By Jenni Bergal, Stateline, Pew Trusts
Living alone can be tough for seniors. Some don’t have family nearby to check on them, and they worry that if they fall or suffer a medical emergency and can’t get to the phone to seek help, no one will know.
That’s why hundreds of police agencies in small towns, suburbs and rural areas across the country are checking in on seniors who live alone by offering them a free automated phone call every day.
Police officials say the computerized calling systems, which are fairly inexpensive and easy to use, provide an important service to a growing senior population that is expected to reach 65 million by 2025. Already, nearly half of women age 75 and older live alone.
And advocates for older adults say telephone check-in programs can help seniors remain independent in their homes and give them — and their family members — peace of mind.
“It helps ensure for the elderly person or their family that a phone call is being made every morning, that everything is OK. We’ve gotten incredible feedback on this program,” said Cmdr. Jack Vaccaro, of the Lighthouse Point Police Department in Florida, which has nine seniors in its automated daily call program.
Automated telephone reassurance systems for seniors began nearly three decades ago. They have grown in popularity in recent years and now are used by police departments from California to Massachusetts.
Some police agencies take a more personal approach, using volunteers or dispatchers to place the calls.
Police departments are becoming more sensitive in responding to the needs of older adults, said Sandy Markwood, CEO of the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging. For instance, she said, they are training officers in how to handle seniors with dementia. Telephone check-in programs are another way of doing that.
“I think we’re seeing a trend with these types of programs, particularly in rural and smaller communities,” she said. “It’s a wise use of government dollars for first responders.”
Seniors who sign up for telephone reassurance programs decide when they want to be called. They typically are required to give police the name and phone number of an emergency contact.
Participants get a computer-generated phone call every day — sometimes recorded by the police chief or sheriff — that asks them to press a certain number if they are OK. If they don’t answer the phone, they’ll get another computer-generated call, and sometimes additional ones.
Ferida Wolff’s Backyard: Daffodils and Spring; Squirrels – Enough Already!
Daffodils and Spring
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Squirrels – Enough Already!
http://www.doityourself.com/stry/groundhogs
It Can Be Very Difficult to Determine When a Person is Recollecting Actual Past Events, As Opposed to False Memories
Many people are prone to ‘remembering’ events that never happened, according to new research by the University of Warwick, UK published in Memory. In a study on false memories, Dr. Kimberley Wade in the Department of Psychology demonstrates that if we are told about a completely fictitious event from our lives, and repeatedly imagine that event occurring, almost half of us would accept that it did.
Over 400 participants in ‘memory implantation’ studies had fictitious autobiographical events suggested to them — and it was found that around 50% of the participants believed, to some degree, that they had experienced those events. Participants in these studies came to remember a range of false events, such as taking a childhood hot air balloon ride, playing a prank on a teacher, or creating havoc at a family wedding. Thirty percent of participants appeared to ‘remember’ the event — they accepted the suggested event, elaborated on how the event occurred, and even described images of what the event was like. Another 23% showed signs that they accepted the suggested event to some degree and believed it really happened.
Dr. Wade and colleagues conclude that it can be very difficult to determine when a person is recollecting actual past events, as opposed to false memories — even in a controlled research environment; and more so in real life situations. These findings have significance in many areas — raising questions around the authenticity of memories used in forensic investigations, courtrooms, and therapy treatments. Moreover, the collective memories of a large group of people or society could be incorrect — due to misinformation in the news, for example — having a striking effect on people’s perceptions and behavior.
Dr. Wade comments on the importance of this study:
“We know that many factors affect the creation of false beliefs and memories — such as asking a person to repeatedly imagine a fake event or to view photos to “jog” their memory. But we don’t fully understand how all these factors interact. Large-scale studies like our mega-analysis move us a little bit closer.
“The finding that a large portion of people [is] prone to developing false beliefs is important. We know from other research that distorted beliefs can influence people’s behaviours, intentions and attitudes.”
Scientists have been using variations of this procedure for 20 years to study how people can come to remember wholly false experiences.
The paper, A Mega-analysis of Memory Reports from Eight Peer-reviewed False Memory Implantation Studies, is co-authored by Dr. Kimberley Wade at the University of Warwick, UK, Dr. Alan Scoboria at the University of Windsor, Canada, and Professor Stephen Lindsay at the University of Victoria, Canada.
Jill Norgren Reviews The Graphic Novel, Memoir and Biography
The subject matter of graphic novels stretches from the comic to the mundane but also includes many narratives that are deeply serious.
Can’t we talk about something more Pleasant? A Memoir
By Roz Chast
Published by Bloomsbury, 2014; 240pp., hardcover, paperback and Kindle
Our Lady of Birth Control: A Cartoonist’s Encounter with Margaret Sanger
By Sabrina Jones
Published by Soft Skull Press/Counterpoint, 2016; 160pp., paperback and Kindle
March (Volumes 1 – 3)
By John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell (illustrator),
Published by Top Shelf Productions/IDW, 2013-2016, paperback and Kindle
The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1987 (A trilogy)
By Riad Sattouf
Published by Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2015-17, paperback and Kindle
By Jill Norgren
With the publication several years ago of Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale , Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home readers began to realize that something radical had happened in the world of comics. As a friend commented, the authors and illustrators of these new graphic novels were tackling topics beyond an older generation’s expectation of what constituted graphics subject matter.
The genre has expanded. Stories of airborne Wham! Bam! Super Heroes now share bookstore and library shelf space with graphic biographies and memoir that explore culture, art and science, family relations, racism, sexual identity, politics, and a host of other serious and sometimes controversial topics. Spiegelman’s Maus was awarded a Pulitzer prize in 1992; Satrapi’s two volumes on life in Iran and Europe during and after the Islamic revolution won awards in Europe, was made into an animated film, and translated into several languages. Bechdel’s highly regarded examination of sexual identity, published in 2006, created such a buzz that it became the basis of a play performed for several years on Broadway.
These books have achieved iconic stature but happily, it has not been a situation of once and done. Longtime readers of graphics know this. Devoted consumers of text, however, may want to discard their prejudices about this mixed-media genre. The rewards will be manyfold.
Sabrina Jones’ work typifies the best of what is available in the graphic biography field. A longtime contributor to political comic publications, Jones has written and illustrated Isadora Duncan: A Graphic Biography and, in 2016, a fascinating ‘encounter’ with birth control activist Margaret Sanger titled Our Lady of Birth Control.
When the Spirit Moves You: From Wealth to Worry
Having been born in the worst month in the worst year of our nation’s worst economic calamity, I feel justified in calling myself “a child of the Depression.” But as bad as conditions were at that time, I was at least rocked in the same crude cradle with other children in the same fix, all of whom were gratefully too young to remember how things had once been.
My parents’ generation, however, fully grasped the denigrating impact of The Great Depression. Through its years of struggle followed by those of World War II, families managed to exist in a new, harsher reality. And while my parents were not exactly reduced from riches to rags, they were undeniably plunged headlong from wealth to worry.
A Baby grand piano, Wikimedia commons
My father’s lighting fixture factory went dark since nobody could afford to buy its products. Yet as tough as things were for him, he still invited his out-of-work employees to remain on the payroll, promising to give them what he could to at least keep them off the bread lines and out of the soup kitchens.
I am proud of my father for having done that. And I even feel a sense of self-pride, misplaced perhaps, in the fact that my ‘depressed’ childhood left me with so few emotional or physical scars. Could it be that the unfortunate timing of my birth steeled me to perceive later challenges in life as less insurmountable?
When the Depression hit, my parents moved out of their swank West Side apartment in Manhattan and into a duplex on Long island. After my birth, they moved again, into a new apartment building in Queens, whose construction had started years before. That is where they stayed put for the rest of their respective long lives.
Even though my mother outlived her husband by more than twenty years, she was still in that apartment when she celebrated her 100th birthday. Despite pressure from her children — some of us living thousands of miles away — she refused to consider moving elsewhere.
Deep-growing roots are the hardest to extract, even more so under circumstances of diminished strength. Only once did my mother consent to let her grown children take a whirlwind tour of senior facilities in the Washington, DC area, where we found one property that we felt might be ideal, even allowing her to take her long-standing furniture with her. But when we returned and shared our recommendations, “The Dowager” — as we had begun calling her — dismissed the matter out of hand. “Just forget about it!” she announced.
Everything in mom’s narrow world had grown familiar and convenient. Across one street were her bank, produce market, and luncheonette; across the other were a neighborhood grocery, her hairdresser, a shoe repair, and a drug store. Two blocks south was the office of her medical doctor (GP) to whom she often took a homemade lemon cake — his favorite. Most of the long-term tenants in her building had moved or died — perhaps both — and the demographics had changed over the years. An influx of elderly persecuted Russians occupied most of the other apartments by then, but my stylish and welcoming mother was a universal favorite with all the tenants.
Congressional Budget Office: American Health Care Act Cost Estimate and How Many Will Be Uninsured
Summary
The Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2017 directed the House Committees on Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce to develop legislation to reduce the deficit. The Congressional Budget Office and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have produced an estimate of the budgetary effects of the American Health Care Act, which combines the pieces of legislation approved by the two committees pursuant to that resolution. In consultation with the budget committees, CBO used its March 2016 baseline with adjustments for subsequently enacted legislation, which underlies the resolution, as the benchmark to measure the cost of the legislation.
Effects on the Federal Budget
CBO and JCT estimate that enacting the legislation would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the 2017-2026 period. That total consists of $323 billion in on-budget savings and $13 billion in off-budget savings. Outlays would be reduced by $1.2 trillion over the period, and revenues would be reduced by $0.9 trillion.
The largest savings would come from reductions in outlays for Medicaid and from the elimination of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) subsidies for nongroup health insurance. The largest costs would come from repealing many of the changes the ACA made to the Internal Revenue Code — including an increase in the Hospital Insurance payroll tax rate for high-income taxpayers, a surtax on those taxpayers’ net investment income, and annual fees imposed on health insurers—and from the establishment of a new tax credit for health insurance.
Pay-as-you-go procedures apply because enacting the legislation would affect direct spending and revenues. CBO and JCT estimate that enacting the legislation would not increase net direct spending or on-budget deficits by more than $5 billion in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2027.
Effects on Health Insurance Coverage
To estimate the budgetary effects, CBO and JCT projected how the legislation would change the number of people who obtain federally subsidized health insurance through Medicaid, the nongroup market, and the employment-based market, as well as many other factors.
CBO and JCT estimate that, in 2018, 14 million more people would be uninsured under the legislation than under current law. Most of that increase would stem from repealing the penalties associated with the individual mandate. Some of those people would choose not to have insurance because they chose to be covered by insurance under current law only to avoid paying the penalties, and some people would forgo insurance in response to higher premiums.
Later, following additional changes to subsidies for insurance purchased in the nongroup market and to the Medicaid program, the increase in the number of uninsured people relative to the number under current law would rise to 21 million in 2020 and then to 24 million in 2026. The reductions in insurance coverage between 2018 and 2026 would stem in large part from changes in Medicaid enrollment — because some states would discontinue their expansion of eligibility, some states that would have expanded eligibility in the future would choose not to do so, and per-enrollee spending in the program would be capped. In 2026, an estimated 52 million people would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law.
Stability of the Health Insurance Market
Decisions about offering and purchasing health insurance depend on the stability of the health insurance market—that is, on having insurers participating in most areas of the country and on the likelihood of premiums’ not rising in an unsustainable spiral. The market for insurance purchased individually (that is, nongroup coverage) would be unstable, for example, if the people who wanted to buy coverage at any offered price would have average health care expenditures so high that offering the insurance would be unprofitable. In CBO and JCT’s assessment, however, the nongroup market would probably be stable in most areas under either current law or the legislation.
Under current law, most subsidized enrollees purchasing health insurance coverage in the nongroup market are largely insulated from increases in premiums because their out-of-pocket payments for premiums are based on a percentage of their income; the government pays the difference. The subsidies to purchase coverage combined with the penalties paid by uninsured people stemming from the individual mandate are anticipated to cause sufficient demand for insurance by people with low health care expenditures for the market to be stable.
Under the legislation, in the agencies’ view, key factors bringing about market stability include subsidies to purchase insurance, which would maintain sufficient demand for insurance by people with low health care expenditures, and grants to states from the Patient and State Stability Fund, which would reduce the costs to insurers of people with high health care expenditures. Even though the new tax credits would be structured differently from the current subsidies and would generally be less generous for those receiving subsidies under current law, the other changes would, in the agencies’ view, lower average premiums enough to attract a sufficient number of relatively healthy people to stabilize the market.
Effects on Premiums
The legislation would tend to increase average premiums in the nongroup market prior to 2020 and lower average premiums thereafter, relative to projections under current law. In 2018 and 2019, according to CBO and JCT’s estimates, average premiums for single policyholders in the nongroup market would be 15 percent to 20 percent higher than under current law, mainly because the individual mandate penalties would be eliminated, inducing fewer comparatively healthy people to sign up.
Starting in 2020, the increase in average premiums from repealing the individual mandate penalties would be more than offset by the combination of several factors that would decrease those premiums: grants to states from the Patient and State Stability Fund (which CBO and JCT expect to largely be used by states to limit the costs to insurers of enrollees with very high claims); the elimination of the requirement for insurers to offer plans covering certain percentages of the cost of covered benefits; and a younger mix of enrollees. By 2026, average premiums for single policyholders in the nongroup market under the legislation would be roughly 10 percent lower than under current law, CBO and JCT estimate.
Although average premiums would increase prior to 2020 and decrease starting in 2020, CBO and JCT estimate that changes in premiums relative to those under current law would differ significantly for people of different ages because of a change in age-rating rules. Under the legislation, insurers would be allowed to generally charge five times more for older enrollees than younger ones rather than three times more as under current law, substantially reducing premiums for young adults and substantially raising premiums for older people.
Uncertainty Surrounding the Estimates
The ways in which federal agencies, states, insurers, employers, individuals, doctors, hospitals, and other affected parties would respond to the changes made by the legislation are all difficult to predict, so the estimates in this report are uncertain. But CBO and JCT have endeavored to develop estimates that are in the middle of the distribution of potential outcomes.
Macroeconomic Effects
Because of the magnitude of its budgetary effects, this legislation is “major legislation,” as defined in the rules of the House of Representatives. Hence, it triggers the requirement that the cost estimate, to the greatest extent practicable, include the budgetary impact of its macroeconomic effects. However, because of the very short time available to prepare this cost estimate, quantifying and incorporating those macroeconomic effects have not been practicable.
Intergovernmental and Private-Sector Mandates
JCT and CBO have reviewed the provisions of the legislation and determined that they would impose no intergovernmental mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA).
JCT and CBO have determined that the legislation would impose private-sector mandates as defined in UMRA. On the basis of information from JCT, CBO estimates the aggregate cost of the mandates would exceed the annual threshold established in UMRA for private-sector mandates ($156 million in 2017, adjusted annually for inflation).
Congressional Actions: House Passes Fairness for Breastfeeding Mothers Act; Senate Passed Resolution Raising Awareness of Modern Slavery
Eleanor Holmes Norton and Stephen Colbert
Hearings:
Family Support– On Wednesday, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources will hold a hearing, “Reauthorization of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program.”
Child Protection– On Thursday, the House Education and the Workforce Committee will hold a hearing, “Honoring our Commitment to Recover and Protect Missing Exploited Children.”
On Thursday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations will hold a hearing, “Combatting Crimes Against Children: Assessing the Legal Landscape.”
House Passes Fairness for Breastfeeding Mothers Act: On March 7, the House passed, by voice vote, H.R. 1174, the Fairness for Breastfeeding Mothers Act, sponsored by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a bill to expand access to public lactation rooms shielded from public view and free from intrusion in federal buildings.
Senate Passes Resolution Raising Awareness of Modern Slavery: On March 7, the Senate passed, by unanimous consent, S. Res. 68, a resolution raising awareness of modern slavery, sponsored by Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). The resolution notes that 55 percent of forced labor victims are women or girls and one in five victims of slavery is a child. In addition, the resolution emphasizes the need for international action to bring an end to modern slavery around the world.
On March 8, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee passed H.R. 653, the Federal Intern Protection Act, and HR. 680, the Eliminating Pornography from Agencies Act.
Bills Introduced by House and Senate
Child Protection
S. 534—Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)/ Judiciary (3/6/17)—A bill to prevent the sexual abuse of minors and amateur athletes by requiring the prompt reporting of sexual abuse to law enforcement authorities, and for other purposes.
Employment
S. 528—Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT)/Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (3/6/17)—A bill to amend the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 to provide leave because of the death of a son or daughter.
Judiciary
H.R. 1447—Rep. Scott Taylor (R-VA)/Judiciary (3/9/17)—A bill to extend the protections of the Fair Housing Act to persons suffering discrimination on the basis of sex or sexual orientation, and for other purposes.
Miscellaneous
S. Res. 84—Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)/Considered and agreed to (3/8/17)—A resolution supporting the goals of International Women’s Day.
Tax Policy
S. 598—Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)/Finance (3/9/17)—A bill to provide an above-the-line deduction for child care expenses, and for other purposes.
H.R. 1466—Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA)/Ways and Means (3/9/17)—A bill to provide a high quality child care tax credit, and for other purposes.
With permission from the Women’s Congressional Policy Institute (WCPI)
USG/ERC Stephen O’Brien’s Statement to the UN Security Council on Missions to Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Kenya
Editor’s Note: We recommend Charity Navigator for a donation source of rated organizations for giving; we have used it as a journalistic source for objective ratings.
REPORT from UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; Published on 10 Mar 2017
Right, Stephen O’Brien, The United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator; the Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator is Ursula Mueller
Mr. President, Council members,
Thank you for inviting me to brief on my visits to countries facing famine or at risk of famine: Yemen, South Sudan and Somalia. I will also briefly mention the outcomes of the Oslo Conference on the Lake Chad Basin.
I need to mention that I also visited Northern Kenya where pastoralists are worst affected by the terrible drought. Over 2.7 million Kenyans are now food insecure, a number likely to reach 4 million by April. In collaboration with the Government, the UN will soon launch an appeal of $200 million to provide timely life-saving assistance and protection. For what follows however, I will focus on my other visits over the past 16 days.
Mr. President,
I turn first to Yemen. It’s already the largest humanitarian crisis in the world and the Yemeni people now face the spectre of famine. Today, two-thirds of the population — 18.8 million people — need assistance and more than 7 million are hungry and do not know where their next meal will come from. That is 3 million people more than in January. As fighting continues and escalates, displacement increases. With health facilities destroyed and damaged, diseases are sweeping through the country.
I spoke with people in Aden, Ibb, Sana’a and from Taizz. They told me horrific stories of displacement, escaping unspeakable violence and destruction from Mokha andTaizzcity inTaizzgovernorate. I saw first-hand the effects of losing home and livelihood: malnourishment, hunger and squalid living conditions in destroyed schools, unfinished apartments and wet, concrete basements. In the past two months alone, more than 48,000 people fled fighting, mines and IEDs from Mokha town and the surrounding fields alone. I met countless children, malnourished and sick. My small team met a girl displaced to Ibb, still having shrapnel wounds in her legs while her brother was deeply traumatized. I was introduced to a 13-year-old girl who fled from Taizzcity, left in charge of her seven siblings. I spoke with families who have become displaced to Aden as their homes were destroyed by airstrikes living in a destroyed school. All of them told me three things: they are hungry and sick – and they need peace so that they can return home.
I travelled to Aden on the first humanitarian UN flight, where I met the President, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Republic of Yemen. I also met with the senior leadership of the Houthi and General People’s Congress authorities in Sana’a. I discussed the humanitarian situation, the need to prevent a famine and to better respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians. I demanded full, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access. All counterparts promised to facilitate sustained access and respect international humanitarian law. Yet all parties to the conflict are arbitrarily denying sustained humanitarian access and politicize aid. Already, the humanitarian suffering that we see in Yemen today is caused by the parties and proxies and if they don’t change their behaviour now, they must be held accountable for the inevitable famine, unnecessary deaths and associated amplification in suffering that will follow.
ERC Stephen O’Brien visited the protected site adjacent to the UNMISS base in Wau, where more than 20,000 people were seeking protection as a result of conflict. Credit: IOM/Mohammed 2016
Despite the almost impossible and terrifying conditions, the UN and humanitarian partners are not deterred and are stepping up to meet the humanitarian needs across the country. In February alone, 4.9 million people received food assistance. We continue to negotiate access and make modest gains. For instance, despite assurances from all parties of safe passage toTaizzcity, I was denied access and retreated to a short safe distance when I and my team came under gunfire. Yet, we managed to use this experience to clear the path for reaching people inside Taizzcity with a first humanitarian truck delivery of eight tons of essential medicine on the Ibb toTaizzcity road since August 2016. We will not leave a stone unturned to find alternative routes. We must prevail as so many lives depend on us, the full range of the humanitarian family.
For 2017, the humanitarian community requires US$ 2.1 billion to reach 12 million people with life-saving assistance and protection in Yemen. Only 6 percent of that funding has been received thus far. An international ministerial-level pledging event is scheduled for 25 April, but the situation is so dire that I ask donors to give urgently now. All contributions and pledges since 1 January will be counted at the event.
I continue to reiterate the same message to all: it is only a political solution that will ultimately end human suffering and bring stability to the region. And at this stage, only a combined response with the private sector can stem a famine: commercial imports must be allowed to resume through all entry points in Yemen, including and especially Hudaydah port, which must be kept open and expanded. With access and funding, humanitarians will do more, but we are not the long-term solution to this growing crisis.
I am pleased as I said to confirm that a ministerial-level pledging event for the humanitarian response in Yemen for 2017 will take place in Geneva on 25 April. The Secretary-General will chair the event, co-hosted by the Foreign Ministers of Sweden and Switzerland, to advocate for more resources and access. For 2017, as mentioned, the Yemen humanitarian response plan asks for US$2.1 billion to assist 12 million people in need across all 22 governorates.
Mr. President,
Turning to South Sudan which I visited on 4 and 5 March. The situation is worse than it has ever been. The famine in South Sudan is man-made. Parties to the conflict are parties to the famine — as are those not intervening to make the violence stop.
More than 7.5 million people need assistance, up by 1.4 million from last year. About 3.4 million people are displaced, of which almost 200,000 have fled South Sudan since January alone. A localized famine was declared for Leer and Mayendit [counties] on 20 February, an area where violence and insecurity have compromised humanitarian access for years. More than one million children are estimated to be acutely malnourished across the country; including 270,000 children who face the imminent risk of death should they not be reached in time with assistance. Meanwhile, the cholera outbreak that began in June 2016 has spread to more locations.
I travelled to Ganyiel in Unity state where people have fled from the horrors of famine and conflict. I saw the impact humanitarians can have to alleviate suffering. I met an elderly woman with her malnourished grandson receiving treatment. I listened to women who fled fighting with their children through waist-high swamps to receive food and medicine. Some of these women have experienced the most appalling acts of sexual violence — which continues to be used as a weapon of war. Their harrowing stories are only a few among thousands who have suffered a similar fate across the country.
Humanitarians are delivering. Last year, partners reached more than 5.1 million people with assistance. However, active hostilities, access denials and bureaucratic impediments continue to curtail their efforts to reach people who desperately need help. Aid workers have been killed; humanitarian compounds and supplies have been attacked, looted, and occupied by armed actors. Recently, humanitarians had to leave one of the famine-affected counties because of fighting. Assurances by senior Government officials of unconditional access and no bureaucratic impediments now need to be turned into action on the ground.
Mr. President,
In Somalia, more than half the population — 6.2 million people — need humanitarian and protection assistance, including 2.9 million who are at risk of famine and require immediate assistance to save or sustain their lives, close to 1 million children under the age of 5 will be acutely malnourished this year. In the last two months alone, nearly 160,000 people have been displaced due to severe drought conditions, adding to the already 1.1 million people who live in appalling conditions around the country.
Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Ursula Mueller
What I saw and heard during my visit to Somalia was distressing — women and children walk for weeks in search of food and water. They have lost their livestock, water sources have dried up and they have nothing left to survive on. With everything lost, women, boys, girls and men now move to urban centres.
Something Old, Something New: Wearing Red to Show Solidarity in Major Cities All Over the World
Like the 1970 “strike,” the “day without women” was a do your own thing action. While women were asked to stay home and not spend money, they were also urged to wear red to show solidarity wherever they went. Indeed many of the women who went to their regular jobs on March 8 wore red, displaying their sympathy for the women’s action to everyone in their workplaces.
Last One In’s a Scairdy-cat! The Mere Words “deep end” Turned Me to Stone
Edward Henry Potthast (American artist, 1857-1927) At the Beach 1910
Recently I was talking to my grandniece, Shelley, about the many things I would do differently if Shirley MacLaine is right and we get more than one shot at this thing called life. The big problem, though, I said, is that I probably won’t remember them all. “Don’t worry, Rosie,” she replied. “If I know you, you’ll have Post-It notes all over your casket.”
Not a bad idea. And the largest note will say: LEARN TO SWIM! Actually, I almost learned to swim several years ago at an age when most people are taking up rock-the kind you do in a chair, not at a disco. I don’t know why it took me so long. I think it all goes back to my childhood (of course); and I’m sure my mother was to blame (naturally). You see, she was afraid of the water (and doubtlessly her mother was to blame for that); and because she was overprotective, she transmitted that fear to me.
At that time, many of our relatives lived on the shores of the icy Atlantic in Winthrop, Massachusetts; and my parents and I spent every summer weekend with them at the beach. All my cousins were as at home in the water as the ubiquitous minnows. They (the cousins and the minnows) obviously all had well-adjusted mothers.
Every weekend, cousins, aunts and uncles — all well-intentioned-would nobly try to help me overcome my abject terror of the deep (hey, it was up to my knees!) by trying to teach me to swim. They all invariably employed the same method. Each, in turn, would coax (spelled d-r-a-g) me, screaming, into the frigid water, force me over onto my stomach and absolutely swear they would not let go of me. But they always did. And I would sink choking and panic-stricken to the bottom-only two feet down, but the bottom, nevertheless.
It got so I didn’t like summers very much, especially weekends, until I grew older and stronger and adamantly refused to be dragged seaward any more. My family finally abandoned their hopeless efforts and left me alone to splash happily in the shallow waters (where I pretended to be baby-sitting for any nearby toddlers so I wouldn’t look too peculiar). Gradually I began to like summer weekends, the beach, and my relatives-in that order.
However, as the years went by, it became more and more embarrassing being the only one in the crowd who couldn’t swim. At the seashore, I could get by with standing waist-deep, pretending I loved to jump over the waves. At pools, however, since there was no surf, it was a different story. I’d sit in the sun, almost prostrated by the heat, looking longingly at the rest of the gang happily swimming in the cool, azure water. I’d have given anything just to get wet and cool off; but I knew I’d look foolish just standing or sitting in the shallow end where even the tiniest tots were actually swimming. And since my friends knew I wasn’t baby sitting, that old ploy wouldn’t work.
But even more discomforting than the heat were the inevitable questions. My old friends said nothing. They knew why I was dry-docked. But there were always some new ones who would naturally yell, “Hey, Ro! Aren’t you coming in?” I was afraid an admission that I couldn’t swim would result in an instant replay of my childhood beach outings-only worse. This time my instructors wouldn’t be relatives; they’d be the few new boys we’d met that weekend whom we were all trying to impress. Since I felt that even bone dry I wasn’t all that impressive, I knew I wouldn’t have a chance once they saw me choking and sputtering, with matted hair streaming over my fear-contorted face. So I’d be very vague about why I wasn’t in the water (in those days women didn’t swim at “that time of the month”), and the boys would soon get embarrassed and stop asking. (It didn’t take much to embarrass boys back then.) It wasn’t easy, and I always welcomed the first frost of the year.
One winter shortly after I had graduated from college and had accumulated a few paychecks, I somehow got talked into a Miami Beach vacation with a couple of friends. I guess I was thinking of those star-filled nights, completely forgetting about the sun-drenched days. And there it was again-the bane of my existence-the dreaded swimming pool. As usual, I didn’t dip even the tip of a toe into it. And since I couldn’t cavort in the surf because great globs of jellyfish had staked a prior claim, I resigned myself once again to baking in the sun.
On the second day of our stay, an athletic-looking man with a cheerful grin walked up to where I (parched and dry) and my two friends (refreshingly wet from their recent dips) were sitting on our deck chairs.
“Hi!” he announced. “I’m Charlie. Is there anyone here who can’t swim?” I turned, pretending to scan our immediate neighbors for someone who qualified, hoping to draw attention away from myself. It almost worked, but my so-called friends ratted on me. “She can’t!” they squealed in unison, pointing at me. Charlie was delighted. “Come!” he said, taking my arm. “I will teach you!”