayed,

Still folded in her Troubles, Still beautifully, Afraid.

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Is It Time to Redefine the Education System as Critical Infrastructure?

Is it time to broaden our view of what is critical to our lives and economy? We recently covered several reports highlighting cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the educational system. Much attention has been paid to higher education, particularly threats from nation-state actors seeking proprietary research. However, K-12 schools may represent an even more concerning target, a soft underbelly in our critical infrastructure. Are the ramifications of a disruption far beyond our current appreciation?

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2,500 Cyberattacks a Day: The Stark Reality for Schools

We previously reported on a KnowBe4 report that found educational institutions experience over 2,500 cyberattack attempts per day. Schools are particularly vulnerable due to outdated cybersecurity systems, limited training, and heavy reliance on third-party vendors. Ransomware and phishing attacks top the list of threats, with many schools forced to pay ransom to recover from a data breach.

A Lesson From the Pandemic: Disrupted Education Hurts Everyone

COVID-19 closures forced parents into the dual role of caregiver and teacher, resulting in significant learning gaps and family stress. Now, imagine a similar disruption triggered not by a virus but by a cyberattack. One that didn't force parents to stay home as they were during the pandemic.

Imagine a Statewide School Shutdown Due to Cybercrime

Picture a future where California's entire K-12 system is crippled by ransomware, a targeted attack on school management systems, or even a data breach from a software vendor.

This isn't fanciful thinking. A few headlines.

• A cyberattack in Albuquerque forces schools to cancel classes.

• Cyberattack compromises and shuts down Highline Public Schools.

• Jefferson School District cancels classes following cyberattack.

Imagine an attack that lasts days or weeks, not motivated by the promise of ransom but something more sinister. Couple that with a DDoS attack that makes online or remote learning untenable.

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The 2025 Center for Internet Safety/MS-ISAC report paints a pretty grim picture, one where 82% of K-12 organizations experienced cyber incidents totaling over 9,300 confirmed attacks. These cyberattacks can disrupt essential community services like education, but they can also impact meal programs, counseling, and childcare, highlighting how cybersecurity threats reach far beyond data breaches.

Underfunded and Understaffed: Schools Are Struggling

Yet despite this evident risk, K-12 cybersecurity remains dangerously underfunded. Teachers routinely dip into personal funds for basic supplies like crayons and paper, emblematic of chronic budget shortfalls. In a recent study, over 86% of schools cited inadequate funding as their most significant barrier to appropriate cybersecurity. Bake sales for cybersecurity seems a foolish path.

Digital Snow Days Are No Longer Just a Joke

The concept of a "digital snow day," once a cute and amusing novelty, is now an actual threat. What about a digital snow week or month? We have plows to clear streets of real snow. Chains for the bus, so the wheels can "go 'round and 'round." Digital resilience in education needs to adapt with the same goal in mind.

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How long could working families manage without reliable schooling or childcare? Such disruptions ripple quickly across economic sectors, from productivity losses as parents scramble to broader social instability.

The Case for Cyber Insurance and Proactive Defense

Schools and the policymakers that determine their funding must urgently reassess cybersecurity postures and budgets. Beyond security, there is the need to prepare for the worst case, the failure of security. Enhancing cyber insurance coverage explicitly tailored to education systems is equally critical. PowerSchool's Chief Legal Officer, Michael Bisignano, advises schools to proactively engage cyber insurance brokers following breaches. He also emphasizes the need for comprehensive coverage.

As we prioritize investments in infrastructure security, the education sector deserves greater attention. School security and cybersecurity are vital components of community stability and safety.

The original appeared on cyberinsurancenews.org, where I serve as Executive Editor.

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This piece originally appeared on Cyber Insurance News and Information, where I serve as Executive Editor. If you listen to the audio (I read this one myself), you will hear a bit of context about writing this; you can hear that here, but if you prefer to read - a summary,

I’ve spent over 30 years as a journalist and television producer, covering everything from military history to live political news to investigative reporting. That experience has shaped my understanding of how we use language, particularly how certain words lose impact through overuse.

Terms like exclusive and breaking are thrown around so often that they’ve lost their meaning, dulling the industry’s ability to engage the audience. When everything is urgent, nothing feels truly important. This weakens our ability to deliver valuable information—news people actually need.

I mention this because the upcoming opinion piece could be seen as hyperbolic or alarmist. Maybe it is. Maybe it exaggerates. But that’s the nature of opinion pieces—they’re meant to provoke thought and discussion.

The Looming Global Cyber Crisis - Are We On The Doorstep of Digital Disaster?

A catastrophic cyberattack on America’s critical infrastructure is no longer a question of if but when. The new Netflix series Zero Day, starring Robert De Niro, dramatizes this terrifying reality—a massive cyber onslaught that cripples infrastructure, claims thousands of lives, and plunges the country into chaos. State-sponsored cybercrime, cyber warfare, or a Zero Day cyberattack are not science fiction. The warning signs are unmistakable.

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The Growing Threat of Cyberattacks

State-Sponsored Cybercrime: Who Are the Biggest Threats?

State-sponsored cybercrime is already here, and its severity and sophistication are escalating. The KELA Report on Cybercrime 2024 notes that “geopolitical tensions have further exacerbated cyber risks, with state-sponsored actors leveraging cyber operations to achieve strategic objectives.” Analysts identify Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea as leading aggressors. They engage in espionage, cyber extortion, and attacks on critical sectors. These are preparations for battle.

The 2025 CrowdStrike Global Threat Report found China’s cyber activity surged by 150%, with targeted industries experiencing a 200% to 300% increase in attacks. Cybercriminals and state-backed hackers now operate like well-funded enterprises, exploiting vulnerabilities faster than defenders can patch them. The average “breakout time”—how quickly hackers move from initial access to network control—has dropped to 48 minutes, with the fastest attack taking just 51 seconds.

The next war will not rely solely on bombs and bullets; nations will wage it through cyberattacks. It’s imperative we act now.

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The Real-World Cyberattack Consequences

Critical Infrastructure Attacks: Water, Energy, and Transportation at Risk

• University Hospital Düsseldorf (2020, Germany)

  A ransomware attack shut down critical hospital IT systems, forcing patients to be rerouted. One patient died after paramedics redirected her ambulance to another facility 20 miles away.

• WannaCry Ransomware Attack (2017, Global, notably the UK)

  WannaCry crippled healthcare facilities, canceling thousands of medical appointments and surgeries. No direct deaths were recorded, but it seriously threatened patients who depended on timely care.

• Medtronic Insulin Pump Vulnerabilities (2019, Global)

  Insulin pumps were found vulnerable to remote cyberattacks. Hackers could manipulate insulin delivery remotely, posing life-threatening risks to patients.

The healthcare sector is already under siege. The 2025 Breach Barometer Report reveals that over 300 million patient records were compromised in 2024. That’s a 26% increase from the previous year. A single catastrophic breach accounted for 190 million of these records. The report warns these disruptions of operations are “forcing hospitals to divert resources, delay patient care, and undergo lengthy recoveries.”

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Beyond Healthcare

The potential to kill in large numbers exists, and attempts at it have been made

• Iranian Water Supply Hack (2020, Israel)

  Iranian hackers targeted Israeli water supply infrastructure. They attempted to increase the chlorine amounts to toxic levels. While unsuccessful, it could have poisoned thousands.

Then consider an attack of scale on all of a system, turning it all off

• CDK Global Cyberattack (2024, USA)

The firm, which provides software services to virtually every auto dealership, was forced to shut down due to a cyberattack. As a result, dealerships across the country closed, preventing people from purchasing vehicles.

A minor inconvenience, you might say.

But imagine an attack on critical infrastructure at that scale targeting the water supply, the energy grid, and transportation. Everything all at once.

The Challenge of Measuring Cyber Risk

Why Cyber Insurance Struggles to Keep Up

Unlike natural disasters—where decades of data allows insurers to predict risks and price policies accurately—major events like a Zero Day cyberattack lack extensive historical data. This makes cyber risks extremely difficult to model. The severity of an attack depends heavily on the intent and skill of a few individuals—be it international hackers or state-sponsored groups—and the defenses in place.

For example, last year’s IT glitch in CrowdStrike’s software cost billions of dollars. It disrupted hundreds of 911 call centers, forced hospitals to cancel surgeries, and grounded thousands of flights. That was merely a software mistake, not a deliberate attack. Imagine what a coordinated effort by Chinese, Russian, North Korean, or Iranian hackers could do.

The Clock is Ticking Toward a “Zero Day” Cyberattack

How the Government and Private Sector Must Collaborate

Despite these warnings, preparation remains inadequate to protect critical infrastructure. A recent Lockton Re Report argues that a public-private partnership is essential to mitigating extreme cyber events. “A government-supported cyber risk pool would encourage increased adoption of cyber insurance and build resilience,” notes Oliver Brew, Cyber Practice Leader at Lockton Re. Current models, like the U.S. Terrorism Risk Insurance Program, demonstrate that collaboration is vital to managing extreme cyber events.

If we fail to act, we may soon face a crisis far beyond anything Zero Day imagines.

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It took me minutes to find these headlines:

• A veteran voted for Trump. Now he's unemployed.

• A disabled vet lost his job at the VA.

• A disabled veteran was fired from a federal job.

• He survived four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. DOGE just fired him.

• The DOGE purge wiped out a veteran's VA job.

• VA layoffs are canceling medical appointments.

• VA crisis line workers were fired in the purge.

• Trump, Musk, and DOGE—no waste? No, just hurting veterans.

• A veteran doing critical work at the Phoenix VA was fired overnight.

• Service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses are taking a disproportionate hit so far.

How many more didn't make the news? Don't have a friend on TV?

Thinking about myths. Thinking about lies. Thinking about how much we love to pat ourselves on the back and how much we love the sound of our voices when we say, "We support the troops." Corporations market off it. Politicians campaign off it.

Do we care?

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We championed burn pits once. I oversaw a series of cable news segments addressing the issue. The issue? The garbage fires at U.S. bases, burning everything—plastic, chemicals, God knows what. The thick black smoke curled into the air, seeping into the lungs. The sickness that followed. The suffering. The dismissals from the government. The denials. The veterans were left to fend for themselves.

Jon Stewart testified before Congress, lots of people made noise, and eventually, legislation was passed. But guess what? One of the things on the DOGE chopping block? Veteran support.

Then, the VA halts the cuts. Playing games with lives. Why were they even entertained in the first place? What will happen? That it was even considered tells the tale.

It's not new. Vietnam veterans came home and got spat on. Literally in some cases. Figuratively in many more. Either way, they suffered in silence. Agent Orange—the burn pits of its day. A chemical nightmare sprayed across the jungles, seeping into skin, into lungs. It caused cancer. The government refused to acknowledge it. Refused to treat it. The same old story.

According to the IRS, there are 45,000 non-profits serving veterans. I've volunteered with a few. But this arena is ripe with theft and fraud. I reviewed a number of academic papers on charities.

One group raised $20 million but spent less than 5% on veterans. Another stole over $100 million, creating fake charity chapters and leaders. Another funnelled nearly all of its $29 million into lavish executive perks.

One director took $200,000 in donations and spent it on a luxury car and casino trips. A for-profit college used deceptive marketing to enroll thousands of veterans, drained their GI Bill benefits, and then shut down under a $1.1 billion fraud lawsuit.

One raised $56 million but spent almost all of it on fundraising firms, not veterans. Another claimed to provide medical care but spent 95% of donations on telemarketers. One took $6 million in federal funds and had no record of how it was used. Another simply pocketed donations and lived in luxury.

I removed the names because who cares who did it—you can find out. The point is that it's widespread. They play on our patriotism and our respect for personal gain. There are ways to check a non-profit's legitimacy. There are many good ones. Do so before you give to any cause.

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But we move on. We're good at that. Vietnam fades into the War on Terror, Iraq, and Afghanistan. A war that lasted two decades. A war where people got rich. But the ones who went? Who fought? Who bled? There are over three million post 9/11 veterans.

We love the theater of patriotism. The parade, the flyovers, and the somber faces at sporting events. We stand. We salute. We nod along when someone thanks a veteran for their service. But when the flags come down, the music stops, and cameras cut, we, all too often, disappear.

What matters isn't what we say once or twice a year. What matters is showing up in the dark of winter, in the heat of summer, when there's no parade, three-day weekend, or barbecue.

I've met hundreds of veterans. Maybe thousands. I've spent years documenting them—from World War II to the War on Terror. I've seen what service does to a person. The good. The pride. The sense of purpose.

The bad. The most minor wounds— like being away from home. The biggest—watching a friend die. Losing a limb. Losing a mind. Losing the will to keep going.

I interviewed a World War Two veteran once. He told stories 60 years on from the war like he was reliving the moments; his voice trembled, and tears appeared in his eyes as he talked about losing friends, the pain, and the hardship.

After the interview, his wife walked up to me. She had been listening in another room. She took my hands, looked me in the eyes, and said, "Martin, I finally understand."

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Decades of loving marriage, and he never shared. She was left to wonder. Did he wake at night? Become upset by things she didn't understand? I didn't pry. I didn't need to know what had happened. Her voice, it ached with relief.

On another occasion, I interviewed a Korean War veteran; he had never talked about his time at war. He wept as he recounted taking cover under fire. He relived lying there in the mud, staring into the eyes of another American. A dead American.

After it aired, his son contacted me, he was furious. I had humiliated his father. I was mortified.

A week passed, and the son contacted me again to apologize. Since his father's TV appearance, veterans his father had served with, and others he didn't know had contacted him. Many did so to thank him for revealing his pain, for showing the world what war does to us, and how the pain lingers. He helped ease their pain.

There's a quote on the wall of the D-Day Museum in New Orleans. From someone you don't know.

It reads - "One cannot go to war and come back normal."

Freedom isn't free. That's the bumper sticker, right? We like saying it. We like the weight of those words. But we don't like paying the price.

The price is healthcare. Comprehensive healthcare. Not crumbs. Not a fight. Maybe, the same kind members of Congress get for life as a result of their service.

The price is mental health care. Not just a number to call. Not just a well-meaning ad. Real, accessible care. With this understanding, the mission will never be fulfilled. So that thoughts—the nightmares, the memories, the guilt, the rage—don't become a bullet in the mouth.

The price is accessibility. Ramps for wheelchairs. Decent housing. A system that doesn't make life harder than it already is.

It seems The Twitter Guy and his DOGE minions have no idea about the sacrifices made so they can live the lives they do. So, as we slash budgets and claim to tally up savings, we should save ourselves the humiliation of pretending we care.

Why aren't veterans exempt? Why the war on warriors?

We were embedded with a U.S. military mission—SEALs, Marines, Green Berets—a few hundred souls scattered across that vast archipelago. The worry, then? Several. Among them. Islamic militants filtering through the region from Indonesia up to Afghanistan. But this wasn’t just about flexing military muscle. It was about winning hearts and minds—a game we Americans, let’s be honest, don’t always play well.

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The Dock That Changed a Village

Our first USAID-backed spectacle was the grand opening of a simple concrete dock. Its significance? It was explained to me that, in the Philippines, land ownership laws mean many coastal communities build homes on stilts over lagoons. The problem? When storms rage, they lose everything—including their economic lifeline: fishing.

Enter the dock. Built to last, it offered a stable platform for fishermen to unload their catch and get back in the game quickly, keeping the local economy afloat. The whole town turned out. Everyone carried a gun. Well, not everyone, the tabloid in me lives. There were a few laughs when pictures were taken, arms placed around your neighbor only to discover the .45 nestled in the small of the back of a former “rebel.”

But it was a friendly crowd, genuinely happy, not just for the structure itself, but for what it represented. A little American cash, a couple of flags, some smiling officials—and suddenly, the U.S. had new friends. That’s soft power in action: no bullets fired, just goodwill - offered.

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A Bridge to Prosperity

The second event was a bridge, which sounds about as thrilling as watching paint dry until you consider what it replaced. Before, villagers had to trek hours around a shoreline to get from their fishing boats to the market. With the bridge? It became minutes. More efficiency, more income, less hassle. Reducing friction in an economic system is everything.

Again, the people were ecstatic. Well, happy, at the least. They weren’t cheering for America per se but for the tangible help that made their lives easier. It was a stark reminder that power isn’t just about who has the biggest guns—it’s also about who shows up with something useful.

Finally, beyond USAID were the efforts of the US military. There was warfighting stuff. We were briefed on things and sworn to secrecy regarding some. There were things we were asked not to film. Then there were the dogs.

One of the US Army Green Berets had noted the lack of veterinary service and the resulting illness suffered by many pet dogs. Rabies. They brought in a military vet and made an impression on children.

Medical clinics were set up to treat all manner of issues. Most of the patients - children. It was the most basic stuff. Wound care. Infections. Mothers held their children and saw their pain eased by the hands of a woodland-camouflaged-clad man from America.

It’s expensive by any measure at the personal finance level. But that’s the wrong way to examine and critique these programs.

The Bigger Picture: USAID and Global Influence

Now, let’s be real—USAID, like any government agency, has its share of waste. Government waste is a real thing, and more needs to be done so we don’t feel our hard-earned tax dollars are being thrown away.

I once uncovered a hotel that served military members on leave and had used $1 million in taxpayer’s money to which it wasn’t entitled. The hotels weren’t supposed to use tax dollars. When confronted, a public affairs officer shrugged it off: “It’s only a million dollars.” I remember being left speechless; well, I definitely said a few things or maybe just made a few sounds in reply. That attitude speaks volumes.

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It’s a core memory for me. It wasn’t the only time I encountered this attitude, and the perspective speaks volumes. The government wastes money because it’s easy for us to spend what we don’t earn. Those of you who think automation or AI could fix it should remember that AI is based on us; it will make the same mistakes and probably find new ones. The imperfection inherent to any process, human activity, should be policed, punished, and corrected, but spending time trying to remove it is foolish. We, people, are it, it is us, and we shouldn’t be removed.

However, inefficiency aside, pulling the plug on these kinds of aid projects creates a vacuum. And guess who’s eagerly filling it? China. They understand soft power and play the long game. While we bicker over budgets and rip USAID logos off buildings, Beijing is inking deals and laying down infrastructure. People remember who helped them when it mattered.

Through the Belt and Road Initiative, they’ve poured billions into infrastructure projects that seek to connect Asia with Africa and Europe. On land and sea, the aim is to improve trade and stimulate economic growth on a global stage.

In 2000, China's market represented a mere two percent of Latin America’s exports. Yet, as China’s growth surged and its appetite for commodities intensified, the region was swept into a boom. By 2021, the trade volume had eclipsed a historic $450 billion. Some economists predict that it will rise to $700 billion by 2035. Today, China emerges as South America's foremost trading partner and Latin America's second-largest partner, trailing only the United States.

China doesn’t publicly disclose foreign aid spending. But William & Mary’s Global Research Institute found China lent $1.34 Trillion to developing nations from 2000-2021

Can we do foreign aid better? Absolutely. It is right to be appalled by waste. To be annoyed by news of the $600 cups and the $14000 toilet seats.

But foreign aid is something that has made America great.

Given America’s growth since the end of World War II, stopping aid is like winning the grand prize at a carnival and leaving without collecting it. America has spent decades winning prizes. For one thing, the dollar is the global currency as a result.

That means lower borrowing costs, economic and political leverage, influence on exchange rates and trade balances, and greater financial stability. The bottom line - the dollar’s reserve status gives the U.S. cheaper financing, easier international transactions, strategic power, and a steadier economy.

This power and benefit is in jeopardy with our departure.

Consider the numbers. In fiscal 2023, the U.S. spent $71.9 billion on foreign aid, or 1.2 percent of total federal spending, which exceeded $6.1 trillion. Since 2001, foreign aid has remained between 0.7 percent and 1.4 percent of federal spending. 

Decades ago, at the height of the Cold War, it was a key tool in the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. In 1963, international assistance made up 4.7% of federal spending.

It's worth keeping in mind for those who say America was "great" or greater back then, and we should go back.

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Power isn’t just about making people fear you—it’s also about making them like you or at least appreciate what you bring to the table. And if we don’t show up, someone else will.

Maybe the real question isn’t whether USAID should exist but whether we’re willing to cede the influence game to someone else by default.