First Blog Radio Show Postponed

Sorry folks, my radio show today didn't go through. Below is a message from the host.
The program is entitled http://www.blogtalkradio.com/themastercommunicator/2013/11/30/the-literary-showcase-featuring-four-fabulous-females.

Producer's message:

Unfortunately, BlogTalk Radio is having technical difficulties this morning. The show was scheduled properly but I was unable to get into the studio for some reason beyond my comprehension. I will reschedule the show for Thursday evening at 7:00 pm (CST). Does that work for you? Please accept my sincere apologies for any inconvenience. Sharon

More on Radio Shows, AIDS Day Dec. 1

Date/Time: _November 30, 2013___, 9:00 a.m. (CST), 10:00 a.m. (EST)

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/themastercommunicator/2013/11/30/the-literary-showcase-featuring-four-fabulous-females.

On Monday, Dec. 2, at 6 pm EST, I’ll be on Dr. Jeanette Gallagher’s hour-long blog radio program, a call-in program at (424) 258-9318, where you may call in anytime during the whole hour. Here’s the link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dr-jeanette-gallagher/2013/12/02/helping-others-through-the-peace-corps-at-the-age-of-62-after-loss-of-loved-ones

 

Reminding everybody that Sunday, Dec. 1, is international AIDS Day. When I was in Honduras, we always scheduled special activities for AIDS Day, including outdoor AIDS information skits performed by teens and a march through town carrying a homemade AIDS Day banner. New AIDS infections have been reduced dramatically worldwide. In 2012, the last year where figures are available, there were still 2.3 million new infections, including 260,000 among children. Some 35.3 million were living with AIDS, many thanks to antiretroviral drugs, and 1.6 million had died of the disease, so we still have a long way to go. My Cuban foster son, Alex, as my book readers know, died of AIDS in 1995.

Thanksgiving Greetings, My Upcoming Blog Radio Interviews, Obamacare, Lawmakers Physically Attacked, JFK Remembered, Monroe Doctrine, Honduras Elections, Cuban Honoree, UN HR Council, Mandela Film, Zimmerman Again, Sandy Hook Anniversary, Another Recommended Book, Artist Dubya

 

 

OK, folks, trying again with a little higher resolution and larger image of my early Central American bath time photo that I posted last time. Let’s see what happens this time. It now looks like some text will ne underlined, but when it wants to do that, It's hard to erase. I'll try.

            Thanksgiving greetings, Feliz Dia de Accion de Gracias, Happy Hanukkah!

I have a couple of upcoming interviews on blog radio. One is only 15 minutes at 10:15 am EST on Saturday, Nov. 30, Sharon Jenkins Show. I’m not quite sure what her website address is but when I look for her name this comes up:  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/toughtalkradionetwork/2010/08/16/special-facebook-guest-sharon-jenkins. The number I’m supposed to call to talk is (858) 357-8416, then press 1. I don’t know if that’s the same for callers or listeners.

 

On Monday, Dec. 2, at 6 pm EST, I’ll be on Dr. Jeanette Gallagher’s hour-long blog radio program, a call-in program at (424) 258-9318, where you may call in anytime during the whole hour. Here’s the link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dr-jeanette-gallagher/2013/12/02/helping-others-through-the-peace-corps-at-the-age-of-62-after-loss-of-loved-ones

 

From The Hill newspaper: A key official in the repair effort for HealthCare.gov said the site's error rate is now lower than 1 percent thanks to weeks' worth of special improvements were made. Former White House budget director Jeff Zients, who was enlisted to triage the website, touted the development as a sign of progress. He noted that there were no unscheduled outages on the site in the past week, a positive sign.                  

Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY), a freshman member of Congress, was robbed and left unconscious a few blocks from my home, right next to the Capitol bldg.

Va. State Senator Creigh Deeds (D), a previous gubernatorial candidate, was stabbed and seriously wounded by his son who then shot himself to death. Hours earlier, the son had been seen in a hospital emergency room in an apparent mental health crisis, but apparently no psychiatric bed was immediately available, so he was released. The details don’t seem to be known. Many factors can impede a mental health hospitalization: lack of adequate insurance, lack of mental health treatment facilities, and the patient’s unwillingness to undergo treatment. However, those voters most bent on cutting taxes and impeding Obamacare are those targeting the need for mental health treatment while also promoting gun rights. If the electorate wants low taxes, no gun restrictions, and no expansion of health care, then these sorts of tragedies are going to continue to occur. It’s a matter of choices and odds. Not everything can be fixed. Any course of action has benefits and risks.

We have just been through the 50^th anniversary of JFK’s death. I was living in Sacramento, California, with my husband at the time, hearing the terrible news on the radio and shedding silent tears. President Kennedy’s earlier announcement of the formation of the Peace Corps stayed with me throughout the decades, prompting me to join the Peace Corps later in life. In all my travels, especially to Africa and Latin America, it’s been common to see a portrait of Kennedy right there next to family photos and the ubiquitous Last Supper in a kind of household altar. There’ve been a few American presidents with that iconic saint-like worldwide appeal: Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, and, yes, Obama.

Secretary of State John Kerry has declared that the Monroe Doctrine has outlived its usefulness and that nations in the hemisphere now regard and treat each other as equals. Known as the Monroe Doctrine after it was adopted in 1823 by former US president James Monroe, the policy had stated that any efforts by European countries to colonize land in North or South America would be views as aggressive acts and could require US intervention.

The European Union sent election observers to the Nov. 24 elections in Honduras. I haven’t heard about US observers going there. The Nationalist candidate, Juan Hernandez, seems to have won, with vociferous objections and cries of fraud from Xiomara Castro, Zelaya’s wife, or rather from Zelaya himself in his wife’s notable absence. I know nothing about the probable winning candidate except that he has promised to get tough on crime, but I fear that the objections of the Zelaya faction and their followers do not bode well for peace and stability there. Also, with 8 candidates in presidential contest, the winner will not have a majority of the votes. If Zelaya’s wife had won, probably Maduro would have again turned on the Venezuelan oil spigots, turned off abruptly when Zelaya was ousted.

Ximoara Castro was an opponent and Juan Hernandez, a supporter, of a law to regulate new Employment and Economic Development Zones (ZEDE –  Zonas de Empleo y Desarrollo Económico) (the newest version of the discarded “Model Cities” initiative), approved by the Honduran National Congress after their last debate. This law is the complement to the amendments to the Constitution, which paved the way for the creation of these special ZEDEs where businesses can choose to invest in specific regions with different rules than the rest of the country.

An article in the Washington Post is headlined, “At one of the world’s scariest airports, there’s little ‘margin for error,’” referring to Tegucigalpa airport, which has seen 10 crashes since 1989. It’s very scary to land there and passengers usually applaud once safely on the ground. Fortunately, it’s not one of the world’s busiest airports, but several flights a day do land there. Often before my annual trip to Honduras, friends ask whether I’m not afraid of all the violent crime there. Well, yes, but perhaps that initial landing is the riskiest part. The take-off is not so scary. According to the article, regular US deportation flights now land at the more ample San Pedro Sula airport, 150 miles away.

In an unauthorized referendum conducted Oct. 31 in the contested Abyei border region between the two Sudans, 99% of those voting favored going with the south, which does not surprised me after having been there in 2006. Of course, the north does not recognize this vote.

President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a Cuban dissident, Dr. Oscar Biscet, one of those arrested in the 2003 Black Spring crackdown and declared an Amnesty International POC. He was denied an exit permit by the Cuban government, so his wife received the medal on his behalf. I once met her in Cuba about 20 years ago. Dr. Biscet, along with several others, has often been mentioned as a future leader of a democratic Cuba.

December 10 is Human Rights Day, a time when my local Amnesty Int’l group holds an event to raise awareness and urge people to write letters on behalf of individuals and issues.

In recent elections for the UN’s 47 member Human Rights Council (UNHRC), some of the winners of the coveted seats are countries that are among the world’s major human rights transgressors.

 According to Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch “China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia systematically violate the human rights of their own citizens and they consistently vote the wrong way on the UN initiatives to protect the human rights of others.”
“Regrettably, “added Neuer, “so far neither the U.S. nor the EU have said a word about the hypocritical candidacies that will undermine the credibility and effectiveness of the UN human rights system.”
Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng stated, “China wants to join the UNHRC not to promote human rights, but rather to prevent democracies from questioning their human rights record.” Chen, a blind former political prisoner, was spirited out of China last year and now lives in New York.
Rosa Maria Paya, a daughter of the late Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya, commented that, “The presence of the Chinese, the Russians and the Cuban regimes, is disappointing for the victims of repression, and it sends a message of complicity from the international community,” adding that “democratic governments should not share seats with criminals which behave with impunity since they are not suffering any consequence.”

It certainly seems that adding Cuba and some of the other nations to the UN HR Council is inviting the foxes to guard the henhouse. If the idea is to coopt them and win them over to the human rights agenda, it could well turn out in reverse. I believe that the Saudis have declined to serve.

I was invited along with Amnesty Int’l members to premier release at the Kennedy Center of a new film, Nelson Mandela: The Long Road to Freedom. Producer Harvey Weinstein spoke beforehand, along with Sen. John McCain and former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton. There was no obvious security but guests were pre-screened. Clinton, whose wardrobe has often been commented on, was wearing an odd bright turquoise jacket with pinched waist and a flared reaching to mid-thigh over black leggings. The film, appearing appropriately now at the end of Mandela’s life, is an emotionally moving, serious, non-genre effort, filmed entirely in So. Africa, with a cast of thousands and lots of sudden eruptions of violence (as indeed actually happened) but sometimes with shifts that are barely explained, such as when Mandela publicly announces his separation from his wife Winnie, his champion during his incarceration and who herself endured more than a year in solitary confinement. In reality, his split from her, which ended in divorce, was apparently triggered by her continuing advocacy of violence and involvement in the murder of a 14-year-old boy while Nelson was advocating peace and reconciliation. Also, she was thought to be carrying on an affair with one of her body guards. These aspects are only hinted at in the film, such as a flash of a tire necklace-ing of an apparent suspected informer and the Winnie character reminding her husband that he was gone for so many years. In the film, she listens to his presidential address over the radio (since, in fact, she was not invited to his inauguration). The actress playing Winnie was also present at the Kennedy Center event.

If South Africa has any lessons for other countries, they aren’t very hopeful. Blacks succeeded only after continuous acts of violence, such a fire bombings, and suffered many casualties. Finally, the apartheid regime gave in.

George Zimmerman is in trouble again. He apparently has a persistent violent and impulsive streak. But so many gun-rights advocates rallied around him and donated money to his cause that perhaps the jury trying him for the Trayvon Martin killing felt duty bound to acquit him—who knows what they were thinking? Now, they may realize that he is someone who shouldn’t carry a weapon and that he probably should have been found guilty of manslaughter after all.

With the approach of the Sandy Hook anniversary, Columnist Ruth Marcus observes that despite her son Adam’s odd behaviors: still Nancy Lanza encouraged his interest in guns. She went target-shooting with Adam and his older brother. They took National Rifle Association safety courses. I can understand a parent, desperate to find a way to connect to an alienated child, seizing on a mutual passion. But no person with Adam’s bizarre behaviors ought to be around guns, let alone have them within easy access at home. Few parents have to deal with the likes of Adam Lanza. Many parents, perhaps most, have to learn to find the balance between devotion and denial, empathy and enabling. Nancy Lanza failed at that task. Searching her house after the shootings, they found a check she had made out to Adam. It was dated Christmas Day, and designated to buy a CZ 83 pistol.

Will mention another book that I’ve just read, The Invisible Wall (2007) by Harry Bernstein, about the author’s early life on the Jewish side of the street in a small English town on the eve of WW I. Christians live on the other side and there is little interaction. Then his older sister falls in love with and marries a Christian boy. Her family considers her dead and sits shivah. Only after the newly married couple has a baby does her family acknowledge her and then the two sides of the street come together to celebrate their union. The book, his first, was written when the author was 96, a feat in itself. That story reminded me of a Jewish friend who was similarly mourned when she married outside her faith, to an African American man, no less. She was not informed of her father’s death, being only readmitted to the fold decades later when her own husband passed away, though no one in her immediately family ever referred to her marriage.

Last but not least, GW Bush’s artistic skills appear to be improving. Dubya, appearing on the Jay Leno show, awarded Leno a portrait that looked pretty realistic with a little individual touch.

Nigerian Artist, Grandson Andrew, Pending Honduran Elections, Iran Nuclear Talks, Sen. Graham, Obamacare, Atheist “Churches,” Books

Photos are of Evaristus or “Eva” (pronounced Eh-vah), the visiting Nigerian artist, and his fabric-based works, November roses and berries, and my grandson Andrew, named for his late Uncle, whose father is my son Jonathan, now an 11-year-old football star in Texas. I’m also including a photo that was lost, but miraculously just found again, of my bath time in 1940, in Central America, when I was 2 ½, included in my upcoming book, title mentioned below. The child standing next to me is my younger brother, then only a little more than a year old. (It looks like that photo came out very small, but I’d better not fool with it.)

 Evaristus, my artist visitor from Nigeria, just left, looking forward to returning to his wife, four kids, and teaching job there. On his last Sunday, he told me for the first time that he wanted to go to church and that he is Catholic. Most of my other African visitors have been fundamentalist Protestants or non-affiliated, so I was surprised and sorry that he had not spoken up sooner. I took him with me to Communitas, the little storefront Catholic community I belong to. Only about 20 people were there that day, but they received him warmly and he even spoke up at various junctures where responses were solicited from those gathered, i.e. in answer to the question: “What are you thankful for,” he spoke up, “For all of the wonderful people I’ve met while in this country, including all of you here.” As for the bloodshed between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, he insisted that Muslims have mostly attacked Christians, not vice versa. This was his first visit to the US and he was only here for 2 months, so his adaptation had to take place quickly. Using the metro, confronting the government shutdown, and just getting used to US currency, especially coins, were all challenges. Halloween kids and colorful and falling leaves were surprises. Hardest for him was adjusting to colder weather (by mid-November, we had not yet had freezing temperatures, so he hadn’t seen anything yet!), requiring him to buy a sweater and a vest, but he refused to wear socks with his sandals, saying that would be an unnecessary extravagance because he was going home soon. He is a fabric artist as well as a professor of art, so I’m going to try to post some images of his work—let’s see if I can. The other person in the photo by the cars is Sarah, another housemate and a recent college grad and an intern at Amazon Watch, an environmental and indigenous rights organization, though she’s soon starting a paid job elsewhere. Nathalia, my doctoral student from Brazil, is getting married next month, so she also will be leaving soon. I do miss most folks when they leave, but turnover is also interesting, as I never know who to expect next or when. Eva’s final message to me was: Thank you so much. You have been a wonderful person to stay with. I really enjoyed staying with you. May God keep you healthy. Farewell. Eva

 Honduran elections are coming up on Sunday, November 24. In addition to the traditional Liberal and Nationalist parties, there are six other candidates, notably, Xiomara Castro of the newly constituted “Free” (Libre) Party, wife of deposed President Manuel Zelaya. Municipal offices are also in play. I confess to not knowing if the biggest vote-getter wins (as in neighboring Nicaragua, allowing Daniel Ortega to be elected and re-elected) or if the winner must achieve a certain percentage of votes.

I don’t claim to know what’s in the secret heart of Iran’s nuclear negotiators, but if the US and Iran can come to agreement, that will further reduce tensions and the danger of a nuclear Iran—and of an increasingly hostile Muslim world. Such agreements are more than mere legal documents, they are confidence- and trust-building measures. Of course, these talks may also be an Iranian stalling tactic. Yes, Israel’s Netanyahu is right in intimating that perhaps the only way to assure that Iran doesn’t build nuclear weapons is to nuke all their nuclear sites preemptively. Would that be wise? Would that really protect Israel and the world? I doubt it.

In the DC area, since we are so top-heavy with government workers, we’re still recovering from the government shutdown. Minority rights shouldn’t be allowed to coerce the majority, as is happening in today’s Congress. Even one recalcitrant lawmaker can hold up everything, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, now threatening to block the confirmation of Janet Yellen as Fed. Reserve Chair and Jeh Johnson as Homeland Security Director. People like him and Senator Ted Cruz are in the contradictory position of combating government as the enemy while they are also part of government and receiving their income, platform, and influence from that source. We need government, so if it’s not effective, the answer is to make it more effective, not to demolish it, or we are all in trouble.

 Probably the Obama administration considered certain health insurance policies inadequate because they lacked particular key items of coverage, lacks that might still fall onto the health care system in terms of worsening health leading to emergency room visits, which cannot be denied, coverage or no. Of course, the President should have anticipated this problem before speaking out so glibly about allowing people to keep their existing coverage. Added to the problems with the Obamacare website, this was another glitch in the roll-out of a program already under fierce fire from Republicans. Obama did well to yield somewhat on this issue, after pressure coming also from Democrats.

Interesting and not all that surprising that atheists, feeling beleaguered and alone, have joined together in “non-religious” gatherings to celebrate togetherness, song, and ethical living. Certainly those qualities of religious observances are probably as important as actual beliefs.

 A gentle reminder that my book, Triumph & Hope: Golden Years with the Peace Corps in Honduras, is available in print from Amazon and electronically on Kindle and the Nook, makes a thoughtful gift for people of all ages, not necessarily just for would-be Peace Corps volunteers. It’s a human story with widespread appeal. I’ll be doing a couple of radio-website interviews on my book and my life on Nov. 30 and Dec. 2 respectively and will let you know details when I get them.

 I’ve finished a second memoir entitled Confessions of Secret Latina: How I Fell Out of Love with Castro & In Love with the Cuban People, but, as we all know, just writing a book is hardly the end of it. It must be set up in print and digital formats and I like to include lots of photos, which adds complications. I’ve proofed my manuscript over and over, but probably have still missed a word or two. My graphic designer is in Honolulu, so that adds another layer of complexity. It’s quite a process and that’s only the beginning, as marketing it comes next, something I’m not very good at. You will know first on this blog when the new book becomes available. In the case of either or both books, if you want me to send you a signed copy, let me know and I’ll arrange to do that.

 Speaking of books, they’re practically my only recreation or indulgence, since I have little free time and don’t watch TV and only listen to NPR when eating or doing chores. When I was in the Peace Corps, books were much coveted by volunteers, voraciously read, passed hand-to-hand, and many old favorites were re-visited, at least by me, classics like The Secret Garden, Little Women, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Oliver Twist, Moby Dick, and The Scarlet Letter. I think I enjoyed them even more in my old age than in my youth—in part, because of the nostalgia factor, in part because, as a writer, I could better appreciate their structure and craftsmanship.

 Now, I read mostly non-fiction, library books that turn over quickly. A recent one was Hanna Rosen’s The End of Men (2012), a best-seller arguing that while women have forged ahead in education (earning more than half of all college degrees, including in medicine) and have become more wide-ranging in their workplace choices, most men have stood still or lost ground, unwilling or unable to adapt to the demands of the current marketplace and only half-heartedly taking up some of the burden of household chores and childrearing. (Women also predominate in the Peace Corps.) Another recent read was Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope (2006), written before his presidential campaign and finished only just as he had won his senate seat. It’s a frank, well-written book, foreshadowing many of his positions and initiatives as president, not obviously self-aggrandizing as is the case with other political memoirs. It’s a very adroit exposition of personal and family details blended with sensitive issues of faith, race, and family structure along with public appearances and policy maneuvers. For example, his early life in Indonesia leads into a discussion of the history of US involvement in that part of the world. Rather than making him less American, his experiences abroad probably made him more appreciative and more knowledgeable of the issues our country faces. As far as I know, Obama did not have a ghost writer, as GW Bush and Sarah Palin did.

Halloween, DR Ct. Decree, Amnesty Int’l Regional Conf., Death Penalty Abolition, Adoption vs. Assisted Reproduction, Spanish Boy

Halloween, DR Ct. Decree, Amnesty Int’l Regional Conf., Death Penalty Abolition, Adoption vs. Assisted Reproduction, Spanish Boy

Quite obviously, the photos shown were taken on Halloween at or around my house. It was a balmy evening, but a light rain began falling later on. It’s one of my favorite holidays, seeing all the kids in their various costumes. My Nigerian artist visitor was surprised and curious.  The other 2 photos are of my granddaughter Natasha, her mother, my daughter Melanie, and my great-grandson De’Andre, now age 6.

As Amnesty Int’l USA’s volunteer Caribbean coordinator, I met with a group of other NGO reps at the DR Embassy to discuss the recent high court decree that all descendants of people who arrived in that country after 1929 are non-citizens, a provision applying mostly to Haitian descendants. This basically leaves them stateless, since if they were born in the DR, they are not necessarily Haitian citizens either, especially if their ancestry goes back more than one generation. I do feel for the DR, a relatively poor country, feeling invaded by even poorer folks from across the border. At the embassy, there was much polite resistance to trying to change the court decree legislatively or through executive action and, I suspect, it has considerable support within the DR itself among ordinary (non-Haitian descendant) people. However, Dominican authorities seem to be trying to blunt the avalanche of criticism that has started bombarding them from around the world. Fortunately, Dominican Americans appear to be rallying against the measure.

On the first weekend in November, members of Amnesty Int’l (AI) USA held a regional meeting in Washington, DC, where the DR situation, among others was one of many issues. Amnesty has always relied on volunteers, now more than ever for financial reasons. But it’s always been an organization dedicated to member participation in the fullest sense of individual volunteer practical action, not just by asking members to donate money to support paid staff. Worldwide, some 4 million people consider themselves members. The AI organizing model has been called a snowflake, based on one-on-one relationships building upon each other, creating branches that connect at the center. 

One of the workshops I attended was on death penalty abolition. As I’ve mentioned before, AI opposes the death penalty in all cases.  In our region, DC and Maryland have abolished the death penalty, but NC, Pa., Del., W. Va., and Va.  still have it, though it’s use has been much diminished.  Worldwide, 140 countries have abolished the death penalty , but a lesser number have retained it. Besides the US, other DP countries include China, Cuba, Egypt, Japan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe. Others have had a de facto moratorium, which is how some US states got started on the road to abolition. American public opinion is shifting against the DP, in part because of the 143 death row inmates exonerated by the Innocence Project, either through DNA evidence or a confession by someone else. Faith-based groups and victims’ advocates for abolition have been powerful voices. It‘s up to the prosecutor’s  discretion whether to seek the DP and only a few states and a few jurisdictions within those states account for the bulk of executions, with Texas having the most and with certain jurisdictions within the state being responsible for all. In Arizona, it’s no surprise that Maricopa County has had the only recent executions.  Amnesty is currently working to stop the execution of Reggie Clemons, whose 2009 execution date was stayed by the Missouri Supreme Ct. because of evidence suppression by the prosecution.

As for getting public attention for an issue, we are now in an era of do-it-yourself media, with multiple avenues competing for attention in a 24/7 news cycle providing a continuous avalanche of information. People have short attention spans, may get compassion fatigue, and are bombarded with much contradictory information, often with a marketing angle. Visual images help get a message across. Twitter and Instagram are increasingly popular avenues for providing brief messages, in line with short attention spans. I have not mastered those avenues, which, apparently, are most effective if one uses them on a continuous basis, thereby acquiring a following. With my lengthy, rambling blog postings, obviously, I’m out-of-the-loop.

On another matter, as mentioned here previously, I’m a board member of a local adoption agency that assists with both domestic and inter-country adoptions. However, both forms of adoption have become increasingly more expensive, difficult, and rare, in part, because birth mothers, especially in the US, are not relinquishing their babies and are having fewer of them, in part, because of well-meaning safeguards that make international adoptions more difficult. Also, many other countries have made requirements for infant adoptions more stringent, such as that parents must be under age 40, married a certain number of years (heterosexual only), and have no other children. Often, they also must remain in the birth country for an extended period and pay high fees there. The other reason for reduced adoption demand is the growth and availability of assisted reproduction, going far beyond in vitro which uses eggs and sperm from the biological parents for their own offspring, instead, relying on sperm and egg donation, including for singles and gay couples, and even the use of gestational mothers carrying babies not related to them for a price. The head of our adoption agency has told me that in Maryland, one of the jurisdictions where our agency works, she has been asked to interview gestational mothers to make sure they are entering these arrangements voluntarily, as is usually the case, because they are being paid to do so and are also required to sign agreements (whose enforceability is uncertain) not to drink alcohol or use drugs, to participate in prenatal care, and not to claim the baby after the birth. Most of these gestational women, she says, are poor and black, unlike the contracting parents, whose own genetic material may be used, or who may be producing a baby with donated eggs and sperm. Most often, if the contracting father is fertile, his sperm is used along with a donor egg if his wife cannot produce viable eggs. Assisted reproduction has become big business, but is mainly available to high-income people, as, increasingly, is also the case with adoption. While perhaps most people try to reduce their fertility, there is a small subset of people willing and able to spend any amount of money to become parents. But, of course, the recession and continuing economic downturn have put a crimp in both adoptions and assisted reproduction.

Last time, I got a message on my blog from someone identifying himself as a Spanish boy who posts images of stamped envelopes of letters received from all over the world on his own blog. He has asked me to send him a stamped letter from Honduras, which I will try to remember to do when I go there next February. Emilio, if you are reading this, please be patient. Also, if anyone else wants to send him a stamped letter, below is his address, though he has received mail already from the US. I note that senders wisely do not put their name and return address on the front of the envelope, probably not at all, for privacy concerns, and he could scarcely reply to all anyway (access his blog via my own--see bottom of my post for Oct. 14). Any readers from other countries, please take note and, perhaps, he would appreciate more letters from the US as well, especially if they have interesting stamps—perhaps an ingenious combination of stamps to make up what’s required for an airmail letter to Spain. Also, he apparently knows English, so you may write to him in English. He must enjoy opening his mailbox every day.

Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain

Vermont Visitors, Federal Budget Reprieve, Immigration Reform Next, Richmond Art Museum, Honduras, DR, Cholera, Sudan, Hesperian Health Guides, Baby’s Death, Adoption Plea, Nigerian Artist, Anthony Weiner Again, Happy Halloween

Don't know why typeface here came out blue--if it posts in blue, it's not my doing, but OK, let's leave it, just one more blogging mystery. If the intermittent blue type remains, it will provide an interesting checkerboard pattern.

Among the photos above is the flag outside the DR Embassy on Oct. 23, an international day of protest against the latest attempt in the Dominican Republic to strip people of Haitian descent of their citizenship (more on this issue below). These tactics remind me of the Tea Party’s attitude toward Hispanic immigrants and their offspring here. The stark white group statue stands next to the Indonesian Embassy, en route to the DR Embassy. Right next door, on the statue’s other side is the Portuguese Embassy, quite fitting, because Portugal, at Fatima, celebrates the appearance of the Virgin Mary to three children, not unlike the three children viewing the Indonesian goddess. Religious folklore has consistent themes across religious, language, and geographic divides.

The other photos were taken by my friend Carol, a few years my junior, visiting DC with her husband. They loved the weekend outdoor Eastern Market and the Smithsonian museums, which had just reopened. Though we have not seen each other often over the years, we first met as children back in Vermont, where she is still living. She has invited me to attend her mother’s 99^th birthday celebration there in January. I would like to be there, but also have Honduras coming up again in Feb. There may be another celebration for her 100^th, but it might be tempting fate to postpone a trip until that time. Carol seemed fascinated by my bed, as can be seen, as well as my wall of masks collected from all over the world and display of degrees and awards. Readers will also recognize the exterior of my house, now about 115 years old. In the couch photo, we are holding photos of her own family to show her relatives back home.

 Last time, at the first attempt, my posting did not post, then, when it finally did post, the initial abortive attempt, consisting of only the headline, was no longer there. I don’t know if a good fairy or a real live blogspot person came to my rescue to erase the first attempt, hence my odd comment at the beginning of the last blog (if you even noticed it). How all this stuff works is a mystery to me, but I’m taking it on faith. [Blue is no longer appearing below on my screen.]

Whew! House Speaker John Boehner finally let the House vote and now we have a short reprieve before the whole battle starts up again. Or maybe the Republican Party establishment has had enough? It would be great if Tea Partiers had some wind knocked out of their sails, but the fight may have just whetted their appetite. Since they’re in safe districts, they face few constraints. Despite the end of the government shutdown, much damage has already been done. Boehner seemed willing to sacrifice the country and risk the world economy just to make sure he retained his speakership. A civil war is now raging within the Republican Party, which is fine with me.

Immigration reform is next and will be another test. It seems pretty obvious that if people are already here, living and working productively and raising US-born children, integrated into the national fabric however they got here, then we should welcome them because our economy and civic life need them. Unlike with new immigrants, there’s no need to put them through cumbersome immigration procedures and offer support services because they are already here, acclimated, and integrated into our system. Without them, we would be losing population, especially of working age, as is happening in Japan and some European countries. White Americans, once the demographic backbone, are not reproducing themselves in sufficient numbers.

 The day before the government shutdown finally ended, I went with an idled federal employee friend to visit her daughter attending college in Richmond, Virginia’s capital. It is a smallish but growing city (population 210,000) with a population somewhat younger and less affluent than the state as a whole with more affordable housing than in the DC area. It has an unhurried charm and some old-fashioned houses and buildings. We ate a crayfish sandwich at local eatery and saw the old statehouse and a row of monuments to southern civil war heroes, including Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson. We also visited the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, with a very respectable collection, including of African Art. We honed in especially on the Dorothy & Herbert Vogel exhibit, an eclectic collection of arts works acquired over decades by a childless NYC couple living in a cluttered one-bedroom apartment with their goldfish and pet cats. He was a postal worker, she a librarian. A video feed was shown of films made over the course of their collecting career and the gallery openings displaying their collected works. It shows Dorothy, the taller and more physically vigorous of the two, taking the lead. They only bought works they liked; also those they could carry home on the subway or in a cab. Their patronage helped propel many later well-known artists into prominence. Dorothy came for the Virginian Museum exhibit opening, as by now, Herbert has passed on. The story of their life and how they acquired their collection is almost more interesting than the art itself.

On Oct. 15, Honduran military police wearing camouflage and carrying high-caliber weapons invaded dangerous sectors of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, the two largest cities, looking for wanted subjects, especially those connected with gangs. With presidential and other office elections coming up in November in Honduras, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez, who was an outspoken cardinal when I was in the Peace Corps there, urged voters not be afraid to go out to vote, that their participation is needed. [Blue popped up again here, very interesting.]

 In the DR, as referred to above, there has been a disturbing high court ruling: http://news.yahoo.com/dominican-court-ruling-renders-hundreds-thousands-stateless-060317525.html and

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/01/3663924/haiti-recalls-envoy-activists.html#.UlCCj01Y7Zw.twitter#storylink=cpy

See also NY Times: “Dominicans of Haitian Descent Cast Into Legal Limbo by Court” (Oct. 24, 2013).

Although the DR Supreme Court has decreed that Dominican-born descendants of Haitians are not citizens, our local Spanish language press in DC says that DR President Danilo Medina has agreed to meet with spokespersons for Haitian-Dominicans. Could he overrule the court? On Oct. 23, in concert with people around the world, I attended in a demonstration at the Dominican Embassy in Washington, DC (as per flag outside the Dominican Embassy above).

 This is from Amnesty International’s London headquarters regarding the issue:

We share with you the Urgent Action AMR 27/014/2013 issued today by Amnesty International on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people at risk of being deprived of their nationality in the Dominican Republic and potentially being made stateless following the ruling issued last month by the Constitutional Court.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR27/014/2013/en

The cholera apparently spread to Haiti by Nepalese Peace Keepers—perhaps even by a single sick guy—with devastating effect, then moved over the border to the Dominican Republic and to Cuba, right after Cuban health workers had returned from service in Haiti. From Cuba, via tourists, it spread all over the world, though seemingly nipped in the bud in Europe. But from the Caribbean, it has now moved into Mexico and is approaching the US border. It may be spread inadvertently by people with no or only mild symptoms. So that possibly lone Nepalese soldier has made a worldwide impact.

 In Sudan, the oil-rich border region of Abyei is still in dispute and a promised referendum has not yet been held, so the residents of the region have decided to hold their own plebiscite to determine if they want to be part of North or South Sudan. From having been there myself in 2006, I would expect most wanting to go with the south. North Sudan’s President al-Bashir has indicated that holding a vote on the matter now would be premature, but recently seems to be yielding on the issue.

We returned Peace Corps volunteers gathered at a local watering hole near Howard University called “Cause Philathropub,” an enterprise that donates event proceeds, in whole or in part, to good causes. On that particular evening, we were celebrating the publication in multiple languages of health guides of the Hesperian Foundation, based in Pal Alto, California. I used 2 of them extensively when I was in Honduras: Donde de Hay Doctor (Where There Is No Doctor) and Aprendiendo a Promover la Salud (Learning Health Promotion).

 Sadly, I just got word that a child I had been trying to help has died. He was born last March with a severe harelip and cleft palate, on the very day I donated a wheelchair to a birthing center in Jesus de Otoro, a rural town in Honduras. The mother always had a hard time feeding him because he could not suck or swallow well. The family took him to a center in Tegucigalpa to arrange for him to have surgery, but the center staff found him insufficiently well-nourished to go ahead. The family was told he would have to become somewhat bigger and stronger before he could undergo surgery. But soon after they returned home, the baby died, whether of malnutrition or simple crib death, is not known. He was about 8 months old, so crib death seems unlikely. A family of little means and little education, like that one, struggling to comply with specialized feeding requirements and lacking the means to do so adequately, was in a catch-22 situation. The mother was expressing breast milk manually, not very efficient. The baby could not take in adequate nutrition because of his congenital problem and could not have it remedied because of the effects of that same problem. So, he has now died.  In the U.S. a child like that might have had a temporary feeding tube inserted. A reminder to would-be mothers: take your folic acid from the beginning of, or even before, a pregnancy. As a bereaved mother myself, I feel special sympathy for parents who lose a child at any age.

 Did you hear about a 15-year-old African American boy, who had been living for years in foster care now making a request for an adoptive family? Standing bravely before the congregation at Florida church, he said: "I'll take anyone. Old or young, dad or mom, black, white, purple. I don't care. And I would be really appreciative. The best I could be." A teenage black boy is usually about the hardest type of child to place with an adoptive family, as people are often afraid to try to be parent a kid like that, given all the baggage he brings. Of course, since his plea went viral, thousands responded from all over the world. I hope he is able to find the right family.

 However, I also couldn't help thinking that as brave and sincere as that young man might be, now, at his age of 15, finding him a "forever" home now will not be a slam-dunk. Children who have been through a lot and are no longer babies usually have issues and need more than just a roof over their head and lots of love.

 A couple I know adopted an adorable 12-year-old girl from overseas. They showered her with activities and stuff and reported on their experiences on a blog. Of course, it was all fun and games at first. But when the blog went dark, I was pretty sure the honeymoon was over. I e-mailed the wife who said they were now in family therapy and struggling. It's as risky to give newly arrived kids the Disneyworld experience as it is to neglect them.

 I’ve previously mentioned Gabriela, a Romanian girl whose adoption I indirectly facilitated. She came to this country at age 7 after years of neglect in an orphanage. She has done beautifully since, in part because of her own spirit, but also because her parents, teachers, and therapists all gave her the right support. A good outcome doesn’t happen automatically.

 In that regard Reuters has revealed a practice of dumping older kids from overseas via the internet when their new adoptive families don’t work out. Desperate adoptive parents unable to handle a child seek out a new home on line and simply hand the youngster over. Like much internet traffic, such transactions are hard to police, but maybe now that the practice is known, steps can be taken to better protect kids.

Below is the Smithsonian’s description of my Nigerian artist visitor’s task here in DC, unfortunately interrupted by the federal government shutdown. He has traveled to NYC and Baltimore in the meantime but began running out of options to occupy his time productively. He is not familiar with preparing his own food in the kitchen—probably his wife or a maid does it at home—so I showed him how to use a microwave and turn on a gas burner. Unfortunately, he refuses to allow any images of his work to appear on Google and doesn’t have any e-mail images, so I’ve never actually seen his work.

Evaristus Chukwuemeka Obodo is a Nigerian-based artist who works in fiber, cloth and other soft materials. His goal for his research is to focus on the woven structure of textiles and to rethink fabric and fiber visually and in its manufacture. He plans to compare and contrast naturally woven structures such as bird nests and leaf vines with African textiles. He will concentrate on the National Museum of African Art, National Museum of Natural History and Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum for his studies.

 Poor Evaristus, he not only had to buy a jacket because of cooler weather, but he is feeling a resurgence of the malaria from which he has suffered off and on throughout his life. It’s quite true that it’s not necessary to be bitten again by a malaria mosquito to suffer a recurrence, since the parasite may linger in the bloodstream. Fortunately for me, although I’ve had malaria more than once, I believe it’s only recurred through a new mosquito bite, as it only came back to me after decades when I was in the Peace Corps in Honduras. However, because of having had it, I cannot give blood.

 This below from Anthony Weiner in a candid interview for CQ magazine regarding his wife and his apparent addiction to sexting:

"[H]er reputation has become the Woman Who Married an Idiot and Stuck with Him. More of it rolls off my back, because that's the way I am constitutionally. She's more sensitive. I'm just an empty, soulless vessel, so it doesn't hurt me as much."

 Finally, Happy Halloween to one and all!