Blog

When I was a kid, there was an anti - drug public-service announcement (PSA) on television showing a man holding an egg (this is your brain) and a hot frying pan (this is drugs). He breaks the egg into the pan (this is your brain on drugs). He holds the pan up to the camera as the egg oozes and sizzles. Any questions? I had questions. In part, these questions are what formed my path into neuroscience. I had always felt that those PSAs were heavy handed, too deeply entrenched in the "Just Say...

This is an interview with Judith Sekler, who works with an organization called A Thousand Joys in Los Angeles. It partners with schools in high-crime impoverished neighborhoods with high-risk children and families who are suffering the effects of trauma-related stress and violence, referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s). ATJ’s school-based program Transform uses healing modalities including yoga, meditation and mindfulness to help students build confidence and control over...

Despite the "law and order" vows of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, states and counties continue to take steps to reduce prison and jail populations. Last month, Cook County, Illinois initiated its own special court dedicated to setting bond for people with felony cases. The mandate of the court is to set bond at a level the charged individual says they can afford. In California, meanwhile, the SB10 bail reform bill has passed the Senate and appears likely to become law in the coming year.

Wen is an emergency physician and the health commissioner of Baltimore City. Two months ago, my husband and I welcomed our baby son, Eli, into the world. Hearing his first cry and getting to hold him were the happiest moments of our lives. When he was placed on my chest and I could see and touch him, I felt like I knew him already. The doctors told us he was healthy and well. I couldn't wait to start our lives together as a family. The night we arrived home, Eli wouldn't stop crying. Crying...

Last month, after six months of construction, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority reopened the first of three rehabbed Brooklyn stations. It had new USB charging stations, large-screen digital maps, countdown clocks, and even a new mosaic. But what really caught straphangers’ attention was the leaning bar. A slanted wooden slab set against the wall at about the height of a person’s rear end, the bar was meant to give passengers a way to take some weight off their feet as they...

ACEs, Adversity's Impact A child’s perspective of a traumatic experience [2 min - Sesame Street in communities] Child abuse and violence survivors are being misdiagnosed and re-traumatized by the NHS Traumatic events take toll on the heart Hispanic children and exposure to adverse experiences Childhood poverty, poor support may drive up pregnant woman's biological age Bullying Beyond bullying: Study shows damaging affects of multiple forms of victimization on school climate Ignore, respond,...

(Heather) McGhee is the president of Demos , a public policy organization that advocates for social change. As a black public figure, she's no stranger to receiving retorts from racially prejudiced individuals. However, the experience she had with the caller on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" was altogether different. After the caller announced himself as someone who is prejudiced, McGhee braced herself for a rant but was surprised to hear a simple ask instead. "What can I do to change?" asked...

Across the parking lot from a YMCA in Des Moines, about a dozen men sit on black plastic chairs in the basement of a former Catholic high school. This is a court-ordered class for domestic abusers, part of a new statewide curriculum for batterer intervention in Iowa. According to police reports, one man here kicked his wife several times in the stomach. Another threw a lamp at his girlfriend's head. Lucas Sampson - a man with the imposing appearance of a viking but the gentle demeanor of...

In 1928, the leaders of 15 countries committed to renouncing war as a tool for resolving international disputes. They enshrined this commitment in the Kellogg-Briand Pact (sometimes referred to as the Paris Peace Pact) and were later joined by 47 other countries. But war, of course, continued, and the pact is generally remembered as a well-meaning but ineffectual fantasy—when it is remembered at all. Now, Yale law professors Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, the authors of The...

It’s a problem that isn’t going away: the so-called “affordable” housing we’re building in many cities—by which we mean publicly subsidized housing that’s dedicated to low- and moderate-income households—is so expensive to build that we’ll never be able to build enough of it to make a dent in the housing affordability problem. The latest case in point is a new affordable housing development called Estrella Vista in Emeryville, California, (abutting Oakland and just across the bay from San...

The last time you handled a challenge well, were you called a credit to your race? When you go shopping, do store clerks watch you closely or follow you? Do you have trouble finding a hair salon nearby that knows how to style your hair? When you buy greeting cards and magazines, is it difficult to find ones with people the same race as you? If you answered no to these questions, you’re almost certainly white. There’s also a good chance you’ve never looked at your whiteness this way.

On Wednesday, Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) issued a report scrutinizing the management of private foster care providers, and skewering one especially notorious foster care agency. Stirred by news stories chronicling dozens of child deaths because of management of foster care services by The MENTOR Network , a national for-profit provider, Hatch and Wyden directed the Senate Finance Committee to study the matter. The ensuing report , entitled “An Examination of Foster...