Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Politics

  • Martin Luther King Day: Man, Nation, and Myth

    I missed posting yesterday because I was suffering from the flu. In fact, I’m not all that energetic today either, but I did want to post something about Martin Luther King day.

    Many people seem not to have become comfortable with Martin Luther King day as a holiday. This was brought home to me as I talked business to somebody on the phone and mentioned that I wouldn’t be able to accomplish something yesterday because of the holiday. There was a long pause, and then, “Oh. Yes. It’s Martin Luther King day.”

    Oh yes! It is! (Or it was.)

    And that got me to thinking about the day itself and the man who inspired it. Dr. King was not all that popular a man during his life. He spent his time fighting against the cultural standards of his region in his time. There were even those who were happy to see him die. We like to think of those days as “bad old times” that won’t be coming back. But the basic problems of human nature, of fear of things that are different, and of resistance to change, no matter how much needed, are still a part of our lives and culture.

    That’s where we need the myth. People look down on the word “myth” as though somehow a person is diminished as part of a myth, as though a myth is less than any other story, rather than greater. But the fact is that a person lives on and accomplishes more as a myth. Many people have written historically about Dr. King, and some have thought to tarnish his image. I don’t really know how much their historical data has impacted people individually, but I don’t think they’ve succeeded in tarnishing the myth. It is myth that allows him to still speak, even though he is dead.

    Hebrews 11:4 says that Abel offered a better sacrifice than his brother Cain, and in that way, even though he is dead, he still speaks. That’s the myth in action. There’s a great deal more than just believing something involved in faith here. Dr. King managed to see the vision of what could be instead of what was, he visualized a path that others hadn’t seen, his faith in his vision, in his God, and even in his country was strong enough to allow him to take action. Through that faith he offered a better sacrifice.

    I need to say one thing about faith in his country. Non-violent protest requires a faith that is beyond oneself. The military leader, prepared with weaponry, personnel, and a plan, needs faith in his own abilities and that of his troops to take action. The non-violent protester believes that somewhere inside his opponents and in those who are apathetically standing by there is a whisper of conscience, enough goodness or divine spark, enough something to make them step up and do the right thing, even if they must be pressured to do it.

    And that myth–that story that lives on, that provides a challenge and a form to our actions–lives on, and keeps calling us to change the inequities and injustices that we see before us today. The question is whether we will live up to the myth, perhaps even creating new and greater myths to drive us. Will we learn to be a nation that deserves to enshrine a day to deal not just with inequalities, but to celebrate and carry forward the fight for justice? Will Martin Luther King day become a true part of the American mythos, for all of us?

    Or will it be “Oh. Yes! Martin Luther King day,” as we regret the lack of hours for business.

  • AFA Continues Campaign against The Book of Daniel (NBC)

    The American Family Association is continuing its campaign against The Book of Daniel on NBC. I just received another e-mail calling on me not to watch the show, of course, but also to ask my local affiliate to stop airing it, and also to ask the advertisers not to sponsor it.

    In support of this, they quote mail in which their viewers discovered, horror of horrors, that the characters in this drama are human. They have problems. They do things they aren’t supposed to do. But I ask this: In precisely what way does this distinguish them from the rest of humanity? I imagine that the leaders and staffers of the AFA live in a world in which people don’t struggle with these kinds of problems. Perhaps they believe that evangelical churches are never plagued with these issues.

    Some people need to listen to the opening sermon in the show. We sin. We struggle. And our pastors and church leaders do so no less than the rest of us. If we can’t acknowledge this fact and get on with healing and building up, then Christianity does, indeed, have a problem. But our problem is not NBC for portraying Christians as people. It’s with us for trying to pretend that we’re so much better than other people.

    But all of that is beside the point here. Why cannot the AFA simply issue a note to its members that they have previewed this show and that they don’t recommend watching it? Why do we call for affiliates not to air it and for advertisers not to sponsor it? This certainly suggests that the issue is not helping their constituency make good choices. It’s about controlling what the American people can see, hear, and think.

    There is a proper way to deal with shows that we disapprove. We don’t watch them. We tell our friends we don’t like them. If we’re a big organization, we can tell all our members and those we influence not to watch them. Then people make choices.

    And to provide more evidence, currently featured on its web site (January 9, 2006) is a headline indicating they may boycott Ford Motor Company. Their complaint against the company? Ford is fostering the “gay agenda.” (This started six months ago. To get more details, see Another Swing of the Pocketbook (from MSNBC).

    I emphatically reject these kinds of efforts. The only thing I will boycott or advocate boycotting is a bad product. By not buying bad products I encourage people to produce good ones. That goes for TV shows or cars.

  • More on Military Chaplains

    As a follow-up to my prior comments on military chaplains, I’d like to call attention to the following article. I want to note as well that I found this link on the American Family Association web site, and I want to thank them for providing this link to balancing information.

    In this article, Navy rebuts fasting chaplain’s claims, we see the response of the Navy, and also the comments of a conservative evangelical chaplain, and I note that this supports my contentions about the rules for military chaplains.

  • REAL Christians and the Military

    I’m going to make this a short note, because what I suggest is that you read the two stories (and even search for other sources) on this story and consider the issues for yourself.

    First, in the Washington Post: Military Wrestles With Disharmony Among Chaplains. According to this story there are definitely some issues to be dealt with. There are places in the military where it is appropriate for a chaplain to be sectarian and places where it is not. No final answer is given as to whether Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt, who is on a hunger strike, was actually justified in his actions or not. But the issues involved in the military are examined, as well as the nature of the chaplain’s work. I congratulate the post on a good story.

    Now look at this response: Dont Ask, Dont Pray; Jesus Gets A Dishonorable Discharge. Jesus is being discharged from the military? Chaplains are no longer being allowed to mention the name of Jesus? All the subtleties are lost in an effort to make this into a divisive issue. The difficulties of those of other faiths are not the concern of the writer. Terms such as “weaker, more timd Christians” as opposed to “practicing Christians” (presumably those who agree with the author).

    Well, perhaps I’m one of those weaker, more timid Christians, but I’m not going to be timid in saying that the kind of commentary being made by conservative Christians (and you can find plenty more such commentary on the internet with a simple search) is not well considered, is not appropriate, and is not a good representative of Jesus, my Lord and Savior. I especially dislike the statistical sleight of hand. We’re told that 85% of the country is Christian, which apparently is to justify support for Christian prayers in the military, following which we exclude the “timid Christians” who might not agree. Apparently I’m included in the group of real Christians when it’s convenient and excluded when not.

    Christian chaplains can pray in Jesus name at appropriate, non-mandatory services. It’s not a problem. I strongly suspect that the reason President Bush has not taken action in this case is that the military is fully capable of investigating it, considering all the issues, and making a ruling. What is happening in the commentary is a simple case of grabbing the one, headline generating story of a hunger strike, and then assuming that the person who is yelling the name of Jesus the loudest must be in the right.

    I rarely congratulate President Bush, but I can certainly commend him for letting the standard military process investigate and deal with this one. I hope he continues to have the courage to resist demagoguery like this.

  • Education and Funding in Escambia County

    I apologize to any readers outside of this area, but the following blog entry deals with the politics of Escambia County, and to a lesser extent to Florida politics in a more general way. I know that others do have similar problems in their counties and states, so you might be interested in this just a bit, but the focus is local.

    My step-son James was a student at Tate High School in Escambia County, Florida before he passed away in September 2004. (His Deeds Keep Following Him). One of his greatest sources of pride and joy was his participation in the Tate Band. This was what took up his time and energy day in and day out. He had planned to try to go to college on a band scholarship. His motivation for everything else he did at school came through the passion he had for the band.

    My wife, Jody, and I have continued to keep in touch with the Tate Marching Band (Showband of the South) and to support them as we can. We still get the newsletter, and the current edition reminds us that Escambia County Superintendent of Schools Jim Paul has proposed that the school day be cut from seven periods to six. I was already aware of this, and was considering writing something about it, but the band newsletter article motivated me to get the job done sooner. It is programs like band and sports, sometimes called extra-curricular activities, that will be most hit by the reduction in the school day.

    But academics will be hit by this move as well in two ways:

    1. Directly through eliminating programs and classes, especially electives
    2. Indirectly through removing some of the balance in students’ lives and some of their motivations

    The reason for this proposal is simple, and I have to sympathize with Superintendent Paul as he tries to solve the problems with which he has been presented. Escambia County teachers are much more poorly paid than those in neighboring counties (Unlikely group queries 6-period plan). If he is to improve teacher pay, the money will have to come from somewhere else. Right now, that “somewhere else” appears to be school buildings and the extra hour in the school day.

    In the past, Escambia County voters have been very reluctant to approve taxes as additional support to our schools. Our primary funding comes from the sales tax, and is distributed by the state according to some mildly complext formulas. (You can get more information on how this works from Education News You Can Use (School Funding Data), provided by the Florida School Board Association.

    Some facts you might want to notice there include these:

    • Florida ranks 29th in teacher salaries. We should note that Escambia County is not one of the highest paid counties in the state.
    • Florida ranks 49th in citizen spending on education.
    • Florida ranks 43rd in student : teacher ratio

    So we are not spending an extraordinarily large amount of money on education in the state of Florida, in fact, we seem to be going backward. I recommend reviewing the following page from the National Education Association site, Good News about Public Schools in Florida. Look at the source studies as well to see where they got this information. There are obviously some good things going on, but there are also problems.

    I’d rate declining spending on education as a problem. I stated my own views on the problem in a prior essay, Make Education a Priority. I know that the trend today amongst voters and politicians is to cut taxes and to cut spending, but I’m going to swim against the current on this particular point. There are things that can be cut and should be cut. The simple solution, and in my view the cowardly solution, is to cut spending and taxes across the board.

    Let me illustrate. During our son James’s illness, we had to watch our spending. Since my wife and I were self-employed we had to make a decision as to some things that would be cut, and some things that wouldn’t. We quickly agreed that those things that were part of the process of generating income should not be cut. It didn’t take lengthy thought or discussion, because it’s too obvious. We needed to continue to generate income.

    In government spending, the equivalent decision is the one between infrastructure spending and other items. If you cut on infrastructure spending you will pay for it over the long term. Notice in the items on the NEA page cited above that many of Florida’s school buildings are deteriorating. That’s an obvious issue of infrastructure spending. But I would argue that education as a whole is a matter of infrastructure spending. If we educate and motivate our kids we are contributing to the future economic power of our county and our state. We will be reducing the number of inmates for our prisons, and recipients for our welfare rolls. Both of these will make our economic condition better. Unfortunately we seem to prefer to put a bandaid on the cut, rather than avoiding the knife. We’re more willing to put people in jail than to prevent them from getting there in the first place.

    Yes, I do believe education is a silver bullet. This means well-balanced education that motivates kids, instills community values in them, and prepares them for a productive life. Will simply making education available suffice? Absolutely not! We need to uphold high standards of discipline, academic accomplishment, and community involvement. I’m glad to see that Florida schools are cited for high standards. I hope we make them higher.

    So what do we do?

    Write to your school board members, school superintendents, and also your representatives in the state legislature. When you write, let them know specifically what you want to accomplish, and let them know you understand the cost and are willing to stand up and help with paying the bill as well. We can write the school superintendent as often as we want, and fill his files (or his wastebasket) with letters telling him how we want schools to stay open or the school day to be seven rather than six hours, but if he doesn’t somehow get the money, we may simply be urging him to accomplish the impossible.

    My wife and I are going to write these officials–the school board member from our district, the superintendent, our representative and senator in Tallahassee, and our governor urging them to support education. We will tell them we aren’t interested in words. Practically every politician out there claims that education is a priority. But as I have told church leaders who are wringing their hands about the failure of church projects, you can tell the real priorities by looking at the spending and the personal presence of the people involved.

    Politicians will try to claim they can provide the highest quality education without any additional taxes. They do that because that is the popular thing. The politician who tells you the truth–quality costs money–gets in trouble. You should ask them precisely from where the money is going to come and how they are going to make it work. And don’t be misled by those who believe simply putting money into the schools will solve the problem. We need adequate resources with accountability.

    As citizens we need to be involved, and we need to be involved for the long term. We not only need to work for and vote for the candidate who promises to do more when running for office, we also need to be there to work for the finances and to defend the politician who has the courage to admit that the finances are necessary. We also need to be there for the politician who has the courage to increase accountability.

    For those of you in Escambia County, use the following web site to find your school board member and contact information:

    To look up contact information for your superintendent and school board members: Escambia County School District.

    For Florida state senate: Find Your Legislators.

    For the Florida House: Florida House of Representatives – Representatives.

    Florida Governor (Jeb Bush): Contact Governor Bush.

  • Santorum Distancing Himself From Intelligent Design Law Firm

    Fox News has a current story on Senator Rick Santorum and the intelligent design controversy:

    FOXNews.com – Politics – Santorum Distancing Himself From Intelligent Design Law Firm.

    The senator is quite right that the case provided a bad set of facts for the desired result. In fact, the facts of the case practically guaranteed that the school board, as defendants, would lose.

    But why did Senator Santorum wait until after the case was decided to say anything? Unless he was exceptionally careful to remain ignorant of the case, he had to know what was going on. The more the trial moved forward, the more clear it was that the defendants did not have a chance.

    The point in this case was not a desire that students be taught scientific controversies. In fact, thus far there is no scientific controversy about intelligent design. I am not enough of a scientist to predict what is likely to happen, but I suspect that this is not one of those revolutionary new theories that will rapidly gain acceptance. Rather, I think it is likely to fade away as even those few scientists who now support it realize that it is a free floating theory, lacking any facts that it needs to explain.

    Controversies in science are an excellent topic for science classes, because one can deal with the definitions of such words as “fact,” “hypothesis,” and “theory” and teach our young people how to examine evidence carefully and come to valid, reproducible conclusions. Unfilled holes in the theory of evolution are a fertile area for such study, but that is not because the theory is weak; it’s because the theory is strong, and that it’s value extends across many fields. That simply means that many fruitful areas for research will be suggested as the details of the history of life, mechanisms for variation and selection, and genetics are studied more and more.

    Intelligent design, on the other side doesn’t (at least as yet) provide such opportunities. It simply slams the door on research by passing certain processes off to the supernatural. Now I don’t have any problem with things that are, at least presumably, supernatural being handed over to theologians and spiritual leaders. But the mechanisms that intelligent design assigns to the activity of an undefined designer have not been adequately studied. In many cases natural solutions are just around the corner or even now being described.

    Intelligent design also doesn’t answer the theological questions. Finding that God had to tinker in order to produce certain systems hardly qualifies as a type of proof of the existence of our creator God. God is manifested everywhere, in every natural law and natural process. The very processes that allow evolution to take place are, in fact, the result of the power of God. When we study those processes we have a chance to look at God in action.

    More Christians need to take a stand that intelligent design is not doing credit to our religion. The stated purpose of the Thomas More Law Center is a reasonably good one–defending the religious freedom of Christians. (I would prefer that they said “the religious freedom of all Americans, but I guess I can’t have everything.) But when they took on this lousy case they engaged in lousy law and lousy politics in the support of lousy religion.

    That’s a position that needs to be abandoned.

  • Highway Memorial Crosses

    In scanning through news today I watched a segment on Fox News about a lawsuit asking that crosses erected as memorials in Utah be removed from the roadside. I did not find the story on their web site immediately; perhaps it will be posted later. But I did find two other links that I think make the story fairly clear.

    First, from the Salt Lake City Tribune, the article Atheist group wants memorial crosses removed, which can be pretty much consider “pro-crosses” though it does provide the basic claims of the opposing side. Second, the story of the lawsuit from the American Atheists site, THE (UNCONSTITUTIONAL) CROSS BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD — ATHEISTS IN COURT TO REMOVE CHRISTIAN HIGHWAY MEMORIALS, which includes a link to the actual petition as filed.

    I chose to comment on this story because I think it shows some of the problems with the debate about separation of church and state, both in the actual petition and in the public response to it. Please read the linked stories (both of them, please!) to get more details. I summarize the positions as follows. Plaintiffs: Any religious symbol on public land is bad. Respondents: We like it, so it’s good.

    The latter response results in ideas such as that the cross is not really a religious symbol, just a symbol of comfort. The former can easily be challenged, as it was on Fox News, by simply showing crosses on public land in Arlington cemetary. Crosses are, in most cases, religious symbols, and religious symbols do occur legally on public buildings and on public land. (Note that I’m going to ignore Utah law, which may, in fact, forbid this type of display. That could be dealt with in a legislative way. I’m more interested in the general principles.)

    I believe that we need to distinguish a wall of separation between church and state, which I believe is a good thing, and a wall of separation between church and the individual, which I believe is a problem. Often, those who do not value religion (and I think American Atheists would qualify as an organization), see any presence of religion as some kind of violation of church and state boundaries. Religious folks, particularly Christians, on the other hand, see anything that limits whatever we want to do in some particular circumstance as anti-religious, and an attack on our faith. If we want to pray at a public meeting, we don’t want to be reminded that we’re not in our home or our church, and that we have a duty to be open and inclusive. I’ve seen this same attitude in online forums in which Christians feel that they should be free to post copyrighted material that promotes Christian values and become quite irate when they are thwarted. The fact is that whether the law is one of copyright, or whether it is one of appropriate public behavior, we need to behave in an appropriate manner. Obeying God rather than men doesn’t mean violating every law that seems to inconvenience us.

    So how do I see this particular case as illuminating these issues? Let me first look a bit at the case of the ten commandments display at the Alabama supreme court. This was found, correctly in my view, to be a form of promotion of religion. The response of both Judge Moore himself, and of the public, made it very clear that it was widely seen as a promotion of religion. The comparison was made to the U. S. Supreme Court building where the ten commandments are also displayed. What was the difference? In the case of the U. S. Supreme Court, the ten commandments are displayed as part of a broad panorama of historical lawgivers and law codes. Thus it is not promoting a particular form or religion, unless we are to believe that it’s also promoting Babylonian religion with the code of Hammurabi. The Mosaic law and more specifically the ten commandments are doubtless a substantial part of the history of law. But if the government singles out that particular code from all the laws of the world that have contributed to our modern system of law, then that is definitely a promotion of religion.

    Again, on another topic, when someone complains that President George Bush is a very religious man, and is quite open in confessing that he is, and then claims that is a violation of church and state, I believe they are crossing this line. Now I don’t support everything President Bush has done or has said. But it is both appropriate that he is a religious person and that he is open about that. Nobody was in any way deceived about his religious faith when they voted for him. It is quite possible for him to intrude specifically religious views into public life, and that might require some other action, but that’s why we have a legislature and courts. The simple fact that he is a religious person, and that he speaks of his faith, is not a violation.

    At the same time, he and his staff are behaving quite appropriately when they produce generic holiday greetings. Whatever his beliefs, he is the president of the entire United States, and it is not political correctness run amuck, as I’ve heard it called, for him to be inclusive in his holiday greetings. To the extent that these greetings are privately financed, it would also be legally acceptable, in my view, for him to send out purely Christmas greetings–legally, but I think not a good idea either from a Christian perspective or from a political perspective.

    So, what about those crosses in Utah? I would ask simply this: Were all of those officers who died Christians? If they were Christians, would they have wanted their death in the line of duty memorialized with a symbol of their faith, as the crosses doubtless are? Finally, if any officer dies or has died in the line of duty who is not a Christian, or whose family would prefer that something else be used in a memorial, would the organization that sponsors these memorials provide the appropriate symbol? If we can answer yes to this, I think it is crossing the line into an anti-religious bigotry to oppose this particular type of memorial. On the other hand, if only crosses are contemplated, even if an officer who is Jewish, Muslim, or secularist is memorialized, then I would have to ask if the purpose is really simply to memorialize the officers, or if some sense of promotion of religion is not involved.

    That is the weakness of the Fox News picture of the field of crosses. The military has marked graves of Jewish soldiers with stars of David, and to me that makes a vast difference. If someone who professes no faith, or a Muslim, or someone of any other faith that might not identify with a cross desires a different memorial, that should be supported. But when the cross represents the faith of the person memorialized, I believe it is entirely appropriate. The faith needs to be separated from the power of the state, not from the person.

    Let me add one note to my Christian friends. I probably annoy more people with my view of separation of church and state than I do with any other view. But these political considerations are not at the root of my support of separation of church and state. My faith is the most fundamental issue there for me. I believe that any time the church becomes dependent on public money, public power, or any form of public promotion or duress, that church will be inevitably and quickly corrupted, and if it is not quickly separated from the state’s power, it will become completely corrupted. My bottom line on separation of church and state is that it is most important for the church. Our method of spreading Christian principles should be through the proclamation of the gospel and the transformation of individual lives. I believe strongly that any attempt to transform people by force from on high is doomed to failure and will do more harm than good.

  • Evolution Slate Outpolls Rivals – New York Times

    Evolution Slate Outpolls Rivals – New York Times

    Intelligently designing voters designed a new school board. Though many votes were close, the sweep was apparently universal. I’m very pleased to see that the voters can make an intelligent decision like this. It is my hope that this becomes an example for the rest of the country.

    The whole community, especially parents, needs to get involved in the process of education. We pay big attention to presidential races, but often very little attention to school board races. Turnout is low, and people with very questionable ideas and programs can get elected without most of their constituents even being aware of it.

    That’s not the fault of the politicians, folks. It’s the fault of constituents who don’t research about their candidates and make their choice on election day.

    See some more of my views on education and politics in Make Education a Priority.

  • The West Wing Debate

    CNN.com – ‘West Wing’ candidates clash in live debate – Nov 7, 2005

    I really enjoy The West Wing. As a show, while they have had many episodes I think were mediocre, they have also had shining moments in which they project an image of what politics could be like, and really should be like.

    In this live debate episode they challenge the really stupid way in which presidential debates are conducted these days. There is, in fact, no point to the debates that we have. They are scripted media events with no real opportunity to evaluate the candidates.

    Why do candidates do it that way?

    Because we, the voters, let them by with it. We allow ourselves to be coaxed into making decisions based on media images, rather than going deeper into what the candidates have stood for in the past, what their experience is (and how well they went through that experience), and where they are going to go next.

    I’d like to suggest something. If there are any further presidential debates that are run as scripted, rule-bound programs, that don’t give us an opportunity to really learn about the candidates, that spend two minutes on serious, complex issues, let’s just refuse to watch.

    Change the channel.

    Cut them off!

    I don’t mean that we won’t vote or we won’t make a serious effort to learn about the candidates. But there are many ways to do that. There a newspaper stories and analyses. You can find a variety from a variety of viewpoints on the internet. There are the candidates’ web sites, their platforms and position papers. Find out what those are. Demand that they speak to your issues and answer your questions.

    Further, demand that your media representatives–they are, after all, selling their product to you–provide you with information. If they ask a question, and the candidate gives the spin of the day instead of answering it, don’t air the answer. Throw out all the tape of saying the same thing.

    Let’s hold politicians’ feet to the fire.

  • The Importance of Small Actions

    Recently Rosa Parks passed away. Many people mourn her passing, and rightly so. She made a major difference in American life.

    But in another sense, the attention paid to her is strange–not “bad” strange, but “good” strange. We tend to notice people who do the big things, the spectacular things, the very public things. We tend to ignore the people who do the small things, except for those few occasions when one small thing leads to so many others. But most of the time, most things that are done in the world are accomplished by many people doing small things.

    I think that’s a major reason why so many people think so much of Rosa Parks. She’s an example to the rest of us of what can be accomplished by doing simple things. She’s a challenge to us, because what she did, practically anyone could have done, but she did. And that’s the difference!

    Too many times we are so concerned with finding something spectacular to do, while we neglect the little things that we need to do from day to day. Perhaps you can’t challenge the commentators on TV when they are saying something you think is either stupid or morally wrong. But you can say something to your neighbors and friends about it.

    I have a pet peeve about customer service. I really like retail stores to provide excellent service, and I intensely dislike impolite people in those positions. The other day I was standing in line at a major retailer, and there was a elderly lady ahead of me who was somewhat slow, a bit weak, and her hands shook. She was not dressed well, and her order was not large. The cashier spoke courteously to the lady. She walked around her counter to scan a heavy item, one that most customers could have put on the counter. She treated the lady like one of that store’s most valued customer.

    As I watched, I said to myself, “You’d complain if she mistreated that lady. Somebody needs to know she’s doing her job and doing it well.” So when I got to the counter, I asked how I could provide feedback to her supervisor. There was the inevitable moment when her look asked me, “What did I do wrong?” I assured her that I simply appreciated the courteous, professional manner with which she had dealt with the previous customer. “I was just doing my job. I was just treating her the way I would want to be treated.” I did find her supervior, who also gave me a look of surprise that I would go out of my way after checking out to find her, and report something good about one of her employees.

    I think that cashier was doing the sort of thing Rosa Parks did. I don’t mean to belittle Rosa Parks’ accomplishment in any way. What I want is for us to be challenged to take that extra step, speak that extra word, challenge that common (but wrong) way of doing things, and make life just a little better for the next person.

    This can take many forms:

    • Political action. At a minimum, vote! Even better, study out the various campaigns and talk to your friends about them. If you’re so inclined, get involved in a campaign.
    • Give feedback. Remember, however, to give positive as well as negative feedback.
    • Speak up! When someone is saying something wrong, say something. When someone is doing something wrong, say something. When they’re doing something right, say something!
    • Never be stopped by the thought that something is just a little thing.

    Rosa Parks just refused to give up her seat on a bus.

    Look what a profound impact that action had.