As volunteer Caribbean coordinator
for Amnesty International USA, I am asking everyone to join our worldwide tweet
action on May 7 on behalf of the rights of Cuban artists.
ALERT! Worldwide twitter action in
support of Cuban artists is scheduled for Tues.
May 7th, 2019, the anniversary
of the signature of Decree 349—our objective is to create a tweet storm with 250,000 tweets worldwide on that date. So,
try to tweet to artists who have multiple twitter followers and ask them to
retweet and please keep on retweeting yourself on that date.
Cuba – AI
Twitter Hackathon Tuesday 7th May 2019
Here are some images you may use or put yourself or a friend into the picture.
What the Twitter Hackathon is all about
On
Tuesday, 7th May
2019, during the Havana Biennale Art
Festival, we are asking you to take part in a Twitter Hackathon, to
raise awareness of a new law in Cuba which stands to censor artistic freedom.
Decree
349 was one of the first laws signed by
the new President, Miguel Díaz-Canel. It prohibits artistic expression which
the state decides is “obscene”, “vulgar”, or “harmful to ethical and cultural
values”. It forces artists, musicians, and performers to have prior approval
from the Ministry of Culture, and those working without it can have their
materials confiscated or suffer heavy fines. The Cuban authorities have argued
that Decree 349 aims to protect Cuban society from “mediocrity” and “banality”
in art. In reality, it aims to bring artistic expression in line with the
“cultural policy of the state”.
WHY A TWITTER HACKATHON?
In
2018, president Díaz-Canel and other high-ranking government officers launched
Twitter accounts and created the hashtag #SomosContinuidad (“We are
continuity”). Using a storm of tweets on May 7th, we expect to “hack” the
official hashtag by highlighting what that “continuity” really implies for
artists in terms of restrictions on freedom of expression and censorship.
WHAT IS OUR GOAL WITH THIS ACTION?
The
goal is to achieve trending levels on Twitter using the official hashtag to
communicate our messages. Therefore, all our posts must have the
#SomosContinuidad hashtag. We aim to have at least 2,500 tweets from our
entire movement and allies on the day of the hackathon.
HOW TO TAKE PART IN THE HACKATHON
1. On 7th May please tweet the suggested
messages which target the President and the Vice-Minister of Culture, Rafael
Fernando Rojas G. You can also include the images supplied, of Cuban artists
who are speaking out against the decree.
2. Upload
a photo of you and/or your colleagues or friends holding a sign with the
#SomosContinuidad and #NoToDecree349 hashtags, and use one of the suggested
messages in the tweet as well.
Suggested
messages:
The
leadership of #Cuba might have changed, but censorship of artists and
restrictions on artistic expression are still the norm. Is this what the
government of @DiazCanelB means by ‘continuity’? #SomosContinuidad
#NotoDecree349 #NoAlDecreto349
We show
our solidarity with all independent artists in #Cuba standing up for a space in
which they can work freely and without fear of reprisals! @DiazCanelB
@fernandorojas_6 #SomosContinuidad #NoToDecree349 #NoAlDecreto349
@DiazCanelB @fernandorojas_6 Artists
in #Cuba do not need to be protected from “mediocrity” and “banality”.
“Continuity” must not = censorship. They need free space to express themselves
without fear of reprisals! #SomosContinuidad #NoToDecree
Remembering Bill Jones
For those who couldn't make it, numerous Amnesty International USA current and former staff and volunteers attended a May 4 memorial service for our long-time intrepid and fiercely devoted Turkey co-group chair and all-around activist Bill Jones. The event was marked by unexpected drama when a guest fell ill and was escorted from the scene by emergency personnel.
Bill and I were age contemporaries who joined AI USA about the same time, though he may have joined a little before I did in 1981. He lived not far from my own Capitol Hill home and often generously offered to drive me to conferences after my own car had given out before I joined the Peace Corps in Honduras in 2000. On these road trips, we would compare notes of where we had both traveled, such as to Kenya or to the former Yugoslavia under Tito. I’ve lived in or visited over 45 countries and for Bill, it was about the same, but not always the same ones. I don’t recall him mentioning that he had been to Latin America, my own focus, and I have never visited Turkey, which, he lamented, was moving steadily away from democracy and human rights. Though we certainly will miss him, we were fortunate to have had his many years of service.
Last Saturday was Cinco de Mayo., celebrated with friends with Mexico ties.
Many apologies for odd spacing and jagged margins, very hard to correct.
Also, this is a very long blog posting, so please keep going to the end--lots has been happening.
Rioting
has broken out in Honduras over
plans to privatize portions of health and education services.
In
light of the news out of Honduras, I’m repeating the link to my recent article
on Honduran migration and my February visit there. https://democraciaparticipativa.net/forum/estados- unidos-y-canada-united-states-canada/10186-from-the-other- side-of-the-wall.html#10933
Japan’s
Emperor Akihito has abdicated. Years
ago, when I was a writer and editor for an occupational therapy magazine, OT Week, I covered a health-related
event which the Emperor and Empress attended. They were dressed in Western
clothes, not ceremonial robes. I remember wondering how I should greet them and
ended up making by an awkward bow. I exchanged a few words with them and, as I
recall, they understood and spoke some English. In any case, they seemed very
relaxed, acting like just plain folks mixing among ordinary people at that
gathering.
Former White House counsel Don McGahn comes off as an unsung hero
in the Mueller report, saving Donald
Trump from himself and saving the whole country and wider world from some of
Trump’s worst impulses. Fortunately for McGahn, he left the Trump
administration before the report came out. I wonder if Trump can block McGahn’s
testimony to Congress if he is no longer a White House employee? There seems to
be some hairsplitting in the analysis of the Mueller report, that Trump was not
actually exonerated, but was not proven to have committed a crime using the
usual standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” It’s not news when Trump tells a
bald-faced lie or contradicts himself. If he told the truth, we simply wouldn’t
believe it. (If he is really as blameless as he proclaims, he should welcome testimony
by his associates and employees.) Attorney General William Barr seems the perfect guy to defend Trump, someone willing
to manipulate and slant Mueller’s information without outright lying.
Since Trump is so outrageous and
unpredictable, he can actually be somewhat entertaining and he always keeps
himself in the news. But we need to put the well-being of the American people
and the world back on the agenda and stop the effects of the Trump administration’s
cruel and obstructionist and often impulsive actions. Trump allows himself to
be manipulated by those who flatter him.
If
this is a joke, it's not funny:
“Reuters added that, after the Jewish Passover festival, Netanyahu would ‘bring to the
government a resolution calling for a new community on the Golan Heights named after President Donald J. Trump.’" Was a
cartoon in the international edition of the NY
Times that resulted in firings really anti-Semitic? It reportedly showed
Trump being led by a leashed little dog called Netanyahu.
It’s hard to imagine how Trump
could finagle a second presidential term, but, of course, we never imagined even
his first term. Could lightning strike twice in the same place? Trump
supporters insist that he cannot possibly lose with the economy still heating
up, but do most would-be voters feel the burn? It’s amusing to see how on-line
requests for money from both parties and ads from all candidates have metastasized
using similar exaggerated emergency language. Mitch McConnell in his appeals warns that Democrats are out to get
him in his upcoming election. You’d better believe it! He has been Donald
Trump’s most effective and deviously evil henchman.
Around the world, voters seem to
want new faces, supporting even untried and quirky candidates. That was Donald
Trump’s appeal in 2016, but in 2020, he will be a really old face. Some folks
thrust into office with little or no prior experience prove able to rise to the
task, but Trump, after more than two years, is not among them. Some
commentators have speculated that Trump was constantly belittled by his
overbearing father, which warped his personality. If so, sorry for him and for
us. We are all paying the price.
Trump’s hardcore voters feel he
is still really one of them, someone who contradicts all those highfaluting
experts, a leader who loudly supports the simplistic notions that many of them
hold dear, such as that batting down the hatches, barricading against
outsiders, and putting up walls while arming themselves against the wider world
will make them safer. They seem relish his ability to lie without suffering any
consequences. These are the folks whom Hillary Clinton all-too-frankly
characterized as “deplorables.” Fortunately
for Trump, the economy and the stock market continue to hum along and to
survive any monkey wrenches he throws their way, such as tariffs and trade
wars.
Trump’s pals in Saudi Arabia executed 37 people in a single day, mostly Shia,
by beheading and one was crucified. No comment from Trump. The Saudis are also
continuing the carnage in Yemen. Mr. Trump vetoed a measure supported by both
parties to end US involvement in that conflict and has denied the role of the
crown prince in the Khashoggi murder. The Saudis were smart to have given Trump
an elaborate royal welcome early in his presidency, something which apparently
made a lasting impression on him.
There was a recent confrontation
between armed Mexican and American soldiers at the border, showing that Trump’s order to send troops to the border
may actually be increasing insecurity. Likewise, Trump’s messages about
criminals and drug dealers have emboldened an armed civilian militia in New
Mexico wearing fake badges to round up women and children crossing the border to
ask for asylum. Glad their leader has been arrested as an ex-felon not allowed
to have a firearm. (He was later attacked in jail: https://thehill.com/latino/440424-leader-of-militia-that-detained-migrants-attacked-in-jail-report)
Trump’s
threats on a border shutdown and cutting off aid seem only be spurring migrants
to move more quickly to cross the border. Demand for workers in the US is also
contributing. But even Mexico seems to be getting tired of the flow, beginning
with deporting Cubans and now starting to deport Hondurans. “Mexico deports Hondurans amid pressure to reduce migration” https://abcn.ws/2XPgu07
A
few Republican lawmakers are pushing
back against Trump’s plan to cut aid to Central America.
Riding atop freight trains to speed up the journey
has apparently begun again, a very dangerous strategey https://www.foxnews.com/world/
As mentioned in my
books, I’ve helped folks in Honduras get prosthetic limbs after falling off Mexican trains. Here is a young Honduran who lost both his right arm
Beside the risks of falling off Mexican trains, many migrants
get lost in southern US deserts where their bodies may be consumed by
scavenging animals and vultures and never found.
Cubans who somehow make it to Mexico,
probably with help from US relatives to get to a South American country first,
are finding a mixed welcome in Mexico and are often put into immigration detention
if they make it to the US, judging from the pleas for assistance I’ve received
in my volunteer role as Cuba coordinator for Amnesty Int’L USA. And because it
is apparently easier for Mexico to deport Cubans than other migrants, Cubans
seem to be disproportionately deported from Mexico. https://nypost.com/2019/05/04/thousands-of-cubans-are-risking-their-lives-to-flee-to-paradise-mexico/
Meanwhile,
government and business spokespersons in Vermont
have countered Trump’s claim that the US is “full” by saying “We
are not full.” So how about increasing
the number of visas allowing for legal entry instead of cutting them
back? Infrastructure spending, if it goes forward, will require more immigrant
labor.
According to Trump,
“The biggest loophole drawing illegal aliens to our borders is the use of
fraudulent or meritless asylum claims to gain entry into our great country.” This looks like Stephen Miller’s handiwork. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-working-stop-abuse-asylum-system-address-root-causes-border-crisis/
Probably
a bigger driver of the Central American exodus is something Trump denies,
namely climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/30/migrant-caravan-causes-climate-change-central-america
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/30/migrant-caravan-causes-climate-change-central-america
Pope
Francis
is taking an opposing stance toward migrants, donating $500,000 for those stranded
in Mexico - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48081483
After my return from the
Peace Corps, I used to interpret telephonically for asylum seekers at the border but never found out about their final
rulings. I gave up telephonic interpreting (as well as written translation)
because I found it unsatisfying and now limit myself to in-person
interpretation. I can only imagine that telephonic interpreters approved for
asylum interviews (US citizens who must go through a thorough background check)
are pretty swamped these days.
Recently, serving as
interpreter for a family receiving therapy for a premie-born infant, I was
amused to see the 2-year-old mimicking the therapist’s moves with her baby
brother with her own doll, perhaps a future therapist?
Talk about adding insult
to injury, in Cuba, Aymara
Nieto, one of the Ladies
in White who file out of mass every Sunday carrying white lilies, has been
arrested and sentenced to 4 years in prison, with an added fine for damaging
the uniform of an arresting officer. Four other members of the group were
arrested along with her.
Though the effort may
have stalled let’s hope that Maduro gets
toppled in Venezuela. His regime has
lasted way too long. He is as ruthless as Chavez,
but not as smart or as lucky with the price of oil. I’ve helped Venezuelan
asylum seekers here, going back to Chavez’s time. It would also be a big help
to the people of Cuba if Maduro were
gone. He is now being guided by Cuban agents and military advisers, as well as
by Russians, while the Chinese seem to be offering Maduro less vigorous support
and to be ready to work with either side. Venezuela is one place where I don’t
oppose the Trump administration’s tactics so far, supporting Guaidó but no direct US military intervention. It may not be enough, as
Venezuelans are weary and hungry and not energized and most of the military, so
far, is hanging tight. It would a huge relief for the Venezuelan people, as
well as for their neighbors swamped with refugees, to have Maduro gone and
would also give new hope to the Cuban people, who have suffered under a much
longer and harsher dictatorship in an island nation from which escape is much
more difficult. Maduro and the Cuban regime are fighting for their lives,
taking out all the stops, but the only way the tide will turn is if the
Venezuela military does so. So far, Maduro’s tactics of impeding communication
among Venezuelan military commanders have prevented most of them from acting
together to go over to Guaido’s side. That John
Bolton, former Reagan and G W Bush advisor is guiding US policy regarding
Venezuela does not provide much confidence.
After
my mission to South Sudan in 2006 please
share my disappointment after so many decades of civil war between north and south
at seeing that only a fragile and imperfect peace prevails in the newly independent
south. Reports to Amnesty International are that it is likely that in Jan. 2017,
South Sudan’s security forces executed human rights and opposition activists Doug Samuel Luak and Aggrey Idri.
Though
I am not particularly thrilled with Joe
Biden’s presidential bid for a variety
of reasons, he might actually be the most effective candidate against Trump
because of his cross-over appeal. Maybe he can actually pull it off by winning
over some Trump voters. He seems to have eclipsed Bernie Sanders so far. He has also wasted no time in joining all
the other would-be presidential candidates in asking for money on-line, a
common, very cost-effective means of appeal that may yield some return. Many of
us, myself included, will vote for Biden if he runs against Trump. We would
vote for almost anyone running against him. The Donald calling Joe Biden’s
intelligence into question is pretty ironic. Look who’s talking! And if Biden
manages to get Stacey Abrams on his
ticket (so far, she has denied any such intention), then he would have a
winning combination.
Now it looks like school threats are expanding to those
made by girls as well as boys,
potentially doubling the potential danger, since many are copycat plots
dispersed by the web.
And more young kids age 12 and under are getting ahold of parents’ firearms
and deliberately murdering a sibling or someone they don’t like. Do parents
really think having guns in their homes makes their families safer?
Good that six states have converted Columbus Day into Indigenous
Peoples Day, so far, Alaska, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota,
and Vermont. DC needs to follow suit.
Medicare-for-All would
bring our health care system more in line with that of other developed nations
and help control costs, but the beneficiaries of the current system would all
unite against it. Not only would insurers and drug companies lose out, but
every profession has its lobbyists who work relentlessly to keep reimbursement
high for their own members, considerably higher than in other countries. During
my 16 years at the occupational therapy association, I saw those efforts play
out there and witnessed Canadian OTs coming across the border to earn much
higher salaries here. Most health professions have somewhat reluctantly agreed
to Medicare for seniors because they can still get higher reimbursement for
other patients or from seniors’ supplemental plans.
I’ve chosen a Kaiser health plan myself to reduce
incentives to provide more care than is actually needed. Kaiser also has
instituted other cost-saving measures, some appearing overly impersonal, like
communicating mainly via e-mail and ordering Rx renewals on-line. But most of
us don’t need to have doctors holding our hands. If office encounters are
needed, Kaiser will provide them.
On the subject of health, folks of a certain age like me did not
have childhood inoculations. Instead, we actually contracted measles, chickenpox, and mumps, and my
younger sister who had whooping cough as a baby was held up-side-down by our
mother to drain as she coughed. I remember quarantine notices being put up on
our windows warning others to stay away while we were sick. Amid the measles outbreak,
adults who may have been vaccinated as children may need to be revaccinated.
But folks like me who actually came down with measles should be immune.
On the 100th anniversary
of the Bauhaus, a new book has come
out, The Man Who Built the Bauhaus, by Fiona MacCarthy. This
book describes the Lincoln, Mass. house where my family often visited Bauhaus
founder Walter Gropius and his
second wife Ise when we were kids. We
enjoyed running around outside in the woods overlooked by the home’s large
windows. It was a pioneering modern house built in the 1930’s after the couple
had fled from Nazi Germany. MacCarthy’s book also talks about the Architects
Collaborative in Cambridge, Mass., where our Dad and my architect brother worked
and the Six Moon Hill community in Lexington, where we spent several carefree childhood
years. In my own Confessions book, I mention having known
Gropius and having greeted his widow Ise in a chance encounter at a DC
restaurant after his death.
Even if Boeing fixes problems with the 737
Max, passengers may reject flying on it. Cutting corners on safety and
testing may eventually prove catastrophic for the company, one of Trump’s
favorites. And government oversight is not mere “red tape.”
Life continues to be a
series of wins and losses. Great wealth and privilege cannot protect against
even some fatal risks. A spokesman for Anders
Holch Povlsen, a Danish billionaire, confirmed that three of his four
children were among the hundreds killed in horrendous apparent terrorist explosions
in Sri Lanka, an island nation that
had remained fairly peaceful for the last decade. Who would have expected
terrorism to erupt there now?
Supporters of the Sri Lankan
bombers say it was revenge against Christians for the mosque bombings in New
Zealand. Now there has been another synagogue shooting near San Diego; is that copycat or revenge? Also,
that same suspect is suspected of setting a fire at a mosque. We are losing
track of possible connections and motivations here, but it does seem that
violence inspires more violence and that having more guns available is not
protective. In Tennessee, a suspect
was recently caught after he had killed 7 people, not all by gunshot. Then
there was a fatal college shooting in North
Carolina. We are getting numb and fatalistic about such common events. The
leadership shake-up and other problems of the NRA can only benefit the rest of us. Is it irony or bias that one
of the first times a police officer is
found guilty of shooting and killing a civilian that the officer is a black
man and the victim a white woman?
Those terrible evens have also caused
me to reflect once again that celebrity, federal protection, and upright
behavior provided no guarantees against family tragedy for former President Jimmy Carter. Even as I have continued
to mourn the deaths of my older son Andrew
and Cuban foster son Alex, I’ve noted
previously that Carter shares a similar loss, namely that of his 28-year-old
grandson Jeremy in 2015. (My Andrew died
at age 27 in 1994; Alex at 31 in
1995.)
As a former president, Carter had
lifelong Secret Service protection and enjoyed much admiration around the world
for his selfless post-presidential humanitarian efforts. But he was unable to save
his own grandson. I therefore have felt a certain affinity with Carter, especially
after having met and spoken with him on occasion (even in Spanish, which he
speaks with a Georgia twang), someone who’d probably still remember me and who
has a copy of my Honduras book in
his foundation’s library. He appears in a photo with my family in both my books
and also with me in my Confessions book,
when we were election observers together in Nicaragua in 1990.
Most of us try to protect the
lives of our children, grandchildren, and families at all costs and we should
continue to take all necessary precautions. Yet, we may still fall short. No
doubt Carter, having miraculously survived an aggressive form of cancer when he
was already past 90, would gladly have traded places with his grandson, as I
certainly would have with my son, whose gravestone is visible from my back
porch, not that I need any reminder of losing him. I pray that in my lifetime,
I will never again lose a younger family member—I’ve already paid my dues in
that regard. The death of my son and, the following year, of my foster son, as
recounted in my books, have been the worst losses of my long life. “Well,” as a
friend once observed, “That’s not all. You’ve also been divorced by your
husband after 24 years of marriage.” Yes, that was pretty hard, but nothing
compared to a child’s death, even if that child had become an adult.
My young family member losses
are never far from the surface and something I would not wish on my worst
enemy. The potency of such deaths derives from an instinctual faith that
younger people will carry on when we ourselves are gone. When I hear of other people
losing their offspring, as just now in Sri Lanka, I do grieve for them. My own losses
have made me more appreciative and protective of my kids and grandkids, while realizing
that I have no supernatural powers to guarantee their safety from harm or even
death. Nevertheless, such tragedies have given me an appreciation of daily life
and inoculated me against more ordinary concerns related to money, appearance, my
own health, speaking in public or on the radio, lost friendships and lovers,
and the risks of traveling alone around Honduras or even walking alone from the
metro at night in my Capitol Hill neighborhood, not that all normal prudence
should be thrown to the winds. And I am also again reminded that Jimmy Carter,
the only US president that I’ve had the privilege of knowing personally, has shared
a similar loss of a younger family member, something that he was unable to
prevent with all the options and advantages at his disposal. The same has now
happened to star-crossed Danish billionaire Anders
Holch Povlsen. There are simply some obstacles and calamities that cannot be
overcome. Death is an equal opportunity affliction.
Here below is a photo of my son
Andrew, taken only days before his injury and death, squatting down to tend a
bar-b-que grill, and one of Alex, who died of AIDs, shown here after dressing up
our dog Claire, and also a photo of my family with President Carter in 1979 during
his presidency.
Best Mother’s Day wishes on May 12.
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