Our daylight hours are becoming ever shorter now, as we’ve
all certainly noticed, but soon they will again start going the other way. In Scandinavia,
winter darkness is even more pronounced. In Finland’s northern Lapland, the sun
never rises for as long as 50 days. Of course, the reverse is true in summer. When
we reach our shortest day here on Dec. 21, then on the very next day, darkness
will begin to shrink ever so slightly, continuing all the way until June 21. Having Christmas and New Year’s holidays in
the dead of winter helps alleviate the gloom.
These brilliant red trees appeared in neighbors' yards.
A friend and I enjoyed a recent live concert by the Folger Consort. A very versatile and playful group of singers and musicians held the event at St. Mark’s Church near my house, as the Folger Theater is undergoing renovation. That was the first time since the pandemic that I’d been to a large group event. Everyone was wearing a mask.
I do feel the acute loss of my son this season because he
died on Dec. 19, on my older daughter’s birthday. My Cuban foster son died in
January. I am grateful for their lives for
as long as we had them. None of us immortal, but both were gone too soon. Still,
my life, and their lives too, were enriched by our time together. And I don’t
regret my marriage, though my husband of 24 years divorced me and has since
died; we never spoke again—his choice--except once when he called me in 1984.
None of us, however rich or famous, has an ideal or idealized life, always facing
challenges which propel us to new endeavors. Below is a page from my Confessions book, showing me with my son Andrew and at the grave of Cuban foster son Alex. Below that is Andrew's gravestone in my back yard.
Working from home and the tight labor market, along with cyber
developments, have allowed many people with disabilities to now find jobs. I am
sensitive to disability rights after my long marriage to a husband who was
blind.
It's been wonderful to have friends all around the world connected via the internet, like this family from Bhutan who just sent me a family portrait.
Charities are all asking for donations these days and so is NPR. I do my best and so do you. My family are also expecting holiday gifts. My part-time job as a Spanish interpreter ended with the pandemic, so I do miss that modest extra income at this time of year. I don’t plan to resume that work without a car and am now reluctant to use public transportation and meet with different clients because of the risk of Covid exposure. Also, just daily living tasks take me much longer these days.
Fox News, The Grinch could be stealing your Christmas checks Postal Service inspectors are cracking down on the practice and have taken steps to make mailbox fishing more difficult.
There Are 200,000 Cats
In DC. Yes, Someone Counted | DCist
https://dcist.com/story/22/12/05/new-research-dc-cats-deadly-native-wildlife/
Thousands of cats roam
free in our city, killing birds and other wildlife. And if not spayed or neutered,
they are also producing even more cats out there. Owners should keep their pet cats
at home, not letting them outside. Once out, they often roam, as is evidenced
by the many lost and found cats featured on neighborhood websites. Gizmodo,
10 Species Driven
Toward Extinction by Cats
If you live on DC’s Capitol Hill as I do, you may see
bats swirling around the capitol dome at night. Bats have always fascinated me.
In Honduras, they even sometimes entered my small abode, proving very hard to eject,
even with a broom. I was always afraid one might zoom around to bite me. My
windows there had no screens and were opened at night for cooler air. Honduran
farmers said bats sucked the blood of their animals and even showed me bite
marks. The most spectacular bats’ spectacle I ever witnessed was a huge bat swarm,
estimated to be 1.5 million, coming out from under a San Antonio bridge at dusk,
returning at dawn in a huge swarm to roost back under the bridge. The bats must
do a lot to rid the area of insects. I had been staying at an adjacent hotel attending
an Amnesty International conference, making it easy to see the bats both coming
and going.
In my more than 50 years living on Capitol Hill, my family
and I have relied on our local SE library, so I’m glad it’s still here.
Even store-bought corn tortillas make me nostalgic for Honduras, where we used to make them by hand (rotating palms), first grinding up dried corn with a hand grinder, then frying the tortillas on a metal griddle over a wood fire outdoors.
Buoyed by Democrats’ recent victories, Joe Biden, at age 80, has not indicated any plans to step down and seems poised to run again in 2024. He has no obvious heir apparent. Kalama Harris has not caught fire, though it’s aways hard for a vice president to shine. So, I would support his candidacy for a 2nd term and will pray that he completes it. If not, assuming that Harris continues as his running mate, then she would become the first female US president. I also hope that I myself see Biden through the end of his 2nd term, as I’m even older than he is.
Yet, age is more than a number. Humans and other living creatures do have an internal time clock that propels them to grow up, but also to grow old and die. We are happy to reach adulthood, but resist acknowledging the subsequent decline. When our life clock starts winding down, we intervene to try to delay our inevitable end. Age is an obvious risk factor for physical and mental decline and for death from Covid or anything else.
Fortunately, Senator Raphael Warnock has retained his seat
with about 51% of the runoff vote and Herschel Walker, who may feel the effects
of football brain injuries, has lost, though the race was very close. Now
Senators Manchin and Sinema will have less clout as spoilers for Democrats in
the Senate chamber. Since then, Sinema has even resigned from the Democratic
Party.
It looks like Ted Cruz’s teenage daughter is being
treated for self-inflicted stab wounds, though secrecy abounds.
Wash. Post, Wedding websites are the latest
gay rights battleground in Colorado
Organizations
that are open to the public and available commercially should not discriminate.
If I am selling a product, I cannot refuse to sell it to you because I dislike something
about you, except to not sell you alcohol if you are under age or appear to be
intoxicated. However, designing a wedding website involves more than selling a fixed
product, as the designer’s creative energies and imagination would be involved.
So there, I tend to side with website designers or anyone else offering uniquely
created products, allowing them to opt out if their heart just isn’t in it. A
gay couple should not want an unwilling designer to craft their marriage website,
though maybe their request wants to prove that their union is no different and fully
equal to any other, so that’s their main point. Could the website designer
possibly legally specify “Designs only for heterosexual couples, as otherwise my
heart isn’t in it.”? It’s a genuine dilemma, so we’ll see how the Supreme Court
rules.
Wash. Post, Restaurant refuses service to Christian group, citing staff ‘dignity’ Is turnabout fair play? Here’s a reverse example of refusing service, in this case, not serving a Christian group. A restaurant or store selling menu dishes or other fixed items is different from a wedding designer whose creative energies are required to make a unique product only for that particular couple, or so I would argue. The restaurant or store selling advertised specific items should serve everybody, gay, straight, young, old, Christian, or nonbeliever, except for selling cigarettes and alcohol to those underage.
NBC, Meet the 18-year-old who just became the youngest Black
mayor in the country He’s a college freshman and the mayor of a small
town in Arkansas.
An
aggrieved Donald Trump wrote on his website Truth Social, “Do you throw
the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER,
or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude
allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those
found in the Constitution.” He further alleged that “Big Tech” is working
closely with Democrats. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not
condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!” A gradually shrinking number of
voters still support the Donald’s claim of victory when, by any measure, he
actually lost the last time, but he is not going quietly. Republican lawmakers
have avoided comment on this recent posting. Trump has been a unique office
holder and candidate, but now his fortunes are finally waning, good news for our
country and the world.
Wash. Post, Fox News parts ways with Lara Trump, former president’s daughter-in-law Does this signal a willingness by Fox to support other Republican candidates?
CBS News, Deputy killed when roommate "jokingly" fires
gun, sheriff says
Events like these keep happening. Triggers should never be pulled,
even when the gun pointed at someone is thought be unloaded, because too often,
it is not.
Wash. Post, Five U.S. soldiers charged in rape of two women in Louisiana What is it about group rape that encourages several men to all rape the same women while their fellows cheer them on?
Daily Mail, Biden administration files appeal to keep in place Trump-era Title 42 - that expels migrants when they cross the border Dubbed 'Title 42' the enforcement rule first took effect in March 2020, denying migrants' rights to seek asylum under U.S. and international law on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
President Biden issued a statement on political prisoners in Cuba on Human Rights Dayhttps://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/12/09/statement-from-president-biden-on-political-prisoners-in-cuba/ [In] honoring Human Rights Day this Saturday, December 10th, I once again call for the release of the hundreds of political prisoners in Cuba who remain in detention following the July 11, 2021 protests. In the face of oppression, these protestors bravely exercised their fundamental freedoms, including the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
Military Times, Veterans urge Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Acthttps://www.militarytimes.com/opinion/commentary/2022/12/06/veterans-urge-congress-to-pass-the-afghan-adjustment-act/ This holiday season, more than 70,000 Afghans in the United States, many of whom American service members rescued last year, are living in limbo, with no guarantee they will be allowed to stay in the U.S. beyond next year.
From Wikipedia:
The Price of Sugar is a 2007
documentary... about exploitation of Haitian immigrants
in the Dominican Republic involved
with production of sugar, and the efforts of Spanish priest Father Christopher Hartley to
ameliorate their situation....The documentary shows the poor working conditions
in the sugar cane plantations, and political control exerted by the Vicini
family to stifle efforts to change the situation.
This film showed the abysmal and squalid conditions endured then by Haitian sugar cane workers. As volunteer Caribbean coordinator for Amnesty International USA, I’d planned to have the film shown to our local groups all around the country. But I was only able to arrange one showing for our DC group, because lawyers for the Vicinis found out and issued legal threats to our organization, thwarting my plans for greater distribution. On a recent evening, NPR aired a report of similar conditions still being endured by Haitian sugar cane workers today in the bateyes, their plantation communities, so little has changed. Haitian workers could always quit to go home, but no better conditions await them back on Haiti.
Haiti's capital is over-run by gangs unleashing a wave of rape
and violence | Daily Mail Online
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11503929/Haitis-capital-run-gangs-unleashing-wave-rape-violence.html
The situation in Haiti, never good, has gone down precipitously since I used to travel there on human rights and election monitoring missions, something I would not dare to try now.
The Haitian government has asked for foreign intervention because of ever increasing gang control, but so far, no country has stepped up. The US and Canada have indicated willingness to participate, but not to take the lead. When UN peacekeepers from Nepal came to retore order a few years ago, they brought cholera to Haiti for the first time. It seems like a UN or regional force needs to be organized, but that has not happened yet.
On another Caribbean island, closer to the US, people are fleeing.
NYTimes, Cuba's Declining Economy Prompts 'Historic' Migration to US
NBC, Cuban Exodus Bigger Than Ever: Another Boat Washes
Ashore in South Florida
The
never-ending Cuban exodus - EL PAÍS in English
Nov
14, 2022 — September 2022,
the last month of the government's fiscal year, was a record-breaking month
for Cuban migration
to the US – 224,607 Cubans.
When a friend from years ago inquired how I was doing, I sent her the attached photos from my trip last summer, filling me with nostalgia for Honduras, my former Peace Corps country, which has become my 2nd home. Here they are again.
Having been
to Peru on several occasions, beginning when I was only 15, I’m pleased
to see that a woman is now in the presidency there for the first time. We
missed our chance with Hillary Clinton and, thanks to a rare quirk of the
Electoral College, got Donald Trump instead in 2017! It’s been hard to shake
him.
NY Times,
Who Is Dina Boluarte, the New President of Peru?
Qatar fought hard to keep the World Cup, despite
controversies from human rights to climate, but managed to carry it off
successfully.
AP, Iran executes first known prisoner arrested in protests
AP, Iran execution: Man publicly hanged from crane amid
protests This is the 2nd
protest-related execution.
Wash. Post, Iranian official signals
suspension of morality police amid protests Even though the Iran government
is carrying out executions, it is signaling a reduction in its authority in other
ways, showing that even the most entrenched political leaders can be induced
to change. Is the sight of women’s hair such a turn-on for Iranian men that their
hair needs to always be kept covered up? Perhaps if seeing it becomes a more
common, female tresses’ attractive luster will wear off.
[Underlining below is not significant--I just can't erase it.]
Once people feel liberated and newly powerful, it’s hard to tamp them down again. The Chinese government halted the protests immediately, but also loosened Covid restrictions, showing its sensitivity to public demands, because if most Chinese rebelled all at once, government forces could not stop them.
AP, Griner for Bout: WNBA star freed in US-Russia prisoner swap Well it finally happened, although another American, Paul Whelan, imprisoned for 4 years, was not included in the prisoner swap. Griner won’t be returning in Russia in the off season anymore and will need to revive her basketball skills.
Yahoo News, Ukrainian Nobel Peace Prize winner calls for war crimes tribunal for Putin and Russian military leaders Oleksandra Matviichuk is her name. “Yes, it's a question of how to physically arrest Vladimir Putin,” she says.
GMA, 6
months since Roe ruling, how the adoption landscape has changed
Babies born in states where abortion is restricted, or otherwise when a pregnancy has advanced too far for an abortion,
has meant more such babies are being raised by mothers who were reluctant at first to even have
them. A mother often becomes pregnant with a boyfriend who then departs, leaving her with a baby originally conceived as a joint project. Relatively few
single women are now
giving up their child for adoption, but those who do, thanks to more open adoption laws, can maintain minimal
contact to assure themselves that it was the right decision.
Gender roles have become more fluid and flexible, which would seem to make becoming trans—especially by surgical
and hormonal intervention—less attractive,
but that has not been the case.
My granddaughter is teaching her 15-year-old son to sign his name, since cursive isn’t taught in schools any more.
Here are 2 more photos of the time when raccoons were terrorizing our home. I couldn’t find these before. I’m glad to have cut down their favorite mulberry tree.
Life usually presents sufficient challenges that we don’t confront boredom. But some folks like to voluntarily invent a challenging, such as running a marathon or climbing a mountain.
Online helpers, such as Siri and Alexa, have become real life pals to some homebound folks.
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Kikiktagruk Inupiat Corporation
Child Trends
Communications Director, Joseph R.
Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy
Antonio
Maceo, "El Titán de
Bronce"
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