A Tiny Poem

Kid President, I'll run your campaign in 2036.

Keep going, keep going, keep going.

I want a good heart.
I want it to be made of good stuff.
I want the stained glass window builder
to be my drinking buddy.
I want to drink only the punch
of a million genderqueer school kids
taking free martial arts lessons to survive recess.
I stopped calling myself a pacifist
when I heard Gandhi told women
they should not physically fight off their rapists.
I believe there is such a thing as a non-violent fist.
I believe the earth is a woman muzzled, beaten,
tied to the coal slinging tracks.
I believe the muzzled have every right to
rip off the bible belt
and take it to patriarchy's ass.
I know these words are gonna get me in trouble.
It is never polite to throw back the tear gas.
Just like it's never polite to bring enough life rafts...
they crowd the balconies
where the wealthy shine their jewels,
But sometimes love---sometimes REAL love... is fucking rude.
-Andrea Gibson

Pep Talk

Sometimes, we all just need a good pep talk. Kid President delivers the perfect one.

Alright folks, back to writing cover letters...

Purpose

Our job is to love people.  When it hurts.  When its awkward.  When its uncool and embarrassing.  Our job is to stand together, to carry the burdens of one another and to meet each other in our questions.
- TWLOHA

Flags and Helpers

"In the videos from the marathon bombings, you see all these flags lined up together, none higher than any other. Those 96 flags, representing the nations of the people running the Boston Marathon, are side by side because they stand for a larger "us," an "us" sharing a human endeavor that doesn't require a "them."

"I'm cool with living in a world with flags, but I am most proud to live in a world that can hold events where no flag flies above any other. There are people who don't want to live in that world, Hank, but I know that we are not going to give it up. And I know that we can always hope and look to the helpers and endeavor to be among them."

For Boston

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity." 

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths. 

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in a while, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stand against the darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil-doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago. 

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will." 

-Patton Oswalt

Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell. 

Spirituality is for those who have already been there. 

 -Vine Deloria

We ourselves will be remembered as a collective, for what we did and failed to do together. 

-John Green

Fire & Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice. 

-Robert Frost

Drew Dudley: Leading with Lollipops

What does it mean to be a leader?  Drew Dudley tells us in under six and a half minutes.

We've made leadership about changing the world, and there is no world.  There's only 6 billion understandings of it.  And if you change one person's understanding of it, one person's understanding of what they're capable of, one person's understanding of how much people care about them, one person's understanding of how powerful an agent for change they can be in this world, you've changed the whole thing.  Its a simple idea, but I don't think its a small one.