Bob CollinsShould doctors be banned about asking about guns, the Bachmann story, the story of stuff, school counselors as luxuries, the band kids and the jocks, and Minneapolis is the new gay.
1) A CLASH OF THE CONSTITUTION?
How much of the doctor-patient relationship should be just between the doctor and patient?
The NRA, strong defenders of the Second Amendment, are taking aim at the First Amendment in Florida. It’s behind a bill that’s about to be signed in Florida to bar doctors from asking about whether guns in the house are locked, NPR reports.
“We take our children to pediatricians for medical care — not moral judgment, not privacy intrusions,” Marion Hammer, the National Rifle Association’s lobbyist in Tallahassee says.
Pediatricians, LiveScience.com reports, say there’s good reason to make the issue a health care issue.
A gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill someone known to the family than it is to kill someone in self-defense, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). And many victims of accidental gun injuries and death are under age 25, research has shown. Further, states with the most guns at home have suicide rates double rates of states with the fewest guns, and those suicides are often children.
Supporters of the law say it also prevents private information from falling into third party hands.
Are guns a health issue? Or is it none of anyone’s business?
In Texas, meanwhile, the governor is set to sign legislation that requires him/her to perform a sonogram on any woman seeking an abortion, providing women the opportunity to see the baby and hear its heartbeat , according to the Christian Broadcasting Network.
2) THE BACHMANN STORY
NPR came to Minnesota to try to learn more about Rep. Michele Bachmann. They talked to a few of the usual suspects here. But none of them mentioned the issue upon which she cut her political teeth here: The Profiles of Learning.
That’s significant because it’s what launched her. Business Week provides a more detailed background on Bachmann. She lost the election for the school board in Stillwater. It’s the only election she’s ever lost.
3) THE STORY OF STUFF
Environmental activist Annie Leonard is speaking Friday morning at Carleton College. She’ll preside at the weekly convocation at the school. She best known for “The Story of Stuff.”
4) SCHOOL LUXURIES?
Are alcohol and drug counselors in school a luxury we can’t afford anymore? The Pioneer Press reports that the writing is on the wall, profiling the last remaining alcohol and drug counselor in the North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale school district of more than 10,000 students.
Why are they not needed anymore? Because, apparently, they did their jobs too well:
A marked decline in alcohol and drug use over the past decade has drained some urgency from funding prevention: On the Minnesota Student Survey, almost a quarter of high school seniors report downing five drinks or more in a row in the past two weeks, down from 34 percent in 1995; 15 percent of freshmen say they smoked pot in the past year, compared with 22 percent in 1995.
Those numbers remain sobering, counselors say. In fact, pot use among seniors hasn’t budged.
5) THE BAND KIDS AND THE JOCKS
What if we put as much emphasis on high school music as we put on high school sports? This…
Bonus: You just don’t get it, San Francisco. Minneapolis is the “new gay.” (may not be suitable for the workplace.)
TODAY’S QUESTION
Polls consistently show that a majority of Minnesotans oppose spending taxpayer funds on a new Vikings stadium. Even so, officials are pushing competing stadium plans for Minneapolis and Arden Hills, and the idea has bipartisan support among legislators and the governor. Today’s Question: Should public opposition to a taxpayer-financed Vikings stadium preclude building one?
WHAT WE’RE DOING
We’re in the middle of a membership drive, so there are some repeats here.
Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) – First hour: When science journalist Joshua Foer went to cover the U.S. Memory Championship, he thought he would be witnessing the “Super Bowl of savants.” What he found was that the competitors were normal people who had trained with ancient techniques that anyone could use. His new book details his own quest to become a memory champion.
Second hour: A new book delves into the current scientific quest for the secret of eternal life and traces the historic fascination with longevity. But if we could really live forever, would we want to?
All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) – Somali parents with autistic children say the Minnesota Health Department hasn’t taken their autism concerns seriously. Somalis say their community appears to have a much higher rate of autism than other ethnic groups and they suspect vaccines may be to blame. They complain that MDH keeps repeating that there’s no evidence that vaccines cause autism, so they should keep vaccinating their kids. Somalis say this is infuriating advice from an agency that has shown little interest in autism. MPR’s Lorna Benson will have the story.
According to the latest jobs report, the number of people in the U.S. who have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks is still really high– 5.8 million. They make up about 43 percent of the country’s unemployed. Economists say that it used to be that the long-term unemployed were people who could afford to stay out of work without grabbing the first thing offered. But with so many people hit by layoffs, there are lots of people in that boat for reasons beyond their control. Still, there are a few groups that are most likely to be unemployed long term: minorities, older workers, and people with low education levels. Baxter looks at some of the negative implications of long-term unemployment for the individual and the broader economy. MPR’s Annie Baxter will report.
Euan Kerr says British writer Chris Cleave, author of bestselling novel “Little Bee,” heads to Cambridge, Minnesota, where the novel is the community read. We’ll hear what the community hopes to learn from reading about a Nigerian girl caught in an asylum seekers detention center in the UK
