I’m writing a very personal post, which as usual means I’m half-blocked and writing very slowly. Can’t be helped, this is my only process.

So while that goes on, let’s celebrate Jane Fonda, who at the age of 84, after five arrests and recent treatment for cancer, once again leads the Fire Drill protests that began years ago, before Covid. (gift link should get you past the firewall). Their goal is to increase awareness of the continual dangers of climate change, and to pressure Congress to take action now.

Fonda retakes the Hill: ‘Cancer is scary, but the climate crisis is scarier’

After years away from Washington, the actress is reviving her Fire Drill Fridays rally — and occasionally still talking movies

…The actress and activist, who will turn 85 in a few weeks, arrives at an upscale Washington hotel looking chic in a snappy charcoal blazer, a gray newsboy’s cap and an array of tasteful gold jewelry pieces. She’s just come from Capitol Hill, where she’s been lobbying Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). But her main reason for returning to Washington is to revive Fire Drill Fridays, the weekly grass-roots political action she began in 2019 to draw attention to climate change….

She has mostly sailed through her chemotherapy treatments, although she admits the last one was hard. “It took a couple of weeks to recover,” she says. But she literally laughs off a disease that she insists won’t stop her from doing what she cares about most. “Cancer is scary, but the climate crisis is scarier,” she says flatly.

Fonda recalls co-founding Fire Drill Fridays with Greenpeace three years ago. “Our goal was to reach the 70 percent of the population who were concerned about the climate but had never taken action,” she explains, “and move them from being alone and concerned to together and active.”

Thousands of people turned up for Fonda’s in-person weekly demonstrations…

May we all continue to stand up for the things that must be done to insure that humanity and the planet we rely on remain alive and well.