Sunday, December 22, 2024

Adios to 2024

ch, ll, 

                                                                            
                                                        And also, 

Although this posting is rather short, it's going up now before I get more caught up in holiday activities, so here goes. See you again in 2025.


On Friday, just hours before midnight, Congress approved a budget deal to avert a government shutdown, at least until March. Members of Congress apparently would still get paid duirng shutdwn, but not their staff members. 

My 16-year-old great grandson livig in Florida near his grandmother (my older daughter) was driving her car when he had accident. Teenage boys in the US do have a disportionate share of accidents. 

I really miss doing Spanish interpreting in hospitals and schools, which I did for over a decade. See a recent request below, to which I did not respond. For many years, I'd provided a vital link between speakers of English and Spanish, allowing me to witness many human dramas in jails, courts, hospitals, and schools. Every assignment provided surprises. It was a part-time career started only after my return from the Peace Corps at age 65. Previously, I'd worked in social work, juvenile probation, and occupational therapy, and had ghosted journal articles for a psychiatrist who then published them in his own name. Then, at the start of the pandemic, I gave up working altoghether. Now. at age 86 and after recovering from Covid--but still with occasional bouts of vertigo-- I can no loner to travel on public transportation to interpretation sites. (Taking an uber would not be financially feasible.) 

Thursday, December 19, 2024 Time 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM (EST) Language Pair Spanish to English Service Onsite Consecutive Interpretation Subject Matter Special Education Location Alexandria, Virginia, 22304

Humans have been committing suicide for eons, probaby since prehistric times. If someone is bent on ending their own life, should we even try to stop them? And what about assisted suicide, sometimes referred to as "assisted dying"?  If we know someone considering that option, we should certainly try to convince them otherwise, but it also depends on the circumstances. Sometimes an indivual simply reaches the point of calling it quits, especially now when so many are living daily in pain and with disability due to advanced ages rarely reached before in humsn history. 

Copycat murder-suicides seem to be continuing. Would it be better not to report them? At the same time, in order to prevent such tragedies, it helps if we all are aware of the signs. Of course, I also opposed the death penalty. 

I feel differently than do most fellow Democrats about abortion, many of whom consider aborting an unborn child to be a woman's "right." In a very early abortion, the unborn probably doesn't exprience pain, but may feel unpleasant sensations or then even actual pain in later development. As the ability to save premature infants keeps reaching ever earlier gestational stages, the line between the born and unborn becomes blurred. Once a live child emerges, then killing him or her is absolutley forbidden in our country or in most pleaces. I've never been an abortion supporter myself except in extreme circumstances, such as when the mother's life is at stake or if she faces serious health conequences.

 At least 37 people appear to have been butchered and likely eaten in a Bronze Age massacre in Somerset.

Politico, Trump: Making Canada the 51st state is a ‘great idea’




Luis, my good friend at the Honduran Red Cross, shown
 with me there in June, now tells me that with the money I'd donated, they've painted their whole building and have funds left over for other projects. 

As sometimes happens when we older folks look back on our own long life, an unexpected memory can suddenly surface. I recently recalled a trip to California's Disneyland, probably in 1968, when my first son (since disceased) was still in a stroller. Suddenly, I spied the late actor Marlon Brando, quite heavy and wearing a flowing shirt, walking right past us with 2 of his children, one a girl (who later died). As I apporached to say "hello," he glared at me fiercely, thrusting out his hand to ward me off, so I immediaely backed away. But I never forgot our close encounter.


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