The fact that nearly nine out of ten people on the planet demand climate action seems especially newsworthy at a time when some governments and corporations are backtracking on climate action even as ferocious heat waves, fires, and floods are harming more and more people and economies around the world.
I find this statement by the legendary activist/songwriter, Joan Baez, to be particularly relevant and inspiring in this time when it’s so easy to fall into despair. It’s time for action! Time to stop the handwringing and worse, the silence, about what is happening in the US that is having an impact everywhere in the world.
This week: Announcing UP, the first female-forward social media platform and a Project Dandelion partnership to bring the new documentary, MRS ROBINSON, to your living room with a free virtual screening! MRS ROBINSON is more than a documentary, it’s a blueprint for modern leadership. Read more inside.
Surrendering our rights and freedoms cannot be an option, but silence and ‘going along’ is a surrender of sorts and most certainly, it’s appeasement, which never leads to anywhere good. Love is where we begin to heal and prepare for a unstoppable response.
This year's Black History Month falls at a convulsive time for Americans. As the Trump administration works to eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in government and throughout American society, from companies to nonprofits, it's more important than ever to celebrate and commemorate the achievements and the contributions of Black Americans, as well as the uphill struggles that so many have had to wage throughout this country's nearly 250-year history.
History is often made at Sundance as well as documented on screen, and it was a personal thrill this year to be in the audience for the premiere of PRIME MINISTER, a film documenting the transformative tenure of New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. Plus: Free Leonard Peltier is another standout at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
As I blow out the 82 candles on my birthday cake today, I will be, yet again, making the birthday wish I’ve made often since 1972 — equal rights for women in the US Constitution — a wish many American women leaders first launched as a public policy campaign before I was born!
For me, personally searching for some perspective that would ease the feelings of helplessness and despair, I turned to science and literature, going first to one of my favorite writers, Joan Didion, who in her 1968 collection of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, wrote about her experiences living in Southern California in the 1960s.
Like so many millions of others around the world this week, I am reflecting, with an expected mixture of sadness and joy, on my personal experiences with President Jimmy Carter, a great man. We grew up about 150 miles apart, both on small family farms in rural Georgia, but we first met in Washington, DC, on January 20, 1977, when he was being inaugurated as the 39th president of the United States.
At dinner this week, my 10-year-old granddaughter Marisol brought me a dandelion she had picked from a field of dandelions in nearby Piedmont Park in downtown Atlanta. As she handed it to me with great care so as not to disturb the perfect circle of seeds, she said, “Blow the seeds, Gigi, and make a wish!”