In a world full of international strife and division and a ratcheting up of racial tensions due to the administration of President Donald Trump, it’s good to see people from diverse backgrounds finding positive ways to come together.
Such is the case of a intramural soccer team at Minnesota State University. The group formed around a love for the game and began playing in January with a goal of continuing until April.
“I love to play with international people from all around the world,” said Emiel Steenhoek of the Netherlands in a Free Press article published Friday.
“We have players from South Korea, the Netherlands, France, Palestine and the manager is Swedish. Even if you don’t speak other languages, soccer is a global sport. You can understand everyone even if you don’t know their language.”
It’s remarkable for students of such diverse background to bond around soccer in such a short time they have together. The students are only at the university for 16 weeks in an exchange program but have managed to come together for the team they have called MSU United.
The 15 students play games in the MSU dome recreational facility, sheltering them from the Minnesota winter and cold spring. It seems the students have put more importance on the things that unite them rather than the things that divide them.
We could all take a lesson from that.
Adding to affordable housing
Thumbs up to developers Coldwell Banker Commercial Fisher Group for its proposal to building 20-36 below-market-price houses and townhomes in Germania Park neighborhood near old quarries that are soon to be redeveloped.
Brett Skilbred, representing Fisher Group, said the project is aiming to provide affordable housing for all ages and demographics and first-time home buyers. The project goes before the Mankato Planning Commission next week. The developers will be requesting the area be rezoned from light industrial to medium-density residential.
The homes, once built, will offer a view of the redeveloping Jefferson Quarry, where another developer has plans to make it into a recreational area with housing and other uses.
Skilbred complimented the city of Mankato for working with them on coming up with a plan for the affordable housing project, saying it won’t be a big money maker for developers. Affordable housing continues to be a big need in the Mankato region and civic leaders have worked together to building real momentum for success.
Roberts vs. Trump
Thumbs up to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts who rejected calls for impeaching federal judges shortly after President Donald Trump demanded the removal of a judge who ruled against his deportation plans.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” Roberts wrote in a statement.
Trump may want to be a dictator, but he is finding the judicial system is one of the few restraints on his hope to do anything he wants, regardless of laws or the Constitution.
Trump had attacked a judge who had ruled against one of his deportation plans. “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” Trump wrote on social media.
Roberts, appointed by George W. Bush, understands that impeachment of judges is a rare move done only if a judge commits crimes or has serious ethical lapses. And Trump knows that.
War heroes erased
Thumbs down to the Trump administration for its continued vicious attack on diversity and inclusion.
As part of Trump’s efforts to remove DEI content from federal websites, the story of Native American soldier Ira Hayes, who took part in the flag raising at Iwo Jima, has been removed as part of the DEI purge and erasing of American history.
The story of Hayes, a Pima Indian, was until recently part of the Defense Department’s website as an emblem of “contributions and sacrifices Native Americans have made to the United States, not just in the military, but in all walks of life.”
Articles about the Navajo code talkers, who were instrumental in cracking enemy codes that helped the U.S. win the Pacific Theater, also were removed. A profile of a Tonawanda Seneca officer who drafted the Confederate surrender papers at Appomattox was also removed.
And finally, incredibly, a page detailing baseball great Jackie Robinson’s Army Service during World War II was removed.
These egregious acts of erasing history and the contributions of Americans who were people of color is beyond outrageous. It’s unpatriotic and another move toward authoritarianism by the Trump administration.
And a GOP Congress that sits by and watches this blasphemy to everything sacred about U.S. freedoms is complicit in dismantling them.