I just ran across a photo of me with my then 5-month-old grandson taken back in 2003.
By the way, my gas is still on, despite cutoff threat, though I avoid using it. I’ve requested a hearing.
Small plane crash delays flights out of St.
Pete-Clearwater Airport, officials say. https://share.newsbreak.com/
Joe Biden may be doing the best that anyone could expect under present circumstances, but virus-weary citizens are blaming him for not restoring their pre-pandemic life. The buck stops with the president. He’d wanted the job and now he has it, so he owns it.
Recently defeated in the North Carolina Republican primary was one-term Congressman Madison Cawthorn, who uses a wheelchair after injury in an auto accident, as does Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott. While I disagree with their politics, I’m glad to see that disability is not a barrier to public office. On the Democratic side, among wheelchair users, is Illinois US Senator Tammy Duckworth, injured in military combat.
A few more words are in order about the personal lives of these disparate wheelchair users, as disability rights has been a big part of my own life, both personal and professional. Cawthorn, who entered Congress at age 26, thought once he had won office, he’d be home free, but his sex and drug antics were apparently too much even for his loyal Republican electorate. He was briefly married recently, but, after less than a year, is now facing divorce. Abbott was already married when he became paralyzed by a tree falling on him while he was out jogging. His wife is of Mexican heritage and they have an adopted daughter. On the other side of the aisle is Democratic US Senator Tammy Duckworth, born in Thailand and with a PhD, a former Lt. Col. and helicopter pilot shot down in Iraq whose legs were amputated after that attack. She has 2 daughters.
Yahoo
News,
House Ethics Committee investigating Cawthorn trading, staffer affair
allegations
The House Ethics Committee is investigating Rep. Madison Cawthorn,
R-N.C., for accusations of insider dealing in
cryptocurrency and allegations of an improper affair with
one of his staff members... Cawthorn, 26, lost a close primary battle last week
to North Carolina state Sen. Chuck Edwards, after a broad array of Republicans
united against Cawthorn following a deluge of scandals ranging from a video of
him naked and thrusting himself onto another man to his own accusations that
other members of Congress engaged in cocaine-fueled orgies in Washington. After
his surprise loss, Cawthorn promised that a new brand of “Dark
Maga” would “rise on the right” in response to his defeat.
Now there has been another
mass shooting in Texas by an 18-year-old boy, with a reported 19 children and 2
teachers killed. He bought his weapons right after turning 18. Texas is an “open
carry” state where no gun permit or license is required. After the shooting in
Buffalo, mass murderers may have felt incentivized. Conspiracy theories exploded
on the internet. The Founding Fathers supported a
"a well -regulated militia" not this.
ABC News, At least 19 children, 2 teachers
dead after shooting at Texas elementary school The
shooter was 18, a former student at a local high school. He shot his
grandmother first, who at last report, was still alive, but in critical condition.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, along with former President Donald
Trump and U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, is scheduled to talk Friday at the National
Rifle Association's 2022 annual meeting, where no guns will be permitted. How
will these various Republican leaders address this recent mass shooting? Abbott
has been outspoken advocate for having more guns in circulation in
Texas. Where is the so-called “good guy with a gun” who is supposed to take
down a shooter? Rarely if ever seen.
Biden’s speech, delivered after his return from Asia, was heart-felt, as he knows what it’s like to lose a child.
Here
was a closely watched primary contest:
CBS News, Only House Democrat who doesn't support abortion rights
faces challenger
Rep. Henry Cuellar
of Texas is the lone anti-abortion Democrat left in the U.S House of
Representatives. He has survived challenges from the left over the years
because of his strong ties to his border district, and his appeal among constituents
who share his more moderate approach. But with the Supreme Court now poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, progressives feel they have their best
chance yet to defeat him.
In mainstream media commentary, Cuellar has been described as being “anti-abortion rights” and “anti-choice” when he might actually describe himself as simply being “anti-abortion.” He was also given an “A” rating by the NRA, so his track record is mixed. Cuellar now seems to have squeaked through in the primary, despite a strong “pro-choice” female challenger. Most Democrats don’t dare express pro-life views. Even Rep Nancy Pelosi, a life-long Catholic who gave birth to 5 babies in 6 years, now counts herself in the pro-choice column. Still, members of the pro-life movement have found new energy, becoming more public and more vocal, hoping the Supreme Court decision goes their way.
Fox News, Roe v. Wade called into question by many Democrats, liberal scholars over the years
An estimated 2 million US couples are seeking to adopt a child, preferably an infant, but only 100,000 children here are available for adoption, many no longer babies. These couples and also singles, as well as gay prospective parents, have started looking for adoptive children abroad, including, until only recently, in Ukraine. Increasingly, such would-be parents no longer seek to adopt kids who look like them or who even match their race or ethnicity. Adoptions of “excess” baby girls from China and of mixed-race babies from other Asian countries are no more; instead, mainly children with special needs are coming from Asia.
My late ex-husband and I did not to have to wait long to adopt 2 children in California a few years before Roe and then, after moving to Washington, DC, we adopted our son from Colombia born in 1974, the year after the 1973 Roe decision when local adoptions had dried up. Meanwhile, I had already given birth to a daughter in 1972, which would have been a barrier then to a domestic adoption in any case. So, I do have personal connections to the abortion issue--“skin in the game.” If more babies were available for adoption, more couples might become committed to the “pro-life” stance, or maybe their commitment needs to come first. I feel that both giving birth to and adopting children has enriched my life in different ways and has allowed me to leave a living legacy beyond the personal impact of my friendships, professional work, Peace Corps service, books, and this blog.
According to Wikipedia, Valentina Vassilyev and her husband Feodor Vassilyev are alleged to hold the record for the most children a couple has ever produced. She is reputed to have given birth to a total of 69 children – sixteen pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets – between 1725 and 1765, a total of 27 births; 67 of the 69 children were said to have survived infancy.
When I was board chair of a local adoption agency, now closed, because of our location here in the DC area, we oversaw adoptions by some families of note. More recently, surrogacy arrangements in the US were becoming more frequent and we often became involved with those as well. Our local surrogates were all African American women carrying babies of various ethnicities, some the biological offspring of one or both prospective parents. Surrogacy was expensive, deservedly so, but couched in terms, at least when we were doing it, that represented it as a cost, such the cost of lost wages, cost of a special diet, etc. and not as payment per se for the service of carrying and birthing the baby. Surrogacy, along with sperm and even egg donation, has been muddying the waters around parenthood. Sometimes the woman who gives birth is designated as the mother, at other times, it’s the egg donor. These are all developments since Roe, which estimated viability at 28 weeks, while now it’s down to 21 or 22 weeks and going lower.
Nowadays, a birth mother relinquishing a baby doesn’t have to give up all future contact, but should probably avoid too close involvement while the child is growing up. If the pending Supreme Court decision on Roe and expected changes in some state laws actually result in more parents giving birth to and then relinquishing a baby, there are plenty of would-be adoptive parents out there just waiting and hoping. Now a birth mother giving up a child usually has some say in choosing the adoptive parents. The secrecy of the past was due to the great stigma involved in giving birth out of wedlock. A birth mother was supposed to resume her life after relinquishing the child as if the birth had never happened, sometimes not even telling her future husband. And in Honduras still, and even in the US in bygone days, the child may never even have been told that he or she was adopted. In the US now, the bio father also has a say about the child’s future and may even claim custody.
Of course, any sort of person might result from a birth. A child’s subsequent development might produce another Einstein or Marie Curie, or maybe someone more like Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump?
As mentioned before, the adoption system in Honduras is so complicated that people I know there simply have given up, putting the new parents’ names on the birth certificate registered at the hospital, then leave with the newborn. I don’t know if the child is ever told about his/her biological parents. In the US as well, before the advent of bio heritage or genealogy websites, many folks did not find out they were adopted or were the product of a sperm donation. Now, many have been surprised.
I acknowledge that pill abortions are going to continue, regardless of laws, even though an incipient individual life is being eradicated. It’s the life of a specific human whose gender is already established, with blue or brown eyes, dark or light skin, black or blond hair, someone who was just starting to grow. The prolife movement’s slogan now is “Life is a human right.”
Sometimes a pregnant woman promises to relinquish her baby to someone covering her prenatal and medical expenses and who also agrees to keep her updated on the child’s progress while growing up. However, some women have changed their mind about giving up the baby after the actual birth. Then would-be adoptive parents have little recourse.
Adoption, as I can attest, may present slightly different parenting challenges than those involved in giving birth to biological children, but raising children always presents challenges, as with any human relationship. Every child, regardless of origin, is a unique individual, often exhibiting surprising characteristics or special talents, part of the fun and excitement of parenthood. The child can also display rather challenging traits at different stages, whatever his or her origin. Being a single mother such as I became, without any adequate support or involvement by the father, can also make the job that much harder, but single parenthood is all too common.
Parenting can also be tragic for some parents and their children. Daily News, 9-year-old Brooklyn girl cried ‘Mommy, help me,’ as she died after hours of beatings and abuse: prosecutors This is a chilling story about a woman with 2 daughters who never should have had children. The mental image of the girl begging her mother to help her when that mother was actually killing her is hard to shake. Another tragic motherhood story involves a single woman totally devoted to her only child who accidentally put her car into drive instead of reverse, killing the girl as she waited in the driveway. A mother could never recover from making such a fatal error.
Is there anything more to say about these two very different tragedies? Only that motherhood—parenthood—is an enormous responsibility. I still feel that I failed as the mother of my older son, Andrew, and of my Cuban foster son, Alex, although both died as adults, one year apart, living far away from me, both in Florida, as it turns out. It’s hard to lose someone when you don’t have a partner to share your grief. And a child should never die before a parent, so we now expect and have come to believe, though it still happens. It might be said that Jackie Kennedy was “fortunate” that her son died shortly after her own death, not before it.
It will be a relief when the Supreme Court finally renders its abortion decision so that emotions and rhetoric on both sides might then start settling down. The justices have probably made up their minds already and their final decision is not actually going to have major practical effects here in the US because early abortions will still be the vast majority and won’t be prohibited by the Court. These abortions will be done at home with pills obtainable wherever a woman lives, regardless of local laws. Furthermore, increases in effective contraception and also sterilization means that each year, fewer and fewer abortions have been actually taking place in this country. After the first 3 months of pregnancy, abortions may become further restricted by the high court, also following public opinion at that stage, since most Americans already express objections after the 3-month point. Justice Roberts has asked, “Isn’t 15 weeks long enough?” However, his suggested 15 weeks might be slightly reduced to 3 months, or 12-13 weeks, according to speculations about the final high court decision. Abortions will still be permitted in cases of serious fetal defects or health threats to the mother. The relatively few cases that may actually be called into question after the Supreme Court’s verdict might involve a normal pregnancy that has progressed beyond 3 months because a woman was unaware of being pregnant or has changed her mind after breaking up with a male partner or involves an underage girl hiding her pregnancy. These cases, if publicized, may then become new points of contention.
AP,
New York high court to determine if
Bronx Zoo elephant is a person
While Americans debate whether a human fetus is actually a
person (Biden seems to have changed his mind over the years), now an elderly
domesticated elephant in NYC is being described as a “person” by her advocates,
thereby meriting special protections. A Pa. woman who put newborn kittens in
her freezer was charged with felony animal cruelty.
Although abortions may have been attempted throughout
history and birth control measures as well, it is only in our lifetime that
birth control and legal abortion have become effective and accepted by a
substantial portion of the population, at least in developed countries. As
mentioned before, in Honduras, where abortion is still illegal and birth
control is not widespread, tubal ligation is common among women after they have
given birth to 2 or 3 children. Vasectomies are usually shunned by Honduran
men, but are reportedly gaining traction here in the US as more American men reportedly
are signing up for the procedure, as some expect abortions to become less
available. I know American men who have chosen this path who report that it can
now be done with a single incision and that they notice no difference afterward.
In past eras, in the US and some European countries,
well-to-do women had their newborn babies fed by “wet nurses,” that is, by
other lactating women who also often took care of the infants. Now, here in the
US and perhaps elsewhere, a shortage of baby formula, which has largely replaced
breastmilk, has become a widespread concern and a calamity. Nursing has many advantages,
offering a ready source of ideal nourishment to the infant as well as sensual
stimulation to the mother to incentivize her to keep on nursing and keeping her
and her baby bonded. Bottle feeding, while often convenient, especially for
working mothers, isn’t quite the same. (I’ve done both.) Nursing also delays
the return of menstruation and may act as a natural form of birth control,
though not a totally reliable one. The positive effects of nursing and its
advantages are not often discussed. Nursing does prevent the need to make sure
that baby bottles are sterile and that formula is on hand, and also saves
money. And while breast pumping is possible to extract the milk, actual nursing
does require baby and mother to spend time together, usually intimate quality time,
as nursing doesn’t happen fast. It promotes natural bonding.
Now that feeding a baby no longer requires a mother’s presence,
early infant and child care have been increasingly outsourced. Surrogacy and
other reproductive options are also outsourcing pregnancy and genetic
inheritance. Artificial wombs lie in the future, though not in my lifetime, but
if this blog remains accessible after my death, know that I predicted as much. The
connection between parents and children will increasingly become a legal bond, depending
less on genetics and even on spending time together. While emotional bonds
between parents and offspring may not develop as strongly in the future,
children will also be spared the worst threats of child abuse and neglect by
being cared for in monitored group settings.
Houston Chronicle, Southern Baptist leaders covered up sexual abuse crisis for decades, a report finds Southern Baptists are dealing again with sexual abuse claims, including about decades of coverup. Wherever there is a power dynamic with men in charge, it seems that sex abuse occurs, whether against women, underage kids, or even some male subordinates. I have seen it play out in my previous work as an interpreter, not only among churches or groups such as Boy Scouts, but just among people with unequal standing in a work or other setting. (An interpreter, like a fly on the wall, is not a recognized participant in an interaction, but is necessarily present and an intimate observer serving as the essential conduit of communication between the parties.)
Wash. Post, Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, kept secret database: report
Wash. Post, A pastor confessed to ‘adultery.’ The woman cried out: ‘I was just 16.’
Senator Ted Cruz (R./ Texas) may have a point in coining the term “toxic femininity.” Unhealthy dynamics can emerge when women are dominant over men, though that happens much less often than the reverse.
Truckers are
now planning to come back to Washington, DC, to protest fuel costs, as well
they might. If ordinary drivers see a huge cost jump at the pump, imagine a
trucker filling up his tank with diesel. For all drivers, the war in Ukraine as
a contributor to this rise may seem abstract. Not everyone is even quite sure
where to look for Ukraine on a map.
Meanwhile, here in the US, sharp political differences
continue.
CBS News poll: More Americans label GOP extreme, but Democratic Party as weak Many potential mid-term voters are unhappy with their choices.
Reuters, U.S. First Lady Jill Biden visits Costa Rica children's
hospital
Jill Biden has
taken quite a few solo trips to various parts of the world, something that Melania
Trump rarely did. Melania now seems to have checked out, not accompanying Donald
on any of his political forays. Maybe their agreement only covered his term as
president.
Wash. Post, Hong Kong Catholic church cancels Tiananmen memorial Mass This is not totally surprising.
Daily Beast, Vladimir Putin’s Secret Grandchild Is a Zelensky, Says Report [No, this 2-year-old girl is not related to that Zelensky.]
Reuters, Rwanda expects first
asylum seekers from UK soon
This is one way to keep asylum seekers out of
Britain.
Worldwide
death penalty figures are out from Amnesty International: 579 known executions in 18
countries in 2021, an increase of 20% from the 483 recorded
in 2020. This figure represents the second lowest number of executions recorded
by Amnesty International since at least 2010. Most known executions took place
in China, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria – in that order.
China remained the world’s leading executioner – but the true extent of its use of the
death penalty is unknown as this data is classified as a state secret; the
global figures for executions and death sentences therefore exclude the
thousands of people that Amnesty International believes to have been sentenced
to death and executed in China. Figures for North Korea and Viet Nam,
which are believed to have extensively resorted to executions, were also not
included in the global executions figure, as secrecy and lack of access to
independent information made it impossible to assess trends.
Amnesty
International recorded 24 women among the 579 people known to
have been executed in 2021 (4%), in the following countries: Egypt (8),
Iran (14), Saudi Arabia (1) and USA (1). Belarus, Japan and UAE resumed
executions. Amnesty International did not record any executions in India, Qatar
and Taiwan, having done so in 2020.
Iran executed at least
314 people (up from at least 246 in 2020), their highest number of executions
since 2017, reversing year-on-year declines since then. Recorded executions
in Saudi Arabia rose sharply, from 27 to 65, an increase of
140% percent. Despite these increases, the 2021 global executions figure
constitutes the second-lowest figure recorded by Amnesty
International since at least 2010.
No doubt many have experienced a not uncommon phenomenon, though perhaps I should only speak for myself. What I am referring to is knowledge of secrets within a family that friends may be well aware of, but about which family members themselves may be oblivious, at least consciously. I’ve seen such hidden aspects both among friends here and in Honduras, where I’ve often stayed in family homes. These may be of an intimate nature, such as that the wife was in a sexual relationship before marriage and maybe had even given up a child for adoption, but her husband and subsequent children don’t know this. You know only because you’ve known her since childhood, but have been sworn to secrecy. Another hush-hush item is about a husband known to carry on affairs, but his longtime wife can’t imagine that other women would find him attractive. Or either wife or husband may have a long-ago criminal record. Another guy shows fairly obvious gay mannerisms and is often absent from home because of his work. His wife muses that he might have “another woman” out there somewhere, but it’s more likely “another man.” (A long-time bachelor, he had reportedly proposed to his future wife before even so much as having held her hand. “He was so respectful,” she says.) Sometimes, there is also a spouse who has stashed away a secret inheritance not being shared with the family. Or an elderly person faces a serious, even terminal, illness, but the family is not revealing it to him or her. In all such cases, unless there is an overriding reason to reveal the secret to the persons involved and if some sort of equilibrium now seems to prevail, I see no reason to shatter it. Being aware of such hidden secrets in other families, I can only wonder if there are some crucial disclosures my own family and friends might be keeping from me? I know some are concerned about my occasional memory lapses, something I readily acknowledge, which is why I gave up my driver’s license at age 80, write reminder notes to myself, and check the calendar every single day. I hope that’s good enough for now.
Brujería (“witchcraft,”
“sorcery”) [Received from Cuban Studies Institute]
The usual term to denote any Afro-Cuban religion and all other practices similarly dismissed as superstitions. The word is also used by followers of the cults themselves to denote black magic – the deliberate misuse of legitimate religious techniques for malicious ends. All santeros are supposed to be capable of black magic, but no one admits to practicing it. The rituals of the less familiar cults are believed to consist exclusively of black magic, with the smallest and least known credited with the most dangerous powers. They include, in rough order of deadliness, the Ñañigos, Congolese, Jamaicans, Haitians, Canary Islanders, and Chinese. Beliefs in Santería are likely to attribute to sorcery such abnormal and inexplicable conditions as insanity and any condition that fails to improve when appropriate offerings have been made to the orisha. Cubans unassociated with any cult may still be frightened at apparent indications of occult malice; for instance, white chicken feathers unaccountably found in the house. Counter magic obtainable from a santero may be thought necessary.
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The Far Side
El futuro del sistema democrático
¿Por qué Verizon?
