Extra Credit

Gore Power to Ya

By The Nation

From the fine environmental mag, Grist: In a live webcast last night, Al Gore implored young Americans to get out the vote and demand action on the climate crisis and energy independence. Get the rundown, and watch for yourself.
--Peter Rothbertg

Read More »

October 30, 2008

Video Your Vote

By The Nation

Two weeks from today, the longest, most historic, and, perhaps, most critical presidential campaign in recent US history, will finally (we hope!) come to a conclusion as a record number of voters set out for the polls to cast their ballots.

As a means of spotlighting what happens on election day through the eyes of voters, YouTube and PBS have teamed up to co-sponsor Video Your Vote, a project designed to shed light on voting in America and show democracy in action in its full, imperfect majesty. The idea is to chronicle the excitement and energy at the polls, as well as any problems that may arise -- long lines or broken voting machines, for example -- that present obstacles to citizens trying to vote.

Here's Judy Woodruff of PBS's News Hour detailing the project on a recent episode.

Read More »

October 21, 2008

Students for Social Justice

By The Nation

The Students at Social Justice High School called for an end to the testing craze on Monday, October 6.

Seniors at Social Justice High School in Chicago demanded a moratorium on high stakes tests because they diminish the quality of instruction, lower self-esteem, and place unnecessary restrictions on future opportunities: "Don't forget to mention the fact that these tests are biased against low income black and brown students," says Senior Jazmin Johnson.

Students are against these tests because they do not predict college performance or success, yet are used as a gate to allow or keep students out. Senior Viviana Ruiz says, "These tests are unfair measures of success, and the reason I will do well in college has nothing to do with the ACT."

Read More »

October 9, 2008

Activist Scholars Stand Up

By The Nation

The ACLU is generously offering 16 of the nation's most committed, young civil liberties activists $12,500 each toward their first year in college. The winners will become part of a special class of scholar-activists who will be invited to participate in ongoing activities with the ACLU, including activist trainings, strategy sessions and public events. Since 2000, the venerable civil liberties organization has awarded scholarships annually to honor and recognize the efforts of graduating student activists.

To qualify, you must be a high school senior planning on entering an accredited college or university as a full-time, degree-seeking student with at least a 3.0 GPA who has demonstrated a profound commitment to civil liberties through some form of social, political or artistic activism.

If you're interested or know someone who may be a good candidate, please have them contact their local ACLU affiliate and ask for the Youth Scholarship Coordinator. This person will detail the application process, help you assess the strength of your candidacy and then send you scholarship application forms. The deadline for applying is December 5, 2008.

Read More »

October 7, 2008

Learn, Baby, Learn

By The Nation

From the great environmental mag Grist's daily newsletter

"How green is your college or alma mater? Check out the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, which grades 300 US and Canadian schools on their green practices. The colleges are evaluated in areas including climate and energy, food and recycling, green building, student involvement, and transportation. Many pass those categories with flying colors, but in areas like shareholder engagement and endowment transparency, about half or more of schools are still getting failing grades, says Mark Orlowski of the Sustainable Endowments Institute, which issues the report card. Nonetheless, 75 percent of the schools scored an overall B or C, and two-thirds received a higher grade than they did last year. Fifteen received an A or A- and were thus declared College Sustainability Leaders: Brown, Carleton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Dickinson, Harvard, Middlebury, Oberlin, Stanford, and the Universities of British Columbia (pictured), Colorado, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington."
--Peter Rothberg

Read More »

September 25, 2008

Green Ivy

By The Nation

From the great online mag, Grist:

"Harvard has made major strides to green itself in recent years, from boosting recycling to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to earning eco-certification for a record number of buildings. But you don't have to attend a college with an Everest-sized endowment to learn from Harvard's successes. Leith Sharp, who led the Harvard Green Campus Initiative for nine years, offers up environmental organizing tips for students everywhere. You might also learn a thing or two from Karoline Evin McMullen; though she's only been at Yale a couple of weeks, she's already got years of eco-activist experience under her belt."
--Peter Rothberg

Read More »

September 17, 2008

Got Tuition

By The Nation

The National Education Association has partnered with Huffington Post to sponsor an online video contest. If you're a student facing debt, struggling with it or you know someone else who's gone into hock over tuition, your video dramatizing this situation could win $5,000 and cyberspace notoriety. It may even attract the sympathy of legislators who can do something to prevent future generations from drowning in debt. For more information about the contest, go here. --Habiba Alcindor

Read More »

September 15, 2008

Energy for a New Millennium

By The Nation

Taking advantage of the fact that 18 to 31 year-old "Millennial Voters" comprise 25 percent of the electorate, Power Vote is harnessing this people power to put clean energy on the agenda for the 2008 elections.

Not surprisingly, polling shows that young voters express more interest than any other demographic in reversing global warming and minimizing America's dependence on coal and petroleum-based energy.

Power Vote intends to mobilize one million young voters to demand green jobs, more stringent environmental standards and an end to the practice of basing energy policies on the demands of corporate lobbyists.

Read More »

September 10, 2008

Whither Capital Punishment

By The Nation

In 2007, the Supreme Court accepted a case from a Kentucky inmate challenging the constitutionality of lethal injections. This created a national moratorium on executions that lasted for more than seven months. Now, after the longest death penalty moratorium in 25 years, executions have resumed in the U.S. Georgia executed the first inmate, and Texas followed, executing eight more people. The next execution in Texas is scheduled for Sept. 9. Litigation that caused the moratorium did not question the death penalty itself but rather the manner in which it is carried out. This forest-for-the-trees approach, however, avoids a fundamental question: What did we learn during the seven-month-plus postponement? And how should what we learned influence us as we go forward?

Arizona Judge Rudolph Gerber, who came to oppose the death penalty after serving on the state's appeals court, recently noted that the moratorium has had several ripple effects. "Around the country, no judges are staying up late awaiting the final appeals from the condemned," he wrote in an op-ed for The Sacramento Bee. "Governors and justices of the Supreme Court are not worrying that the person about to be executed may be the exceptional one who is innocent. Prison guards, family members of victims and of death row inmates, and even the media are relieved of the tension and uncertainty that each pending execution brings."

"But much of the death penalty system remains unaffected by this hold on executions," Gerber continued. "Prosecutions, trials, appeals and the rituals of death row continue to absorb an enormous share of the judicial system's time and resources. Justices from some of the states' highest courts have complained about the extraordinary strain this one issue places on the bench. In many states, there are not enough qualified lawyers willing to handle the appeals."

Read More »

September 9, 2008

Powervote

By The Nation

Whichever party takes control of the White House and Congress in November, citizens who seek a more just, fair and peaceful world will need to challenge an inside-the-beltway establishment consensus that puts profits over people.

That means building sufficient grassroots pressure to force government to legislate in ways that the corporate sector spends lots of money trying to avoid. On the environmental front, pressure is slowly building with many young people in particular investing an increasing amount of time and energy in finding alternatives to the fossil fuel-based economy that is rendering the planet less and less habitable. In fact, as my friend Ben Adler reports in Politico, even after expanding summer lobbying and intern programs, Greenpeace and other environmental groups say hundreds of applicants from students for environmental advocacy programs are being turned away.

That's where Power Vote comes in. A new national non-partisan effort spearheaded by the Energy Action Coalition, PV is trying to tap this groundswell of support for a greener economy by bringing millions of young voters together in demanding political leadership that will develop solutions like efficiency, wind and solar power and sustainable transportation. The group's platform is a concise and sensible primer for the fundamental break we need to make from our dependence on highly-polluting fossil fuels.

Read More »

September 8, 2008