From Xico

Destroying a Way of Life to Save Louisiana - The New York Times

The state’s $50 billion plan to re-engineer its coastline may wash some fishing communities off the map.

To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Kindra Arnesen’s middle school was a plot of marsh a hundred yards off the southern coast of Louisiana. At 12, after her mother lost her job, Arnesen began skipping school to walk to the harbor in Buras, a town near the mouth of the Mississippi River. A dredge boat ferried her to Bay Adams, where she met a crew of oystermen. They gave her a flatboat, rubber boots, burlap sacks and a hatchet. With a rope looped around her waist, she trudged through the marsh, between the mud banks and the tufts of saw grass, tugging the boat behind her.

via www.nytimes.com

Kamran Afary posted this op ed piece in today's New York Times.It is ca,,ed "The American Way of Life" is Shaping up to be a Battleground by By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. It is definitely worth readng.

Donald Trump, Wind Energy Expert

Donald Trump spoke to a group of young supporters this weekend about WIND ENERGY.  These were among his words of wisdom:

We’ll have an economy based on wind. I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody. I know it’s very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly — very few made here, almost none. But they’re manufactured tremendous — if you’re into this — tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint — fumes are spewing into the air. Right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything — right? So they make these things and then they put them up.

That's just the most quoted segment.  I don't want to laugh or make fun because this is really serious stuff, as I hope we all are at least beginning to realize.  I found this in Philip Bump's column today in the Washington Post.  You can and should read it here.

Esther Buddenhagen shared “Blog Nov 10” with you

Esther Buddenhagen shared an album with you Blog Nov 10View album
You received this mail because Esther Buddenhagen shared these photos with you. If you no longer wish to receive email notifications of shared photos, unsubscribe here.
Get the Google Photos app

Google LLC
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy
Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

Esther Buddenhagen shared 1 photo with you

Esther Buddenhagen shared a photo with you View photo
You received this mail because Esther Buddenhagen shared these photos with you. If you no longer wish to receive email notifications of shared photos, unsubscribe here.
Get the Google Photos app

Google LLC
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy
Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

Esther Buddenhagen shared 1 photo with you

Esther Buddenhagen shared a photo with you View photo
You received this mail because Esther Buddenhagen shared these photos with you. If you no longer wish to receive email notifications of shared photos, unsubscribe here.
Get the Google Photos app

Google LLC
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy
Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

Migration: Crimes of the Trump Administration

Standing on the road's dividing line are a father, a mother, a little girl of seven or eight and a baby, maybe 8 months old, in the father's arms.  They are not Mexicans. They are asking for a handout and I give them some money. Once when I asked a family not unlike this one where they came from, the father said Honduras.  Now, in order to avoid US sanctions, people from Honduras, Guatemala and Honduras can be held in Mexico.  I can't remember for sure, but I think they are supposed to be able still to apply for hearings in the US, but they can't enter. I don't know how these refugees are living, but somehow they are.  Compared to some horror stories, I suppose they are lucky.

Trumps alleged efforts to push the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden seem like small potatoes given his administration's treatment of refugees.  I am not talking about letting everyone come in to the US who wants to. I'm talking about providing humane treatment.  The only reason people born in the US are allowed to stay is because they had the luck to be born there.  Where we come from is really not a matter of choice.

For one account of migrants, read this story in the New Yorker of ICE coming to Morton, Mississippi:

About one in ten of the city’s residents was jailed or fired after raids at local chicken plants. But, for most, Morton is still home.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/after-ice-came-to-morton-mississippi

For one about children, read this one:

From The New York Times:

Detentions of Child Migrants at the U.S. Border Has Surged to Record Levels

Detentions have surged as the Trump administration’s aggressive policy toward migrants has collided with an exodus of children fleeing Central America.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/world/americas/unaccompanied-minors-border-crossing.html

Or this one about detention camps from The Atlantic Monthly:

The Trump administration’s commitment to deterring immigration through cruelty has made horrifying conditions in detention facilities inevitable.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/border-facilities/593239/?utm_source=atl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share

 

These are just three stories I found over the past several days.  Obviously there are many more.

This is one set of horrendous abouses Trump should be impeached for, and those perpetrating these policies should, at the very least, be fired.

As I said I am not advocating open borders through which anyone and everyone can run.  But there are many, many other possibilities not motivated by irrational hatred and racism.

"Now the Rich Want Your Pity, Too"

Richard Reeves wrote an excellent post today on the travails of the very rich.  He points out that they are travails that are unnecessary and in fact limit severly the lives of people working and working and working and driving their children to do the same.

The idea of meritocracy has long been used by the rich for self-justification. Now it is becoming fuel for their self-pity.

The raw competition for success, so the argument goes, hurts the winners as much as the losers: It is “mutually destructive.” But this is not true. By any objective measure, the rich are doing just fine. They are wealthier and healthier than ever. Economists at the Brookings Institution found that the top 10 percent of male earners born in 1940 can now expect to live to the ripe old age of 88, 12 years longer than male earners born the same year in the bottom 10 percent.

This is not to say that successful people are immune to life’s difficulties and strains. But there is no moral equivalence between the stress of a senior executive staying up late to polish a presentation for a client and the stress of a retail worker unsure if she will get the shift she needs to make rent.

The problems of the affluent are not systemic. They are self-inflicted. Well-heeled Americans have persuaded themselves that the stakes are high in every race in life. Especially when it comes to their children, the good is never good enough. Their children must have the best: the best preschools, the best high schools and the best colleges.

 

Reeves points out that thre are much better alternatives. if the super rich pushing themselves and their kids in the super rat race followed Reeves's suggestions, they might find it necessary to advocate for decent public schools which would benefit far more than their kids. They might have time to talk to people different from themselves, learn about lives different from their own. Learn not only about the difficulties of the poor and middle class,but also about who they are. For me, a graduate of a very fine high school and an Ivy League college, the best education I had was my two years in the Peace Corps in Uganda living in a semi-rural community teaching boys whose main shoes were flip flops. It wasn't learning that they were poor that mattered, though, it was learning that their lives mattered and that there was not a single (American) way to live your life.

Humboldt and Pomagranates

Thanks to Susan Mills, I learned that today is Alexander Von Humboldt's birthday.  Von Humboldt was what we might call a Renaissance man.  He didn't follow a single, narrow field like geology, but rather looked for connections across the natural world.  I don't know why he isn't famous in the United States as other 19th century pioneering scientists, like Darwin, are.  Maybe teachers want their students to specialize and are afraid of wakening too much curiosity!  Just joking.

Anyway, here is a link to a short biography from a blog at the Library of Congress. In it, the Port of Veracruz is mistakenly located in the west, not the east of Mexico.

Today is Mexico's Independence Day so here are a few photos to show our local celebrations.  They seem muted this year.  Few houses had decorations, and, more noticeable, there were no cohetes -- fireworks -- last night.  

The left hand photo is of the tail-end of the Independence Day parade in our Colonia.  It's put on by all the schools here.It is a big parade with drums and horns and dancers. Chedraui, the supermarket, brought dancers from Ballet Folklorico de Coatepec to their lobby yesterday.  The dancers were excellent, my photos not so much. Three groups performed traditional Jarocho dances.  They were not only exellent, but they radiated joy and energy.  I am really disappointed that I don't have more to show!  A couples dance was especialy charming, but my photos are very blurry so I left it out.  You have to imagine the men in fringed leather jackets and cowboy hats and jeans and the women in gorgeous, brightly colored skirts with almost off the shoulder peasant blouses, swirling and stomping and flirting a bit.  The right hand photo shows one chile en nogada.  This is the traditional Independence Day dish:  poblano peppers stuffed with shredded meat: beef and pork and chopped fruit drenched in a creamy sauce which includes ground walnuts.It's sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and maybe some parsley.  It's a sweet dish and I love it.  Dessert as a main course!   It is traditionally said to have been created by a group of Augustine or Clarisa nuns  in Puebla to honor Agustine de Iturbide after he signed the treaty ending the Mexican Revolution giving independence to Mexico.  Chiles en Nogada are only prepared in August and September not only to mark Independence but because this is the season when pomagranates are ripe.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esther Buddenhagen shared 1 photo with you

Esther Buddenhagen shared a photo with you View photo
You received this mail because Esther Buddenhagen shared these photos with you. If you no longer wish to receive email notifications of shared photos, unsubscribe here.
Get the Google Photos app

Google LLC
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy
Mountain View, CA 94043 USA