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Policy Change We Can Start Today!

A collection of 17 issues

The Secret Sauce for When We're Bummed

At the hardware store, I got a trash picker, the technical name for that long-handled thingamajig with little claws at the end that you use to grab soda cans, cigarette butts, shopping bags off the ground. When I am bummed about what's happening in the world, I grab

What To Do Now

A common scene: Between work meetings, an unassuming chap takes a quick scan of the headlines. His brow furrows. His shoulders slump. His heart is now sinking like the Titanic. And this mere mortal, so dismayed that today's headlines are in fact worse than yesterday's, does

What's As Contagious As Fear

On a quiet spring morning, the man in well-worn flannel eases himself down to sit on his front stoop. At his feet, there is a large cat. The news today is all tectonic plates shifting, shattering. But here is this gentle pair in a shaft of April light. The man

Two Things We Can Do to Strengthen Democracy Today

A few insights to set the mood: "The only recognizable feature of hope is action." Grace Paley, short story writer. "What if the mightiest word is love?" Elizabeth Alexander, a poet who once taught at the University of Chicago, where she met a community organizer who

Two Words Good Politicians Don't Hear Enough Right Now

My inbox is a big mountain of demands, the Congressional staffer told me. Make a statement about this now, introduce this bill, join that caucus, just plain stop the madness. And the kicker, she continued, is when we do what someone asks of us, nine times out of 10, we

A Strategic Way to May Your Voice Heard with Congress (From Someone Who Used to Work There)

First, let's address the elephant sitting in many rooms right now: Congress still matters. Yes, they pass an unadmirable number of bills (1-2%), making it hard to figure out what the combined 535 members (100 Senators, 435 House members) of this august body do most of the time.

One Invaluable Action for This Moment

How many journalists does it take to change a lightbulb? the old joke goes. Journalists just report the facts, they don't change them. At first glance, this joke doesn't age well. Much of the media seems to treat facts like Play-Do: highly pliable. Except nowadays, much

How to Make a Real Impact This Election

Whenever I see a spray of political signs, I always look for the names I don't recognize. And the reason is simple: those are likely the races where I can have the most impact. There's a good chance that these are signs for local races – school

How to Beef Up Cancer Funding in Two Steps

Who do you think the largest funder of cancer research in the world is? It's not Susan G. Komen or Lance Armstrong, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation or the American Cancer Society. It's actually you and me. Our taxpayer dollars fund

One Immediate Action for a Stronger Democracy

Just about every state legislator I talk to says the same thing: I don't hear from constituents. Now mine is a petite sample size; America has 7,575 state representatives/senators/delegates/assembly members and I've spoken to about 11 of them. But it's