From today’s lens, it was a miracle that a former senator from Texas (a southern state) was able to move legislation to bring about the Civil Rights Act and Medicare. But the miracle had to have public pressure from below to make the rafters of Congress shake and make progress. Fe Bongolan checks the pressure of both parties.

Sometimes you need a formidable ‘enemy’ to make you stronger in your pursuit of justice. In Fe Bongolan’s view, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has been exactly that for progressives.

On the cusp of her 61st solar return, Fe Bongolan considers the cusp in the American presidential race that is the Iowa caucus — and the greater cusp in American politics that it represents.

Fe Bongolan rang in the New Year with Patti Smith in concert at the Fillmore. The body of Smith’s 40-year body work loomed large, revealing a woman standing on her own, expressing a passionate individuality. Add in the context of when her music hit the scene, and Fe discovers a mandate of empowerment that is as true for 2016 as it was in the ’70s.

Fe Bongolan is with family for the holidays — recharging, grounding, loving and cooking. She looks at her life-in-progress and its telltale markers, and writes, “Approaching the year’s end, you can’t do anything but think about time. How far we’ve come. What has been. Time, for me especially, continues to be observed and measured in children — actual and creative.”

The “elephants” at the Paris climate summit need to watch where they step — and to step quickly — while the rest of us rise up and get in their faces. Fe Bongolan notes that we are well past the point of undoing what has begun regarding global warming, and nothing short of immediate, significant steps will do; that French President Hollande has banned protests sends a clear signal, but what exactly is it saying?

Fe Bongolan counters Donald Trump’s cynical, xenophobic assertion that “We need a big and beautiful wall” (to keep out Syrian refugees) the best way she knows how: by coming together with people of various backgrounds to create beautiful, passionate, multi-cultural music together. You can choose not to play the fear game.

Fe Bongolan collects her thoughts on this weekend’s attacks by ISIS in Paris and Beirut, Lebanon — and invokes an old Native American parable beseeching us to choose carefully which wolf we choose to feed within ourselves in the coming days, weeks and months.