During Easter week, a young visitor on spring break from
college, Estefani, is shown here
working on her laptop in my living room in a position impossible for me to
achieve any more. The other photos are of my daughter Melanie on Easter Sunday with our former next-door
neighbors, now living in a retirement community. Melanie grew up with them always
living next door. But, finally, they found that fixing up their house, over a
century old, and going up and down stairs became too much. So now they live
comfortably on the ground floor of a retirement community with all services,
such as meals, provided and with access to planned trips. In the case of a
medical or other emergency, prompt help is available. What’s not to like? I’m
trying to pinpoint why I would resist living in such a place. Perhaps it’s the
planning, first, that the planning is largely done for the residents, not by them—sure they have choices, such as
which entrée to choose—but they don’t set the agenda, and, second, because
there are few if any surprises. Too bland, too comfortable, I would say. But I
may eat my words and be eating in communal dining room myself in the future if
disabilities catch up with me, compelling me to live in a similar place.
Now, at age 76, I’m finding out what getting older is
really all about, something hard to imagine when you’re young. People are living longer and becoming more
physically and mentally disabled in the process. They used to succumb to a
heart attack or stroke or even cancer and that was fate or the will of God.
Now, medical interventions allow them to survive, though in a somewhat
debilitated state—even cancer can become a chronic illness. Half of those over 85 are said to have a
degree of dementia and there are more people in that age bracket than ever
before. They require regular medical care and often care for daily living. So,
retirement communities serve a purpose. Few of us will live to a ripe old age
with no health problems or mental and physical disabilities and then suddenly
drop dead without any warning—of what, pray tell?
With the death of Gabriel
García Márquez, I’ve heard many mispronunciations of his name. First of
all, though he is usually referred to by his double last name, García
Márquez (father’s first, then mother’s),
when only one is used, it should be García, not Márquez which many commentators
have used alone, including the NY Times.
And on the radio, this error is compounded by pronouncing it as MarQUEZ, when
the emphasis on his mother’s surname is on the first syllable (which carries an
accent mark), Márquez (MARquez). His mother was Luisa Márquez,
his father Gabriel García, so he used García Márquez to distinguish
himself from his father. As mentioned
in my new book, García—or García Márquez, if you prefer—wrote a book about his
friend Fidel Castro over 30 years ago, but declined to publish it because he
felt it would tarnish Fidel’s reputation. If that manuscript still exists, it
should be resurrected now.
A
friend of this blog had the following (below) to say about the third Easter
spent in prison, so far, of afro-Cuban Sonia
Garro, a member of the Damas de Blanco. Amnesty International has not
designated her as a prisoner of conscience (POC) because when she and her
husband were up on a rooftop, surrounded by soldiers, he threw down a roof tile
that hit one of the soldiers below, injuring him slightly. Amnesty requires
POCs to have neither advocated nor engaged in violence. Both Garro and her
husband were charged with “attempted murder,” though as far as I know, have not
gone to trial.
Well obviously the regime has
said that if the husband is violent and the wife is a Dama, she's twice guilty.
But it's clear that they were targeting Garro. Otherwise, why not arrest the
husband only? It sounds like there are credible witnesses who finger him, and
that no one has come forward to say that she was participating in the
self-defense (aka violence). I can see why this would be a
delicate matter for Amnesty, though. Since the law is whatever the Castros tell
the courts to say it is, they can devise a charge that will stick -- in Cuba.
In the real world, prosecutors would have to prove both intent and conspiracy,
since Garro's pacifism, in her participation in Damas marches, is beyond question.
An equitable court would inquire why it was thought necessary to hurl a
dangerous projectile at the cops, and the answer to this question would go far
toward vindicating the defendant. But this won't be an equitable court. Looks
like Garro will be counting three, four, many Easters.
(My friend should have
her own blog).
By
canonizing two popes at once, John XXIII
and John Paul II, Pope Francis is
appealing both to more liberal and more conservative Catholics. Many of us in the first camp were inspired by
the short-lived papacy of John XXIII. Others felt more closely affiliated with
John Paul II, whom I met at the Carter White House in 1979.
A friend is married to a woman from Swaziland, whom he met while working as a nurse in that country.
Now, I would recommend reading an article about Swaziland’s little known but medieval-type
despotic king, Mswati III, appearing in The
Atlantic under the title “Africa’s Real-Life Game of Thrones.” Another overlooked
African despot is septuagenarian Teodoro Obiang,
in power for more than 30 years in tiny oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, Africa’s only Spanish-speaking country, whose
horrendous human rights record I only discovered when translating some
documents for Amnesty International.
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