Steve Fernlund and The Long Way Home

While New Year's resolutions aren’t my thing, I do find it helpful to do a bit more self-reflection this time of year than I do lying awake in bed in the middle of each night. Motivated by John Lennon’s “So this is Christmas, and what have you done?”  a line that demands a personal accounting for the last twelve months, I reflect on a lifelong habit of over-committing to things. Amid the whirlwind of raising children and climbing the corporate ladder, the most profound feedback often came from the most unexpected places. I’ll never forget overhearing my daughter describe my career to a friend. Her words were simple, yet they cut through my professional ego with indelible clarity: “He leans back in his chair, puts his feet on his desk, and talks to people on the phone.” Kids say the darnedest things. Not long after hearing that, I became aware that the success ladder I’d been climbing was leaning against the wrong building. To extend the cliche, I started reading things that mention...

Last November, Congress overwhelmingly passed, and the President signed, the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The Act was spurred by the delay, despite the Trump administration's campaign promise to make it all public on day one.  If you haven’t been paying attention, Epstein was a wealthy financier who had a hankering for young girls. He was also very effective at cultivating relationships with many rich and powerful people whom he invited to his pleasure islands. People generally assumed these cohorts, but maybe not all, also partook in the nubile flesh his top recruiter, Ghislaine Maxwell, convinced or coerced to visit the islands. Attracted as we are to scandals involving the rich and powerful, Americans of all persuasions demanded an accounting of the government's actions in Epstein’s case. They also wanted to see their evil political and cultural opponents skewered by publicly shaming their involvement, if not actually seeing criminal justice done. On July 6, 2019, Epstein...