The Rights Readers Supreme Court

Nine years or so ago, we read Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence by Martha Minow. Now its come to my attention that the author is on at least one speculative list for the current Supreme Court vacancy.



Rights Readers trivia question: what other author we've read has made a Supremes speculation list? Hint: Minow names her in the video above from Facing History.

Minow'slatest looks like it would be interesting to the educators among us (more here.

Making Rights Really Universal

Aww, all this Star Trek mania is making me nostalgic for the days when Amnesty International Group 22 tabled at the Star Trek convention in Pasadena. I wish I had pictures, but at least I still have my delegation badge! Remember when the Trekkies used to scarf up our cute little Universal Declaration of Human Rights booklets with the UN logo on them that kinda-sorta resembles the logo at left, thinking they had stumbled on some profound interplanetary document? But surely the United Federation would have a UDHR-derived bill of rights governing earthlings and aliens! For another flashback, try this Slate article, "Star Trek: The Next Generation's eerily prescient torture episode", which I recall we helped to promote (note that the article does mention an interplanetary version of the Geneva Convention.)

Philip Gourevitch Update

Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, a book Rights Readers selected almost ten years ago, has returned to Rwanda and although the resulting New Yorker article is available to subscribers only, you can listen to him discuss his experiences here. He has also suggested some further reading on the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath at The Book Bench. On another of his favorite topics, you can read some of his recent commentary on torture here and listen to a discussion on the topic on the April 23rd edition of the "Political Scene" podcast.

For August: Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris

For August, we have selected Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris,

When sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing, her prominent family calls on Nayir al-Sharqi, a pious desert guide, to lead the search party. Ten days later, just as Nayir is about to give up in frustration, her body is discovered by anonymous desert travelers. But when the coroner’s office determines that Nouf died not of dehydration but from drowning, and her family seems suspiciously uninterested in getting at the truth, Nayir takes it upon himself to find out what really happened. He quickly realizes that if he wants to gain access to the hidden world of women, he will have to join forces with Katya Hijazi, a lab worker at the coroner’s office who is bold enough to bare her face and to work in public. Their partnership challenges Nayir, as he confronts his desire for female companionship and the limitations imposed by his beliefs. Fast-paced and utterly transporting, Finding Nouf is a riveting literary mystery that offers an unprecedented window into Saudi Arabia and the lives of men and women there.

Our April Author: Ann Cummins

Our environmentally-themed novel for April, Yellowcake, introduces us to author Ann Cummins. Here is her faculty page at Northern Arizona University. Bookbrowse offers us an interview,

Why did you choose this subject?

I grew up in the Colorado Plateau area and, like some of my characters, I'm from generations of Colorado miners. So the history and landscape are personal to me. My father was a uranium mill worker in Durango, Colorado, and his company began operating a mill in Shiprock, New Mexico, on the Navajo reservation when I was nine. So the reservation, too, is personal to me. I lived there for nine years and went to public school there.

Intrepid Reader Stevi (and our resident expert on all things nuclear) recommends the following links as background to the environmental themes of the novel:

Navajo Justice Page (Excellent overview!)

Uranium Impact Assessment Program (Activist resource!)

The real deal and more:

"Memories Come To Us In the Rain and the Wind", Oral Histories and Photographs of Navajo Uranium Miners & Their Families

Navajo Uranium Miners fight for Compensation
Navajo Uranium Radiation Victims

Mount Tenabo and Navajo uranium mining

New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty

I thought Rights Readers should have some sort of equivalent to lighting up the Colosseum on the occasion of New Mexico abolishing the death penalty. How about this "Fire Up" slideshow from AI's celebration of the 60th anniversary of the UDHR?




Gov. Richardson's press release can be found here. His reasoning covers many standard abolition arguments and not surprisingly coming from the former diplomat includes this,

From an international human rights perspective, there is no reason the United States should be behind the rest of the world on this issue. Many of the countries that continue to support and use the death penalty are also the most repressive nations in the world. That’s not something to be proud of.

To track legislative progress in other states, bookmark this handy table from the Death Penalty Information Center. More on legislative maneuvers in the NYT article. And for lack of a better place to share, see this article for positive development on the federal level (also affecting California).

The Girl Effect

Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea is now out in picturebook and young reader versions. The NYT takes a look. While we are being reminded of this powerful story centered on children, especially girls, how about a little women's history month PSA:



For more see: Girls Count: A Global Investment & Action Agenda