It's now the following day. So let's keep right on going here. As long as our heart remains beating and we keep on breathing, then there is still some life left in us. So let's keep moving forward.
Donald Trump has put tariffs on products from Brazil, which actually makes no sense. The US has a trade surplus with Brazil. In 2024, the US trade surplus with Brazil was $7.4 billion. What do we get from Brazil? Oil, coffee, and fruit juices, among other products. What does Brazil get from us? Electronics and computers. Trump wants to stop the prosecution of his friend, the former president Jair Bolsonaro. Do you think these tariffs will have any effect in protecting Bolsonaro? In fact, the answer is a resounding "no"; they are backfiring badly. An effigy of Donald Trump was set on fire in Sao Paulo and President Lula is now enjoying a big boost in popularity. Former President Bolsonaro, whom Trump said he was trying to help, has denied having anything whatsoever to do with Trump's foolishness.
Trump may not have noticed, but the dollar is actually losing value worldwide.
The price of coffee is now likely to rise. We Americans are paying the price for Trump's very senseless and counter-productive actions. He doesn't think things through to their logical and predictable conclusions; he just acts on impulse and so often he is wrong. He is behaving in a very childish and reckless manner, perhaps already becoming senile. Nonetheless, many Americans still suppport him. My son, who voted for Trump, is still not quite ready to abandon him, but is becoming rather concerned.
What can be done now if Mr. Trump and his underlings not only make bad calls but also simply ignore judicial orders? No one is going to arrest the president. Since he knows that he can get away with almost anything, Trump just does whatever he wants. Wash. Post, Trump officials accused of defying 1 in 3 judges who ruled against the president
Wash, Post, Are we facing a population collapse?
VP JD Vance and his wife are setting an example for others with their 3 children, at least with 3 so far. More trend setters need to start actually producing and promoting larger families. Three children is quite a managable number, but Vance and his wife might actually go on to have even more. I raised 4 kids myself as a single mother. I did it all by myself and you can too. The key is to create a feeling of family belonging-- to instill the desire among every member to start working together as a team. That can be quite a challenge, but I managed to do it, though admittedly with some difficulty and considerable effort. My great-grandparents back on the prairies of Alberta many years ago made it work while raising 12 children, who all made it to adulthood.
Let's say something more now about my paternal great-parents living out in rural Alberta. Despite their success in raising a dozen kids in a lonely, inhospitable environment, they experienced a big setback that my great-grandmother barely recovered from. While they were out in town in their horse-drawn buggy, a wayward coal from a fire left still burning in a woodstove consumed their entire house, along with all their new furniture, just ordered from Sears Roebuck.
Where did they live after that? Perhaps with one of their kids? Their youngest child, Florence, my great-grandmother, later moved to Los Angeles to work as a seamstress making clothes alterations after her own husband Andrew died (for whom my oldest son, now desceased, was named). The original Andrew had died in the crash of an airplane that he had designed and built by himself. One of his students had frozen at the wheel during a flight instruction, causing the craft to hit an electrical line, leading to a crash that immediately killed Andrew, but not the student, who lived to tell the tale.
I am reminded now of how I actually escaped a similar fate at age 18 while a student at UC/Berkeley, after taking a series of risky flights with a young man renting a room from my maternal grandparents living there. I left one evening with the young man, saying we were going out to dinner, but we actually always ate dinner at one of a series of nearby aiports. We traveled there in my friend's small plane, a wide open 2-seater, which he taught me to take off in and land all by myself. One evening, he died after shooting himself in the head, bleeding all over a rug my grandmother had made herself, which then had to be discarded. I never told Grandma where we had gone out to dinner. Now, at age 87, I marvel at being still alive, after undertaking so many risks in my travels all over the world.
A gender disparity in life expetancy remains here and everywhere, with women typically living longer than men. In the US, for every man who reaches age 100, there are approximately 4 to 5 women who also reach that age. So ladies, we need to do more to protect our men. Part of the gender difference in survival to old age is due to genetics and part is due to life-style factors that could be modified.
I've just heard now from a member of Amnesty International Group 211, a group I'd helped found more than 40 years ago, way back in 1982. I'm glad it still exists. Several original members have already died. Back then, we used to meet in person in our own homes, rotating hosting among us. We wrote handwritten letters to authorities in other countries, mailing them out with airmail stamps. Now, of course, meetings are all virtual and communication is mostly online. I'm glad the group is still working on human rights around the world. I just sent this message:
Hi Juliana, I'm very glad you folks are still active...Living now in W Va. at age 87, it's about all I can do to just take care of myself and the dog while my son, with whom I live now, is away at work.
The human rights situation and attitudes regarding Israel have certainly changed. I remember when Americans welcomed many Israelis and Jews here around the time of World War II. Israel could do no wrong back then. Amnesty is quite right to call out human rights violations being committed now by Israel. Amnesty's efforts there do need to continue.
When we were children, our Dad, an architect, took us to visit an exiled architect of Bauhaus fame, Walter Gropius, who was not Jewish himself but was forced into exile anyway in 1933 for not being sufficiently supportive of the Nazis..Many Germans, Jews and non-Jews, left Germany during the Nazi regime. It might be characterized now as a brain-drain. The Nazis forced out some of their most talented citizens. (I would even dare to say that a brain-drain is happening right now, here in the USA.) Gropius and his wife lived in a beautiful modern house that he had designed himself out in the suburbs of Boston--in Lincoln. He taught at Harvard. "Less is more" was one of his maxims. His wife was named Ise. That house is now an historic landmark where tours can be arranged.
Please keep me posted on developments with the group and with Amnesty International. Please do keep up your good work.
Thanks as always, Barbara
=TTTes for Brazil’s ex-leader
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