Brad Rourke’s Blog
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Covid-19: More Than Two Sides to the Reopening Question
On the really thorny questions that we face in public life, there are usually more than just two sides, yet the way we talk about them assumes an us-vs-them division that gets in the way of clear talk. Writing in late April, 2020, the question for many states and cities is: How should we reopen,…
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Covid-19: Dealing with Moral Dilemmas in Everyday Life
Many of us are more secluded than usual right now. Some are living more closely with family members. Some are facing great difficulty in some personal or professional realm. For some, essential workers, care-givers, and others, life has sped up. We all, though, must look at ourselves clearly when we retire at night, able to…
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Health Care: How Can We Bring Costs Down While Getting the Care We Need? — New Conversation Materials Released
I am pleased to announce publication today of the most recent National Issues Forums issue guide, Health Care: How Can We Bring Costs Down While Getting the Care We Need? From the guide: Americans, individually and as a nation, are worried about high health-care costs. Many of us fear that skyrocketing drug prices and surprise…
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Forest Rangers in Community
A kind of entity that may exist in a community: one that sees its role as developing the capacity of the community to address shared problems and opportunities. Note that the role is developmental, and not focused on execution. There are a myriad of entities in any locale that are working directly on projects. This…
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Announcing the Hidden Common Ground Initiative
I am pleased to announce a new initiative in which I am playing a small part in my role at the Kettering Foundation: The National Issues Forums network and the Kettering Foundation are joining a major initiative spearheaded by Public Agenda and USA TODAY to examine how Americans think and talk about the most urgent…
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Naming Public Issues: Economic Concerns Illustrated
Two reasons that people find it difficult to work on shared problems are that the way they are talked about obscures their nature, and an assumed course of action is implied even though there is not broad agreement on either. When developing materials for people to deliberate together on shared problems, we try to mitigate…
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Leadership Paradox
I recently began formally mentoring someone, and so I have been thinking about the nature of leadership. There’s a bind that “leaders” face. It has to do with the expectations of those who are led, and of the person who is trying to be a helpful leader. Consider the teacher of yoga class. They “lead”…
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Ways of Addressing Political Division
Broadly speaking, I am in a field in which many are trying to address the political division that appears to be increasingly engulfing our nation. One way to make sense of all these efforts is to explore what appear to be the assumptions underlying their approaches. What do the designers of an initiative think will…
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Friday Morning Street Banjo Music
When I am in DC, on weekdays I go to my office near the US Capitol. It is on the Senate side, so for those who know the city I take the train to Union Station and walk a few blocks. Like many train stations, Union Station attracts street musicians. While we all have heard…
Brad Rourke 