* Rev. Martin Luther King Please listen to the video stream above (it is about 40 minutes long) before or after reading this essay, if you wish to receive a more rounded context and message.  There are no visuals, so this is ideal for streaming via Carplay or Android Audio while commuting. "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'" Martin Luther King Jr. asked this of us, and the question reverberates with a new ferocity today, echoing through the...

The State of Democracy in the Americas The 2025 CIVICUS Monitor report reveals a sobering reality: civic freedoms across the Americas are experiencing a dramatic rollback. Approximately 60 percent of the population now lives in obstructed civic space environments, while another 30 percent faces closed or repressed conditions. This represents not merely statistical decline, but a fundamental assault on the democratic foundations that enable citizen participation in governance. The United...

There's a particular quality to December light—the way it slants low through bare branches, casting long shadows that seem to stretch backward into all the days we've lived. It's fitting, perhaps, that as one year closes and another waits in the wings, we find ourselves naturally turning inward, taking stock, measuring the distance traveled. But in all this accounting of goals met and missed, of victories and defeats, we sometimes overlook the most fundamental ledger: the one that tracks who...