Now that I’ve reached a certain age, sometimes email correspondence with a distant friend about my own age comes to halt and never resumes. If I have their phone number, I try calling, but no answer. If I know their mailing address, I then write a letter, asking anyone who sees it to please tell me if they are still OK, or else tell me if not, as the case may be. Usually no one answers. Then I have to sadly assume that they must have departed this mortal coil, as we all will do.
More recently, we local folks who witnessed the attack and
break-in at the capitol by Trump supporters on January 6, now view domestic
terrorism, abetted by the former president, as perhaps a greater threat than foreign
terrorism. Trump’s minions, probably in smaller numbers, are due back again on
September 18. Fencing may go up around the capitol once more. To prevent another
assault, Mr. Trump could simply tell his people to stay home.
I am probably an outlier in advocating for allowing a few
Robert E. Lee statues to remain in the public square as acknowledgement
that the Confederacy once existed and had its own heroes.
This is a persistent problem, also happening in
Europe. Both the US and Europe could use a few more working-age people and
young families, but not a whole avalanche. And if any newcomers manage to make
it, that just acts as a magnet for others. During my Peace Corps years living
in Honduras, now about 2 decades ago, I found that getting to the US was the dream
of so many young people, not based on the reality of what their life would be
like here, but on TV and movies dubbed in Spanish (and other languages), a
dream that still continues today. In the Peace Corps, now getting up and
running once again, we tried to get folks inspired and organized to improve
their life at home.
Here you see me in Honduras during my Peace Corps tenure, at a museum in Copán. In 1941, when I was quite small, our family was living in Honduras while my father was working at the historic ruins there and unearthed this statue.
So when I went back to Honduras in the Peace Corps in my 60s, it was like coming full circle.
I sometimes talk by phone with Betío, a Honduran environmental activist whom I once sponsored for asylum. He then won his case and was able to bring his wife and 10 children to this country. The family later moved to Texas, where they now reside. Betío, at age 62, is still working in construction, confessing that he has not been vaccinated, though his wife has been. I urged him to take time out to do it. Only 3 kids are still living at home.
Most of the photos being posted here now are some I took
in south Sudan, a country at a comparable state of development as
Afghanistan. In both places, people live at a very basic level. A major
difference is that most south Sudanese are Christian, not Muslim, so men and
women are not separated, though they do have different social roles. I flew to and
around that country in cargo planes just like some used to evacuate Afghan
refugees. According to reports and photos now coming out of the nascent nation
of South Sudan, which became independent in 2011, not much progress of any kind
has occurred since my mission there in 2006. These photos are all from an album.
HuffPost, 15
Miami-Dade Public School Staff Members Die Of COVID In Just 10 Days [Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, adamant foe of masks and
other virus precautions, had no comment.]
Republican lawmakers
seem to think that not acknowledging Covid will make it go away. In Florida, records
of Covid deaths are reportedly not being released. Some prominent anti-vaxxers’
families have even failed to mention Covid as the cause of death in obituaries.
Playing the innocent, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis has expressed surprise that mask-wearing in his state has
become so politicized. Isn’t his campaign still selling merchandize deriding
mask-wearing?
Nicole Hanna Jones may have found
her niche at Howard University and good
luck to her. But she does need to correct her misinformation about afro-Cubans living
on the island, who hardly have benefited from the Castro regime, still
living on the lowest rungs of the already economically and socially challenged
Cuban society. And do you ever see them in the upper echelons of the Communist
Party? Jones is not alone among gullible African American leaders led astray by
Cuban government propaganda, among them, Jesse Jackson and California Congresswoman Maxine
Waters. I much appreciated that the late Georgia
Congressman John Lewis was able to look beyond Cuban regime
propaganda. Here he is again, meeting with Afro-Cuban activist and 17-year
former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience Antúnez. He was the only Black
Caucus member agreeing to such a meeting.
Miami Herald, Former
Cuban political prisoner given eviction notice. Mayor Levine Cava steps in [Ana Lázara Rodríguez, who appears in my Confessions book, along with my
photo of her. She spent 19 years in Cuba as a political prisoner.]
Miami Herald, 12
Cuban migrants made landfall in Key West, Border Patrol says
Miami Herald, The Coast Guard returned 35 people to Cuba after stopping five boats headed to the U.S. Marine migration attempts from Cuba to the U.S. continue to climb with the number of people willing to make the dangerous trip across the Florida Straits now above 700.
Insider, Cuba starts vaccinations for toddlers amid a devastating surge in COVID-19 cases in the country
Miami Herald, As crackdown continues, the Cuban government is holding
visual artist hostage, activists say Cuban visual artist Hamlet Lavastida, detained for more than
two months in Villa Marista, the feared Cuban state security headquarters in
Havana, could have written the script about his arbitrary arrest. Lavastida,
who has exhibited his work deconstructing Cuba’s state propaganda and
repressive tactics in major international galleries, earlier this year told Hypermedia
magazine he found a clear connection between the Stalinist
trials and the current repression against independent artists in Cuba.
Cuba “is
a police state,” Lavastida told the magazine. Then he got a firsthand
experience of what his words mean. After Lavastida returned to Cuba from Berlin,
where he was an artist-in-residence at the cultural center Künstlerhaus
Bethanien, Cuban state security agents arrested him on June 26...
Miami
Herald, DHS extends Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, Central
Americans and others The renewals for El
Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan will last until Dec. 31,
2022
Bloomberg, A
Million Haitians Face ‘Acute’ Hunger After Quake Damaged Farms
AP, Nicaragua presidential aspirant charged, will face trial [Cristina Chamorro, daughter of Violeta Chamorro who
defeated Ortega in 1990.]
BBC, Sergio Ramírez:
Nicaragua orders arrest of award-winning author
Among those who have been detained or put under house since June
are:
·
Berenice Quezada, candidate
for vice-president and former beauty queen
·
Dora María Tellez, former
comrade-in-arms of President Ortega turned critic
·
María Fernanda Flores Lanzas, former
first lady and ex-Congresswoman
·
Ana Margarita Vijil, lawyer
and opposition activist
·
Juan Sebastián Chamorro,
presidential hopeful
·
Félix Maradiaga,
presidential hopeful
NBC, 'Riverdale' cast
calls for Nicaraguan government to release showrunner's father The
cast of the CW series “Riverdale” asked fans to support their push for the
release of their showrunner’s father in Nicaragua, who his family fears is
being held as a political prisoner after he was arrested in July. Police
detained the man, Francisco Aguirre-Sacasa, Nicaragua’s former foreign
minister, on July 27 after authorities stopped him from traveling to Costa Rica...His
family has not heard from him since then and worries that he has been
“disappeared” for his opposition to the current regime, his son Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the showrunner of “Riverdale,” said...
Last time I
hinted at something now even more likely to come true, namely that abortifacients
self-administered behind closed doors will put most abortion clinics out of
business and reduce the political salience of abortion in the political
discourse. Abortion will become a more private matter and those supporting life
from conception will have to rely mainly on persuasion. Nor will resurrecting
the images of clothes hangers work anymore in support of legal abortion because
clothes hangers are not used any more. However, hospitals may still intervene,
especially when a mother’s life is in danger or the fetus has a condition
incompatible with life, although viability has been moving ever lower as
neonatal care improves. Roe, if it remains law, may be upgraded to reflect these
new medical realities. But is the right to an abortion a constitutional
right, as some advocates have apparently declared? That seems a stretch. Are
they referring to the right to privacy?
However, trying
to head off this scenario is South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who has restricted access to abortion medications in her
state. And will she and other red-state governors offer any more help to children
after they are born? Biden is now trying to do that by providing more assistance
to low-income families. Sometimes, more concern is expressed about animal abuse
than about policies affecting children.
Probably
most women who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant do carry the baby to term
and are glad they did. While pregnancy can certainly be inconvenient and uncomfortable
and childbirth more than uncomfortable, often after the birth, hormones kick in
to help new mothers fall in love with their babies. And having a child as an
unmarried woman no longer carries the stigma it once did. However, the current
baby bust in the US and Europe is not likely to be reversed as women expand their
activities beyond motherhood.
Those carrying
an accidental pregnancy to term will probably still include those most unlikely
of mothers, girls aged 11 and 12, usually impregnated by a trusted family
member. As a former social worker and Spanish interpreter, I’ve seen girls this
age, almost on the verge of giving birth, whose own mothers only belatedly have
even noticed they were pregnant. The girls themselves have kept completely mum
about their situation. And once their pregnancy is noticed, usually these young
mothers-to-be have steadfastly refused to name the father, though most had
step-fathers who seemed to be likely suspects. In a few cases I know about, the
baby was quietly incorporated into the family, never being told that an older “sister”
was actually his/her birth mother.
Right-to-lifers
now need to step up to offer practical assistance and moral support to women
who might seek an abortion and not just up to moment of birth.
On the subject
of babies and young children, how can parents who have experienced pregnancy,
childbirth, and the daily feeding, changing, bathing, and dressing of their
offspring suddenly can forget about them in the back seat, leaving them to die
in a hot car?
Interesting how abortion rights advocates use the slogan, “my body, my choice” and mostly identify as Democrats, while anti-maskers use a version of the same, though as staunch Republicans. In fact, no one is an island.
What’s more important, the journey or the destination? Reaching
personal and aspirational goals is the stuff of advertising: revving up the motor
on that brand new car, being awarded your final degree, marrying your soul
mate, buying that dream home, welcoming a new baby, winning the lottery, retiring
after years of service, wow! Of course, once you’ve achieved any of those, the
pleasure is fleeting, as per the well-known “honeymoon” phenomenon. But after each
achievement, a brand-new challenge often arises, confirming the tried-and-true
occupational therapy principle that we will always seek out “purposeful activity.”
I’ve speculated about whether the drug overdose deaths and suicides of certain famous
or high achieving individuals may be due partly to their having reached the pinnacle
and finding nothing else to strive for?
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