Although I have placed a “DOG OFF!” sign at the tree next to the street in front of my house, folks out walking dogs seem to regard that as an invitation. If I’m looking out the window and notice them stopped there with their dog, I tap on the glass. Recently, a young woman walking 4 dogs halted with them all by that tree. This time, I yelled as well as tapping on the glass. Alarmed, she looked up, saw me, and tried to pull them all away.
This event put me in mind of a family saga occurring before
I was born. My paternal grandfather Andrew, for whom my late older son and
older grandson are named, was an early flight instructor using a small plane
that he had built himself. Originally from the Isle of Islay in Scotland, he
had made his way from there to Alberta, Canada, and then on to California where
the accident that killed him and wrecked his plane had occurred. Reportedly, he
was teaching a student to fly when that student froze at the wheel, causing the
plane to crash into overhead wires and eventually fall to the ground. The student
survived to tell the tale but my grandfather did not. My grandmother was then
obligated to go to work altering clothes at a department store to support her 2
sons, the younger being my own father.
Terrifying moment rabid
RACCOON attacks screaming Connecticut girl, 7, as she leaves her house | Daily
Mail Online https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11497391/Terrifying-moment-rabid-RACCOON-attacks-screaming-Connecticut-girl-7-leaves-house.html
USA Today, Jonathan,
a tortoise and world's oldest living land animal, celebrates 190th birthday
Here’s that tortoise who shares a name with my son.
Wash. Post, Hawaii’s
Mauna Loa volcano erupts for first time in 38 years
CBS News, Two volcanoes erupt simultaneously in Hawaii for first
time in decades
Wash. Post, As
lava flows from Mauna Loa, crowds flock to spectacle
Two of Hawaii's largest volcanoes began erupting simultaneously.
Hawaii's Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano, erupted
for the first time in decades on Sunday night. Nearby,
Kilauea was also erupting — both on the archipelago's Big Island.
Dual eruptions haven't been seen since
1984. The Kilauea
volcano, which is smaller and more active than Mauna Loa, had been erupting since
1983, and in 2018, its lava flows destroyed hundreds of homes on the island.
Recently, its eruption activity has been confined to the crater.
I’ve seen that
volcano at night and also Kilauea with spectacularly bright hot lava flowing
into the steaming ocean. My friend living on that island took me to see both active
volcanos at night, as we stood together close enough to feel the heat of the
flowing lava from Kilauea. My friend must have died, as email from him stopped arriving
a few years ago and my snail mail letter, asking anyone receiving his mail to
let me know what had happened to him, never was answered. These recent photos
were taken at some distance and the flow seems to be different, but they
brought back memories of an earlier time and of a friend no longer with us.
Daily Mail, Hawaii
is struck by 4.0 magnitude earthquake as Mauna Loa volcano continues to erupt -
as worst case scenario is avoided and local hotels prepare for a boom in
tourism from 'lava watchers'
Here below are some images from Wildlife Photographers of the Year.
Some epidemiologists and
demographers predict the trend of older, sicker and poorer people dying at disproportionate
rates will continue, raising hard questions about the trade-offs Americans are
making in pursuit of normalcy — and at whose expense.
As someone of an older age myself and certainly as an opponent of agism, I would still hesitate to put my faith in a physician aged 100 or even in one my own age.
Russian asylum applicants have been surprised and dismayed to find themselves being held in immigration detention. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/us/russian-activists-asylum.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
NY Times, A Killer on the Loose
Leaves an Idaho College Town Shaken
Whoever killed
4 college students has neither been identified or captured, making students and
townspeople wonder if the murderer is someone they meet every day?
Wash. Post, After
more than 600 mass shootings this year, let’s be honest about guns
Anyone who has the urge to “get even” with others just has to get a gun to shoot and kill them. I was recently in W Va. where gun shops abound and are open every day, so they must have customers. Gun sales to the public need to be shut down completely.
Boy, 10, 'shot his mom dead at close range for
refusing to get him a $500 VR headset' - then used her Amazon account to buy
one: Milwaukee cops charge him as an ADULT
Trump insists he has done nothing wrong and that his political enemies are ganging up against him by calling his actions illegal. Here is an image of himself posted on his own website and below that Trump at the golf course.
The office being sought by pillow guy Mike Lindell is RNC Chair.
Reddit commentators seem
to quickly recommend divorce for all sorts of marital conflicts, major or
minor. In days gone by, couples often endured such conflicts or resolved them over
time; divorce was not the first option. At the same time, many people also
endured lifelong difficult marriages, relieved only when the partner died.
Since people are now living longer and gender roles are not so traditionally
prescribed, perhaps divorce is no longer considered the calamity it once was,
especially for women, who can now live independently. Divorce actually frees many women from strict
gender toles; certainly, that happened in my case, though I never wanted a
divorce.
Wash. Post, Same-Sex Couple Households in U.S. Surpass One Million That’s a number that gives them more legitimacy.
Men of around my age have confessed to having experimented sexually with other boys as young teens, then going on to mate with women, one reason I don’t think sexual preferences or even gender identity should be permanently decided in adolescence.
Twenty years ago, when I was in the Peace Corps in Honduras, men who had sex with men were usually also partnered with women and had children with them, as happened also with a few folks I knew here in the US more than 50 years ago. While this was not uncommon when I was in the Peace Corps in Honduras, HIV was then becoming prevalent. So, these men passed HIV on to their pregnant wives whose babies might be born free of the disease, but then could not nurse, as breast milk contains the virus. This created a major challenge, as nursing is basically an easy and free source of infant nutrition, whereas bottle feeding in a developing country is full of risks and financial costs.
An estimated 200 million girls and women alive today are believed to have been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), with total numbers increasing with global population growth. Girls and women who have undergone FGM live predominately in sub-Saharan Africa and Arab States, but FGM is also practiced in select areas of Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, also among migrants to Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. When I was in South Sudan in 2006, I tried unsuccessfully to convince local people to abandon FGM. However, the practice is being challenged more often, especially by women who have undergone the procedure themselves, but who now refuse to let it happen to their own daughters. How the practice got started is uncertain, but reportedly has been found in female mummies dating back more than 2000 years.
Planned Parenthood in promoting abortion access stresses “freedom,” “choice,” “rights,” and “health care” but does not apply these values to the unborn. None of us can see or hear incipient humans and they don’t vote. In days gone by, unhappily pregnant women simply gave birth to babies, either taking care of them themselves or giving them up for adoption. (An unmarried friend my age, now deceased, had a baby who was adopted.) In Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court changed all that. Case examples posted online about abortions now often emphasize serious pregnancy or fetal complications, about which there is little controversy and are not the vast majority of abortions. Otherwise, a key factor about many women seeking abortions is that they are not partnered. Choice is today’s watchword, something highly valued now, whereas in the past, everyday life and gender roles were more circumscribed. In my youth, the majority of women were partnered with men, not always happily, I admit.
Likewise, in the past, folks feeling they were in the wrong gender simply cross-dressed, or experimented in their gender expression without making physical changes, which were not available. (I also knew a few such people.) Now, whole industries with their own specialists have grown up to both provide abortions and transgender care, including providing hormones and surgery to make irreversible physical changes. These providers have a vested interest in having their jobs and services continue. Whole industries have grown up. Planned Parenthood urges public support for abortions “like you would support the PTA.” Are these really advances? Is the morning after pill contraception or an abortifacient? It depends on your point of view and viewpoints vary widely. “Choice” is today’s favored watchword, though the ability to make choices can be a bane as well as a boon.
An article in the Wash. Post and online advice from obstetricians present 3 pregnancy choices: raising the baby, adoption, and abortion.
AP/Mexican asylum seekers set their sights north — on
Canada Due to the relative
ease of obtaining asylum in Canada compared to the U.S., visa-free travel
between Mexico and Canada, and the threat of violence back home, more than
8,000 Mexican nationals have sought refugee status in 2022.
NY Post, Chaos erupts as Mexican
authorities evict 500 Venezuelan migrants from border camp
NYTimes, As Haiti Unravels, U.S. Officials Push
to Send in an Armed Foreign Force – But the US does not want it to be an exclusively American force.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000184-cc10-d4af-a9a4-cdbca0e10000 Letter asking Biden to designate
TPS (Temporary Protected Status) for Haitians.
Here’s something in Spanish, CADAL, Pedido por Otero Alcántara y todas las personas privadas de la libertad por motivos políticos en Cuba Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara es uno de los fundadores del Movimiento San Isidro, un colectivo de referentes de la cultura independiente en Cuba que está ilegalizado en su país y reconocido como integrante de la Coalición por la Libertad de Asociación.
Politico, A Flood of Venezuelan Migrants Is Angering Other Venezuelans Longtime residents resent the new arrivals’ illegal entry, but they’re not happy with Biden’s attempts to stem the flow.
Are Americans experiencing Ukraine support fatigue? Ukrainians cannot
afford to give up the fight but they may have to end up giving up something.
Wash.
Post, Iran Abolishes Morality Police After Months of Protests
This shows that even the most long running system of political controls can yield to citizen pressure.
Wash. Post, Twitter grapples with Chinese spam obscuring news of protests In China, the protests are about more than Covid lockdowns. They show that many Chinese people are not passively resigned to living under prevalent government authority. Protesters are holding have been blank sheets of paper to symbolize that their voices are being suppressed. And despite censorship, the protests have spread to several cities. There are even calls for Xi to step down. How is he going to handle this? He now faces a dilemma in publicly mourning Jiang Zemin, a former leader, who just died at age 96. Xi certainly doesn’t want to bring more people out on the streets.
BBC News, China Covid: Chinese protesters say police seeking them
out
AP, China vows crackdown on 'hostile forces' as public tests Xi
Wash. Post, ‘We don’t want a dictatorship’: What led China’s ‘zero covid’ protesters to a breaking point
Wash. Post, The
CCP faces the most serious threat to its rule in more than 30 years
Wash. Post, Protests
in China frustrate Xi’s agenda of expanding political control Instead, he has been forces to relax
some Covid restrictions.
NY
Times, The Chinese Dream, Denied: Harsh Measures Shake Beijing’s
Social Contract
A wild pigeon declared extinct 140 years ago has been rediscovered in Papua New Guinea.
CatTime, Millions of Feral Cats Roam Los Angeles
Estimates are
that 60-160
million feral cats live
outdoors in the U.S. alone, killing birds as well as mice and rats. I have seen
them both locally in DC and where my son lives in W Va. If not spayed or
neutered, they can produce multiple offspring. I even saw them in Ottawa in
winter, being fed by a local cat lover. So cat owners need to prevent pet cats from
going outside.
Dogs and cats around Capitol Hill keep getting lost and found. Here are a few of them appearing on the neighborhood website.
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