The center, which has existed in one form or another since 1977, has been planning a new children’s area at its centerpiece museum and has a fundraiser and holiday program on the calendar for December. The center also houses a 7,000-volume library and research center and hosts events throughout the year.

In January, the museum was scheduled to open an exhibit of photographs from Walden Woods in Massachusetts, a project involving the Walden Woods Project. That’s a cultural nonprofit (dedicated to preserving the place that Henry David Thoreau made famous) founded and supported by musician Don Henley.

Now would be a good time for a famous son or daughter of the Iron Range to do the same for the former Ironworld.

That’s because, like professed party-builder Pawlenty, the Minuteman Political Action Committee prefers Hoffman to Republican Scozzafava.

While in Mexico, Pawlenty will meet with President Felipe Calderon, whose term ends in 2012 — the same year Pawlenty hopes to be elected as his counterpart in the United States.

Pawlenty’s past international travel includes trade missions to Israel and India. His trip to Mexico will be brief: Nov. 9–10. The announcement came on Minnesota-Mexico Day, which Pawlenty marked at Best Buy headquarters in Richfield.

Elsewhere in Minnesota headlines this morning …

ST. PAUL: McCollum’s health-care forum “civil.” Case in point: The guy in the photo holding a “Socialism” placard with President Obama’s face in scary Joker facepaint appears to be sitting quietly with his hand in his lap next to a woman with a “Standing Together for Health Insurance Reform” sign in hers. [St. Paul Pioneer Press]

STATEWIDE: My stronghold is stronger than your stronghold. Entrenched DFLers in the state House are more entrenched than their Republican counterparts. [Smart Politics]

FORT SNELLING: Franken joins Klobuchar, Pawlenty at sendoff for Afghanistan-bound reservists. The state’s new senator recited some rules for phoning home, including not asking about “your car, finances or boat” before asking how the family is. [Minnesota Public Radio]

MINNEAPOLIS: Protest shines light on “wage theft.” Working through breaks, losing tips, and doing unpaid overtime: It’s not just for immigrants anymore. [Workday Minnesota]

NORTH METRO: Northstar Commuter Rail rolls out Nov. 16. Perfect timing for commuters who dislike iffy November driving conditions, or for anyone with a grandmother in Big Lake to visit for Thanksgiving. [Finance and Commerce]

ST. CLOUD: Just build a pool. We don’t need no stinkin’ spendy aqauatics center, writes a St. Cloud grandmother (whose grandkids could visit via the new train if it didn’t terminate at Big Lake). [St. Cloud Times]

Somali flag (Image: Wikipedia)

Why would young Somali men living in Minnesota return to their war-ravaged homeland to wage jihad? That’s the thorny question that’s been debated by the Somali community and federal investigators since the mysterious disappearances of as many as 20 young men surfaced last year.

A new Associated Press story provides some additional insight into the tools employed by the al-Shabaab terrorist network, which is believed to be at the center of the recruiting campaign. The group, which purportedly has ties to al-Qaeda, utilized YouTube videos glorifying martyrdom, phone calls from Somalia and secret meetings in Minneapolis to entice the young men into the fold. The AP story also fingers the possible key role of a man named Zakaria Maruf:

Stephen Smith, an attorney who represents several young Somalis questioned by authorities, said his clients describe Maruf as someone with a bravado that appealed to younger men he met on the basketball court or at mosques.

Smith said one of his 18-year-old clients got a phone call from Maruf, in Somalia, asking him to join the fight. Maruf and the teenager also exchanged e-mails and had a brief conversation in a chat room, Smith said.

Smith said the teen didn’t go but felt uncomfortable turning down someone he looked up to.

Maruf’s whereabouts aren’t known. Some family members say they believe he was killed in Somalia last month, but federal officials could not confirm that.

At least three of the young men recruited to travel to Somalia have since died. Three other would-be jihadists, who eventually returned to the United States, have pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges.

Related:

‘Missing youth’ story rattles local Somali community

Are jihadist groups luring Minnesota Somalis back to fight?

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Although only about four million of the estimated 44.3 million people of Latino descent in America live in Midwestern states, cultural differences and economic realities associated with those populations have created additional challenges for rural health care delivery systems that are already stretched thin. Experts warn, however, that society will have a high price to pay if access to medical and behavioral health care isn’t provided to immigrants regardless of their resident status.

“I believe the people who are here, whether they are documented or undocumented, if they pose significant public health challenges, we need to pay attention,” said Dr. Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, founding director of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities at the University of California-Davis Health System. “One example of why that is the case is the H1N1 epidemic. That virus does not recognize borders. HIV is another virus that has portability, as does substance abuse. None of them recognize or stop at a country’s border.”

Aguilar-Gaxiola, who is also a professor of clinical internal medicine at UC-Davis and just completed a four-year term on the National Institute of Mental Health’s advisory council, informed a group of primarily Midwestern mental health professionals gathered for a conference on Monday that immigrants are often caught in a vicious cycle of poverty and mental illness. After his keynote address at the conference, Aguilar-Gaxiola told the Iowa Independent that this is especially true for most immigrants who come into Iowa or other regional states to take jobs at factories and meatpacking plants.

Dr. Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola

“There are different migratory trajectories,” he explained. “The Mexican-origin immigrants that you have here in the Midwest come from certain regions in Mexico, primarily from the more rural areas. I think there are nuances and differences that one has to look at in terms of whether the immigrants come from rural or urban areas, and whether they take skilled or unskilled jobs.”

Immigrants who originate from rural regions in Mexico, he said, are far more apt to be without an adequate education and to have little or no job skill set. In contrast, immigrants who choose to pursue skilled jobs in larger cities come primarily from Puebla or other metropolitan areas that have better access to educational and vocational opportunities.

Lack of opportunity, dead-end jobs, low wages and a general feelings of helplessness have contributed to an increased instance of substance abuse among second and long-term first generation people of Latino descent living in the U.S.

According to research Aguilar-Gaxiola helped compile, roughly 20 percent of Mexican immigrants report having either alcohol abuse or dependence issues. In addition, roughly 18 percent report drug abuse or dependence. In each case the abusive disorders reported by the Mexican population are several percentage points higher than national averages. And, unfortunately, the cultural differences between immigrants from rural and urban areas don’t appear to signify any significant substance abuse disparities following migration to the U.S.

“The differences in prevalence rates between first-, second- and third-generation immigrants are very consistent and replicated findings across the U.S. and specifically in regions of the U.S. that include Midwestern states,” Aguilar-Gaxiola said.

Cultural differences do, however, create challenges for physicians who wish to deliver behavioral health services to immigrant populations.

According to Aguilar-Gaxiola, Latinos are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to terminate treatment prematurely, with as many as 60 to 75 percent of Latinos drop out after a single session. Much of this, he believes, is due to language barriers between behavioral health professionals and those they seek to serve. This can be especially true for immigrant populations who are already concerned that requesting help could lead to discrimination or deportation.

“We have many reports that have helped us to become more aware about these raids and how they separate and impact families,” he said. “Even if parents might be undocumented, and subsequently deported, often their children are born in the U.S. and are citizens.”

Although there has been speculation regarding the mental and physical health consequences faced by the children of deported parents, Aguilar-Gaxiola said that there are currently no good studies documenting the challeges the young people face in the wake of such an event.

North Carolina, a state that is experiencing one of the nation’s largest population growth from Latino immigrants, was the subject of a University of North Carolina study that looked at whether or not such populations were a burden on state services. The study authors surmised, according to Aguilar-Gaxiola, that the immigrants gave more than what they took.

“I happen to believe that if we were to pay attention to access to health care and access to education for these populations that the return would be much greater than the cost,” he said. “Unfortunately, I think that as a part of the national debate on immigration that there is an idea or a sentiment that immigrant populations are a burden, and that they are taking other people’s jobs. This is especially true in the current economy when jobs are scarce and people are really scrambling to get good jobs. But the jobs that [immigrants] take for the most part are the jobs that not many other populations are reading and willing to do — very taxing and very high-risk jobs, very low-paying and without many benefits.

“So I see this from the public health perspective that it is better to tend to the populations, especially when they are contributing in one way or another to the economic region.”

Lynda Waddington is a reporter for the Iowa Independent.

The Rev. Miguel Rivera of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders tells National Public Radio that immigrants — legal and illegal — should boycott the Census because of past raids and deportations of immigrants.

“Law enforcement has been very effective in areas where the data of Census 2000 has been used,” he said, adding that a boycott would put pressure on members of Congress. “So if they don’t want lacking of funding for their constituents, maybe losing seats at the congressional level, then what they have to do is roll their sleeves and move forward with comprehensive immigration reform.”

That presents a conundrum for Bachmann, who has advocated increased enforcement of current immigration policy. “This is an issue of anarchy versus the rule of law,” she once told Bill O’Reilly.

She said during the 2008 campaign that illegal immigrants were “bringing in diseases, bringing in drugs, bringing in violence.”

But the more interesting twist? Bachmann doesn’t think the Census asks about citizenship. She told Sean Hannity:

Sean, you know the one question they don’t ask? They don’t ask, “are you an American citizen?” They don’t ask if you’re here on a visa or when it expires. We have no real idea how many illegal aliens are in our country. But wouldn’t you think, here they are asking every personal question about our lives, they could at least ask if we’re an American citizen? They don’t bother to ask for that. That’s why I think people need to read this census for themselves. If you go to my website, michelebachmann, you can read it.

But, as Think Progress pointed out, the Census has asked about citizenship since 1890.

(WDCpix)

This week Minnesota’s members of Congress went back to work after the July 4 break, except for Sen. Al Franken who was showing up — finally — for the first time. Rep. Keith Ellison put forward a credit reform bill, Rep. Betty McCollum announced her plan to expand the Peace Corps, and Republicans criticized the Democrats’ energy and stimulus policies. Here’s how the week shook down:

Rep. Keith Ellison introduced legislation to reform credit rating agencies on Wednesday. “When these agencies put their mark of approval on complex products they confer a legitimacy that may not actually exist,” he said. “We’ve learned of instances where credit rating agencies have given top ratings to products backed by dubious mortgages and other loans. Under current law there was really no one looking over the agencies’ shoulders to make sure that they were making reasonable assumptions or had even a basic understanding of the risks they were assessing.”

Rating agencies are currently subject only to limited oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but are critical elements of the financial system.

Rep. Michele Bachmann sent a video to people attending the Tea Parties over the weekend; she was appointed to the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute’s Advisory Board; and she says that President Obama is destroying the American dream — or, rather, the American dreams of Chrysler auto dealers.

Rep. Betty McCollum is gearing up for a Congressional softball game. Proceeds from the game be donated to the Young Survival Coalition (YSC), a group that works to educate and support young women living with breast cancer.

McCollum also spoke passionately on the House floor on Thursday about expanding the Peace Corps.

[T]oday the Peace Corps, one of the most successful foreign policy initiatives, is at a crossroads. Peace Corps is not capable of meeting the demand of Americans of all ages who want to serve… We have an opportunity here today in this moment to reinvigorate Peace Corps for the next new century, but it’s going to take leadership from Congress. The President’s request simply was not enough, even though the President does propose to double, increase and fully fund Peace Corps out into the years.

Rep. James Oberstar is still pushing a $450 billion funding bill and $50 billion for high-speed rail. Also, Oberstar was in New York on Friday with Obama’s transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, to mark the 50th anniversary of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which is crucial to Duluth’s status as a seaport.

Rep. Erik Paulsen talked to the Eden Prairie News about the cap-and-trade energy bill working its way through Congress. “If we’re going to be serious about securing our energy future, we need to focus on having nuclear energy be a part of that,” he said.

Rep. John Kline penned an editorial for the website “America’s Right” slamming Obama’s stimulus policies. “Republicans are committed to pro-growth policies that will get our economy back on track without saddling future generations with unmanageable debt,” he wrote. “We offered a stimulus plan that would have created twice the jobs for half the price.”

But Media Matters says his statement doesn’t hold water: “[T]he GOP got its ‘twice the jobs’ claim by misusing a formula in an academic paper that they later admitted they weren’t able to understand in the first place.”

Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar split their votes on immigration policy, specifically on the border fence between the United States and Mexico. Franken voted against it. Klobuchar voted for it.

One of Franken’s first tasks as senator was to sign on to the Employee Free Choice Act, a pledge he’s made throughout his campaign. “I just became a cosponsor of my first bill in the Senate, the Employee Free Choice Act,” he said on Tuesday.

Photo: The UpTake

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” wrote poet Robert Frost. And U.S. Sen. Al Franken defines that something as all “relevant effective law enforcement agencies” — none of which, he says, love the wall between the United States and Mexico.

“Good fences make good neighbors,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar might quote in reply. She wants to see “a very good effort [along the border] … to make it harder to come in illegally.” A bill requiring completion of 700 miles of fence along the United States’ southern boundary divided the votes of Minnesota’s Democratic senators Wednesday.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, might have hurt any chance he had of gaining support of the Senate’s newest member on Tuesday when he drew a parallel between Franken’s election win and a south-of-the-border coup.

The two Minnesota senators — who only Tuesday couldn’t have been closer as they embraced after Franken’s swearing-in ceremony — also split their votes on a proposal requiring government contractors to use the online E-Verify system to determine whether job applicants have the right immigration status, among other requirements.

Franken was against, saying the current three-year E-Verify requirement allowed better oversight than would a permanent commitment. Klobuchar supported the measure, calling E-Verify “a good employer verification process so that employers aren’t hiring people that shouldn’t be in our country.” In fact, she said she would like to see it “made a little tougher.”

Do Klobuchar and Franken see eye to eye on enforcement along the Canadian border, which after all defines their own state’s northern boundary? After six months of suffering with Minnesota’s second Senate seat essentially unmanned, do they support the unmanned drones that this year began patrolling the skies above the Boundary Waters? Are new passport requirements adequate or does Minnesota also need a fence?

Frost had a thought on that too:

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.

To raise awareness of anti-gay bias, members of the LGBT community are planning a “Big Gay Kiss on the Mall” on July 23. The kiss-in by same-sex couples at Peavey Plaza is a direct response to the harassment seen in the video, according to organizers.

Gubernatorial candidate and former Sen. Mark Dayton denounced the youths’ actions and promised that dealing with harassment would be part of his campaign:

A recent YouTube video shows a group of youths harassing a gay man at last Sunday’s Pride parade. I deplore their immoral and illegal actions. It is also extremely disturbing that the video shows a security officer walking by the harassment and doing nothing to stop it.

There is no place in Minnesota for that kind of immoral and illegal behavior. If I become Governor, I pledge to do everything within my power to stop it.

A spokesman for the Minneapolis Police Department said that the uniformed individuals in the video were not Minneapolis officers.

Currently, there is a video on YouTube of an incident that occurred sometime during the Minneapolis Gay Pride Festival. There has been some speculation that Minneapolis Police Officers were in that video. The Minneapolis Police Department wants to assure the public that those security officers who casually walk by during this incident were not from our department. We have a strict uniform policy and those were not our uniforms or our police officers. This is unacceptable behavior that would not be tolerated by the Minneapolis Police. Action would have been taken immediately to stop the harassment that is depicted in the video.

OutFront Minnesota said that the incident should not be an excuse for anger at people from different racial or ethnic backgrounds:

A video appearing on YouTube depicts verbal harassment of Twin Cities Pride attendees by a small group of young people. OutFront Minnesota decries all hate- or bias-motivated violence and harassment, regardless of who is targeted; we are glad the targets were not physically harmed. This particular incident adds a level of controversy because the perpetrators and targets appear to be of different racial backgrounds. As we have seen in the wake of the Prop. 8 vote in California, racism exists within the GLBT community and can rise to the surface at difficult times. It’s critical to remember that judging a person’s actions is different from judging their presumed background. OutFront Minnesota remains committed to helping address racism within the GLBT community, and to being a strong advocate for GLBT community members from ALL racial or ethnic backgrounds.

Omar Jamal of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center told FOX 9 News that some in the Somali community think Schreifels set the boys up: “Some of the community believe this is a frame-up where the gay guy provoked the Somali boys while his friend video taped them.”

Schreifels sent a letter to Jamal clarifying what happened:

I am insulted by your response, and by those in your community who would imply the ridiculous possibility that this was a frame-up. It does nothing to gain favor of a community that has represented themselves poorly to the gay community already. We haven’t forgotten the gays being kicked out of cabs by Somali cab drivers. Furthermore, it shifts the responsibility for this behavior onto me and my friend, rather than on the ignorant teenagers who were shouting these hateful words, which were most likely learned by their parents, or religious leaders. This is unacceptable. The notion that somehow they may have been provoked or framed needs to be put to rest immediately.

Demanding these kids be held accountable would send a sign that your words of condemnation are not merely words, but a sign of intolerance for this kind of behavior. Anything less than this response simply sends the message that the actions of these young boys are acceptable in your eyes.

Schreifels released this video over the weekend responding to the debate caused by the harassment:

Justin Grey Day, the video’s author, also called for calm in response to racist sentiments emerging in the aftermath:

To me, that’s an indication that they intend to stay.