Most of us have complaints about our kid's school menus. Let's see how ugly it is and how good the exceptions are. For the bad, tell us what needs to change and post an image of the menu. For the good, how did the change come about? What did the school do to make this possible and what can we other parents learn from the experience to send to OUR schools. I want to gather a list of the stories, create one huge post and then send a link to what works to my kid's school. You can send a link to your kid's school. Just let them know you want better options and you know it is possible.

Send it to parents in your school district. Use it as a talking point. Whatever.

Here's how:

1. Post an image or text of the current menu along with why/how it is good or bad.

2. Go to this post.

3. Leave me a comment with the link and I will gather all the links into one big post in a month from now. We can all see what shows up. Hopefully some good lessons.

Much of what I've read lately has been negative.  Politics, war, civil liberties under fire.  My Daily List of All Things Depressing has become a scroll, a la Jack Kerouac.  But, fear not, love and compassion are alive and well.

A few days ago I posted Activism Home Grown, about living with a Vietnamese family when I was a teen. The comments indicated that many of us would like to do more to engender an outward focus in our children, but the complexity of daily life does not lend itself easily to this pursuit.  

Cross-posted at Not My Tribe.

My siblings and I frequently talk about our "activist" upbringing. We grew up with parents who walked their talk. Our mom hung out with the radical nuns protesting around Rocky Flats. And I can’t remember a single Thanksgiving where we didn’t have a couple of homeless men sitting at our dinner table. Our parents introduced them by name and we were expected to be gracious and make interesting conversation.

Then there was Robin, a retarded young man who was obsessed with a pair of moccasins that we had in our front closet. My mom made a rule that the front door be always open so that Robin could come in for his moccasins whenever he wanted to. As a mother, I question the wisdom of this now but, at the time, we just accepted that at any time Robin might walk in and open our front closet. It wasn’t anything we worried about. Just another one of mom's people.

Our experiment with a Social Justice and Activism Thread has come to an end, MTs. A sincere thank you to all who participated. A number of us started and finished some pet projects. These projects were mainly around consumption - either buying (and hopefully even wanting) less or making new efforts to buy environmentally friendly products and/or products from companies whose politics we can support. Our efforts were supported by MTs who chimed in with ideas and resources to learn more.

Some of us expressed interest in developing a volunteer project. For me, this proved to be more difficult to pull off. I am still working on it. A friend has suggested that we do something together, and I like this approach. We will be considering a number of ideas, including my idea on how to support single moms who are stationed in Iraq. My latest google search on this narrowed the field a bit, and I'm ready to take next steps.

One of the things I love about MT is that we are a community who tends to make daily choices and just live our lives in a way I believe promotes social justice or social change in some small - and even large - ways. Carry on ladies (and gents), and please do keep us posted.