Truth is often silent, when it knows its words might hurt. But, a lie shouts only the louder, when it has a chance to harm.

Only One Child in 1,800 has been Placed?

  Read this and wonder. It's a quote from an SA Stands (an immigrant rights organization) leader. Could she be right about so few children and youth being reunited with their families?

   "It is very overwhelming, but I feel like the top priority for us right now and the top concern for us, is that only one child (at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas) has been officially reunited (with their family) out of the (estimated) 1,800," says Carolina Canizales.

   Could it be? Only one child has been placed out of the 1,800 or so that have arrived at the center? Just one?

    It seems it should be much simpler. They arrive. You do a quick background check on them to assure they are not MS-13, then you ask them who their family members are, and you rush them right to them. No, it should not take more than three days.

   Officials should explain why it is taking longer than this.

 

Love, Love, Love -- the Heart Benefits from Love

   I once suggested that no prison should be created without a plan for providing love, and no prisoner should be sentenced without it being determined how love was going to be provided him or her.

   I  will now say that of cardiac hospitals, and of cardiac care. Every ICU unit should have love as one of its cornerstones for treating the patient. 

   In the 1970s, researchers fed a large group of rabbits a high-fat diet, studying the build-up of fatty deposits in their arteries.  All subgroups of the rabbits were of the same breed and were fed the same amounts. But, results from one subgroup had 60 percent less build-up.

   The researchers were baffled. How can all the rabbits be of the same breed, get the same food and yet the one subgroup far outperform the others? As they tried to break it down, they realized the group with less build-up was being fed by a researcher who talked to to the rabbits, coddled them and petted them. I do not know if her name made it into the scientific study published in the June 27, 1980, Science, but it probably did. Still, she should receive greater recognition. That love has such an astounding affect on the heart was a discovery that she might have provided. Perhaps, there were earlier studies,  but doing a google search, I found none.

   Since then, studies have determined those with strong marriages have fewer heart problems. And, researchers have noticed that in Okinawa -- where people live longer than other places -- they have low-stress environments accompanied by strong social support from family and community.

   Would love result in 60 percent fewer deaths from heart failure, matching the 60 percent cleaner arteries in the rabbits? Probably nowhere near. Still, it might be that love's benefits are under estimated. I don't know how many studies have been done, but it seems there should be more. 

   Love makes the world go round, and in all likelihood, it keeps you on that spinning orb a little longer. 

Saying the Children are in 'Cages' is Perhaps a Little Much

    Are the children at the border getting the best facilities, the best care possible? A few weeks ago, we heard of plans to move some to hotels, but we haven't heard if that has been implemented. It might be that with Texas not providing any Covid vaccines to them, it currently isn't possible.

   It would seem we should want to give the children the best of care. Not so? Are some not wanting to see the children better cared for? The Biden administration has built temporary facilities, but they are crowded, the children often sleeping side-by-side on mats thrown out of the floor. KUSI News in San Diego reports that at one site in Texas the teenagers are "separated in groups by plastic partitions, essentially a 'cage.' "

   What is the the image that comes to mind when told the children are in cages? One envisions each child in a metal cage, locked up like a prisoner, like an animal. Plastic partitions are hardly impenetrable. It appears the children could break through them, regardless how thick that plastic partitions are. Perhaps calling them cages is a little much. True?

   Background the children, to assure some are  not from the MS-13 or such. But once that is done, should we not want to treat them the best we can? Should we not endeavor to reunite them with their families in America or to be placed in good homes here? 

The Mexican Police could be the Key to Immigration Reform

   You protect your women from rape. Check: You protect any women from rape, whether they are "yours" or not.

   Pause for a moment and ask yourself why we have police. Isn't it to protect you from crime? Isn't that what police agencies are created for? Might I suggest, then, the police in Mexico are charged with the responsibility of protecting women crossing their state from rape.

   Protect the other emigrants, as well, whether you do it with a national police or with a national guard. Escort them from one end of the country to the other. But, whatever you do, protect the women and children. Let us not begrudge them such protection. Let us appeal to the Mexican government to provide care to all those who travel within the borders of Mexico.

    We speak of immigration reform. Well, a change like this might well amount to the biggest and most significant improvement in our immigration system in the last 50 years. If you protect the migrants from the traffickers from one end of the journey to the other, human trafficking is eliminated. If you deny the cartels access to the immigrants, you are taking the cartels out of the equation. How could not a simple adjustment like this, then, be a major game-changer?  

   And, who should oppose it? Protecting women and children is something we all want to do. Nobody should want any ill fortune to come to any of these people, the migrants.

They Say Now is not the Time for Politics, but it is

   Because they matter, we search for answers. It it were my neighbor who died in Boulder or Atlanta, how would I react?

   In horror.

   How would I react? This would be someone I deeply loved, deeply cared for. All the questions of why, why, why would descend upon me. The details? I would want to know every detail. The murderer? Why he did it? What caused him (or her) to kill another person? All these questions would rush my mind, begging for answers.

   Tears don't fall, but what they seek ground to land on. I would be seeking ways to help, to make a difference. My tears would be seeking purpose. They would be searching for a landing

   Should we have gun laws? Should we, instead, arm everyone with guns? What can we do to keep members of our society from going off? Oh, no, I wouldn't be saying, I'll take up those questions in six months. They would be screaming through my mind -- now! 

 

Three Quick Shortcomings in the Medical System

   Improvements could be made in our medical system. I think of three quick shortcomings.

   (1.) When the doctor is afraid of being sued, he or she clams up -- and this means they quit diagnosing as thoroughly as they should. You are asking them how the procedure went, and they provide little input. They need to be diagnosing what is still wrong, but don't, because they are fearful that any shortcomings or things that went wrong in surgery, will be used against them in a lawsuit. If the surgery left you worse off, they don't want that on record. So, they simply do not ask all the questions they should to properly diagnose you.

   (2.) The person deciding if you should receive a surgery is usually the surgeon, him- or herself. They make their living off the surgeries, so of course they are inclined to recommend them. And, they have a product that is beneficial. Surgeries do help. They do wonderful things. The doctor, feeling he or she has something that is a good product, and knowing he or she will make a profit by performing the surgery, perhaps recommends it even at times when it is not necessary.

   (3.) Insurance protocols throw the process on an assembly line. Doctors do things by checklist, rather than need. As long as they can check off the item, saying they did it, that becomes their objective.