Pulling Back the Curtain

The Dark Horse Senate Race

Republicans Can Win New Hampshire New Hampshire is not Massachusetts. The independent lane, the ground game, and the race that can flip the map. New Hampshire is the dark horse Senate race of 2026. I have had my eye on it for months. The campaign is playing out as I expected and it remains a very winnable race for John Sununu. Public polls still show Chris Pappas ahead by mid-single digits. Ratings have drifted toward Lean Democrat. Those instruments have misread this state before. They miss the independent and undeclared voters who decide races here, and they miss the non-response pattern…

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Speak for Mackinac, Speak for America

Creaturehood and the American Character I have a practice that keeps me honest. From time to time I sit with the full weight of every oath I have ever sworn. Not the polished ones of adulthood, but the first ones: the clumsy, absolute promises of early childhood, the ones made when the world still felt straightforward and my word felt like the only currency that mattered. I do not treat them as relics. I treat them as live obligations. The man I am now must answer for the boy who made them. Circumstance matters. The light I had at the time…

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Poppy’s Witness

A Father’s Heart, a Mother's Stand, and the Sanctity of Every Life I need to talk about this raw, the way I write when the curtain gets yanked all the way back. No polish for the sake of comfort. No slogans that let us off the hook. Just the naked testimony of a father who has walked the road the culture now debates in headlines and Instagram Stories. When Jesse and Ashley Ridgway, the YouTubers behind McJuggerNuggets, announced they had terminated their pregnancy after learning their child had Trisomy 21—Down syndrome—they described the condition as “objectively s---ty from a health perspective.”…

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Appropriate Forum

Restoring Balance Between Adult Freedom and Childhood Innocence I am the son of a gay father. I loved him deeply, and I carry the ache of a moment when, at thirteen, my blunt and clumsy words wounded him in a way that time never fully healed. For years I regretted not bridging that gap while he was still here. As a father myself now, I find those old regrets mixing with new fears: not that my children will reject someone for who they are, but that they will be denied the protected childhood my parents tried to give me. This is…

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The Irreplaceable Mentor

Why Human Experience Still Wins in the AI Era The fire's crackling low tonight, casting that warm, steady glow across the room. Blue jeans, flannel-pull up a chair-maybe a good cigar if that's your thing. We're not here for stiff lectures or casual rambles. This is just one mentor sharing what he's seen, what he's learned, and what still matters when the world changes faster than we can sometimes keep up. Let's start where this whole conversation began: that IBM announcement from Friday. A $240 billion company, the kind that's supposed to be the bellwether for where tech is headed, flips…

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This is Twenty

Twenty Years Strong – Like a Rock Twenty years now. Where'd they go? Twenty years. I don't know. I sit and wonder sometimes Where they've gone. Bob Seger nailed it with those lines-time slips away faster than you can track it. But on this, our 20th anniversary, those words don't just echo lost youth. They point to something built, something that lasts. Think about a rock. A real one. It doesn't just sit pretty. It endures. Storms hammer it, winds howl, rains soak through every crack. Freezing cold tries to split it wide open. Blazing sun bakes it day after relentless…

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The Warmth of Christmas

Achievement Unlocked: Finding Christmas in the Quiet Spaces This Christmas didn’t arrive with the bang and bustle I’d known for the last twenty years. It came softer, almost on tiptoe, and warmer than any December 25th I can remember. Christmas Eve was the only time all five of us were together this season. After church we piled into a booth at Rosa’s for Tex-Mex—chips, queso, and a quick mini gift exchange before my oldest daughter headed out to spend the rest of the night with friends. We lingered over the salsa, nobody rushing the moment. Then she told us goodbye, and…

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A Gen X Kid’s Musical Childhood

The Rhythms of My '70s Music World Whether you’re a Gen Xer like me, part of the sprawling tapestry of Millennials, one of the lively Zoomers, or even among the budding Alphas just beginning to lend an ear to my tales, gather ‘round. I’m a raconteur at heart, and today I’m spinning a story for you, drawing you into the vivid, nostalgic realm of my ‘70s music world-a time before CDs, before the Walkman, before MTV, when music was a tangible, analog treasure captured on vinyl and 8-track tapes, offering a physical connection that went beyond sound. Picture us settling in…

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Do What the Game Asks You to Do

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. - Psalm 34:18 Do What the Game Asks: A Sober Journey Through Bipolar II On November 1, 2023, my son and I stood before the TV, hearts racing as the Texas Rangers clinched their first World Series. Tears flowed as we shouted, “That’s for you, Mom/Nana!” Her memory flooded back-October 2011, her hospital room, watching the Rangers lose Game 6 to the Cardinals. Despite post-surgery pain, she quoted Ron Washington: “Do what the game of baseball asks you to do.” Her love for the Rangers carried…

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A Father’s Day Story

A Father’s Day Story The Old Soul of Gen X Fatherhood This Father’s Day, I sink into my recliner in our suburban living room, my well-worn coffee mug warm in my hands, steam rising as sunlight filters through the blinds. A Gen X father, raised by a single mom, I carry a time-worn spirit from elders-Granny, aunts, uncles, kin born when the 19th century faded, their lives weathered by wars and want. Over kitchen tables, with fresh-baked cinnamon rolls, they shared stories of grit and grace, giving me memories older than my 1970s corner house and cul-de-sac childhood. I write for…

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