“Life within
walking distance” is a popular
advertising slogan. Here on Capitol Hill, we local residents have long
enjoyed that convenience. Since I gave up car ownership some years ago and
especially since the pandemic, I’m glad to still be living here, resisting
constant entreaties to sell my house to move to where? I like living here just fine.
May 3 is World Press Freedom Day.
Am trying not to get too stressed out with this posting or in trying to fix things. Nor do I know why Washington Post titles come out as they do, so let's just go with the flow.
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It’s been two years since Peace Corps volunteers were evacuated from around the world because of COVID-19. Now, they are returning to service and Peace Corps Acting Director Carol Spahn has been formally nominated as Director. The agency has confirmed that volunteers are expected to return to some 30 countries in the coming months. The first volunteers just traveled to Zambia and to the Dominican Republic after First Lady Dr. Jill Biden hosted them at the White House. I’d like to go back myself for a shorter stint to a Spanish-speaking country, but am not sure I still have the physical stamina. I know from my own Peace Corps experience and annual visits to Honduras until 2 years ago that amenities are often unavailable and that volunteers may be assigned to remote areas without plumbing or electricity. If I had more computer savvy, I’d like to try “virtual service” from home, another option in some English or Spanish-speaking countries, available to experienced volunteers. Last time on this blog, I posted a photo of a blossoming cherry tree in Japan, said to be 1000 years old. Since no one now living was around when it was planted, how does anyone know its actual age? Now, I’ve found a photo of a reputed 2000-year-old cherry tree, fenced off and being propped up. Again, how is its age estimated? These venerable trees produce blossoms, but do they still produce any cherries?  The pandemic
seems to be waning now, or is it really? It may simply have mutated into less
lethal but more transmissible forms. Vaccinated but asymptomatic folks are
testing positive. Whatever is actually the case, most of us are getting pretty tired
of the pandemic. People are traveling again. Couples are now planning weddings.
Most Americans want to return to normal life, meet up with friends, hold
backyard barbeques, discard masks. To the extent that such activities are still
considered unsafe, they often tend to blame the president and other elected
officials. The president is also blamed for inflation, a worldwide phenomenon
partly arising out of that very same urge to return to normal life, as sectors begin
opening up and as demand in all areas surges, but also due to the costs of the
Ukraine war and resulting shortages, especially of wheat. Still, the buck stops
with the US president, as President Biden is finding out. |
And for those who have lost loved ones in the pandemic, the fallout continues. An estimated 200,000 American children have lost a parent in the pandemic
Business Insider, Trump claims he's the 'most honest human being, perhaps, that God ever created' during rally in North Carolina
Does he say this to keep in the news? Does he actually believe himself? Neither modesty nor honesty is his strong suit. Or is he just deliberately parodying himself?
Trump ally and first-term Ga. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has called Republican Senators who voted to approve Judge Jackson for the US Supreme Court “pedophiles.” Donald Trump even once suggested that Joe Biden might be a pedophile. Estimates are that only 1 or 2% of American adult males have a sexual interest in children, while many of them never actually express that interest in real life. Female pedophilia is thought to be even more rare, mostly cases of women teachers seducing teenage boys. So, how did the pedophile obsession ever get started and why does it persist? For right-wingers, could it be a matter of projection, of accusing your opponent of your own secret vice? The fight in Florida over “Don’t say gay” also focuses on pedophilia, just one more arrow in the rightist quiver? Meanwhile, Greene is now facing a challenge from some of her own constituents seeking to block her from even running for office again. It would be a relief to see her leave the political stage. She’s an accidental politician in way over her head.
Florida Senator Rick Scott (R) has introduced a bill denying federal funds to Amnesty International because of alleged antisemitism against Israel. As far as I know Amnesty, an international human rights body with a worldwide membership, is not supported by any federal funding—nor is it anti-Semitic, endeavoring to take a balanced view on Israel/Palestine. However, Amnesty may actually have once been included in a small federal outlay for human rights education. (It doesn’t seem wise for Israel, which relies so heavily on regular US funding, to be allied exclusively with the Republican Party.)
It's hard to keep up recent with all the fatal shootings around the US, as it’s like being in an ongoing civil war. Some folks feel they need to be armed because others are, creating a vicious cycle. Biden is proposing federal background checks, but anything he recommends will run into a solid block of Republican opposition. As the midterms approach, partisanship has become even fiercer.
Wash. Post, Four people shot near Nationals Park after game
Wash. Post, 2 killed and 10 wounded in Iowa nightclub shooting
TV9, Central Florida sees violent weekend with 14 people shot, 3 killed since Friday
Daily Beast, Multiple People Shot at Brooklyn Subway Station
At least 5 people
were shot during the morning rush hour by a man wearing a gas mask and construction
vest.
Gun injuries and deaths have become so commonplace around our country, they barely make the news. In contrast, a gun death in Europe or Canada grabs headlines. What’s the difference? The “right to bear arms” in the US, which drives up gun deaths and has made them almost routine.
Fatally
Flawed’ Immigration Court System Should Be Taken Out of Its Misery
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fatally-flawed-immigration-court-system-should-be-taken-out-of-its-misery
I've worked as an interpreter in Immigration Court, but rarely have learned the final decision. On cases where I've written an official letter and given oral testimony in court (remotely) as an Amnesty International volunteer leader to support an asylum request, lawyers have often reported back to me later--it's been "win some, lose some," mostly depending on the particular judge, and lawyers don’t get to pick their judges. I don't see how we could actually abolish Immigration Court and start over now. We're stuck with it, but reforms would be hard. Judges will resist any efforts to change the system or to replace them and they all seem to have fairly fixed habits and positions. They will have to retire first, then it depends on who comes next.
I'm glad to be retired myself from interpreting and I've also been trying to retire as volunteer Coordinator for the Caribbean for Amnesty Int'l USA for the last year. It’s been hard to work during the pandemic. My 2 volunteer assistants left in December. I’ve promised to stay on until a new person takes the position, as I'd like to be involved in that. But no movement has occurred there. I suppose as long as I stay, why look for anyone else? But after my 41 years as a volunteer, it's time for the organization to make a fresh start and to recruit someone new.
NBC News, Cuban migrants outpace Central Americans arriving at U.S. border
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is being slammed for holding up traffic between Texas and Mexico by stopping trucks for excessive inspections. Is he trying to hurt Biden by hurting the economy? He is hurting Texans. Abbott is also making good on his pledge to bus migrants to Washington, DC, but only migrants who’ve volunteered for the transport.
First migrant bus from Texas arrives in DC
https://nypost.com/2022/04/13/first-migrant-bus-from-texas-arrives-in-dc
Wash. Post, Poland builds a border wall,
even as it welcomes Ukrainian refugees
Wash. Post, Russia threatens to move nukes
to Baltic region if Finland, Sweden join NATO
Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, seeing what’s happening in Ukraine, is seriously considering joining NATO now before Russia turns attention its way. Finland, as stated before, is a tranquil country, deemed “the happiest country in the world” despite its long winter months of darkness. Sweden is also considering NATO membership. Russian aggression may be driving more countries right into NATO’s arms.
As for Ukrainian refugees, I’ve wondered how they are paying for travel to our southern border? Some apparently have friends in the US who are sending them the money and also train travel within Europe is now free for them.
Reuters,
Ukrainians arriving at Mexico-U.S. border doubles in less than a week,
officials say
Arriving at
the southern border seems the best way for Ukrainians to be admitted into the
US. There are still many delays, though some 3000 were allowed to cross over recently.
Biden has now set a refugee cap of 125,000 for this year, while Trump authorized
only a mere trickle of refugees. However, even if Ukrainians took up most of
those 125,000 slots, that’s still a pittance compared to the 4 million who have
fled Ukraine. We can do better. Right now, Americans seem to be feeling quite
hospitable toward Ukrainians, many of whom are well educated and often already
speak English. But that welcome may not last, so Ukrainians need to take
advantage while they still can.
Reuters, Explainer: Why did the United States resettle only 12 Ukrainian
refugees in March?
That was
because the war halted refugee processing in Kyiv. The US did better in April,
allowing more to cross, but mostly has focused on providing support for
European countries receiving the refugees. The US government wants to avoid on
open-door policy for Ukrainians that will bring an even greater avalanche to
the southern border.
While the US has avoided giving any weapons directly to Ukraine so as not to further provoke Russia, our country had promised state-of-the-art weapons and equipment to Slovakia, which in turn sent some of its existing supplies to Ukraine.
My nephew, a
videogame designer who had been living in Ukraine, sent me this message:
Hi Aunt Barbara, Eastern
Europe is inexpensive, but this war is a big setback for me. Before the
war, I was working with some Ukrainians in Kharkiv. Kharkiv is on the
frontline. Our office was bombed by Russian aircraft. Everyone is
safe but we lost our office. A couple of my colleagues moved on... One is
helping the war effort. Another emigrated to Prague as a refugee...The
remaining folks are trying to resume working with me (remotely), but it's
difficult with explosions happening nearby.
Now, I'm in Sofia, Bulgaria... My Ukrainian colleagues can't really come here because men are not allowed to leave Ukraine. For most people, this means women are also staying back. They don't want to leave behind their husbands, fathers, and brothers. A silver lining is our game, it's called Cake Coloring 3D. [This app is available online.]
Tuning on NPR’s “All Things Considered” one evening, I found it focused on Romania, which borders Ukraine and has welcomed Ukrainian refugees. Years ago, not long after Ceaușescu was assassinated, I’d been invited to Romania to evaluate children’s institutions there. I was then working for the occupational therapy association and later wrote about my investigation for our publication OT Week. When I first arrived at the Bucharest train station, described by NPR as the hub for arrivals from Ukraine, I wasn’t sure what train to take to continue on my journey. This was before cellphones or internet and few Romanians spoke English. However, to my surprise, I could understand some of what they said, because Romanian, like Spanish, is a romance language. I had arrived at Thanksgiving, a holiday not observed in Romania, but in deference to me, my hosts, with whom I finally connected, invited me to a dinner serving a very tough turkey. During that trip, inside a really dismal children’s facility for “irrecuperables,” I took a picture of Gabriela, a little girl living there. As recounted in my Confessions book, that photo, appearing in our magazine, led to her adoption by an American family. Now as an adult, she has connected with me on Facebook. Although refusing to speak Romanian once she arrived in her new home, she now likes to communicate in Spanish, which she studied in college. Romania holds many memories for me.
Insider, 71
Chinese inmates on death row had their hearts or lungs removed during
executions before being declared dead, new study says
China, which carries out the most executions in the world, reportedly took organs for transplants from still-living prisoners.
Fox News, Texas
woman arrested for murder after 'self-induced abortion': police The particulars of this case are unknown, including how far
along her pregnancy was and how she was discovered. Perhaps it was an advanced pregnancy
and her attempts led not only to fetal death, but to complications for her that
sent her to the hospital. (I’m only guessing here.) Subsequently, the charges
were dismissed without further details.
As the stage
of potential fetal viability goes down, it becomes harder to determine when an abortion
might be considered murder. The 24-month limit enshrined in Roe is no longer
valid. When does abortion become infanticide? Pro-life Democrats do exist and
might opine on this question, but studiously avoid speaking out in the current
polarized political climate.
A crucial but
obvious point is that fetal development follows a natural trajectory which, unless
interrupted, results in the birth of a live baby--a brand new human being. All
of us started out that way; it’s a universal process occurring among humans and
animals since time immemorial. A live baby, once out into the world, breathing air
in the light of day, instantly is considered a human life meriting legal protection.
At what prior developmental point did that infant deserve such protection and
the chance to go on living? Republicans’ new slogan is not far off the mark, “Life
is a human right.”
Admittedly, not
every biological parent is capable of raising a child and children do require a
lot of care and caring for years. “Good enough” parents, that is, most of us,
do our best but still make minor mistakes along the way. None of us is perfect.
We just hope our children know we love them and, especially when they become
parents themselves, will understand and forgive us. But there are still too
many parents who are really not good at their job. They may be either too
controlling, excessively berating and even beating their offspring for minor
infractions, or too neglectful, for example, allowing kids access to firearms
that may end up killing them or others. It’s not possible to police all
parents. Usually parenting extremes are discovered only after children have
been harmed.
During my
own childhood, I don’t recall my Dad ever hitting me, as he went out daily to work
and was also away during World War II. But when I was in kindergarten and our
father was overseas, my frustrated mother sometimes spanked me on my bare
bottom with a bristly hairbrush, for what? I don’t even remember. She wouldn’t
stop until I cried out loud. Our father also hit my teenage brother at least
once, but I don’t recall why. I vowed never to use physical punishment on my
own kids and kept that vow, except for a single instance when I slapped one of
them on the cheek for getting up repeatedly from a time-out chair. The victim thankfully
does not recall that incident.
In the days
before contraception, legal abortion, and sterilization, when women usually depended
on men to financially support them, it’s not surprising that women became
pregnant more often than they wished and had more children than they might easily
handle. My own paternal grandmother was the youngest of 12 children in a
Canadian farming family. Now, few North American women give birth to a dozen
babies. Yet, in these days of easily accessible and largely effective
contraception, why do so many women apparently become unhappily and
unexpectedly pregnant, leading them to seek abortions? It seems that now most
unwanted pregnancies, at least in our country, would be preventable. I suspect that whether a woman decides to
get an abortion or to have her child, in most cases, in retrospect, she tells
herself she made the right decision.
LA Times, As
Supreme Court weighs abortion, Christians challenge what it means to be
'pro-life'
A mother of 4 is quoted in the article, saying that
reducing abortions requires support for “affordable healthcare, access to contraceptives, expanded
availability of childcare and better educational opportunities for women."
As has been mentioned,
in Latin America, where having children
is still highly valued and abortion is often illegal, many women seek out tubal
ligations after giving birth to 2 or 3 children. In Honduras, the average birth
rate is now about 2.4 per woman with, of course, some having no children and
some more than that. It’s been a big reduction from the average family size of 7.5
children per woman in 1950. Honduran life expectancy has risen accordingly, now
reaching about 75 years. Several Honduran women friends have had tubal
ligations after each giving birth to 3 children. That seems a popular limit. Honduran
men rarely have vasectomies, as men who have been “snipped” may be taunted as
being effeminate. American women likewise have more sterilizations than men,
even though vasectomies are much easier and have a shorter recovery. Female
anatomy is more complicated.
Still, the
fact remains that our own country needs more babies, and more immigrants as
well. Labor shortages abound. National growth is optimal when there is a modest
but continuing uptick in population, when total births outnumber deaths. Right
now, American women of childbearing age are producing on average only 1.7
babies, less than replacement which would require 2.1 births per woman. Furthermore,
almost no immigrants arrived during the Trump years and the pace has not picked
up yet under Biden. Since the pandemic started, over the last 2 years, the US
population growth rate has been the smallest ever recorded, rising by only 0.1%
in 2021, something unprecedented.
Average life
expectancy has likewise decreased over the last 2 years, again largely due to
the pandemic, falling first in 2020, then in again in 2021, now ending up more
than 2 years lower than in 2019 and about 5 years lower than in peer nations.
Of course, much of this has been due to Covid, with total US Covid deaths now
approaching 1 million. Today, the average Canadian lives 3 years longer than
the average American. Countries with the highest average longevity are Japan, South
Korea, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, and Australia. Several Latin American
countries have a higher average life expectancy than the US.
Economic growth, which surged in the last part of 2021, has been slowing down now in the US and also worldwide. So expectations for growth in the immediate future are modest and will probably affect the midterm elections.
My friend Roland lives in California. He was a young man I met when he was serving in
the US army in Germany back in
1958 when I was just 20 years old. Having graduated from UC Berkeley, I’d the spent the next 5 months hitchhiking around Europe. I remember us kayaking together down a
river, as I would like to remember us. Best to just keep that image in mind. Roland
had wanted to marry me then but I married Tom instead. Roland also married
someone else, who died over 10 years ago. He has 2 daughters and made some
important inventions during his working years. Not too long ago, he joined a
nudist group rafting through the Grand Canyon. We've been back in touch, mostly
by phone, for a couple of years now, but haven’t actually seen each other in
person for more than 60 years. Roland is 88, still living alone in his own
home, getting around with a walker. Now, he tells me, he has terminal throat
cancer with only about 6 months to live but plans to remain at home until the
end with the help of hospice. His voice did sound raspy on the phone. I'm not
sure quite how to respond to this news, but he says not to worry, that he's had
a good life, though sorry we never got to see each other again. Well, now you
know. I'll keep you posted.
Just yesterday, a long-time friend, Basilio, a former Cuban political prisoner, died of prostate cancer just shy of his 85th birthday. I last saw him in March. We first met through our local Amnesty International group. As mentioned in my Confessions book, in 1984, we had asked Jesse Jackson on a trip to Cuba to ask Fidel to release political prisoners being held beyond their original 20-year sentences. Jackson brought out 26, Basilio among them. Basilio then married a member of our group; they had daughter and have lived in nearby Arlington, Va., for many years.
Recently, I’ve been getting computer pop-ups urging me to join the Compassionate Friends, a support group of and for those who have lost a child. The all-pervasive internet knows way too much about us! (Only my sister, with no internet, is free of such intrusions on her privacy.) After losing my son and foster son in successive years, I found attending sessions of that organization quite helpful. We all shared an unspeakable grief, something most people thankfully never experience, at least not in our country. We would have done anything, even gladly have sacrificed our own lives, to have saved our kids. Privately among ourselves, we felt free to talk about our lost loved ones, even to break down in tears, something that made most other people uncomfortable. A box of tissues was available at each meeting.
Quite obviously, we all are going to die. We know
this and also fully anticipate losing our own parents, a pretty universal
experience. But a child, even an adult child, is expected to survive us to carry
on our legacy. My son died in 1994, my foster son in 1995, then I lost my
father in 1996. I started worrying obsessively about my other kids. Only after joining
the Peace Corps in 2000 and immersing myself in a completely new environment
with new challenges, did I start having days when those deaths, especially my
son’s death, were not uppermost in my mind. After returning to the States, I again
started attending Compassionate Friends meetings, but soon found being exposed
to the fresh, raw grief of the newly bereaved, even though I might offer them
hope of better days ahead, revived earlier feelings that I had largely overcome.
So I’m still not inclined to return to that group now.
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Espectacular Parcelas Bahía
