What the groups lack, however, is the Earth Day organizers' ability to generate thousands of events that people actually attend — the kind of activity that creates pressure on legislators.
A black teenager like D'Leisha Dent, who is featured in the article, today no longer attends the kind of racially integrated high-quality school that her mother did — but a separate, struggling school serving the poorest part of the city.
And maybe then we could vanquish the worry that blooms darkly inside many of us when we visit a thronged landmark or attend the kind of richly symbolic event, like the Boston Marathon, whose violent disruption carries all the extra horror its disrupters intend.
This poor substitute for a well-rounded education, which includes subjects such as the arts, history, geography, civics, science and foreign language, hits low-income children the hardest, since they are the most likely to attend the kind of "failing school" that drills kids relentlessly on the basics.
A couple of weeks ago, there were hundreds of entrepreneurs and VCs attending the same kind of informal dinner.
They need to feel that the event they've been asked to attend, and indeed decide to attend, has the kind of credibility and the kind of integrity that burnishes their name and their image.
It must amuse Javid now, when he meets foreign finance ministers, to recall attending the same kind of meetings in his 20s.
For one thing, Trump is now actively working to fundraise for his campaign, attending the same kind of closed-door events with wealthy donors that he once criticized.
There is also an advantage to attending the right kind of meeting.
One evening, Drasner took Zuckerman to the Golden Gloves, an amateur boxing tournament sponsored by the News and attended by the kind of characters one is not likely to see dining in the Grill Room at the Four Seasons.
