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.
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
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.
Fox, Texas brothers, 3rd suspect arrested in killing of auto
mechanic over repair bill
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.
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.
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 2nd 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.
AP, Mob in Haiti capital burns to death 13 suspected gangsters
AP, 2 journalists killed in Haiti as
gang violence spikes
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.
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.
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.
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