Democracy Doesn’t Work Without a Shared Language (2/3): IP, XML, and the Grammar of Governance
How a shared language lets democracy scale Before the Internet became the Internet, it was a patchwork of isolated networks. […]
Democracy Doesn’t Work Without a Shared Language (1/3): Horace Mann and the Missing Amendment
How America built a common language without ever making it law “Americans are good with change. They just don’t like
Too Many to Represent: A Structural Fix for a Cognitive Crisis
Late in the summer of 1787, as the Constitutional Convention strained toward consensus, one thing united even its most fractious
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Waffle House and the Vanishing Value of Labor
Waffle House may seem like an unusual candidate for economic analysis, but as a fixed cultural and commercial institution in
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When a Poet, a Rock Star, and a Chatbot Walk into a Studio…
I’ll be honest: the only instrument I’ve ever mastered is playing the radio. And yet—somehow—I’ve found myself making music. Not
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We the Justices: How the Supreme Court Became a Legal Priesthood
When the Founders envisioned the U.S. Supreme Court in 1787, they likely imagined a bench of wise, grounded citizens—people deeply
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Why the South Seceded: Losing All Three Branches of Government (in 8 graphs)
We often explain the Civil War as a conflict over slavery, and while that’s true, the deeper constitutional rupture came
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The Difference Engine: Why Our Minds Prefer “Either/Or” Over Complexity
“The human mind is a difference engine—but it’s built for two speeds: friend or foe. Real wisdom is learning how
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Gramsci, Marxism, and the Philosophical Foundations—and Dilemmas—of DEI
I first learned about Antonio Gramsci over donuts with two friends at one of our “Donuts for Democracy” discussions. We
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The Battle of Athens: When American Veterans Took Up Arms for Democracy at Home
On a recent visit to Athens, Tennessee, my daughter and I discovered a piece of history that few remember but
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