I can see why
rural, small-town life appeals to my son. It offers a nice respite from the
bustle of city life.
A Saudi woman in the program was very
excited about being able to drive when she returned, expecting her husband to
surprise her with a new car. She had already learned to drive outside the
kingdom.
An Indiana man was cleaning his gun when it
fired and killed his 6-year-old daughter. Enough said.
Cuban environmentalist Ariel
Ruiz, recently hospitalized after a hunger strike, has been released, thanks
to everyone's efforts. Our Caribbean person stationed in Mexico City has spoken
to him by phone, where he is recovering at his sister's home. Amnesty International was able to speak with Ariel Ruiz
Urquiola, who has been released from prison and is with his sister. We have yet
to review the document which sets out the terms of his release. Ariel said: “Thank you (Amnesty International) for all the
help you have given my family, and me, to achieve this. Without you I don’t
think this would have been possible.”
The dire clash in Nicaragua continues with over 300 deaths, including of a 10-year-old, but has aroused little international
attention and next to nothing has been heard from the Trump administration.
Perhaps Trump fears encouraging Nicaraguan refugees?
The Trump
administration has suspended the 20,000 annual US immigrant visas available by
lottery, closing off even that small door of hope in a big blow to Cuban citizens’ aspirations.
Trump's grandfather 'kicked out of
Germany for avoiding military service'
Sounds
like avoidance of military service runs in the family.
Fortunately,
after at first refusing to order flag lowering for the victims of the Annapolis
newsroom shooting [fake news!], someone must have talked Trump out of that
petty decision and so he was convinced (by the outcry? By Ivanka?) that those
victims deserve recognition after all. But the US still apposed an international measure promoting breast milk, that
most basic of infant foods, I suppose to promote the purchase of formula, which
in developing countries has led to infant malnutrition and death. For Trump,
breasts are for pinching, not for nourishing babies. In the Peace Corps, we
promoted exclusive breast feeding for at least the first year. Trump’s
administration is not only cruel, but incompetent, unable to reunite all the
kids summarily taken away from their parents.
Trump
is basically a shallow showman, a shock jock, putting on a wild and crazy performance
for the headlines, then pulling back to a more tenable position, leaving his
advisers to pick up the pieces. Maybe that’s a tactic that often worked for him
in his business life. Republican lawmakers don’t know how to deal with him.
They certainly are worried about his tariffs and some of his other decisions,
but fear upsetting his base.
After
Trump’s disastrous private meeting with
Putin, who knows what he gave away?—only the interpreter may know. He
trashed Britain and Europe, glorying Putin, perhaps even thanking him for
helping him get elected.
If mental illness is a
reason for gun deaths,
how about making more and better mental health treatment available, as well as
drug treatment instead of sabotaging Obamacare?
Trump and Sessions have both warned parents not to cross the US border
illegally if they don’t want to be separated from their kids. But crossing to ask for asylum is not illegal. They
talk about obeying the law, citing the Bible. What about having them start obeying the law on asylum? Now the administration is blocking
ports of entry where asylum seekers must submit their requests. And all those
talking about borders, as if they were sacrosanct, forget that Texas, Arizona,
New Mexico, and much of California was once united with Mexico.
Trump
and his supporters are outliers nationally and internationally, folks whose
beliefs, bullying, and rapacious behavior are at odds with those of most civilized
people, repugnant to the majority, so it should be no great surprise that Trump
and his officials are repudiated and heckled when they appear in public and
when Trump himself is mocked, as with the baby Trump balloon floated over
London. They act shocked and call for civility but don’t offer to change their own
actions to merit civil treatment. I keep looking for something within this
administration to support to encourage them to continue along those lines, but
have yet to find it. I am hoping that big money is not everything in the
mid-terms and that Democrats and independents turn out to vote against the
Republicans, recognizing that Trump himself is the main conveyor of “fake news.”
A
report on NPR highlighted research
showing that people who acquire wealth and power are less generous and
empathetic than poorer, less well known, folks. That has certainly been my own experience,
both in the US and abroad. Honduran rural people are the most generous,
offering you a tortilla, a cup of coffee, or their last soft drink. Trump has
been very far removed from feeling any empathy
with others, including with his own family and staff, who can be dismissed
or disregarded on a whim. My Confessions
book actually started after an argument with a Trump-like friend who denied the
existence of empathy and denigrated my charitable impulses. As for Trump’s
continuing popularity within his base, it must be based on identification with
someone who can lob all manner of outrageous and prejudiced insults at others and
get away with it.
But
thank goodness that Scott Pruitt is
finally out, after taking all he could get. All his appointees whose last names
begin with Pr (Priebus, Pruitt,
Price) have been especially problematic. Most Trump officials and Trump himself
seem to have no inner conscience or empathy, only unfettered greed and lust for
money, power, and praise. The man himself is gratuitously cruel and
thoughtless, as well as incompetent and intellectually challenged. Taking
migrant children away from their parents and summarily discharging non-citizens
and transgender recruits from the military (which desperately needs more recruits!)
are efforts to punish people simply for being who they are. His tariff war,
decimation of Obamacare, and even opposition to the promotion of breast
feeding, of all things, show a deliberately cruel and destructive side, but
fearful Republicans mostly dare not oppose him. Since his base adores him no
matter what, Trump could really afford to be a tad kinder without losing
support. “Why did so many working-class
voters choose a selfish, thin-skinned, petulant, lying, narcissistic, boastful,
megalomaniac for president?” asks Robert
Reich in Salon, (July 7, 2018).
He really doesn’t have an answer. Trump and his underlings complain about the
public’s “viciousness” toward them,
but what about their own viciousness toward the majority of their fellow
Americans, including Democrats, women, children, immigrants, Muslims, LGBT
folks? The rest of us should just meekly and politely bow down to their
assaults in the name of civility? Isn’t civility a two-way street?
Probably
the main reason for Trump’s most recent Supreme
Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh, is
that he seems to consider the president above the law, at least when we are
talking about a Republican president. “The law” is sacrosanct for everyone
except Donald Trump. This would-be justice would also tip the court majority
definitively to the right. When Bill
Clinton was president, Kavanaugh pushed for impeachment, but now he has
declared himself against the very idea of presidential impeachment. Hints are that
Trump made this deal with Justice Anthony Kennedy when talking him into
retiring, as Kavanaugh had apparently clerked for him. So interviews with other
candidates, including a woman, were just for show. Kavanaugh was a done deal
from the beginning and helped Kennedy to decide to retire now—or so it appears.
The Democrats were outfoxed again. They/we need to become more devious and
Machiavellian, just like the Republicans. Can Democrats’ anger and sense of
grievance at “unfair play” overcome Republican gerrymandering, money, continuing
Russian interference, and other electoral Republican advantages in the
midterms?
The best
current economic-political system, I believe, is that of the Nordic countries, a market economy and a
strong social safety net (requiring substantial taxes)—the reverse of the
direction we are going in the US under Trump.
On
Monday, July 2, I had a 4 pm interpretation assignment at an office located
about 12 blocks from my home, so decided to walk, having no other way of
getting there. But it was 98 F in the
shade and very humid. May I say that was longest 12 blocks I have ever
walked and the same was waiting for me on the return. I stopped frequently in
the shade along the way, caught my breath, and drank from a water bottle, but
was still a bit shaky when arriving to do interpreting for a family. And when I
got home, I collapsed and couldn’t even prepare or eat dinner.
Sometimes I find my foreign visitors annoying
and vow to stop accepting them. But this message just came in from a former
Nigerian visitor: I really miss your motherly care and rich experience-filled company. I
always pray to have another opportunity to visit you soon.
Contrary to my “liberal” and certainly
Democratic Party stance on most issues, my readers know I am lukewarm on “abortion rights” after the first
trimester and especially after 20 weeks, when the fetus certainly can feel pain
and might survive outside the womb. It seems cruel to dismember it and pierce
its skull in the name of abortion rights. No one is talking about criminalizing
women seeking abortions, no one except maybe Trump himself. Most Americans of
all political persuasions would agree with me, according to polls. Although my
Democratic Party has clung obsessively in support of Roe and of a woman’s
“right to choose” at any point in her pregnancy and using the politically-correct
term “anti-abortion rights” instead of “prolife,” I think abortion requires a
more nuanced discussion and policy consideration. I have personal irons in the
fire, being both a birth and an adoptive parent. Here is an article along the
lines of my thinking by a Washington Post
contributor, but whose article actually appeared in the Dallas News: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/07/05/time-let-roe-go
And here’s another one: heweek.com/articles/784193/im-prolife-woman-but-im-worried-about-postroe-america
Most Americans do support “abortion rights,”
but only in the first trimester, so why not keep that firm, but allow
changes—maybe made by states—after that? Of course, gestational age cannot
always be precise. I’ve tried to put myself in the mindset of a woman
unexpectedly pregnant, feeling, “I just cannot do this right now. This is a huge
mistake.”
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