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Caitie Whelan

Caitie Whelan

Just How Powerful Is Your Member of Congress

It's November 2021 in Montpelier, Vermont. Senator Patrick Leahy, who's tenure in the United States Senate was longer than John F. Kennedy's entire lifespan, who's the sole person in the world to be both third in line to the Presidency and in

A Largely Unknown Manual That Touches All of Our Daily Lives

As that age-old saying we all are so familiar with goes, "There is life before you know about the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, and there is life after." Well, welcome to the next chapter of your life! (And if you already speak MUTCD, a round of

An Alternative to Calling Our Member of Congress

One year is 8,760 hours. And of those many hours, let's pull out just four to six of them. Or 0.06 percent of a year. Now let's put that figure on the shelf for a moment. First, I want to talk about The Question

A Very Handy Tool for Navigating 2024

On a flight home the other weekend, I was reading my library copy of Poverty, by America. And one line came right off the page: "When we refuse to recognize what works, we risk swallowing the lie that nothing does." The unceasingly intense drumbeat of headlines, feeds, chyrons,

Of Airline Customer Service & Policy Change

While attempting to sleep on the floor of the Charlotte airport one evening after my flight had been delayed long enough to spend the night in Terminal C, but not long enough to get to a hotel and have more than 90 minutes of shut-eye and return through security in

The Second Most Important Question in Policy Change

The heartbreaking phone calls came to the D. C. office often. "Can the Congressman vote against this Supreme Court nominee?" "Can the Congressman expedite the friggin' DMV wait time?" "Can the Congressman get these numbskulls to stop hunting in my backyard?" "Can

A Terrific Must-Read Document for 2024

This is part of a short series on navigating 2024. A few other ideas here and here, you'll know what options feel right to you. Every so often, I treat myself to a romp through my city's budget. This juicy read is filled with a language

A Useful Spot to Place Our Attention in 2024

This is part of a short series on how to navigate 2024. There are plenty of ideas to share, you'll know which lands for you. There was no wait to vote at the American Legion. Pretty quiet all morning, the woman at the folding card table told me

What To Do in 2024 Besides Give Money & Vote

The Buddhists talk about suffering as two arrows. The first arrow is what happens to us - we don't get the job, say. The second arrow is the meaning we make of it, how we respond to it - well, that's proof positive I'm

The Thing to Know About State Legislatures

Budgets, they say, are moral documents. Governments spend on what they - ideally we citizens - value. The same is not said about calendars. But it's an interesting idea to noddle on: How governments spend their time is a reflection of what matters most to them. And that