Today is a day to celebrate love in our lives.

And here at ACLU-MA, we know that justice is a labor of love. Here are some of our favorite moments of love and justice in the last year, to brighten your #ValentinesDay.

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How to become a SUCCESSFUL academic: a guide 1/n

How do I know how to become a successful academic? I don't, but I have received plenty of advice. As a good academic, I will just summarize what I have learned from listening

1) Be the ultimate collaborator but also don't be

Say yes to as many collaborations as physically possible: co-produce papers, LEARN, co-write grants, DISCUSS, it is all about synergy. But also, collaborations slow you down, have your own ideas! Just say no to collaborations

2) Be the methods ninja but also don't be

Science is only as good as its weakest link: don't be satisfied by applying the default analyses in the field. But also, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good and don't confuse reviewers. Just apply the default analyses in the field

3) Be the superstar teacher but also don't be

Professor means teacher, it is LITERALLY in the name. Being a good professor means being a superstar teacher. But also, focus on the science and minimize the hours of teaching, don't try to become a superstar teacher

1) I was 30 years old. And in what many would consider a dream job. But I was pretty miserable. Because I knew I was letting my real dream--to become a screenwriter/filmmaker--die.

2) Sitting in my office one night, it hit me, if I did let the dream die, I would become toxic, because that's what death does, and that toxicity would ooze out of me, onto those I loved.

3)In that instant, I decided to make a shift, to find a way to finally, after years of denying it, do the thing. Try, at least. So I went to my best friend, @DavidLevien, who was already writing, and asked him for help.

4) David gave me The Artist's Way and said that when we had the right idea, he and I would write a screenplay together.

5) Soon thereafter, I had to good luck of walking into an illegal poker club in NYC, called David in the middle of the night, and we decided to write the thing.

I used to work 14+ hour days and have a 'no days off' mentality. This year I cut that shit off and focused on building a career and life of quality. The results are higher income, more time to enjoy life, schedule on my terms + stronger relationships. Fuck your "hustle."

The reality is 99% of people's "hustle" is just them hustling themselves. Hustling yourself out of life and into a worker cog. The exact opposite of what you want to become when you're an entrepreneur. You're becoming the same system you sought to destroy.

To build a successful business it takes way more than just plain old hard work. I am a huge believer in American grit, not American hustle. You need hard work, but if that is all you can bring to the table, you have no place running a business.

People work hard because they believe in what they're doing or they feel they have to make it happen. I get that. We have families and people counting on us. But you are failing them all when you live in your office.

We are privileged in even being able to run a business. If you are lucky enough to do that, you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and the people counting on you to do it the right way. Be healthy. Sleep. Live your life. Be more than your career. 🖤

Multiple friends have been reaching out lately, asking some version of "how did people get radicalized to such an extent?" and, more importantly, "why not us? why was I immune." As someone who's extremism in person, pretty much my whole life, here are some thoughts:

These are EXACTLY the questions we should all be asking ourselves right now. Studies have shown that no 'type' of person is immune to radicalization or falling prey to cults or cult-think. There's no such thing as being "too smart" for that.

So, for starters, many of us were just in the right place and the right time, and didn't get radicalized. That is an important realization. It's important because as we begin to try to de-radicalize our friends, family and "good people" who fell prey to white supremacist thought

We need to start with compassion, or they will just shut down. Understanding deeply that it can happen to anyone is a big part of that. Now let's talk those who were primed for it, more likely to fall into conspiracy thinking and the Q cult.

In this case, those white people who see the movement towards equality for everyone as white people losing (which is true in a way, we have to give back much of the privilege we obtained from those who took it by force or manipulation) were much more susceptible to the rhetoric.

Just because.

Here's an interesting story about a man you've almost certainly heard of, think you know stuff about, but probably weren't taught any of the good, funny, ludicrous stuff that makes it really interesting.

It's long. You might hate it. I'll take that chance...

In 1588, Spain launched a huge fleet with the aim of overthrowing Elizabeth I and conquering England (sorry Britain, I'm taking about the "it's still just England" era).

At least in part, they did this to stop our pirates from being such a monumental pain in their arse...

As the 130 Spanish ships approached our coast, the English packed our most ancient and decrepit boats with junk, set them on fire, and shoved them into the Spanish lines.

The Armada scattered, and the weather took care of the rest, driving them towards the Dutch coast...

Thus, the great military achievement of the Elizabethan era was settled by a combination of a typical English summer, and an aquatic bin fire.

But somebody had to come out of it a hero, and that somebody was Sir Francis Drake...

The things you know about Drake are practically all false: he didn’t finish his game of bowls before being bothered to defeat the Spanish – that story didn’t appear until some 40 years after the events, and bad weather kept in in Plymouth: not fannying around with ball games...