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Rebels With a Cause
By Amanda Ripley

Changing the world has never been a job for the conventional or easily discouraged. But the problems of our time demand an especially crafty and determined breed of activist, because our enemies refuse to dress the part. Math illiteracy plagues black kids without wearing a hood or burning a cross. Urban sprawl doesn't need a gun to rob a community's quality of life. And hunger can hide beneath a designer T-shirt.

Recognizing that, civic activists are finding new ways to take on old problems — and new ways to take on new ones. They are battling problems that have no simple cause or solution, injustices that groan under the weight of words like systemic and insidious. Government's shrinking role means activists take over services once performed by bureaucrats: a cross-country cyclist becomes a consultant who eases traffic jams; a former civil rights activist flies to Mississippi each week to teach math in a way that lets students actually learn it. At the same

 


Which of the following breakthroughs do you think will come first?
The ability to clone humans
A cure for cancer
Extending the average life past 100
Other
Do you know the next Einstein? Is your neighbor working on the next great health breakthrough? If so, e-mail us the name of your nominee, explaining in 50 words or less why we should choose him or her.

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