Best holiday wishes, felices fiestas

I am back on this blog after cataract surgery on both eyes. It was getting pretty hard to navigate a computer. While the font could be enlarged, the cursor was getting too difficult to see. Legal blindness (less than 20/200) still affords considerable useful sight, but reading and computer work became increasingly hard. Turns out I’ve been legally blind all this year and probably even before that, which didn’t stop me from my making usual Honduras mission last Feb./March, but I don’t expect to be going back to Honduras again in Feb. 2021. Medical brigades that rely on volunteers from abroad and gather patients all together in one place will have to be reconfigured, including Operation Smile.

 My younger daughter Stephanie came out from Hawaii to be with me for surgery and though she and her husband had Covid in August, she had to get recent negative tests before flying in either direction, so presented no risk to me or my neighbors. If having Covid does not confer immunity, how long can a vaccine work? A 2-shot vaccine is not ideal, though perhaps even one shot would give some virus protection. Let’s hope a one-shot full dose is soon developed. Pandemic fatigue has definitely set in.

 While I was recuperating, Steph went relentlessly throughout the house, discarding unused stuff (and also some useful items, alas!), discovering old letters and written reports which revived forgotten memories. She even found and threw away some nude studio photos posed for back when I was pretty fit and actually looked rather like a Play Boy centerfold. She has lived and worked as a biologist for years in Hawaii, but was born and grew up in DC, reuniting here with friends from her childhood and youth. She also worked on her biology-themed sewing projects during her visit, each unique. Here is one she finished and gave away while here. 

We had a brief dusting of snow the week before Christmas. My housemate managed to scrape together enough snow on our northside balcony to create a Snow Lady, while Snow Man isfrom my son in West Va.

Porch pirates have been busy reaping the harvest of on-line shopping this season. One local guy was a reverse Santa, following delivery trucks around and filling up his bag with gifts, but was finally apprehended.

December 19 is the anniversary of my late son Andrew’s death. His gravestone lies in my backyard, under the stump of the old maple tree that I finally managed to get removed in Oct. Purdue Pharma’s products contributed to his death, prescribed for a back injury suffered at work, which his surgeon was planning to repair right after the holidays. At this juncture, I have no desire to enter any lawsuit and too much time has gone by, making gathering evidence difficult.  

 

Bravo to Pope Francis after he recognized same sex unions and named DC’s own African American Archbishop Wilton Gregory a cardinal. But we still need to include female and married priests among the Catholic clergy. If ever there were a formula for child sex abuse, it would be by limiting clergy to presumably celibate males.

 

Dear Barbara Joe, This is the quarterly AmazonSmile donation notification to inform you that your favorite charity, Pencils of Promise, recently received a donation of $53,517.11.

So if anyone orders my books on Amazon, an overseas charity for school kids will get a little boost.

December has seen two prominent anniversaries so far, World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, which we used to celebrate with local parades when I was in the Peace Corps in Honduras in the early 2000’s, and Universal Human Rights Day on Dec. 10.

A worldwide sigh of relief erupted when Donald Trump was defeated in the recent election. No longer will our nation and the world have to endure his temper tantrums, his invitations to violence, his constant lies. Joyous celebrations erupted on the streets of Washington, DC, and in front of the White House, continuing well into the night when the official outcome was announced, pandemic or no. Revelers cheered Trump’s defeat as much as Biden’s victory. Joe Biden, a familiar comeback candidate, was welcomed like Jack slaying the dreaded giant. But in the Coronavirus age, there will be a virtual inauguration for Biden to avoid a super-spreader event. Sorry that Biden will be unable to hold a live inauguration. I fondly remember all being squeezed joyfully together and stepping on toes during Obama’s first inauguration. Since I live in the neighborhood, I observed Trump skimpy inaugural crowd from a safe distance, which was dwarfed by the women’s demonstration crowd the next day that I joined.

Mr. Trump has co-opted the Republican Party, which now it seems to be cooling on him, but rather too slowly. He will continue to make mischief, but at least he will be out of office. He made virtually no effort to reach beyond his base for fear of losing it. Too bad that President Jimmy Carter failed in his efforts to abolish the Electoral College.

It’s certainly been a hard 4 years. Many of us thought GW Bush was the worst president we would ever see, but we were wrong. It’s great that Joe Biden won with the biggest vote count in American history and the largest margin of any presidential candidate, over 81 million votes, some 7 million more than Trump’s 74 million. Still, 74 million Trump voters still live among us. That is no small challenge to Biden, who has vowed to bring the country together. He has avoided confrontation with Trump supporters, realizing they have felt devalued and ignored before being finally given their due by Mr. Trump. (On this blog and its predecessor, during all of the last 4 years, I’ve studiously avoided paring Trump’s name with the title “president,” as I never considered him a legitimate president.)

 Still, conspiracy theories, fueled by Trump’s continued tweets, are rampant. I just got an email about The Vast Biden Election Fraud Conspiracy, illustrated with a confusing complex of arrows and charts.

As for Mr. Trump himself, sore loser! Crybaby! How could a sitting president with all the levers of power at his disposal be overcome by an invisible secret cabal in a democratic country? Many Republican office holders still dare not acknowledge Biden’s win. The idea that Trump might launch a bid again in 2024 must make Republican Party operatives cringe, dampening the ambitions of Mike Pompeo (already campaigning), Md. Gov. Larry Hogan, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, among others. The Republican Party is better off starting out with a clean slate without Donald Trump, who should take his cue from the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus in the House and become an ex-president for all Americans. I don’t have strong feelings about the need punish Trump for his misdeeds, which would only make him a martyr in the eyes of his followers, although letting him go scot-free might also encourage others to follow his woeful example. Where will he live next?Mar-a-Lago neighbors say Trump forfeited right to live on estate once presidency ends

Mr. Trump is now toying with the idea of reviving The Apprentice, which would give him an income, a guaranteed audience, and a platform for a 2020 run, though preventing a reset for the Republican Party.  

Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii) introduced a bill that would outlaw abortions for fetuses capable of feeling pain. The pro-life group Democrats for Life in America [didn’t know such a group existed] announced the content of the bill on Facebook and in an online petition. While the bill has been submitted to the House, its full text was not immediately available, and it was not clear what week of pregnancy is the limit for obtaining an abortion. Similar legislation has designated the 20th week of pregnancy as the cutoff. 

Gabbard also introduced legislation to ensure medical care to babies born alive after an attempted abortion. Gabbard has said that she would not run for reelection. As mentioned before, in my interpretation work, I’ve seen children born after 21 and 22 weeks of pregnancy who have challenges, but are fully functioning human beings. And I believe that more assistance and emotional support should be available to needy pregnant women. In Argentina, a measure was introduced to allow an abortion up to 40 weeks, which is too late and would practically amount to infanticide. 

Now long after I served as an election observer in Chile back in 1988, when Augusto Pinochet suffered a humiliating defeat, finally, Chile is in the process of changing the Pinochet constitution.

Outrage in Haiti over spike in kidnappings, https://www.yahoo.com/news/outrage-haiti-over-spike-kidnappings-224909794.html

Cuban detainees: ICE forced us to sign forms saying we wanted to go back, ‘visit’ family, https://www.yahoo.com/news/cuban-detainees-ice-forced-us-192009043.html

In Amnesty International, we have named 2 new Cuban prisoners of conscience: Luis Manuel Otero and Anamely Ramos. Silverio Portales, another POC, was reportedly released on Dec. 1. See our AI website for details.

Cuba cracks down on artists who demanded creative freedoms after 'unprecedented' government negotiations, https://www.yahoo.com/news/cuba-cracks-down-artists-demanded-132632525.html

Brutally repressed Cuban artists are protesting. Believe me, it’s not Miami’s doing | Opinion, https://www.yahoo.com/news/brutally-repressed-cuban-artists-protesting-110000612.htm

Cuban president says artist collective's protest was US plot, ww.yahoo.com/news/cuban-president-says-artist-collectives-043424947.html

Thousands of Cubans in South America planning caravans to the U.S. border to seek asylum, yahoo.com/news/thousands-cubans-south-america-planning-152243628.html

American diplomats in Cuba were likely targeted by microwave energy, study finds, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-diplomats-in- cuba-were-likely-targeted-by-microwave-energy-study-finds/