Thoughts
Essays and reflections on rural life, resilience, community, and what it takes to adapt.
17 items
A Bigger Health System Is Not a Complete Vision for Healthcare
The Essentia–HealthPartners proposal raises a question I was already asking: how will institutional growth preserve local care and community accountability?
Sell ads. Report the news.
When a newspaper promotes healthcare institutions and reports on them under the same trusted name, what happens to reader confidence?
When Washington Cuts Food Aid, Rural Communities Are Left Holding the Bowl
Federal cuts do not eliminate hunger. They transfer the cost and responsibility to the communities least equipped to absorb it.
A Superior Bee
East Bay, Grand Marais, Minnesota — looking south toward Artist’s Point on Lake Superior from the Sisu + Löyly lakefront.
The Meaning
What we may actually be saying when we talk about trust, and why the difference matters.
The Hearing Was a Failure Before It Began
A clinic closure, a hearing held 30 miles away, and a public process with no power reveal how rural healthcare decisions escape meaningful accountability.
Governance Doesn't Begin With Trust
Why durable institutions need processes that can survive changes in people, leadership, and trust.
What Happens When You Ask
What public governance becomes when questions are managed instead of answered.
Endurance Is Not Resilience
Why longevity and adaptability are not the same thing.
The Light Slips, and So Does Our Nerve
What the northern dark can teach us about courage, preparation, and political denial.
The Season of Denial
Why ritual cannot outrun reality on the North Shore—or in our civic life.
All This, All at Once
A beach, a seagull, geologic time, and the ridiculous miracle of being here now.
An American Jewish Education, Reconsidered
A reckoning with American Zionist education, complicity, and the demands of Jewish tradition.
Interconnected by Default
The ethical complexity of living inside systems and relationships we did not choose.
To Piss Off, or Not to Piss Off?
What progress asks of people working inside the close relationships of a small town.
Never Again Is Now
A letter calling for equal rights, a ceasefire, and a different American posture toward Israel and Gaza.
Why I Do What I Do
A reflection from Haiti on Judaism, community, and the work of repairing the world.