Here’s a
photo my roller skating daughter Stephanie just sent me from her recent visit here after her childhood friend came by.
Another
photo was sent by my niece in Oregon showing us at a 1997 family reunion held there.
She suggests that we plan another reunion while we are all still around. 
Apologies again for odd font changes. Readers may be assured that I used the same font throughout the posting, but the blog gods have a mind of their own.
Last time, I mentioned
having a Costa Rican visitor, Alex. Just now, he told me he needs
to go back to Costa Rica at the urging of someone in government there, but
isn't sure how his sponsors here will react. Nor did he say for how long. Costa
Rica is small geographically and has only 5 million people, so one person can
have a measurable impact and folks there often know each other. In my Confessions book,
on p. 80, there is a photo of me with then-Costa Rican president Oscar Arias in 1990, at the side
of a new swimming pool that he had just inaugurated in the suburb of Grecia by
swimming the entire length underwater.
Honduras has twice as
many people, 10 million, spread out over a bigger area. Even there, I am a
known quantity, often being recognized. Meanwhile, here in the US, though I've lived
more than half a century on Capitol Hill, I'm practically anonymous. As for meeting our own presidents, I only once saw Bill Clinton walking between office
buildings. I also met Jimmy Carter with my family here in DC in 1979, as
per this photo appearing in both my books, and then met him again when we were both election
observers in Haiti and Nicaragua in 1990. But I've never seen Joe Biden or
Donald Trump in person--nor would I particularly care to see Mr. Trump--I sincerely hope
he never takes office again in our city.
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On June
21, we held a primary election here in DC, a de facto election, since all Democratic candidates
will win in November, given the District’s overwhelmingly Democratic electorate.
Muriel Bowser, who faced 3 male opponents,
has now won her 3rd term. One of her opponents may well become the
next mayor. So far, all DC mayors and mayoral candidates, ever since the city was
first allowed to elect its own mayor, have identified as black. We DC residents
were authorized by Congress to vote for our first mayor only after my arrival;
he was Walter Washington, for whom I voted in 1974. While African Americans no
longer make up the majority of the city’s population, they are still the largest
ethnic group at about 40% and fill most elective offices. The city is growing
in population again now after dropping down briefly toward the end of 2021.
The on-line
cross-country journey of Gaby Petito and Brian Landrie began as an informative
and lighthearted saga until it turned dark, ending in both their deaths. In his
handwritten diary, whose contents were just revealed, Landrie admits to strangling
Petito before taking his own life with a gunshot to the head. Their remains had
been found near their Wyoming campsite.
The news cycle moves so fast in the digital age that
now the terrible Uvalde massacre has almost become old news, though still worthy
of comment.
Insider, Texas
cops could have stopped the Uvalde gunman within minutes, but the school police
chief placed the 'lives of officers before the lives of children': DPS director
Yes, that is
what we’ve always suspected. Being unwilling to risk their own lives, they don’t
belong in law enforcement.
BBC News, Uvalde
shooting: Gunman could have been stopped within three minutes - safety official
Fox News, Uvalde
school shooting: Officer whose wife was shot was disarmed and 'escorted' away,
Texas DPS chief says
Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Steven McCraw
ripped into the Uvalde school police chief's handling of last month's shooting
at Robb Elementary School and said that some officers wanted to approach the
gunman earlier, including a school district police officer whose wife was
killed in the massacre. That officer, Ruben Ruiz, received a call from his
wife, Eva Mireles, who told him that she had been shot. "He tried to move
forward into the hallway," McCraw said Tuesday at a Senate hearing.
"He was detained and they took his gun away from him and escorted him off
the scene." Mireles
later died in an ambulance on the way to a
hospital.
Teacher
Eva Mireles and several of the children might have been saved if the door had
been opened sooner. They wouldn’t have bled to death or perhaps even have been
shot to begin with. Now, at least, very modest gun control may pass Congress,
though diehard Republican “gun-rights” advocates are still raising a ruckus
about such efforts.
Texas Tribune, The
Uvalde school-district police chief was placed on leave following damning revelations
about his response to last month’s shooting.
BBC News, Uvalde shooting: Robb Elementary School to be demolished – mayor
This often
happens after a school shooting.
USA Today, One month after Uvalde massacre, Biden signs
most significant gun reform bill in nearly 30 years
Although a compromise that many safety advocates say doesn’t
go far enough, it’s a step in the right direction and an achievement for the
Biden administration.
Oxygen, Woman
Who Pleaded For Help Finding Husband's Killer Is Sentenced To Life For
Conspiring With Boyfriend To Kill Him
This was in Texas,
but it happens all over the country. Whenever a “mysterious stranger” murders someone’s
spouse, police usually suspect the surviving partner first, because most of the
time, he or she actually is
responsible.
Often, as in this case, life insurance is involved as well.
Boy, 5, left to die in his parents' hot car pictured with family This keeps happening now that summer is here. Wouldn’t a parent notice that a child is missing? Or are parents so absorbed in their own affairs that they forget all about their kids?
Fox
News,
Cornyn's office denies bipartisan immigration bill in the works amid conservative
uproar
Cornyn's office said comments he made to Democratic senators about immigration reform were just a joke.
President Biden is in a bind on inflation, because by touting higher wages, he necessarily has incentivized an upward spiral in the cost of everything, while the war in Ukraine is no help either. Apparently, the only way to tamp down demand and rising prices is with higher interest rates, which then puts a damper on the whole economy.
Congressional hearings regarding Jan. 6 have continued, with convincing video footage and audio recordings
presented about its antecedents and aftermath, showing Trump constantly badgering
election officials, spewing out boldfaced lies, and hatching breathtakingly brazen
attempts to win reelection at any cost. Probably that’s how he’s always
operated, winning by cheating and applying constant pressure until he wears
everyone else down—it’s his usual modus operandi, used successfully for most of
his life. His supporters out in the hinterland still rally for him, eager to
vote for him again. Congressional hearings about Trump’s efforts will only fire
up his base and probably prevent Democrats from actually trying to prosecute
him for fear of igniting a backlash.
The Hill, Trump praises ‘powerful’ Texas GOP after rejection of Biden win
Business Insider, Kasich says 'even clowns were embarrassed' by Texas GOP convention that included declaration that Biden 'was not legitimately elected' and called homosexuality an 'abnormal lifestyle choice'
Reuters, The Senate passed the first major piece of federal gun-safety legislation in decades. Meanwhile, just hours earlier, the Supreme Court expanded gun rights by ruling that Americans can carry them in public for self-defense. So a recent win as well as a loss on gun safety, as more guns being carried in public means that more accidents and disputes will end up with gun injuries and deaths.
USA Today, Should guns be banned in bars, hospitals? Supreme Court case could spur new 2nd Amendment fight
American swimmer
Anita Alvarez fainted underwater
during World Championships in Budapest and was rescued by her quick-thinking coach
Andrea Fuentes. 
LA Times, Jury finds Bill Cosby sexually abused teen in the 1970s,
orders him to pay $500,000 This
verdict is too little, too late, and will present no hardship to Cosby, who
remains free on a technicality, but at least it’s a modest acknowledgment of
his predation on women over the years. For Cosby, the amount levied was just a
slap on the wrist, given his wealth. “What? That’s all?” he’s been quoted as
saying.
Reuters, U.S.
House speaker's husband charged with driving under influence of alcohol Nancy Pelosi’s office had no comment.
After their long fight, pro-life forces are
having their moment. It’s been pretty noisy here out at the nearby Supreme
Court. with opposing sides celebrating and protesting well into the night.
Christian Science Monitor, Can
you be feminist and ‘pro-life’? The women who say yes. 
NYTtimes, Abortion
Pills Will Change a Post-Roe World I’ve said
this already earlier on this blog. Pills taken in the privacy of one’s home cannot
be policed.
Abortion does help equalize the
consequences of sexual intercourse between men and women. “My body, myself” and “My
body, my choice” are the watchwords of abortion rights advocates. But is there another
body and another “self” involved in a pregnancy? The question is: when does
that other body take shape and start becoming a separate person worthy of going
on living? Half of fetuses are biologically female, just like their own mothers.
(Or should we not call them mothers or even female, but, rather, “pregnant
people,” a favored term that would hardly apply to a fetus.) According to neuroscience,
the human capacity to experience feeling or sensation develops between 24 and 28 weeks of gestation. That would seem to be the point when the fetus starts meriting
maximum protection, especially as preemie infants born at that stage have actually
survived.
Here is someone who never even considered having an abortion.
National Post, Woman with rare
medical condition gives birth to 44 kids by age 40 This 40-year-old Ugandan mother experiences
hyper-ovulation, meaning that her ovaries release multiple eggs at once, so
that she has given birth to multiple sets of twins, triplets, and quadruplets.
Wash. Post, A Texas
teenager wanted an abortion. She now has twins. 
(Double jeopardy!)
This may also happen regarding other life events. I’ve never had abortion myself nor even considered the possibility, having been both an adoptive and a birth parent, as already indicated, with my kids providing my most precious human connections. Nonetheless, other parenting events have seriously impacted me, namely the untimely deaths of my older son and Cuban foster son in successive years. While the pain of their loss has never gone away, it is not as acute now as it once was. Likewise, when my husband of 24 years, whom I’d helped raise up from obscurity as a totally blind college student to become a sought-after DC-based political guru, divorced me to marry his young office assistant, I was understandably devastated, especially as he had emptied out all our bank accounts, so I kept bouncing checks. After leaving, he never spoke to me again before he died in 1999, except for a single memorable phone call in 1984. But his total rejection freed me to embark on a totally new career involving occupational therapy, then to revive my bilingual self, subsequently to join the Peace Corps in Honduras in my 60s, afterward returning annually to that country for health care projects and starting a part-time post-retirement career as an on-call Spanish interpreter. I also was invited to serve as an election observer in Chile, Haiti, Nicaragua, and the DR. And for 41 years now, I’ve been involved as well with promoting human rights in Latin America, especially the Caribbean, my current volunteer responsibility for Amnesty Int’l USA. So, while I never wanted a divorce, I now regard it as positive step in my own life.
Guardian, US on
course to welcome 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing war this summer
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/24/ukrainians-enter-us-asylum-biden-pledge?CMP=share_btn_link
ND
TV, Former
Miss Brazil Gleycy Correia Dies At The Age Of 27 After Routine Tonsil Surgery
This unfortunate young woman was an on-line “influencer” with 56,000 followers on Instagram, so her death became big news. Tonsillectomy after early childhood can be a fairly serious operation, though is rarely fatal. I had my own tonsils and adenoids removed in Colombia when I was 15 while wide awake, just sitting in a dental chair, following directions and keeping my mouth wide open, which was a memorable experience and not in a good way. It took me a while to recover both physically and emotionally. Fortunately, tonsils are no longer removed in young kids, as once was done routinely.
BBC News, Afghan earthquake: At least 1,000 people killed and 1,500 injured The Afghan people simply cannot catch a break!
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