I’d like to start today with a poem in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg: When Great Trees Fall by Maya Angelou When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety. When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear. When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken. Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our minds, formed and informed by ... [Continue Reading]

Coronavirus & the Pandemic Response I wanted to introduce you today to Emily Oster, author of Crib Sheet: a data-driven guide to better, more relaxed parenting, from birth to preschool. A professor of economics at Brown University, Oster uses data to help parents make more informed decisions. In this blog posts she explores some of the key issues in schools and coronavirus. Click here to access this resource. What will women’s travel look like post-pandemic? Journeywomen identifies five criterion women will use to determine their choices in the future. [Continue Reading]

Racial Justice & Educational Resources TWO EXCELLENT BOOKS TO READ AND ADD TO YOUR PERMANENT LIBRARY If you want to go behind the headlines to understand the history and dynamics of race and racism in this country, I highly recommend these two deeply researched, beautifully written books by Isabel Wilkerson: The Warmth of Other Suns focuses on the Great Migration of Blacks from the South to the North in the 20th century. Wilkerson centers her story on the migration of three real-life individuals. Ida Mae Gladney, her husband, George, and their two young children fled in the dark of night from the cotton fields of Chickasaw County, Mississippi, to Milwaukee and then on to Chicago. George Starling escaped the citrus fields of Eustis, Florida, and a possible lynch mob when he ... [Continue Reading]

Coronavirus & the Pandemic Response As the U.S. heads toward the winter, the country is going round in circles, making the same conceptual errors that have plagued it since spring. Every article that Ed Yong publishes on the pandemic is masterful. His latest, out today in The Atlantic, is no exception. "Many Americans trusted intuition to help guide them through this disaster. They grabbed onto whatever solution was most prominent in the moment, and bounced from one (often false) hope to the next. They saw the actions that individual people were taking, and blamed and shamed their neighbors. They lapsed into magical thinking, and believed that the world would return to normal within months. Following these impulses was simpler than navigating a web of solutions, staring down ... [Continue Reading]

Racial Justice & Educational Resources If you’re wondering what “defunding the police” would mean in terms of creating new ways to respond to people having a mental health crisis, this webinar, which I just signed up for, might interest you: From their website: “As the movement for racial justice gains momentum in the United States, there has been a lot of conversation around how to divest funding from the police and reallocate it to mental health care. Although the notion to replace “cops” with “care” is well-intentioned, psychiatric survivors, their family members, and advocates are well acquainted with the oppressive nature of the mental health system. Too often, both mainstream and progressive group discussions immediately revert to a model of [Continue Reading]

Coronavirus & the Pandemic Response A beautifully written reflection on being a recovered coronavirus patient: Click here to access this resource. A photo essay from the New York Times about the people struggling with food insecurity in this time of pandemic. Click here to access this resource. I think it’s time to revisit the work of Joanna Macy who teaches people how to move from despair to Action. “Yes. I learned, when I began to work with groups 20 years ago, that despair arose in relation to something larger than individuals, personal ... [Continue Reading]

Racial Justice & Educational Resources A new six-part docuseries by Netflix about ICE tells the truth about the immigration system in the United States. Shot over the course of three years, Schwarz and Clusiau capture the daily workings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, activists, lawmakers, attorneys and a wide swath of undocumented immigrants, from desperate recent arrivals to longtime residents to deported U.S. military combat veterans. With an unrelenting flow of migrant workers continuing across the U.S. border, the pressure on ICE to enforce the administration’s zero-tolerance policies puts immigrants in the crosshairs. But how do we fix a system that seems beyond repair? How do we apply common sense to something that’s evolved from one of humanitarian ... [Continue Reading]

Coronavirus & the Pandemic Response Emily Oster, economics professor and author of two best-selling parenting books, cribsheet and expecting better, advises parents in her blog posts, often using statistical information and analysis. She’s a good resource for anyone working with children. In this post, she outlines a framework for addressing safety/risk questions during the pandemic, like, “Should the grandparents be allowed to visit?” Click here to access this resource. Racial Justice & Educational Resources ‘Finish the Fight’: A Special Digital Theater Performance Celebrates 100 Years of Women’s Right to Vote “Finish the Fight” premieres at 7 p.m. Eastern ... [Continue Reading]

Coronavirus & the Pandemic Response How Coronavirus Will Change Young People’s Lives - The Atlantic Thoughtful in-depth look at the long-term impact of the coronavirus on today’s students, graduates and young adults: Click here to access this resource. When Essential Workers Lose Their Shine and Status as Heroes of the Pandemic From the Washington Post: “In Manhattan, a Trader Joe’s employee in her late 50s who asked not to be identified says she has wondered whether to quit. She has not been feeling well but used up her paid sick time early in the pandemic and has twice tested positive for covid-19 antibodies. ... [Continue Reading]

Coronavirus & the Pandemic Response Editorial on the long term impact of Covid-19 from Rolling Stone Magazine: “To be sure, financial uncertainty will cast a long shadow. Hovering over the global economy for some time will be the sober realization that all the money in the hands of all the nations on Earth will never be enough to offset the losses sustained when an entire world ceases to function, with workers and businesses everywhere facing a choice between economic and biological survival. “Unsettling as these transitions and circumstances will be, short of a complete economic collapse, none stands out as a turning point in history. But what surely does is the absolutely devastating impact that the pandemic has had on the reputation and international standing of the United ... [Continue Reading]