Promoting inclusiveness in international relations
Warm greetings to everyone for a safe and healthy 2021 – and hopeful for a changed world, too. The promises are there – in vaccines, in new leadership, in new ways of working and living together. And for a calm and quiet holiday at the end of this memorable year.
Continue reading “Warm Greetings for a Safe and Healthy 2021”
Living with the pandemic continues to define our lives in a uniquely isolated setting. We love Villa Ndio, but we also love sharing it with family and friends. For the Christmas holidays, we had accumulated holiday decor over the years that we minimized using in recent years. We had spent many a Christmas here with children growing up and grandparents nearby. But the past few years took us away to visit our grown children elsewhere for most of the holiday time – thereby leaving the Christmas decorations stored away in the grenier. This year, however, we’ve been bringing all the decor out of their boxes as a sort of mental health gambit. Continue reading “Christmas Décor 2020”
When President-elect Biden takes office on January 20, 2021, quick action is expected from the new administration on global health issues. This action should take into account the following three ways that the global health arena has changed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic:
This commentary starts with a brief summary of these three points, followed by an in-depth analysis of each point. Continue reading “Looking to US Action in Support of the Global Pandemic Response”
On the fourth Thursday of the month of November, we will be celebrating American Thanksgiving. This is normally a time for families and friends to get together for a big feast and to be thankful for a successful harvest. This year, the second pandemic lockdown is keeping all of us at home, but we can still be thankful. We are thankful this year for an abundant harvest from our olive trees, and we are also thankful for having such wonderful neighbors. Neighbors have been an important part of our life at Villa Ndio. Here is an essay on how we came to live here at Villa Ndio and some of the things we have appreciated doing with our neighbors. Continue reading “Thankful for Neighbors”
Warm greetings to all in this “month of memory”! Isn’t that an interesting way to describe the month of November? It sounds better than to say the “month to honor the dead”. But that is what it is, the month to honor the dead, first with chrysanthemums and then with poppies and cornflowers.
As a long-term advocate of multilateralism, I am inspired by the amazing outreach from multiple American institutions and individuals to engage in global collaboration on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been an embarrassment to be an American in the past four years of a flawed Presidency, but the readiness of Americans to circumvent its barriers in order to participate with others in such initiatives as the Access to COVID—19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-Accelerator) and especially the new COVAX Facility for global vaccine distribution is truly phenomenal.
In order to build on that spontaneous outpouring of American expertise and compassion, the new administration in Washington should join in this effort. The US needs to return to its leadership role in global health matters, but this requires an appreciation for how the pandemic has transformed the issues and the actors. Thus, special attention should be directed to (1) supporting the new multilateral frameworks that are enabled by and often inspired by a multitude of different kinds of stakeholders, (2) expanding the global approach to the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and other tools as they become available, and (3) engaging in a constructive dialogue on the pricing and availability issues in this and future pandemics. Continue reading “Looking to an American Future for a Global Response to COVID-19”
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 continue to be the legal foundation for equal rights in America. Fair housing was addressed in the Civil Rights Act of 1968, while revisions in 1972 (Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972) broadened civil rights coverage in education. In the years that followed, however, the courts interpreted these laws in ways that often narrowed their scope. In 1990, an accumulation of legislative provisions to reverse the case law was consolidated into a 1990 Civil Rights Act that was vetoed by President Bush. The legislation was reintroduced in 1991 and enacted into law with the help of an unusual coalition that I spearheaded. Many changes in our society since then may affect our current understanding of racial justice, but the lessons learned from this experience in 1991 include some useful insights regarding the role of the private sector in social policy, even today. Continue reading “Further Reflections on Racism in America: (3) Corporate Transformations”
This segment on North Carolina starts with the context of my personal journey as a State Senator and elaborates on how I was elected to the State Senate by way of a conversion to feminism – and the necessary corollary of gender equality. The lessons learned from this experience brought me directly to a heightened appreciation for the urgency of racial equality and integration. The segment then concludes with a look at the racial and gender issues in North Carolina today. Continue reading “Further Reflections on Racism in America: (2) A Southern Experience in Politics”
In response to the protests and discussions about racism triggered by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on 25 May 2020, I chose to focus my initial reflections on racism in America on my recollections of growing up in Edina, Minnesota, one of the adjacent suburbs to Minneapolis. This led to a stimulating series of reflections from other family members, friends and colleagues. What follows here is the first of a series of further reflections or musings on racism in the US. I’ve entitled in “collegiate experiences and trends” to include my own collegiate experiences at Oberlin College with subsequent trends on diversity in collegiate education. Continue reading “Further Reflections on Racism in the US: (1) Collegiate Experiences and Trends”
Losing track of phases and waves in this COVID-19 world, we are all wondering what these months of altered living have come to mean for our daily routines. Are we in the second wave now? Or is it even the third wave? The French are classifying this latest “curfew lockdown” as the second wave, but the US seems to be on a third upswing, if not technically a third wave. We are all learning as we go along, even as we become distracted from time to time with developments in the real world outside of this weird cocoon. Aren’t we all experiencing a bit of that “COVID-fatigue”? And yet, in this time of alarming upward trends in recorded cases, both in the US and in Europe, we are being called upon to be more cocoon-oriented than ever. Continue reading “Pandemic Musings: 4. The Daily Routine in the Second Wave of Altered Living in the COVID-19 World”