Happy New Year (A Poem)

Survival isn’t Pretty

H. Bradford

08/06/21

Survival isn’t pretty.

There have been dark days before.

Global fires, sunless days, and acid rain.

Those times aren’t for the large, proud, upright creatures.

If you have feathers, fly away.

Hide under that hard, terrapin shell.

Slip into the mud or sea.

Enter a long, slow sleep.

Learn to eat carrion.

Take life from death.

If you have big teeth, now is the time to use them.

If you don’t, grow small, and slip into the shadowy crevices.

Parasites and scavengers have a chance,

But not plants with hungry leaves

and flowers with special needs.

Everything maladaptive is adapted to a time and place.

Time is kinder to snails, sharks, and tardigrades

Than it is to smart, sad monkeys.

Cataclysm settles the score,

A sudden change subtracts what is too precious for the world.

Too precarious in chain of being.

Survival isn’t pretty.

Pretty isn’t made to survive.

Racism and the Unrealized Ideals of IDEA

Racism and the Unrealized Ideals of IDEA

H. Bradford

6/27/21

The 1975 passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was  landmark legislation to ensure the education of students with disabilities. However, compliance with the six pillars of IDEA is an ongoing issue. IDEA created the funding and framework for supporting the education of students with disabilities. It also ensured the right to free and appropriate public education irrespective of disability (FAPE). This means that all children can access appropriate preschool through secondary education at no cost which meets the standards of the state. All students with disabilities also have the right to an Individualized Education Plan and must be educated in the Least Restrictive Environment. Other provisions under IDEA are that children with disabilities must have access to all areas of school participation, students and their families are guaranteed confidentiality, non-discriminatory testing, and due process (Beratan, 2006). While these rights are guaranteed to all students with disabilities, racism continues to nurture educational segregation.

For historical context, both IDEA and Brown v. The Board of Education were meant to end educational segregation. Yet, in the early years of desegregation, special education was used to continue racial segregation by other means. In the 1950s and 1960s, ten Southern states adopted pupil placement laws, which gave school districts the ability to place students in classrooms on the basis of ability and a new tool to segregate classrooms by race. At times, schools themselves were closed, such as the case of Prince Edward County in Virginia wherein between 1959 and 1964, 2000 African American children received no formal public education on account of schools closing to avoid desegregation. Between 1955-1956, 77% of the students in special education in Washington DC were African American as a means of avoiding desegregation. Ability tracking was also used in southern schools to sort children into groups according to ability, but in practice by race, to avoid white flight from desegregated schools. More recently, there is a tendency to blame racial disparities on economic disparities, but when controlling for income, Southern states continue to have a disproportionate number of Black students in special education (Ferri and Connor, 2005).  IDEA was passed to provide the same educational opportunities to disabled students as those without disabilities, or in other words, to end a functional segregation of disabled students. However, in many ways schools remain racially segregated as students of color are concentrated into low income schools. Despite IDEA’s promise of free and appropriate public education, students with disabilities continue to face a segregated experience from general education.

A major theme in the intersection between racism and special education is disproportionality. Ahrams, Fergus, and Noguera define disproportionality as an overrepresentation by a group, such as Black and Latino students, within special education (2011). For example, Native American students are 1.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with a specific learning disability. African American students are twice as likely to be diagnosed with Emotional Disturbance (ED) than other students and 2.3 times more likely to be diagnosed with Mental Retardation (MR). Research has indicated that students impacted by disproportionality are less likely to receive a rigorous and full curriculum and less likely to have employment and post secondary opportunities (Ahrams, Fergus, and Noguera, 2011). Although African American students are 14% of the student population, they make up 20% of students in Special Education. Once labeled, students of color are more likely to be placed in restrictive educational environments than their white peers (Ferri and Connor, 2005). Disproportionality is most common in learning disabilities, emotional behavioral disorders, and learning disabilities. These labels allow for the most bias as they are the most subjective categories (Johnson, 2021). Black students in the United States are also more prone to be given other subjective labels, such as “at risk”(Gilborn, 2015). In general, Black students are more likely to be in segregated educational settings. This is correlated with higher dropout rates, higher rates of arrest, unemployment, and incarceration after graduation. In contrast, students in inclusive settings are more likely to have a rich learning environment, have more effective teaching strategies, have higher expectations, experience positive academic modeling from peers, achieve IEP goals, and have better social and emotional outcomes (Johnson, 2021). 

The 1997 reauthorization of IDEA recognized the trend of overrepresentation of minority students in special education. In 2004, IDEA acknowledged the intersection between racism and disability, recognizing that more needed to be done to address racially based educational disparities. In section 12 of IDEA, it was noted that African American children are placed in special education at higher rates, have higher dropout rates, and are diagnosed with emotional behavioral disorders and mental retardation at higher rates than white children. The 2004 update to IDEA also mandated that this disproportionate representation be addressed by increasing funds for early intervention services to overidentified groups. To quote the actual language in the legislation, “to reserve the maximum amount of funds under section 613(f) to provide comprehensive coordinated early intervening services to serve children in the local educational agency, particularly children in those groups that were significantly overidentified under paragraph (1) (Beratan, 2006).” The U.S. The Department of Education has also required that State Performance Plans include three indicators for disproportionality (Ahrams, Fergus, and Noguera, 2011).

Disproportionality is nothing new as the The United States Office of Civil Rights noted a pattern of overrepresentation of racial minority students in special education as early as the 1970s (Ferri and Connor, 2005). Likewise,  Lloyd Dunn’s seminal 1968 study already noted that students of color were disproportionately represented among students deemed to have mild mental retardation (Ahrams, Fergus, and Noguera 2011). Several court cases drew attention to the issue of racism and special education. For instance, Diana v. the State Board of Education was a class action lawsuit on behalf of nine Hispanic students who were made to take IQ tests in English and were subsequently labeled as mentally retarded. When retested by a Spanish speaker, only one of the students was diagnosed with mental retardation. Larry P. v Riles was a similar case wherein African American students at a San Francisco school were found to be diagnosed with mental retardation disproportionately to their population within the school (Ferri and Connor, 2005). It was decided through Larry P. v. Riles that testing used for minority children must be validated for use within minority populations (Harlep and Elis, 2012). These court cases are important since they demonstrate a racial bias in how students are assessed and ultimately labeled. 

Black and Latino students are more likely to be placed in restrictive classroom settings, which diminishes their connection to peers and access to general education. This is difficult to remedy due to the broad interpretation of Least Restrictive Environment (LRE). Least Restrictive Environment is commonly believed to imply inclusive education. Yet, the law does not define what level of inclusive education or “least restrictive environment” is appropriate. Case Law has typically supported the idea that general education may not be the least restrictive environment for a student with disabilities, such as in cases like Board of Ed. v. Rowley, Roncker v. Walter, and Daniel R.R. v. State Board of Ed. LRE therefore puts the onus on the student with a disability to fit into existing school structures rather than on the school structures to change. This constructs the disability as the problem rather than the school system. This understanding stems from a deficit model of disability rather than a social model (Beratan, 2006).

Johnson (2021) wrote that according to the social model, disability is not a disorder or deficit, but a difference. Like race, disability is a construct. It exists in contrast to the myth of “normal.” For instance, autism, ADHD, and intellectual disabilities can only be understood in contrast to an ill defined concept of typical. But, what is typical is subjective and based upon what is functional to the needs of a particular society. Thus, the social model of disability posits that people are impaired or disabled by the way that society acts.  Within educational settings, disability is generated in classrooms by class sizes that are too large, poor instruction, one size fits all instruction, high stakes testing, teacher bias, and harsh or unjust discipline. These factors are more pronounced in poorer schools, which are also the schools which have larger populations of students of color. The key to an inclusive classroom is not simply putting students with disabilities in a general education classroom nor bringing in a special education teacher to that classroom. It entails equipping teachers with the knowledge and skills to differentiate instruction such as Universal Design for Learning, contract learning, workshop reading, stations, flexible grouping, etc. Smaller class sizes are also important, with a maximum of 20 students for grades 2 and above and under 15 for preschool to 1st grade. Professional development opportunities and planning are also key components (Johnson, 2021).

In addition to the suggestions Johnson (2021) made to build inclusive classrooms, a study of disparities schools in New York State also offers insights. In 1999, New York schools were cited by the state’s department of education for disproportionality of Black and Latino students in special education. The schools undertook a five year project under the guidance of New York University’s Technical Assistance Center on Disproportionality (TACD) to uncover the root causes of this problem and create a three year professional development plan to address it. In a case study of two New York school districts, TACD was able to reduce the number of Latino and Black students identified for special education based upon more judgement based assessments such as learning disorders and emotional behavioral disorders.  Two factors which contributed to the racial disproportionality in special education was deficit thinking regarding race and socio-economics and inadequate institutional safeguards to prevent the referrals of students to special education whose needs as struggling learners could be met in the classroom with assistance. Disproportionality began with teacher referrals. This was often based upon student behavior over academic performance. Interviews with teachers prior to the TACD intervention indicated that teachers often faulted parents and poverty for the student performance. The teachers had cultural deficit thinking regarding the families. The schools also did not have adequate referral and classroom interventions for struggling learners. Institutional changes such as empowering families and giving them a voice improved outcomes. Data collection, usage, and the development of an Response to Intervention framework also improved outcomes. In order to qualify for special education, a student must first be identified. This may be where problems begin, as this is based upon an academic discrepancy model which requires struggle as a precursor for identification. Response to Intervention (RtI) reduces over representation through multi-tiered interventions which monitor and respond to student performance. It is based upon early intervention rather than waiting to fail (Ahram, Fergus, and Noguera, 2011). 

 From a critical race theory perspective, measures like RtI still fall short. Critical race theory posits that race and racial differences are socially constructed and that racism is a culturally and structurally ingrained part of society. Whiteness is at the center of what is considered normal and everyday. White supremacy, rather than the rare and extreme expression of white power, is the mundane everyday exertion of white dominance that shapes the world. In this sense, race and disability have a lot in common, since both are constructed and both are often seen as obvious and fixed. They are also both seen as individual characteristics rather than social constructs. Also, both serve a function in a society. Racial disparity in school preserves white dominance (Gillborn, 2015). Critical race theorists argue that Response to Intervention (RtI) may merely tinker with the edges of inequity and does not challenge the structures and logic of special education. For instance, teachers are still mostly white (Harlep and Elis, 2012). According to Ferri and Connor (2005) 90% of public school teachers are white, whereas 40% of students are students of color. Aside from these demographics, teachers continue to focus on standardized tests and still look at disability as a problem with a student rather than a school system. The dominant culture looks to students as the problem rather than addressing the problematic ways in which education is implemented. Again, educational systems serve the function of maintaining dominant white culture. Even after more widespread adaptation of RtI, the overall trend of overrepresentation of African American, Native American, and Latino students in special education has not changed and risk ratios for these groups have held steady. Harlep and Elis (2012) argue that culturally responsive implementation of RtI culturally responsive interventions are crucial. They also argue in favor of ethnic desegregation, which means collecting data on both race and ethnicity. The benefit of this is that racial groups get lumped together, so while Asian Americans as a whole are less likely to be in special education, there is no data for Asian subgroups such as Hmong, Chinese, Indonesian, etc. students. The same is true of all ethnic groups. Finally, they support equity audits for special education.

The United States is founded upon the racism of slavery, genocide, segregation, and mass incarceration. People with disabilities have also been systematically excluded from society through institutionalization, incarceration, isolation, forced sterilization, and lack of access. Critical race theory and the social model of disability both offer insights to mechanisms by which racism and ableism operate through educational systems. Yet, critical race theory has been a recent battleground in the struggle for racial justice, as 24 states have introduced legislation to ban critical race theory in schools and six have enacted bans (Rufo, 2021). While IDEA was a step forward in the struggle for equal education for students with disabilities, special education continues to be an arena for racial segregation through dispoportionality. There is little recourse for families who face this, other than persistent advocacy within schools and through community agencies, if they exist. These problems are systemic, so there is no single entity which can fully address them. But, desegregation arose from a social movement for racial equality. ADA and IDEA also arose from the activism of people with disabilities. It is only through continued, massive, social struggle that the issues of ableism and racism can be fully addressed. Teachers can attend training, adopt inclusive practices in the classroom, advocate for their students, and be mindful of their biases, but IDEA will never be ideal until teachers can join these struggles in solidarity with the communities and students which they serve.      

Sources:

Ahram, R., Fergus, E., & Noguera, P. (2011). Addressing racial/ethnic disproportionality in special education: Case studies of suburban school districts. Teachers College Record, 113(10), 2233-2266.

Beratan, G. D. (2006). Institutionalizing inequity: Ableism, racism and IDEA 2004. Disability studies quarterly, 26(2).

Ferri, B. A., & Connor, D. J. (2005). In the shadow of Brown: Special education and overrepresentation of students of color. Remedial and Special education, 26(2), 93-100.

Gillborn, D. (2015). Intersectionality, critical race theory, and the primacy of racism: Race, class, gender, and disability in education. Qualitative Inquiry, 21(3), 277-287.

Hartlep, N., & Ellis, A. (2012). Just What Is Response to Intervention and What’s It Doing in a Nice Field Like Education? A Critical Race Theory Examination of Response to Intervention. Counterpoints, 425, 87-108. Retrieved June 26, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42981792

Johnson, A. (2021). Racism In A Broken Special Education System. In Essential Learning Theories: The Human Dimension. essay, Rowman and Littlefield. 

Rufo, C. F. (2021, June 27). Opinion | Battle Over Critical Race Theory. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/battle-over-critical-race-theory-11624810791. 

Resolutions for 2021

Resolutions for 2021

H. Bradford

01/01/2021

Once again, it is time for me to post my massive list of New Year’s Resolutions. This year, I have 141 items on my list, adding one more from last year. Within the next few days, I will write a balance sheet of what I accomplished last year from the list. For now, this is my list for 2021. I hope this is a great year!

Yurt Camping at Cuyuna State Recreation Area

Yurt Camping at Cuyuna State Recreation Area

H. Bradford

11/21/20

I learned this summer, while visiting Glendalough State Park, that some Minnesota State Parks have yurts for rent.  Only three state parks feature yurt rental including Glendalough State Park, Afton State Park, and Cuyuna State Recreation Area. I decided this would be a fun adventure, so I set out to rent one at Cuyuna State Recreation Area.  However, as it turns out, the yurts are pretty popular, so there were no reservations until late October. I nabbed the available reservation, which was for Monday, October 26th. At $70, the rental is not exactly cheap for one person, but would be a pretty good deal for a group. The yurt at Cuyuna State Recreation Area can sleep up to seven people!  In my case, I had the whole unit to myself. 

Winter came early to Minnesota, so there was snow on the ground and cold temperatures by mid-October. The night that I planned on camping was particularly cold, with a low of 16 degrees F.  I was a little worried about the wintery conditions.  But, I set out anyway, hoping for the best.  The park itself was a former mining area from the early 1900s to 1960s and is pocked with deep mining pits. It was also the site of the deadliest mining accident in Minnesota history, when a mine shaft of the Milford Mine suddenly filled with water and mud on Feb. 5th, 1924, killing forty one miners. There is still mining equipment, historical markers, old buildings, and of course, the landscape itself, which mark decades of mining history in the park. Some of these historical areas were closed for the season.

The Cuyuna State Recreation Area is located about 100 miles west of Duluth. Many of the trails at Cuyuna State Recreation Area were closed until the ground was frozen, as to avoid damage. In better weather conditions, the park is known for its mountain bike trails. I had thought of bringing my bicycle, as there are also flat trails, but, it worked out better that I didn’t. During my visit, I was the only person in the park. The yurts are located at Yawkey Lake, where there are three yurts and a few trails. My yurt was named Manganese. It was the furthest from the parking lot and the outhouse restroom. Campers can use a cart found at the yurt to haul in their items. Instructions of where to find the key are sent with the reservation, so there is no need to check in at an office. I carted in my items from my car, grabbing firewood along the way. There is a firewood station near the outhouses, where free firewood is available for the wood stove during the winter months. A hand pumped water spigot is also located in that area, but I packed my own water.  I was definitely glad that there was plenty of  free firewood to use in the stove!

My first order of business was setting up LED candles in the yurt. Actual candles are not allowed and I wanted some source of light during the dark evening ahead. I set up a dozen LED candles, unpacked some things, took a few photos, then set off to do some hiking before sunset. As I had mentioned, many trails were closed, but there were a few nearby trails which I explored before it got dark. Upon my return from hiking, I started up a fire in the wood stove. That was my first time using a wood stove, but it was pretty easy to figure out, with a single lever used to control the oxygen to the fire.  The stove was small and it took over six hours for the yurt to become semi-comfortably warm. I also started a fire outside in the fire pit, where I joined a weekly socialist meeting via zoom and ate s’mores. I was happy that my cell phone actually had reception and it is interesting how a person can be in the middle of the woods but also on a video conference.

After sunset, it definitely felt cold. The yurt has a pretty large area to heat, so I found myself huddled by the wood stove for hours in my winter jacket. I even pulled my mattress off one of the bunks so that I could sleep on the floor by the wood tove. It was also dark. The many LED candles, my camping lantern, and small flashlight didn’t provide nearly enough light. I managed to spend a few hours reading, but the room beyond my book was very dark and cold.  Outside the yurt, I could hear many nature noises, such as the yipping of dogs or coyotes from across the mining lake and the flutey call of a saw-whet owl.  I didn’t sleep well, as I woke up throughout the night to feed wood to the stove. A few times throughout the night, I stepped out into the cold and looked out at the stars. By morning, the yurt was toasty and comfortable. I went for another hike in the morning, then packed up my things. I made the mistake of trying to clean out the ashes from the stove, which only brought them back to life and filled the yurt with smoke. I had to fan out the smoke with the door. Outside the yurt, the sun shone brightly on the cool morning and there were many chickadees and juncos fluttering about the campsite, perhaps eating leftover crumbs from my s’mores.

Overall, I had a fun time. It was my first time “camping” in cold weather and my first time using a wood stove. Although many of the trails were closed, I enjoyed the time spent hiking alone. There wasn’t a single car in the whole park. The early cold weather really seemed to scare people away from nature. I was happy to hear a saw-whet owl and would try winter cabining again. My main advice would be to bring plenty of light. The night is long and dark. While the LED candles provided some ambiance, they did not shed a lot of light. I relied on my camp flashlight for my reading. Another thing I learned was not to clean out the ashes in the morning. I was trying to be thoughtful, but it ended up being a smoky mess. Also, I went through a lot of wood! I used almost all of the wood that I had carted in, which was more than I expected to use. So, I would definitely try to overshoot the amount of wood needed, as it wouldn’t have been fun to fetch more in the middle of the night. On the way home, I stopped in Aitkin, where I ate lunch at the Block North Brew Pub. I had a PLT sandwich (portabella, mushroom, and tomato) and it was great! They also have a wild rice black bean burger. I would definitely recommend Block North for a post-camping meal.

The Struggle for Abortion Rights in Poland Continues

 

The Struggle for Abortion Rights in Poland Continues

Heather Bradford

11/8/20

A version of this article can be found here: https://socialistresurgence.org/2020/11/04/the-struggle-for-abortion-rights-in-poland-continues/

Abortion rights are once again under attack in Poland and women have turned out in full force to fight back. On October 22nd, the Constitutional Tribunal, Poland’s highest court, ruled that abortion in the case of severe fetal abnormalities was unconstitutional. Poland already has the most resitrctive abortion laws in the European Union. Prior to the court’s decision, abortion was only permissible in cases of rape and incest, threat to a mother’s life, or severe fetal abnormality. Fetal abnormality accounted for 97% of the 1,100 legal abortions performed in 2018. This effectively bans abortion in the country. The decision arose from an initiative by MPs of the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) to review the law. The party has made several previous attempts to ban abortion. Reproductive rights advocates argue that the new law will force women to endure non viable pregnancies. On account of hundreds of thousands of people joining in protest, the government announced on November 3rd that it would delay publishing the ruling to offer more time for discussion. 

The public backlash against the ruling was immediate and massive. On Sunday October 25th, activists converged on churches to express their outrage over the restriction. CNN reported that protestors at Poznan Cathedral proclaimed that Catholics need abortions too. They also took to the altar of Our Lady of Perpetual in Warsaw with a slogan calling upon parishoners to pray for the right to abortion. Around the country, mass was disrupted and canceled, with sits-in staged at some cathedrals, statues of Pope John Paul II defaced, and some churches graffitied with slogans such as “Women’s Hell.”  Protesters also poured red paint on Warsaw’s Lazienkowski Bridge. Demonstrators wore Handmaid’s Tale robes and carried coat hangers. In actions rich in symbolism, women have also donned a red lighting bolt, which is an emblem of the Women’s Strike movement. The protesters targeted the church to demand separation between church and decry the church’s support of the government and its support of abortion restrictions. Women’s Strike, the main organizing force behind the protests, called for continued demonstrations on Monday, October 26th and a strike on Wednesday, October 28th.

Protests on Wednesday October 28th were held in over 400 cities and by police estimates numbered over 430,000. Across the country, women left work to join the strike and in Warsaw, activists blocked traffic. Warsaw alone had over 100,000 protesters turn out. Some carried umbrellas, a symbol from the 2016 mobilization to defend legal abortion. Military and riot police were deployed against the Wednesday marches.  The New York Times reported that the massive demonstrations that occurred later in the week on Friday October 30th were the largest since the Solidarity movement of the 1980s. One popular slogan was “I think, I feel, decide.” Another slogan was, “this is war.” Young women make up the largest demographic of these abortion activists. Demonstrators gathered in front of the government headquarters, headquarters for the ruling party, main square, then city center. The main demand of the Women’s Strike has been for the ruling to be declared invalid.  Protesters have also come out against the Law and Justice government, which won last year’s parliamentary elections, with slogans such as fuck off and fuck PiS (Law and Justice Party).  In response to the largest protests on Friday, President Andrzej Duda suggested that he was open to compromise and that terminal fetal abnormalities might be permissible and the government missed a November 2nd deadline to enact the decision by publishing it.

The protests have been marked violence from right wing extremists. During the Friday protests, military police guarded Warsaw’s Church of the Holy Cross and the far right protesters within the police cordon. Anti-choice activists played the sounds of crying babies on a megaphone as abortion rights marchers passed. Of the 37 people arrested in Warsaw Friday, 35 were nationalists. Black clad men attacked one of the protesters, but demonstrators fought back with what appeared to be pepper spray.  Some of the men arrested were carrying batons and knives. The New York Times reported that abortion rights activists have been attacked with flares. Two female reporters from Gazeta Wyborcza were attacked earlier last week. On Monday, October 26th, two women were struck by a car, which to observers looked intentional, as they participated in the protests. During the Sunday, October 25th protests, a woman was thrown down steps at Church of the Holy Cross in central Warsaw as abortion rights activists clashed with far right militants. Men from the group All Polish Youth attacked activists in Wroclaw, Bialystok, and Poznan on Wednesday the 28th. All Polish Youth have been behind attacks on LGBTQ marches. In 2019, the group attacked a pride march in Biyalastok with bottles, rocks, and firecrackers. Robert Bakiewicz, a right wing extremist leader, threatened that his supporters would form a national guard of a Catholic self-defense force to confront what he called “neo-Bolshevik revolutionaries.” The far right group Falanga has also made threats of violence. The Law and Justice Party has encouraged and empowered the far right since coming to power in 2015. Early last week, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the party, called upon supporters to defend the church at any cost. This rhetoric has been criticized as a call to arms to violent right wing extremists. He later stated that even fetuses with no chance of survival should be born so they can be named, baptized, and buried. Activists have been called leftwing fascists on state television. CIVICUS and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) have both stated that protests have been met with excessive force from both the state and far right groups.

The Law and Justice Party (PiS) is a right wing populist party which won the 2019 elections by running on a socially conservative platform which includes nationalism, opposition to migration, traditional family values, Catholicism, Islamaphobia, homophobia, anti-communism, and anti-Semitism. They have increased the teaching Catholic values in public schools, attacked LGBT rights, and ended state funding of in-vitro fertilization. Yet, they won over less reactionary voters and the support of labor by making promises such as doubling minimum wage by 2023, increasing payments to retirees, and had already enacted a popular subsidy to low income families called 500 plus. In July, Andrzej Duda, of the PiS, won a second presidential term by a narrow margin of 51% of the vote over 49% for Rafał Trzaskowski, Civic Platform (PO). Like the U.S. political elections, these are not vastly different parties, though the PO was framed as the more liberal party. When PO was last in power, it increased retirement age and lowered pensions and ran a campaign that was mostly against PiS rather than for any particular program. 

Law and Justice Party (PiS) has made several effots to ban abortion, including an attempt in October 2016 to pass a law which would have banned abortion and imposed prison terms on abortion patients and providers. Hundreds of thousands of black clad women joined a “Black Monday”general strike from work, school, and domestic labor to defeat the legislation. According to Madeline Roach reporting for Foreign Policy, in July 2017 the government passed a law making emergency contraception available only by prescription. In 2018, school textbooks were issued which called embryos unborn children and claimed that contraceptives were a health hazard. Even without the government’s anti-abortion campaign, due to the clause of conscience, doctors do not have to perform abortions on moral grounds. In the region of Podkarpackie, more than 3,000 doctors signed the clause, which renders abortion unavailable in that area. Only 10% of hospitals perform abortion according to FEDERA. In 2014, Dr. Bogdan Chazan refused to perform an abortion on a deformed fetus on moral grounds nor tell the mother that the abortion would be illegal after 12 weeks.  Because of this, she was forced to give birth to a baby without a skull which died nine days later. Abortion is certainly a contentious issue in Poland, yet according to Rueters, a 2018 opinion poll showed that only 15% of the population supported tightening the already restrictive abortion laws.

Despite public opinion against this, in April 2020, Law and Justice Party lawmakers again debated banning abortion, this time in the case of fetal abnormaities. The government also considered citizen initiated legislation which would have equated homosexuality with pedaephilia and criminalize sex education for minors with up to three years imprisonment. In response, activists held socially distanced actions with their cars, social media, and bicycles. This forestalled the passage of the legislation, as the lower house of parliament sent the bill back to a parliamentary commission for more work.  Previous attempts to ban abortion through legistlation have failed due to the efforts of abortion rights activists, which may be why the Law and Justice Party sought a review from the constitutional tribunal. Fourteen of the fifteen judges on the court were chosen by the Law and Justice Party to serve nine year terms. Three judges are believed by legal scholars to have been appointed by illegal means. Aside from the this new tactic of using the high court to ban abortion, some activists believe that the abortion ban was a reward to the Catholic church and far right for its support in the previous elections and a distraction from the government’s poor handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Covid-19 has presented serious challenges to abortion access and activism. According to Euronews, when the Polish government closed its borders, Justyna Wydrzynska, an activist with Aborcyjny Dream Team reported the phones of the organization were ringing non stop. The organization normally receives ten calls a day.  Many callers were worried about accessing abortion pills, which are illegal in Poland. According to Hannah Summers for The Guardian, Polish hospitals have already turned women away who are seeking abortion. The Federation of Family Planning has been inundated with phone calls from panicked women who have had their appointments cancelled and whose fetuses have abnormalities. Abortion without Borders, an organization formed in December 2019 to help Polish women access abortion but has been challenged by border closures and quarantine. The thousands of women who travel to Germany, Czech Republic, and Slovakia have been blocked off from this access. Nevertheless, Abortion without Borders has managed to help twenty one women access abortion in other countries since the ruling. It should be noted that offering assistance in obtaining an illegal abortion can result in a three year prison sentence. Yet, the vast majority of abortions in Poland are illegal, with activists estimating that although the number of legal abortions is only around 1,000, there are over 150,000 illegal abortions each year. Aside from travel, abortion is accessed through doctors or other providers who provide high cost abortions in secret.

With 20,000 new Covid-19 infections each day, politicians have been quick to shame activists for protesting the court ruling.  Like Trump, even President Andrzej Duda has been diagnosed with Covid-19. Large gatherings are prohibited and bars and universities are closed. The government issued a ban on gatherings of more than five people, which was implemented the same week of the court ruling. Organizers have been threatened with eight years imprisonment for violating the ban and causing what the government has deemed an epidemiological threat. Activists have been told to consider the elderly or vulnerable people they may sicken. At the same time, Poland has the lowest ratio of health workers to population in the EU. Over the years, austerity and privatization has gutted the Polish health care system, rendering it incapable of meeting the pressures of the pandemic in terms of staffing, testing, and intensive care beds.  

Law and Justice Party’s aggressive attacks on abortion rights are only the most recent and certainly won’t be the last. According to Wanda Nowica in the book SexPolitics: Reports from the Front Lines, the end of communism in Poland marked the beginning of attacks on reproductive rights. The current laws are actually similar to the 1932 Criminal Code in Poland, in which abortion was only legal if the pregnancy was result of a crime or if women’s life and health was a risk.  These laws remained in effect until 1956 when abortion was decriminalized,but required the signatures of two doctors. At the time, abortion was legalized on the basis of the health risks imposed by illegal abortions. Abortion law was further liberalized in 1959 when abortion became available upon demand. This ended in1993 with the Act on Family Planning, Human Embryo Protection and Conditions of Permissibility of Abortion, which removed the social grounds for seeking an abortion. Doctors also played an important role in ban, as the General Assembly of Physicians ning abortion, adopted the Code of Medical Ethics, which only allowed abortion on medical and criminal grounds. The was an effort to organize against abortion restrictions, as the Committee for a Referendum on the Criminalization of Abortion garnered 1.3 million signitures demanding a national referendum on abortion, but this was ignored by the Parliament in 1992. Lech Wałęsa vetoed an attempt to liberalize abortion laws in 1994.  In 1996, when abortion laws were amended and and abortion was again briefly legal on social grounds. The Solidarity Trade Union challenged the new law through the Constitutional Tribunal, which determined that abortion on social grounds was indeed unconstitutional. In the early 2000s, Democratic Left Alliance-Labor Union promised to liberalize the law, but never made good on the promise. Parliament refused to take up the issue in 2005. Recent years have seen attacks on abortion rights, but the decades since communism have been marked with broken promises, compromises, neoliberalism, and pandering to the Catholic church. This is not to idealize communism in Poland, but to highlight that abortion was a casualty in the transition to capitalism and that liberals, social democrats, and conservatives have upheld abortion restrictions.   

The spectacular turn out of Polish women has temporarily suspended the enforcement of the court ruling, but there is a long battle ahead. In Poland, as in all capitalist countries, there will always be social pressure for women to reproduce. In this sense, reproductive rights are never secure so long as capitalism persists. Capitalism requires the oppression of women as this ensures workers are cared for, babies are born, and children are raised with unpaid labor and the most meager social provisioning. Nowica noted that in 1988, the fertility rate in Poland was 2.4, in 1993 it was 1.8 and by 2005 it was 1.22. In 2020, it is 1.39.  Replacement fertility is 2.1, but forced birth combined with austerity is a particularly brutal method of ensuring social reproduction. This brutality is masked by the sanctity of life rhetoric of the Catholic church, but this itself has changed over the centuries with different theological debates regarding ensoulment. The hardline stance against abortion after conception only came about in 1869. It seems that women in Poland have had enough and are willing to stand against both the church and the state, which in Poland are deeply interconnected. Both of these things are malleable and can be changed through struggle. Ultimately, this struggle must tear up the economic roots of oppression for reforms to be lasting.  It is little wonder that the Law and Justice Party seeks to divide, pitting reproductive rights against the rights of people with disabilities to be born. But it is capitalism, not women, which ultimately devalues the lives of people with disabilities. It is within the framework of capitalism that impairment is made into disability, as it is a system which cannot accommodate different needs and places value on regimented labor capacity above all else. The struggle in Poland is part of a struggle for all oppressed people to control their bodies and destinies.  

When Inessa Armand Died

When Inessa Armand Died

H. Bradford

09/19/20

Everyone cried

When Inessa Armand died.

Robert Service said 

She kept her figure into her forties.

A woman must be notable in these ways.

A carriage carried her casket 

to Red Square.

And she was interred there,

behind red bricks.

How could Lenin know the Caucasus had not been tamed

when she was sent away for healing waters and clean air?

Who thought of cholera and conflict?

So, everyone cried when Inessa Armand died-

Still young, and pretty, and beloved,

in a world that was still revolutionary

and alive with possibility.

Untouched by purges, reaction, and Georgian diseases.

Only Cholera,

which knows no party line.

The Hunt for the Brittle Prickly Pear

The Hunt for the Brittle Prickly Pear

H. Bradford

8/26/20

Although it may not seem like the ideal habitat for cacti, Minnesota is actually home to three native species of cactus: the Plains Prickly Pear, the Brittle Prickly Pear, and the Purple Ball Cactus.  The Brittle Prickly Pear or Opuntia fragilis, which ranges into northern Alberta, just four degrees from the Arctic circle, is the northernmost cactus in the world. These northerly cacti have several adaptations which allow them to survive extreme conditions.  Although they flower and produce fruit, they can also reproduce from pads that have detached from the plant.  In the winter, they shrivel up to avoid freeze damage. They can tolerate a variety of soils and are fire tolerant, as long as their roots survive.  Prickly pears in general photosynthesize at night to avoid loss of water. These tough cacti can withstand a temperate range between -58 F and 131 F. Since I knew that this cactus could be found at Quarry Park in St. Cloud, which isn’t too far from where my brother lives, I was determined that this summer I would find this cacti.

The first attempt to find the Brittle Prickly Pear was this past June.  My brother and I spent over three hours at Quarry Park in St. Cloud searching the rocky outcrops for the cactus. Perhaps part of the problem was that I expected it to be larger. I have seen prickly pears before, and they are usually somewhat large plants with pads the size of my hands. When blooming, they have large yellow flowers. The Brittle Prickly Pear is remarkably small. The pads are about two inches tall and a half of an inch to an inch wide. They grow in small clusters on bare, southern facing rocks. While they tolerate many conditions, they do not tolerate shade, so they will not survive where they are crowded or shaded by other plants.  The area which we focused on the most was the State Scientific and Natural Area. This seemed like the most obvious place, since it featured a sign with information on the Brittle Prickly Pear. We scoured the rocks, but found nothing.  This isn’t to say that there are no Brittle Prickly Pear in the SNA, but we were not successful in this area.  Even though we didn’t find any cacti, we had a nice hike and even got yelled at by a man who looked like Santa Claus for talking too loudly out on the far end of the SNA (where we hadn’t seen any hikers for at least an hour).

My brother and I visited Quarry Park again in mid-August.  This second visit was cut short when I suddenly got a fever and had to turn around on the hike.  The cactus hunt turned into a Covid-19 scare that sent me back home.  I was quite disappointed that I had to abandon the quest, but my brother cheered me up by painting me a prickly pear portrait.

A week later, after my Covid-19 test came back negative, I visited my brother again.  For this third attempt to find the cactus, I prepared myself for the hunt by wearing a cactus shirt, mask, and earrings.  Clearly this outfit helped, as this time we were successful early in our hike.  We once again headed towards the SNA, but along the way my brother saw a trail which said, “Do Not Enter” or “Wrong Way.”  I believe that this was near number 11 on the map.  He thought we should enter anyway, which we did.  We came upon some rocks and I found a tiny cactus the size of my pinky lying on its side on a bed of moss. I found a cactus!  A tiny, uprooted cactus. A few feet away at the south end of these rocks were several other patches of small cacti.  We took many photos of our discovery, feeling very satisfied that we finally found the cacti. They were much smaller than I had imagined them.  In a way, it is easy to understand how such tiny cacti survive against the harsh winters. The are small, keeping close to the warmth of the rocks and insulating moss. These ones don’t appear to fruit or flower, struggling at the very edge of cacti survival.  And, while this guide is not precise because I don’t have a good memory of the layout of the park, hopefully this helps others find them as well.  As another clue, the spot where the cacti were located was near a quarry pond with trout on a trail which lead onward to the SNA.  I hope, of course, that no one digs up or destroys these cactuses.  They are not protected in Minnesota, but they are in other states and it would be nice to keep a healthy population of these unique plants.

Quarry Park is just one area where these cacti can be found. Some of the places where Brittle Prickly Pear are known to grow include Jeffer’s Petroglyphs, Pipestone National Monument, Blue Mounds State Park, Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, granite outcrops around St. Cloud, rock outcrops of Big Stone County, and southern sloping rocky outcrops at Rainy Lake near Canada.  Having found one species of cactus in Minnesota, I hope to one day find the others as well. The Purple Ball Cactus is considered endangered in Minnesota, but can be found in Big Stone Wildlife Refuge and its populations outside of the refuge has been threatened by granite quarrying.  The Plains Prickly Pear is more common, but still rare in that it is confined to the south western parts of the state. Blue Mounds State Park seems like a great destination to see both the Plains Prickly Pear and Brittle Prickly Pear.  In any event, my brother and I were elated to find the prickly pear on our third attempt and I look forward to future cacti adventures.

A few sources:

https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/brittle-prickly-pear

Click to access 2012%20CSSJ%20Minnesota.pdf

https://www.catherineruddell.com/blog/2016/7/4/cactus-hunting-at-56-degrees-north#:~:text=Little%20Prickly%20Pear%2C%20or%20Opuntia,cactus%20species%20in%20THE%20WORLD.

https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/cactus/opufra/all.html

 

 

 

Pictured Rocks: Things I Ate

Pictured Rocks: Things I Ate

H. Bradford

08/09/20

Like most people, I like to eat.  Earlier in July, I visited Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  The trip was about two days of sightseeing and two half days of driving (over five hours each way).  The following are some highlights of the foods that I ate while on this mini-road trip.

Vegetable Pasty:

One of the first things to welcome visitors to Munising, Michigan is Muldoons Pasties.  The award winning pasty shop has been serving pasties since 1989.  A pasty is a meat and vegetable filled pastry from Cornish cuisine.  Cornish immigrants working in the mining industry introduced pasties to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  A larger wave of Finnish immigrants later moved to northern Michigan and adopted the pastry, as it was a convenient and filling food to sustain them while working long shifts.  Thus, pasties have important working class and Michigan history.  Muldoons Pasties feature a few different varieties, but to my delight, they had vegetable pasties.  It is unusual to find a vegetarian friendly pasty.   It was delicious!  It had a thick, flaky crust and was packed full of carrots, potatoes, broccoli, and cauliflower.  Dan tried the chicken pasty, which he said was the best he had ever tried.  Since the shop is small inside, patrons take the pasties to go or eat them at picnic table outside.  I was very full after eating it and it fueled me through my long hike on the Chapel Loop Trail.  We came back later and tried an apple pasty, which was also tasty.

Sweet Potato Quinoa Burger:

Another place in Munising that I tried was Falling Rocks Cafe and Bookstore.  This cafe featured a small selection of gifts, dining area, ice cream, coffee, and a vegetarian friendly menu.  There were several vegetarian sandwiches on the menu, but I chose the sweet potato quinoa burger.  I took this item to go and unfortunately it got a little squished by the time I ate it.  Although the photo is a bit blurry and the sandwich itself was crushed, it was fantastic!  The soft patty was served on a pretzel bun and was topped with sweet chili sauce.  Overall, the sandwich was sweet and tender, with the lettuce and red onion adding a little crunch.

Iced Latte from a VW Bus:

While checking to see if the Gitchi Gummi Agate Museum in Grand Marais was open, I noticed a VW bus parked by the museum (which was closed).  I almost walked away, but decided to turn around and get an iced latte.  The van is called The Dream Bean Machine and serves a variety of caffeinated drinks.  It is parked outside of a larger coffee shop with indoor seating, but I am uncertain if it was closed due to Covid-19.  The coffee shop/bus also offers yoga lessons on the beach. I ordered an iced latte with oat milk, which I found to be very smooth and not too bitter.  It was the perfect pick me up for the drive back towards Munising.

Mackinac Island Fudge Ice cream:

I will admit that I only went to The Frozen Flamingo in Munising because I liked birds and was attracted to the flamingo themed building.  I was a little disappointed that inside it was mostly a gift shop with a selection of ice cream in the back.  There are several ice cream flavors which originated in Michigan.  One of them is Mackinac Island Fudge Ice Cream.  Mackinac Island is know for its fudge shops, which emerged in the 1880s when the island became a tourist destination.  Moose Tracks is also a Michigan ice cream flavor along with Superman and Blue Moon (an ice cream associated with Michigan but actually from Wisconsin ).  There were several varieties of Mackinac Island Fudge Ice-cream and I believe that they had Superman and Blue Moon ice cream as well.  While the selection was not extensive, it is an opportunity to try Michigan themed ice creams.

 

 

Blueberry Zucchini Panini

The Iron Bay Restaurant and Drinkery in Marquette, Michigan is a really neat restaurant located in a building that once housed the Iron Bay Foundry.  The restaurant has outdoor seating with a view of Lake Superior and markets itself as ecofriendly by seeking some locally sourced foods, using recyclable containers, and sending food waste to animal farms.  It was closed on Sunday when I first arrived, so it was the last place I ate at and the grand finale of the trip.  I wanted to try the Blueberry Zucchini Panini since I like that zucchini and panini rhyme.  The panini featured arugula, goat cheese, swiss cheese, blueberry ketchup, and zucchini.  I will say that the blueberry was more overpowering than I expected. I thought it would be a bit more savory, but instead, it tasted like blueberry syrup for pancakes. It was good, but not what I expected.  Perhaps ordering the blueberry ketchup on the side would have been a good idea (to control the amount). According to Michigan Grown, the state ranks third for blueberry production and most of the berries are grown on family farms (575 of them).  I am not sure if the blueberries were local, but I certainly saw a lot of blueberries while hiking.  Dan tried the white fish and chips.  There are a few white fish dishes, which feature Lake Superior caught fish.

Econofoods:

This isn’t as exciting as a zucchini panini, but I also bought some groceries from Econofoods.  Econofoods is a Minnesota based grocery chain and was open 24 hours (in Marquette).  The double rainbow image of Econofoods actually comes from the store’s Facebook page.  I feel that this is quite an epic photo for a grocery store…

There you have it, some of the highlights of things I ate on my trip to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  Because I only spent two days adventuring in the area, I didn’t get the opportunity to try too many things.  I would have liked to have tried Eh Burger in Munising, which featured a veggie burger on the menu and burger eating Velociraptor statue by the front door.  The restaurant closed early so I didn’t get an opportunity to eat there.  I also would have liked to have a picnic at one of the many Lake Superior view rest areas between Marquette and Munising.  Alas, there was no time.  But, I was otherwise satisfied with the foods that I tried!

I did not take this photo…but it was a good gimmick for Eh Burger.

 

Glacial Lakes State Park with My Brother

Glacial Lakes State Park with My Brother

H. Bradford

7.1.20

One of my goals is to visit every state park in Minnesota.  To this end, I try to visit a few new state parks each year.  The most recent park that I visited (this time with my brother) was Glacial Lakes State Park, which is located about an hour and a half west of St. Cloud, Minnesota, five miles south of the small town of Starbuck. The drive from St. Cloud is a pleasant journey across farmland, bypassing Sauk Center, and passing Glenwood and Lake Minnewaska.  Sauk Center is the birthplace of Sinclair Lewis, and features an interpretive center, plaque, campground, and park in his honor.  I recently read, “It Can’t Happen Here,” a fictional account of fascism arising in the United States under the leadership of a Trumpish president named Buzz Windrip. We didn’t stop in Sauk Center, but if I visited the state park again, it might be worth a brief visit. In fact, one of his books might be the perfect reading material for a camping trip to the park!

Glacial Lakes State Park appears as a bit of an anomaly in the landscape. Until arriving at the park, the landscape was mostly flat farmland.  But, as we turned off HWY 29 to HWY 41, we were suddenly met with a landscape of rolling hills. These conical hills are called kames and were formed when sediments accumulated in depressions located within the ice of a retreating glacier. Other glacial features of the park include eskers and kettles, which can be read about on interpretative signs. According to “Roadside Geology of Minnesota,” the glacial features of the park were formed by the Des Moines Lobe. The Des Moines Lobe was the largest lobe (blobby, jutting feature) of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The Laurentide Ice Sheet was a large sheet of ice which covered most of Canada and the Northern Midwest United States. This itself was a part of the Wisconsin Glaciation, the most recent glacial period which lasted until 11,000 years ago.  I have not studied geology or climate history, but suffice to say the park features interesting glacial formations and history. Because the park is a transition between hardwood forests and prairies, it is also a unique ecosystem which blends flora and fauna of both ecosystems. To a science novice like myself, it feels like a special place, with wooded and prairie hills, lakes, and diverse plants and birds. My immediate impression when I was greeted with a view of rolling hills from the visitor’s was that the park indeed deserved to be a landscape set aside as a nature reserve. My brother and I were both glad that someone had the foresight to create the state park.

While visiting the park, my brother and I explored two trails. The first was an interpretive trail/boardwalk which hemmed the east side of Signalness Lake.  The boardwalk was partially submerged, so watch out for water! This shorter trail leads to the Oakridge Campground and then to the High Peak Trail. The High Peak Trail offers two loop options and we opted to take the slightly longer loop, which nears an unnamed lake on the map. The unnamed lake featured ducks, great egrets, and other birds. There were also many butterflies fluttering amongst the prairie grasses and flowers. A highlight of the hike was the discovery of a patch of Showy Lady’s Slippers near the lake.  According to the DNR, these orchids are uncommon in the state,but can be found in bogs, wet prairies, damp woods, and wet meadows. It was my first time discovering Minnesota’s state flower in the wild. They can live 100 years and takes 15-20 years from germination to flower. Because they need particular soil and fungus to grow, have lost habitat over time, and were once over harvested, the flower is uncommon, but not rare or endangered. It is illegal to uproot or pick them in Minnesota.

The High Peak Trail continued along to an overlook at the top of a hill. At 1,352 feet, it is the highest point in the park. The overlook offers a bench for resting and a view of Kettle and Baby Lake, as well as the hilly landscape.  From this high point, we took a .5 mile loop back to the main High Peak Trail, this time taking the shorter route back to our parking spot. This brought us back through the campground and across the soggy boardwalk once more. Along the way back, my brother raised the question on why the last ice age happened in the first place. I didn’t know at the time. According to the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, over the past 2.5 million years, the Northern Hemisphere has fluctuated between warm and cool periods. Over the last 700,000 years there have been 100,000 year climate cycles of warming and cooling. This is related to shifts in the axial tilt of the earth and the shape of earth’s orbit around the sun. The most recent ice age began about 100,000 years ago and ice sheets didn’t retreat fully from Minnesota until about 11,000 years ago. So, there you go. The earth’s axial shift and orbit is believed to be the cause of these ice ages over the last few million years.    

After returning to the parking lot, we decided to explore Mardy’s Trail.  Mardy’s Trail flanks the west side of Signalness Lake.  This trail was less interesting, but brought us past a boat landing and by a number of thirteen lined ground squirrels. We did not do the complete loop, as this would have circled us back to the High Peak Trail. We hiked as far as a second overlook, which was less impressive than the first, but offered an overview of the other side of the park. The only downside of this was that my brother decided to trail blaze his own path down the hill, as a shortcut back to my car.  He boldly proclaimed that it wa “Lonnie’s Trail.” Unfortunately, “Lonnie’s Trail” was a guantlet overgrown poison ivy.  I was wearing long pants, but he was wearing shorts. Thankfully, he was able to avoid a rash by immediately applying rubbing alcohol to his legs. He dabbed his legs with hand sanitizer, which may have broken up the urushiol.  So, as a note to other hikers, pack rubbing alcohol or a preventative cream to avoid a rash. We weren’t really prepared, but both narrowly avoided a rash (I washed my clothes after).  From now on, we will take poison ivy more seriously!

After a fun day of hiking at Glacial Lakes State Park, we headed off to Morris, Mn, where my brother went to college. I never visited him in Morris, so we took the opportunity to venture there as it was 30 minutes from the park. Although the campus was closed, we wandered the grounds and past the buildings where he embarked on his life journey. There is something melancholy about touring the places of long ago, where new, young, hopeful students will gather in the fall. It is sad to think of all that was or wasn’t and how time moves us forward, relentlessly towards death, change, and loss. But, on a happier note, we also enjoyed some delicious Mexican food at Mi Mexico. Mi Mexico was a Chinese buffet when my brother was in college. Although I never visited him while he was at Morris, at least we revisited it years later after a pleasant day of hiking. I was happy for the opportunity to visit a new state park and spend the day with my brother. I hope that we have many years of hikes together!