Son Jonathan is an avid animal lover not allowed to have a pet himself in his apartment. Instead, he regularly feeds stray cats with cans of tuna and walks friends’ dogs that start shaking with excitement whenever they see him coming.
Most of my life,
I’ve owned a dog, but am allergic to cats. But now no more pets, as I feel
lucky just to be able to take care of myself.
Female bears living in the wild, raising their own young, can often be persuaded to mother an orphaned cub slipped into their den. Below, a bear cub with foster mom.
Never have I identified with hunters nor understood what makes them want to shoot and kill an innocent animal living out its natural life in the wild, whether a bear, deer, moose, or any other creature. Bison in our country were hunted almost to extinction. Hunters now usually don’t eat their kill, at most, just display its head. I do have deer antlers hanging above one of several fireplaces in my house, given to us years ago when I was still married and never taken down. I’d like to give them away. Hunters the world over also kill elephants, hippos, leopards, lions, even giraffes, just to have their photo taken with the dead animal. Successful hunters are said to experience a boost in testosterone. And, as mentioned before on these pages, innocent shy pangolins, never having done anything to anyone, are killed simply because Chinese men falsely believe their scales have aphrodisiac properties.
I’m glad
hunting is now on the wane and that birdwatching, hiking, and nature
photography are on the rise, at least in our own country.
Now, still in the dead of winter, I’m delighted to see a
flower blooming among the potted plants, with more buds promising to open soon.
Apropos of nothing, my son just sent me a photo taken of me in the Martinsburg, W Va. train station, where a line goes through connecting to DC.
Several paintings by local artists have won awards at the local Hill Naval Center on Pa. SE. Here is one that caught my fancy, a 3rd place winner now for sale.
Today’s date, 2/22/22, is considered to have special significance. (The future date of 2/22/2222 will have even more.) In numerology, 222 in sequence are often described as Angel Numbers. The number 2 in numerology also refers to duality, partnership, relationship, and balance.
A recent study here in Washington, DC, has revealed that most gun violence is attributable to some 200 black men in their 20s and 30s, linked to each other and living in identifiable areas of the city. Interventions are now being targeted at them.
The two drivers for population growth are
increased birth rates and immigration. In our country, both have been going
down. Va. columnist Make Radoiu points out that is a risk for all of us.
The United States' population is going down, threatening our success as a nation
This notice has come in from the National Peace Corps Association: “All lights appear to be go for the first Peace Corps Volunteers to return to service overseas in March. Invitations are now out for Volunteers to return to some two dozen countries.”
My colleagues at Amnesty International USA, both staff and volunteers, have assembled a crisis response team on Ukraine. If anyone wants more information about it, contact me at the email address above.
I sometimes wonder if there is any way for the US and its Western allies to breech their divide with Russia, and also China, without actually giving up any democratic principles? What can our side accept? What can Russia/Putin accept now? Putin has made the point that he is serious about not allowing Ukraine to join NATO—that he feels his country is being threatened. The only thing that occurs to me to do right now is simply to defer that decision. Or else give Putin something else that he wants.
The current standoff between the US and Russia about Ukraine somehow puts me in mind of a 5-month hitchhiking trip I took years ago, all over Europe at age 20 in 1958 after graduating from UC, Berkeley. In Germany, the Berlin Wall had not gone up yet, but apparently informal barricades had gone up above ground, so a German friend took me over to Berlin’s eastern side via an underground train. The buildings on the other side appeared square and grim and few people were out on the street. We watched a movie in a theater there, preceded by a newsreel of Secretary Walter Ulbricht speaking angrily and gesturing to an outdoor audience, though I didn’t understand most of what he said. The instant his image first appeared on the screen, the theater audience started hissing, continuing throughout the newsreel.
Probably the last straw for Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau, impelling him to seek emergency powers, was when police stood by
as protesters bathed in a hot tub and partied into the night directly in front
of parliament and below the prime minister's office. When police were accused
of being too friendly with the protesters, the police commissioner resigned.
But the truckers stood their ground, confident that their big trucks could not
be easily towed away, though they were largely cut off from the outside world. It
gets really frigid in Ottawa at this time of year, as I can attest having been
there in winter. And the truckers do need to eat, sleep, and use the bathroom,
after all, so now what? [photo] Finally, giant tow trucks were brought out to
actually tow their rigs away and arrest the ringleaders.
AP, Police
ticketing, warning truckers to leave Ottawa
AS IT HAPPENED, Canada trucker protest: 100 arrests, 21 towed as police break windows in bid to clear Ottawa trucks
More than 3 weeks after the Ottawa truckers began their anti-vaccine protest, truckers who remained were being removed by force. At least 70 were arrested. The truckers’ protest had spread to other provinces, including Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Ontario, also to 34 other countries in the Americas and Europe, even as far away as Finland. Canadians’ peace-loving image took a hit from the actions of a minority of its citizens, buoyed and financed by help from US rightwing groups. Now American truckers are contemplating similar action.
Donald
Trump can always claim that he left his finances to his accountants,
so really was not in charge and, in this case, he may not actually be lying. Do
we still have to worry about having him back again in office in 2024? Yes, we
probably should worry, since he still has a rock-solid core of faithful followers
and Republican-led states have been drastically pruning voter rolls.
Olympics are over now, so Paralymics are next.
National
Review, Transgender Swimmers Cap Dominant Performances at Ivy League
Women’s Championships
Is this
surprising?
Reuters, Cubans
protest in Havana as Costa Rica tightens visa requirements
Dr. Paul Farmer, who did heroic work in Haiti, has died at age 62.
Reuters, Dominican Republic begins building border wall with Haiti
This is from a
report from Mexico, 5 journalists murdered in Mexico in just 6 weeks in
2022: Cinco periodistas asesinados en un periodo de seis semanas en el 2022
y una impunidad que no cesa.
AP, A
stunning fall for ex-Honduran president wanted in US
If Juan Orlando Hernández is now in US detention, then probably the jig is up for the former president. While he was still in office, the American government held off. Let's see in a US court whether he can credibly claim distance from his brother. Otherwise, he'll share prison time with him. I don’t know anyone in Honduras who actually voted for JOH, as he was known, but he served 2 presidential terms, so some Hondurans must have actually done so. He may be hoping now for a Trump return.
Last time, I mentioned Cuban medical missions, a major moneymaker for the Cuban government which lends out medical practitioners to other countries, but directly collects the payment for their services, while giving medical professionals only a small living allowance. As a result, countries where they serve, such as Honduras, have ended up with many Cuban doctors and therapists who have abandoned families back home to remain working there, as well as in other host countries in Latin America, where they are highly regarded and already speak Spanish.
Many have also stayed on in Brazil, where they’ve had to learn Portuguese.
Meanwhile back home in Cuba, patients often complain about lack of medical attention, also about having to buy their own medications and bring their own sheets to the hospital.
A bit of trivia now about bull fighting in Cuba in the 19th century when bull rings were built in several cities, though the sport was never very popular there. Bull fighting was then outlawed when the US intervened in Cuba around the turn of the century and not very much mourned. However, Cockfighting remains still alive there today, as I have witnessed.
That’s another brutal/fatal sport for the animals, though a wounded chicken may arouse less sympathy than a bull. Cockfighting with illegal betting still goes on in Cuba while the government looks the other way. Having been invited to observe both bull fighting (in Spain) and cockfighting (in Cuba and Puerto Rico), I’ve always left the scene when blood began flowing. I don’t plan to ever witness either again.
Nor am I happy realizing that beef and chicken come from slaughtered animals. I do avoid red meat, but sometimes eat chicken and will eat shrimp and oysters, reasoning that they experience little or no pain. I’ve also tried fried insects in Latin America, rather crunchy, no qualms about eating them. Vegans have lived with or visited me at times, sticking always to a strictly plant-based diet, something they find easier now than ever before. My younger daughter was once vegan, along with practically her whole college, Evergreen, in Olympia, Washington, where vegan fare was routinely offered in the college dining room. But then she married a carnivore who likes to cook, so abandoned veganism.
USA Today, 'You
are seen': A record 7.1% of US adults now identify as LGBTQ, new poll shows
Are more Americans identifying with a sexual orientation beyond traditional male/female roles just to explore non-traditional modes of sexual expression or because of preferences previously suppressed that are now out in the open? My guess is that it’s some of both. Gen Z seems the cohort doing the most sexual identity exploring. I do know some women who once considered themselves gay or bi, but ended up in conventional marriages to men. I don’t know the details of their current sex lives.
Indiana parents recently arrested for routinely beating their children with belts and rods, cited the Bible as justification. “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” was once in vogue. I recall my own mother whopping me on the bare bottom with a hairbrush, bristles down. Such methods of discipline are no longer in vogue. “Gentle parenting” is now a common trend, probably easier to carry out with today’s smaller families. I tried using it myself with my 4 children and foster son long before it was popular, often a proving challenge, especially as I was a single working mother. Matters could get out-of-hand with so many actors and with the pressures I was under, as our finances were tight and I never got enough sleep. I did not hit or spank my kids, except once when I snapped and slapped one of my unruly boys on the cheek, feeling immediate remorse. That is the only time I can recall hitting any of them. Earlier, when I was still married, my husband and I had distinctly different parenting styles, though I spent much more time with the kids. Time will tell whether today’s gentle parenting trend helps most kids grow up with fewer hang ups, or will they blame their parents for being too lax? There is also “good enough parenting,” which is probably what most of us have actually done.
Another change over my lifetime has been the diminishing use of capital punishment. Sometimes on a Sunday evening, since I don’t have TV, I listen to old-time radio on NPR, including the supposedly true-life LA crime stories from the 1940s and ‘50s aired on Dragnet (“only the names have been changed to protect the innocent”) back when executions were common in California. The death penalty was eliminated there in 2016.
Having just visited a friend in his last days, dying a slow death from cancer, I cannot help contrasting what he and his family are going through with the swift death of another friend only days ago, who fell over and died instantly from a heart attack. He may really have been the most fortunate of the two, not that we usually have much agency over how and when we each will die.
Pensacola News Journal, Abortion debate comes down to one fundamental question |
Guestview
urging us to try to understand all points of
view. Is that possible and where does that leave us? Sincere and fair-minded people
will differ. Now Colombia has approved abortions up to 24 weeks, the
current point of viability and a later point than in other Latin American countries
that allow abortions.
Finally, like most of us, I don’t recall dreams much after waking. But this morning, I woke up after a dream of diving into a swimming pool and losing the top of my 2-piece bathing suit. In fact, I’ve never worn a 2-piece bathing suit, so where did that come from?
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¡es momento de escupir por la ciencia!
Caligrafía
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