Last time, I made a shorter post that
all fit on the page. Let’s see if it can happen again.
Happy Valentine’s Day! ¡Feliz Dia de San Valetín!
It’s that time of year again. I
plan to leave before long for my annual volunteer medical brigade/humanitarian
trip to Honduras, where I keep a low profile and try to pass as a non-gringa.
Honduras violence: Gunmen storm court building to free MS-13 leader https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51501103
Got a phone message saying “Your social security is about to
be terminated.” My son had gotten the same message 2 days before. One of my recent
e-mail messages warned that my account was going to be eradicated. These ersatz
warnings must be sent out wholesale in the hope that some poor suckers will
respond to their regret.
Mr.
Trump now seems emboldened by the failure of the Senate to remove him from
office and is now having a field
day settling scores. Because employment and the economy seem strong, people may
feel comfortable with Trump, they may not like him personally. Because the
economy is somewhat fragile and based on an enormous federal deficit,
vulnerable people are going to suffer if Trump gets another term. He has pretty
much promised as much, cutting funds to almost everything except his wall. I
would rather pay more taxes than see Trump remain in office. Whoever becomes
president next time around is going endure and have to inflict some economic
pain.
Gordon
Sondland had his glory moment after
contributing $1 million to Trump’s inauguration. He was rewarded with a diplomatic
post and direct phone access to the president, where they seemed to be on a
first-name basis, even able to exchange raunchy jokes. But Sondland’s frank and
sometimes colorful Congressional testimony sealed his fate. Will he now quietly
return to his west coast hotel empire? Or will he write still another
Trump-themed tell-all book?
Since
AG Bill Barr has been such a lackey to Donald Trump, it came as
something of a surprise to hear Barr publicly chide Trump for his tweets on Roger
Stone’s sentencing. However, that outrage may have been orchestrated
between them, with Trump sending a tweeted message to his base that he is still
totally in charge, while Barr feigned distress at the blatant interference, though
he actually yielded by reducing the recommended sentence. And super-sensitive
Trump, who has fired folks for less, failed to chide him for speaking out.
Though
Mr. Trump has shed copious crocodile tears about his unfair, terrible, and
unprecedented suffering during impeachment, he is a man without discernable
empathy for anyone else. Children and families are separated at the border.
asylum applicants are sent back to danger in Mexico or death in their home
country, school lunches and food stamps are slashed, folks are evicted from
public housing, and whistleblowers are threatened, with worse still to come
should Trump be reelected. Even his staunches supporters are attacked
mercilessly if they stray one iota from whatever he says or does, however
incoherent or fluctuating. If he has been unbound by law or custom up to now,
just wait to see him in a second term! Fortunately for his wife and young son, Mr.
Trump apparently pays little attention to them.
Trump is pretty much
a fake all around: fake emotions, fake tan, fake hair, fake deferment, fake
university, fake charity, fake presidential victory. Trump is definitely an even
worse president than Richard Nixon, who actually managed to support a
few helpful policies during his tenure and who finally went quietly away when
the jig was up.
Joe
Biden looked like a sore loser
for leaving New Hampshire before primary voting was even over. He is going to
have to make a lot of ground after having started out as the reputed front
runner. I feel a lot of unease about Bernie Sanders who talks a good talk
and deserves credit for keeping up a grueling schedule after his heart attack,
which he frankly admitted to having, though his health does not seem to be a big
concern for his supporters. Of course, if he is the Democratic Party nominee, I
will certainly vote for him. But I don’t think he has accomplished much in the
Senate, has not been a member of the Democratic Party, has a strident
personality that may be off-putting to many voters, and, frankly, may have a
platform too far left to make most voters feel comfortable and which will open
him up to direct Trump attacks on “socialism.” Of course, Trump will
affix that label to whoever his opponent is, but voters are more likely to buy
Trump’s argument in the case of Sanders who calls himself a “Democratic Socialist.”
I
wouldn’t put it past Trump and his operatives to manipulate social media to try
to boost Sanders, considering him easier to beat than Biden or perhaps some
others. I don’t know where Sanders falls in terms of stature, but certainly Mr.
Trump, who is relatively tall, implies that shorter men are inferior and likes
to make fun of them. But he fired AG James Comey who would look down on
Trump from on high since he is considerably taller.
With
aspiring Democratic presidential candidates inevitably attacking each other. Mr.
Bloomberg (mocked by Trump for being 5’ 8”), remains somewhat aloof
from the fray, but he is certainly saturating the airwaves and every other medium
with his ads. An unsophisticated electorate may be especially attracted by his
wealth, just as many voters admired Trump as a successful businessman. In
Bloomberg, Trump would find himself overshadowed by an opponent who bests him handily
on the wealth score, which has been Trump’s major calling card. A battle
between 2 billionaire titans would arouse new public interest in a race that
now seems to be flagging somewhat.
With
such solid Republican political support behind Trump and so much money being
poured into getting him reelected under our skewed Electoral College system, Bloomberg
might actually be a safe bet. Bloomberg instead of Sanders might have the best
shot at becoming the first US president of a Jewish background, though neither
seems traditionally observant. Bloomberg would not be my first choice, but I’d
support him just as I would whoever gets the Democratic nomination. Above all,
Democratic voters must not succumb to fatalism by considering Trump unbeatable,
though he certainly did beat the odds by getting into office in the first place
and he has played his cards pretty shrewdly for a guy who seems so lacking in
basic smarts and any coherent strategy.
Trump puts
Cuban doctors in firing line as heat turned up on island economy https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/11/trump-puts-cuban-doctors-in-firing-line-as-heat-turned-up-on-island-economy
Yes, as
mentioned in my books, Cuban doctors and other health providers have long been
sent to Honduras--I often worked with them as a health volunteer in the Peace
Corps--very competent professionals and, in Honduras, they spoke the same
language as their patients. But it's also true that the Cuban government exploits
them by keeping more than 75% of the payments made for their services. Although
they often have families back home who will suffer if they defect or fail to
return, I've met numerous Cuban doctors and other practitioners who have stayed
on in Honduras, where they have enjoyed success in both public and private
health settings. Cuban doctors and Cuban health providers have such a
reputation for excellence that Hondurans clamor for their services when they
stay on. Honduran physicians in private practice often find it advantageous to
team up with Cuban doctors. The irony is that Cuba sends its best clinicians to
overseas service, while at home in Cuba, local health services are increasingly
inadequate.
More than
two-thirds of migrants fleeing Central American region had family taken or
killed.
More than two-thirds of the migrants fleeing Central America’s northern triangle countries – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – experienced the murder, disappearance or kidnapping of a relative before their departure, according to a new study by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders. And now, follow up investigations are showing that many of those being deported are killed when they return.
The virus now spreading from China to the rest of the world,
whether called a Corona virus or something else, has finally halted Hong
Kong’s demonstrators. Xi must be glad of that, though the virus and his
government’s handling of the outbreak has thrown a monkey wrench into his
carefully laid plans. It’s rumored that pangolians from Africa and western Asia
may have been the source of the disease, those small, shy animals that don’t bother anyone.
Baby pangolians typically ride on their mothers' backs.
Could the virus have passed to humans from pangolians? (Ebola
was rumored to have come from people eating raw monkey brains. SARS is
said to have originated with bats.) In China, defenseless pangolians are killed
wholesale for their scales, which are used in traditional medicine though, as
with rhino horn, without any proven value. If the virus passed to humans from
this barbaric and useless practice, that is a fitting pangolian revenge.
A recent radio documentary featured a
Somali refugee in Kenya who had applied for and won the US visa lottery,
which Trump has vowed to eliminate, but which is still on for this year.
Because of the difficulty of fulfilling all the requirements, reportedly only
half of lottery winners actually make it to the United States. As would be
expected, the Somali refugee had a very hard time after winning. But he did finally
manage to be approved and ended up in Maine and later became a US citizen.
However, he reportedly now lives in Canada with his wife and children, though I
do hope he will still vote in our election. Through sheer perseverance and
luck, he had managed to get out of Somalia, then out of Kenya, and then had made
it across the ocean.
I don’t need a radio show to tell me that
just winning the visa lottery, against very formidable odds, is not enough. To
begin with, to even apply requires computer and internet access. Many Hondurans
I’ve known have given up even trying and even those who’ve won have faced
tremendous financial and paperwork obstacles.
Decades ago, I can’t remember exactly
when, lottery applicants had to apply by snail mail and if they were already in
the US with a visitor’s or student visa, they could even apply from here. But,
if they won, they’d have to return to their home country to complete the
process. Winners would also be notified by postal mail.
At the time, 3 visitors were staying
at my home, from Argentina, Japan, and Tunisia, respectively. All applied for
the visa lottery. First, a letter of approval came for the Tunisian, who excitedly
made immediate plans to return to his country to complete the process and return
with his wife and children. (The family eventually settled in Virginia Beach.)
The two other guys watched the mail assiduously thereafter, wondering if
lightening could strike twice in the same place, which it actually did, with the
man from Japan winning next. Then, against all odds, came approval for the
Argentinian! I can vouch that it was no easy task to fulfill all the
requirements, as I helped guide each one. Eventually I attended all their
citizenship ceremonies. After that, visa lottery applicants clamored to stay
with me, but no others ever won.
Pope Francis has succumbed to
pressure and withdrawn his support for married priests in the Amazon, too bad,
though he’s hinted he might revisit the issue later. I’ve already made obvious arguments
for allowing married and women priests in the Catholic church, both on this
blog and in my books, so won’t repeat them here. This is one of the issues,
along with the worldwide pedophile scandal, that has alienated me from the
church.
Having traveled the world over and seen marriage in many
forms, I got curious about the use of both dowry and bride price.
To the extent that either exists in our country, where even marriage as a
lifelong commitment is falling out of practice, probably dowry predominates, at
least in the form of the wedding ceremony, usually financed by the bride’s
family. Where polygamy is common, with one man taking possession of numerous
women, the ensuing scarcity of women for the left-over men may incentivize them
and their families to offer a bride price. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
An evolutionary
psychology explanation
for dowry and bride price is that bride price is common in polygynous societies which have a relative
scarcity of available women. In monogamous societies where women have little
personal wealth, dowry is instead common since there is a relative scarcity of
wealthy men who can choose from many potential women when marrying..
Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska has introduced a bill called the “Born-Alive
Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” requiring a baby born alive after an
abortion procedure to receive appropriate medical care. That may already be happening
in most cases. Probably Senator Sasse’s main objective is to just to re-open
the abortion debate.
Few live births would result from even a
late-term abortion because the fetus in utero is often given an injection beforehand
to stop its heart. The question is complicated, as usual, by the partisan
divide, with Democrats arguing that introduction of such a bill is an assault
on abortion rights, while Republicans accuse Democrats of promoting
infanticide. Democrats argue that late term abortions are rare. How rare? In
Minnesota, there were 10,177 abortions in 2017 and only three resulted in
an infant born alive. None survived. (Would they have survived if allowed to be
born later and without abortion intervention?)
As mentioned before, I am torn on the issue, both
as someone who has given birth and also adopted children born before Roe who
might not have been born if Roe had been in effect, I also assisted during
Peace Corps in Honduras in deliveries in a rudimentary health center offering
no pain relief and where sometimes the electricity went out, with some efforts having
joyful outcomes and others quite difficult in which the baby sometimes did not
survive. Most first-time mothers there were teenagers. Abortion was and still is
illegal in Honduras and motherhood is highly valued.
As a Spanish interpreter since then, I have
also seen babies born in the US after 21 and 22 weeks gestation who have survived,
albeit with some special needs, though their personalities were intact. I would
not have said their lives were not worth living. I don’t agree with Republicans
on most issues, including support for or the lack thereof for social programs,
food stamps, taxes, gay marriage, voluntary euthanasia, gun control, climate
change, and the death penalty (which I oppose). But late term abortions, occurring
at the point of possible viability, are a tricky issue. What is that point? It
keeps getting earlier in a pregnancy.
Of course, a human baby born alive requires
care for quite a few years, whether from parents or someone else. And not every
baby becomes a contributing member of society. An infant may grow up to become
Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, Mother Teresa, or Barack Obama. But
Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were all babies once. Donald Trump was also once a
cute, pudgy infant. But if we value all babies for their human potential, then
late term abortion becomes a legitimate issue of concern and debate. Could it possibly
be an issue that actually brings Democrats and Republicans together or is that
just wishful thinking?
Amy
Klobuchar
is quoted as saying: “We need to build a big tent for anti-abortion Democrats.”
She’s right. Many would-be voters, like myself, pivoted fairly quickly on gay
marriage, as that’s a compact between consenting adults, but abortion is still
a controversial issue, lo these decades after Roe.
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