Friends, Flowers, Is Winter Really Over?

 

Cherry blossoms are at peak bloom. Spring has officially arrived. We’ve hardly felt winter at all this year in the DC area.

Friends who once lived here were visiting recently. Their whole family met me at Pete’s diner on 2^nd St. SE. 

Here was wife/mother Priscila with me as a magnolia tree bloomed in my front yard.

Let’s see if I can exercise more self-control now in this posting, making this space less about self-expression and more about topics of interest to readers. I’ll also try to be less repetitious, though each life follows a pattern. My readers are not numerous, but they do span the globe and represent many different places and cultures, so I’d like to reach out to them all. Also, I’m unsure just how to evaluate this, but I do hope that my long life and personal example, both as expressed here and just my very day-to-day existence, has had and continues to have a net-positive impact, however small, on my family, community, nation, and the world at large. 

No apologies this time for odd spacing and the use of all caps where they don't belong, as that is totally out of my control. Readers should know by now that I always try to fix the glitches, but it's fruitless, so just go with the flow. 

Most folks my age who remain among the living aren’t trying to get any richer, stronger, or smarter, just not to lose any further ground. Some of us have already passed our average life expectancy, now living on borrowed time, with each day a bonus. We also have witnessed and participated in so many changes regarding human behavior, either in what is either prohibited or allowed, that many of us, myself included, have largely become relativists, no longer supporting an absolutist version of the 10 commandments, national laws, or even so-called universal human rights.

The 1950s radio program Dragnet, rebroadcast on NPR on Sunday evenings, is from a period I can still recall, when sales were in cash, folks offered each other “smokes,” and the death penalty was carried out in California.

Wash. Post, NPR cancels 4 podcasts in biggest wave of layoffs in decades

NYTimes, NPR to Cut 10% of Its Staff As a regular NPR listener, I find this pretty scary What will start to go next?

Because communication, travel, trade, and finances now are so interconnected around the world, a blip anywhere sends ripples out beyond, like a stone tossed into a pond, now with bank failures in both the US and Europe. Our country will not always be on top, but I really don’t expect to live to see the day when it tumbles down from its current preeminent position among the pantheon of nations.

Insider, Trump's fans sent him $1.5 million in 3 days after he falsely predicted that he'd be arrested Tuesday

Wash. Post, Trump warns of ‘potential death & destruction’ if he is charged in hush-money case

AP, Fetterman expected back 'soon,' but no certain timeline yet

Ever since mid-Feb., not long after his swearing in, Senator John Fetterman, remains hospitalized at Walter Reed being treated for depression. After having a stroke and now dealing with a serious bout of depression, is the Senate really the best place for him? His term still has 6 more years to go.

     

Another Democratic Senator, 89-year-old Diane Feinstein, is apparently still out with shingles. Together with Fetterman, that leaves the Senate short 2 Democratic Senators.

                                    Russians began being quietly deported from the US. 

                                                   Xi and Putin met in Moscow.

AP, UN: Fresh gang violence in Haiti leaves 187 dead in 11 days

NYTimes, As Haiti’s Police Retreat, Gangs Take Over Much of the Capital Even wealthier areas in the capital, Port-au-Prince, are no longer immune to violence as gangs attack police officers and destroy police stations.

AP, Haiti PM turns to military for help in fighting gangs

Wash. Post, As the Cuban national baseball team visits Miami, emotions run deep

Wash. Post, Costa Rica, laid-back land of ‘pura vida,’ succumbing to drug violence I’ve asked the Costa Rican friend who visited me last summer to comment on this.

AFP, Vatican closes Nicaragua embassy amid escalating row

Wash. Post, At least 14 killed after 6.8-magnitude earthquake hits Ecuador and Peru 

After often traveling in both Ecuador and Peru and having experienced earthquakes while living in Latin America, right now, I’m feeling a lot of empathy for people there.

CNN, Macron faces no-confidence votes over hated pension reforms

 

Yahoo, Biden administration quietly resumes deportations to Russia Why is Biden deporting anyone unless they pose a danger? We need more people here as we aren’t producing enough ourselves.

 

AFP, Israelis protest for 11th week against judicial reforms

One woman reportedly said, “We want to keep Israel democratic and liberal, Jewish of course, but liberal.” Is there a contradiction between a liberal democracy that also favors a certain religion or ethnicity? Israel, whose establishment was supported in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, has always grappled with that question. 

American held hostage in Africa is freed -NYT He is Jeff Woodke, an American aid worker.

NYTimes, Uganda Passes Strict Anti-Gay Bill That Imposes Death Penalty for Some The legislation also calls for life in prison for anyone engaging in gay sex. Policies to stifle gay rights have been on the rise in several African nations.

Telegraph, America’s trans insanity has reached a shocking new low Here’s a strong argument against providing “gender-affirming care” to those under age 18.

ABC News, Weekslong filibuster grinds state legislature to a halt over transgender youth care For the past three weeks, Nebraska State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh has been on an endless run, speaking on the Senate floor on just about every topic: legislation, fish fries, Girl Scout cookies and the movie "Madagascar." Speaking on the pro side of the trans issue, Cavanaugh, favors early trans medical treatment. Now her proposal is finally being debated in the Nebraska State Legislature.

ABC News, What is gender dysphoria and what does transgender youth care consist of? Here is more support for early transgender care.

 

Wash. Post, Most trans adults say transitioning made them more satisfied

 Wash. Post, For trans people, medical visits can be more traumatizing than healing Trans patients share their stories of subtle discrimination, outright hostility and ill-informed medical professionals.

 Wash. Post, World Athletics votes to ban transgender athletes from women’s events That seems sensible, as I have argued before.

 Des Moines Register, Opinion: I'm a plastic surgeon. I have concerns about prescribing puberty blockers for children. This physician author carefully explores the pros and cons of using puberty blockers with minors and also the conflicting societal influences regarding treatment of “gender dysphoria”. He notes that encouraging and facilitating early gender transition makes it more likely to become a fait accompli. Many parents want to support their young child’s decision. Once irrevocable steps are taken, the person involved may then adjust to and embrace the new reality.

Any legal, financial, or other support for and acceptance of behavior that had been discouraged or prevented before means that probably more people will seek it out now when they can. That’s true of divorce, contraception, abortion, suicide, and drug use, to name just a few examples. Individual human behavior is always influenced not only by laws, but by the example of others; that’s the nature of culture--people behaving together in the same way as members of a society or social group. None of us is an independent island, except maybe for a hermit living alone out in the woods (though born and raised within a family).

Gender self-identification has seen a few well-publicized glitches, such a male-to-female prisoner being housed with women who then engaged in rape, or a naked person with an erect penis appearing suddenly in a women’s locker room. Apparently, gender changes occur mainly on “top,” where breasts may emerge or be removed. Self-identified males born female have sometimes actually given birth. I also heard a recent radio interview with a female-identified husky-voiced person revealing prostate cancer treatment.

In our country, we have cultural pockets greatly divided by all sorts of social issues. Let’s look at a very common one, divorce, about which attitudes have evolved over my own lifetime. Decades ago, couples unhappy in marriage simply remained living together, some eventually finding a more mutually comfortable or tolerable balance, or otherwise just suffering through. That may still happen in places or situations where divorce is rare or not allowed, such as in some present-day Muslim countries. But probably the degree of subjective, personal distress experienced by such unhappy spouses, if and when they do actually split up, will be more severe in such restrictive places than somewhere else where divorce is more common and couples see other married friends breaking up. (When my husband left, I joined a group called “Parents Without Partners.”)

I could go on, using other examples, applying them to transgender treatment. But I will desist based on my pledge to become more concise. Suffice it to say that it’s perfectly logical for residents of nations, US states, or local communities to try to outlaw transgender treatment or anything else, even though that will further ostracize and harm those resolute few who will still proceed with the unaccepted behavior despite the social consequences.

Pioneer Press, St. Paul woman’s child torture conviction marks the first in Minnesota Their aunt, while caring for 2 small children, allowed her boyfriend to harm and torture them, perhaps also actively participating in such activities herself. Both she and the boyfriend have entered guilty pleas She has been sentenced to almost 5 years. He is awaiting sentencing. Where are the parents? Whether children’s care givers are parents or anyone else, they have a duty of care. Such situations of caregivers harming kids are sometimes used to justify abortions, but plenty of foster and adoptive parents are out there, willing and able to take over the childrearing task.

Wash. Post, Oklahoma must allow abortion if mother’s life is threatened, court rules Pro-lifers would support this ruling.

Because my own view of abortion goes against the grain of majority opinion in the DC area, I know how it feels to be an outlier on a social issue. Folks like me are labeled ”anti-abortion rights advocates” and “anti-reproductive rights extremists,” never just pro-life supporters. Is abortion really only routine health care, as abortion supporters often like to contend? Or, rather, is pregnancy actually a medical emergency, as they also describe it? To those who have declared abortion to be a human right, including Planned Parenthood staff and some of my friends at Amnesty International, I would counter that life itself is the most fundamental human right. Therefore, we should do everything as individuals and members of society to support and nurture each human life as the most basic human right of all, despite the Roe decision of decades ago. But I do accept that around here, I am considered to be old-fashioned and sadly mistaken.

Not every woman who gives birth is cut out to be a good mother. The following woman recently killed her 2 daughters after she and her husband separated. Wash. Post, Woman convicted of killing her two daughters in McLean, Va.

The “Most Read” article on the Washington Post is still this one from last year. This Texas teen wanted an abortion. She now has twins. Brooke Alexander found out she was pregnant in 2021, days before the Texas abortion ban took effect. Since then, she and the little girls’ father have gotten married.

After 24 years of my own marriage, my late ex-husband divorced me to marry his much younger office assistant, a not uncommon pattern. I have plenty of company, including Bill and Melinda Gates. My husband was blind, as was mentioned previously, and had never held a job before we married when I was only 21, without my parents’ approval or attendance at our wedding. We had 4 children together and seemed to be doing pretty well until he told me he was in love with his young office assistant, who was insisting that they marry. They tied the knot in Las Vegas. In 1984 after not speaking with me for a few years, resisting paying child support, and offering no child visitation, suddenly I got a phone call from him out of the blue regarding some of my articles about Cuban political prisoners appearing in the Washington Post and Washington Times. We then spoke cordially together on different topics for more than half an hour. I thought then that the ice had finally been broken, but when I called him back, his wife answered, saying that henceforth, any messages to him would go only through her. I never heard from him again and was not even mentioned in his obituary, but still attended his 1999 funeral, though uninvited.

In reviewing this entire matter again now, it’s still a puzzle. I will never know the inner thoughts or possibly unconscious motives of my ex-husband, who died more than 2 decades ago. I can only speculate about his complete silence for 15 years after that one friendly phone call. After his earlier refusal to speak to me and our many legal battles, was it possible that one warm phone conversation revived his earlier feelings for me, perhaps arousing some regret for the path he had taken? Could he have then become panicked by his own reaction, refusing to ever speak with me again? I’ll never really know.

When local pets go missing, as they often do, how does that happen, especially with dogs? I’ve had dogs and they never went missing over the years except for once, when my kids took our dog Claire out without a leash and she sprinted away, running into a man just around the corner who took her directly to an animal shelter. Of course then, though we walked around for hours, day and night, calling for her, she did not appear. We feared the worst. We found her only the next morning at the shelter. After that, the kids just let her out in the fenced backyard, otherwise never ever again without a leash, though sometimes we took her with us to the countryside, where she could run free.

 

                                                        Is this cat, found on Capitol Hill, possibly yours?