A study found that reading banned books predicted civic engagement more strongly than personality traits. Reading banned books showed zero correlation with grades, violent crime, or nonviolent crime in adolescents. Reactance theory explains why censorship backfires: Restricted freedoms activate curiosity and thinking.
Get the habit of registering, go on, I'll look forward to you. I've been through an election already and a lot of people weren't registered to vote. I said they probably don't vote because there's no one to vote for. I said, let's see what happens. So I did. I got over 3,000 votes.
It's 4 a.m., and you are once again doomscrolling through the news on your phone. You are well aware that this is the opposite of good sleep hygiene, but you can't stop. It's an itch that you scratch, knowing full well it is counterproductive. Your emotional state is unsettled and extremely uncomfortable. You aren't ready to rest, and you definitely are not ready to face tomorrow morning.
Today I saw images of students leaving their school with their hands raised in the air, hours after cowering in fear and terror in barricaded classrooms. Nine dead and twenty-seven wounded in the tiny Rocky Mountain town of Tumbler Ridge. The mayor, Darryl Krakowka, said, "I have lived here for 18 years. I probably know every one of the victims." And this in Canada, which often seems to us Americans like a bastion of sanity and normalcy in comparison with our madness.
Hey, noisy car guy, let me help you. I've had a wife, daughters, a mother, a sister, hundreds of female coworkers, a couple of girlfriends, a couple of hot neighbors. Not one of them has ever said, "You know, a noisy car really turns me on." Not one of them has ever said "I'd do anything for you if you had a noisy car."
Goldberg quoted Leah Greenberg, a founder of the resistance group Indivisible, who said that while Donald Trump "has been able to do extraordinary damage that will have generational effects, he has not successfully consolidated power. That has been staved off, and it has been staved off not, frankly, due to the efforts of pretty much anyone in elite institutions or political leadership but due to the efforts of regular people declining to go along with fascism."
In this time of unrelenting, often unprecedented cruelty and lawlessness, I'm grateful for readers like you. So many of you have taken to the streets, organized in your neighborhood and with your union, and showed up at the ballot box to vote for progressive candidates. You're proving that it is possible-to paraphrase the legendary Patti Smith-to redeem the work of the fools running our government.
Research has shown there to be psychological and physical benefits to be gained through civic engagement-involvement in an activity that supports one's local community. Such activities include volunteering, such as working in a soup kitchen; fundraising for a nonprofit; participating in a charitable cause, such as a "fun run"; voting or supporting a candidate; visiting people who are sick; serving as a booster for a school's athletic team; organizing a neighborhood event, such as a potluck dinner; and taking part in an environmental cleanup.
At 39, she divides her time between shaping young minds as an economics professor at the Pleasant Hill campus of Diablo Valley College (DVC) and steering the city of Vallejo toward transparency, accountability and trust. It has been a challenge balancing the dual roles, especially because there is a lot of work to do in Vallejo, said Sorce, who says she wishes she had 40 hours in a day.
The new effort, which has the tagline "Be the People," has enlisted a number of marketing heavy hitters in addition to its support from Stand Together, a philanthropic endeavor founded by Koch in 2003. It's led by Andrew Essex, the founding chief executive of creative agency Droga5 and a longtime media and ad executive. The organizers described the "Be the People" initiative to potential supporters as an apolitical effort to unite America, three people briefed on the plans in recent weeks told Business Insider.
We've mistaken expression for impact, conflating social media dust-ups with actual power. We've neglected the unglamorous work that holds societies together: governing, problem-solving, and cooperating across differences. My research shows that real change happens not in viral TikToks but in drab meeting rooms - the phones-down, notebooks-out work of local governance. It's there that we make progress and bridge divides.
As I started writing this, folks were heading to the polls for the first time in a long, terrible year. Hyperbole somehow failed us when the White House was (is still being) destroyed. Plus, everyone's Social Security numbers were stolen, the world's biggest anti-vaxxer wants to ban Tylenol, and SNAP benefits were frozen for the first time. Yeah, it's been that kinda year. Pandora's box has been opened and all the maladies therein have been unleashed.
A group of students, eager to explore the halls of power in Washington, D.C., found their path blocked by closed doors. But instead of sending them home disappointed, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes parts of the Bronx, stepped in. She didn't just say hello to them she personally led them on a tour of the Capitol and turned what could have been a major letdown into a civics lesson they will never forget.
Then the Goethe Lakes, Goethe Peak and what's left of the Goethe Glacier. This is the Glacial Divide, beyond which lies Evolution Valley, where I hiked as a 20-something on the John Muir Trail - a blissful 26 days beyond the range of communication, during which we carried everything we needed on our backs, along with a few things we didn't really need but wanted anyway. No one had cellphones back then.
