June 5, 2016 · 8:45 am

Changing the world for good: Minnesota’s Advocates for Human Rights

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As bad as every day’s news looks, Christof Heyns says, the world is actually getting less violent. He should know. Serving as the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions since 2010, Heyns has spent years looking at the worst of what the world has to offer. But, he says, over four centuries, the percentage of people dying because of violence has declined. “Our standards and awareness are increasing,” he said, but the world is getting less violent.

Heyns spoke at the annual awards dinner of the Advocates for Human Rights on June 1. The work of The Advocates is part of the reason that the world is getting less violent. Continue reading →

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May 31, 2016 · 7:00 pm

Whispers and shadows and Mental Health First Aid

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Chirlane McCray, first lady of New York City, said her parents’ depression was “talked about in whispers and shadows.” Now she’s talking out loud about mental health, trying to bring it out of the shadows. Hiding or ignoring mental health issues hurts all of us. Everyone has a family member, friend, or co-worker who is affected. One in four people in this country suffers from some mental illness or addiction each year. Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, taking at least 41,149 lives in 2013. Minnesota’s suicide rate has risen sharply since 2014. Continue reading →

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May 30, 2016 · 4:57 am

Dr. Edwige Mubonzi: Taking a stand for women and girls

Dr Edwidge Mbonzi

Dr. Edwige Mubonzi. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Mubonzi.

Death threats drove Dr. Edwige Mubonzi from her home and work in the Democratic Republic of Congo about two and a half years ago. Her work – surgically repairing the physical damage of rapes – brought the death threats. Rape as a weapon of war, in the ongoing struggle for control of the country’s rich mineral resources, has made DR Congo the rape capital of the world. Continue reading →

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May 29, 2016 · 3:12 pm

No way out: For poor defendants, fines and fees are forever

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“Poor people convicted today face fiscal servitude to the court,” writes sociologist Alexes Harris in A Pound of Flesh, an important and highly readable book about the U.S. criminal justice system that will be published in June. Her research reveals how a complex system of fees and fines creates “a two-tiered system of punishment: one for those with financial means and one for those who are poor.” Legal financial obligations (LFOs) imposed in criminal cases include fines and restitution, but also fees for everything from court libraries and trial by jury to room and board while imprisoned. Besides the original amounts, interest on unpaid LFOs keeps piling up, sometimes along with annual collection fees on the unpaid balance. Continue reading →

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May 23, 2016 · 4:42 pm

Quack grass, thistles and the Minnesota legislature

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Photo by Miheco, published under Creative Commons license.

 

As I dug out weeds in the garden this morning, my thoughts turned to the just-ending legislative session. A bold, bright-eyed robin supervises as I dig out thistles and quack grass, pull creeping Charlie, and leave the milkweed for the butterflies.

Weeding is not my favorite part of gardening, but it’s essential. If I don’t keep at it, the thistles and quack grass will take over and choke out everything else. Still, pulling weeds is pointless, unless you also plant. Continue reading →

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May 17, 2016 · 6:19 pm

What is education for?

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Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Education, published under Creative Commons license.

 

Is preparing students for minimum wage labor the goal of public education? That’s what New York State argued in Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) v. State of New York. The case dragged on from 1993 to 2006, with the New York appellate court eventually ruling that students deserve more than minimum education for minimum wage jobs. Last week, the Boston Review published a forum on the purpose of education, beginning with this case. While it doesn’t focus on the nuts-and-bolts arguments so often raised in debates over testing, educational equity and “reform,” the forum illuminates those issues as well.  Continue reading →

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May 15, 2016 · 8:54 am

God help the refugees. God help us all.

Dadaab Oxfam

2012: Fatuma Sankos arrived in Dadaab two months ago with her two small sons – Abass Hassan and Mohamed Hassan. She lives in a tiny shelter made from sticks, cardboard and plastic bags. She has not yet been formally registered in the camp so is not able to get food rations and depends on other refugees for food, and aid agencies for water. Photo: Jo Harrison/Oxfam, published under Creative Commons license

Kenya announced last week that it will close all of its refugee camps, forcing more than 600,000 refugees to return to the violence they fled in their home countries of Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and other nearby countries. That’s terrible, but the United States is in no position to criticize Kenya. In secret memos uncovered last week, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ordered a 30-day “surge” of arrests of immigrant mothers and children to return them to the violence they fled in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Continue reading →

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May 10, 2016 · 2:21 pm

Stop feeding the kids

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Photo by USDA, published under Creative Commons License. (20111025-FNS-RBN-School Lunch)

Six years ago Congress did something right. They said that high-poverty schools could skip the individual child-by-child means testing and just feed all the kids free breakfast and lunch. That saved hundreds of thousands of dollars previously spent on processing eligibility forms, as well as thousands of hours of teacher and parent time. More importantly, when everybody can eat for free, nobody has to feel singled out as “that poor kid getting a free lunch.” Free, in-school breakfasts increase the number of kids starting the day ready to learn. Now that the program is succeeding, Republicans in Congress want to roll it back.

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May 7, 2016 · 9:28 pm

Let’s jail the children and call it child care

Photo of Karnes detention facility

Photo of Karnes detention facility by Jeff Pearcy, published under Creative Commons license.

 

Texas, leading the nation as always, granted a child care license to a jail on April 29. It’s a special, private jail, an immigration detention center in Karnes City run by the private, for-profit GEO Group. The Texas license comes in response to a federal judge’s order that migrant children must be released from detention centers because it’s against the law to hold kids in unlicensed facilities. (A few days after the license was issues, a Texas judge blocked, at least temporarily, a second license for another immigration jail and set a hearing on the licenses for May 13.) Continue reading →

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May 2, 2016 · 2:51 pm

Money, grit and Galtier: School news round-up

school busI devour school news — probably far more of it than is good for my mental health. Several recent stories seem especially worth noting:

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