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G&J President Jane Leonard on the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol
Dear Readers: I was going to write a reflection this week on 2020 and all we had accomplished but was so horrified by the scene at the U.S. Capitol yesterday that I am stopped in my tracks. Trumpist thugs, domestic terrorists, however you define them, defiled the symbol of our democracy at the behest of their supreme leader. They delayed the certification of Electoral College results. They climbed the scaffolding & balconies set for the Biden... Read More
Posted in:
Government -
We Are All Criminals: A reflective story via a visit with criminal justice reformer Emily Baxter
“One in four people has a criminal record; four in four have a criminal history” – header on the We Are All Criminals website What illegal acts have you gotten away with? What bad decisions have you had the luxury to forget? These are the type of difficult questions Emily Baxter has been asking people for years. And not just regular people, but those who hold positions of power in our world: legislators, policy makers,... Read More
Posted in:
Social Justice -
Where’s Our Train?
Steve Martin and John Candy made us all laugh in their 1987 comedy classic “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” an epic tale of transportation frustration, some heroic and hilarious improvising between modes, and eventually succeeding. What is not funny and remains a classic and growing problem for thousands of Minnesotans every day is getting back-and-forth from Points A in St. Cloud and Central Minnesota to Points B in the Twin Citi... Read More
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An Oliver Twist Story in Minnesota: In Rural & Urban Food Deserts Malnourished Children Can’t Learn
Imagine a nine-year-old boy we’ll call Oliver Anderson – the same age and first name as the plucky urchin immortalized in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist -- growing up desperately poor in a small farm town in rural northwestern Minnesota. Oliver’s single mom scrapes by on low-wage part-time jobs in town, and sometimes finds seasonal work, but she subsists on an annual income near the official poverty level. Sur... Read More
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Hidden Punishments
To Improve Workforce and Serve Equity, Minnesota Must Reform "Collateral Consequences of Conviction" You have served your time. You paid your debt. You think you are free. You want to get a job, a student loan, a license, a place to live, but you cannot. You are not free; you are trapped by your past, just as the heroic Jean Valjean was in Les Misérables. Your past conviction for a felony, and sometimes for a g... Read More
