A
man who had been visiting me from Nigeria
a couple of years ago called on Eid, quite a nice surprise I usually don’t
answer unfamiliar numbers, but this time, glad I did.
My late father, US Army
Col. Leonard Currie, though born in Alberta,
Canada, had become a US citizen and was in Normandy
on D-Day.
My 11-year-old great-grandson De’Andre is
visiting the DC area
from Florida for the summer.
My visitor from Bhutan and
his colleague, who is staying with a friend nearby, participated in a
Cultural Day at GAO, where they are taking a course. GAO fellows from
various countries participated which showcased scenes, food, and artifacts from
each home country.
Waiting in line at
the Post Office, I talked with a young mother who looked Hispanic and admired
her new baby girl. But like too many mothers in Honduras, her baby's hands were covered by mittens. I
didn’t know such baby mittens were still being made and were available in the
US, ostensibly used to keep newborns from scratching their faces. (It is sometimes hard to trim tiny
fingernails.) I used to try to dissuade Honduran mothers from using them; they
considered babies sucking on their fingers unsanitary and bad for their future teeth.
Sucking fingers is normal and instinctive for babies! But I hesitated to offer
advice there in PO as the poor child sucked on one of the mittens.
Working recently as
an interpreter at a DC public school
that shall remain nameless, I saw a hall bulletin board featuring photos of prominent people, including the Obamas and
Hillary Clinton, but not Donald J. Trump! At that same school, I learned
that cursive writing is no longer
taught. Why bother when communication is electronic and letters appear only in
print? Some folks may remember, as I do, practicing writing each cursive letter,
upper and lower case. And will our grandchildren be able to read letters,
documents, and diaries that we and historical figures have written in cursive? Signatures
are usually done in cursive, though many people now just scribble something unintelligible.
Previously
on these pages, I questioned whether overwork was really responsible for the 2018
suicide, at age 65, of Amnesty International’s West Africa Researcher, Gaëtan Mootoo, as per his suicide note,
prompting a large financial settlement for his family? I speculated that there
may have been other factors, maybe health, relationship, or personal problems, since
he could have simply resigned or retired, or insisted on getting more help.
However, a Mexican lawyer involved in human rights work made a convincing case
that compassion fatigue is real and can actually drive someone over the
edge. Dealing with human problems and suffering day after day can become
overwhelming and seriously depressing because of inability to make any major inroads.
She considered the Mootoo suicide quite understandable in light of the
pressures of human rights work and the settlement, fully justified.
I
still think that staff suicides at AI are not fully attributable to the work
culture, but am willing to acknowledge that the sheer pressure of human rights work
and the constant exposure to human traumas and suffering could push a
sensitive person over the edge. So now I must admit that the work could actually
be a major factor in suicides, with that work being even more thankless for
unpaid volunteers like me who get little acknowledgement.
I do appreciate The Economist’s frank discussion of
compassion fatigue at AI, but must express my annoyance that an otherwise
impeccable publication, insists on changing US book titles and formal
institutional names to British spelling, as in the case in the reference in the
AI article to a Harvard-published book, rendered as "The Fearless Organisation."
I looked up that book on Amazon, and the title is shown with a z. I've
even seen The Economist do that in letters-to-the-editor from the US. But
American publications don't change the spelling of British book titles or
institutions; we don’t write about the “Labor Party.” I wonder if each issue of
the magazine is subjected to spell-check before it goes to print, which
automatically converts American spellings?
It looks like Mr.
Trump is hell-bent on ruining the usual non-political, nationally unifying July 4th celebration by changing its location
and featuring himself as the main speaker, positioning himself at the Lincoln
Memorial, perhaps hoping that Lincoln’s reputation will rub off on him. The
optics may play well with Fox News
and its viewers, but I predict that attendance will be smaller than normal and
marred by demonstrations. The Trump Baby blimp is already being readied. I certainly
do not plan to attend the fireworks this year.
If Trump got 5% of the DC vote, that's an overestimate. He is
totally reviled by DC citizens, so security for his July 4th appearance,
if goes ahead (plans have yet to be presented), will be a nightmare. Of
course, Trump will say he got the biggest crowd ever to hear his speech, just like
the crowd that attended his inauguration. He claims to be "your favorite
president." When he loses in 2020 (we simply cannot have another fluke
like 2016!), he can always say it's fraud, fake news, illegals voting, or
whatever. "This too shall pass" does give some comfort, but is harder
to invoke when our life horizon as seniors is somewhat limited. We'd like to
survive long enough to see it actually happen!
This is my reply to a friend favoring a
Biden/Booker Democratic ticket: I'm not
crazy about Biden. He was not helpful on our Amnesty Caribbean issues when he
was veep and we’d asked him when he visited certain countries to put in a word--at
least, he did not do so publicly and never got back to us. But I would
certainly vote for him over Trump and he would probably have the best chance to
appeal to moderate voters, so, yes, I’d vote for him, but would like him to have
a female running mate. Booker is a very smart guy--if Biden gets the nomination
and chooses him, that would fine. Of course, there are many like me who would
vote for anyone over
Trump, which is one reason so many people are running, hoping to be "the one."
But Biden, for all his missteps, probably still has the best chance of both
getting the nomination and winning the presidency, Electoral College or no.
Several states are making sure all their
Electoral College votes go the winning candidate--they have learned a lesson
from 2016!
Trump’s travel ban
affects Cubans trying to make it in the private sector and also is annoying to cruise
ship passengers rerouted to other destinations: Cubans Pay for Trump’s Travel Ban, Wall St. Journal, June 7, 2019
Would-be American visitors to Cuba should complain to Trump and to
the White House, not that Trump would care, except maybe if they say they won't
vote for him in 2020. It's a mistake to cut off American visitors to Cuba,
because now, after the death of Fidel and the reduction in Venezuelan oil
shipments, ordinary citizens’ support for the government is shakier than ever. Being
able to meet and serve even non-Spanish speaking tourists would help undermine
the regime, especially if such services are offered by folks in the small, struggling
private sector.
It has become apparent that sex abuse is not confined to the
Catholic church, as Baptists are now grappling with the same issue. And so are
sports, colleges, Hollywood, government at all levels, international bodies,
other countries, in short, it seems it be a worldwide problem. Why is it so
widespread, universal really? It’s due, I believe, to a combination of culture,
testosterone effects, power dynamics, physical strength and force, and economics—exacerbated
by sheer inertia, shame, and fear on the part of victims. Women sexual predators
are much rarer, often teachers of young male students or another woman in a
position of authority. Now the Me-Too movement is confronting sex abuse and we’ll
see where that leads.
As for the abortion
debate, especially regarding early abortions, which admittedly are the majority,
I think pro-life folks should largely give up the fight, since medication
abortions cannot be controlled as a practical matter. Instead, they would do well
to focus instead on second and third trimester abortions, where Roe was more equivocal
and where public opinion might favor their arguments. I’ve already mentioned
having seen children born after 25 and 26 weeks gestation who are functioning
and personable, perhaps with some delays. A baby born after 23 weeks just went
home, admittedly after much special treatment. I do think abortions in the 2nd
and 3rd trimesters should be quite limited and perhaps be called euthanasia
if deemed necessary because of a serious fetal defect. They should not be
performed then just because a woman had failed to notice she was pregnant and doesn’t
want a child.
It also must be acknowledged
that there may be as many or more early miscarriages at the same stage of
gestation as an early abortion, a loss certainly, but not regarded as such a
terrible loss, especially if the woman gets pregnant again, although that will produce
a new and completely different individual. (We are getting into philosophical
weeds here.) Some women who have lost a pregnancy through either miscarriage or
abortion, go on to have subsequent children who might not have been born if the
earlier pregnancy had resulted in a birth. Each of us owes our existence to the
unique and chance uniting of a particular sperm and ovum. It’s the same ovum
(or sometimes ova) throughout a female cycle, but sperm comes in multiples and
if a different sperm had united with the ovum, a different individual, maybe of
the other gender, would have been produced, not me or thee. And feelings about
miscarriage in early pregnancy do vary widely. A woman at a session of a
bereavement support group I attended after my son had died lamented the death,
by name, of her 4-month-old son. We all sympathized, as she was very outspoken about
grieving the loss of her only child. Only later did I learn that her “son” was
a 4-month fetus and she had had no other children. So, different strokes for
different folks.
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