Josiah Brown, CT Mirror Reporter

This Family Reunification Month, a movement for children unites Connecticut

by Josiah Brown June 20, 2021 @ 12:01 amMarch 5, 2022 @ 12:56 am

Not only is it Father’s Day; June 13-19 was “Children’s Week” (shouldn’t that be every week?) during Family Reunification Month, following Foster Care Month (May).

CT Viewpoints

Giving thanks — and turning 50 — in 2020: Reflections on the decade past

by Josiah Brown November 26, 2020 @ 4:58 amMarch 5, 2022 @ 12:43 am

In 2010, we were recovering from the Great Recession; now there’s a pandemic.

CT Viewpoints

Generations after the Movement, civil rights imperatives remain

by Josiah Brown June 12, 2020 @ 4:58 amMarch 5, 2022 @ 12:32 am

Ahmaud Arbery’s and George Floyd’s filmed killings, and Breonna Taylor’s in her home, exposed immense, enduring injustices. Institutional and personal biases perpetuate racism in politics, law, the economy, housing, health, schools. Individuals own their actions. Yet systems fuel problems from inequality to mass incarceration. The Long Civil Rights Movement has chapters still to be written. Not just matters of race but the rights of immigrants, the indigenous, women, LGBTQ, and persons with disabilities have only partially advanced.

CT Viewpoints

May is Foster Care Month — while child abuse and neglect are likely underreported

by Josiah Brown May 20, 2020 @ 4:58 amMarch 5, 2022 @ 12:32 am

May is Foster Care Month, May 15 the International Day of Families. June is National Reunification Month, a complement in that the hope is for foster care to be temporary before children are reunited with their families. These occasions evoke the enormous challenges facing children and families —challenges heightened during a pandemic— and how to help.

CT Viewpoints

Let’s learn history, not political bias

by Josiah Brown October 20, 2017 @ 5:30 amMarch 4, 2022 @ 11:58 pm

Lori Hopkins-Cavanagh’s Oct. 16 CT Viewpoints piece on Columbus Day is a caricature of an argument. Her essay is full of errors — from petty math to fundamental facts about American history. Evidently unfamiliar with the First Amendment’s scope, she describes Christianity as “intrinsic” to “our uniquely American liberties.” She says Columbus — who sailed for the king and queen behind the Spanish Inquisition — “is the reason why we are a nation founded by Christians and blessed with the only Constitution in the world where the individual citizen derives their liberties from God, not the government.”

CT Viewpoints

‘Revolution’ talk serious, from Shays’ Rebellion to today

by Josiah Brown November 2, 2016 @ 5:30 amMarch 4, 2022 @ 11:51 pm

Disparaging the U.S. government and election system, with menacing warnings and occasionally occupation and weaponry, is in season…. Would-be rebels and gun zealots revive one reason the U.S. Constitution was created: to counter conflicts like Shays’ Rebellion, when Massachusetts farmers burdened by debt took up arms against the Commonwealth in 1786–87.

CT Viewpoints

New Americans and young voters to play growing role

by Josiah Brown June 28, 2016 @ 5:30 amMarch 4, 2022 @ 11:50 pm

Primary season is over, party conventions loom, and the general election will follow in November. New Americans and young voters may play pivotal roles in certain states and Congressional districts. According to a Pew study, “An estimated 69.2 million Millennials (adults ages 18-35 in 2016) were voting-age U.S. citizens … 31 percent of the voting-eligible population.” Yet actual “young-adult turnout depends on … the candidates, the success of voter mobilization efforts,” and other issues.