New Marching Orders from Senator Cardin: Get More Letters!

To paraphrase a great speechifier: If there is anyone out there who still doubts whether a little teamwork makes all things possible; who still wonders if our collective democratic actions truly influence our elected officials; who still questions the power of grassroots climate activism, today’s letter drop to Ben Cardin was your answer.

Today we dropped by Capitol Hill for our second big delivery of letters to Senator Cardin. Our first delivery of 250 handwritten letters a few weeks back clearly earned us the Senator’s respect, because today the Senator dispatched none other than his top legislative adviser, Michael Burke to receive our latest batch of 260 letters. Letter team leaders Ellen McGovern (Silver Spring), Susan Stewart (Greenbelt) and Sunita Pathik (Burtonsville) headed up the delivery ceremony as immortalized in the picture below.

Mission accomplished; a job well done. But the best moment was yet to come. Continue reading

Satyagraha… Say what?

Amidst the flurry of media and rhetoric on the campaign trail, the historic events of Tuesdays election, and the looming questions of where we go from here, there is only one word that comes to mind: Satyagraha.

For me this strange sounding word has a very personal meaning. Mohandas Gandhi coined it during his peaceful struggle to win Indian independence from the oppressive British Empire. In Hindi it translates roughly as “Truth-Force”. Gandhi defines it as, “Truth (Satya) implies Love, and Firmness (Agraha) Continue reading