On My Soapbox!

 Brace yourself.  I'm angry.   

Back on March 13th, of 2020, we closed the buildings of schools but kept teaching.   We taught virtually, but we did everything we could to attempt to give them as much as we could in the time we were given.  We taught summer school virtually.  We taught first semester virtually. We're still doing it.  Teachers are trying to teach.   

Multiple vaccinations now exist.  They've been slow to roll out, but they exist.  
We've managed to wait this long, why the push to have us go forward to open before we've had a chance to get the vaccination?  We get that things are hard but here's what I want to bring up as a point.  This is a link to where Corona Virus is spreading more.  

Corona Virus Update across the 50 States

Here's a  site that shows where schools are open.  

Across the States School Openings/Closings

I'll wait.   

As I look at them, where is the spread being contained?  (0-21 per day infection).  
Hawaii, Guam and North Dakota.    Maryland and DC are going down, they're still a rate of 21 and 23 per 100K respectively. 

Where is it exploding?  New York, California, Texas, Illinois, where more schools are open, where there is less continuity of policy across the state, where there has been tremendous pressure to go back to normal.   

The world right now is not normal. 

Next, I looked at the metrics for our county because I've studied that throughout the pandemic. 

In January, the metrics exploded.  Why?   Think about it.   It makes sense the infection rate rose because people got together for Christmas, for New Year's, for Kwanza, for Hanaukkah, and/or took vacations over Winter break.  If you look at the metrics for the rate of infection detected, (here's the link), the pattern emerges.  The infection rate in November rose because of Halloween and Election Day.  The infection rate in December rose because of all the holidays I mentioned.   There aren't holidays in January that involve travel or big events.   The rate has decreased.  

 I also looked at the rate of infection  of now versus the summer, and our current rate, while trending down, is still above the rate observed and recorded during June, July and August.  Past trending is no promise of future, and the major challenge of this pandemic, is as we open up, we increase the likelihood of infection.   The metrics aren't secure at this point or indicative of safety, but merely of where we are today. 

The reality is, right now Maryland looks good because it is more cautious than other states. 

If it jumps the gun, following the Governor's proposals, (which I suspect is putting tremendous pressure on the local municipalities), the consequence will be lives.  I'm not trying to be melodramatic. I'm stating the reality.  We all have family with mitigating health conditions that would be severely compromised by Covid.   

If we're willing to show leadership and finish this year, we should have the time and allocations to ensure everyone who can be vaccinated, get vaccinated by the start of the new school year, and while it won't be popular, we'll be doing what's hard and what's right.   

What's hard and what's right is seldom popular. 

But this decision to force a re-opening is tripping and quitting with the finish line in sight. 

As a school system, county and state, we can get every adult vaccinated, and we can begin again provided we're willing to be patient.  We can even get all the parents of those kids vaccinated as part of the enrollment process for next year.  We just have to decide, everybody matters more than test scores and that we can't have good outcomes if students are at risk by coming to school. 

Let me state the reality.  I get that teaching virtually is hard hard hard hard hard.  I've done it this past year and it's hard.   Let me say, I want to return to the classroom because I want to be engaging my students.  I want to have my kids in school too.  However, I'm not willing to bet their future lives on an impulsive present.  I'm fine with redshirting everyone and going another year. We'll all emerge stronger, smarter and wiser, and alive.   At the end of the day, how many kids families are we betting on being impatient?  Because one is too many, and many more than one will be affected. 

Thank you for listening.  Be safe. Be smart, and let's finish this the right way. 

 

On Today's Metrics

I saw a picture from last December when we all dressed up for StarWars and went to the movies. I remember, we bought three big bottomless barrels of popcorn and huge sodas to share. We walked around the outside shopping mall in costume, enjoying the stares at all eleven of us. (One daughter was still in exams at school). It was a carefully crafted and yet carefree memory that seems much further away than 365 days. Everything about that evening is not possible now.

We've had nine hundred fifty-eight deaths since we started tracking Covid-19 cases in our county alone, even with the restrictions we've endured over the course of now nine months. Montgomery County, Maryland is stricter than most places, and still, the numbers keep going up, because people bustle, people shop, and people want to believe somehow, it's over.

Today, five hundred fourty-four people were diagnosed with Covid, and the beds in acute care and ICU for patients suffering from this disease are at 81 and 76% capacity respectively. These numbers are beyond what the county wanted to have for opening up, and yet somehow, that is the discussion in the arenas of policy making, in the halls of government.

Thinking it would be nice is not science or policy, it's wishing. Big picture, I would like to see my mom and siblings and their children and my husband's family. Little picture, I would like to be able to go impulsively into stores and shop, like tonight when we made soup, extra french bread would have been nice.

Having the liberty to do as one will would be nice, but the price would be more people who know someone in that ever growing total who died; more people who cope with someone who is permanently affected. It isn't worth the bread, and as a county, we don't have the beds. It is a nothing of a sacrifice, to tell one's self "no," and yet a necessary nothing.

It would be nice to have birthday parties, but I don't want to host funerals no one can attend. It would be nice to travel, but every trip leaves a wake we don't want to have lead to a wake. All of what we want would be nice, but a civil and just society requires that we surrender what we want and would like, for what will ensure as many of us can be, still are. The liberty to do as one wants still exists, but at the price of others. That's not a civil society, that's a nation of islands, of souls who do not mind as long as they do not pay the cost and do not presume they will pay the cost for doing what they want.

We would like to be able to be fully present to each other, before this alters how we cope with life permanently. My youngest daughter walks on the balls of her feet, and has so despite our best efforts for so long, she must wear casts to relearn how to walk properly, to reallign her hips and ensure she retains full range of motion. It is not a fun process but it is necessary. We are going to need casts of sorts to cast off the rigidity of this type of living if we must go on with this kind of living. We must remember, this is temporary, and what we don't want, is permanent scars from the process.

So hold on, hold onto today, and be kind to everyone because everyone is enduring this trauma, this long winter of discontent, and everyone longs for the freedom we all took for granted and ignored all our lives until this past year. Hold onto all the necessary nothings that take place in this sort of quarantine. I am reading to my children and recognizing all these days here, are stollen summers and snow days even with all the assignments and tasks and fatiguing zooms attached. This time won't last forever, and all this time now, will be remembered as a gift if we help shape the way these moments are spent with each other.

Things I've Never Mastered Despite 27 years of Motherhood

 Since 1993, I've been a mom.  There have been good and bad moments but what every mother knows from the moment they see those two lines or that plus or they just know, there's a reason you don't get a period.  It's that motherhood never ends.  You are forever their mom.  That means, when they smile at you because you brougth them a cup of hot chooclate, you get that gift, that smile that only Mom or Dad gets.  When they cry out because they're hurt, you're the one they mean by that name.  These are the realities of parenthood. It's permanent or meant to be, because it's how God teaches us how to love as God loves --we are all His children, and He never tires of loving us despite however messy or naughty we might be. 

What I've come to know is, I stink at homework, paperwork, cleaning and potty training.  I'm not too good at bedtime or demanding that people practice either.  They all know how to read early on, and they almost to a person, have some artistic itch they have to scratch, be it musical, mechanical, or digital.  We go through dry erase markers, colored pencils and reams of paper for almost everyone.  They also all know how to cook something...no one in our house would starve, because everyone can make something.  Some of it isn't very tasty --see Paul's horseradish and motzerella on a corn tortilla attempt at a pizza, but as he indicated, you can survive eating it.   He wouldn't let me throw it out.  

That's the real reality of all my children. We've been cleaning out drawers and donating, and they're slowly learning, it isn't abandoning childhood to not keep everything --but it's hard for them.  Harder than I expected.  They hold onto things the way I want to hold onto time --this time.  I love having all of them home, even if it is because of a pandemic.  This time is secret stolen sacred time, when we get to be a whole family for however long we get these days together.  

It's not easy, and it's not what people want --because they want to be about the busyness of life.  However, I see them here, eager like horses to break from the gate and I'm reminded of the poem I saw every day I attended Saint Mary's that I walked into Madeleva, Sister Madeleva's poem on the seal in the main enterance.  "Why do they hurry and worry so? Can they, will they or do they know? They will earn some love, they will learn some truth, but never earn, nor learn, to gain back youth."  and it's a lovely understanding of that fragile four years when a child puts away childish things, when you get formed as something of the adult you will become.  

I've never learned to stop hurrying or worrying, so this forced stillness demands at least one if not the other, and the other, I'm learning to surrender bit by bit, but God's having to pry my hands from the worry, one fingertip at a time. I think each finger represents a child of mine.  I love them fiercely, but haven't quite yet learned how to love them well --I think that takes now and forever, and I'm an impatient person on all fronts, even love.   Sister Madeleva could write those words, I have to learn to live them before they leave, before this sacred still secret time ends.  I have to store all these moments in my heart. I also have to know, that I can never turn back the pages --just like Lucy can't turn back the book to reread what she's left behind in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  

But I take great reassurance in the continuation of their stories, and in the promise that Aslan makes to Lucy, and so also God to all of us, that He will be telling us these stories we've forgotten and cannot revisit all of our lives into eternity, when the still sacred secret time never ends.   

I Miss Everyone

 Yesterday, I took my youngest four to a makeshift Drive-in Movie put on at our parish.  

They enjoyed it but what I discovered is, nine months of quarantine have made me jumpy.  Every time someone came by the car to see if we wnated to buy popcorn or just say, "Hi." because people do that, and it used to be ordinary, I'd feel anxious afterwards.   Not because I thought I'd get Covid-19, but because being isolated this long, warps the spirit, and I hadn't realized how warped my own had become. 

I do worry about Covid-19 though, because there is so much that needs doing in this family, for my husband and me.  We can wipe things down and limit our going out, but there's just the reality, it's a scary thing.  It sounds cowardly to be frightened of life, I've never been before and I don't want to be now.  Every cough makes everyone worry.  Every symptom other than fine, alarms.  We've become triggered to worry, to presume the worst, and to view everything as a potential threat.  I hate it.  It's wrong. 

I am tired of this damn quarantine.  I am tired of not seeing people's full faces. I am not advocating being dumb, but I am admitting, I am tired.   I need the more of Everyone.   I miss the more of everyone.  My mom, my brothers and sister, my inlaws, friends from across the country, all the ordinary contact that came within the course of a year, hasn't happened this year.   Busyness kept that from being too keen an ache most of the time, but when they'd come to visit, or we'd go there, I'd be reminded, this is more what should be happening.  

Now even those reminders are missing, and it is like food without salt, dull and missing what should be full of flavor.   Now even being busy doesn't prevent the missing --and I know that is a good thing.  I am grateful for all this stollen time with my husband and my adult children who otherwise would be off being busy themselves.   We wouldn't notice the time passing or the distance being created but it would be there.   So there are gifts with this time of trial, even here. 

It's just, I miss everyone. I'm wanting something of normal of being able to connect to return --and hoping with that return, we'll return to something better than what was normal; that we won't leave kind words unsaid, or put off lunches or visits or letters or phone calls; that we'll check in on each other willfully, because we love them, rather than just at holidays or when we're not busy.   I hope we'll learn, I'll learn, to not let things that shouldn't consume whole swaths of time, take over, that we as a whole, and I in particular, will cease being anxious about many things and choose the better portion with all time we've been alloted.  

I know this much, we'll be at the next Drive-in Movie offered, to remind myself not to forget. 

You Were Always to Be More

The other day, while researching a project, I stubbled upon an old article I’d written about my youngest son (who happens to have Down Syndrome) and the blow to support for kids like him when those in roles of leadership, reveal themselves to be injured, sinful, and corruptible creatures (like we all are).   I thought of the words, “you must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect), and realized the reason we need to be better, is not because God will love us if we are, but that the world can’t see God’s love if we don’t.   One of the comments confirmed this thought with the words, “You must do more.”  

My first reaction was shall we say, less than enthusiastic.  “Lord what now? What was that more? How could there be more to do?”  But the comment resonated deep.  It was a reminder to me, that nothing happens without God’s consent, without God’s permission, and that He sometimes puts things and people in front of us, to help us see what we must confront.  The comment felt like a commission.  I am a mom of a son with special needs. He turned twelve yesterday.  We’ve begun discussing with his teachers what happens next, when he no longer looks like a child, when he isn’t a child, when he needs to live somewhere other than with us.  I thought about how he will need friends other than his family to provide the stuff of life that makes life something beyond the ordinary, the routine and the mundane.  He will need us to start on this hard list of things to do now, if they are to be there for him in the future. Hard things to face in ordinary time, harder in these days.

 “You must do more.” What was the more? My brain rattled off what I saw as being needs in my other children as they grappled with the trials of adulthood.  He would need hobbies. He would need meaningful work. He would need income. He would need a network of support to get him to the doctor or the dentist, or haircuts and to weekly mass. He would need friends.  He would need all these things to be not imposed upon his life but grown into/grafted into it.  His family would be part of this but could not be all or only.

Why did he need all of this more?  Because Covid-19 revealed what happens when he gets the more of company, of peers, of daily interactions and meaningful work.  He’d learned to make his bed, wash the dishes and fold towels. During this time of Covid-19, my son learned how to ride a bike without training wheels, how to pull up Disney on the television for a quick Muppet break in between Zooms, to set and test a shower and take it on his own, and to make his own sandwich –ketchup and Oscar Meyer bologna on white bread, cut into triangles. (I wouldn’t advise it, but he eats every crumb). Part of why he learned all of this, was the gift of extra time having no place to go in particular allowed. Part of why he learned this, was his siblings expected more of him than his mother. His mom would make him breakfast. It was a form of love and service and habit with no ill will intended, but he needed to master more skills. Here was the more.  His older brothers and sisters would say, “Make it yourself, like us.” And didn’t stress if he poured cinnamon toast crunch more full than I would have as long as he finished it.

One of them even taught him how to scoop it with a measuring cup to have better portions. He learned to pour the milk too, even when it’s full. (Though some of us hold our breath when he does the same way I do when a teen practicing driving gets too close to a mailbox).   They wanted him to be twelve, to be like them, more independent. It would make him better than he was, more perfect by letting him do things imperfectly. 

 Every step toward his independence came for me with a list of worries…would he remember each time to do what he needed to do?  Free will and freedom, growing up is hard to do, and I suspect, harder on this grown up.  The more was as much about taking on, as it was about surrendering, dying to the self that gave love through service that now was no longer required so that new service could be given.

“You must do more.”  Seemed like a motto to embrace in this time when all our enjoyments, education, work and ordinary efforts take extra effort.  Willing to do the more requires we both will to do and do so willingly.  When we’re sent from the mass, whether we’ve watched it on television or been in person, we’re sent, commissioned to do this very thing, the more.  We aren’t merely to receive passively, but to respond actively in our hearts and allow Christ to transform our lives.  We will go from being men who fish to fishers of men. We will go from being water to being the better vintage of wine. We will go from five loaves and two fishes to twelve baskets left over after feeding five thousand.  I thought about all the ways in which we sometimes get used to things we should not. Covid-19 taught this through big and little ways.  We shouldn’t have become used to long hours and not having dinner together whenever possible.  We shouldn’t have traded in time in commutes where we served work rather than our families.   The time home also showed me other ways we shouldn’t have, which Paul’s siblings corrected via natural intervention. 

Trisomy 21 means the child has a little extra, a little more.  His needs mean we need to do the little extra, the more his siblings have done with and for him, helped him to do more with and without them.   He could do more.  I should do more.  We should do more. Why? Because it has always been God’s will for all of us, for each of us, to be more than we planned, and do become more perfect even as we go about the business of living this life imperfectly.

 

There Was a Lack, Just Not What We Thought.

 Having endured Zoom in the Spring when we did triage teaching, having a virtual classroom in the Fall is not significantly different.  Time grinds to a halt in terms of the give and take of lessons or conversation.  At the same time, when work is required, time superaccellerates and by the end of the day, no matter who you are, you feel aged.   

I view this time of long distance education as preparation for that day when we opt to leave this planet.  We will have to endure long spans of hours without variety, in which strenous exercise and getting out is not a serious reality.  I have learned if I wasn't already sure, that I will be staying here.  

Food therapy has limitations and we've met and exceeded them.   
No amount of mindfulness, stretches or fun videos substitutes for the sheer variety of going somewhere else.   

There is one possible bright spot from this now six month long haitus from actual reality lived out in the actual world...we may shed our addiction to screens because they bore us as never before. 

Every day, I'm picking up a book and reading, going outside and walking, and art and writing with a pen holds a greater alure than the keyboard.   The reality is, we want a reality we're not having, even when we're doing boring things like bills or errands.

We want the tangible part of life we've had removed.  What we're all keenly aware of, is the lack.   
Wearing a mask is necessary, but it's the visible reminder of the lack.   Social distancing is necessary, but it's the physical and social reminder of the lack.  

Driving to get a little something for my youngest son, he reminded me to put on the mask in the drive-thru. He also punched in the phone number when I gave him the digits one by one...and I realized, these sort of moments wouldn't happen outside of the Covid-19 restrictions.  For him, this time with all of his family has meant he learned to ride a bike, to check out groceries using the self checker and bag them, to use the computer to mute and to show video on Zoom, to play video games with his siblings like Brawl, how to take a shower all by himself, how to wash his hair.  He's learned how to work with his Dad in the garden, and how to set the the table or clear it, and load or unload the dishwasher.  He's learned to feed the turtles and how to get out the ingredients for grilled cheese or for scrambled eggs.  He's become fully potty trained, and he knows how to make a bed even if he doesn't always do it.   He can hang a coat on a hanger.  He can operate the television better than me.  He takes down the garbage and can bring out the recycling.  All these ordinary skills came from having spools of uninterrupted time, where we couldn't exchange the present for efficiency.  

Perhaps it wasn't the lack that was missing, but us from the present.  

The Next Four Months Through the Palantir.

Laughing at the universe when the universe seems dedicated to sucking all the joy out of life is a form of defiance, necessary if we want to do more than survive. I submit that the months of 2020 have engaged in a year long experiement of "Hold my Corona."

The following are by no means guaranteed outcomes of the coming four months, but these are our best guesses as to what is yet to come:

10) Technology allows dogs to talk to us, and we discover they're not quite as impressed with us as we thought.

9) The internet produces a strange merger of Baby Shark, Friday and the Nyah Nyah Pop tart cat that is both catchy and unstoppable, trending to the point of melting everyone's brains.

8) Fashion declares kulottes and puffy sleeves are in again. Everyone looks like balloon animals that lost some of their air.

7) Chocolate in all its forms is found to be unhealthy and banned. Likewise for beer, wine and bacon. Riots ensue.

6) The only music allowed by the algorhythms that dominate I Heart Radio are Rick Ashley and Bonnie Tyler, and so we're in a total ecplise of the heart which we are never gonna give up.

5) Netflix runs out of shows. So does every other streaming and cable network.

4) When Disney goes bankrupt and the House that Mickey Built turns out the lights, the films go into the vault and we never get to binge watch the 22 films of the Marvel Universe again...we're just stuck with the stupid Fox X-men series.

3) Food Network, in a desperate attempt to remain relevant when all restaurants are floundering, is 24-7 Restaurant Impossible, and hires Tom Cruise as a secondary co-host. People don't mind it, but the food, like Cruise's body of work, is so forgetable, people don't remember what they ate 24 hours later.

2) Facebook, Twitter and all social media, in an attempt to curb misinformation block everybody. It doesn't help.

1) The 24-7 Christmas radio program that normally starts in mid November, starts September 5th, if only because we can't be sure we'll make it to December. Finally, cats also respond to the technology and they think about us just what we always thought.

Who Was That Masked Person?

In this time of Covid-19, people have strong opinions about the validity of wearing masks.  Some argue against it as an impingement on our freedoms; so are safety belts, bicycle helmets, and having food workers wear gloves and pull their hair back --but I think the public as a general likes the idea of accidents we can walk away from, brains of our children inside their heads, and hair free food.  Policies are created to promote the greatest amount of good possible, and when we disagree about the how, that's where one's political affiliation comes into play.  Where it shouldn't apply, is in addressing reality.   So here's Sherry's Soap Box for July 20, 2020...I recommend emotional seatbelts and political helmets because it will be an unsafe ride otherwise.

1) A virus has no political affiliation and does not care about who it infects.  It merely travels easily on vapor from people's speech, coughs and sneezes, and can be transmitted by touch and as such, we need to give ourselves a protective circle to avoid coming into contact with others who might either be immunocomprimised or who might be asymptomatic.  None of this is arugable, it's the nature of the disease and why it has infected 3,773,260 people in the US and over 14.5 million world wide.  It's also why 140,534 people in the US have died.  Three million seven hundred seventy three throusand, two hundred and sixty people in the US being known to have been infected, is eleven percent of the population.   That's how many have endured the disease with the quarantine mostly in place! 

2) Masks help.  Now the government has tried not to be draconian in asking people to wear a mask or what type of mask, because any protection is better than none --but people are using that vagueness as proof that a mask itself is ineffectual by talking about fools who wear lace masks as if that's an argument against masks rather than an argument against foolishness.   They scream about their freedom --and at anyone who objects to being potentially infected because of their indifference.  Here's the thing.   Someone who refuses to wear a mask is probably not social distancing or limiting their range of motion, so the probability of their coming into contact with someone either infected without knowing it, or of infecting someone who is susceptible goes up.  If you want to not be asked (Asked) to wear a mask, stay home where you can boast of your immunity and indifference to the world all you want on the internet.   You can bet your own life if you wish, but not everyone else's. 

3) Wearing a mask is not a sign of living in fear, it's using the brains God gave us.  Wearing a coat in the winter is not living in fear of the cold, it's not wanting to be cold and doing something about it.   Masks are hot and bothersome (yes).   However, being sick is a lot hotter and permanently bothersome so --wear the mask.  Remind yourself of the reality we're trying to achieve for everyone, to keep people alive. 

4) The goal is as few people die as possible, and it will take everyone being creative and thoughtful to get there.   When will it be normal again?  I have no idea and no one else does either. 

There are already been many sacrifices and losses from this pandemic, graduations, proms, sporting events, wedding feasts, plays, awards, ceremonies, and the like.   I think of all funerals lacking the lots of people to provide comfort.   Even kids have surrendered classwork, class trips, movies, countless anticipated joys lost because we're all trying to beat this thing.  Everyone is suffering from what isn't, because of what is. 

These losses hurt, and they will continue to hurt, but they'll hurt more if they were surrendered for nothing because everyone got tired of sacrificing and started up just because and let the pandemic rage its course.   That's a Darwinian solution to a problem, "if they are to die, then let them die, and decrease the surplus population." It's not moral or ethical. 

5) Calling people sheeple or dupes from the media is childish and most of us don't allow our children to do it in the course of argument, so it should be tolerated by adults.  People who wear the mask are trying to do the right thing by each person they encounter. It doesn't make them saints, it makes them citizens trying to do the right thing in this circumstance. 

People who refuse the mask seem to think everyone who opts not to are somehow the enlightened unaffected by the media illuminati, wiser than everyone else by their independent streak and rebellious spirit.   The problem is, we are not fighting politics, we're fighting a disease, and your demand to be unimpeded in all your acts will affect others.  

Be a rebel in all the other ways, speaking your mind, writing your congressman, engaging in vigorous debate online, vote, do all those things that allow your voice and opinion to be heard. However, when you go out into the world, buckle up, wear a helmet, gloves and your hair back if you work in the food industry, and irrespective of all that, if you're going to a place indoors, where social distancing is not possible, wear a mask.   The life you save may be your own, but the rest of us, will thank you for your courtesy. 

I have a piece over at the Catholic Standard Today

I belong to a Facebook group called Game of the Day and this column came from the prompt given; what have you learned from this time of Covid-19? 

We All Play A Part

"Set before you are fire and water;
    to whatever you choose, stretch out your hand.
17 Before everyone are life and death,
    whichever they choose will be given them."

These words from Sirach 15:16-18 reflect the reality of today in so many ways.

With the reality of Covid-19, when we wear a mask or limit our social exposure, we are choosing life, not only for ourselves and our families, but for others.  When we opt to refuse or ignore the restrictions to satisfy our own impulses, interests and comforts, we choose death --for we risk the spread and continued cross contamination of our families and all the families of those we encounter, and all the people they encounter.  It's a very straight forward equation, and the mask is a sign of humility, like the crosses on our forheads on Ash Wednesday.

With the reality of racism, when we petition, when we speak up, when we educate ourselves and listen to the stories of those who have endured this rot in our society for far too long, we are again stretching out our hands to the living water. When we pay attention to our words so that they do not tear down another by either silence or speech, we are asking for life.  When we refuse to accept "what has always been" over what could be, it is seeking life for our brothers and sisters in Christ and ourselves. 

The reality is we keep being presented with opportunities to stretch out our hands, and sometimes, we don't even know it.   The reality is we keep forgetting, we are always the Body of Christ --and as such, we should know, we should only be reaching for the water, to put out the fires in other people's lives and our own. 

What can you do?  

1) Educate yourself --these days, it's pretty easy but start.  Don't use "I don't know," as an excuse, do the work. 
2) Write institutions you care about (colleges/schools, baseball teams, etc) and politicians.  Make your voice heard --you have a unique perspective and it counts. 
3) Be part of the solution --we don't have to solve all ourselves, solve some of it in front of you now.  The how of it is up to you.
4) Invite others to go deeper and deeper in...that's part of how we change the world too. 

5) Share your talents/platforms with others --we're all small potatoes...but we can still lift each other up.