When I came back home, there was a phone message from a former neighbor who had lived 40 years next door, saying that her husband had died. He was a man of about 90, not in good health, but in good spirits last time I saw him. Years ago, I was recovering from sudden gall bladder surgery when my granddaughter was staying with me as a child. I had enrolled her in a summer day camp, and the man who has just died did me the favor of walking her to her camp bus and meeting her there when she returned. I’ve just reminded my granddaughter of that.
[I'm trying not to fret too much about weird and arbitrary font changes on this blog--the reader can figure things out.]
The New Yorker of April 19, 2021 features a review of “Blindness,” a play which subjects the audience to total darkness as the story unfolds only through sound. The experience would be of special interest to me, as for 24 years, I was married to man who was totally blind. I always tried to imagine how he experienced things, as he was blind from childhood.
Many news events for me are personal, which is why I cover so many of them on this blog. Now with the apparent overwhelming presidential victory of Xiomara Castro in Honduras, the country’s first female president, I’m not feeling optimistic, although I’ve never been optimistic about Honduran politics. She is a stand-in for her husband, Manuel Zelaya, a quirky former president until 2009, allied with Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia. Both Xiomara and Manuel are known for wearing cowboy-type hats. They have several children. Manuel now represents Honduras in the Central American Parliament. Xiomara’s victory was a stark rebuttal to “politics as usual” after the 2 terms of Juan Orlando Hernández of the conservative National Party, a man credibly accused of corruption and drug trafficking, whose brother is in prison in the US on drug charges. Russia might offer aid to Honduras and Cuba might offer medical experts, as it has before, but Honduras would have to pay for them. (Quite a few Cubans have stayed on in Honduras after their medical assignments.) Venezuela doesn’t have much to offer Cuba; any spare oil?
The US
government may also fear the worst and has just out sent a request for Spanish
interpreters and translators willing to work for 6 months in Honduras, mostly
on military bases there, starting at the end of this month.
Candidates must able to do both written translation and simultaneous and consecutive interpretation, but US citizenship is not required, so please let me know immediately if you know of anyone. I’ve also asked my Honduran contacts for candidates.
I have no desire to get involved myself. My last medical mission to Honduras was in Feb./March 2020 and I would certainly go back to Honduras again as a volunteer helper and interpreter for Operation Smile or another medical brigade, but nothing longer term.
I’ve pretty much retired from paid interpreting and translation, a job I only started after returning from the Peace Corps in Honduras in 2004 while then also looking after my mother. I am now a very senior citizen and began working full-time when I was barely 20 (started college—UC Berkeley--at age 16 and later earned an MA there), first being employed in social work and juvenile probation, then psychiatric and social science research, and eventually occupation therapy. So I feel I’ve now worked long enough! Money is useful, but so is time.
Not
another variant! Covid cases are spiking in
Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.
The Telegraph, Coronavirus latest news: Over 60 test positive after flying from South Africa to Amsterdam as fears rise over Omicron variant
USA Today, COVID-19 deaths in 2021 have surpassed last year's count, CDC data shows: Live updates [Based on the lived experience of many of us during 2021 including witnessing Covid deaths, this news is not a big surprise.]
Daily Beast, Seven
From Anti-Vax Doctors’ COVID Conference Fall Sick Within Days
Miami Herald, A Key
West doctor who participated in a Florida anti-vaccination summit now has COVID
Washington Post, Marcus
Lamb, head of Daystar, a large Christian network that discouraged vaccines,
dies after getting covid-19
Miami Herald, Stolen court safe held secrets of a high-profile killing. Can justice survive in Haiti?
Apropos of nothing in particular, a recent article in the NYTimes asks, “Do Humans Control Everything or Nothing?” Good question, as by looking forward to a distant future when humans will have vanished from the face of the earth, they will then control nothing at all, but, right in the here and now, they do have considerable--though obviously quite limited--control. Humans have proliferated and have greatly impacted the surface and ongoing climate of the planet, as well as the survival of other animals and plants.
Humans may be the only species aware of their own future death, though others may recognize a death in another animal right after it happens, especially among one of their own. Dogs do seem to mourn a lost owner. Certainly, a rabbit will run away from a fox, but is it aware it might otherwise die or just responding to an instinct to flee? Without a common language between humans and animals, it’s hard to know exactly how far animals can see into their own future. Not only are humans aware of their own eventual death, but also that of their children and grandchildren, though they hope not to still be around to witness it (as I have been).
The Week, The pursuit of longer life [Frenchwoman, Jeanne Calment, born in 1875, lived to age 122, the longest of any known person to date. However, researchers foresee possibly extending that maximum age to 150 for some people in the future. For society, having more people living to a really old age has many financial and other implications. “Quality of life” is also a consideration for the individuals involved. A friend whose mother lived to 106 believes that from age 100 onward, her mother’s life was more distressful than rewarding, also requiring paid caregivers to provide assistance.]
Back in Wisconsin, a car was again used as a weapon. The driver turned out to be someone with a long criminal history, so intent to commit harm seems likely and might actually have been in response to the Rittenhouse jury verdict. A verdict has often implications far beyond the parties immediately involved.
Gun deaths in Honduras provide a
living laboratory for testing out the NRA’s contention that civilian firearms
possession actually makes most people safer. Some may feel safer while
packing heat, but are they really? What are the odds? While Americans may argue
about whether gun proliferation actually makes most people safer or puts them
more at risk, in Honduras, where per capita gun possession is many
times what it is even in our own country, the rate of gun deaths per 100,000 is
60, actually 5 times even the gun death rate per 100,000 in the US, where our rate
is 12. There is another difference. Whereas the
vast majority of Honduran gun deaths are homicides, in the US, 2/3rds are
suicides.
NBC News,
5-year-old fatally shot by 6-year-old sibling in Pennsylvania after kids left
alone with gun
AP, In
Africa, Blinken sees limits of US influence abroad
Former Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) are now helping in Afghan refugee resettlement. They may have special empathy for refugees, still yearning for their old home, even as they try to adapt to the new one. Some Americans assume that refugees and immigrants are just happy to actually be here in the promised land when they are also missing their old home and way of life.
The Telegraph, Art and, revolution: 'the Biennial whitewashes the
situation in Cuba'
The following about the internet in Cuba is from a blog called “the Azel Perspective” by a Cuban-born commentator based in Miami: “There are only two internet service providers, both owned by the state and surveillance is extensive. It is estimated that less than three percent of the population (mostly government officials) has access to the internet. Whatever connectivity is available costs around $12.00 per hour in a country where the average monthly salary is less than $20.00 per month. Additionally, Cuba is also one of the few countries to have issued laws and regulations explicitly outlawing certain online activities. Decree-Law 209, states, among other restrictions, that “e-mail messages must not jeopardize national security”...Resolution 92/2003 prohibits service providers from granting access to individuals who are not approved by the government and requires the providers to enable only domestic chat services, not international ones. Underscoring the country’s self-imposed intellectual isolation, Boris Moreno, Cuba’s Deputy Minister for Information Science and Communication, noted that “Cuba is not concerned with the individual connection of its citizens to the internet. We use the internet to defend the Revolution…”
A cogent observation from another blog: “What allows the Iranian theocracy, so removed from Latin America by ethnicity, customs and values, to play an increasingly influential role in this hemisphere?... In the case of Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela the unifying point seems to be a virulent hostility towards the United States, liberal democracy and market economies, as well as opposition to Israel.”
600
migrants bound for the United States are discovered hiding in two trailers
during a highway traffic stop in southern Mexico https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10225471/Migrants-12-countries-600-two-trucks-Mexico.html
Mexico's National Institute of Migration said
401 of the migrants were from Guatemala. The immigration enforcement agency
also identified 53 from Honduras, 40 from the Dominican Republic, 37 from
Bangladesh, 27 from Nicaragua, 18 from El Salvador and eight from Cuba. There
were also six men from Ghana, four people from Venezuela, four men from
Ecuador, a man from India and a man from Cameroon.
The Hill,
Migrants in US-bound caravan say they'll accept deal for Mexican visas
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BBC News, Barbados
becomes a republic and parts ways with the Queen
Reuters, France sends more police, extends curfew in restive Caribbean territory [Guadeloupe, protests continue against vaccine mandates—territory falls within my Amnesty Int’l Caribbean responsibility]
Reuters, France says it is willing to discuss
autonomy for Guadeloupe
Miami Herald, 18 migrants from Cuba arrive in the Florida Keys on a small
wooden boat The significant rise in migration from Cuba to South
Florida over the past 12 months shows no sign of slowing
Reuters, Rivals for Honduras presidency hold final
rallies before vote eyed by Taiwan, China
Washington Post, Man
hid in plane’s landing gear from Guatemala to Miami, officials say [What a scary and dangerous ride! This man deserves to stay.]
Reuters, Nicaragua arrests former ambassador to the OAS, critic of Ortega
Reuters,
Nicaragua eliminates visa requirement for Cubans
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The Conversation, Supreme Court could redefine when a fetus becomes a person, upholding abortion limits while preserving the privacy right under Roe v. Wade
Advocates may characterize
the upcoming Supreme Court review of Mississippi’s 15-week abortion cutoff as a
threat to “abortion rights” and “constitutional rights,” even as “a nail in the
coffin of abortion rights,” as one radio commentator put it. But any right is a
social construct based on majority support within a polity or community. In
rural Bhutan and Nepal, a woman with more than one husband is exercising a “right.”
The vast majority of abortions in this country actually already occur before
that 15-week limit, and exceptions would be made for serious medical conditions
for either mother or fetus. Fifteen weeks is actually the point of majority support
now for abortion in this country; public support falls into minority territory thereafter.
Yes, there is a constitutional right to “privacy,” but does that automatically apply
to abortion as advocates allege? Pregnancy care has advanced considerably since
Roe and more is now known about fetal development. After 15 weeks, doesn’t a
fetus feel pain? A recent study made of crustaceans dropped into boiling water
concluded that because they experience pain, that practice should be prohibited.
Doesn’t a human fetus deserve the same consideration?
Furthermore, having
a child out of wedlock no longer carries the stigma it once did. And effective birth
control is readily available, as well as voluntary sterilization. So why the
need for so many abortions? “My body, my choice” also infers a choice to
have sex and to use birth control. Do abortion clinics have a vested interest
in promoting financial support for their services now that the morning-after
pill has reduced demand?
Before the era of birth control and when abortion was illegal, most partnered women had multiple children. Childcare and housework occupied their lives at home while their menfolk worked outside, either out in the fields or at a paid job. My paternal grandparents living on a farm in Alberta, Canada, had 12 children, all of whom survived; the boys helped their father outdoors and the girls helped their mother at home. The youngest was my own grandmother, without whom I would not exist today.
Now that American women can control their fertility, most choose to have only 1 or 2 children, if any, which doesn’t come close to replacing the population. Later retirement and more support for young families would help. Biden is trying to do the latter.
All around the DC area, starting in my mid-60s, I began working for the first time as an on-call Spanish interpreter, mostly in hospitals, traveling by train as far as the University of Maryland Hospital in Baltimore. I was a translator as well, mostly of medical documents. I made a mission to southern Sudan in 2006 and was also helping care for my mother in her last years. Meanwhile, I wrote 2 books, Triumph & Hope: Golden Years with the Peace Corps in Honduras and Confessions of a Secret Latina: How I Fell Out of Love with Castro & In Love with the Cuban People, giving frequent talks about my books and their subjects. Then in January 2009, I started the predecessor to the current blog, honduraspeacecorps.blogspot.com, the blog address still appearing in my books, cut off without warning in September 2019. I then began this successor blog in November 2019, referring back to the previous one, but, alas, no longer having access there to refer to this new blog. Some readers were lost in that shift. So there you have it.
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