Report from a Reader, Ash Wed., Disabled Student, Grant to IHS, Honduras Bound, Homicide Rates, State-of-the-Union, Lady Bug, Lady Bug, Benedict’s Resignation, Drones, Violence Against Women Act Renewed, Amnesty Urgent Action for Honduran for LGBT Activist

First, one photo is of my daughter Melanie and great-grandson De’Andre, age 5, who visited me recently. The other two photos are of my biologist daughter Stephanie in Hawaii, one showing her with husband Paul sampling insects, the other of her teaching entomology to kids.

Heard from a reader inspired by my book, a 63-year-old woman now in the Peace Corps in Thailand and having a slew of adventures. She should write her own book!

On Ash Wednesday, Episcopal priests here in DC went to metro stations to place ashes on the foreheads of commuters. Go where people are rather than requiring them to come to church on a Wed. morning.

At an interpretation on Valentine’s Day, the lawyer-advocate accompanying the student’s mother had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras part of the time that I was there and she recognized me before I recognized her! She said, "Barbara Joe, you were with me in the Peace Corps in Honduras--you were a legend!" The latter is a slight exaggeration, but her face was familiar although I didn't recall her name. Then one of the school reps at the meeting said she had been a PC volunteer in neighboring El Salvador. Quite a coincidence that there were 3 former PC volunteers in one DC school meeting, as I had never run into any before. Of course, we had to get on with the meeting and so had to wait to compare notes until it was over. Small world.

Another recent interpretation assignment concerned the educational plan for a profoundly disabled girl of 19, whose mother is Panamanian, not a nationality that emigrates much, since the standard of living there is relatively high. The girl will be allowed to remain in DC public schools through the age of 21, after which she will have to go to a day program or sheltered workshop, though exactly what job she might do in a workshop is hard to imagine. She now attends a special school for disabled kids, all with evident physical and mental challenges. There are 7 students in her classroom attended by 4 adults. Smiling, well dressed, and nicely groomed, she uses a wheelchair, has only limited use of her hands, cannot talk but makes vocalizations, and is able to eat finger foods independently. The school put her academic development age at only one month! However, since she is able to feed herself to an extent, that’s certainly beyond what a one-month-old baby can do. The mother is single and works cleaning houses when she can, this being her only child. She says the girl keeps her awake most nights by calling out something that sounds like “Mama.” The court appointed an attorney to be co-guardian of the girl and that attorney, by happenstance, is also Panamanian, a lucky break for the mother, who needed a lucky break.

While returning from the metro station after this assignment, I encountered a street-corner vendor of a bimonthly newspaper published by homeless people called Street Sense. The paper’s suggested price was recently raised from $1 to $2, most of it going to the vendor. This vendor, wearing a red and white stovepipe hat like Dr. Seuss’s Cat-in-the-Hat, told me he recently obtained custody of his two teenage daughters and has found a place to live, though he’s still eligible to sell the paper. Indeed, in the issue he was selling featured an article and photos about him and his daughters in their new apartment. I gave him my hearty congratulations.

One of three small non-profits on whose boards I serve is folding up its tent. Called ACT, Action for Community Transformation, it started in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch in 1998, but I didn’t join the board until after my return to DC from the Peace Corps in 2004. Later, we branched out to Kenya at the founder and director’s request. We did most of the work ourselves as volunteers with a little clerical assistance. Now the director, in her 80s, is ready to give it up. Most of our leftover funds are going to Kenya, where we have worked most recently, but I made a case for devoting something to Honduras, where we had started out. And so, $10,000 was given to International Health Services of Minnesota, which organizes the all-volunteer medical brigades in which I participate yearly near la Esperanza.

Countdown to my Honduras departure, my 9th return trip since leaving the Peace Corps. It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle trying to map out my trajectory. I’m excited and also a little nervous, as logistics are always tricky and the chances of getting robbed or hit by a stray bullet are always present, as per item below.

OK, folks, I've had various discussions of comparative murder rates in Honduras, the US, Mexico, and Canada with some of you in the past or more recently, so here, below, is the scoop according to my most recent research (thanks to Google). So, stay out of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, that's for sure and the whole Honduras north coast is very dangerous. About 2000, a young American man associated with the local organization here in DC on whose board I served until it shut down just now, as referred to above, had begun working with education and youth in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch, and was murdered in Tela on the north coast. When I was in the Peace Corps in Honduras from 2000-2003, we were forbidden to go to San Pedro Sula. Of course, the Peace Corps left Honduras after 50 years in January 2011 because of security incidents and concerns. I'm invited to a celebratory dinner in La Ceiba on the north coast on Feb 28, during my upcoming trip to Honduras. La Ceiba is not exactly a safe place and I’m debating how to get there and whether to attend.

So, its not exactly news, but an article in the Spanish-language version of the Miami Herald (Jan. 27. 2013) reports that Honduras is the most violent country in Central America (and the world?), with 20,573 violent deaths in the capital Tegucigalpa in the last three years. In Honduras, the homicide rate is 85.5 per 100,000, with more than 7,000 murders per year in a country of 8 million. Neighboring Nicaragua, also a drug route, has a murder rate of “only” 12 per 100,000. New York City, with an equivalent or slightly larger population than Honduras, had 400 murders in 2012, or a rate of 3.8 per 100,000. DC, once known as “the murder capital” had 88 in 2012, for a population of about 630,000, or about 7 homicides per 100,000, admittedly the lowest rate in a while. The number of homicides in Washington peaked in 1991 at 479, when the population was a little smaller, about 607,000, and the racial composition was “blacker,” making DC the "murder capital" of the United States. In Miami, it’s slightly over 7 per 100,000, about the same as DC now, but twice the rate of New York. The new murder capital of the world is San Pedro Sula, Honduras, with 1,143 homicides recorded in 2011, bringing their murder rate to 159 per 100,000. Juarez, Mexico, was not far behind, with a murder rate of 148 per 100,000. Acapulco and Durango are also very dangerous. In Mexico, the rate has risen under Calderon, but still is “only” 24 per 100,000 overall, less than one-third the rate of Honduras. Other very dangerous cities are Caracas, Venezuela, and several in Brazil. In Toronto, the rate is closer to 2 per 100,000, in St. John 2.7, and for all of Canada only 1.7 in 2011. In 2011, the overall US rate was 4.8 per 100,000. In Florida, it was a little over 5 in 2011. So Honduras at 85.5 per 100,000 is way over the top.

Recently, one hundred Cuban rafters arrived in Honduras, while in Ecuador, 25 Cubans were deported. Meanwhile, in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, touted to be the most violent city in earth (as Peace Corps volunteers in my time, we were forbidden to go there), a World Cup soccer qualifying game was held between the United States and Honduras which the home team on.

I’m glad to see that General Efrain Rios Montt is finally being tried for his human rights crimes perpetrated under his command in Guatemala in the early 1980s. Memories often fade with time and witnesses die, but it’s not yet too late to bring Rios Montt to justice. Better late than never.

What a difference an election makes. Now, every state and even Republicans are falling all over themselves to create college “dream acts” and become accommodating to undocumented immigrants. Not only has the message of Hispanic voting power sunk in, but businesses and the general population are realizing that we need immigrants to fill all sorts of jobs, something I’ve been saying all along. A few diehards may still resist the idea, but as the Tea Party fades, many are jumping off that bandwagon. Marco Rubio may be a tried and true conservative in many ways (certainly on Cuba), but he read this one right and tried in vain to get the Republican Party to yield on immigration. And I would hope that while immigration policy is being reformed that procedures will be simplified. One reason that it takes so many years for those “waiting their turn” to actually get here is the many complicated requirements they have t comply with. People have died waiting.

Immigration reform may be the only issue that Democrats and Republicans will be willing to work on together. The March 1 sequester seems a tug-of-war between the parties, especially where House Republicans are concerned. I am of the school that believes that drastic federal budget cuts will prove a further damper on the economy and that infusing money, even federal money, tends to lift all boats. The problem is that once the government funds something, a constituency is created and it’s very hard to get rid of it later on if that is desired. New programs, like Obama’s call for universal preschool in his state-of-the-union address, would be nice, but it’s hard to believe that particular initiative will fly in the current political and fiscal atmosphere. What Obama calls “investment,” the other side calls “government spending” and “deficit.” Maybe he just put that out there to give Republicans something to have the satisfaction of shooting down. In terms of budget cutting, I think the best we can hope for is freezing expenditures at current levels, not adding anything new. Raising the minimum wage while the nation is still in recession will also be controversial .

As per an item in the Wall St. Journal (“Brazil Nightclub Blaze Kills More Than 200,” Jan. 28, 2013) pyrotechnics or fireworks set off inside nightclubs have been the trigger for a series of fires around the world that have ended in mass casualties, as occurred recently in Brazil. Perhaps there are fairly numerous instances of such shows where fires do not happen, but there have been a sufficient number resulting in mass deaths to warrant prohibition of such displays.

Former Mayor Ed Koch, who just passed away at age 88, was in Nicaragua in 1990 as an election observer there, as was I. He was effusively friendly to me, hugged me, remembered my name after the first time we were introduced (a good skill for politician to have), and I even have a photo taken with him there, but it’s a slide and I’m not sure how to copy a slide and post it here. In any case, you will believe me, I’m sure. He was certainly a larger than life figure in person as well as by reputation.

A very odd recent experience: while clicking away on my computer, suddenly, a cute spotted Lady Bug started crawling on my finger. How had it gotten inside my third-floor office on a winter’s day? Where do Lady Bugs go in winter? I opened a window and let it fly out on a sunny morning with temps in the 40s, so it probably survived. Meanwhile states further north were digging out of the huge snowstorm that missed us entirely. In fact, so far, in Washington, DC, our cumulative snow total for the entire winter has been less than an inch from two dustings that melted immediately. However, a heavy snowfall could still materialize; if so, let’s hope after my departure for Honduras.

What a surprise that Pope Benedict, at age 85, is resigning! While he is certainly at an age when a person deserves to retire and when most people’s faculties are failing, I never knew a pope could resign. I thought he had to die with his boots on, or in Benedict’s case, with his red Prada slippers on. You have to wonder if he just discovered that he has a fatal illness. I once met Pope John Paul II, as my book readers know, but I was never moved to want to meet Benedict nor attend the outdoor Mass that he celebrated at the stadium in walking distance from my house. Yet, I think he has set a good precedent in resigning when he feels no longer capable, though I feel that he has stacked the College of Cardinals with likeminded conservatives. I was one of the fans of the short-lived Pope John XXIII. If the new pope is to selected from the “global south,” why not Honduras’s Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez?

Drones are a new type of warfare or an assassination tool to take a designated enemy out without trial, and also those unlucky enough to be near him at the time. It’s less damaging than a shooting or bombing war, which is also indiscriminate. However, it’s a technology that is a two-edged sword that could also be used against our country.

Glad that the Violence Against Women Act was renewed without major partisan controversy.

For readers who have stuck with me reading this and other postings all the way through, I admit to being all over the map, a reflection of my modus oprandi in real life. I rarely try to prioritize; I want to do it all. And I need to make more frequent and shorter postings, though you won’t asee anything again here at least until sometime in March.

Finally, below is an Amnesty International Urgent Action on behalf of an LGBT activist in Honduras.



UA: 30/13

Issue Date: 7 February 2013

Country: Honduras



HONDURAN ACTIVIST RECEIVES DEATH THREAT

On 22 January, Honduran lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights activist Patricio Vindel, received a death threat. His life is at risk.

Patricio Vindel is the executive director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organization OPROUCE – La Ceiba’s Pro-Union Organization (Organizacion Pro-Union Ceibena) – in northern Honduras. The group works on HIV prevention and raises awareness about human rights of the local LGBT community.

On 22 January, the staff of OPROUCE were away from the office for a workshop. While the office was empty, unknown individuals broke into the yard outside the office and spray painted a message on the wall saying "Patricio you’re going to die" ("Patricio vas a morir").

Patricio Vindel immediately reported the incident to the Human Rights Ombudsman (National Human Rights Commission, Comisionado Nacional de Derechos Humanos CONADEH) and the police. The police visited OPROUCE’s office during the afternoon of the same day and took evidence. On 21 January, a suspicious vehicle without a licence plate was seen passing by the office several times throughout the afternoon.

Prior to this incident, during August through to October 2012, Patricio Vindel received several threatening text messages. In these messages, the sender made reference to Patricio Vindel’s sexual orientation in a derogatory manner, and said that they knew where he lived and that someone would be sent to kill him.

Please write immediately in Spanish or your own language:

-Calling for an independent, thorough and impartial investigation into the threat made against Patricio Vindel, with the results made public and those responsible brought to justice;

-Urging the authorities to take immediate steps to fully provide appropriate protection to Patricio Vindel in accordance with his wishes;

-Reminding them that human rights defenders have a right to carry out their activities without any unfair restrictions or fear of reprisals, as set out in the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 21 MARCH 2013 TO:

Attorney General
Sr. Luis Alberto Rubi
Fiscal General de la Republica
Lomas del Guijarro, Avenida República Dominicana, Edificio Lomas Plaza II
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Fax: 011504 2221 5667

Salutation: Sr. Fiscal General/Dear Attorney General
Minister of Interior
Sr. Pompeyo Bonilla
Secretaría de Estado en el Despacho de Seguridad, Plantel Casamata, subida al Picacho,
Tegucigalpa, Honduras Fax: 011 504 2220 1756

Salutation: Dear Minister/Estimado Sr. Ministro



Copies to:

OPROUCE
Organización Pro-Union Ceibena

Email: oprouce_org.yahoo.com



Ambassador
Jorge Ramon Hernandez Alcerro
Embassy of Honduras
3007 Tilden St. NW Suite 4M
Washington DC 20008

Tel: 1 202 966 7702; 1 202 966 2604
Fax: 1 202 966 9751

Email: dtrejo@hondurasemb.org; embassy@hondurasemb.org

Snow! Obama’s Second Inauguration, Honduras Trip, Cholera in Cuba, Hugo Chavez, Clean Energy, Russian Adoption Ban, Hilary Clinton, Mental Health First Aid, Interpretation Gigs, Field of Dreams, Spanking

Here in DC, it turned cold on Tues. and this morning, when I went out at 6:30am today for a school interpretation, it was snowing! Nonetheless, I got to the school before 8 am just in time to meet a mother from Honduras (!) and her daughter while we waited for the teachers she was meeting to arrive. When we left the school at 10 am, the snow was already melting, but it was exciting while it lasted. Maybe an inch fell, max. So much for global warming!

Lots of symbolism when President Obama’s second inauguration coincided on January 21 with Martin Luther King Day. I had gone down to the mall 4 years ago, located at walking distance from our house, when my daughter Stephanie came out from Hawaii to witness the events. It was a cold day then, in the 20s, with people packed in so tightly we couldn’t even move our feet. It reminded me of being at one of President Carter’s inaugural balls, where dancing was completely out of the question. I was glad to have gone to hear Obama’s first inaugural address in person, but was hardly eager to repeat the experience. The day before this year’s event, several of us who had gone in 2009 met for a commemorative brunch at a local eatery. One friend at the brunch admitted that standing so long out in the cold on that historic day 4 years ago, he had tried in vain to make his way through the dense crowd to one of the port-a-potties set up around the mall, finally giving up and wetting his pants. This year, there was a little sunshine and temperatures near 40, and a smaller crowd, “only” an estimated 700,000 rather the record-breaking 1.8 million in 2009. I’m always fearful when Obama gets out to walk along the parade route because with all those people gathered and the existence of so many fierce, gun-totting types, surely his secret service might not be able to prevent some very determined guy from taking a shot at him. I remember President Kennedy insisting on riding in an open car in Dallas. But Obama got out to walk today without incident. I’m glad now, finally, that Obama has put our DC “taxation without representation” license plate on his car. Most other citizens take their congressional and senate reps for granted, not realizing that we in DC are more populous than at least one other state, Cheney’s Wyoming, and close in size to small population states like Alaska and Delaware. DC has a growing population, unlike that of other eastern cities.

Lyndon Johnson apparently had the next largest inaugural crowd after Obama, 1.2 million in 1965. Bill Clinton got 800,000 in 1993 and GW Bush 400,000 in 2005. Bush had a substantially smaller crowd in 2001, but the count was confounded by the turnout of a record number of protestors, many of whom were arrested.

Just got a surprise e-mail message from a former Honduras PC colleague with whom I haven’t been in contact since 2002: I served with you in the Sur V group, and Will Carter alerted me to the existence of your book. I read it, and it was fantastic. It took me right back in a very vivid way. Thanks for such a good book. I keep telling my wife that we're going to do the Peace Corps after we retire ... she seems a little reluctant, but I have about 20 years to convince her!

Now, it’s official; I will be leaving in mid-Feb. for Honduras once again, my 9th return trip there since my departure from the Peace Corps. I’ll be as careful as I can--travel is always a challenge there and security is a constant concern, especially in cities. Now I'm told that a wheelchair I was going to transport to the south is being used locally. I've said if someone in La Esperanza needs it, by all means leave it there. I wouldn't want to take it away from that person. So if that's the case, one less headache for me. I only wanted to take it to the Choluteca rehab center if no one needed it in La Esper. For about 2 years, it has been sitting at the Red Cross building in La Esper. unused. I told them long ago to look for someone who needed it locally. Now that they've found such a person, they act like I want to repossess the chair. I don't have some proprietary feeling about that wheelchair. Sometimes, even now, Hondurans and I seem to be miscommunicating

Cuba acknowledges 51 cholera cases

By PAUL HAVEN and ANNE-MARIE GARCIA
Associated Press – Tues. Jan 15, 2013

The above acknowledgment by the Cuban government is rather late, as cholera started there last July, perhaps transmitted by health workers helping out with the cholera epidemic in Haiti.

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According to Brazilian cancer specialists close to the Chavez case, he was offered free treatment in Brazil and could have probably had it in other countries, but chose Cuba because of its tighter secrecy and to give a boost to Cuba’s medical reputation (not such a big boost if he fails to survive). But the Brazilian doctors don’t believe that Cuban medicine is so advanced and insist that they could have cured Chavez if he had come to them—they claim to know all about his condition and his type of cancer and that he put himself in jeopardy by opting for treatment in Cuba.

Hugo Chavez’s former wife, Nancy Iriarte, published a blistering letter on January 12 in the newspaper El Universal, berating him for ruining families, pushing Venezuelans to emigrate, and imprisoning his political rivals and critics. Here’s a translation of the gist of it: “What do your powers and accolades amount to now? You are dying in another country, with the poor being poorer, leaving a nation on the verge of civil war. You will go down in history as a traitor and a coward who sacrificed your liberty and that of others.”

Just got a breakdown on my electric bill for last six months, including the sources of energy. We think of electricity as clean energy, but it doesn’t come out of the blue; it derives from fuel. Of our local electricity sources, more than 42% comes from coal, 18% from gas, 35% from nuclear power, and the remaining 5% from oil, solar, and wind, not so very “clean” after all.

A young former Honduras Peace Corps volunteer buddy of mine, Mitch Harrison, who wrote a short blurb for my Honduras book, was in town to get an award. He and his Mexican wife now live and work in Austin, Texas. His mother came from Minnesota to be on hand for his award ceremony. Four years ago, Mitch was selling hand warmers at Obama’s inauguration and desperately looking for a job. But thanks to winning a federal internship, he is now part of the federal workforce, though who knows how secure federal employment is these days? Last year, my former Cuban rafter housemate, Jose Manuel, was laid off from a 10-year half-time federal job because of cuts of federal part-time employees.

One of the hats I wear is as a board member of an adoption agency that does home studies for both domestic and international adoptions. At one time, I was president of an agency that facilitated the adoption of Russian children, among others. Approximately 60,000 Russian children have been adopted in the United States in the last decade and, of those, only 19 have been problematic and grabbed headlines in both countries. One was a sad and notorious case right here in the DC area a few years ago, whereby an adoptive father of a Russian-born toddler forgot to drop him off at day care, leaving him sitting strapped into his car seat inside the vehicle to die in the heat. I’m sure that man and his wife have not lived down that terrible event. Another case was a single woman who had adopted a school-age boy and could not handle him, so she sent him back alone to Russia. Not to excuse those adoptive parents, but when such a large number of adoptions are undertaken, the record of success will not be 100%. Nor does it mean that the other 99+% of adoptions should have been prevented. Of course, every country wants to protect its international image and sending children to be raised abroad is often considered shameful, showing that the country cannot take care of its own. Yet, 100,000 Russian citizens have signed a petition protesting the US-adoption ban. Apparently as the result of these internal protests, the Russian government has decided to delay implementation of the ban for a year, allowing most adoptions already in process to go forward.

I’ve not seen inside Russian orphanages, although when I was agency president, I heard a lot about them. Our agency provided funds to orphanages above and beyond the costs of supporting and processing the children that our families here were adopting, but, frankly, there was much corruption involved. I also saw children’s facilities in Romania in the 1990s, not a pretty picture. So the odds for a child being adopted by an American family are much better than letting that child stay in a Russian orphanage. About half of all Russian children adopted worldwide have gone to the US. Nor do many Russians adopt children themselves, because of both financial and cultural reasons. Last fall, Russia and the US worked out an elaborate adoption agreement that now the Putin government is rejecting. All this is in retaliation for a US visa ban for alleged Russian human rights abusers. The head of the Russian Orthodox church is now urging Russians to adopt children themselves, which, if they heed his call, would be great.

Among other things, I think Hilary Clinton just got worn out by her secretary of state job and, while being in the hospital was not her idea of a vacation, she did get a rest. Surely a book is in the works in the immediate future.

In Virginia, an intriguing initiative is underway to offer mental health first aid. Just what that might consist of and how administered is still being worked out, but it does seem that there needs to be somewhere that people can turn if they feel out of control or observe someone else in that state, though it’s always tricky to label another’s behavior as demonstrating mental health problems. Such a provision must not be used to disparage the reputation of an opponent in personal disputes.

Won’t say much on the Obama administration’s gun control recommendations, which seem reasonable and mild to me, but evidently not to the gun lobby’s liking, which apparently wants no more restrictions or accountability whatsoever. The NRA has accused the Obama daughters of having armed guards at their school, which is technically untrue, although they do have secret service protection, since all members of a president’s family do need extra security. And while all of us would welcome any initiatives to better identify and treat the mentally ill, mental health treatment is inexact, often unsuccessful, would require increased expenditures in an era of budget cutting, and all would-be patients still have the right to refuse treatment unless it can be definitively demonstrated in court that they are a danger to themselves and others, very difficult to do before the fact. Furthermore, most murders are not committed by the mentally ill. Rather, anyone is at risk for “going off,” acting irrationally in an emotional moment, especially young men, indicating that testosterone is one risk factor for violence. Should all men be barred from having guns? That would probably cut down considerably on gun killings if it ever could be implemented.

Conspiracy theorists are now harassing the heroes and bereaved parents of Sandy Hook, saying that the tragic events there never took place. These are obviously dangerous and deluded individuals and all are apparently militant gun owners. If anyone’s guns should be taken away, it should be theirs, since their judgment and moral sense are obviously flawed.

Incidentally, DC’s murder rate in 2012, a total of 88, was the lowest since 1966. That’s still 88 too many, of course, but a far cry from when the city was called “the murder capital.” Obviously, the reduction is due to more than gun controls; it also has to do with a reduction in the culture of violence and drug use.

While at a recent interpretation assignment, involving rather emotional child welfare issues, I suddenly had a senior moment and couldn’t remember the word in Spanish for a [drinking] straw—the word is pajilla. My days as an interpreter will be numbered if that begins to happen too often!

Among other recent Spanish-language assignments was a meeting with a mother and son at a Maryland high school with 3,000 students (!), a hospital MRI session, and a tricky translation of medical documents, so there is considerable variety in what I do, one of the perks of this type of work. In a private home where a child was being evaluated for early intervention services, a TV set was running non-stop with a telenovela, a soap opera. I noticed that one of the actors, who tellingly removing his wedding ring before meeting new lovely lady, was a Cuban film actor whom I had met in Havana in the 1990s. I commented to the mother of the child we were visiting, who told me he had defected to Mexico and started a new career there.

At a hearing center for drivers’ license revocation appeals, for the first time, my Spanish-speaking client was a woman. From my own clients over the years and observing English-speakers waiting for hearings, almost never do women appeal revocation of their driving privileges. The only woman I know personally who did so is my friend now in an Alzheimer’s facility who was found not competent to drive by an administrative hearing judge, despite hiring a lawyer to plead her case.

I also spent two 12-hour days at a detention center for boys in rural Maryland. Our client was a 15-year from Guatemala whose father had brought him here 2 months earlier, in part because of threats from gangs there. However, he was not finding what he had expected and wanted to return to Guatemala to his mother, siblings, and girl friend there. In fact, he was hoping to be deported! He would not tell me why he was in detention, but implied it might be due in part to a disagreement with his father, who had brought him to the US at great effort and expense, either legally or illegally. He had only gone to 4th grade, so was way behind academically. In math class, I showed him for the first time how to carry over numbers when subtracting. He was totally lost, of course, in English and computer classes.

This detention facility posted a lot of signs exhorting the boys to “Show a positive attitude,” Work for success,” “Be respectful,” and “Thank you for using good manners,” all while the staff were yelling at them to pull up their pants, to wear their socks inside their pant cuffs, and to “Shut up!”.

But perhaps the most unusual assignment was a city-wide meeting about the DC Public Schools’ budget where I was on hand to interpret for Spanish speakers. The public school chancellor attended with other staff members. Those testifying included PTA presidents and an ACLU rep. Slated school closings were the most contentious issue, as were teacher layoffs, including a bitter 20-year veteran teacher just laid off, whose grievances exceeded the 4-minute per speaker limit, so that her microphone was turned off and she stormed out. Several speakers lamented the inroads that charter schools have made into the enrollment of traditional public schools, promoting a call for holding the line at regular public school enrollment at 65%. Instead of closing neighborhood schools, it was suggested that unused space be converted to infant and toddler care.

In an era of budget-tightening and school enrollment decline, there were calls for a reduction in central office staff, and by implication, in their salaries, such as the chancellor’s, which exceeds $200,000 a year, and making sure all staff are district residents. But more services were advocated at the community level, including more emphasis on school safety after the shootings in Conn. (some DC schools do have guards at the door, but not armed), as well as more after-school programs, special education, social workers, parent education, college prep, foreign language classes, computerization of documents and records, distance learning, and, even, therapeutic swimming and horse-back riding. How would all this be paid for? Higher taxes devoted to schools and partnering with corporations, such as Microsoft, and the use of company logos on uniforms were suggested. It was pointed out that the district’s population is now growing, which is true, though it’s uncertain whether this means a growth in the school-age population, as many newcomers are childless singles or couples who may move away when they become parents or send their children to private schools. However, in my observation in my interpretation work, DC schools have improved a lot in recent years and most staff seem quite knowledgeable and dedicated, a tribute in part to controversial former chancellor Michelle Rhee.

Dreams: do they have any logic or consistent patterns or are they just random snippets of thought that happen to come together? Mostly, they just swirl around and evaporate from our minds, like, I suppose, the subjective experiences of people with Alzheimer’s or some other severe dementia, epitomizing living in the moment with no real continuity. Often, as soon as I wake up, I know I’ve been having a complicated and engaging dream, but unless I consciously try to re-remember it immediately, it’s gone in a flash. The other morning, however, I did recall a dream on waking. I had a car—not so in real life where I go carless to protect the environment and my pocketbook. A small, cute pink pig had gotten into my car somehow and, try as I might, I couldn’t get her out. She kept jumping from the back to the front seat or trying to squeeze under or between the divided front seats. Finally, in exasperation, I called an animal control guy who said to bring the car with her inside and they would take care of the matter. I got directions and asked a young man living at my house to accompany me there, apparently George from Georgia (who actually lived at my house last summer), who ended up taking the wheel. We drove and drove, past lovely forests, lakes, and waterfalls. This was taking far longer than I had expected. Where were we going, I asked George? Then, to my further surprise, we pulled up to a checkpoint at the Canadian border where border guards wore Mounties’ uniforms. These, evidently, were the folks who were going to get the pig out of my car. How in the world had my unconscious imagination invented such a story and how is it that the “I” in these tales becomes so subjectively surprised, angry, or pleased about events that unfold dreams, seemingly occurring outside my control, when I am obviously the author of the whole darn thing? It’s a puzzle that makes me wonder if conscious and unconscious minds are separate entities.

A debate is making the rounds of the internet regarding corporal punishment of kids, outlawed in 33 countries with Brazil soon anticipated to become the 34th and in 31 states and the District of Columbia, although from what I’ve observed here, parents do hit their kids in public with no apparent repercussions for the parents. In Honduras, corporal punishment of children is common, often using a belt or switch—or sometimes just threatening with it to insure obedience. Corporal punishment has been associated with later behavior and psychological problems and I never used it myself except once with my younger son who kept getting out of the time-out chair, an act for which I was remorseful. I myself was sometimes hit fairly hard with a hairbrush by my mother when I was young, I don’t recall for what. Did that do lasting damage? I don’t know. Many people who were raised with an occasional swat think they were not harmed and they deliberately use the same techniques with their own kids, following the motto “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” although now experts saying what actually spoils the child is using the rod. Some advocates of corporal punishment contend that trying to keep parents from spanking children in their own homes is nanny-state overreach and is getting the rest of society way too involved in private family business.

Christmas, Fiscal Cliff, Honduras, Zero Dark Thirty, Gun Violence Again

Photos got somehwat mixed up n posting. Some are from a Christmas Eve Mass at Communitas,my progressive Catholic storefront community, with a potluck held afterward. I’m shown with Sophia, a 12-year-old whose Haitian father was killed in an auto accident in Haiti before her birth. In January, she and her mother will travel there, where she will visit her father’s relatives and native country for the first time. On Christmas Day, roses were still blooming outside my house and next-door, showing that we hadn’t quite reached the freezing point yet. The other photos are from a Christmas dinner prepared by Jose Manuel, a former Cuban refugee rafter who lived in my house in 1996-7, including a Santeria shrine he has erected in his dining room. His photo of me, with his new camera, is much clearer than mine. On New Year’s Day, the roses were still out, bravely withstanding temperatures hovering around freezing.

Well, we went over the Fiscal Cliff and the world didn’t stop; the sun still rose in the east. And the matter was resolved quickly before the markets opened again on January 2. At first, it seemed that many Republican Congressmen really didn't care about the cliff, coming as they do from conservative districts where their priority is getting reelected, maintaining their high salaries and perks, and sticking to their Grover Norquist pledge, never mind the nation's wellbeing. But, in the end, they must have been persuaded by the Republican leadership that the party would be blamed by the American people and the world for an economic collapse if they stuck to their position. Also, they may have foreseen that their own constituents would be hurt if no deal was reached. While congressmen represent limited districts, their districts inevitably are linked to the nation and the world. Now there is a big fight ahead for the next two months on what actually to cut, a fight that promises to be bruising.

Excerpts below from reporter, Alberto Arce,

AP's Honduras correspondent navigates violent land

From Associated Press, December 30, 2012

In the daytime, I use trusted drivers like Jose to guide me through Tegucigalpa's chaotic streets, past its barbed-wire fences, mounds of garbage and packs of dogs. I keep the tinted windows up, the doors locked, and we don't stop at the lights, so we won't get carjacked.

I vary my routes. I try not to fall victim to the permanent sense of danger that hangs over the capital, where the conversation is invariably about whose relative was just killed, or what atrocity happened on the corner. Yet I constantly check the rear and side mirrors of Jose's car for approaching motorcycles. Honduras has the world's highest murder rate, and paid gunmen almost always travel by motorcycle to make a quick getaway through impossible traffic.

The violence is a stark contrast to the friendly feel of a land where many have a Caribbean attitude about life, happy and easygoing. Once you leave the cities, the landscape is amazing — wild, healthy, and savage, from the waterfalls of La Tigra National park, just half an hour from the capital, to the islands of the Caribbean and the world's second largest coral reef.

To see acting CIA director Michael Morell’s statement to employees on how the film "Zero Dark Thirty" differs from reality, check it out on https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases-statements/2012-press-releasese-statements/message-from-adcia-zero-dark-thirty.html. He reminds employees that the film is a dramatization, not a documentary, and that it distorts and compresses the facts.

My heart goes out now to all the parents who lost children in the Sandy Hook School shooting. They are currently experiencing an outpouring of attention and support, but soon enough, it will all stop and they will be left alone with their grief. The Compassionate Friends, a support group of bereaved families, may be able to help them over the long haul. Why are toys pouring into Newtown? Surely not for the dead children, perhaps for the survivors, though toys hardly make up for the loss of siblings and friends. Of course, every day, people all over the US are killed by guns, either in homicides, suicides, or accidents. An internet effort to count these deaths nationally, at least accidents and homicides, is underway. Suicides, which may actually outnumber murders, are more difficult to count because they are often not reported. A few gun deaths arguably would have happened by other means—stabbings, poisonings, drug overdoses, affixations.

President Obama gave a powerful and heart-rending speech after the shooting. He is an eloquent and convincing speaker—maybe a modern Abraham Lincoln in terms of rhetoric? But, of course, the proof is in the pudding, not in the words, but what he had to say was still moving and important. The gun control issue is complicated and not easily solved. There has been a lot of emphasis on the shooter’s mental state and possible mental illness, but that focus alone will not solve the problem. We are talking about budget cuts, not increased spending for mental health treatment. And even if ideal treatment were available for every single person with mental illness, such treatment often does not work, or works only in part, or the individual refuses to participate. Certainly Adam Lanza’s family had access to the best mental health care. Keeping a lot of guns around him was not such a good idea, as it turns out. That would seem pretty obvious, but apparently his mother didn’t see it and paid with her life. All her guns were legally obtained and she apparently taught her son about how to use a gun safely.

Nor do the mentally ill pose the only danger. Somewhere I saw a statement that less than 4% of gun murders are done my mentally ill people. What about all those other guys (mostly guys, not gals) who are laid off from a job or fighting with their spouse? They may not be technically mentally ill, but may be seeking vengeance or may succumb to sudden impulses. Finally, there are anti-government, anarchist types, survivalists, and militant white supremacists in the mold of the Uni-bomber or Timothy McVeigh or those who have been making recent ominous blog posts complaining about “a black man in the White House” and needing to arm themselves for a possible uprising against the pernicious federal government, unwilling to accept the election outcome. And there are always gun suicides. Since the school shooting, there have been a number of other gun deaths, including four killed in Pa. Of course, publicity doesn’t help.

In 2009, there were at least 11,500 gun murders and 18,000 gun suicides in the US, fewer perhaps than in previous years, but too many and far more than those lost on 9/11. Without access to guns, or such ready access, some might have tried suicide or murder by other means, but other means result in death less than half the time. Countries with fewer guns, but with the same rates as the U.S. of mental illness, players of violent video games, and the showing of violent movies and TV shows, causes cited by the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, still have much lower homicide rates. Nor do we have the capacity as a nation in both personnel and money to place a trained armed guard in all 140,000 American schools, as LaPierre advocates. And what about mass shootings outside of schools? LaPierre’s remarks seem to have increased the backlash against the once-invincible NRA. Actually, in its early days, the NRA itself advocated gun control and promoted safety training for all gun owners. Even Israel has more restrictive gun laws than the US. We put extra controls in place after 9/11; what about doing something now to reduce gun violence?

Statistically, the intersection of either mentally ill, angry, careless, or impulsive people with the easy availability of firearms has meant many more gun deaths here compared with the rate in other developed countries. And high-powered weapons have resulted in multiple deaths. Yes, there was a mass murderer in Norway by a man using illegal weapons, presumably obtained from outside the country, but a single such incident in a century or maybe longer? And there was a man in China, just days before Sandy Hook, who, without access to a gun, attacked 22 in a school with a knife, but none died. Already, city police forces are accelerating gun buy-back programs. Why not go further? As suggested before on this blog, what about paying gun manufacturers not to make weapons, much as we have paid farmers not to grow crops? It could be a program for reducing gun production over time, giving firearms manufacturers time to convert to other enterprises. Guns for police, hunting, and military uses would still need to be made.

Inevitably, there will be more armed guards and metal detectors in schools, which I’d consider a lesser evil and less dangerous than arming teachers. But, of course, with education funds being cut, not every school would be able to do that and many won’t want to. Columbine High School had an armed security guard who shot at the killers, but missed. Most mass killings occur outside of schools anyway, as do most gun deaths. I cannot help thinking of Honduras, where everyone is armed and even ice cream parlors, cell phone shops, and drug stores have armed guards, and where the homicide rate is the highest in the world. Apparently, arms provide an incentive to shoot to kill, not a deterrent.

There is no 100% solution to any problem, only odds of success and failure. In medicine, surgery, chemotherapy, and antibiotics all have both benefits and risks, as do all other human endeavors, from marriage and parenthood to work and play. The prospects for any outcome are determined by statistics, simply dry numbers. So it is with gun rights and gun control. Sometimes having arms will prove protective, sometimes useless or lethal. What are the numbers for each?

An assault weapons ban, universal background checks, education in gun safety, expanded and improved mental health services and anger management programs, increased school security, and a reduction in violent films and videogames may all help reduce the carnage from gun violence, but will not totally eliminate gun murders, suicides, and accidents as long as guns exist. The task is to reduce their frequency, to reduce the odds. I believe having fewer guns in circulation would do that, as shown by the experience of other countries.

An individual’s right to bear arms needs to be tempered by the right of other individuals not to be killed. Individual rights are not unlimited, but subject to rules and limits. We may drive cars, but not over the speed limit or when under the influence of alcohol or drugs. We may have the right to a particular sexual expression or orientation, but not the right to impose that on another person without their consent, on a child, or to impregnate someone without taking responsibility for any offspring, nor are we allowed to deliberately infect someone with AIDS or another STD. Likewise, owning a gun implies responsibilities and limitations and there is a special problem with firearms exemplified by the Conn. shooter, in that he may not have been approved to own a gun himself, but his mother was a legal gun collector.

A reader who supports gun rights admits: I don't think the framers contemplated the invention and development of assault rifles, the introduction of the Glock, aka America's gun, or the diminution of individual responsibility on the part of so many citizens. Also worth noting is that 18th-century firearms were lethal only in the hands of experts or persons able to fire at very close range. Of course there were more experts back then, since it behooved men who wanted to feed their families to develop skill in the use of those slow-to-load, unreliable, inaccurate weapons. But the risk of a deranged kid swiping Dad's musket from the Battle of Yorktown and opening massacre-level fire on the village green was nil.

She further observes: It's truly shocking that the shooter's mother, who knew very well that her younger son had for years been seriously disturbed, kept all those guns in the house. OK, it was her hobby. Well get another one, lady. You like to drink craft beers? Go do that. You can tell the guys at the bar about the guns you used to have.

Of course, the Sandy Hook school shooting was not the end of gun violence for the year. There were the two fire fighters killed in upstate New York and several other less reported killings. And now it turns out, while the NRA’s LaPierre decries violent videogames, gun manufacturers are helping create and promote such games. Hypocrisy is rampant.

I had joined a lively discussion on LinkedIn entitled “Freedom in Cuba, the Middle East & Everywhere,” but after the Sandy Hook school shootings, it degenerated into a series of back-and-forth name-calling posts on gun control, with hundreds of messages being posted daily, most trashed by me without being read. Arguably, gun control does involve questions of freedom, the freedom to bear arms and also to express opinions about the subject, but the discussion was veering far afield from where it had begun. The man who had made the original post tried in vain to return to the main topic, but those engaging in the argument ignored him and continued badgering each other, just a microcosm of the bitter debate awaiting us on gun control at a national level.

Holiday greetings, Flying Fish Coffee Shop, Fiscal Cliff, International Human Rights Day, Alzheimer’s Friend, MedCottage Update, Domestic News, Gun Issues, Nigeria Outlaws FGM, Honduras News

Happy Holidays, Felices Fiestas. The decorated house is across the street from where my older daughter Melanie lives in Norfolk, Va., where I visited her recently. The figure is a pottery statuette, a Christmas gift from a friend, who bid on it an auction with me in mind. It is originally from Peru, where I have visited more than once, but whether an authentic antiquity or only a copy is hard to say. It is lovely and I appreciate such gestures all the more this season on the anniversary of my son Andrew’s death, now 18 years ago, but, of course, a parent never forgets.

As mentioned before, I love my interpretation work because it’s so varied and surprising, providing real-life entertainment and drama. No wonder I don’t need TV! On a recent evening assignment, I met a special education teacher and school social worker at a DC hangout called “Flying Fish Coffee Shop” to discuss our strategy in approaching the non-responsive parent of a special ed student. Later, we made an unannounced house call on the family, a non-English-speaking working single mother from Honduras with five children. (No wonder she didn’t seem particularly responsive; she was busy!) Naturally, she was quite surprised and her son, a sixth grader, was obviously not happy to see us. I cannot go into more detail because of confidentiality, but it does seems that we resolved the communication issue. This woman is from a rather remote part of Honduras, so I wondered how she had ever come to this country.

December 10 was International Human Rights Day. My Amnesty International (AI) group celebrated it with a Write-A-Thon held on Friday, December 7, in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) which has also worked in the human rights arena since 1980. AAAS forensic teams have gone to Latin America, members’ satellite imagery has shown devastation from the air, and scientists have been jailed for their efforts to disseminate information or help those injured by government forces. In short, AAAS and AI collaborate in many areas. At the AAAS headquarters where we held the Write-A-Thon, we set up separate tables for writing letters to the appropriate authorities on numerous cases, some cases held in common with AAAS. Altogether some 50 people attended our event which generated hundreds of letters, just the beginning of an effort that will last through December. In December 2011, Amnesty members around the world sent about 250,000 letters, some of which seem to have had an impact judging by the results.

Through a webcam connection with Albany, NY, during our gathering, we were able to communicate with an Iranian doctor, Arash Alaei, who, along with his physician brother, has obtained asylum in the United States. They were arrested together for working on HIV/AIDS prevention and sentenced to 6 years for what, they never quite knew. But thanks to a worldwide campaign they were freed after 3 years and escaped from Iran. Their prison treatment was very harsh and their families left behind are still being pressured and ostracized. However, they are continuing their efforts to prevent and treat AIDS and drug addiction in the Middle East from the United States.

I regret to report that a friend age 85 living in an Alzheimer’s facility recently had a fall, was hospitalized (a change of scene for her), and is now recovering physically. I had mentioned this woman once before on this blog, that it was heartening to see her engaged then in an animated nonsense conversation with another resident, a man who said he was originally from Korea (that much was intelligible). Now the home’s staff indicate that our friend’s children have objected to her very chummy relationship with this man and want them separated. If so, what ridiculous kids!! What if, within the bounds of decency allowed at this facility, the two converse, hold hands, and possibly even kiss each other? In fact, if they actually stripped naked in front of other residents, I doubt that anyone would even notice, as each is in his/her own world.

My friend with Alzheimer’s is just one of a growing number of older people with disabilities. If she had been born a century earlier, she might not have lived long enough to get dementia and hence to require 24-hour care, which someone has to provide and pay for. I can attest that 9 years ago, when I came back from the Peace Corps, she was 76 and still had all her faculties. It’s no surprise to learn that people all over the world are living longer and with more disability. But given a choice, most of us would still choose to live longer, disability or no, and would want the same for our loved ones. Soon after 2015, for the first time in history, there will be more people over 65 than under the age of five. Are people living too long? Maybe not you and me, of course, but everyone else? Saving lives, especially of children, which is a priority everywhere, means more people are likely to grow old and frail, becoming a social and financial burden. Every remedy or “cure,” like dialysis, organ transplants, or AIDS drugs, carries its own costs in disability and in treatment for survivors.

Now someone living next door to the MedCottage elder care pod mentioned last time has complained in a newspaper op-ed that the neighbors are not consulted. She says the pod spoils their view and may be a fire hazard (though I believe it’s made of fireproof materials). Several on-line commentators chided the complaining neighbor. However, it’s true that an exemption to zoning laws has been made for such supposedly temporary structures, considering them like a shed. However, if they proliferate and are not removed when the occupant dies or leaves, they will have an impact on a neighborhood. Yet it does seem a more humane way to care for failing elders than sending them to a nursing home and allows some privacy for both sides.

On the fiscal cliff negotiations, both sides seem to be playing a game of “chicken.” As they race toward the cliff, who’s going to stop first?

Cities with falling population, like Philadelphia and Baltimore, are overtly attracting immigrants, documented or not, deciding it’s better to have them than empty houses and neighborhoods. After the election, the Republican party is softening its anti-immigrant rhetoric. In my opinion, the Tea Party did the party no favors.

On other news of the day, I’ll just say that I regard neither Pvt. Bradley Manning nor Julian Assange as heroes. However, the damage done by WikiLeaks is, by and large, not monumental. A lot of information was not so secret anyway or did not need to be secret. The published material does not show any great government cover-ups, but does provide an interesting glimpse into the secret world of international diplomacy and will give ample fodder to historians. Much of what was revealed by WikiLeaks also shows diplomats to be more sophisticated than perhaps their public statements would indicate. Still, leaking secret information is not to be condoned or encouraged, in my opinion. What WikiLeaks has revealed was more than enough.

Here’s headline for you: Twinkie CEO Admits Company Took Employees Pensions and Put It Toward Executive Pay,
By Thom Hartmann, December 11, 2012

Twinkie-maker Hostess continues to screw over its workers. The company is in the process of complete liquidation and 18,000 unionized workers are set to lose their jobs. More troubling – they could lose their pensions.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Hostess’ CEO, Gregory Rayburn, essentially admitted that his company stole employee pension money and put it toward CEO and senior executive pay (aka “operations”). While this isn't technically illegal, it's another sleazy theft by Hostess executives - who've paid themselves handsomely while running their company into the ground. Just last month, a judge agreed to let Hostess executives suck another $1.8 million out of the bankrupt company to pay bonuses to CEOs.

www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/twinkie-ceo-admits-company-took-employees-pensions-and-put-it

Football player Jovan Belcher’s murder-suicide is one of many family tragedies of that sort. Four people, including the shooter, were also shot and killed, with others wounded at a California Indian reservation, then a mass shooting in Portland, Oregon, hitting 60 people, though only 3 dead due to an apparent assault weapon malfunction. It’s almost becoming an epidemic. There have been at least 7 mass shootings in the US this year. Colorado Governor Hickenlooper (there’s a name for you) is the only politician who has even dared to comment openly that maybe gun laws need to be revisited, especially for assault weapons. Of course, the worst and most recent such event was the massive Connecticut school shooting. Like all parents, I am sickened, especially as I know what it is to lose your child. How parents who lost children must have wished that their kids had stayed home sick that day. The constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness trumps the constitutional right to bear arms. We are all at risk. Speaking live on Fox News, Mike Huckabee said that this shooting happened because "we've systematically removed God from our schools," a real insult to the victims and exoneration of the shooter and the NRA. Before the election, fear of the NRA kept politicians, including Obama, mute on the subject. We cannot prevent every such incident, but certainly curbs on automatic and assault weapons, plus background checks on every gun buyer no matter where, would help. Of course here in DC, contrary to the voters' will, we have had our gun controls removed by the Supreme Court.

Many of these tragedies, of course, are copycat, guys wanting to enact vengeance, go out in a blaze of glory, and take others with them. The vast publicity accorded such events may sensitize the public to the problem of gun access, but also fuels the ideas of future mass murderers. The easy availability of firearms not only promotes both planned and impulse violence but also accidents. In neighboring Pennsylvania just now, a father laid down a handgun, supposedly unloaded, on the front seat of his truck, but it discharged, killing his 7-year-old son sitting in the back seat. Of course, it’s always possible to kill someone with a knife, or even with a bow and arrow, as happened recently, but accidents would not be involved there. The carnage is also not as great as with a firearm, especially an assault weapon, more firepower than necessary for self-defense or hunting. (I’m not a big fan of hunting either and mourn along with many others the recent killing of a female Alpha wolf in Yellowstone.) In China, a man recently stabbed many school children with a knife, but none died.

In Canada, with more restrictive laws (it takes up to 60 days to obtain a firearm in Canada after registering, taking a course, and going through background checks) gun violence and homicides are much fewer per capita than in the US, though determined folks there can always get American firearms without that. There’s probably also more of a culture of nonviolence there. And, if not some curbs on gun purchase and possession here, then what is the answer? The NRA and its supporters have only said that this is "not the time" to discuss the issue and some have even said that teachers should be armed (and trained to shoot as part of their educational duties?). What if there were loaded weapons in schools? It's not hard to imagine some disgruntled student getting ahold of them. But gun advocates and the NRA, in its zeal to promote gun sales, are all complicit in the murder of innocents. I only hope there will be a backlash among politicians and the public against the NRA and its tactics and positions. Yet, it must be acknowledged, despite recent frequent mass murders, often of random individuals, the gun murder rate one-on-one is down from a couple of decades ago.

What makes America’s gun culture totally unique in the world [excerpts]
Washington Post, Posted by Max Fisher on December 15, 2012

Americans don’t just have more guns that anyone else – 270 million privately held firearms. They also have the highest gun ownership per capita rate in the world, with an average of about nine guns for every 10 Americans. The second highest gun ownership rate in the world is Yemen; yes, Americans have nearly twice as many guns per person as do Yemenis, who live in a conflict-torn Arab nation still dealing with poverty, political unrest, a separatist Shia insurgency, an al-Qaeda branch, and the aftereffects of a 1994 civil war.

Israel has only 7.3 privately owned guns for every 100 people, which means that the American rate is 12 times as large. For comparison’s sake, Israel’s gun ownership rate is about 12 times that of Japan. That means that the difference between America and Israel, in terms of gun ownership per capita, is about the same as the difference between Israel and Japan, which has perhaps the strictest gun control regime in the world.

America’s gun-related murder rate is the highest in the developed world, excluding Mexico, where the ongoing drug war pushes the murder stats way up.

One might question whether Mexico is exactly part of the "developed world," though it straddles it--certainly in other parts of Latin America, especially in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, the murder rate is far higher than in the US.
Senegal will be first African country to end female genital cutting according to TrustLaw trust.org.

Honduran President Porfirio Lobo has denounced a conspiracy by a group of businessmen led by Jorge Canahuati to depose him by colluding with the Constitutional Court. He warns of a “return” to violence if they don’t stop.

(I don’t know about a "return to violence," maybe an increase in factional violence is more like it.)

Honduras ousts high court judges after ruling on police purge
Reuters, Wed, Dec 12 2012

TEGUCIGALPA - Honduran lawmakers on Wednesday dismissed four Supreme Court judges who had declared unconstitutional a law designed to purge the country's police of corruption, deepening a conflict between the ruling party and the court.

Lawmakers voted to oust the justices and name their replacements after a panel of judges on November 27 declared the law that established confidence exams as unconstitutional in a 4-1 vote.

The law in question required officers to undertake lie detector tests, drug screens and a probe of their personal wealth to determine if they could remain in the police force.

Honduran President Porfirio Lobo on Saturday said the judges were "against the purging of the police" and accused them of acting "in collusion to attack institutions."

Last week, Lobo said there was a growing conspiracy against him, aiming to remove him from office in coup similar to the ouster of former President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009 that plunged the country into a political crisis for months.

Led by lawmakers from Lobo's National Party, the country's unicameral legislature voted 97-31 in the early hours of Wednesday to remove the four judges from office.

The split ruling against the law by the five-member panel of judges set the legislation up for a review of the full 15-seat Supreme Court.

The head of the opposition Liberal Party, Alfredo Saavedra, said the ouster of the judges was "a blow to democracy" and he said their dismissal undermined the independence of the court.

The move was the latest development in an increasing dispute between Lobo's party and the Supreme Court, which recently threw out a tax on big companies and law designed to attract more foreign investment.

Officers who were fired after failing confidence exams had filed complaints before the Supreme Court, arguing that the law violated their rights to a fair defense and the presumption of innocence.

Lobo pushed for the confidence tests after a surge in violence in the poor Central American country that followed an expansion of Mexican drug cartels into Honduras.

According to the United Nations, Honduras has the highest per capita homicide rate in the world, with 86 homicides for every 100,000 inhabitants.

Corrected DR Twitter Action, MedCottage

Coming right back to correct the DR Twitter action I sent last time, which was really for a preliminary report. The correct Twitter link is: http://www.amnesty.org/en/williamycecilio. It’s only good through Nov. 29! So do it now!


Recently, a member of our Communitas Catholic community was featured in the Washington Post because she had implemented a new idea in elder care by purchasing a small, pre-fab cottage to house her elderly mother in the family’s own back yard. Developed by a Blacksburg, Va. company associated with Virginia Tech, the unit is a self-contained 12x24 ft. module called MedCottage that sells for $85,000, but which cost this family $125,000 with some extras, including delivery by crane. The unit is all on one floor (with special flooring material for an elderly resident) has its own climate control. It contains a bedroom, small kitchen, and bath and is located just steps away from the main house, allowing the mother to join the family for supper, but also to have privacy and to provide them privacy. It has been in use several months now and all parties are pleased. Formerly, the mother had been in a nursing home, which she did not like at all.

Dominican Friends Reunion, Amnesty DR Twitter Action, Miami Cuban Vote

Fifteen years after we last saw each other in Santo Domingo, I was recently reunited with Espaillat sisters Ana Antonia and Miriam in an outlying Maryland suburb. The photo shows us in front of Willow Manor (the name already gives you a feel of what it’s like), a senior residence in Olney, where Ana, center, is now living. A lot has happened to us all since we last met back in 1997 in the Dominican Republic when I was on my way out of Cuba after my expulsion by state security agents. At the time, Miriam and her husband who lived (and still do) in Maryland, were visiting relatives in their native country. Ana and her brother were waiting for me at the Sto. Domingo airport as I emerged on that fateful visit, feeling distressed and disoriented after a long, intense interrogation by Cuban agents, who had finally allowed me to depart after holding my outgoing flight for several hours on the tarmac with many passengers fuming about the delay. The next morning, Ana, a psychiatric nurse near my age, had taken me to a spa she belonged to relax in the hot tub and sauna to put my interrogation behind me.


In 2000, the year I started my Peace Corps service in Honduras, Ana, then age 60, married a frequent American visitor to the Dominican Republic, a widower several years her senior with MS who used either a wheelchair or a cane, depending on circumstances. He spoke Spanish, having been a missionary in Ecuador in his earlier years. So Ana retired from psychiatric nursing in Santo Domingo, a demanding job, and assumed the care of her husband, who took her to live with him in Massachusetts. He was a man of means and so they were able to spend part of every winter in her apartment in Santo Domingo and also to go on cruises all over the world to places she had never visited. Their travels allowed her to see her three sons in the DR regularly, including a profoundly deaf adoptive son who works with one of his brothers and keeps up her apartment. After her American husband died eight years later, Ana was the main beneficiary of his estate, although he had three grown children apparently grateful for her entrance into their father’s life in his last years—at least that is the story she told. I am sure she took loving care of her husband.

After her husband’s death, with the help and support of his son living nearby, she sold the Mass. house and moved to Willow Manor, a Md. senior residence within walking distance of where her sister Miriam and husband live. It’s a pleasant place with friendly older occupants, a few of whom are Latinas, fortunately for Ana, who has not learned English after 12 years of living in the US. Why not? Well, first, because her late husband spoke Spanish and now because she just wants to relax after her strenuous life as a psychiatric nurse in her native country and eight years of caring for her ailing husband. Her days, it seems, are spent with watching Spanish-language TV and writing her memoirs, all by hand. I suggested devoting at least one hour per day to English-language TV to accustom her ear, something I recommend to my interpretation clients, but she nixed the idea, although admitting that if she knew English, she would have more friends in her apartment complex and would participate in more organized activities. Like many people who live alone, Ana talked non-stop about her life, past and present. I hardly got a word in edgewise, so just decided to shut my mouth and listen.

Ana has already written a memoir of her early years as a psychiatric nurse in a book published in the DR. The book, of which she gave me a copy, is called Un Sueño Hecho Realidad, which I would translate “A Dream Come True.” However, one of her nephews, who did an English translation in a computer print-out, was more literal: “A Dream Made Reality.” We professional translators/interpreters go more for meaning than for exact word-for-word translation. But Ana, lacking English, was very happy with his effort.

In exchange for the Spanish version of her book, I gave her my Honduras book in English—at least it has a lot of photos. She said she will ask a nephew to read it and give her a summary. However, she is not likely to remember much, as her short-term memory appeared spotty. She often misplaced her keys, couldn’t remember whether she had given me her book, and repeated herself over and over in conversation. So the opportunity to learn English has probably passed her by. She acknowledged her memory failings, but said that when writing her second memoir, this one about her years with her American husband, everything flows off her pen with crystal clarity. Her attentive nephew, who rendered her first book in digital format, has promised do the same for her second book and also to translate it. Computer enabled self-publishing, or the Dominican equivalent, has allowed her to create an unvarnished, unedited narrative of her life. I’ve read some similar self-published memoirs by my fellow bereaved parents, the ordinary day-to-day with the usual birthday and graduation photos, which may not seem terribly compelling to us today, but will give future historians a glimpse into ordinary life in our times, just as diaries have done in past generations. I do hope that Ana remembers my visit and won’t be puzzled when she comes across my Honduras book on her coffee table. A sheltered, safe environment like Willow Manor is perhaps the best place for someone like Ana, who still seems quite physically fit, but whose memory is fading. While I acknowledge the value of such residences for failing seniors, I will do my level best to avoid ever having to live in one myself.

Fidel Castro tweets, so does the Pope. Twitter has gone mainstream, but I still know almost nothing about how it works. Therefore, when I was supposed launch a Twitter campaign on behalf of Amnesty International, I panicked. I still don’t know what to do, but perhaps some of my readers will, so I’m asking them to please look at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR27/014/2012/en ,
Spanish version: http://www.amnesty.org/es/library/info/AMR27/002/2011/es. We want to bombard the DR government with tweets on Nov. 27-29 the third anniversary of the deaths of Cecilio Diaz and William de Jesus Checo, killed by police with no accountability, investigation, or charges being brought. Their deaths are emblematic of the many deaths at hands of the police that are not investigated or punished.

Now that apparently even Miami Cubans have veered toward the Democrats in the presidential election, you have to wonder about the Hegelian dialectic, that extremes on one side will push toward the other and so on, back and forth. The same dynamic that has turned some states red (or blue) may work against them when the actual results are seen and felt on the ground, propelling them to the other side. Certainly budget cutting is a reaction to the "bubble" and the excessive "exuberance" that Greenspan rather belatedly warned against, but now may be going too far in the other direction. Can we ever reach a middle ground? Let’s see how the "fiscal cliff" negotiations will work out.

Honduran Child, Election Outcome, Puerto Rican Statehood? Amnesty International Regional Conference, Friend with Dengue, More Mass Shootings, Readers’ Advice, Thanksgiving Greetings

The above photo is of Sebastian with his mother, a Honduran child mentioned previously on this blog, who lost a leg as a newborn because of an egregious medical error, requiring his leg to be amputated. The physician whose mistake led directly to the amputation suffered no penalties whatsoever nor did he ever apologize or offer to help the child and his parents. He has kept both his hospital post and private practice. We may have frivolous malpractice suits in this country, but Honduran patients have no redress. Now the child’s mother, who has since separated from her husband in part because of complications over the issue of their child’s care, has apparently obtained an prosthesis of sorts for her son, as shown in the photo, sent to me via Facebook. I would guess that the setting is a rehabilitation facility, judging by the stair-steps in the photo.


On the whole, in my opinion, we had favorable election results, especially Obama’s reelection, despite disagreements on issues of style and substance that any of us who voted for him might have had. And most people around the world are relieved as well. At least he is a known quantity.  I do feel sorry for Romney, who had wanted it so badly and who has been running exclusively for president for more than 6 years now. He seemed stunned, having believed his own advisers and some polls, but he was gracious in defeat, as was appropriate. His wife said categorically that he was through with politics. I’m sure it took a lot out of her and their whole family. The popular vote was closer than the electoral vote (a terribly antiquated system), so he should take some comfort in that. It was milestone that a Mormon had even run for president.

However, the country still remains bitterly divided, uncomfortably close to 50-50. Obama won decisively, by 3 percentage points and millions of votes, but not overwhelmingly. The most typical Romney voter was an older white male with only a high school education. Women, young people, and minorities were more favorable toward Obama. Those demographics present a warning to the Republican Party, now belatedly shifting away from its immigration unfriendly stance. I’m a solid Democrat, yet as an adoptive parent and also the great-grandmother of a child conceived by my granddaughter when she was an unmarried teenager, I have to admit that I do not consider myself pro-abortion—probably no one is actually pro-abortion, which why is the preferred term is “pro-choice”—and I would not oppose some abortion restrictions, especially at later stages. I suspect that late-term abortions are rarely undertaken lightly even without legal strictures because once a pregnant woman feels the baby move, she understands its separate existence. As I recall from my own pregnancy experience, such movements begin fairly early.

Republicans have also been talking bipartisanship, common ground, working together, problem solving. Let’s see if they put their money where their mouth is. Even some well-known conservative pundits have faulted the Republicans, especially the new Grover Norquist, Tea Party types in the House for being knee-jerk obstructionists. Most voters agree that high earners should pay more taxes. Furthermore, there is no proof that somewhat increasing such taxes reduces job creation; the impact, if any, on jobs is quite small. Perhaps some wealthy folks do buy more things if their taxes are lower, but economic uncertainty seems to have a greater dampening effect on job creation than do tax increases. Some Southerners are talking secession after the election. I say, “Go ahead, good riddance to you,” but first let out the people who want to leave your retrogressive states.

Joe Kennedy III won the race to replace retiring Representative Barney Frank in the Fourth Congressional District of Massachusetts. Kennedy, a Democrat (of course!), is the great-nephew of JFK and Senator Edward Kennedy. He went to Harvard Law School and was in the Peace Corps in Guatemala. Most recently he was an assistant district attorney in Massachusetts’ Middlesex County. Kennedy, 32, is among the youngest members of Congress.

Puerto Ricans have voted in favor of statehood, while also ousting a pro-statehood candidate, so the will of the people is unclear. In any case, Congress would have to approve the addition of a new state.

Meanwhile, Honduras is now counting the votes from its own primaries, held Nov. 18, one year before the actual elections. In addition to the two major parties, Liberal and National, deposed former president Manuel Zelaya is back with a 3rd party challenge, left of the Liberal Party, which maybe the closest to our own Democratic Party.

The General David Petraeus scandal has catapulted Paula Broadwell’s biography from 76,792 on Amazon’s list (about the place my own book occupies?) to 111, so she's crying all the way to the bank. She apparently has had ambitions of becoming a TV regular or political candidate, using the book as stepping stone. She still may be able to achieve that, having gained name recognition beyond her wildest dreams. Although she is shown as the author of the Petreaus biography, she had a ghostwriter, Vernon Loeb, which raises obvious questions about why she supposedly authored a biography of a well-known figure if she did not actually write it? A biographer normally would not have a ghost writer, though apparently as a graduate student at Harvard, she couldn’t quite cut it so may have needed help. What was her actual role with the book? Why even have her as the middle man? Why didn’t Petreaus just cut to the chase and have Loeb or someone else simply write the book under his/her own name? That indicates, at least to me, that the whole book enterprise might have been a cover-up and an excuse for getting together and carrying on their affair. What was her prior relationship with Petreaus that allowed her such close access to him that another writer would not have enjoyed? She apparently was unable to put the book together on her own, so exactly what came first, the chicken or the egg? –her knowing Petreaus pretty intimately and then two of them deciding together on this project or, out of the blue, she decided to write his biography (albeit with a ghost writer), then later, they “fell in love”? It’s an odd sequence of events that raises questions. One question is the ostensible short duration of their affair, beginning conveniently after his retirement from the military (when it would have been illegal), enduring only a short time, and ending some months ago. Do you believe that? I suspect the secret e-mails will show something quite different, assuming the actual timeline is ever revealed.

Matters are complicated further by General John Allen’s barrage of e-mails to another social-climbing woman, Jill Kelley, also seeking her 15 minutes of fame or more. Who said that political power is an aphrodisiac? Wasn’t it Henry Kissinger? Broadwell apparently has parlayed her military ties to appearances in gun commercials, for which she will not divulge whether or not she was actually paid. Many get-rich-quick books and gurus urge building relentlessly on personal contacts to get ahead, something Broadwell and Kelley have certainly put into practice. It wouldn’t be a big surprise to find, as an attractive younger woman, that Broadwell had even set out to deliberately seduce Petraeus as part of her ambitions, not that that would make him innocent. And while Petraeus’s marriage and professional reputation have suffered, Broadwell may end up enormous reaping benefits and even soon write her own autobiography, certainly another best-seller, with or without a ghost writer. You heard it here first! Poor Obama, trying to get serious about the looming fiscal cliff, a boring budget matter, when all this salacious stuff is going on.

What is Hamas’s objective in firing rockets into Israel? To call the world’s attention to their grievances and consolidating local support among Gaza citizens? Or simply to express anger and frustration? If it leads to a ceasefire and some greater normalization of relations, it may not turn out to be the empty and contra-productive gesture it seems like at first glance.

On Nov. 10, we Amnesty International members in the mid-Atlantic region mounted a regional conference organized completely by volunteers, using space donated by Georgetown University Law School. Amnesty, like many non-profit organizations, has suffered a decline in donations and had to lay off staff last July, leaving more responsibility than ever to members and volunteers. Some 250 folks from W. Va., Va., Pa., and Md. as well as DC attended the conference which proceeded smoothly in a pared-down one-day agenda (regional conferences previously lasted 3 days). We weren’t able to invite big-name speakers, but did have two undocumented Maryland college students talk about their role in passing a state “dream act” allowing them in-state tuition at Maryland institutions of higher learning. At the end of the conference, we made a candlelight procession to the capitol on behalf of the right to education, not only for a national permanent Dream Act, but for the right of girls in Pakistan, including Malala, to go to school. Many participants were college students themselves. The problem is always to get students to remain active in Amnesty and with human rights volunteering after graduation.

A friend from Canada who was with me on last February’s medical brigade with IHS in Honduras went on another IHS brigade just now in October in the eastern jungles of the Mosquitia during the rainy season and has since come down with dengue, a painful mosquito-borne viral disease. There are four varieties of dengue and now she has had two, small comfort that she has only two left to go. There is no vaccine or good treatment; the victim just has to get over it in two weeks or so. Some of our volunteers in Honduras came down with dengue, but I never did—or have not so far. And since now I only visit in Feb., during the dry season, the risks are much less for both dengue and malaria.

Going to an interpretation assignment recently in a hospital shuttle, I talked with the driver, a Haitian who believes that Aristide was even more corrupt than baby Doc Duvalier, only better at covering his tracks. If he was so good at covering his tracks, how did this guy know?

From my feature article in the local paper, the Hill Rag, two people contacted me about participating in one of IHS’s medical brigades and someone sent me 15 pairs of Rx eyeglasses. But for our Esperanza area brigade, we still need a physician, dentist, and pharmacist. A pharmacy student would be fine and physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner could replace the physician (we already have one but need two)—we are talking very basic health care here in a setting without electricity or equipment. The brigade starts Feb. 15 and lasts 10 days, but shorter participation is possible. Feb. is the dry season and the Esperanza area is cool, so few if any mosquitoes. IHS has no staff or overhead, all expenses are borne by participants themselves who must bring their own tents and sleeping bags. It’s an adventure and every time is different—as I have found the many times I have gone. So anyone interested should contact me ASAP (barbaraj100@yahoo.com) or go directly to volunteer team organizer John Kirckoff  JMKKEK@Yahoo.com, Phone: 320-634-4386.

Deadly mass shootings again, most recently in NC and California, on either election day or election eve. We hardly notice such shootings any more, they are so routine. Maybe this is just the price we pay as individuals and society for the right to hunt and to bear arms, supposedly for self-protection. Certainly candidates of either party, no matter for what office, were not going to comment on that issue so close to the election. Now a private Florida shooting range encourages folks to shoot at each other, but with blanks. Maybe there is some thrill in that?

The UN Population Fund’s annual report has declared contraception (but not abortion) a human right, a non-binding statement and certain to be controversial.

Regarding the previous on-line conversation about the guy disparaging my book on websites, another correspondent agrees with my friend who recommends going to the police or at least to a lawyer, I agree with the friend who gave that advice, Barbara. Even if the guy isn't clinically mad, the continuation of his series of unprovoked attacks on you indeed crosses lines -- like the one in the laws against libel. You have every right to be concerned not only for your reputation as a writer and respected member of the HR community and for a partial source of your livelihood but for your personal security. This isn't an anonymous creep: you know his name; you can and should provide it to the authorities.

A (male) friend advises: This fool could be cyber stalking and feeding on his own jealousy and then it could turn dangerous. I am not an alarmist but maybe this time, get police advice. But remember with guys though, the least thing sets them off, and nothing more than a protective order.

That’s the problem, getting law enforcement involved could definitely backfire. Another reader recommends that I “just leave it alone and walk away. It will not do anyone any good to confront him.”

A psychologist actually advises extending an olive branch, sending an e-mail praising something my critic has written. Another fellow author suggests even offering to post a 5-star review of one of his books in exchange for stopping his harassment or just doing so spontaneously with no quid pro quo. Would that help or be too transparent? That course smacks too much of bribery; besides the only one of his books that I have actually read was decidedly mediocre.

Still another friend argues, “That review is meaningless, so obviously weird that I can't imagine anyone in their right mind would pay any attention to it.”

Along the same lines: “given that no one found his review helpful on Amazon, i think he just hung himself.”

Leaving it alone would certainly be easiest, but would it actually be the safest course? I’m conflicted. Maybe I shouldn’t even discuss the problem here, as that may only fan the flames, but too late now, as I’ve already mentioned it previously and have gotten considerable heartfelt, but contradictory, feedback from faithful readers, which I greatly appreciate. Thanks so much for your concern.

I’m now leaning toward leaving it alone, as any acknowledgment on my part that I even noticed might prove a provocation. Even asking him for a truce and extending the hand of friendship—perhaps going so far as to post a 5-star review of one his books somewhere as has been suggested—would be giving him undeserved attention and rewarding his misguided attacks. So let’s drop the subject from here on out unless there is another outrageous development. Then I will have to think again about how or whether to respond.

My neighbors and I are so fortunate to live here near the capitol and museums, with our venerable Eastern Market within walking distance, also within walking distance to the post office and metro station. After more than 40 years in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, without and a car and not getting any younger, I’m grateful to be living here.

One perk is being only blocks away from the Folger Shakespeare Theatre, a small, intimate theater configured as it would have been in the bard’s time. Recently, I was invited to see a truly spectacular production there, “The Conference of the Birds,” based a Persian Sufi epic poem written in the 12th century. Actors took on the roles of birds, such as duck, sparrow, peacock, falcon, parrot, and hoopoe, in an amazing and imaginative combination of dialogue, dance, singing, and drama. The effect was emotional as well as intellectual. A week later, I was invited to a discussion and slide show held at the same theater billed as “Shakespeare in Kabul,” also the name of a book about the performance of “Love’s Labor Lost” in the Afghan capital, with several outdoor showings,a play that had already been translated into Farsi. We were introduced to the actors on screen in their colorful robes and saw several images from the play, where the names of kings and other characters were changed to reflect Afghan historical figures. Because acting was prohibited under the Taliban, few actors had prior experience, but all were eager to participate. We were told that the idea of Western-style romantic love is foreign to Afghanis and actors also had trouble looking directly at those of the opposite sex, as required, on stage. Still, judging by shots of the huge outdoor audiences, the play was very popular.

Sadly, my young artist visitor from Cameroon got news that his wife was bleeding, had a C-section, and lost the baby girl she was carrying. So he left earlier than expected. They already have a four-year-old boy who had been told he would soon be having a new sister.

I feel thankful that Obama was reelected, so Happy Thanksgiving, Feliz Dia de Accion de Gracias