For better or for worse

Maybe it was just a fluke of my own computer system. Yet, reading over the previous post, some sections there appeared in all-caps, when certainly I never posted them that way. Now, I've just looked back again and it looks corrected. All caps are now all gone.  

7-Day Local Forecast

Based on current forecasts for early February 2026, Berkeley Springs, WV will experience cold, wintery conditions, with highs in the 30s°F and lows dropping into the teens and 20s°F. Potential for light snow/mixed precipitation exists mid-week, followed by very cold, windy conditions towards the weekend. 

Friday (Feb 6): High 32°F, Low 15°F. Mostly cloudy, brisk, and cold.

• Saturday (Feb 7): High 23°F, Low 9°F. Frigid, windy, and partly cloudy.

Above was the forecast issued for Feb, 6, but by the afternoonon of Friday, February 6, light snow had started falling once again, coating rooftops and roads. So then the forecast was changed to "flurries and snow showers", along with colder temperatures, updating the previous forecast to reflect what was actually happening by then. Weather forecasting, like any prediction about the future, is never going to hit the mark 100%.

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In a democracy, which our form of government purports to be, citizens influence governmental decisions even between elections. And sometimes a majority of the electorate even comes to regret their recent vote, made in good faith, This is because those chosen as leaders are not living up to promises and expectations. Already this has happened to Donald Trump in just the first year of his present term.

Bombshell Poll Reveals Trump’s Staggering Disapproval Rating

Daily Beast

HOW LOW CAN HE GO

Approval is at its lowest point since after the Jan. 6 riots in 2021.

The Economist

Most recent Trump approval rating, The Economist (Jan. 30, 2026):

• Favorable: 38%
• Unfavorable: 56%
• Not sure: 5%

Donald Trump's approval rating is in free-fall now, making some of us feel almost sorry for the guy, since public approval is so important to him. Although he did win a slim majority of votes in this last election when running against Kamala Harris, his voter support has really plummeted in just the first year of this term. 

Kamala may be keeping quiet now because she really is done. But one of my readers suggests another intriguing possiblity next time, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, aka AOC.

Many countries have had female presidents, including Honduras and Nicaragua,

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by women succeeding their husbands. Hillary tried to succeed Bill Clinton, and actuallywon the popular vote. But she failed in the Electoral College, so we ended up with Donald Trump who actually had lost the popular vote then.. Even he was surprised by his unexpected victory. 

It's not clear that Donald Trump is always paying attention even now about what is actually going on in his administration nor does he always seem to be awake, although he claims to only be "resting" his eyes when they are closed. But he must feel some concern about his failing citizen support. Or is that all simply being dismissed just as more "fake news"?

Could Trump perhaps have a senior version of ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivitydisorder?

In any case, Trunp's presidency will be one for the history books.  

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom skewered the White House after President Donald Trump distanced himself from his own racist post.

Newsom’s office posted a message on X, questioning the White House’s claim that it was a staffer, not the president, who shared the racist video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes posted on the president’s personal account late Thursday.

“WOW! WHITE HOUSE SAYS TRUMP DOESN’T WRITE HIS OWN TWEETS??? AUTOPEN!“ Newsom’s office wrote.

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Trump administration wants ICE to quickly deport five-year-old Minneapolis boy and dad days after release

Attorneys for the Trump administration are aiming to deport Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old boy whose photograph in a bunny hat in snowy Minneapolis circulated globally after his detention last month by federal officials during the aggressive anti-immigration crackdown there.

The child, Liam, returned home to Minnesota earlier this week after being taken into custody alongside his father last month and transferred to a notorious family detention facility in Texas.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Friday it is seeking a deportation order for the Ecuadorian boy.

Why the Trump administration is detaining immigrant children – and what happens to them next

Read more

But the department has denied that it is seeking to expedite his and his father’s removal from the US after a lawyer for the family characterized the government’s action as such to the New York Times.

The lawyer, Danielle Molliver, described the move to the newspaper as “extraordinary” and possibly “retaliatory”.

Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, who both entered the US legally as asylum applicants, were ordered released from detention on 31 January. The government is seeking to end the family’s asylum claims.

Donald Trump conveniently forgets that own wife entered this country as a visitor and overstayed her visa, remaining in immigration limbo for a time, actually then emaining here illgally, until she found she was pregnant by Trump himself.  So then, he married her, making her legal staus secure.  They are still married, but sleep in separate bedrooms. When they appear in public together, Trump tries to grasp his wife's hand as she often seems resistant. 

Judge orders Trump administration to bring back 3 families deported to Honduras, other countries

Do you think the Trump administration will bring these 3 families back? I wouldn't bet on it! 

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.

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Back when Donald Trump was sworn in for his first term, I was living then on Capitol Hill, So  I walked over to the capitol and witnessed his inauguration from a safe distance. I saw  a fairly good number in attendance, estimated at over 300,000, but nothing like other inaugurations where it was standing room only and people extended as far as the eye could see. 

The most crowded audience ever was for Obama's first inauguration, where we were all stepping on each other's toes, packed in so tightly that we could scarcely even breathe. Giant screens amplified the images and loudspeakers amplified the speeches. My younger daughter had come out from Hawaii to witness the events. An esstimated 1.8 million attended Obama's first in auguration, then 1 million, his second. Donald Trump could only dream of those numbers. 

 On being sworn in for his current term, Trump held the ceremony inside and had it filmed for TV viewing, with only a few actual attendees present there in person. 

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My younger daughter just sent me a batch of back issues of the New Yorker, where the magazine has been having a field day since Donald Trump became presdient. Writers and cartoonists don't even have to exaggerate or make things up. Trump himself supplies all the humor just with his own rodiculous antics, keeping us all constantly surprised and entertained. Or maybe the joke is actually on the electorate for having chosen him as our current president. Think about it: Mount Rushmore, the Nobel Peace Prize, Greenland, the Trump-Kennedy Center, the Triumphal Arch. And all that is only in the first year of this term.  

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A pitch now for the Peace Corps, still  trying to keep the spirit of service alive now during the Trump years. 

REMINDER: Please join us at our Peace Corps Connect Conference, themed We the Peace Corps: United in Service. The event will take place in Washington, D.C., on July 18–19, 2026, at American University's Washington College of Law, followed by an Advocacy Day on the Hill on July 20, 2026. [Gap below resists closure.]

When I became a Peace Corps health volunteer in Honduras in 2000 at age 62, I was then the oldest volunteer in the country. Because I already spoke Spanish, I didn't need to attend Spanish classes with the other new recruits. This allowed me to explore the country on my own, a country I had actually visited with my family at age 2. Even now in my 80's, I can recall at age 2, riding in by horseback to the Copan ruins, as there was no other transportation. Dad was doing archeological work at the ruins. But that's another story, as recounted in my books. 

Here above I was at age 2, bathing in Honduras with the help of a woman servant while my younger brother (now deceased) stood by. Below, our Dad put a Mayan statue back together, now on display in the Copan museum. (Only black and white photos were available then.) 

========================================== I've also been reminiscing recently about my travels to some 40 countries, mostly on human rights and election monitoring missions in the Americas, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia, also about historical figures I've actually met. These memories have not surfaced in any chronoligal order, but as if they had actually happened only yesterday. I can remember these events more clearly than where I put my reading glasses this morning.  So the timelines are rather uncertain  For example, I've actually met the late President Jimmy Carter on at least 2 or 3 occasions, but cannot specify the dates. I first met him when my kids were quite young, as shown below, and again in Nicargaua in 1990, where he and I were both were serving as election observers. Believe it or not, he actually remembered my name, saying "Hello, Barbara!"   When I knelt down to pray at a jungle shrine in Nicaragua in 1990, there kneeling right beside me was Mother Teresa dressed all in white, such a tiny woman! I also met Daniel Ortega at that time, while he was campaigning for Nicaragua's presidency. He expressed confidence in his upcoming presidential victory--and why not, since the Sandinistas, whom he represented, controlled all the levers of power: the police, the army, the radio, the press. Why had they even agreed to hold an election?  Becuase they were so sure of winning and wanted international recoginition .Violeta Chamorro, whose husband they had murdered, was excoriated in party meetings and in the press for running in her late husband's stead after the Sandinistas had actually killed him. They were so sure they would win and be able to display their support to a sometimes doubting international audience, hoping even to get financial aid from the US,   Because my own views were well known, I had been actually denied a visa. So to witness the election, I went first to Costa Rica, entering Nicargua via a remote jungle crossing, where local officials did not know to bar me. As always, my near native command of Spanish stood me in good stead.  So I was at Violeta Chamorro's home on the evening when she realized she had won Nicaragua's presidential election, winning after not really being allowed to campaign at all. We then advised her not to announce her victory immediateky to give the Sanidnistas time to adjust to their loss. Jimmy Carter was there with us at her house, in his twangy Spanish, backing us all up. So, following our advice, Violeta waited until morning to declare herself the winner of Niaragua's presidency.  Sorry to say, as has been reported earlier, that Ortega is now back as Nicaragua's president once again, after presenting himself as a changed man and even allowing the Peace Corps to operate in the country after first being elected. But once again firmly in power, he is not going to let go again and has selected his wife as his vice president to succeed him if he dies first. I don't remember the year, but I also went to Eastern Germany, avoiding the wall by going by underground train. It seemed like a totally different country on the eastern side, so different from west Germany, so quiet, so grim, In a movie theater, Walter Ulbrick appeared in a newsreel, shouting and gesturing. Some in the audience hissed, but not very loud, as the secret police might have been listening.  I also visited Romanian orphanages where conditions were apalling beyong belief: children all being bathed in the same tub of cool water and all eating off a single dish from one spoon passed from mouth to mouth. I saw  Nicolae Ceaușescu, waving his hands, speaking from an overhead balconey in Bucharest before he and his wife were executed. I could understand most of what he said since Romanian is a romance language, not so very different from the Spanish in which I am fluent.  From Kenya, I once travel all over south Sudan where mostly English was spoken and where women were eager to walk with me, tightly holding onto my hand or my arm. Then I was once in Thailand and Malaysia, where I communicated mostly in English or by using sign language, as I couldn't understand anything being said. All these images are jumbled up in my memory without a clear timeline.  As mentioned, I have met Jimmy Carter and seen several US presidents up close. I've heard Raul Castro speaking in person, but missed shaking hands with Fidel who came in and out of a room too quickly and was being mobbed by the crowd waiting there. Most of these events took place after my late ex-husband had left our family, but the first meeting with Carter was when we were still together, as is evident in the photo.  Since that photo was taken, probably in 1979, we not only have lost President Carter and my ex-husband, but also my older son, Andrew. I now live with Jonathan, the small boy I am holding onto there, as he was hyperactive as a child. Jimmy Carter lived to age 100  Jonathan has a son also named Andrew, now a college student in Texas. The gravestone for my own son Andrew is out in our yard here now, as I brought it with me from DC. Losing my son Andrew, my very first child, was the worst personal loss I have ever endured. We accept losing our parents, maybe even a sibling (I have lost my younger brother), but we never expect to lose anyone from the next generation, as they are supposed to carry on.into the future. Losing any of them before us seems like going against the natural order.  …