With an almost two billion dollar state budget surplus, you’d think we could do great things for kids. But no — the Minnesota legislature proposes per-pupil school funding increases that are lower than inflation. Again. As it has done for 20 years. Continue reading
Shortchanging Minnesota schools — and kids
Filed under education
1,600 migrants drowned: Assigning blame
“En 2012, plus de 2000 migrants sont morts en Méditerranée”, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 2014 [Photo published under Creative Commons license]
Filed under immigration
Forensic FAIL at FBI — Where’s Bones when we need her?
#37053796 – Microscope © Les Cunliffe via Fotolia
The FBI screwed up big-time and long-time, according to all reports now surfacing. The Washington Post leads with:
“The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.”
Filed under human rights
Tax Day – Who pays, who plays
April 15 is tax day. I’m happy to pay taxes. I’m happy to have an income so that I can pay taxes — and buy food and clothing and books and wi-fi. I’m happy to pay my share for schools and roads and social services. I am not complaining one bit about tax day.
Plenty of other people have complaints. Continue reading
Filed under news
Immigration News — A movie, a guide, and more
From documentary, Llévate mis amores
All of Me / Llévate mis amores, a documentary about Las Patronas, is showing at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival on Sunday, April 12 and Wednesday, April 15. Every day since 1995, a group of women stand at the tracks near the Mexican town of La Patrona waiting for La Bestia — the train used by thousands of migrants from Central America and Mexico to get to the U.S. border. The women toss water and homemade food to the weary travelers. You can see a trailer and get details here.
This is the April 8 issue of my more-or-less-monthly Immigration News. Click here to subscribe.
Living in the United States: A guide for immigrant youth is a great resource, published by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco. The 42-page guide is published as a downloadable pdf file. Continue reading
Filed under immigration
Soup, good behavior, and fruit picking: Three good news stories for Monday
Photo by Stu Spivack, published under Creative Commons license.
“A chef who once spent a year living under the Franklin Avenue bridge and a hard-charging minister” star in the Star Tribune’s good news story from Minneapolis today. They run the Soup for You Café at Bethany Lutheran Church, serving homemade soups with fresh, healthy ingredients to anyone who walks through the door. Church people volunteer. People who come for the delicious soup pay “whatever they feel is a fair price — or whatever they are able to.” Continue reading
Filed under food and farming, immigration
April 4: The struggle continues
King speaking to an anti-war rally on University of Minnesota campus in 1967. This file was posted to Flickr by the Minnesota Historical Society and is licensed under Creative Commons.
“April 4,” the young lady at the gym said as I signed my name to a form and stopped to think of the date. April 4, which will always mean just one day to me, that day 47 years ago when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. I still remember the tears that would not stop and still feel the impact of his life and his death.
I was seventeen years old, finishing my first year at the University of Chicago, full of the excitement of the university and the city and the tension between being a student on the south side and learning community organizing on the north side, praying Sunday mornings at St. Dominic’s Catholic masses in Cabrini Green and Saturday mornings at soulful, prayerful, songful Operation Breadbasket meetings at Chicago Theological Seminary. Continue reading
Filed under human rights
Friday catch-up: Explosive trains, polluted wells, sign rebellion
Hat tip to Alan Muller for linking to a scary train story: The Omaha World-Herald reports that the Union Pacific Railroad has applied for a permit to haul liquefied natural gas (LNG), which would make it the first railroad to haul this highly combustible product. The proceedings before the Federal Railroad Administration are still secret, but somebody leaked the news. While Union Pacific is headquartered in Omaha, its 435 miles of Minnesota track run through the Twin Cities, as well as Worthington, Albert Lea, Northfield and other southern Minnesota cities. Continue reading
Filed under environment
Out of control: Prison populations in U.S. and Minnesota
Since 1979, the U.S. prison system has ballooned out of control. We now have the highest rate of incarceration in the world — 716 for every 100,000 residents. Minnesota has followed the trend. Our prison population went from less than 2,500 in 1978 to 10,000 in 2011, according to the Prison Policy Initiative’s analysis of Bureau of Justice statistics. That’s a change from about 50 people per 100,000 to almost 200 per 100,000 — much lower than the national rate, but still higher than the rates of all European countries except Russia and Azerbaijan. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, prisons
Ice out — watch the water
The ice is out across Minnesota, and rivers run higher with snowmelt. Temps are rising, green life poking up out of the dirt, and I saw a bright yellow crocus today. But beneath the softening soil, and beneath the surface of Minnesota’s lakes and rivers, all is not well. Continue reading
Filed under environment
Mary Turck
