Debt, demographics, democracy

Those of us living in Washington, DC, have come to appreciate the beauty of our city. 

On display at a local arts' venue, these heads caught my fancy,

Last time, I posted on Earth Day but failed to mention that, so will do so now. Earth Day, April 22, is a celebration of our physical environment, urging us to move our country and the wider world toward a greener economy with each of us doing our own small, but crucial, part to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels. I myself have no car and walk everywhere, though now rather slowly, and use heat, air conditioning, and even fans very sparingly. Everyone needs to do the same. April is also Volunteer Appreciation month, so kudos to all of us lifelong volunteers. 

Peace Corps and Amnesty International have been my main volunteer efforts throughout my life, but I’ve also undertaken many charitable endeavors on my own, especially in Honduras. And I always help out my younger family members, who don’t seem to be doing quite as well as I did at their age, even as a single parent raising kids with very little moral or financial support from their father.

NYTimes, Bilingualism May Stave Off Dementia, Study Suggests

Hope this proves true in my case. I also tried teaching my kids Spanish, but they all resisted, including my son adopted from Colombia.

My younger daughter living in Hawaii visited me last June, but I haven’t seen her husband since this photo I took of them in 2016. 

The menu at the White House dinner honoring South Korea’s President was familiar to me after my 24-year marriage to a man from a Korean family. So, yes, I often cooked Korean food myself, using both soy sauce and gochujang and making fermented kimchi, as well as savory bulkogi, and Korean-style dumplings that we called mandu. Now I eat a rather plain diet that avoids beef, lamb, and pork.

On the last posting, I mentioned that 2/3rds of Americans my age are women. Of the minority who are men, nearly all are married—just look at folks you know. Among the relatively few single men surviving into their 80s, some are gay or are experiencing too many health challenges to be interested in or of interest to women. But when an older man in relatively good shape loses his wife, it’s no surprise to see women neighbors suddenly flocking to his door bearing flowers and tasty homemade dishes.

Private equity firms may earn profits for their investors but often leave economic devastation in their wake. I would never invest in one, whatever the returns, and believe more curbs are needed to prevent the widespread harm they cause. Profits are fine if they have a net benefit for most people involved.

While I’ve never actually been to Khartoum myself, I have been to South Sudan (before independence), as well as to nearby Morocco and Kenya. So I can well imagine what life must be like there for ordinary Sudanese who have never had it easy, but now are being battered by even more violence and uncertainty, all because of a power struggle by 2 generals at the top. Those generals should both step down and allow a return to civilian rule, though that looks pretty unlikely right now.

CBS News, Accused Pentagon leaker should be held before trial, DOJ argues The Justice Department considers him a flight risk. He also might be dangerous, as an arsenal of weapons were found in his bedroom.

 

Variety, Harry Belafonte, Calypso King Who Worked for African American Rights, Dies at 96 My childhood friend Erika and I were at an outdoor dinner in Cap d’Antibes way back in 1958 when we spied Harry Belafonte eating at another table. He was already well-known but became even more famous later. We asked him to sign our menus. Who knows where those menus are now?

 

(Please excuse any quirks beyond my control. I tried to replace bold underlining below and now underlining is gone altogether. ) 

Correction! Last time, I had confused and conflated the following 2 cases: 

USA Today, Kim Potter, cop convicted in killing, released from prison Kim Potter, the former police officer convicted of killing Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man shot during a traffic stop, was released from a Minnesota correctional facility Monday.

NPR, Amber Guyger, Ex-Officer Who Killed Man In His Apartment, Given 10 Years In Prison [This was in 2019 and she is still locked up.]

Rightwing media star Tucker Carlson is now out at Fox News after having privately disparaged Donald Trump and his followers in snarky comments recently revealed by secret recordings aired during the Dominion lawsuit, with his remarks proving offensive to regular listeners. I’ve never actually seen Carlson on TV, as I don’t even have TV, but good riddance to him! (A Russian news channel has reportedly now offered him a job.)

 

Wash. Post, CNN fires longtime host and anchor Don Lemon Carlson is not the only media personality out of a job. Lemon, after making a snide remark about a female political candidate, is gone too.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, has been in Congress since 1991, after being repeatedly re-elected for the last 32 years. She is only a few months my junior.

Waters has been a dogged supporter of the Castro regime in Cuba and has visited there several times. Though I’m not entirely sure of the year, I think I first met her in 1991, soon after she first took office, after her announcement of a planned a trip to Cuba to meet with Fidel. At that time, as Amnesty International’s volunteer Caribbean Coordinator, I requested her to please ask Mr. Castro to release some Cuban political prisoners whose names I wanted to give her. But she brushed me aside, saying she did not want to hear anything about political prisoners. Since then, I have never been a big fan of Rep. Waters.

Yahoo News, Feinstein's absence allows Republican emissions measure to pass Senate by single vote

                                            Feinstein was last seen in Congress in Feb.

I’ve never actually met Senator Diane Feinstein, now age 89, soon to be turning 90, a California senator since 1992, one year after Waters first came to Congress. Feinstein has had 3 husbands, the second being Bertram Feinstein, father of her only daughter, whose surname she still uses, and to whom she was married for 16 years. Her longest marriage, 42 years, was to Richard Blum, her husband when she first joined the Senate and who died in Feb. 2022. Surely his death was hard for her. Then, in early 2023, she came down with shingles from which she reportedly is still recovering. In recent years, her memory also seems to have been failing. Although a few years younger than Feinstein, I am quite familiar with memory glitches myself. Feinstein has still been collecting her Senate salary and using medical care provided by taxpayers. Of course, if she were to retire early, she would still be fully supported.

What, then, should Senator Feinstein do now? Her extended absence is said to be holding up judicial nominees being put forward by fellow Democrats, so some are calling on her to resign immediately before her term is up in January 2025, about 1 ½ years from now. But so far, Feinstein has asked only that she be replaced temporarily on the Judiciary Committee, something being blocked by Republicans, who are taking full advantage of the situation. She has only promised to leave office when her current term expires. If Feinstein continues to stay at home but refuses to resign, Democrats may simply be stuck.

To take office, a US senator must be at least 30 years old, but there is no upper age limit. The late Strom Thurmond of So. Carolina stayed on until age 100. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, only a few months younger than Feinstein, just started another 6-year term, arriving in the Senate in a wheelchair after recent hip surgery. Nancy Pelosi is 83. Most senators are now senior citizens, having remained in office year after year, just like Feinstein, Waters, and Grassley. President Biden himself is 80 and, if reelected. will be 82 when starting his next term. 

A radio commentator recently made a distinction between the extended absences from the Senate of Fetterman and Feinstein, pointing out that Fetterman is only 53 and just starting out in the Senate, presumably with many years still ahead, while Feinstein has been a senator for more than 30 years now and is nearing the end of her long life and career. However, can Fetterman really look forward to a long Senate career? For one thing, he has some difficulty with basic communication, a crucial attribute for a senator and a politician, relying on assistive technology to help him communicate and to understand what others are saying. Because most members of the Senate are aging, others also enjoy special accommodations. But, given his extended absence at the very beginning, is being a senator something Fetterman really wants to do? He also has a wife and young children who require his attention. And because he had a stroke so early in life, he may not actually be able to look forward to so many years ahead. It would not be surprising, although his Senate career may continue without further glitches, if Fetterman should end up deciding not to run again.

An issue now clamoring for urgent Congressional attention is gun violence, which has reportedly increased since the pandemic has begun ebbing and as more people venture out. Gun owners do seem to be especially trigger-happy these days. Just possessing a gun often incentivizes someone to simply pull the trigger.

Wash. Post, Man fatally shot by neighbor for using leaf blower in own yard, police say A 79-year-old man shot and killed his 59-year-old neighbor who had been using a leaf blower. Little is known about the shooter, but some older men living alone have become outright un-neighborly, overly possessive of their property, and much too quick to use a gun. If a gun cannot be purchased until age 18 or even older in some jurisdictions, what about having an upper age limit of 70 for gun possession? At the very least, older gun owners should be subjected to special requirements, just as is the case for older drivers.

Kansas City Star, 11-year-old shot in head while playing game with family inside Ohio apartment, cops say She was hospitalized, with her current condition unknown.

Fox, Texas brothers, 3rd suspect arrested in killing of auto mechanic over repair bill

 Insider, America's gun culture is empowering people to shoot others, even when they're not a threat A series of wrong-place shootings have reignited debate about the prevalence of gun violence, "stand your ground" laws, and America's firearms culture.

On April 13, an elderly homeowner in Kansas City, Missouri, shot Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager, in the head after Yarl rang the home's doorbell.

Just days later, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was fatally shot by a homeowner after the car she was riding in pulled into the wrong driveway in a rural part of New York.

And this week, two cheerleaders were shot after one of them mistakenly climbed into the wrong car in a Texas parking lot...

Stand your ground" laws — which exist in about 30 states, according to The New York Times — operate on the principle that a person has the right to use deadly force to defend themself against a threat.

The main problem? People aren't very good at accurately evaluating real threats.

NY Times, Selling AR-15-Style Rifles Is Now Banned in 9 U.S. States This is a step in the right direction.

Wash. Post, A Florida man shot at an Instacart driver who went to the wrong house. 

NBC News, 8 people shot, including 12-year-old, in Washington, D.C. Fortunately, none have died.

AP, Gunfire took their son at 20. Now it takes his daughter, 12 A 12-year-old in Conn. did not survive a shooting, following her father to the grave.

 

Politico, Gun Violence Is Actually Worse in Red States. It’s Not Even Close.

President Biden has finally announced his expected re-election bid via video. He has a mumbly speaking style and I still disagree with his abortion stance, but having voted for Democrats my whole life, I don’t plan on changing parties now. Harris will run with him again, but has failed to gain much traction. Biden does need to have a capable running mate ready to take over, just in case. He will be 82 if and when he starts his 2^nd term and will reach age 86 when it ends. Might we see a Biden-Trump rematch? I'd hoped Trump was all washed up, but he seems to be making a comeback now, all by himself without family support. Might he ever become president again? That’s a really scary prospect. A DeSantis presidency is pretty scary too.

 

NYTimes, Biden Opens a New Back Door on Immigration

By the end of 2023, about 360,000 Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians are expected to be admitted to the US, but only with private sponsors. I’ve already mentioned my friends in Florida taking in folks from Nicaragua. Biden has approved these temporary programs on his own without   Congressional support.

 

Wash. Post, As illegal border crossings soar, U.S. to open immigrant processing centers in Colombia, Guatemala This seems like a worthwhile experiment to prevent people from embarking on   a dangerous, costly, and often fruitless trip.

 

AP, Mob in Haiti capital burns to death 13 suspected gangsters

AP, 2 journalists killed in Haiti as gang violence spikes

 Guardian, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó ejected from Colombia Guaidó lands in Miami after failed bid to attend summit hosted by leftwing president, with return to Venezuela looking unlikely 

BBC, Bhutan wants a border deal with China: Will India accept?

I’ve asked my friends in Bhutan about this.

 

Telegraph, China is preparing for war with the West

This is the view of a British think-tank observer.

The Hill, Pence: ‘I’d like to see mifepristone off the market Me too, but I still don’t plan to vote for Pence.

Wash. Post, Nikki Haley to make antiabortion pitch with eye on swing voters I won’t be voting for Haley either, though glad to see Republican candidates making the case against abortion. 

St. Cloud Times, Opinion Unborn children should be protected by 14th Amendment This is a heart-felt, detailed look at abortion, expressing my own thinking, admittedly a minority view in this country, especially within the Democratic Party. Of course, women vote and fetuses don’t. Fortunately, pill abortions, now apparently in the majority, would inflict no pain or sensation on the unborn at such an early stage of development. I’m still open to being persuaded about the moral value of most abortions, but the language used by advocates deliberately glosses over what actually happens. Almost nobody would object to providing follow up care after a miscarriage or for an intervention for a nonviable fetus, examples often cherry-picked and highlighted in the press, but hardly constituting the majority of abortions. As both an adoptive and a birth mother, I just don’t understand abortion on a gut level since my adopted children might never have been born had abortion been an option for their birth mothers. There are many ways to avoid pregnancy, not only birth control, but also abstinence and sterilization. But now some women may think, oh well, why not take a chance, as they can always get an abortion later if necessary.

However, it would still be a stretch for me to vote again for Biden and Harris when they have been so strident in their support of abortion, now seizing on it as a winning issue. Yet voting for a Republican at this late stage of my life would also be a stretch. And if Republicans really wanted to support the unborn, they would increase assistance to women and families with young children. So now I may simply decide to sit-out the vote, especially here in DC, where my vote won’t make a difference anyway. I’ve always voted in past presidential elections except back in 2000 the Peace Corps in Honduras when my absentee ballot never arrived.

In this whole debate, I’ve become more sensitive to how media can slant the news. By focusing exclusively on the woman or potential mother—"my body, my choice,” “women’s rights,” “doctor/patient privacy”—news reports deliberately overlook the individual human life, male or female, actually being eradicated by an abortion at the very most basic initial stage of you, me, and every other person who has ever inhabited planet earth. In mainstream media, the word “abortion” is always coupled with “rights” while prolife voices are characterized as being opposed to rights, with regular mainstream media references to “anti-abortion rights advocates,” never to just plain anti-abortion or prolife advocates. A fetus may be lost through miscarriage as well as abortion, but both are the loss of a given individual who never had a choice to experience a finite human life, so filled with joys and sorrows, like all the rest of us. 

Likewise, I have misgivings about “gender affirming” care, which now may include both hormone therapy and surgery, though usually the latter only after age 18 when the person becomes a legal adult. Both hormones and surgery will then reinforce an individual’s subjective identification with the new gender identity, perhaps preventing some of them from “growing out” of it. Yet often such a person, after taking hormones and having undergone surgery (i.e. breast removal, facial reconstruction), will retain their birth genitals, allowing them to still procreate. But, like abortion, is this really a medical/health issue? Perhaps medical issues are whatever a group or society decides to specify as such, varying according to time and place. Voodoo was a disease cure when I was visiting Haiti years ago. In any case, the culture wars are underway full swing now on “gender affirming care" and likely to continue.

Advocate, Missouri Judge Halts Restrictions on Gender-Affirming Care for Trans Adults and Youth

Advocate, Anti-Trans 'Bathroom Bill' Becomes Law in North Dakota

 

Wash. Post, Kansas passes what critics call one of the most sweeping anti-trans bathroom bills in the U.S.

Wash. Post, DOJ challenges Tennessee over ban on gender-affirming care for minors

Tennessee’s ban and the DOJ’s challenge provide just one current example of a clash of values on this issue. What if the label were different, instead of “gender-affirming care for minors,” what about calling it “interference with children’s innate gender biology”? Regarding that particular issue, now being hotly debated in our country, should young children, although often very insistent, be allowed to make crucial gender change decisions for themselves so early in life, while also being prevented from independently making other medical decisions, as well as prohibited because of their immaturity from getting tattoos, driving, marrying, or quitting school? Transgender yearnings are being expressed by underage kids much earlier and more frequently these days. All social trends rest on social support, now much easier to find via the internet. That’s true for youngsters with transgender aspirations, and also for their parents. It applies as well to abortion or pro-life support or to any other social issue. That obvious truism often seems to be overlooked, with each side being convinced that it is “right.”

Culture is an umbrella term for the shared beliefs and practices of any group of people. Few will persist in a particular belief or practice alone without any allies, and now, thanks to the internet, finding allies is not that difficult any more. Individual choice has also become very highly valued in our country, whether it involves deciding to have an abortion, changing gender expression, defending one’s property, or owning a gun.

While parents often grumble about their many responsibilities, most would willingly lay down their life for their kids. Yet, also trending online these days is promotion of the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by child-free-couples. These young couples like to tout their 2 incomes, frequent vacations, and relaxing weekends, displaying a life focused only on themselves and their personal indulgences. They are shown river-rafting or visiting the pyramids of Egypt, or just floating in their private pool. But when they require medical care and support in old age, they will need to call on other people’s children to provide it, though perhaps being able to pay for it from their ample savings. TIME, TikTok Is Celebrating ‘DINKs': Double Income No Kids Households

Insider, TikTok couples are sharing perks of their 'double-income, no-kids' lifestyle. They often go viral, but face backlash from viewers who question the choice.  Couples are sharing the benefits of being a double-income, no-kids household, known as DINKs...According to a Pew Research Center survey published in 2021, 44% of non-parents aged between 18 and 49 in the US say they are not at all likely, or not too likely, to ever have children, citing reasons such as simply not wanting to have kids, or financial reasons. This has risen by 7% since 2018, according to the same survey.

Most American women have joined the workforce, so even if they have kids, now it’s only one or 2, leading to a national demographic shortfall. Time will tell whether actual population decline in the US will boost efforts to promote higher population growth, perhaps through more tax incentives, child care, and support for families with children. Scandinavian and other European countries have been trying out that approach, with only modest results so far. More immigration would also help.

I'm just making a comment here on same-sex couples who adopt children, nothing independently verified, just the observation that most seem to adopt children of their own gender, that is, male couples adopt boys, while female couples typically adopt girls. That’s what it looks like, at least according to what appears online. Of course, when a same-sex couple arranges to actually produce a brand-new child via a pregnancy, either through artificial insemination in the case of a female couple, or via a surrogate with sperm from a male couple, then a baby of either gender may emerge.

Robots can help out where humans are in short supply. 

                             Robot dogs help sniff out embers for the NYC fire department.

                                        Japanese robots have proved useful in nursing homes.

                                                  Local pets keep getting lost. Here are 2. 

                            Beware the Spotted Lantern Fly below, a newly invasive species. 

Maybe most ramblings and observations made here are self-evident. Still for me, after  having already lived  a long life, it has been amazing to have witnessed, experienced, and participated in so much cultural evolution over the years, with even more yet to come.

After Googling myself just now, I found my photo, the names of my books (even one that I wrote at the Occupational Therapy Association), and much other information online, including my unlisted home phone number! When I looked up my sister, who remains unconnected to the internet, I found only a newsletter story from a few years ago about a local endeavor.

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Este aviso cumple con la ley vigente.

Doná al Proyecto Promoción de la Apertura Política en Cuba

Births, deaths, and taxes, black and white, men and women

 

My younger daughter living in far away Hawaii sent me a handmade birthday card that took 10 days to arrive, a little battered, but a welcome surprise, though my birthday had already passed. Here’s the outside of the card, which now graces my living room mantle. 

My daughter was born right here in DC at GW Hospital, but has traveled all over the world and now lives with her husband in Honolulu. I’ve visited her there and once met her in Indonesia where she was doing biology research. She visited me here in DC just last June. Although my daughter is a scientist, actually a biologist, she is also an amazingly creative artist. I’ve featured some of her sewing projects before on this blog, each one unique and delightful. Because of the time change and her heavy work schedule, we don’t get to talk very often.

 

I do greatly appreciate the unique qualities and talents of each of my kids and grandkids. And although they are no longer with us, I also have become grateful for the years spent with my older son and Cuban foster son before their untimely deaths My son’s gravestone still occupies a prominent place in my back yard. 

Spring flowers are showing their colors now in our neighborhood. 

                                                    

                                            Below, painting by a newcomer to our local East City Art

                                      PERFECT declares a neighborhood graffiti artist. 

Wash. Post, SpaceX’s uncrewed Starship explodes minutes after liftoff After a delayed launch and much anticipation, Elon Musk’s SpaceX finally took off in Texas and promptly exploded. Fortunately, no one was on board.

Eighty-nine-year-old California Senator Diane Feinstein has neither resigned nor returned to the Senate.

We’d like to think that humankind has demonstrated progress as we all move together through this finite life, but obviously that is not always the case. Some things were actually done better in the past. One small but significant example was the hand crafting of illustrated devotional books, more beautiful and expressive than any books produced today. The illustrated book of hours was once a popular Christian devotional in the 15^th century. 

 

In centuries past, besides producing lovely books, ordinary people didn’t go around just wantonly killing others. For one thing, they had no guns. However, pinpointing when firearms were invented and first used to kill depends on the definition of a firearm. The risk from firearms keeps rising year after year as their numbers, types, and firepower keep growing. These days, far too many guns are in circulation in this country and their owners are much too trigger happy. The slightest misunderstanding can escalate into a gun battle. Mass shooters may also be incentivized by the internet to seek out notoriety, although most news reports barely provide names and downplay their personal details. Yet, violence and death are daily occurrences in our country.

 

Wash. Post, Eight shot at two sites in Southeast Washington, police say

Wash. Post, Three found dead after vehicle plunges into Anacostia River (How and why is still unknown)

[Why does Post sometimes come out all caps? Changes in font size throughout are beyond my control.]

 

ABC News, Man allegedly guns down parents and their 2 friends days after his release from prison

Days after his release from prison in Maine after serving a sentence for aggravated assault, a 34-year-old man was still able to obtain a gun to kill his parents and another middle-aged couple. He also shot 3 people just traveling along the highway, one now in critical condition. He has been re-arrested, but the damage has already been done. How much of this random, lethal, and instantaneous violence do we, as Americans, have to risk and continue to endure? The NRA just held its annual meeting, as is reported below. Where is the NRA’s fabled “good guy with a gun” said to protect us all against such unprovoked attacks?

 

Daily Beast, Black Teen Shot in the Head After Ringing the Wrong Doorbell: Family A 16-year-old boy in Kansas City was shot in the head by an 84-year old white home owner who responded when he rang the bell. Fortunately, though gravely injured, the boy was not killed. The shooter may have been radicalized by listening to Fox News according to his grandson.

Remember the woman who entered the wrong apartment and shot a black man inside, killing him? Now she is being released after only 16 months. Well-armed trigger-happy white folks might try speaking first to black people before wantonly shooting them. I’d like to protect members of my own family.

 

NBC News, Boyfriend of N.Y. woman who was gunned down in the wrong driveway recalls her final moments

They had pulled their car into a driveway while looking for an address. That cost a 20-year-old woman her life. A gun almost never serves as protection for the gun owner, much more often as a threat to others. Many trigger-happy assailants turn out to be older white men, in this case, a 65-year-old man who fired on the car in his driveway. Do these guys, living alone like this man, feel the whole world is out to get them? What about just asking someone what address they might be looking for and offering to help them?

 

NBC News, 2 Texas cheerleaders shot after seemingly getting into wrong car after practice

Two cheerleaders were shot and one was critically injured, in this case, by a younger Hispanic male (most shooters are male). As with some older homeowners, just having a gun in his possession prompted this man to use it when he was not even being threatened. A young woman had just accidentally gotten into his car by mistake, then got right out, but before she could apologize, both she and her friend were shot. Having a loaded gun always at the ready means it can be fired in a nanosecond at the slightest provocation, even before the shooter has time to think. Texas is an “open carry” state, meaning that guns don't require a permit.

 

Daily Beast, Little Girl, Parents Shot After Basketball Rolls Into Neighbor’s Yard: Report A 6-year old girl and her parents in North Carolina were all shot when they tried to retrieve their ball. The shooter is a former felon not allowed to have a gun. The girl’s father is still hospitalized.

 

Wash. Post, Police arrest man who shot 6-year-old girl, father in North Carolina

Kansas City Star, Man shoots three after food order is delivered to wrong house, Michigan officials say

 

AP, Alabama police arrest 2 teens for birthday party shooting

This arrest was for last week’s deadly shooting, where 4 young people were killed and 4 others remain hospitalized. Even avid gun-lovers should join in seeking a remedy because what’s happening now is hardly good for their image.

NY Times, Videos Show Officers Knocking on Wrong Door Before Fatally Shooting Man 

I didn’t actually see the videos, but presumably a homeowner threatened officers with a gun.

News4, 9-Year-Old Shot in the Back by Stray Bullet in Southeast DC This happened much too close to home when a young girl here was shot while just passing by in a moving car.

 

AP, Tennessee moves to shield gun firms after school shooting Republican lawmakers in Tennessee awarded final passage Tuesday to a proposal that would further protect gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers against lawsuits.

 

Insider, Photos show kids as young as 6 handling guns at the NRA's annual meeting. Guns are the leading cause of death among US children At the NRA’s recent annual meeting in Indianapolis, children were reportedly allowed to handle “deactivated” guns and encouraged to pull the trigger. Wayne LaPierre, longtime NRA leader, threatened to unleash his members’ political retribution against anti-gun politicians, as well as against protesters gathered outside the meeting.

The gun lobby and gun lovers are far outnumbered by the rest of us, incentivizing us all to stand up together against their threats. Every effort must be made to reduce the sheer number of firearms in circulation, first by collecting guns surrendered voluntarily in buybacks and dropping them all into the ocean or otherwise destroying them. Fewer guns mean less gun violence and death whether by design, accident, or suicide. Already, there are far more firearms in the US than people, most in the hands of a relatively few avid gun lovers. The unlikely chance that a gun might prove protective is far outweighed by the much greater probability that it will actually prove harmful to the gun owner and his/her associates. My own family experienced this when my then 11-year-old son was injured by a dropped pistol discovered by curious boys in a neighboring home.

Not all murders are committed with guns. In cases where a young woman has been strangled, she often was killed not by some random stranger but by someone she knew. Rape/murder cold cases committed by a man the victim actually knew and trusted keep being solved due to present-day forensics. Such murderers, after keeping a low profile for years, are probably now feeling some anxiety. A perpetrator may have already died, but sometimes he is still alive and is taken into custody. The following arrest was just made on April 20. USA Today, Police make arrest in 20-year-old NY cold case after DNA links suspect to death of Megan McDonald

This happened in Middletown, NY. The surprised 42-year-old suspect, after being arrested and put in handcuffs, protested, “I didn’t do it.” What else might he be expected to say?

Benjamin Franklin once observed that nothing is certain except death and taxes. We’ve been discussing death here, so time now for taxes. Most of us have had to pay income taxes recently, all except perhaps Donald Trump who apparently sometimes pays little or no taxes. There are many ways to pay, but you cannot simply walk into an IRS office and plunk down a big wad of cash. Rather, cash payments for income taxes may be made only through an authorized cash processing partner. Federal taxes have gone up since last time. I was shocked by how much more I had to pay this time.

Yahoo News, Dominion, Fox News settle defamation suit for stunning $787M, averting trial Judge Eric Davis informed jurors, who'd been sworn in hours earlier, that “the parties have resolved their case.”

Fox settled to stop the release of any more publicity about this case, barely even mentioning it on the network itself. Fox finally agreed to pay up and acknowledged its knowingly false election claims, made deliberately to appease its rightwing listeners and feed into their conspiracy mindset. Network personalities wanted to avoid the airing of their private disparaging remarks about their audience. Dominion, whose very raison d’être is to guarantee election integrity, could not allow Fox’s blatant falsehoods to stand. 

Washington Post, A silent crisis in men's health gets worse Worldwide, men die earlier than women, even as infants, although women alone undergo the stresses of pregnancy and childbirth. That discrepancy is also true of many male animals, including primates, which have a shorter average lifespan than females of the same species.

Women normally have 2 X chromosomes, while men have XY, with Y being shorter in length, more likely to develop mutations, and more prone to deterioration with age. Men and male animals also engage in more risky and aggressive behaviors than females, perhaps due to both genetics and cultural factors, the latter, at least among humans. Men are more likely to die of Covid, diabetes, cancer, suicide, murder, and accidents than women. By age 85, my own age, 67% of living Americans are women, twice as many as surviving men of the same age. American women live an average of 5 years longer than men, with women living 7 years longer worldwide. So partnered women should take good care of their men and single older women are unlikely to find a male partner, especially since most men prefer younger women, seemingly ever younger the older a man gets.

Reuters, Mexico feels the strain as Haitian migrants, caught in limbo, mark time 

Amnesty International has issued an alert: Cuba UPR submission is now available online in Spanish, English, and French...[T]he Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council that evaluates the human rights situation of all UN Member States. The examination of Cuba is scheduled to happen on November 15, 2023.

China has raised its international profile by brokering a peace agreement between Iran and the Saudis.

Being disconnected from the internet, like my younger sister and her family, is a 2-edged sword. She, her husband, and their son are limited to neighborhood connections, phone calls, and news from a daily hard-copy newspaper, which is just fine most of the time. But on occasion, my sister calls to ask me to look up something or to send out a message for her on the internet. 

With so much of life now taking place online, it’s sometimes hard to tell when you are interacting there with a genuine human being, not a bot. Despite the internet’s many mysteries, threats, aggravations, and distractions, it’s still hard these days to live without that worldwide connectivity. While staying out alone at my son’s place in W Va., without any radio, tv, or phone, I do feel the absence of the internet. Sometimes, back home in DC, when listening to the old-time radio program Dragnet, I’m transported to the pre-internet age of my younger years when purchases were made in cash, communication was often difficult, and everyone smoked, so cigarettes were routinely offered to crime suspects to get them to talk.

My late ex-husband, who died of lung cancer in 1999, was a life-long chain smoker of unfiltered Camels who had a standing ashtray in our living room and even smoked in bed. Our kids and I breathed in secondhand smoke for many years.

Wash. Post, Supreme Court preserves access to key abortion drug as appeal proceeds The Court essentially punted on a much anticipated abortion decision. Is pregnancy a health condition meriting medical intervention to eradicate it? It certainly may be a condition that the person experiencing it may want stop. Readers already know my feelings on this question.

With abortion now such a salient news topic, political correctness requires reporters never to refer to pregnant women but only to pregnant people, since those born female and now unhappily pregnant may be non-binary. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea popularized by abortion advocates, that ending a pregnancy is a “human right” and somehow does not involve killing an unborn human. It’s been very hard for prolife advocates to get others to backtrack on something that had long been considered a “right.” Two conflicting interests seem to actually be involved, with one party having no voice or agency.

Furthermore, the challenge facing humankind these days is no longer overpopulation, but eventual human extinction, with birthrates plummeting in many countries, prompting population analysts to have coined the phrase “demographic collapse.” Perhaps support in some quarters for the unborn is a response to this demographic collapse? A nation would need an average of 2.1 births per woman to keep population steady, but even those American women now actually having children are usually stopping after one or 2, not adding up to an average of 2.1. Nor has there been support for increased migration. The Hill, America, it’s time to pay the demographic piper

NY Times, Could Peer Influence Be a Cause of the Global Baby Bust?

South Korea has the world’s lowest birthrate. Many women there simply are not interested in having children or even in getting married. Japan, also with a declining birthrate, now offers incentives for having children, but only up to 2. China’s population is actually shrinking. Europe is doing slightly better than the US, but still faces population decline. Latin America’s birthrate has just about reached sustainment. Africa is the continent with the highest birthrate. Population growth is uneven, unlikely  to achieve the ideal average of steady 2.1 growth worldwide.

Multiple births make only a small dent in the population shortfall, but they do help. The Mississippi quints were born in late Feb. after fertility intervention.

 

Below, a 14-year old who gave birth to triplets was adopted by the ICU nurse tending her premature babies. 

While today’s news on Sudan focuses mainly on the north, the north and south were once united, reminding me of my mission to the south in 2006. Here is an article I once wrote and a photo of me there.

 America, OCTOBER 1, 2007 ISSUE

Template for a Post-Treaty Darfur?: Southern Sudan may show the way.

Barbara E. Joe October 01, 2007

South-central Sudan is the last place on earth I would have envisioned spending an Easter Sunday. Skirting the equator, the region is accessible only by cargo flight under U.N. or other auspices and is closed to outsiders except as authorized by the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement and Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (rebels who are also fighting in Darfur, to the West). It lacks roads and is littered with landmines, sparsely populated, with scorching winds, no water for vast stretches and daytime temperatures exceeding 110 degrees F. How could I have ever imagined celebrating Easter there?

Yet when asked by the nonprofit Bishop Gassis Sudan Relief Fund in March 2006 to undertake a fact-finding mission to southern Sudan, I barely hesitated. Only a year had passed since a peace treaty was concluded between the southern Sudanese rebels and the government in the north, and I was anxious to see what Darfur might look like if it eventually makes a similar treaty. A longtime human rights activist, I was also curious about the practice of Catholicism in a country rarely associated with my faith.

My monthlong journey began at the thatch-roofed airport in Lokichoggio at Kenya’s northern border, where I stayed overnight in a fenced church. There, kerosene lamps provided illumination, while a soccer match flickered on a generator-powered television set. A Kenyan supper companion told me that he would never consider bringing his family to join him in this primitive outpost. Still, this way-station was luxurious compared with the bare landing strip in Kauda, Sudan, where the wreckage of a crashed plane remained in mute testimony to a failed landing. I traveled in a Soviet-era cargo plane with Bishop Macram Gassis himself, a near-legendary Sudanese Catholic prelate with a long record of humanitarian achievements, for whom the organization I represented was named.

Following local custom, I wore ankle-length skirts despite the suffocating heat. Local people soon crowded around me, eager to see their images on my digital camera. They always asked my name, that much of the language I understood. At 68, the same age as the bishop, I had been chosen for this mission largely because of my recent Peace Corps experience in rural Honduras, which had inured me to physical hardship. But southern Sudan offered an even more challenging environment: no phones, no mail, no electricity, no clocks, few roads and no water in the dry season except for a brackish liquid seeping up from holes hand-dug in dry riverbeds.

There was almost no transportation. Scarce vehicles and fuel all had to be airlifted in; the few camels or donkeys were already heavily laden and not available for hire. Siliri, a de-mining organization, had designated safe areas with white stones; but such efforts had only just begun. I saw the skeleton of a car that had been blown up after hitting a mine.

A Bishop’s Good Works

Bishop Gassis had stepped into this waterless breach and arranged for a Thai-manufactured rig to drill 150 boreholes up to 80 meters deep through layers of sand and rock, holes named for such distant benefactors as Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Frank Wolf.

As the bishop approached one well, children took turns pumping furiously, filling gourds and jugs while goats and feral-looking pigs drank the overflow and women washed clothes nearby. Crowds usually followed the bishop, but here the women scrambled shyly away. Stop, don’t run away, the bishop called out in colloquial Arabic. Who do you think provided you with all this good water? I, your bishop, did. The bishop was the final arbiter on the location of wells and structures.

Mass was usually celebrated under the trees as worshippers knelt on the bare ground. The image of Sister Bakhita, a 19th-century Sudanese saint and former slave, was often propped up nearby. Women wearing colorful headscarves and long flowered dresses, with plastic rosaries around their necks, chanted the Kyrie Eleison while beating drums and shaking homemade rattles. They also sang native songs punctuated by high-pitched ululations; men sitting apart provided low-note harmony. Boy and girl Mass servers deposited corn, papayas and pomegranates into an altar basket; a boy even handed the bishop a live chicken.

At one Mass, the bishop, preaching in both Arabic and English, appealed for dedicated catechists to assist his few priests and nuns. If you are a single woman, very good, if married, even better; if a single man, good, married, better still, but please, only one wife, he said. He asked the congregation to bring in an animal to sacrifice at Easter, a calf or goat, but no mere chicken. At another Mass, he confirmed more than 100 people of all ages, including two blind men.

The bishop’s sermons warned of returning refugees bearing the scourge of AIDS, from which Sudan until then had largely been exempt. A nurse nun confided that girls who had escaped from Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army were arriving pregnant or infected with H.I.V. after being raped.

Since the peace accords were signed in 2005 between Khartoum and southern rebels, the bishop had been working relentlessly to bring the area, he said, if not into the 21st century, at least into the 20th. While still unable to serve the Darfur portion of his diocese, in the rest of his territory he had begun building, rebuilding, and operating schools, orphanages, chapels and hospitals. Water was key.

Muslim pupils as well as Catholics and other Christians attended the bishop’s schools. The U.N. World Food Program provided daily meals. A special effort was made to enroll girls, though boys predominated. Some teachers were nuns, others English-speaking locals or Kenyans and Ugandans hired on yearly contracts. During the civil war, schools were targeted by government bombers reportedly trying to wipe out rebel spawn. One of the bishop’s schools was destroyed by shelling; another was bombed, killing 18 children and maiming several others. Unlike the situation in the north, Sharia law does not prevail in the south. When Muslim-Christian intermarriage occurs, the children become Muslims.

A sewing workshop, run by a Portuguese nun who has spent 20 years in Sudan and is fluent in Arabic, began with a lesson on the equality of husband and wife in a marriage. All the women had arrived promptly, using the sun as their only timepiece, eager to take turns using three treadle sewing machines. Women also worked alongside men at the bishop’s construction sites while their small daughters cared for younger siblings, carrying around babies almost as big as themselves.

Safety a Relative Term

Lured by the availability of water and promise of peace, semi-nomadic Nuba and Dinka herders were moving back, often settling in the hills for safety should government bombers ever return. There I saw them constructing new huts and livestock fences from dry bramble bushes and preparing the terraced hillsides for planting. Several teenage boys told me they had returned on foot all the way from exile in Uganda, considering southern Sudan now to be safe. Yet fighting could still break out anew if the south eventually decides to secede from the north, as permitted by the north-south peace agreement. Oil reserves are located in the south, a serious complicating factor.

Southern rebel forces manned frequent checkpoints, giving us the feeling that we were under siege. Our party breezed past, though, thanks to the bishop’s armed rebel bodyguards. Most men carried AK-47 rifles, knives or machetes; shootings and stabbings were not uncommon. Nongovernmental organizations, as well as the bishop himself, operated from within walled compounds where all staff members slept at night and where vehicles and diesel fuel were kept under guard. One evening I accompanied a deacon as he drove a woman with a bullet wound to a clinic run by Save the Children. We never found out who had shot her or why. Another woman told us her teenage son had disappeared en route to relatives in Khartoum. She feared that the boy, if still alive, might have been kidnapped into slavery, a practice not yet eliminated in Sudan.

Some of the tall, slender southern Sudanese bore horizontal scars on their foreheads or were missing two lower front teeth, pulled out in a rite of passage. Both men and women made a point of vigorously shaking my hand; one man had only finger nubs, probably from leprosy.

Because I sometimes stayed overnight at a nuns’ compound, locals called me Sister Barbara. My special friend was Soraya, a widow with two children who tended the nuns’ garden. Though I had to strain to decipher Arabic and suppress my urge to speak Spanish, language differences proved relatively unimportant. Women often walked alongside me, holding my hand or fingering my gold earrings. My belongings, left unguarded in an open hut, were never touched. When I dropped a paper clip in the sand, a woman hastened to return it.

I was once startled to see several Dinkas emerging from the woods bearing spears, but was assured that spears are now used only for hunting. On another occasion, I was briefly caught outdoors alone in a blinding sandstorm that stung my skin and left me temporarily disoriented. In the evenings I saw miniature deer and flocks of wild guinea hens. Poisonous snakes sliding down from trees at night left telltale trails in the sand.

I often drank well water or drank from the common cup passed around to guests in a spirit of hospitality. I was offered strong sweetened tea in a tiny glass and once a goat was slaughtered in our party’s honor, the chunks of meat served on spongy pancakes.

I learned almost nothing about the practice by Muslims and Christians alike of a severe form of clitorectomy. The practice is associated with a doubling of maternal and infant mortality, yet outsiders working in Sudan told me it was not considered a priority issue, given other urgent needs.

Outdoors at Easter Sunday Mass, amid pink desert flowers and stately baobab trees, congregants joined the bishop in expressing thanksgiving and hopes for a permanent end to the hostilities that had killed, starved, and injured so many among them. A goat was duly sacrificed. They also prayed aloud that their brothers and sisters in Darfur would join them on the path to peace, a peace that despite international pressure still remains elusive. From their own experience, they knew well that any peace treaty in Darfur would be only the first step on a long road to recovery.

Barbara E. Joe  Barbara E. Joe, a freelance writer and Spanish interpreter, lives in Washington, D.C. More information about the Bishop Gassis Sudan Relief Fund is available at www.petersvoice.com.

 

A photo posted on our neighborhood website features a proud member of the Georgetown Hoyas women’s (yes, dare we say it? “women’s”) basketball team. 

Robots will deliver food for Uber in parts of DC and Va., presumably not requiring a tip.

Online, I keep being invited to buy a “potent tonic” to reverse ED, a condition that does not trouble me greatly.

Neighborhood dogs and cats keep getting lost and found. 

 These kittens appeared in the neighborhood.

A Spanish-language ad popping up on my computer feed seeks licensed drivers to deliver items to local households. ¿Buscas ganar más dinero? Entrega mandado y artículos para la casa. Maneja a tus propias horas. Lo único que necesitas es un auto, un teléfono y una licencia de manejo válida.

Instálalo cuando tú quieras. [ Verizon ad] Spanish-language ads invariably refer to “you” in the familiar form, as if addressing a close friend.