Jan 27 2019
America’s 35-day government shutdown finally ended this week, winning a battle while the larger war raged on. And the Supreme Court weighed in on who gets to fight on actual battlefields.
As The World Turns
Candidates, citizens. and combat troops speak out
It was a week that felt to some like we’d taken two steps forward, then one step back.
The American president agreed to reopen the government, and resume negotiations on how to secure the country’s Southern border. This (thankfully) happened hours before the furloughed federal workers would have missed another paycheck, though they may not see their back pay for several more days.
Senator Kamala Harris chose Martin Luther King Day to announce her candidacy for the 2020 presidential race. She joined a growing roster of Democrats who feel they need to defeat the current president and restore the country’s standing in the world. “I love my country, and this is a moment in time that I feel a sense of responsibility to fight for the best of who we are,” she said.
That sense of duty also ran through Johnson County, Indiana, where mothers are taking on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for a possible link between their children contracting cancer, a rollback of EPA regulations by the current administration, and the leaching of toxic chemicals from a poorly-managed dumping site in their town. In the article, the local environment consultant they hired was quoted as saying, “I think when you’re relaxing environmental laws, like is happening currently, the tendency is to not be aggressive in assessing sites. So sites like this across the country will probably continue to be a kind of put on the back burner.”
And as the Supreme Court granted the administration’s request to bar transgender people from serving in the military, while challenges to the policy are still making their way through the court system, media outlets profiled how transgender military personnel are operationally fit to serve and defend the country they love. This comes on the heels of a 2016 policy that lifted the Pentagon’s ban on transgender people serving openly in the armed forces, followed by an about turn when the current president (from the opposing political party) came into power. This article maps the timeline of policy swings.
Om Is Where The Heart Is
An inspiring voice in the battle to combat climate change
I’ve watched Katharine Hayhoe’s climate crusade for a number of years, and was impressed each time she made her case. An atmospheric scientist by trade, her TED talk shows you why she’s such a great ambassador for the scientific community, and her work.
What I didn’t know about her, until last week, is that she’s an evangelical Christian. This is a constituency in the American electorate that, for religious and/or politically partisan reasons, is very resistant to accepting the role that human activity (like greenhouse gas emissions) plays in climate change.
Katharine believes that science and religion do not have to conflict with one another, and she uses her identity in both arenas to build bridges and help more people support climate change initiatives in their communities.
I was thrilled to meet her, and to see her accept the Stephen Schneider award for outstanding climate science communication.
Here’s just one of the gems from the pre-award panel discussion, that you can use to talk to others about supporting climate change projects:
“I think that the single greatest description of climate change is the one that the military came up with, and that
is that climate change is a threat multiplier.
So in other words, the only reason we care about a one or two or three degree warming of the temperature of the planet is because it affects all of the issues that we are already struggling with today.
So when I speak to people, I think the most important thing to do is to connect with whatever the issues are that they already care about…it takes, you know, a lot of getting to know each other, but that connection is there.”
Katharine Hayhoe
Atmospheric scientist and professor of political scienceNews and Views
Keep listening…and learning
I’ve started reading my first book for version 2.0 of my virtual book club podcast for executives, civic leaders and creative thinkers. As with any new (or upgraded) venture, I feel like a toddler taking its first steps – tentative and stumbling, yet feeling excited and a sense of adventure.
Until and unless I feel otherwise, version 2.0 will focus on books I call “soulful leader memoirs.” As (citizen) leaders, I sense we’re in need of inspiration that challenges us to look beyond the familiar or the status quo, to shake us out of our denial or complacency, to help our communities and countries find solutions to complex problems.
So the books I feature need to meet 3 criteria:
1. Be penned by the person who discovered their truth to solve a complex problem, or to learn something profound about the human condition. (The next best thing, especially if the person in question has passed, is that it’s written by an insightful biographer or historian.)
2. Have a good dose of heart – formulaic or prescriptive how-to books have their place in the world, but not in my podcast. Hence the choice of memoir. The book needs to move me – and by extension, my listeners – and help me see a problem through their wise eyes.
3. Express their life experiences in a way that helps me see how they earned their hard-won wisdom, so that I come away knowing I’ve had a glimpse into the depths of their soul.
Sign up here to get my new podcast episodes as they’re produced, or send me your suggestions for a book I could feature (it needs to meet the 3 criteria above).
In the next issue:
I’ll be attending an author’s book tour event. He’s someone I’ve been curious to meet for some time, given the harrowing life experience he’s had to endure and (miraculously) survive.
Will share how it goes!
Till then…
Live well and lead large – Maya
(featured image by Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)