Earlier this month Barack Obama spoke at a rally for Harris in Pittsburgh. What stood out to us was his direct criticism of Trump’s claims that he had created a great economy. It was the first time this falsehood by the Trump campaign has been highlighted so directly. The Harris campaign has tende...

As of this writing we have seen our former president convicted of federal crimes, our current president fumble during the first debate, Democrats circling the issue of the fumble like starving sharks (with a sense that their opinion matters), and Trump being shot at during a pre-convention rally. No...

Last quarter we reflected on the polarization we are experiencing around the globe and the current tendency to reject multiple and conflicting realities in favor of binary “this or that” solutions. Our view is that dependence on binary, good versus evil thinking and behavior is intrinsically fla...

Trying to make sense of the world feels like a fool’s errand, an impossible task, an uphill battle. It’s all so confusing, so complicated, and so complex. Is it human nature to seek answers and solutions? Probably. But what if there is no single, simple, yes or no answer?...

We cannot begin a discussion of this quarter without acknowledging the tragedies taking place in Israel and Palestine, and increasingly across the world amid rising antisemitic and anti-Palestinian rhetoric and violence. Despite our years of work in human rights, seeing the way this crisis has unfol...

For many years, we have known that corporations capture data to categorize people based on various similarities, preferences, and patterns and then use targeted advertising to generate revenue. This has often been accomplished by providing us with “free information” through internet searches, of...

There was a moment in our recent history that felt like real progress was happening—for women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, and many others. Perhaps the backlash we’re currently experiencing shouldn’t be surprising. Nevertheless, it can feel highly disappointing and frightening....

2022 is Over! Not long ago, a man who lost his election for office in New Mexico hired four gunmen to threaten and intimidate the Democrats who had won various statewide elections. As we prepared this letter, there were mass killings in California and elsewhere, revelations of murder by police in Me...

There is a large, framed photograph in our office that NorthStar acquired shortly after we won equal marriage rights in Massachusetts. The photograph is of a sign that was held high during the June gay pride parade in 2004 that says, “Brown, Roe, Goodridge.” As I sat in the office with a beloved...

Many years ago, during a rainstorm, I ran outside to pick some tomatoes from my garden and, while doing so, was suctioned into the wet, mucky soil. Worried about my meal prep (and my boots!), I pulled my feet out of my boots, jumped aside onto solid ground, and then leaned over and carefully pulled ...