Spring flowers are emerging, even as snow again threatens. After last time, when almost no images could be posted, I've had good luck this time.
My last posting
here was on March 1, so a lot has been happening since. Every day brings
something new both here and around the world.
My granddaughter was here again from Florida to see her father with health problems. She was able to take an extra wheelchair I’d been saving for Honduras to him instead. I don’t know if or when I will ever go back to Honduras, but, if so, I’ll have to buy another wheelchair.
The Peace Corps is returning to in-person overseas service again this month, sending already experienced volunteers mainly to English or Spanish speaking countries for terms from 6 to 12 months.
This from the official Peace Corps website:
The return of Volunteers will be intentional, balancing the health and safety considerations of host communities and Volunteers with the urgent need to contribute to immense development challenges.
Register for Peace Corps' Virtual Career
Fair on 03/16.
LA Times, Woman warned court her boyfriend was dangerous before he killed 4 at Sacramento-area church
The father
of three girls shot them, their chaperone, and himself. The prevalence and easy
availability of firearms makes ours the only developed nation with a high rate
of gun killings and suicides. The “right to bear arms” is de facto a
right to kill or be killed by a firearm, a so-called “right” that urgently needs
revision, as it was never what the Founders intended nor what our nation should
permit in the present day. Your freedom to carry a gun endangers me, just as
your freedom not to wear a facemask in public may sicken me. Having lived in
Sacramento for years, I do have a special feeling for the victims there.
In my view, all
personal firearms should be surrendered and melted down, and all gun shops and
gun manufacturers closed and, if necessary, compensated. That would be my ideal
scenario. I don’t even support the hunting of wild animals. Why do hunters want
to kill them?
Is the
elimination of personal firearms in our country ever going to happen? Certainly
not in my lifetime, but the continued prevalence of gun killings will make curbs
likely eventually. Rural areas will resist, but if guns are available anywhere,
they will be available everywhere, so rural areas would need to be included. The
world is simply too crowded now and mobility too great to allow any loopholes.
The Sacramento killer still had access to a gun, despite a restraining order. What
about establishing shooting ranges and gun lockups as in some other countries
to let gun enthusiasts get their jollies? When guns are no longer readily in
circulation, US murder and suicide rates will fall precipitously. Easy gun
access makes killings much too quick, too easy, and completely irreversible.
AP, 1 dead, 2 wounded in shooting outside Iowa high school
SHORELINE TIMES In New England’s ‘Gun Valley,’
Democratic politicians have a complex relationship with the firearms industry (Oct. 24, 2021) (Smith & Wesson has now moved out of Mass. and Conn. to more
gun-friendly Tennessee.)
Here are some sobering gun statistics.
Americans are 25 times more likely
to be murdered with a gun
than people in other developed countries.
Guns kept in the home are far more
likely to be involved in an unintentional shooting, criminal assault, or
suicide attempt than used to injure or kill in self-defense
Between 1955 and 1975, the Vietnam War
killed over 58,000 American soldiers – less than the number
of civilians killed with guns in the U.S. in an average two-year period.
There are stark gender differences.
Men make up more than 80% of both
perpetrators and victims of gun violence.
American men are 3 times more likely
than women to own a firearm.
Out of nearly 40,000 firearm deaths in
2017, men made up 86% of them.
But beyond sheer gun access and deaths, males in
this country are in trouble in other ways.
White men accounted for 70% of suicides in the U.S. in 2019.
Just 40% of college students are men.
Single and divorced men are most likely to die of opioid
overdoses, and the number of men who died of alcohol- and drug-related causes
spiked 35% between 2019 and 2020.
Men also die more often from Covid, whether from inherent
vulnerability or lower vaccination rates, or both. The overall Covid death rate for men is 1.6 times the death
rate for women.
Ladies, we need to step up to help save men’s
lives if we want to have more of them still around.
Wash. Post, Trump’s border wall has been breached more than 3,000 times by smugglers, CBP records show
Reuters,
U.S. court allows Biden's Mexico border expulsions, with limits
NY Times, A U.S. appeals court ruling barred the expulsion of migrant families on public health grounds if doing so would subject them to persecution. During the pandemic the U.S. government has used the Title 42 public health law to give border officials the authority to turn migrants away even if they were seeking asylum. The Biden administration had allowed an exception for migrant children unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. |
People, School
Superintendent Responds After Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Scolds Students For
Wearing Masks
DeSantis made the news again by advising students to take off their masks in his visit to a high school. He fancies himself as a spokesman for “freedom." Who is more ridiculous? Trump or DeSantis?
Galesburg Register-Mail, 'A friend to a lot of people.' Galesburg father, 46, dies from COVID-related complications Here is another Covid death of a seemingly healthy person who was apparently unvaccinated.
Some six million people worldwide have died of Covid, almost one
million here in the US alone, the highest total of
any nation. That’s been the price of “freedom.”
Yahoo Life, More
than half of U.S. abortions are now done with pills, surpassing surgery for the
first time
That’s what
I’d predicted. Laws will have almost no impact on medication abortions. Women can get the pills sent from elsewhere if not
available locally. Coat hangers, still used as symbols by abortion activists,
are out-of-date.
Reuters,
'People's Convoy' truck protest drives laps around Washington
These trucks have
clogged up the beltway around the city, but otherwise attracted relatively minor
attention with everything else going on. Again, “freedom” is their mantra,
freedom to avoid vaccination and masks and to die for their freedom if
necessary. 
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has
been sparking a news blitz on Ukraine for the last couple of weeks. Russia’s
war of choice is sucking all the oxygen out of the news cycle. What’s posted
here is only part of it. (When it’s all over, I’ll go back here to be reminded
of what it was really like.) News outlets have been easily able to find
English-speaking interviewees in Ukraine—as well as elsewhere, including in
Russia. English has become a worldwide language. Yet native English speakers
rarely learn other languages with any precision. I’ve heard fellow Americans
considering themselves competent in Spanish struggle to communicate.
Donald Trump, someone who has not bothered to learn another language or even to read and write competently in English, has described Russia's Vladimir Putin as "pretty smart."
After hastily withdrawing American diplomats, President
Biden is using economic pressure rather than
military confrontation against the Russians in Ukraine. Will that actually work? The economic pressure also falls
on us. Ukrainians have been begging for a no-fly zone, but neither the US nor
Europe has been willing to risk igniting World War III.
US Basketball
star Brittney Griner took a big risk and has
gummed up the works by going to play in Moscow, whether or not she actually had
cannabis oil in her luggage. Going to Russia right now was very risky, as she
has found out, making her a bargaining chip in a high-stakes political
confrontation between the US and Russia.
AP, Live
updates: Ukrainians in US given temporary legal status
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ice-suspends-deportation-flights-countries-russia-ukraine-war-report
More than 100 people
were deported from the US to Ukraine in 2020. Now deportations to both Ukraine
and Russia are suspended. Ukrainians gathered here at the White House. National Rally To Support Ukraine
Sunday, March 6, 2022,
2 pm
The White House, Washington, DC
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC
Wash. Post, International Cat Federation bans Russian cats from competitions
AP Source: Biden to ban Russian
oil imports over Ukraine war
Gas prices
will rise even further, but it’s still better than getting into a direct hot
war with Russia.
Reuters, Stop
fighting, Putin tells Ukraine, as anti-war protests grow
He says his
aim is to “de-Nazify” and “demilitarize” Ukraine.
Ukraine's military said more than 11,000 Russian troops had been killed
so far and 88 Russian aircraft shot down since the start of the invasion.
NY Times, How
the West Marshaled a Stunning Show of Unity Against Russia
NY Times, Hate
for Putin's Russia Consumes Ukraine
Now with the
fighting in Ukraine in full swing, that conflict has grabbed the headlines and
the whole world’s attention. On Feb. 24, only a couple of weeks ago, Russian
“military exercises” became an invasion. The conflict in Ukraine has a David and Goliath quality, with Russia in
the latter role. So far, Ukrainians are refusing to bend to Putin’s will.
Daily Beast, Russia Threatens ‘Nuclear’ World War as Its Paratroopers
Descend on Ukraine
Perhaps Hitler
claimed the same when he rounded up Jews and invaded other countries? Putin is
getting considerable pushback about his claims, even among Russians. His
soldiers seem unsure of their mission. The rules of war have changed and
conventional warfare has lost much support around the world, especially when
civilians are being killed or injured. During World War II, civilians were often
attacked with impunity by both sides. Years into German attacks in Europe, allied
forces engaged in the carpet bombing of Dresden and other German cities and US
President Harry Truman authorized the atomic bombing of major Japanese cities
in what today would be considered war crimes. (I’ve never been a fan of Truman
as a result.)
NY Times,
Washington's Newest Worry: The Dangers of Cornering Putin Senior
White House officials designing the strategy to confront Russia have begun
quietly debating a new concern: that the avalanche of sanctions directed at
Moscow, which has gained speed faster than they imagined, is cornering
President Vladimir Putin and may prompt him to lash out, perhaps expanding the
conflict beyond Ukraine.
Putin has emerged as the villain in the ongoing
Ukraine drama, while Volodymyr Zelensky is the undisputed hero.
Daily Beast, Third
Assassination Attempt on Zelensky Fails as Putin Sparks ‘Nuclear Terror’ Comic-turned-hero Volodymyr Zelensky has
survived at least three precision assassination attempts by elite hit squads
since Russia’s week-old war began, according to Ukrainian officials who say his
survival was all thanks to tip-offs from Russian spies. [Killing Zelensky would deal a huge blow
to Ukrainian morale.]
NYTimes, Behind
Sandbags, Ukraine's Leader Meets the Media KYIV, Ukraine — Unshaven and wearing a military
T-shirt, a haggard President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine on Thursday hosted
his first news conference since the war began, inviting journalists into his
office building, now fortified with sandbags. In an animated briefing,
Zelenskyy, whose defiance has made him a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the
Russian invasion, laid out the state of negotiations with Russia, voiced pride
in his people, pleaded for a no-fly zone and spoke frankly about fear of dying.
People,
11-Year-Old Ukrainian Boy Becomes 'Hero of the Night' After Making His Way to
Slovakia Alone
He is just one of more than 1.7 million
refugees who have fled Ukraine in recent days, according to figures from the
United Nations.
USA Today, US says Russia can still
negotiate; evacuation effort in Ukraine fails again
The Polish prime minister's office said 922,400 people had crossed its
border with Ukraine since fighting began 11 days ago.
Since this article appeared, the total of Ukrainian refugees in Poland
has grown to
Fortune, The
Russian elite daughters of Putin’s inner circle are using Instagram to slam his
invasion of Ukraine
Insider,
Russian 'brain drain' of academic, finance, and tech workers 'might be the most
important problem' for its economy, experts say
As of 2019, as many as 2 million people had left Russia since Vladimir
Putin became president, and many are entrepreneurs, creatives, and academics,
the Atlantic Council, an international-affairs think tank, found.
Quartz, 12,000 Russian healthcare workers dared
publicly oppose Putin’s war[BEJ1]
If Putin
gets too much pushback from within Russia, he may double-down on his own
citizens, which may ultimately topple him—or is that just wishful thinking?
Fox News,
Ukraine military kills a top Russian general
Maj. Gen. Andrei
Sukhovetsky, age 47. While Russian casualties may not be repatriated in
body-bags to avoid public outcry, surely this general’s body will receive an
honorary burial back home. Russian Maj. Gen. Vitaly Gerasimov, 45, has also been killed.
This next was
a really scary and very dangerous development.
Yahoo News,
Russian troops shell Ukrainian nuclear plant
Russian troops began shelling Europe's largest nuclear plant
Thursday as they continued their military invasion of Ukraine, the Associated
Press reported. The Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, located in the eastern
city of Enerhodar, was on fire late Thursday, according to the city's mayor,
and independent reports confirmed that smoke was rising from the facility. Ukrainian
Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba said in a tweet Thursday night that
if a reactor at the power plant were to blow up, “it will be 10 times larger”
than the 1986 explosion that incapacitated the Chernobyl nuclear plant and
rendered parts of Ukraine a wasteland.
Yahoo News, Ukrainian biathlete
Yevhen Malyshev, 19, killed in fight against Russia
NY Times, A War
the Kremlin Tried to Disguise Becomes a Hard Reality for Russians
AP, ICC prosecutor launches
Ukraine war crimes investigation
Business
Insider, A Russian businessman has put a $1 million bounty on Vladimir
Putin's head, calling for military officers to arrest him as a war criminal
USA Today, Russian anti-war
protesters are being arrested and charged with 'petty hooliganism'
Poland has said it will give all of its MiG-29 fighter jets to the U.S., apparently agreeing to an arrangement that would allow them to be used by Ukraine’s military. Ukraine has pleaded for more warplanes. The decision came as Washington was looking at a proposal under which Poland would supply Ukraine with Soviet-era fighters and in turn receive American F-16s to make up for their loss. Ukrainian pilots are trained to fly Soviet-era fighter jets. But now Washington is cooling off on the idea, fearing a wider war.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10573625/Thousands-desperate-Russians-fleeing-Mexico-seeking-asylum.html 'If you post that
you are against war they will come after you.' Thousands of desperate Russians
are seeking asylum in the US by way of Mexico where no visas are necessary as
they flee Putin's political persecution and conscription
·
As
Putin's forces invaded Ukraine last week, Russians topped the list of
nationalities seeking help in the US, ahead of Cubans and Armenians
·
In the first two months of 2022, 5,984 Russians
sought asylum compared to just 3,893 in the whole of 2021, according to [US] Custom
and Border Protection figures
Nor is Putin likely stop when and if
he finally subdues Ukraine. Putin’s
efforts to reconstitute the USSR’s former empire are driving neighboring
countries right into Europe’s arms.
The Week,
Belarusian president displays map suggesting Putin plans to attack Moldova
Insider,
Georgia, another former Soviet state that Russia invaded, asks to join EU days
after Ukraine application
Wariness and
jitters are also growing across the straits in Taiwan.
Reuters, China
pledges peaceful growth of Taiwan ties, but opposes foreign interference
Yahoo News, Pope Francis prays for
Ukrainians huddled in bomb shelters on Ash Wednesday
Speaking to over 1 billion Catholics around the world, Pope Francis on
Ash Wednesday declared a day of fasting and prayer for the people of Ukraine.
Breaking a tradition of neutrality, Francis condemned the attacks by the
Russian military. He went further off script to honor Father Marek Viktor
Gongalo, the Polish-Ukrainian translator on the stage with him, who has family
stuck in Ukraine. "His parents are now in underground shelters to protect
themselves from the bombs in a place near Kyiv," Francis said. "By accompanying him, we
accompany all the people who are suffering from the bombings, including his
elderly parents and so many other elderly who are in underground shelters
defending themselves.” He added: “Let us remember these people in our
hearts."
The Hill,
Zelensky says first foreign fighters now in Ukraine
Some have
even come from as far away as Japan. Over a million Ukrainians have fled the
country.
Insider, 5
professors from top Chinese universities wrote an open letter condemning
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, marking a departure from China's pro-Russian
online sentiment The letter was censored
hours after it was posted on social media. What will happen now to the
professors? It’s hard for any government to keep secrets in today’s cyber
connected world.
NYTimes, Shunned by Others,
Russia Finds Friends in Africa
Since the days of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s leaders have
rejected American criticism of their friendships with autocrats such as Fidel
Castro of Cuba and Moammar Gadhafi of Libya, whose countries backed them during
the most desperate moments of the anti-apartheid struggle. Now South Africans
are defending their loyalty to another autocrat — Russian President Vladimir
Putin — and sitting out the global outcry over his invasion of Ukraine.
At the United Nations on Wednesday, South Africa was among 24
African countries that declined to join the resounding vote denouncing Russian
aggression: 16 African countries abstained, seven didn’t vote at all and one —
Eritrea — voted against it, keeping company only with Russia, Belarus, Syria
and North Korea.
When 2022 began, the pandemic was still top-of-mind, but as it
starts waning, now Ukraine has emerged as the main concern, threatening a world
war will impact us all, already affecting prices here at the gas pump.
Afghanistan, where the US pulled out so precipitously, has now been
all but forgotten. And Cuba, where I am still involved as a volunteer with
Amnesty International, is largely history these days, vanished from the world’s
radar screen. Two Cuban visitors were here in Washington, DC, recently, Anamely
Ramos, of the San Isidro movement, denied a return
to Cuba, and Father José Castor, a Cuban
Catholic priest who participated in the very rare anti-government protests of July
2021.
Miami Herald,
Cuban activist stranded in Miami after she was denied boarding
an AA flight to Havana https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article258474098.html#storylink=cpy
CNA, Priest beaten, arrested amid Cuba protest
Miami Herald, Ukraine’s top diplomat in Havana: Cuba’s vote at the U.N. ‘gives us cautious hope’ Now Cuba has once more appeared on the world stage by abstaining from a vote to join Russia in voting against a United Nations resolution condemning the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Might the Cuban regime perhaps also become a dealmaker in the conflict?
Reuters, U.S. to process some visas in Cuba
after 4-year hiatus
At Amnesty International USA, we just held our annual meeting,
virtually once again:
AIUSA’s 2022 Virtual Annual General
Meeting (AGM) was held March 4-6! 2022 AGM Event Page
How to survive after the loss of a child
Como decorar tu patio y algo más
Amantes de Cactus &
Suculentas ❤️
Alianza
chino-rusa agudizará la erosión de derechos humanos
El José Martí que ahora mismo nos acecha
Un fracaso que
nos avergüenza a todos
Pantalla Táctil
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