Mira
Mira's JournalStill helping in Kathmadu - photos and a little report from my 21 year old cousin Sara
I wrote about her surviving the earthquake and her bravery in remaining to help the people. She has just reported to the family (can you imagine how much her parents want her home?) and sent a few photos
Here is a link to the post I made right after she bucked those wishes and now she chose to remain even after the second earthquake.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026627413
In her own words today, loosely translated:
….i was able to once more go to Baseri (that was a village hard hit) and we were able to take packages of supplies to the pregnant women and the families with infants.
We discussed it with the village doctor, and we assembled the packages ahead of time in Kathmandu and loaded the trucks. A package contains a blanket for the baby, one for the mother, a mosquito net, soap, medications and baby food.
Altogether we were able to supply this to 71 families in Baseri, and we also got Mattresses, gloves, masks and disinfectants for the hospital in the village.
I was thrilled to see how hard the villagers have worked since I was there a little while ago. Almost each family has now a rain safe emergency shelter and there is great progress visible in the cleanup…..
I’m posting this just to show a slice of life we have already stopped hearing about.
It reminds me of a line by Friedrich Schiller he wrote in Wilhelm Tell:
Das Alte stürzt, es ändert sich die Zeit,
und neues Leben blüht aus den Ruinen
“The old collapses, and times are changing, and new life blooms in the ruins…."
ich
Biker-Brawl Suspects Only Slightly Outnumber Republican Candidates - comparison by Andy Borowitz
WACO (The Borowitz Report) – Suspects in the recent biker brawl in Waco, Texas, only slightly outnumber the 2016 Republican Presidential candidates, leading some voters to have difficulty distinguishing between the two groups, a new poll shows.
According to the poll, voters who were presented the names of a biker-brawl suspect and a Republican Presidential candidate correctly identified both only thirty per cent of the time.
For example, fifty-seven per cent of voters erroneously identified the former Texas Governor Rick Perry as a member of the Bandidos motorcycle gang, while forty-one per cent believed he belonged to the Cossacks.
Adding to voters’ confusion, the biker brawlers and G.O.P. candidates have identical views on a host of issues, such as gun rights and whether they would feel comfortable attending a gay wedding.
While the number of biker-brawl suspects stands at a hundred and seventy, if current trends continue, the Republican field could blow past that number by early summer, possibly deepening voters’ confusion.
But, in one positive sign for the Republicans, they notched a higher approval rating than the Waco suspects, five per cent to three.
www.borowitzreport.com
A long time ago...in a Galaxy far far away...I bought a print from this artist in a gallery
http://jackovassilev.com/The print I own is the fifth in the line-up, the two old women drunk on old wine and laughing together.
I could not afford it at the time at all, but got the price haggled down, and paid in cash I borrowed off all of those around me because I felt I just had to have that photograph.
So I found the website last week - just curious to see if there is one - and wrote into the blue thinking it was a studio - wanting to see what the thing was worth in money. I already know what it's worth in joy on my wall.
To my great surprise the photographer himself wrote back and he appreciated my love for his work, and was really sweet and probably really old.
That made my day.
I hope you like what you see, I suspect you will. To me this is more than just humanly interesting - these people look like my grandmother and beyond on my mother's side, Hungarians, and Yugoslavs all, and I know I'm a part of it all.
It's a nice feeling.
Follow the Republicans and pick your own re-branding label. Luckovich shows you how. ("toon)
Scientists: Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans - now he tells us (Borowitz)
MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report) – Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports.
The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them.
“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive.”
More worryingly, Logsdon said, “As facts have multiplied, their defenses against those facts have only grown more powerful.”
While scientists have no clear understanding of the mechanisms that prevent the fact-resistant humans from absorbing data, they theorize that the strain may have developed the ability to intercept and discard information en route from the auditory nerve to the brain. “The normal functions of human consciousness have been completely nullified,” Logsdon said.
While reaffirming the gloomy assessments of the study, Logsdon held out hope that the threat of fact-resistant humans could be mitigated in the future. “Our research is very preliminary, but it’s possible that they will become more receptive to facts once they are in an environment without food, water, or oxygen,” he said.
www.borowitzreport.com
My 21 year old Cousin Sara - reporting from the heart of Kathmandu/Nepal - and 3 photos
My 21 year old second cousin Sara is a butterfly on the surface of the world. She grew up in Vienna where her parents live, is smart, educated, and gathers money where she can and then is off again into the world.
She is teaching English and German to Nepalese children at the moment and was taking them for a walk outside of Kathmandu when the earthquake hit.
Our family has been worried sick about her. Every now and then she was able to get through and report about her condition and the situation she is now in.
Emails have gone around the world to family and friends, we had to come to terms with her decision to not try to come home which would be our wish, but instead she is asking us for all the money we can send to her. The need is great.
All the begging for money has now brought in over 8000 Euros they have been sent on to a bank she has found that will not charge her any fees. She says she feels incredibly strange to have custody of the money and the huge power to decide whom of the many needy people to help.
LOOK, here she has spent 1700 of the Euros and is distributing food
She has since the earthquake lived in a tent in the street, well chaperoned by the family with whom she was staying and who all survived and are with her.
She says that some stores are opening, the schools are closed. The after shocks are terrifying, and one at 4.6 Richter scale night before last really frightened the people especially the children who have seen too much and who are still in shock. The after shocks are abating slowly, she says.
Here are a couple more photos she somehow managed to send, my first cousin, her uncle, sent them on to me by email.
Needless to say I am incredibly proud of this very young courageous relative.
The most racist areas in the United States - Map / Daily Kos
http://dailykos.com/story/2015/05/03/1381214/-The-most-racist-areas-in-the-United-States?detail=email
There are neighborhoods in Baltimore in which the life expectancy is 19 years less than other neighborhoods in the same city. Residents of the Downtown/Seaton Hill neighborhood have a life expectancy lower than 229 other nations, exceeded only by Yemen. According to the Washington Post, 15 neighborhoods in Baltimore have a lower life expectancy than North Korea.
North Korea.
And while those figures represent some of the most dramatic disparities in the life expectancy of black Americans as opposed to whites, a recent study of the health impacts of racism in America reveals that racist attitudes may cause up to 30,000 early deaths every year.
The study, Association between an Internet-Based Measure of Area Racism and Black Mortality, has just been published in PLOS ONE and has mapped out the most racist areas in the United States. As illustrated above, they are mostly located in the rural Northeast and down along the Appalachian Mountains into the South. How they did it and what it may mean are below the fold.
We already know about the racism that led to Jim Crow, the KKK, and lynchings. We also know about the racism that has become embedded in our justice system, from cops who kill, to prosecutors who ensure that blacks receive longer prison terms than do whites. We know that those sentencing disparities lead to greater disenfranchisement of blacks.
We think we know how racism has injured and killed black Americans. But do we really? There are the obvious cases, like Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner, but what about the silent killers? The hypertension and the chronic medical conditions that lead so many more blacks to an early grave than they do whites. Could racist attitudes lead to 30,000 early deaths every year?
According to the authors of the study, current research points to a variety of causes for the disparities in health between white and black Americans, many of which can be traced to racial segregation. Many blacks are restricted to high-crime neighborhoods that are lacking in outdoor recreational areas, access to healthy foods, and decent health care. Discrimination in employment leads to lower wages that further impact the ability to enjoy healthy food, exercise, and recreation.
more of the study at link above
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Ruth Bader Ginsburg Asks Someone to Wake Her When Scalia Stops Talking- Scotus update by Borowitz
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – As Justice Antonin Scalia weighed in on same-sex marriage at the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg interrupted the proceedings by announcing, “Someone wake me up when he stops talking.”
There was stunned silence in the courtroom after the pronouncement by Justice Ginsburg, who had been visibly nodding off during Scalia’s remarks, her head jerking upward violently at various junctures.
“Look, it’s not like he’s going to say anything on this subject that I haven’t heard him say nine zillion times before,” she said. “I’m gonna get me some shut-eye.”
Having completed her remarks, Ginsburg moved down the bench to what she called “my favorite quiet place,” next to Justice Clarence Thomas, and fell soundly asleep.
www.borowitzreport.com
President Obama just nailed a whole lot of it concerning the riots in Baltimore
Speaking up at a news conference he is holding with the Japanese Ambassador, when asked by the press corps about Baltimore he let loose with an acknowledgement that this is a long standing problem, that it has been going on for a very long time, we have bad corrupt politicians, and business leaders, and police officers. That we not only have to help the city now to regain its footing but we have to collectively help with education, jobs, support for the bitterly poor and not just hold open pipe lines from schools to prisons for young folks without hope.
And that it takes a whole lot more than just an occasional news reporter task force. If we really want to participate in solving these deep rooted problems of inequality we all have to recognize our parts in them and pull together to solve them
I'm paraphrasing.
I watched his frustration and was happy and of course not surprised to see him have such a clear perception of the vastness of the problems.
Then, of course, come the presently seeming insurmountable problems and pushbacks about doing the right things.
Justices Appear Deeply Divided on Right to Same-Sex Marriage
Source: NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
BREAKING NEWS Tuesday, April 28, 2015 12:02 PM EDT
Justices Appear Deeply Divided on Right to Same-Sex Marriage
The Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed deeply divided about one of the great civil rights issues of the age: whether the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry.
They appeared to clash over not only what is the right answer but also over how to reach it. The questioning illuminated their conflicting views on history, tradition, biology, constitutional interpretation, the democratic process and the role of the courts in prodding social change.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said he was concerned about changing a conception of marriage that has persisted for millennia. Later, though, he expressed qualms about excluding gay families from what he called a noble and sacred institution. Chief Justice John C. Roberts Jr. worried about shutting down a fast-moving societal debate.
In the initial questioning, which lasted about 90 minutes, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked whether groups of four people must be allowed to marry, while Justice Antonin Scalia said a ruling for same-sex marriage might require some members of the clergy to perform the ceremonies, even if they violate their religious teaching.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer described marriage as a fundamental liberty. And Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan said that allowing same-sex marriage would do no harm to the marriages of opposite-sex couples.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html?emc=edit_na_20150428
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