After last week’s letter about our 2025 Art as Activism contest inviting high school students to create posters expressing the importance of fighting book bannings and censorship in schools and libraries, and our plans for a forum on the same subject at the Cabot Theater in Beverly on March 26, we started thinking about what we might all do in our daily lives to spread awareness about this issue, increase knowledge, and make some tangible effect.
Read MoreWe are excited to announce our fourth annual Art as Activism contest for high school students. We believe that art is an effective form of activism, as well as an especially powerful way for students to find and express their voices.
Read MoreDoes anyone else remember standing in line in elementary school in the ’50s to receive the first polio vaccine shot? Those were the ones developed by Jonas Salk before a liquid drop form came into use a few years later. My parents were particularly excited after having watched with fear as my brother was hospitalized with polio a decade earlier.
Read MoreWe have retrieved the family recipes from the virtual or actual files; we have successfully navigated the aisles in the grocery store; and we have put clean sheets on the spare beds for soon-to-arrive children and grandparents. Yes, we are just about ready for Thanksgiving. And while we may have trouble giving thanks for a lot of the craziness going on in our country and the larger world, and how that may affect the planet and the most vulnerable among us, we are still thankful for family and love, beauty and humor, health and good memories.
Read MorePresident-elect Trump may be a liar, but he clearly keeps some promises. His cabinet and staff choices show that he keeps promises to some of his friends and some promises to all Americans. He promised a new way of doing business and that’s just what he plans to do. If you’ve missed what’s to come, here it is, all in one frightening array of appointments.
Read MoreSome of us are still licking our wounds. Some are still shocked and in disbelief. All of us are horrified that more than half the voters in our country chose for their leader a man who speaks vulgarly about women and veterans and immigrants and so many others. Horrified that the most powerful head of state in the world is a convicted felon who wants to rule with impunity, overrun the system of checks and balances in our federal system, and deny basic rights to many law-abiding citizens.
Read MoreTomorrow night is the night we have all been waiting for. Yet, it’s a little like having your senior prom postponed indefinitely because of a blizzard.
Read MoreThe Leading Ladies Executive Committee is endorsing Kamala Harris for president of the United States.
Read MoreWe’ve had a busy past few days, with voter registration drives at Beverly High School and Landmark School and our YOUth Votes Count event in partnership with the Cabot Theater.
Read MoreI had dinner last week with a woman who shoots large game with AR-15 rifles. Given our letter last week about leaning into difficult conversations with people whose opinions may differ from ours, the Fates seemed to be having a little fun with me. So there I sat across the table — for reasons too complicated to explain here and in my own dining room, by the way — from a 50-something resident of Alaska who lives with her engineer husband in Anchorage, where she raised her four sons. All six of them hunt bear and deer and other wildlife, all of which they eat.
Read MoreWe think this message bears repeating.
The time is past for avoiding difficult conversations with friends and family. No longer should we heed the many words of advice about how to get through a Sunday dinner without having a disagreement over reproductive rights or gun control, immigrants or taxes, climate change or racism.
Read MoreThank you for being part of our postcard campaign and ordering our Art as Activism cards to send to reluctant voters. Because of you and others, more than 3,000 of our cards have been sent in the last two months!
Read MoreThe most consequential outcome of last week’s debate may have been the endorsement of Kamala Harris by Taylor Swift. To quote President Biden, “I mean it. That’s not hyperbole. I really mean it.”
Read MoreTwo weeks ago we were wringing our hands with despair that the November elections might be upended by threats to voter certification in several states including Georgia, where recent rulings by a newly appointed pro-Trump majority state election board passed new rules that purport to legalize the blockage of certification of votes.
Read MoreWe heard the call last week. Again and again. “Do something.”
Read MoreDon’t get us wrong. We are as excited and encouraged as anybody about the new energy and joy in the presidential race. But let’s be clear. Winning the popular vote, and even the electoral vote, are not the only challenges. There may still be threats to the election process as one candidate attempts to upend the ballot count in crucial states and then cause an insurrection that could make January 6, 2021, look like a playground tiff.
Read MoreBecause of you, 2,500 postcards with images of the winning posters created by high school students for our Art as Activism contest are on their way to reluctant voters in battleground states!
Read MoreSitting in the cafe of the Boston Public Library last Friday for the broadcast of Boston Public Radio Live, it was hard not to be excited when David Hogg Zoomed in for an interview with Jim Braude and guest host Andrea Cabral. Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland High School mass shooting of 2018, co-founder of March for Our Lives and Leaders We Deserve, spoke eloquently and convincingly of the importance of enlisting and working to elect a new generation of leaders in local, state, and federal government positions.
Read MoreThere is excitement in the air while a new figure takes center stage as the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. The race seems very close right now, and the results may likely hinge on voter turnout – specifically, on the turnout of women and young people in battleground states.
Read MoreWhatever our reaction to the current state of affairs, we can’t complain of boredom! Every day seems to bring more surprises, some frightening, some exciting. Many, as we’ve noted before, totally out of our control.
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