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¿ ñ íóúá üé ¡
Easter, Milestones, Cuba, Trump on
the Warpath and Just Being Trumpian, SOS to Sessions: Hawaii Is a State!
[Redbud flowers—spring has finally sprung--Easter]
Stephen, one of my 2 Nigerian GAO
visitors, and I attended 10:30 am Easter Sunday Mass at the cathedral at Catholic
University. We went by metro. It was a very warm day, lots of flowers and
flowering trees, and crowds of people going into the cathedral. We entered first
at the lower level and I showed him what is called the underground church. Then,
we took an elevator up to the main or upper church. A woman with two little
girls got on the elevator with us and, to my surprise, Stephen began speaking
to them in an unfamiliar language and the woman answered him back. He told me
later, though he had never seen her before, that he knew by intuition that she
was from his native village and that they shared a language. He said as soon
as he saw her, he had a feeling of kinship with her—he just knew she was from
there! What are the odds of that happening by chance in an elevator in Washington,
DC?
There
was standing room only inside the upper cathedral with its valued ceiling and
many alcoves and statues. I did find a seat on a bench in one of the side
chapels, where I could still hear, but not see the main service. Stephen
chose to stay standing up in front. DC’s Cardinal Donald Wuerl presided. I
don’t know why, but those of us in our side cubicle never had the collection
basket passed to us. The cathedral must have lost hundreds of dollars or more
by neglecting us. The organ music and choir were magnificent, especially one
or more sopranos who performed solos, their voices echoing off and traveling
throughout that huge vaulted chamber. Later,
Stephen and I went back downstairs because he wanted to buy a rosary. The
ones for sales, some made of precious stones, were too expensive. But at the
information desk, we were each given a free plastic one and I gave mine to
Stephen for his wife.
When
we came back from the cathedral, we walked again past the Eastern Market outdoor
vendors, then stopped for a while outside Java Café to hear a trio playing
music, not for tips, just for fun. They had brought an upright piano, which a
middle-aged man wearing shorts played with vigor, accompanied by two other
men playing a trumpet and a trombone. Stephen filmed and recorded them with
his Samsung phone. So Easter turned
out to be a fun day.
My childhood friend Anna, living in another state, after
being run over by a vehicle belonging to her assisted living facility some 2½
years ago, then spending 2 years in the hospital and losing a leg, finally
got a pretty fair settlement in a jury trial. I’ve mentioned her here before.
The other side kept stalling, probably hoping she would die first. She was someone who had visited me
in the Peace Corps in Honduras. With grit and the help of medical experts,
she survived. However, now new health problems have arisen. I fault (bad)
luck, God, and, more especially, the facility that maimed her for stalling on
compensation, so that she will probably have a reduced time left to enjoy her
settlement. As Jimmy Carter said, life is unfair. (We already knew that.)
Another long-time
friend living in DC, Velma (“Vee”)
whom I had known almost since moving here
in 1969, died at age 95 after a fall in her own home, where she was still
living alone, but with help coming in. She had lived a good, productive life
and is survived by children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She was
not ill for long, so she might be said to have had a good death. We held a
remembrance party at her home in her honor, something of which I think she
would have approved, although she definitely did not want an actual funeral
and having people standing around weeping.
As we get older and closer to death ourselves, we start having more
friends and contemporaries becoming ill and dying, which is only to be
expected, but most deaths come as a surprise and certainly as a loss. I
remember that my mother, who died at age 92, kept going to more frequent
funerals until, finally, it was her turn. My own most profound personal losses,
obviously, have been of younger family members, those who left before their
time, namely my son Andrew at age 27, my own life’s worst calamity, and my Cuban
foster son Alex at age 31.
Speaking of the loss
of young people, has MS 13 now brought
its lethal ways to the United States? Its threats and now actual murders need
to be nipped in the bud. (I’m
referring to the four young men murdered gang-style in New York State.)
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Cuba will open up to a U.N.
human rights expert for first time in a decade https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/df3c4ad2-be08-3b36-8582-6892726756f7/cuba-will-open-up-to-a-u.n..html
We already knew about this at
Amnesty Int’l, 588 Cubans allowed
residency in Mexico, not their first choice, but still OK, they get to be in a
Spanish-speaking country with more freedom and opportunities than in Cuba,
(However, I understand that Cubans arriving at the southern border have been
sent back to Cuba.)
Moving
on to Africa, where I am less familiar, only having been to Morocco, Kenya, and
South Sudan, the nation of Zimbabwe,
though troubled, is not high on anyone’s radar screen. However, the Zimbabwe
country specialist for Amnesty Int’l USA, a volunteer like I am for the Caribbean,
spoke to our local Amnesty Group 211. She said presidential elections are
scheduled for July 2018 and octogenarian Robert Mugabe is planning to run, if
he survives until then, as he is now in fragile health. She said there are many
other aspiring candidates, none very inspiring. Zimbabwe is in terrible
financial trouble, with rampant inflation—and no longer using US dollars—and it
is an authoritarian state despite nominal elections. But it is not in as bad
shape in terms of violence as some other African countries, so gets little
attention. We sent notes of moral support
to be given to women human rights advocates, but just signing our first names
and not putting a return address. The idea was to let them know they are not
forgotten.
We don’t
know if Trump had a strategy mapped out for following up on his order to make
an airstrike in Syria—probably not.
But for once, it seemed to be an action that might be considered presidential
in the traditional sense. It also has helped divert attention away from his
Russia ties and Russian interference in his election. Some cynical Democrats
think that was the main impetus behind his Syria action. While some Republican
voters and lawmakers may have heralded Trump’s decisiveness on Syria, they
should remember how the same Republicans hampered Obama’s ability to act on Syria
and in many other spheres. Trump’s meeting with China’s president also has seemed
presidential, so maybe he’s finally starting to get the hang of the office and starting
to do more of what’s usually expected of a president after his rocky and
disorganized start and his many lies and ridiculous statements and tweets. (But
he may be losing some of the hard core who love those outrageous tweets.) Probably
the successful placing of Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, whatever one thinks of
Gorsuch, was also a big plus for Trump.
The
apparent downgrading of Bannon is also positive—and maybe we have young Jared
to thank for that? However, Bannon may have too much dirt on Trump for him to
get rid of him entirely—at least that’s the rumor (or maybe just another instance
of fake news? These days, it’s hard to tell.) Now can Trump, who was so
concerned about Syrian babies, wrap
his flighty mind around the prospect of granting of refugee status to fleeing
and already heavily vetted Syrians with babies
that would be progress. Meanwhile,
he seems to be enjoying a bit too much the feeling of power coming from ordering
military strikes, so there needs to be some curb or forethought there,
preferably from a Congress that becomes more than a rubber stamp. Trump vs. Kim,
2 crazies facing off, a dangerous situation.
Perhaps
someone on Kim’s team was executed for the recent failed nuclear display?
Nor should
we feel secure with Trump’s finger on our nuclear trigger, though it has begun
dawning on him that we need allies in Asia. Or, at least, it has dawned on Mike
Pence. Trump has learned a few things on the job—i.e. health care is complicated, who
knew? But as a self-inflating
70-year-old man who has bluffed and bullied his way through life so far, we cannot
expect Donald Trump to make a major transformation. After the election, I’d
hoped against hope that he might begin to modify, since his positions have
seemed pretty changeable. But, so far, he and his chosen acolytes have shown
themselves to mostly be mean-spirited (trying to take away poor kids’ school
lunches!), willing to wreak havoc, and lie outright. Also, his continued braggadocio is unattractive in a leader or in
anyone. He has gone out of his way to praise his own capacities (“I’m very
smart”), tout the luxury of his DC hotel and, at the White House Easter egg
roll, he loudly praised Melania’s role there, saying more or less, “Look what a
good job she did!” regarding one of the few public events at which she has appeared
(where was their son?). In bad taste and something that only highlights how few
public appearances Melania has actually made. Can you imagine Barack Obama publicly
praising Michelle for participating in an Easter egg roll? You have to feel
sorry for a guy so clueless and socially awkward. No wonder he has to grab
women, because he would seem so wildly unattractive to most women. But his base is
still clinging to him and Republican lawmakers, whatever their private
misgivings, are mostly hanging tight so far. If voters turn against them, then they
might begin to see the light. The US now has become a bad example to the
rest of the world, which often looks to us for moral guidance and leadership. Indeed, the retrograde
elements of other nations now seem emboldened by the Trump phenomenon.
To some
extent, though we must continue to fight against the odds, we just have to suck
it up to some extent and keep on going, as with any of life’s major calamities
and hurdles. When Trump is gone, then we can try to do major damage control and
remediation. I’ve been depressed ever since election night. Trump has turned
out to be just as terrible as I’d feared on that fateful night.
As
someone who has been advocating on social media and in person that Trump
release his tax returns, I wish I had known, as Trump loudly claims, that we are
all being paid for making our
demands. I’d like my cut! Since Trump is
such a shameless liar and Republicans are not daring to call him out, our
tactic must be, even against unfair odds, to undermine his credibility with
voters and topple some of the lawmakers who have been supporting him, even when
they know better.
Rich old
overweight white guys like Trump, O’Reilly, and Roger Ailes with negative sex appeal, all married, of
course, apparently like to feel “macho” by bullying women into going to bed
with them. At least, that’s my perspective. They are really physically
repulsive as far as I can see and certainly falling back on threats and coercion
would not enhance their attractiveness. Why do some men, especially, seem to identify
with them? Because they vicariously enjoy their domination of women? I don’t
get it, but maybe men do. That all three have gotten as far as they have before
being taken down is a sad commentary. Trump is still left to go.
Hello Mr. Sessions, Hawaii is a
state, just like
the one you come from.
Kellyanne Conway, who apparently coined the term “alternative facts,” got a laugh here
in DC at a recent speech at the Newseum (a
news museum) when she complained about negative press and opined that “people literally say things that just aren't true.” Imagine that? She,
Sean Spicer, and her big boss, Donald Trump, would find themselves getting a
little more favorable press coverage if they actually were more truthful and
more credible.
Meanwhile, despite some fall-off in NYC, Ivanka's biz prospers as politics mixes with business https://apnews.com/d9e34f23a64947d99e4a7d757012c509
As for Arkansas’s spate
of pending executions—whether or not all eight are actually carried out (as of
this writing, one has actually gone forward)—they do seem to have brought some negative
publicity to that state. Would you want to live in a state known for executing
more inmates than ever before in a single month? Or maybe that’s just my
perception as someone who would like to see the death penalty abolished. Not that those men are likely to be innocent,
though that’s always a possibility judging by the success of the Innocence
Project. Although rare, I don’t doubt that some innocent prisoners have been
executed. No, that’s not my main objection; I just don’t think the death penalty
is much of a deterrent (some murderers actually seem to crave martyrdom) or
that the government should be in the business of executing people. I don’t like
the idea of government—at whatever level—executing people in your and my name
and with our tax dollars. That’s something done by Saudi Arabia, China, and North
Korea, but our country should move away from such retribution. At the same
time, I have little sympathy for the Norwegian mass murder who constantly complains
about his cushy incarceration. According to polls, a slight majority of Americans
still favor the death penalty for capital crimes, though that majority has been
shrinking. The death penalty is especially favored by Republican voters.
Vehicles seem to be the new attack weapon of
choice being used by terrorists against unsuspecting civilians. Cars, trucks,
we do need them to transport people and goods, but how can civilians be better
protected from being directly targeted by malevolent drivers? Having ridden in
my brother’s self-driving Tesla, I
can also envision a self-driving vehicle being programmed to ram into a crowd
with no driver actually inside.
Finally,
after an absence—I attended a recent meeting of Compassionate Friends, a support group for bereaved parents. For a
while, I was leading a Spanish-speaking group at Providence Hospital, but a
Colombian nun working with me there became very ill and we had to
give up the effort. I cannot say that belonging
to a parental support group takes away the grief, but it does make the parent
who has lost a child feel less alone. It's hard enough to lose a child, but worse when others shun you or say stupid things like, "I know how you must feel because my son was very sick once and we feared we'd lose him, though he's just fine now." There's a big difference in the latter case--your son is still alive; mine is not. When I attend meetings now, it is mainly
to help newly bereaved parents who are often in a state of shock.
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