Writing a blog like this one, freely expressing what’s top of mind along with accompanying photos is fun and easy. The hard part is uploading everything in a logical and readable fashion because what gets posted online doesn’t always come out as intended and it’s hard to make changes “blind” on a blog like mine by trial and error. There may be Blogspot rules for doing all this properly, but no instructions are provided.
Still, I’ve managed to write a few zillion blog pages and post quite a few photos over the years. So, will I, my kids, or anyone else ever care to read through this blog again, along with its predecessor, honduraspeacecorps.blogspot.com, which had been halted suddenly for reasons known only to the blog gods? Dare I envision, long after I’m gone, that some future sleuth will discover my blog and that it, along with various other resources, will serve to enlighten future descendants about daily life in our current era? What is expressed here is not as tangible as words on paper or in printed books, though I’ve also written a couple of actual books with photos about my experiences. I can only hope that the cloud or wherever this blog resides holds up to help future historians explore our own life and times. Or will it just evaporate into the ether? If I were more ambitious, I would make a podcast or video, but I doubt those would last long at all.
Had an unsettling experience on Facebook,
where someone who had appropriated the name, profile, and photo of an actual
friend asked to “friend” me and then pushed me to connect with someone else for
a supposed prize. It smelled like a scam, so I contacted the real friend, reported
it to Facebook, and “unfriended” him (or possibly her). My real friend speaks
Spanish, but this impersonator did not respond to Facebook messages in Spanish
and was very insistent that I contact someone else immediately to get my bogus prize.
That “prize” might have fried my whole computer system, so I didn’t take it
that far. I’d asked the fake friend to respond to me by email, but, of course,
that didn’t happen because then they would’ve had an identifiable email address,
not the one actually belonging to my real friend. The genuine friend is a
retired college professor and I saw on the page set up in his name a message
from a former student, asking for advice on a book she was writing. Perhaps the
impersonator was a former student who’d had access to the photo and profile
information?
On the anniversary of MLKing’s “Dream” speech, I again recalled that day in 1963 when my late former husband and I, in town for another meeting, stood at the edge of that enormous crowd, barely able to hear King’s words, not imagining that the gathering would become such an iconic occasion. King was only a tiny figure speaking to us all from a distance. I don’t remember any particular security, just police standing around the periphery.
The Guardian, Immigrants pay cripplingly high bail bonds to be released from detention across US
Bond amounts increased under Trump, and government lawyers are still
asking immigrants to pay tens of thousands of dollars to be released [a fellow Amnesty International volunteer
tells me he knows of immigration bonds as high as $50,000.]
We all know folks who say they have
foregone parenthood to avoid adding to world population, also a few who mention
stopping at one child for the same reason. Such choices in the aggregate have
led to the current baby bust in both the US and Europe. Present-day American women prefer to have
fewer children and to work outside the home, and have exercised their right to
vote for a century now. More effective birth control and modern home appliances
have made outside work possible, as our female forebears not only were bearing
and raising multiple children, but also preparing meals from scratch daily over
a wood fire and washing clothes by hand to hang up to dry. I experienced that same
time-consuming lifestyle myself in rural Honduras while in the Peace Corps.
In the US, the average number of births per woman of childbearing age is now only 1.78, a trend unlikely to be reversed. To maintain steady overall growth, the number has to be something over 2 babies per woman to account for some unfortunate deaths. However, population is not just a matter of numbers, but also of age distribution. If people are living longer, folks need to retire later to keep the economy on track. And we need more working age immigrants with their larger families!
Ads for baby products usually show a dad holding,
feeding, bathing, or changing the baby. No doubt some fathers are actually
intimately involved, but what about showing a few mothers, who, in real life,
probably perform most baby care?
Pondering the differences in the testimony of witnesses of, or participants in, an event or crime, neither may actually be lying in their own subjective opinion, especially if many years have elapsed. Some murderers have apparently gone on to live fairly conventional lives, to marry and raise children, perhaps having purged their crimes from memory, only to be found out in old age by new forensic techniques.
Speaking of the high court, it has now failed to overrule a very stringent Texas abortion law limiting most procedures. My readers know that as both an adoptive and a birth mother, I am not a big abortion advocate, though I do identify with fellow Democrats on most other issues. I’ve just never understood the rationale for abortion at a gut level. Calling abortion “a Constitutional right” is an effort by supporters to give it legitimacy, but every person who has ever lived, scoundrel or saint, has necessarily started out as a tiny embryo that began to form and grow after a sperm united with an ovum. If every life has value even though it’s finite, if even the most vicious criminal, as a fellow human, should not be executed, as I and other Democrats contend, then why shouldn’t embryos have a chance at life? Biden has said he does not believe that a human life begins at conception. Then when does it begin? Only when a squalling baby emerges into light and air? (Birth mothers can feel a live creature, which we would consider human, moving around before birth and can see it on an ultrasound.)
However, I do accept that some women will always
seek and undergo abortions, especially early-on. How early seems the point of
contention regarding the Texas law, which reportedly would stop most abortions
at about 6 weeks. Already, the “morning after” pill allows women to halt a
pregnancy immediately without any outside intervention. So the availability of
that remedy (though perhaps requiring a prescription) greatly reduces the need
for surgical abortions. But some women may be undecided or simply inattentive
and let their pregnancy proceed.
In radio and other news reports on this issue, those
seeking abortions are now never identified as women, rather always only as
“people.” Why, perhaps to acknowledge that men as well as women are responsible
for pregnancies, also, possibly, because a transgender man after inadvertently becoming
pregnant might seek to terminate the pregnancy? Likewise, the politically correct
term for abortion opponents seems not to be “pro-life,” but rather, the convoluted,
“anti-pro-choice.” “Pro-choice” advocates and clinics are not really supporters
of “choice,” but rather, of abortion, though probably patients must sign a consent
for the procedure.
If abortion is really a right and a choice, then that implies the option not to undergo an abortion. A really pro-choice program for pregnant women with problems, in my idealized scenario, would combine abortion access with counseling and practical support options for women who may choose to give up their baby for adoption or even to keep the child, but who may need some extra help. I’ve even considered trying to establish such a combined program myself and, if I were 20 years younger, I might even undertake it, calling it Pregnancy Choice.
Biden has come out forcefully to criticize the Supreme Court’s decision, or its non-decision, about the Texas law. It’s paradoxical that Biden, who would probably never support an abortion by his own partner, is so forcefully defending the procedure, while Trump, who has reportedly actually advocated it in his personal life, had opposed it while president, as each addressed his own base. Likewise, Nancy Pelosi, mother of 5, has criticized the Supreme Court’s inaction.
How did vaccination, a common medical procedure, become so politicized? Was it because, at first, Donald Trump downplayed the virus and advocated bogus cures? Because he dramatically ripped off his facemask and tossed it disdainfully aside? More recently, when advocating vaccination at an event, Trump found himself actually being booed.
NBC News, National Religious
Broadcasters spokesperson fired after pro-vaccine remarks on 'Morning Joe'
So instead of promoting commonsense health measures, Republicans seem to be saying, let freedom ring! Yes, freedom to get very sick, let your kids get sick, infect others, use up scarce hospital resources, and even die. Give me liberty and give me death! Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, cantankerous opponent of mask and vaccination mandates, is sticking stubbornly to his “freedom” message while the Delta and other virus variants gain traction in his state. Some anti-mask and anti-vaccination protesters have adopted a slightly modified a slogan from abortion defenders: ”My body, my call.” A serious problem regarding virus transmission is that it’s apparently contagious even before someone knows he or she is sick.
Daily News, Texas anti-mask ‘Freedom Defender’ Caleb Wallace dies at 30
[And the governor of Texas, like DeSantis, is a “freedom” fanatic.]
Six anti-vax,
anti-mask rightwing radio hosts have all died within the last month. Maybe they
thought that by ignoring the virus, it would leave them alone. After all, it’s
invisible.
Liberty
University, with no vaccine or mask
mandates, was forced to move from in-person to remote learning.
So if a consenting adult insists on expressing unfettered
independence by going around barefaced and unvaccinated, I suppose that’s their
right, but they are a threat unless they keep a safe distance from others. The
rest of us must steer clear of them, not allowing them into restaurants,
stores, schools, or workplaces. Let them be autonomous free agents existing in
splendid isolation. However, children do need to be protected and not subjected
to unnecessary Covid risks.
Now that the FDA has given formal vaccine
approval, more people may get vaccinated, especially if employers require it to
reduce employee absences, medical costs, and contagion within the work force.
Quite apart from death and suffering, the virus is taking
a big economic toll. MarketWatch estimates that unvaccinated Americans
hospitalized with COVID-19 cost the U.S. health care system $2.3 billion just in
June and July.
Yahoo News, Mayor
of Arizona border town blasts Republican governors who blame COVID spike on
asylum seekers
Despite the virus surge continuing in the US
and the chaotic pullout from Afghanistan, the stock market has kept on rising.
The Aug. 31 Afghanistan
evacuation deadline presented a challenge even before the suicide bombing outside
the Kabul airport that took such a serious toll, including of 13 American
service members. The attack may have been intended as retribution, retaliation,
and to discourage people from leaving. It was attributed to a group called
ISIS-K, a name Trump has had a hard time remembering. (Poor Donald Trump
struggles to express himself despite serious intellectual deficits; his
development was arrested at about 4th grade.) Trump, who had set a
May 2021 deadline for a US pullout, made it hard for Biden to backtrack. Then Biden,
in a response to the airport attack, authorized 2 drone strikes on supposed
masterminds, which also are alleged to have killed civilians, including
children. The strikes may also not prevent other attacks, even escalate the
chances, since Jihadist suicide bombers may be waiting in the wings, eager to
flame out for their cause.
Using military
force to extend the evacuation deadline would have presented many problems. And
who exactly is the enemy? The huge evacuation from the Kabul airport proved immensely
complicated for multiple logistical and security reasons. Sen. Ben Sasse
(R Nebraska) called the pullout “one of the
stupidest military blunders ever."
In my view, the
Biden administration and our military actually deserve kudos for how fairly well
it has gone, given so many unexpected challenges even beyond the airport
suicide bomb attack. Republicans may criticize the chaos, but could hardly have
done any better, assuming that the pullout was even wise to begin with. It was an
effort first put in motion by Trump and largely supported by the American
public.
The US and
western nations should try above all for a future detente with the Taliban,
whose own survival hinges on maintaining peace both inside Afghanistan and with
the outside world. The previous Afghan civilian leadership was not able to
maintain the support of either the citizenry or the army and jumped ship even
before the US pulled out. Can the Taliban govern any better? (Probably not)
Reuters, Dozens
of unaccompanied Afghan children evacuated to the United States
It’s been heartening to see weary Afghan refugee families arriving at nearby Dulles Airport. Among the images of Afghans arriving at the airport are some of reportedly unaccompanied young teens. The refugees are being tested for Covid, given shots, and the few testing positive have been quarantined. Presumably, there has also been vetting to clear them of extremist ties. With our own aging population, baby bust, and population losses from Covid, we do need to welcome working age refugees with young children if we want to keep our own country going.
Some refugees are
being sent temporarily to Uganda and Colombia at US expense. Four
thousand refugees will be housed in Colombia filling up hotels left empty there
by the pandemic. After screening, many will come to the US.
Most refugees
left Afghanistan with just the clothes on their back. If it’s a matter of life
or death, most of us would, just like them, simply walk away from our homes and
all our possessions. A new abode, though different, will still offer shelter. I
experienced this myself when I joined the Peace Corps in 2000, leaving my
furnished house behind for 3 ½ years because of no time to arrange for storage.
Some belongings were inevitably destroyed by renters during my absence. Meanwhile,
in Honduras, on a very spartan living allowance, I managed to acquire
furniture, a bicycle, dishes, pots and pans. I learned to make tortillas, wash
clothes by hand, and cook over a wood fire. When I left Honduras, everything I’d
acquired was given away and all the precious letters sent to me while in service,
filling up a whole suitcase, were burned. As long as we still have our life, we
have to move on.
Meanwhile, it seemed
like poor optics to have gone ahead with VP Harris’s trip to southeast
Asia now, especially to Vietnam. At the very least, her trip was overshadowed
by events in Afghanistan. Although her tour may have been pre-planned, it might
have been better to postpone it.
After they fully
take over, the Taliban is (are?) expected to ban music, as well as TV, as
before. They have promised to uphold women’s rights, but only within what, in
their view, are the limits of Islam. Female students may be allowed to attend
school or even university, but only in sex-segregated classes. Opium and
heroin derived from poppies provide 10% of the country’s GDP. Meanwhile,
there is already internal, homegrown resistance to the Taliban.
Business Insider, A
woman gave birth to a baby girl aboard a US Air Force evacuation flight from
Afghanistan (Two other babies have been reported born on
flights since.)
Here’s just a personal lament, very far from Afghanistan. AFP, Activists go into hiding as South Sudan warns against protests
Ever since my humanitarian visit to south Sudan in 2006,
I’ve been following events there, including independence in 2011, when we were
all ecstatic. Unfortunately, ethnic and tribal rivalries have thwarted development
in that newest and most rudimentary of nations, though a fragile peace is holding
right now.
A teenage lifeguard was reported killed by lightening in NJ. I barely escaped a lightning strike myself in Honduras with a thunderclap that permanently affected the hearing and balance in my right ear. Lightning is not something you can see coming.
Opinions about Cuba seem caught in an ideological divide between capitalism and socialism. But can we meet somewhere in a middle
ground between the two? That is indeed what President Biden seems to be trying to do.
Miami Herald, Republican
Cuban Americans aren’t going to free Cuba with partisan attacks on Biden | Opinion
Miami
Herald, 13 Cuban migrants land on a Key West beach as attempts to reach
the U.S. climb
[Photos of
these refugees’ homemade boats show how flimsy they are. I wonder if a few rafters
might actually escape Coast Guard surveillance to disappear in the US among
other undocumented folks?]
Miami Herald, Man
traveling on raft from Cuba saved, Coast Guard says. Three others died on the
journey
Miami
Herald, Cuba’s leader, facing growing criticism, doubles down on order
to crack down on protesters
Miami
Herald, Cuba’s private-sector law comes with restrictions — and a ban
on Cuban American investment
NEW
YORK (August 26, 2021) — This week, the United
Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) published a decision concluding that
the April 2020 arrest and detention of Cuban prodemocracy activist Keilylli De
La Mora was arbitrary and in violation of international law. According to the
UNWGAD, the Cuban regime imprisoned De La Mora without any legal basis and
concluded that her detention resulted from the exercise of her right to freedom
of expression and association...
I sympathize with Haitians now coping with malaria, as I’ve had it more than once and it is no fun. Let’s
just hope cholera doesn’t return to Haiti.
For donations to Haiti after the earthquake
and other recent calamities, I would recommend, if at all possible, donations
going to people actually working there on the ground. Otherwise, much of one’s
donation goes to overhead for US staff and headquarters. When helping Operation
Smile in Honduras, I’ve preferred making monetary
donations locally on the spot rather than to the organization’s headquarters in
Virginia. And when I travel to Honduras, I take along a wheelchair and other
tangible goods to give directly to folks who need them. I like to meet
wheelchair recipients in person, making the donation tangible to me.
Axios, U.S.
airlifts humanitarian aid to Haiti after deadly earthquake
AP, Nicaragua
orders closure of 15 more NGOs
Reuters, Lost
hope: Ortega's crackdown in Nicaragua stirs fast-growing exodus
Why do so
many stars of the big and small screen take their own lives? It’s a mystery. Could
it be because they’ve already reached a pinnacle and have nothing left to
strive for? Maybe we lesser mortals are actually better off still struggling,
engaged in what occupational therapy calls “purposeful activity.”
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