Steve Fernlund and The Long Way Home

 In 1964, the Supreme Court was trying to define a legal threshold for what constitutes "hard-core pornography" or obscenity that the First Amendment would not protect. In that effort, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote about defining porn, “But I know it when I see it.”  Corruption is like pornography for most of us. We know it when we see it.  Every politician, in every election campaign, promises to get rid of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse, the three legs of corruption’s stool. Once voters cast their ballots and go back to living their lives, they stop paying attention. And those elected to end corruption scramble to wet their beaks in a swamp they can't drain, trading contracts and favors to build power and privilege. It’s not restricted to one political party. Consider how many politicians leave public service with a nest egg of cash and merchandise far larger than what they started with. On October 19, I read an article published by The Atlantic titled “How Corrup...

In less than two weeks, this never-ending election campaign season will end.  As someone who consumes political news like I drink cups of coffee in the morning, I decided long ago who would get my vote. Ads and flyers are wasted on me. But special interests invest so much money to buy space on the airwaves, the interwebs, and in mailers for one reason. Name Recognition.  Campaign lawn signs, swag, and mailers reserve the largest, boldest font for the candidate's last name. For a serious candidate, especially when challenging an incumbent, name recognition is a candidate's single most critical asset. They don’t need to know diddly squat about how government works as long as their name is well known. In local races—such as county commissioner, school board, city council, or state house representative—voters fill out the ballot having sparse information about the candidates. When voters see a list of unfamiliar names on a non-partisan ballot or a lesser-known legislative race, th...

As a younger business owner, I found that the latest technology helped us build a growing, sustainable operation. Fax machines helped us eliminate error-prone issues that arose when we transmitted information over the phone. One of our customers, a Fortune 500 company in the Twin Cities, adopted voicemail, which made scheduling periodic sales calls more efficient. Email and Electronic Data Interchange sped up business processes. I adopted the BlackBerry phone, which let me carry email and voicemail in my jacket pocket.  If I thought about Artificial Intelligence (AI) then, I believed I would be moldering in my grave before I’d have to think about it.  But when the writing demons took over, I found that spell checkers that caught spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors were probably AI. Now, even cars use AI to track our location, keep us in our lane, automatically dim our high beams, and even parallel park.  Mathematician and computer scientist John McCarthy coined the ...

People who run for public office usually have mixed motives: public service or issue advocacy often provides the stated reason, while political ambition, career advancement, financial gain, and the possibility of higher office also matter. This newspaper sent a four-part questionnaire to every candidate for local and county offices. We asked an important question: Why are you running for this specific office now?  Local candidates, especially for school boards, city councils and township boards, and county offices, are motivated by a specific issue, dissatisfaction with local government, community identity, or a need for representation. Your neighbors, co-workers, and friends. Community builders, not career builders--for the most part. In my “rock star” organizer days of Nevada party politics, the little organization under my admittedly weak leadership hosted community events where candidates sought voters. Candidates for non-partisan offices like school boards and judgeships often...