Snow, MLK Day, Mazateo, Designated Driver Philip, Honduras, Nairobi, Cuba Embargo, Forrest Trump, Migrant Caravan

Well, it finally happened. On January 13, 2019, we woke up to snow, as seen from my bedroom window. 

 

Whenever Martin Luther King Day rolls around, I am reminded of standing with my late former husband at the edge of the crowd as King delivered his “I Have A Dream Speech” back in 1963. Little did we know then that it would be such an historic occasion. When Barack Obama made a commemorative speech 50 years later, security was much tighter than on the original day. Of course, both the original and Obama’s commemoration took place in August, quite a contrast from the weather on MLKIng Day, based on King’s birthday, in 2019, so very frigid.

The weather on this year’s King holiday reminded me of the bitter cold when we were squeezed together in Obama’s first record-breaking inaugural crowd, which my daughter Stephanie had come out from Hawaii to join. In 2017, I saw Trump’s pitiful inaugural crowd on a fairly balmy January day while I was walking in the neighborhood, but the next day, at the women’s march, we were out in full force.

Happened recently to run across a reference to the whistling language of a group of Mexican mountain dwellers, Mazateo, communication that carries across long distances, and a lovely sounding language that is dying out. If you Google “Mexico’s whistling language” and open a Facebook video there, you will find and hear it.

I gave up my driver’s license recently because the requirements for renewing it were too onerous, especially since I haven’t had a car for 20 years anyway (before Peace Corps). Meanwhile, apparently 97-year-old Prince Philip enjoys driving around alone not wearing a seatbelt, getting immediately back behind the wheel right after an accident that injured people in another car. What are the authorities to do in such a case? Only the queen can lay down the law, but she herself, at age 92 and with no driver’s license, has also been seen out driving alone failing to use a seatbelt. Even royalty does not enjoy divine protection while driving. Wouldn’t it be an irony if the queen’s reign were to end with her involvement in a traffic accident?

One of my sociology professors at UC Berkeley many years ago, Nathan Glazer, has died at age 95.

I was surprised and slightly flattered when a couple from Central America, when I was serving as interpreter during a home therapy session for their son, asked me if I were Honduran. Maybe after Peace Corps and subsequent visits, aspects of Honduran speech have rubbed off?

Speaking of Honduras, I do plan to go again this year as a medical brigade volunteer. I’ve already booked my ticket and have ordered a new wheelchair to go with a walker that I already have. I won’t mention the exact trip dates on this forum, but will report back with photos after my return. I’m praying that the government shutdown ends before I have to leave.

The shutdown’s effects are being felt far and wide, including by my daughter and her husband, working as environmental biologists in Hawaii.

I’m familiar with the upscale Nairobi neighborhood where the recent Somali terrorist hotel attack occurred and have had coffee in the Westgate shopping mall where even more people were killed in 2013. That area has been the pride of the city, but terrorists are making it a scary place. I can well imagine that the American killed this time might have been attracted to that neighborhood.

As I must have mentioned before, Amnesty International, where I have been a decades’ long volunteer, opposes embargoes as a matter of principle. Now there seems to be a switch occurring among Cuban Americans. (I suspect part of the diaspora’s softer line toward the Cuban regime may have to do with the fact that a Castro is no longer officially in charge, although Raul Castro is still calling the shots behind the scenes.)

I sent the results of this poll to a number of Cuban Americans. Most are still strongly in favor of the embargo, but one was opposed, feeling that it gives the Cuban government an excuse for everything that’s going wrong in Cuba.

More Cuban-Americans reverse support for ending embargo, poll says | Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/us/frustration-over-lack-of-democratic-reform-in-cuba-fuels-growing-support-for-u-s-trade-embargo-among-south-florida-cuban-americans-poll

        

         In my volunteer role as Caribbean Coordinator for Amnesty Int’L USA,               I’ve received a petition on behalf of six Cubans being detained in                   immigration in Louisiana. 

      The sign they are holding says 

“We are Cuban immigrants, not delinquents.” 

             [Have tried to correct spacing, if it comes out wrong again, I give up.]

I am trying to get pro bono lawyers for them, just as I would for any other immigration detainee.

With all the attention now on asylum claims, I have done interpretation both in person and at the border telephonically. But I never know what the final decision is in each case.

As has been pointed out by immigration observers, people can and do enter the US illegally with little problem if by sea. Some are intercepted by the Coast Guard, but many are not. A wall along the Mexican border would not curb that avenue.

Trump may be clinging so tightly onto his wall because he needs to keep his base faithful, as that is the only support he now has, which is also keeping many Republicans in line for fear of alienating that voting sector. Nancy Pelosi has shown that she is a much more savvy dealmaker than Trump ever was. It was so childish of him to cancel her overseas trip in retaliation. I do salute now-Senator Mitt Romney for breaking ranks with McConnell and openly criticizing Trump. But Romney has supported Trump on “the wall.”

If, indeed, trolls intervened in the Alabama senatorial contest on behalf of the winning Democrat, that just shows that both sides can play that game. It was much less extensive and serious than Russian intervention into national elections, so there is no moral equivalency, but still shows that on-line attempts to sway elections are open to any and all wrongdoers. 

Can I get through s blog posting without any further reference to you-know who? Probably not, because even when his name is not mentioned, he is in the news and daily making a negative impact on so many lives. I attended the first women’s march the day after the inauguration, but no longer have had the energy to attend follow up marches which seem to make no impact.

Very appropriate to refer to the president as “Forrest Trump.” He cannot put together a coherent sentence or spell ordinary words and he lies so much that even his hardcore followers don’t believe much of what he says. His staff do their best to cover up for him and to pretend everything is normal until they just can’t take it anymore and quit. So why should Americans believe what he says about the border wall? Trump is not any sort of deal maker. He wants to “negotiate” with Democrats only after they give in to his border wall demands. What kind of “deal” is that? Then, what leverage would they have? He would have already gotten what he wanted. He needs a face -saving way out of the impasse he has now created. In pediatric therapy, advice is to not give in to a tantrum or bad behavior, as it just encourages a child to continue. Making a non-negotiable demand and walking out of a meeting is not how to make a “deal.” Deals, especially in government, imply negotiations to arrive at a mutually acceptable solution, not one side holding the other hostage and holding out until “winning” by getting exactly what he wants. Is Trump too old and stubborn to learn more effective tactics?

Many of us, probably a majority of Americans, don’t want a massive border wall. We consider further extending the “wall”, already in existence in many places, a waste of money and undesirable. It would be anti-environmental, ugly, unfriendly, and destructive. Some existing barriers might be fortified or even extended in a few places, as has been done before, but physical barriers are not the main way to keep most unauthorized immigrants out. And is keeping them all out even desirable? Trump’s own properties employ them. Many Americans have been against “the wall” ever since Trump first proposed it and, as opposition to him grows, the wall as a symbol of his presidency and his intransigence becomes increasingly important to oppose and defeat. And like the boy who cried “wolf,” Trump is not believable when he calls the migration at the southern border an “emergency” that only his “big, beautiful wall” can stop. (It’s actually a smaller “invasion” than in former years.) Conservative websites are selling “Build the wall” mugs. Part of the objection to the wall is an objection to Trump himself.

However, it certainly is not helpful in opposing “the wall,” that a new migrant caravan is setting out from Honduras for the US. https://abcn.ws/2ANcDHS

Honduran migrant caravans are rooted in Hondurans’ real fears and frustrations, as well as their exaggerated dream of finding an easier in a life in an idealized USA. But participants are also being manipulated by political forces in Honduras opposed to the current president. The caravans are not a spontaneous phenomenon.

The announcement of another Honduran migrant caravan is being made, in part, to embarrass the current president of Honduras and challenge Donald Trump. But some in Trump’s hardcore base may now be finding that the lack of a border wall actually affects them less than having crops they cannot sell or not being paid during the furlough. At worst, for most who oppose illegal immigration, it’s simply a matter of putting up with the annoyance of hearing people speaking Spanish and feeling those folks don’t belong here. Meanwhile, many of these same anti-immigration zealots, like Trump himself, rely on the undocumented to provide restaurant meals, do construction and landscaping tasks, and take care of children and elders. In light of these competing realities, maybe “the wall” does not seem so important after all.

A friend in another state asked me about the origins of the migrant caravans from Honduras and about Honduran politics in general. Rather than reinvent the wheel, if you are interested in more detail. I’m pasting here my reply to him, including a little in Spanish (he knows Spanish), as this narrative gives my take on the current situation there. My message to him below is shown in blue lettering, which I hope comes out blue on the blog. We shall see.

Now, as for your question (not bothering here with accent marks, tildes), gang members are active in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras and can readily cross borders by just showing an ID from one of those countries. Gangs and crime have existed for decades in those countries and too many people are armed, so gun deaths are much higher than even here in the US. (And the guns mostly come from the US.) In Tegucigalpa and other major Honduran cities, there are armed guards in banks (and patrons must go through metal detectors), Western Union offices, pharmacies, and grocery stores, that is, almost anywhere that money changes hands. Despite or because of this, there is a high gun death rate. Many of the gangs got an infusion of new sophisticated members when Latino gang members were deported after prison from the US, especially from California. All three countries, Honduras included, have high rates of poverty and a big divide between the wealthy, who have servants and sometimes armed guards outside their homes, and the more numerous poor, Some of the folks I stay with in Honduras are in the wealthy category with live-in servants. A few might be considered middle-class—i.e. a family where the wife is a hospital nurse and the husband works for the Honduran Red Cross (he once worked for the Peace Corps before the corps left Honduras). They have 2 kids in a private school, but not a fancy bilingual private school. A (poor) woman comes in some days to help with housework. Another middle-class family sells roast chickens and other food 7 days a week in a stall in an open market. Two of their daughters are physicians. A small-town man with four kids plays in a band at parties and also fixes electronics in his home and does some farming—the family still has an outdoor shower and latrine. So, it’s a mixed group of people, all aspiring to do better economically, but facing an uphill battle, just as here, only much more so. Bank teller or fast food attendant, any job that pays regular wages, is prized.

Probably most poor people, especially if they have TV, aspire to live in the US. They may be receiving remittances from relatives there or else know someone who is. Few people go hungry, but getting enough to eat is sometimes difficult and, especially in the countryside, where the diet can be monotonous: handmade corn tortillas, boiled beans, and rice. I’ve mentioned that in my Honduras book.

Politically, the divisions in Honduras are as stark as here. Soon after I left the Peace Corps, a member of the legislature belonging to the Liberal Party, Manuel Zelaya, probably equivalent to the Democrats here, ran for president against the National Party (Republican equivalent) candidate. Certain towns or regions traditionally favor one party or the other, regardless of local economics. (My two PC sites of El Triunfo and La Esperanza were mostly Nationalist strongholds despite high poverty.) Zelaya had been accused of corruption before his presidential bid, but seemed to have overcome that. He was from a wealthy ranching family and his father had spent some time in prison because of the deaths of folks occupying his land, Traditionally and constitutionally in Honduras (and in much of Latin America), presidents are limited to one 4-year consecutive term, so in Honduras, presidents of each party typically alternated. When Zelaya ran for president, it was the Liberal Party’s turn. Also, Zelaya got help financing his campaign from a well-to-do former Peace Corps volunteer who had originally offered to finance public libraries in Honduras, but switched his support to Zelaya (a decision he reportedly regretted later) just as I had finished helping a local group submit a library funding proposal in El Triunfo, my first PC site. (We still have books collected, but no library.)

Midway through his presidency, Zelaya suddenly became an ally of Hugo Chavez, who sold him cheap oil. This alliance upset the political establishment, which became even more upset when Zelaya declared he was going to change the constitution to allow himself to run for a second consecutive term. You may recall the so-called “coup” (depends on who is calling it) whereby he was taken out of the country in his pajamas. Zelaya, who has a black mustache and wears a cowboy hat, came back to Honduras and has been a member of the legislature from a new party that he created, Libre, from which he has run his wife as a presidential candidate. But by taking votes away from the Liberals in a 3-party race, Nationalist Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) won.

Furthermore, Hernandez, with considerable opposition, managed to actually get the constitution changed to allow himself a second term, which he is occupying right now. His main second-term rival was Salvador Nasralla, a sports’ TV host who had boasted publicly about his sexual prowess and was supported by Zelaya. I polled some Honduran friends on the contest. Below are four replies (misspellings are not mine—because Spanish is mostly phonetic, folks don’t bother to learn spelling).

1.Nasralla + Mel Zelaya + Juan Orlando Hernandez = Insuficiente para el Presidente que Honduras necesita en los próximos 4 años. Si gana Nasralla = Gobierno INCIERTO por la incompatibilidad ideológica de Nasralla con Zelaya. Gobierno del aceite con vinagre.

Si gana JOH = Gobierno INGOBERNABLE por inconstitucional y porque la mayoría de los hondureños votantes estan en contra.

POSIBLE Solucion: Segunda vuelta solo para la eleccion Presidencial (que no esta en la Constitucion Hondureña) encabezada por un Tribunal Supremo Electoral INTERNACIONAL

2. La mejor opción es JOHA
pues de quedar Nasrala seremos igual a Venezuela.

3. aqui estan ocurriendo muchas cosas en lo politico las autoridades estan siendo prudentes con dar los resultados finales de la eleccion presidencial por obias razones , nosotros no pudimos votar por que martin se enfermo y estuvo hospitalizado todo el domingo. espero que esta situacin en mi pais se calme y podamos seguir trabajando como siempre

4. Hola Bárbara... Ninguno de los dos es lo mejor...pero el menos peor es el actual Presidente JOH, pues Nasralla es un títere del ex presidente Manuel Zelaya y ahorita en las elecciones volvimos a ver los mismos actores y seguidores de Zelaya que meses y años atras habían desaparecido y de ganar Nasralla volverían a posiciones importantes dentro del Gobierno...haciéndonos recordar el Gobierno de Zelaya. El Tribunal Superior de Elecciones acaba de declarar a JOH como presidente electo... Nasralla viajó hoy a Washington a denunciar el fraude ante la OEA y otras organizaciones...   creo que al final nada cambiará y luego de algunas semanas de protestas, todo volverá a la calma, similar a lo que pasó despues de la destitución de Zelaya en el 2009.

Of course, the election was not run again and Hernandez was declared the winner in January 2018. Last Feb., I was in Honduras and polled people informally, including cab drivers. Many had not voted because they didn’t like either candidate. Hernandez appeared in TV press conferences and was 100% more articulate than Trump, but that’s not saying much. He has a histrionic delivery style that doesn’t appeal to me. He seems to have allied himself with Trump, but I doubt that Trump knows who he is or cares. Hernandez has a reputation for being hard on crime and the murder rate has actually gone down, but many accuse him of having too heavy a hand.

Meanwhile, Zelaya, still in the legislature, has not remained quiet. He and his followers are reportedly behind the organization of the migrant “caravans,” designed to challenge both Hernandez and Trump. Impoverished Hondurans, who have always aspired to go to the US and who may have relatives already there, but who lack the means to pay a smuggler, have eagerly joined in and, passing through Guatemala, have picked up other would-be migrants there. Some people may be fleeing gangs and domestic violence, but probably the majority are economic migrants.

That may be more than you need to know, but that’s the situation. Now, what should be done? Not a wall, but programs to help Central America develop local opportunities would be best. How about $5 billion for that instead of a wall?

There is another crisis in Central America that has not gotten much press, namely the ongoing uprising against Daniel Ortega which has now claimed more than 500 lives. An OAS body has been expelled. (Ortega has also been consistently accused of years of child rape by his stepdaughter Zoilamerica Narvaez, charges which he has vehemently denied.) Nicaragua has an electoral law, allowing the candidate with the most votes, not a majority, to win. After his defeat by Violeta in 1990 when the opposition united behind UNO (and when I served as an election observer there), Ortega ran twice again for president but lost. Then in 2006, he won with only about 37% of the vote. The opposition did not learn from the experience of UNO in 1990. Ortega changed the constitution so that he could run again, packed the courts, and now, in his 3^rd term, has named his wife as vice president. 

Nicaraguan friends have appealed to me to come back and help them once again while I am in Honduras. I will be traveling very close to the border, but hardly have the time and energy to take on that fight again. They did not earn the lesson of UNO, though admittedly, some folks were quite young in 1990. In any case, it would take an enormous organized and coordinated effort that I don’t have the energy to undertake now. Let others do it this time. Nor will I take on the Honduran establishment, preferring to focus on my very small, targeted medical brigade tasks where I can see the immediate result.

Senior Citizen, Shortest Day, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuban Doctors Stay in Brazil, Venezuela, Bhutan, Child Deaths at the Border, the Wall/Shutdown, Kilauea

Now when I ride the metro, people often offer me their seat, so I must have become a proverbial “little old lady,” a bit disconcerting, but I’m still glad to have a seat on a crowded train, one of the few perks of being a senior citizen. I spent the holidays with some of my family during the holidays, minus daughter Stephanie and her husband, living in Hawaii, who went on vacation to Vietnam.  

Talk about a senior citizen, a champion in that regard is Wanda Johnson, born in Egypt in 1915 and now celebrating her 104^th birthday in Vermont, where I first met her when I was a child.  I always send a basket of chewable goodies for her birthday to share with her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She is very fortunate at her age to have not lost any one of them.

We in the northern hemisphere have now passed the shortest day of the year, so thankfully daylight will lengthen from now on until June 21.

While every year, I do what I can in Honduras, it’s obviously a drop in the bucket, a grain of sand on the beach, as per this article. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/dec/25/16-stories-of-jesus-in-honduras

The death toll due to anti-government protests in Nicaragua was nearing 500 at last count, including children, though there have been few recent reports. OAS observers have been expelled from Nicaragua, but, otherwise, Nicaragua is not so much in the news these days. I still have many contacts there, asking for my help, but have not been able to go when I am in Honduras, as I have enough logistical problems already. And my Nicaraguan friends live near Managua, far from the border and have no vehicles available to pick me up. (I will be very close to the border in El Triunfo, Honduras.)

I did what I could for Nicaragua in the 1980's in Nicaraguan refugee camps in Honduras and in the 1990 election as an observer when the opposition to Daniel Ortega united as UNO around Violeta. Nicaraguans did not learn that lesson and let Ortega get his foot in the door once again

More than 800 Cuban doctors and medical workers sent to Brazil have remained in that country after the Brazilian president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro (now in office), signaled his refusal to pay the Cuban government for their services, causing them to be called home by the Cuban government. Some will now take their chances by remaining to work in Brazil and getting paid directly.  

Meanwhile Brazil and other South American nations are being flooded with Venezuelans (and also with Cubans able to get out but no longer welcome in the US), countries not well able to absorb an influx of refugees, yet proving more hospitable than our own country. In Brazil, Venezuelan refugees also experience language barriers. Portuguese and Spanish, especially in written form, have many similarities, but are not the same when spoken, as I have found working as an interpreter and being mistakenly assigned to Portuguese-speaking client (we’ve muddled through). I have also helped Venezuelans seeking asylum here in the DC area. The tragedy of Venezuela is completely unnecessary and could be reversed with a change leadership, an object lesson for us here in the US where matters are also going downhill because of the president’s bad judgment and repeated errors.  “We arrive sick and hungry”: Venezuelans in Brazil, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2018/dec/24/venezuelans-in-brazil-migrant-camps-in-pictures

Here’s a rare article about Bhutan shared with past and current Bhutan visitors.
https://correspondent.afp.com/phalluses-nightlife-and-other-bhutan-surprises

So many gun deaths occur daily in this country, mostly accidents, suicides, and domestic disputes. Criminal attacks or even mass shootings actually are the least of the casualties in terms of total numbers. A teen in an Atlanta suburb apparently accidentally killed his friend, then turned the gun on himself—a gun, no doubt, belonging to his parents, but too easily accessible. The parents may have thought that gun protected their family, but the opposite happened. A man fired into an Oklahoma Taco Bell because of getting the wrong sauce. A gun is lethal because of impulse and accident, only too common human attributes.

Five thousand US troops at the Mexico border to confront a ragtag group of Central American families, but 2,000 in Syria is too many? Two migrant children have died in immigration custody so far. Were they just depleted after their long trek and vulnerable to illnesses passed around in a closed setting?  Children do not belong in detention.

While the “adults” in the White House, albeit anonymously, had reassured the American public that they were controlling the worst impulses and temper tantrums of an erratic and childish president, now it seems that most of those adults are no longer around. So Trump listens to foreign leaders and talk show hosts instead. He seems blissfully unaware of his own intellectual deficiencies. He speaks without any program or practical specifics, calling people nasty names or targeting “fake news” without specifying just what those labels mean.

Trump has now become a national emergency! What about Ivanka and Jared, what about Kellyanne, can they have any moderating influence? Trump cannot fire his own daughter, but her positive influence seems to have been minimal so far. We are at a point where the president has run out of trustworthy advisers and the whole nation and the world are being subjected to his whims. The stock market is gyrating. World leaders are alarmed. The man is not a strategist, never was any sort of “deal-maker,” just a very flawed guy of below-average intelligence, puffed up now with the power of his office and running amok. If he were a fictional character, he would not be believable. Even when he had his TV “reality” show, the most he could do was to say was “You’re fired!” Hannity seems to have the most influence over Trump, first by urging the current shutdown, and now by urging him to prolong the shutdown over the wall at least until the end of the month.

Senator Chuck Schumer is right, Trump promised that Mexico would pay for his border wall, so what’s the problem? It’s not just the money, but adding substantially more walls and fences are a bad idea. We already have enough where they are needed. Maybe give Trump a really short wall that he pose in front of for a photo-op? Will spineless Republicans at last stand up against him?  Weren’t their mid-term losses in the House enough to convince them? With a few notable exceptions, such as Mitt Romney, the only Republicans apparently willing to speak out are those who have decided to quit. 

It’s somewhat encouraging to see Pence and Kushner leading the negotiations on the shutdown. Though we might not agree with them, they conduct themselves in a fairly normal fashion.

Also encouraging is that Chief Justice John Roberts has taken on the role of sometimes serving as the court’s “swing” vote and may Ruth Bader Ginsberg soon recover, though she is running on borrowed time.

Another, bigger migrant caravan is reportedly on its way from Honduras. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-california/sd-me-another-caravan-20181227-story.html
https://www.latimes.com/world/la-me-ln-new-migrant-caravan-20181227-story.html

This is not good news--Trump will double down on his border wall to keep them out instead of trying to implement programs to keep them at home. Mexicans are going to get tired of helping them. It's not as though Mexico can absorb large numbers. Too bad the Peace Corps left Honduras. Internal Honduran politics is involved here as well, since the migrant caravans there are reportedly being organized by folks associated with former president and now legislator Manuel Zelaya, once an ally of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. (Hondurans, like Americans, are politically divided.)

How did Trump get Mexico to agree to let US asylum seekers wait for their decisions on that side of the border? It’s a cumbersome and unprecedented system, but if it holds, Trump deserves some credit for pulling off that unlikely feat.

Is it only my wishful thinking, but is Trump losing some knee-jerk  support even among Republican voters and office holders? Republicans have already gotten much of what they wanted: massive tax cuts for corporations, judges including for the Supreme Court, deregulation, and ending environmental protections. Still remaining are abolishing Obamacare, which now seems a lost cause for Republicans, and the immigration problem, but maybe Trump is being recognized even there now as an obstacle even among Republicans? I’d like to see Democrats mount another female presidential candidate, not Hillary, who, however, who should be given a prominent role in the new administration, maybe as HHS Secretary? Will I live to see the day when the Democrats win back the presidency, despite the Republican advantage in the Electoral College? In hindsight, Hillary’s folks obviously did not pay enough attention to that.

Glad that Eleanor Holmes Norton has again introduced the DC statehood bill. Most Americans don’t realize that we don’t have Congressional representation. At least two states, Wyoming and Vermont, each with two senators and a representative, have fewer people than DC. Meanwhile a record number of Americans, especially young people, have moved out of the US since Trump’s presidency. 

An alert reader has kindly corrected my previous spelling of the name of the well-known volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island, Kilauea. Spell-check didn’t catch that. If lava is no longer flowing regularly along its well-worn path into the ocean, then perhaps the island’s biggest tourist attraction is no more. It was quite spectacular, especially at night. Now, I understand that there have been some smaller lava flows, but I’m not sure how close the public can get since they apparently occur sporadically and unpredictably.

            [If this last font comes out too small again, I cannot correct it.]