The day before the inauguration is the Martin Luther King holiday, and the president-elect wants it to be devoted to service. But Barack Obama knows that one Monday of good deeds—even if it becomes an annual tradition when people help each other rather than sit home watching TV—isn't enough. Throughout the campaign, he talked about something much bigger—a new era of civic engagement, with a quarter-million young people helping pay for their education by serving their country at home and abroad.

There is nothing more terrifying to corporate America than the prospect of dealing with its workforce on an even playing field, and, along with allies on the Right, it's pulling out all the stops to keep that from happening.

It was below zero degrees Fahrenheit on the night of Dec. 2, 2002, when sisters and young indigenous mothers Chrissy and Bonnie Swain from the Grassy Narrows First Nation drove from their reserve, located in the southern fringe of the vast Boreal Forest in northern Ontario, to the logging road just a few miles from their home.

The people of Felton, California learned that they had successfully wrested control of their water from the clutches of a giant corporation on Friday, May 30, 2008.