2018
May
21
Monday

Monitor Daily Podcast

May 21, 2018
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Clayton Collins
Director of Editorial Innovation

What can prompt a desire to ditch an unsatisfactory status quo?

Another “enough” moment on gun violence arrived at a Texas high school late last week. For some it seemed like a moment to lean on the early and hard-won maturity of a generation that has been deeply affected of late (if not as deeply as at times in the past). It’s a generation that’s becoming known not only for activism but also for tolerance of differences, a form of love.

An African-American preacher spoke with conviction at last weekend's British royal wedding about the redemptive power of love, offering assurance of its omnipresence – and that “when we discover [it] we will be able to make of this old world a new world.”

Redemption can be about many things, including clearing debt. A report saying that, despite all sorts of upward-pointing economic signs, more than 50 million US households – 43 percent of households – don’t pull in enough income to cover basic necessities may spark a critical look at how our expectations may have driven us into silos. One possible path out of those: consideration of different forms of intentional community, partnering with others who share values, even around areas like housing.

Laura Rozza, who helped create such a sharing arrangement a decade ago, spoke to Yes! Magazine about her motivation. “It was the idea,” she said, “of sort of creating a new world we want to live in.”

Now to our five stories for today, highlighting compassion in the opioid fight, ingenuity in countering an effect of climate change, and the cultural broadening of a popular literary genre. 


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

In calling for the investigation of his investigators, President Trump appears to have embraced the adage that the best defense is a good offense. How good an offense? Legal experts are weighing in.

Shifts in the worker-employer compact bear watching. Some employers have faced allegations of widespread workplace discrimination or of cheating workers on their pay. Yet increasingly, workers are asked to waive any right to class-action lawsuits in order to be hired. This piece looks at what today’s Supreme Court decision favoring such employer policies may mean.

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor
Paramedic Larrecsa Cox heads a new Quick Recovery Team in Huntington, W.Va., that visits residents within 72 hours of an overdose. Here, she is driving home Jim Ward, an individual she helped when he was in the final stages of being hired for a new job as a cook. (Days later he got the position and began working.)

Here’s another piece on cause and effect. As the scale of the national opioid crisis becomes clearer, it can be easy to become overwhelmed by what seems like an insurmountable challenge. But one city found a way to confront that hopelessness. Now others are following suit. 

Karen Coates
Sihaba Mustafa (l.) and Mwanaisha Makame tend to their seaweed farm in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

Women in Zanzibar have been particularly affected by climate change, echoing a global trend. But their case illustrates another truism: Women are key to combating it, too.

Legends of elves and gnomes and other Norse-based mythology may make for delightful reading. But they reflect a fairly narrow band of cultural influences. That appears to be changing.


The Monitor's View

Vickie King/The Mississippi Department of Corrections, via AP
The Mississippi Department of Corrections's horticulture instructor, Drew Dickerson (rear) and inmate Ronald Collins tend to tomato plants at the state penitentiary in Parchman, Miss., in March. The state restored two greenhouses last year at the prison in an effort to rehabilitate inmates.

America’s faith in the ability of those in prison to redeem themselves often ebbs and flows based on which political party is in charge of law enforcement. So it is with some surprise that the US House of Representatives appears ready to pass a bipartisan bill that would improve rehabilitation programs in federal prisons, better preparing inmates for a crime-free life and a possible reduction of their time behind bars.

Support of the bill by both Democrats and Republicans may be a result of recent reforms in many states, such as Texas and Georgia, that have helped ex-convicts develop life skills for reintegrating into a community – the kind of reforms that many experts attribute in part to the nation’s lower crime rate in recent decades.

The bill, known as the First Step Act, calls for the Bureau of Prisons to create individual plans for all people incarcerated in federal prisons to participate in education, job training, and other programs. Inmates could be assigned to prisons closer to their families. And those about to leave prison would be given help in setting up banking accounts and obtaining IDs. Those who participate in such efforts might be offered halfway houses or home confinement for the final part of their sentence.

In short, the plan relies on the idea that individuals, no matter what their past crimes, are capable of making a choice between right and wrong if given the right support.

In early May, the measure was approved by the Judiciary Committee by a 25-to-5 vote. And President Trump says he is eager to sign the measure. “When we talk about our national program to hire American, this must include helping millions of former inmates get back into the workforce as gainfully employed citizens,” Mr. Trump stated last week. “America is a nation that believes in the power of redemption.”

The bill’s future in the Senate remains unclear. It could be changed, better funded than the House’s $50 million goal, or perhaps twinned with a pending bill on reform of sentencing guidelines.

At the least, the political momentum in Washington seems to be toward giving inmates a second chance by offering better incentives to adopt a higher sense of themselves and their possibilities. Part of the concept of freedom in the United States is the freedom of individuals to know what is good – and choose it.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Today’s column explores the idea that prayers in the quiet of our home serve as windows of light for humanity and of progress for our world.


A message of love

Fernando Llano/AP
Opposition leader María Corina Machado holds a Venezuelan flag during a protest against the previous day's presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, May 21. Opposition organizers urged people to not participate in the election, which drew the lowest participation on record for a presidential election in decades. Most popular anti-government leaders were banned from being candidates. The pro-government National Election Council called Nicolás Maduro the overwhelming winner.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Come back tomorrow. One story we’re reporting: After the Santa Fe, Texas, school shooting, can a broad spectrum of US students trade a sense of “it’s bound to happen again” for a summer of introspection and new purpose?

More issues

2018
May
21
Monday
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