Good Wednesday Morning! As always on my Wednesday morning round up I suggest you grab your favorite beverage and settle in to read a few tidbits and enjoy the comment section, full of more good news than I can bring along.
Folks, the rest of this year is going to be long and frankly stomached churning at times. I keep trying to brace myself for what seems to me to be the most infuriating times we have been through. I admit though many times I find myself just downright ticked off. Maybe the ups and downs of politics has always been this tumultuous but it hits so hard now because at my age I certainly have more time to pay closer attention. Or perhaps these are the most outrageous times that have occurred. Either way the anger can be tough to deal with. Anger is a normal feeling and reaction to experiences in this world of today, but we still must reflect on why we are angry and take steps to not let it rule our existence.
All of this leads me to perseverance:
Perseverance: continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition: the action or condition or an instance of persevering : STEADFASTNESS
Steadfastness, I like that.
Word History:
Middle English perseveraunce, borrowed from Anglo-French parseverance, parsevrance, borrowed from Latin persevērantia, noun derivative of persevērant-, persevērans "persisting in a course of action, steadfast," from present participle of persevērāre "to persist in a course of action or an attitude in spite of opposition, keep on"
Keep on, even better.
Ways to Improve Perseverance:
Although perseverance is a quality you may associate with your personal goals and accomplishments, we can use the same tactics to help us through other tough times. Hey you know who perseverance’s life partner is resilience! Remember them? They go hand in hand in keeping our optimism and hope strong.
Perseverance and resilience are also closely related to our ability to learn from our failures. Perseverant and resilient people deal more productively with failure.
Angela Duckworth argues that growing grit from the inside requires four essential ingredients:
- Interest
- Practice
- Purpose
- Hope
We must, first of all, follow our passion. That entails discovering what our core passions are. This process involves curiosity, trying new things, experimenting, and actively seeking to develop and stay with our interests.
Then, we have to practice. But we must practice deliberately, by honing in on our weaknesses and Achilles heels, setting challenging stretch goals, and incorporating feedback.
Purpose refers to our desire to contribute to making the world a better place and to helping others. It can be a core driving force for passion.
Hope, the fourth and final ingredient, is related to the belief that our efforts matter and that they can improve our future
This election year and our longing for, yeah him, to be punished for all his civil and criminal acts, and just to get the heck out of our lives, ain’t gonna get no easier. So we must persevere.
“A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down”.
Robert Benchley
Okay now on to the Good News.
I’ll be honest, I am not going to cover the spotted orange marshmallow’s many court cases occurring this week. Mark and many community members have been doing an amazing job bringing us all the news related to the issues. Feel free, of course, to share and discuss in the comments.
On the other hand (and since I do not do Xitter I cannot find the author of this Xeet but I had kept the text because I laughed right out loud and said let it be so) I think this is the feeling many of us have:
“Honestly, let him sleep. Wheel him into a fake Oval Office on the back nine of Trump National, tell him he’s the president, hand him a Diet Coke and a hamberder, play a nature video, quietly close the door, and walk away”.
Onward!
Construction on America's First High-Speed Rail Has Begun
Ground was broken today on what is said to be America’s first high-speed rail. The project, which is designed to connect Los Angeles and Las Vegas via a 218-mile stretch of track that will be built across the Mojave desert, will be completed within the next four years, its backers say.
The proposed infrastructure project will stretch from the California city of Rancho Cucamonga to Vegas and is being headed by rail construction firm Brightline. In
its description of the project, the company notes that the new route will be traveled by “all-electric, zero-emission trains” that will be capable of “reaching top speeds of 200 mph, getting passengers from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga in about 2 hours and 10 minutes (2x faster than the normal drive time).” The project was helped along by $3 billion in federal funding supplied by the Biden administration, the
Associated Press writes.
The Voyager 1 spacecraft returned usable data for the first time in more than five months, giving hope for the 46-year-old mission to finally be able to resume its normal operations.
NASA’s favorite interstellar probe transmitted data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems to mission control on Saturday, the space agency
announced. That’s great news for the mission, and the next step is hopefully for Voyager 1 to begin returning science data again.
FTC Bans Non-Compete Clauses for All Companies Nationwide
“Non-compete clauses are a thing of the past thanks to a new ruling from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The FTC issued a rule to ban non-compete clauses for employees, according to a
release from the commission on Tuesday. It first
proposed the rule to get rid of the practice last year”.
“Non-compete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once noncompetes are banned,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The FTC’s final rule to ban non-competes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market.”
Formatting issues, crud.
On Monday, the Biden Administration announced new rules to protect patients and health care providers from legal investigations, particularly around abortion and reproductive care. The rule also ensures that health care providers living in states with abortion bans will not be required to report their patients who travel out-of-state for abortions to authorities.
Congrats to Us! Women Are Officially Entitled to Time Off for Childbirth, Abortions
Almost a year after the needlessly controversial Pregnant Workers Fairness Act took effect, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission officially directed employers to give workers their time off.
A Tidal Wetland Restoration of Epic Proportions
Water may be life, but without salt, the human body cannot retain its benefits. And for thousands of years, a stretch of coastline south of San Francisco has been a vital source of salt.
“The South Bay Salt Ponds, as they’re now known, were once thousands of acres of thriving tidal marsh, which formed a natural barrier against regional flooding and provided an important stopover site for migratory birds and habitat for estuary-dwelling flora and fauna. The Ohlone peoples historically harvested salt from the area’s natural deposits, a resource later exploited first by German immigrant John Johnson in the mid-1800s and then by salt-harvesting companies including Cargill, which still operates in the area”.
Boy, I am having formatting issues!
Compassion is making a comeback in America
Think back to the United States as it was a year ago, a decade ago, a generation ago. Is the US a more caring or less caring nation now than it was back then?
If you think Americans have lost their compassion, the data would be on your side — until recently. Since the late 1970s, psychologists have measured empathy by asking millions of people how much they agreed with statements such as “I feel tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.” In 2011, a landmark study led by researcher Sara Konrath examined the trends in those surveys. The analysis revealed that American empathy had plummeted: The average US college student in 2009 reported feeling less empathic than 75 percent of students three decades earlier.
But the decline also revealed something else: Empathy is not a fixed trait
And just for fun:
The unexpected joy of the Squirrel Census
Just a couple of songs/videos I wanted to share to brighten your day.
From Indivisible:
Your 5 weekly to-dos
- Check and see if Neighbor2Neighbor is available in your area. We have opened pre-registration for Indivisible Action’s version of our highly effective, community conversation program -- Neighbor2Neighbor. If you want to have the biggest impact on voter turnout, this is the most effective way we’ve found to mobilize community members (our numbers prove it). Check and see if Neighbor2Neighbor is available in your area and, if it is, sign up today.
- Join Leah and Ezra for an informal virtual Coffee Klatch this Wednesday, April 24 at 4pm ET/1pm PT. In his Sunday Newsletter, Ezra talked about the political impact of Republican extremism on abortion, how it has played out specifically in Arizona, and how we need to continue to be loud about it through November (if you missed his newsletter, read it here). Join Ezra and Leah for an informal conversation on how we will use MAGA extremism against them to win in November.
- Sign up to defend democracy from Trump with Project 2024: Majority Over MAGA. Our Project 2024 was made in direct opposition to Trump’s dangerous MAGA objectives. This new electoral program will ensure Indivisibles all across the country have the opportunity to make a difference in the highest-priority races this cycle and prevent a MAGA catastrophe from taking place. This will include tactics like phonebanking, postcarding, and direct-to-voter texting along with our groundbreaking community conversation strategy: Neighbor2Neighbor. Sign up to be the first to know when we launch our tools in your area.
- Call your senator and demand they protect in vitro fertilization (IVF) access nationwide. The MAGA agenda did not just stop at repealing Roe. They intend to ban contraception, IVF, gender-affirming care, marriage equality, and more. Sen. Tammy Duckworth has introduced the Access to Family Building Act, a bill that would enshrine access to IVF and related services as a federal right, protecting both would-be families and their medical providers. If your senator is a Democrat, call and make sure they are a cosponsor. If your senator is a Republican, tell them to put their money where their mouth is, pass this bill, and actually support families. When you’re finished calling, send your senators an email urging them to protect IVF access.
- Email your MoC about cosponsoring H.R. 732 -- the Save Medicare Act. We know the MAGA agenda includes ending Medicare as we know it -- and a big part of their scheme includes handing the reins to private insurers. But we’ve seen what happens when greedy insurance companies are put in charge: Medicare Advantage, the privatized option for Medicare, is rampant with fraud and overspending. If we allow insurance companies unchecked power to run the program, we risk sticking millions of Americans with coverage that promises quality healthcare only to deny coverage for essential care and services. Congress must hold these predatory Medicare Advantage plans accountable, and that starts with blocking the deceptive naming of these private plans.
Okay this is where the open thread comes in. You know what to do.
Peace. ✌️