This just in from the Peace Corps: Join us in celebrating Peace Corps Week from February 27 to March 5! Peace Corps Week commemorates President John F. Kennedy’s establishment of the Peace Corps on March 1, 1961, more than 60 years ago.
#Afghan Refugee-Resettlement. Now seeking freestanding shelving for storage space. Good Neighbors Capitol Hill is collecting items for incoming Afghan Refugee families. We need shelving to keep our inventory of items for the apartments. We have already set up 80 apartments!! Please message or send me an email (mhoexter@gmail.com) to coordinate drop off/pick up.
[Note here to readers, more photos were contemplated, but just wouldn't post this time. In my experience, those that have resisted posting before sometimes will post later, but today, I give up and we're stuck this time with just Putin and Trump.]
After Canada had gotten the truckers’ vaccine protest under control, an anti-vax truckers’ contingent started out from California to protest against vaccines here in our fair city. Why? Why indeed? Actually, after starting out with much fanfare, some didn’t get very far before their plans fizzled, perhaps overshadowed by current events in Ukraine and elsewhere. Also, it seems that the pandemic may be ebbing now—let’s hope so. A few truckers have continuing to soldier on and may yet make it here to our nation’s capital. But, by and large, the fast-moving news cycle has gotten away from them.
Asbury Park
Press, Hazlet couple die of COVID on same day, while family battles
'nightmare' visitation rules
This couple in their 70s, married 55 years, have died, but the article doesn’t say whether they were vaccinated, so probably not.
Yahoo News, Pope Francis breaks diplomatic protocol and visits Russian Embassy Francis went there in person to express concern over the situation in Ukraine.
One
of my nephews had been living in Ukraine, but is back home for now. I can
imagine that most Ukrainians wish their country were already part of NATO,
allowing that alliance to come to their defense. Russian armed forces basically
ambushed a peaceful neighboring country. Ukrainians, though totally unprepared
for the unprovoked Russian attack, are reportedly putting up a pretty strong
fight. Volodymyr Zelenskyy (or is it Zelensky?),
a political neophyte, has risen to the occasion.
After
the hasty US withdrawal from Afghanistan and expressing stern warnings about
“forever wars,” President Biden avoided a military confrontation with
Putin in Ukraine by quickly pulling out all US embassy personnel before the
fighting started. A hot war between the US and Russia would be calamitous. So
far, China‘s Xi has given Putin only lukewarm support. Russian media is
monitored and censored, so is providing the Russian public with a skewed
narrative.
However,
it’s unlikely that Ukraine’s military and raw civilian conscripts can fend off
superior Russian forces for long. Is Ukraine now simply a “sitting duck”? Many
Ukrainians are fleeing to neighboring countries, while adult men are being
conscripted into the army. The simple expression of Ukraine’s president of an
interest in joining NATO would not seem justification for this unprovoked
attack and wholesale invasion; if anything, it bolsters Ukraine’s claim to actually
need NATO protection. However, Putin’s position would be that NATO is an
anti-Russian alliance and that Ukraine has historically always been part of
Russia, so Russia has every right to protect its own territorial interests by
military force if necessary. Russia had suffered no apparent repercussions in
Crimea, so why not go ahead and take complete possession of Ukraine to fend off
any potential threat by NATO on Russia’s own borders?
The whole world has been impacted by and reacted negatively to Putin’s actions. World opinion seems to have turned definitively against the Russian incursion, including to some extent even within Russia itself. Trump has been the exception, at least initially, by praising Putin for being a such “savvy” guy, calling Putin’s moves in Ukraine “pretty smart” and even “genius.” Does Vladimir Putin know something about Donald Trump’s activities in Russia or elsewhere that Trump wants to keep under wraps? What has been behind Trump’s consistent praise of Putin and why all the secrecy about what was discussed in their meetings? Only the interpreter knows what was said and what pledges were made on either side. Having been an interpreter myself during sensitive—though hardly such high-level—discussions, my own lips are always sealed. We interpreters all make that pledge.
Business Insider, Putin is so angry about Ukraine's resistance to his invasion that he might launch a more aggressive attack, Western officials warn
AFP, Police detain protesters in St
Petersburg as Russians rally against Ukraine war
USA Today, Putin
puts nuclear forces on high alert; Ukrainians, Russians agree to talks
Ukrainians,
though unprepared, have put a good fight. Putin blamed the west for “aggressive
statements,” but agreed to a meeting between Volodymyr
Zelenskyy and Russian officials.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States Oksana Markarova accused Russia of committing war crimes, saying that Russian troops are using missiles and heavy artillery to bombard Ukraine’s infrastructure, as well as hospitals and kindergartens. Many children have been killed, she said.
Yahoo News, Ukrainian
U.N. ambassador suggests Putin kill himself 'in a bunker' like Hitler Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s U.N. envoy, condemned
Putin’s nuclear brinkmanship. "If he wants to kill himself, he doesn't
need to use a nuclear arsenal,” Kyslytsya said. “He has to do what the guy in
the bunker did in Berlin in May 1945,” referring to the suicide of Nazi
dictator Adolf Hitler.
Here’s an appeal now on Ukraine from Amnesty International: There is no possible justification for dropping explosive weapons on a school as Russian forces have done. Tell the Russian Ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, that the Russian military must immediately stop attacking civilians and civilian targets in Ukraine, and comply with international human rights and humanitarian law. #StandWithUkraine
I happened to tune into Donald Trump’s recent speech at CPAC. The man kept talking on and on, telling one blatant lie after another as his supporters loudly cheered him on. His lies and exaggerations were breathtaking, but his audience were eating it all up. Does he know that whatever he’s saying is untrue or does he really believe it himself? He’s conjured up an alternative universe, a world comprised of what he wishes were actually true, such as that he won reelection in 2020, but was cheated out of it by nefarious forces, ”We’ve won twice and we’ll do it again.” He has often declared that he has been the best and most beloved president of all time, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. If Republicans should win in 2022, as they now seemed poised to do, then he’ll pronounce it a fair election, while if they happen to lose, it will be because of “Democrat” cheating. On the advice of his advisers, Trump has softened his rhetoric on Ukraine and downplayed his previous praise of Putin, telling CPAC that he himself was the only president who “got us out of wars” and blaming Biden for Ukraine. He has described Canada’s Prime Minister as a “tyrant” and lauded protesting truckers here in the US as patriots. His ardent followers, many living in small towns and rural areas (like the West Va. town where my son lives now) are feeling left behind and ignored, regarding Trump as their spokesman and champion. While Mr. Trump is becoming increasingly irrelevant outside his faithful base, he is still strong within it.
Trump image at CPAC
Reuters, EXCLUSIVE U.S. set to announce increased staffing at
Havana embassy to process visas-sources There were more than 90,000 Cubans on the
"immigration waiting list" as of November, according to the State
Department's latest figures. In the Trump era, the processing of Cubans' visas
had been transferred to the U.S. embassy in Guyana, where few Cubans could
afford to travel.
Back in 2007, as part of my volunteer responsibility for the Caribbean for Amnesty International, to highlight human rights concerns in the Dominican Republic, I was planning then to promote among our members a documentary film, “The Price of Sugar.” However, the owners of the Dominican sugar cane plantation depicted there, where indentured Haitian sugar workers lived and worked under squalid conditions, immediately threatened AI USA with a lawsuit, so our legal advisers urged me to drop that effort. Now, in 2022, on the NPR program Reveal, Haitian sugar cane workers in the DR are shown to be working under the very same harsh conditions. Nothing has changed. Also, according to this same NPR documentary, a similar effort to expose working conditions at sugar plantations in south Florida led to the almost complete mechanization of the sugar industry there, with seasonal Jamaican sugar workers being replaced by machines, so be careful what you wish for. https://revealnews.org/podcast/the-bitter-work-behind-sugar-2022/
BBC News, Nicaragua court convicts government critics of 'conspiracy'
Though it’s not in the news right now, thousands of people eligible for DACA—exact numbers are unknown—have been deported to Mexico or have gone there and been unable to return to the US. These folks, who grew up among us, are a big loss to our country, though probably of benefit to Mexico. DACA seems to be on the back burner for now, but many young people, born elsewhere but still living in the US, have also been left in limbo.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10542549/More-Americans-killed-GUNS-car-crashes.html More Americans are now killed by GUNS than car crashes as shootings become country’s leading cause of death by trauma for the first time.
Now, with more effective contraception, and with abortion
pills being the primary method used in the US to halt an early pregnancy,
abortion clinics have experienced reduced business and abortion is becoming
largely a private matter.
At the same time, there is still an occasional woman claiming to have been unaware of even being pregnant until she’d actually given birth. And there is no consensus, even among Democrats, about abortion.
Politico, Democrats’ signature abortion rights bill
falls short as SCOTUS ruling looms
The
46-48 vote comes just a few months before the Supreme Court is to rule on
half-century old protections for the procedure and before the midterm
elections, when many expect Democrats to lose control of one or both chambers
of Congress.
He waited patiently with me until my
flight left for Miami, where I was planning to change planes with all my gear.
It was a terrible shock for those of us who knew him to lose Dave so suddenly,
but he’d lived his life normally to the very end. In contrast, a few days ago,
I visited another friend, bedridden and dying a slow death from prostate
cancer. We usually have little agency about when and where we will die, but if
we had a choice, probably most of us would choose Dave’s quick and easy departure.
A neighbor who prefers to remain nameless is a fantastic cook, even, I would say, a gourmet cook. Now that I’ve retired from cooking myself, she sometimes drops off one of her amazing creations for me to enjoy. These come as totally unsolicited and unexpected surprises. This becomes a bright ray of sunshine for me after having endured, despite some notable successes, what by any measure have been serious challenges, even tragedies, including the untimely deaths of my older son and Cuban foster son, serious problems and illnesses among my other children, my rude arrest and definitive expulsion from Cuba after several visits to dissidents there, and before all that, my complete abandonment after 24 years of marriage by my late former husband, who was not only totally blind, but had never held a job before we married. Therefore, whenever good luck, however modest, comes my way, I am surprised and grateful. So, many thanks now to my generous unnamed chef friend. You are very much appreciated.
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[Lots of unsolicited ads this time]
Moms Who Lost Adult Sons (A Facebook group suggestion—Facebook knows way too much!)
Hola Eastern Market North, ¿un expreso doble? ¿o mejor no?
Generador Solar Portátil
Temas Históricos
Materia Laboral del Próximo Gobierno''
Servicios o Productos
¡Últimos Días de Envío Gratis!
Presentación de Producto
Armando Álvarez Bravo
Tintas
y Tóner
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