Last Saturday, a good group of active Democrats got together in a neighborhood back yard. This was a Ward 3 Democratic Party meeting and naturally there was an overlap with the local "Organizing for America" agenda. Fueled by great potluck food, we talked about opportunities to prepare the ground for November elections. Of course, several of us were there because we are running for various offices in the August 3 primary! The award goes to lil Syl for being the youngest and most active (and most adorable) Democrat there.
Rhubarb is up. I mean both the edible kind and the civic kind.
For eating, take off the poisonous leaves, chop the stalks, add sugar and make pie, cake, compote and syrup. It's a classic rite of Spring.
The other rhubarbs are the quarrels of the Spring political season. Take the poisonous barbs out of these rhubarbs and you have the makings of useful deliberation.
Let's keep our cool so we can have a rhubarb and eat it, too.
Today is mother's day and the 50th anniversary of the Pill. What a remarkable and compelling coincidence! Because of the dedication, knowledge and resources of one woman, women of the world have been empowered to plan and support their families. This woman was Katharine Dexter McCormick. As an activist for women's suffrage and co-founder of the League of Women Voters, KDM knew that getting the vote was not enough. KDM assured her friend Margaret Sanger that the dream of a "magic pill" for planned parenthood would come to reality. Independently, KDM personally funded and oversaw the development of the Pill. Born in Dexter, Michigan, washtenaw County, Mrs. McCormick was 85 when the FDA approved the contraceptive pill, created through her efforts. Without fanfare, this one woman changed the world for the betterment of all.
Comment posted to Mulhern's Reading for Leading blog:
Words like ‘shift’ and ‘transform’ are good for “de-learning” what might not be effective or sufficient anymore. How often have I heard “We tried that [10 or 15] years ago and it didn’t work.” Well, what have we tried recently? Why keep beating our heads against the masonry? It’s no fun (it hurts!), and I don’t think we have the time to waste our energy, or wait for change and solutions to climb the hierarchy. To paraphrase, at every level, we are the change. (B. Obama)
Here are some examples. Washtenaw Sheriff Clayton is leading a transformation of his department by engaging those on the front lines of human services and justice. The shift in thinking is beginning to yield results.
Grass roots environmental activism got Ann Arbor city officials to stop providing plastic-bottled water at public meetings, since award-winning city water is always available. It was a shift in thinking that cut costs and increases awareness of the environment at every meeting.
The de facto obsolete idea of “building our way out of congestion” has fallen to new standards like “four lanes to three” that make local roads more efficient and promote safe alternative transportation, at the same time that funds to expand the roadways have all but dried up. Shifting our thinking about transportation also connects to health management, land use, density and sustainability.
As a candidate for County Commissioner, biking and walking streets I don’t often go down, I’m looking forward to more shifts like these.
And let's not confuse "de-learning" with "destruction". The shift-andtransformation part of learning (or leading) doesn't just tear away the status quo, it opens gates to imagination and great results. We hear a lot about the benefits of entrepreneurship. In these basic terms of everyday leadership, trying something that might work under very changed circumstances, we get more progress for everyone.
Here's one of my posts to Dan Mulhern's weekly blog "Reading for Leading" on his topic of the need for civility and truth-seeking during contentious debate:
Dan, your post is not only timely on the eve of the health care vote, but also for me as a candidate for local office. Four years ago, civility and truth-seeking fueled my brief primary campaign to a near win. While the bumper crop of other local races may have been burdened with outright "hostility and position", my two opponents and I appeared to have avoided the mud in a contentious primary.
Those were the days. Since then, the local "silly season" has expanded and re-opened the doors to back rooms--smoking ban notwithstanding. Local incumbents still have advantage, but also have been calling each other names along with public accusations. By comparison, public name-calling edges toward civility. (Okay, not really. But, since when is being labeled "substantive" a bad thing?) The situation truly does challenge candidates with the question, "Why try? Why put on the virtual flack jacket and run for office when The System is so broken?" A friend often says that a candidate could walk on water and still not win. And yes, an incumbent must own recorded decisions, for better or worse. Local office is a part-time-pay job with full-time responsibilities to both active and passive constituents. Who wants it? I do. For me, it's mostly about being part of the solution, about being in a position to help make the most of our public resources, whether scarce or abundant.
We have so many urgent issues to resolve. We can't afford distraction from truth. If we practice and insist on civility and truth, as many still fiercely do, The System, Democracy of the Republic isn't broken, it's working.
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