The Week, South
Texas butterfly sanctuary closes indefinitely due to QAnon conspiracies,
escalating threats
This sanctuary near the border has been accused by extremists of hiding unauthorized migrants and of sex trafficking and also allowing children to be “raped and murdered” after it blocked Trump’s border wall from going through the property.
AP, Miami
agrees to do something about its peacock problem
Peacocks are beautiful, especially the males, but can become a problem when clustering in parks, blocking streets, or just leaving their droppings around anywhere and everywhere.
On the subject of non-humans, I just like the photo of these 2 matching pets. For years, I had a dog but never a cat, because I’m allergic to cat fur. Now at my current age and with hopes to be able to resume travels to Honduras, a pet is not on my radar.
The Peace Corps is now cautiously returning volunteers to overseas service, including to South Africa.
There and
elsewhere, experienced volunteers who have served successfully before are now going
abroad for a second time, though not yet returning to Ukraine, except virtually.
I’d like to do virtual service in a Spanish-speaking country, but am not sure
I’m ready to make the time commitment or have the computer connections and
skills to pull it off from my home in Washington, DC.
|
|||
|
https://www.thedailybeast.co
m/joe-biden-renews-donald-trumps-title-42-immigrant-expulsion-order-citing-omicron-and-ongoing-pandemic
One thing that may be subject to change is US
abortion policy, though resistance will be strong. Roe may have been the law of the land on abortion for
half a century, but information on fetus development has advanced and the point
of viability has moved back. Dred Scott and Plessy v.
Ferguson are examples of Supreme
Court decisions that were later overturned.
Donald Trump’s twitter finger has been stilled and he
may have ripped up incriminating White House documents in his day, but he
nonetheless maintains outsized influence over Republican voters and therefore
over Republican lawmakers, most of whom still not dare go against him. He now
blames Nancy Pelosi for what
happened on Jan. 6. Yet a few cracks
have begun appearing in his solid bastion of support with even the Wall
Street Journal saying it’s time to move on. And
a stalwart backer like SC Senator Lindsey Graham recently ran afoul of Trump by suggesting
that the 2020 election is over, though it’s not over for most Republican
voters, who still believe Trump that he actually won. A Republican
office-holder like Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) remains in good standing
with The Donald, even though she declared quite seriously that “The constitution
is not evolving.” Reps. Louie Gohmert of
Texas, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Matt Gaetz of Florida, and Paul Gosar
of Arizona are some other Trumpians in the extremist Republican camp whom
voters have thoughtlessly put in office. Trump acolyte Steve Bannon called former VP Mike Pence a “a stone-cold coward” for saying he
could not have overturned Biden’s election. Trump himself has described both Cheney
and Kinzinger as “horrible RINOs,” so lots of name calling without any substance
or specifics. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump is raking in sizeable donations which may be
applied to his future legal defense. Some within the Republican Party fear that
Trump-endorsed primary winners will go on to lack appeal in the general election.
(Some of us feel embarrassed about even acknowledging Trump’s folks as our
fellow citizens.)
At this point, the 2024 Republican presidential candidate will be Donald Trump if he chooses to run again. Some Republican legislators would prefer someone else, but dare not oppose Trump openly because of his still firm hold over party voters. Mitch McConnell, again incurring Trump’s wrath, was called an “old crow” by the former president. McConnell, a long-time fixture in the Senate, was just reelected
once again in 2020, so remains unfazed by Trump’s name calling.
North of the border, the Canadian trucker
anti-vaccine protest, with apparent support from US truckers and some
Republican lawmakers, reveals a rebellious segment among usually peace-loving
Canadians, a group now unwilling to accept government virus control mandates.
The protest has spread beyond major cities and even disrupted travel to Detroit.
Political support for the truckers seems to have come mostly from
Conservatives, a minority in the Canadian government. Covid fatigue has
definitely set in everywhere. Liberal Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau, in quarantine with the virus, has refused to meet with the
truckers. Gas prices are considerably higher in Canada than in the US, another
cause for complaint.
Wash. Post, Ottawa
braces for 'increasingly dangerous' covid mandate protests as 'Freedom Convoy'
blockades leave city on edge
Insider, Ottawa officials say
towing companies are refusing to move the Canadian truckers protesting vaccine
mandates in the city's streets
Business Insider, Canadian truckers protesting vaccines turned to a Christian fundraising site after GoFundMe blocked donations. They've already raised $4 million.
Far from our own shores, China has been holding a carefully choreographed and hermetically sealed Winter Olympics, making sure that athletes who might become virus-positive don’t exit the Olympic bubble to infect the general population. Both Chinese citizens and those from around the world can only observe events virtually. Inside the bubble, robots are being commandeered to deliver food, mix drinks, and transport luggage to minimize human contact. Human workers must wear hazmat suits inside. Artificial snow has been created since not enough occurs naturally.
These winter
Olympics, awarded to China more than 6 years ago, have become controversial now
because of China’s poor human rights record. So, while American athletes are still
participating, government officials from the US and other democracies have
stayed home.
One of the many aspects
of Chinese government policy being criticized in the west concerns organ
transplants. A study “Bloody Harvest,” authored by former
Canadian government minister David Kilgour and other experts, concludes that
“The source for most of [China’s] massive volume of organs for transplants is
the killing of innocents: Uyghurs, Tibetans, House Christians and primarily,
practitioners of the spiritually based set of exercises Falun Gong.” Evidence
that Falun Gong practitioners are not only a source for an involuntary
organ-harvesting industry but likely its main victims over the past two decades
was found in two assessments in 2020, one by Matthew Robertson, and the other
by an independent panel led by Sir Geoffrey Nice.
China’s hospitals
reportedly schedule transplants on demand, within days or weeks, while the
median wait for a kidney in the United States is four years. An archived
version from 2004 of a private, China-based transplant website
promised living donors to foreign patients: “In China we carry out living
donor kidney transplants. It is completely different from the deceased body
[corpse] kidney transplants.”
Israel’s human rights record, once considered untouchable, is now being scrutinized as
well.
The Guardian,
‘Apartheid state’: Israel’s fears over image in US are coming to pass
As indicated
before in these pages, it is meritorious and perfectly understandable that Jews
would want to have their own protected state in a world that has marginalized
them for centuries and even exterminated Jews en masse within the lifetime of
many of us. But it’s been hard to square that with a pledge by Israel to be a
democracy, fair to all its citizens, some of them non-Jews, and to Palestinians
as well. No longer is Israel now celebrated as the brave new country of its
heroic founders depicted in the film Exodus nor are many Israelis still living in a kibbutz, one of the
iconic collective farms established in the area even before Israel became a
nation. In a recent survey, some 25% of American Jews reportedly agreed that
“Israel is an apartheid state.” Of course, several of Israel’s neighbors are de
facto Muslim states but not even making a pretense of being “fair” or
“democratic.
On the other side of the world, renown Buddhist monk and peace activist, Nhất Hạnh, known as the “father of mindfulness,” died on January 22, something I failed to mention last time. After a 39-year exile, he was permitted to visit Vietnam in 2005 and in November 2018, he returned there to his "root temple," where he lived until his recent death at the age of 95.
Over in the UK, Queen Elizabeth, age 95, has now marked 70 years on
the throne, the longest reign of any British monarch. Her son Charles, Prince of Wales, 73, may be quietly wondering when she will ever retire to give him a
chance? If Charles doesn’t feel up to serving
when his time actually comes, he can always abdicate and pass the crown on to
his oldest son, William, now 39. The Queen may decide to retire after her jubilee celebrations
conclude in June, as she must be getting tired.
In Europe, when Putin amasses 100,000 troops at the Ukraine
border, Biden responds modestly, sending
3,000 troops to neighboring Poland and Romania.
In our own backyard in Latin America:
Wash. Post, Nicaragua
strips universities’ legal status in new attack on dissent
Wash. Post, External energy source may explain ‘Havana syndrome,’ report finds
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10471011/U-S-Intelligence-officials-say-device-weapon-kind-Havana-Syndrome.html Only plausible explanation for
mysterious Havana Syndrome that has afflicted dozens of US diplomats around the
world is a weapon, CIA report finds
Havana Syndrome, a series of debilitating symptoms including dizziness, tinnitus, brain fog, and vertigo, is thought to be due to targeted sonic booms and pulsed electromagnetic energy emitted through walls. (In Havana, it also has afflicted Canadian diplomats.) From Cuba, it spread to US embassies in communist countries around the world and also to some other sites in Europe.
Cuba Archive <info@cubaarchive.org, 2021: At least 83 deaths and disappearances attributed to the Cuban state
Miami Herald, 10 migrants arrive in a Florida Keys neighborhood on a boat that looks like a bed
AP, 10
Cuban migrants rescued from sinking vessel off Florida
They just
keep on coming, even though many drown en route, and
nearly all of them are sent back.
Cuba runs out of milk,
breaking Castro's promise…https://clarion.causeaction.com/2022/02/04/cuba-runs-out-of-milk-breaking-castros-promise/
In the early
days of communism in Cuba, Fidel Castro had pledged that every child under
seven would have a liter of subsidized milk every day.
Yahoo News and
the Drudge Report are not giving the whole picture in this article by implying
that the US embargo is responsible for a shortage of powdered milk in Cuba,
requiring Cuba to import milk from distant sources. The US embargo is
misunderstood. It only means that Cuba must pay for food supplies, the largest
portion actually now imported from the US, in cash, not with credit, as Cuba
rarely pays its debts and especially would never pay US farmers or other US
sources. The Cuban government apparently chose not to buy powdered milk from
the US; perhaps it was cheaper elsewhere or maybe there’s an anticipation that
New Zealand won't insist on payment, though Uruguay would certainly be paid as
a fellow Latin American country. If Cuba would loosen up on its economic
control of citizens, since so much fertile unused land is available, there is
no reason that Cuban farmers would be unable to raise milk cows and produce
enough milk for the whole country and to grow much food that is now imported.
Before Fidel Castro, Cuba was largely self-sufficient in food production.
However, after more than 60 years of strict government controls, farmers and
other workers just don't feel like working hard any more for an oppressive
state that gives them little autonomy and paltry compensation, so they only do
the bare minimum. If the Cuban government followed the example of China and
Vietnam in allowing more economic freedom, even while controlling political
freedom, the country would become more productive.
On the subject
of potential agricultural development in Cuba, I wrote several articles for the
Huffington Post few years ago, including one called “Peace
Corps in Cuba? You Heard It Here First”
author, human rights activist, Spanish interpreter
01/30/2015 01:45pm EST | Updated April 1, 2015
Actually, I just found 7 titles about Cuba still under my name in Huffington
Post virtual archives. All had been rigorously fact-checked by staff before
on-line publication, but after that, the website, which changed its name
to HuffPost, switched over to staff-written articles. So my stint as an
on-line journalist ended abruptly.
Most countries around the world do not hold jury trials and the same holds true in Latin America, including in many countries that I have lived in or visited. Jurors would be at risk there and I saw law enforcement officers in Mexico and Honduras wearing facemasks to protect their identity long before the pandemic. A major exception is Brazil, which has a longstanding jury system, though very different from our own, with only 7 jurors voting by secret ballot and the verdict being decided by the majority (4 or more votes).
In my experience in Latin America over the years, I’ve
found that for many young people, going to the USA is a universal rite of
passage and a demonstration of personal independence, making it hard for even
very concrete and practical programs to convince them to stay home. After a few
hard years in the US trying to survive, sending money to their family and evading
arrest, many are ready to go home and settle down, so they may either leave on
their own or wait to be deported. When taking a taxi in Latin America, I usually
ask the driver if he (rarely she) has ever been to the US and nearly always, the
answer is “yes, when I was younger.”
Here in the US, back in the 1970s, tennis
player Renee Richards was one of the first
male-to-female athletes to make headlines, after having started playing tennis
competitively as a man. More recently, New Zealand weight-lifter Laurel
Hubbard who “transitioned” at age 35 also raised
eyebrows by staying in the same sport as before. Now transgender swimmer Lia
Thomas is besting female competitors after having
transitioned from male to female, again after puberty and after already being
involved in competitive swimming.
Now I find myself in rare agreement with
Republican lawmakers that such athletes should not be allowed to compete in
women’s sports. Male-to-female athletes transitioning after puberty and
continuing in the same sport have been shown to enjoy unfair advantages in
terms of bone density, height, and muscle mass even 3 years after starting
hormone therapy. Conversely, such sports advantages don’t apply to athletes who
transition as adults from female to male. If male-to-female athletes
transitioning after puberty should be barred from sports competitions, I
predict that we will be seeing fewer of them making a gender switch.
Yahoo Sports, 16
Penn swimmers say transgender teammate Lia Thomas shouldn't be allowed to
compete
A letter was signed and made public by 1984 Olympic gold
medalist Nancy Hogshead-Makar, chief executive of a women’s sports advocacy
organization and a critic of Thomas' presence in the pool as a female competitor,
while 16 Penn swimmers also supported the letter.
“We
fully support Lia Thomas in her decision to affirm her gender identity and to
transition from a man to a woman," the letter reads. "Lia has every
right to live her life authentically. However, we also recognize that when it
comes to sports competition, that the biology of sex is a separate issue from
someone’s gender identity.
"Biologically,
Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women’s category, as
evidenced by her rankings that have bounced from #462 as a male to #1 as a
female. If she were to be eligible to compete against us, she could now break
Penn, Ivy, and NCAA Women’s Swimming records; feats she could never have done
as a male athlete.”
Just now, cleaning up a table in my home office piled high with papers accumulated over the years, I ran across items from my time working at the occupational therapy association on a magazine called OT Week, where I often used photos of my own family members as illustrations.
Granddaughter with her aunt, my younger daughter
Meanwhile, Virtual meetings and events have been a boon during the pandemic, keeping us all connected while still physically distant, something made possible only via the internet. Such meetings save time and travel and are more accessible to people with disabilities. I delight in hearing from friends around the world and seeing images of them and their families. But, admittedly, something is lost when we are no longer meeting in person.
No internet for criminals who are locked up and cut off from the rest of the world, both as punishment and to protect society. However, members of contemplative religious orders voluntarily cut themselves off in a very similar fashion, the difference being that they can always walk away.
Again, I've posted everything in the same font, but it doesn't always come out that way. Thanks for your understanding.
The following on-line notice that popped up is eerie, as I have lost both my son and foster son:
|
|
|
Relájate y Disfruta
No comments:
Post a Comment