We are waiting for the first flakes to fall in New England, the next stop for what promises to be the storm of the century, at least so far. We are checking the batteries in our flashlights and collecting the leftover candles from the holidays. We’re charging our phones and iPads and making sure we have logs for fireplaces and propane for inserts. We’re shopping for food that will keep through a power outage, sometimes forgoing our favorite and most economical stores for less popular places where the cash register lines aren’t ten carts deep. 

There is no dearth of headlines to capture our attention this week. We’ve got the horrific murder of Renee Goode at the hands of an ICE officer as she was on her way home from dropping her son at school. Then there’s the disinformation campaign by the administration, hellbent on painting Ms. Goode as a domestic terrorist plotting the downfall of the country.

Several years ago, I watched a young Black student at a local high school deliver “A Poem for My White Friends/ I Didn’t Tell You” to an audience of her mostly white peers. I was so moved that I asked the girl to forward me the poem and I have kept it in my computer ever since. I came upon it a few days ago, and decided it was a perfect read to share as we approached Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the Black History Month, both in jeopardy of cancellation by the present federal administration.

We are trying to be hopeful. We really are. But the deck is stacked against us. A mass shooting on the campus of Brown University. The murder of a professor at his home in Brookline. The murder, again by gunfire, of 15 Jewish people celebrating Hanukkah together at Bondi Beach in Australia. And now, the removal by US forces of the Venezuelan president and his wife with our president vowing to take over the rule of that country for an indefinite amount of time.

I’ve been having some uncomfortable conversations with friends. One might even call them intrusive. And they weren’t even about sex or politics. Actually, I’ve been asking about their charitable giving. A subject, it turns out, that is pretty personal unless you are among those who name buildings after themselves.

He said he’d do it and he did. Last week, U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. succeeded in his efforts to have the federal vaccine advisory panel, with all its members appointed by him, vote to drop the recommendation that children should get vaccinated for Hepatitis B at birth.

Shame, shame, shame, the crowd of hundreds chants in response to the stories of inhumane treatment visited on immigrants by ICE, in our own neighborhoods and at the detention center in Burlington.

Thanksgiving Day is nearly upon us, a day we greet with mixed emotions. We are, indeed, grateful for the presence and love of family and friends; for the breathtaking physical beauty that can be found in every state of our country; and for the freedoms and fulfilled needs so many of us enjoy.

These three inspiring and dedicated advocates are on the front lines every day, protecting the women, men, and children whose rights are being trampled as they are stopped, searched, separated from their families, detained, and deported.

We had the privilege last week of talking with Leading Ladies supporter Giseli Cruz-Nascimento to discuss her experience and perspective as a member of the local Brazilian community.

A young man stood holding his pro-MAGA sign amidst a throng of No Kings protesters, looking more than a little defiant, with a kind of “make me leave” attitude on his face. He clearly had an invisible fence around himself, with powerful projectiles protecting him from others and others from him.

In major cities and small towns throughout all 50 states, millions of people showed up Saturday at more than 2,600 pro-democracy rallies (otherwise called Hate America rallies by Republican leaders). The sheer number of protests far outstripped the 2,100 No Kings rallies in June.

I’m sitting at my dining room table — alone since Covid continues to demand my isolation from others for a few more days — penning posters for Saturday’s No Kings rallies. As I push down on my markers, I picture my words transformed into action. With every stroke, I imagine I can magically create some needed change.

There’s a popular slogan going around “Activism is the antidote to despair.” We prefer, “Activism is the antidote to tyranny.” While the former may address our sense of hopelessness, the latter acknowledges the very real crisis we are in. With the federal government shutdown; our president posting AI-enhanced racist videos; people losing healthcare benefits at an alarming rate; and masked ICE agents grabbing people, including children, from their homes and workplaces, we have to overcome our despair, harness our outrage and engage in activism to fight the tyranny that is engulfing us.

We are pleased to bring you a guest essay from noted author, Daniel M. Klein, about his experience surviving polio as a young boy in the early 1940s. In our time when the importance of vaccines is being questioned and so many people around us are not old enough to remember what it was like to live in an era before vaccines, we believe it is important to share these stories.

Free speech.

In the last two weeks, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was murdered while expressing his right to free speech and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was fired for invoking his.

Responding to the murder of Charlie Kirk is tricky business. Political assassination is never justified. And Charlie Kirk was killed while exercising his absolute right of free speech – his right to express his opinions in a public forum.

Autocracy.

Dictatorship.

The end of democracy.

Takeover of the Supreme Court.

Denial of health care and services for the poor.

The term micro-aggression had a moment in the late 90s and early oughts. It spoke to the ways people of color, of religions other than Christianity, and cultures other than white Anglo-Saxon suffered indignities in small but hurtful ways every day. Systemic racism seems to be a more commonly used term today in considering the way discrimination is baked into our society and government, yet both terms are equally important in these times of rampant discrimination, unbridled hate, and unconscious and conscious bias. We, as individuals, have more control over micro-aggressions, since we can determine what we ourselves say and do, and we can respond to others when they speak or behave in a micro-aggressive manner.

In our efforts to be relevant and make a difference, even in the face of our not infrequent sense of hopelessness and helplessness, we are turning our focus to the children in our communities who will be returning to school in a few days, many of them without their basic needs filled – some because that is always the case, some because of recent cuts in funding and resources to organizations and agencies that usually provide aid.