23-Word Story Challenge

by Laura Lai/ Uncategorized

         Last week was a regular happy writing working week. Indeed, ‘home staycation’ writing holidays. My holidays to New Zealand from the beginning of April are postponed until this pandemic virus will get under better control by an appropriate vaccine and New Zealand will open its borders to tourists, too.

 I’m convinced that the New Zealanders miss us and I know that I’m looking forward to meeting them, but as a political scientist, I perfectly understand that the main task of a government is to protect its citizens’ heath, property and lives. Most of the discussions around the world are about the way each government is doing that. New Zealand’s government decided to close the borders to secure the health, life and property of its citizens. And, broadly speaking, to protect me, as a tourist, too. People seem divided on this virus matter in those who believe in the existence of the virus and those who don’t. I subscribe to the side who believes that this virus exists. And as I know myself to have been very healthy all my life – thank God! – I personally prefer traveling when I know this virus tamed by a vaccine. I’ve heard myself about the great efforts of the Americans, British and Chinese to be frontrunners in finding a vaccine – an ‘ABC’! How lovely! I only can hope for the best and watch with great respect the ongoing efforts to give the world a vaccine.

And as I was happily working writing, I received in my mailbox a question from the Australian Writers’ Center (AWC): ‘Are you feeling creatively drained after these past few weeks of “here we go again-ness”?’ I didn’t even get the chance to answer that to myself that I read further: ‘We get it… so we thought it might be a good week to give you a bonus tiny fiction challenge!’ Now, I could finally answer to myself: ‘No kidding?! – as the AWC always has something challenging in its mind (and I love their writing challenges, but don’t tell anyone!). Then I saw the picture they sent. My eyes were fixing that gorgeous elephant. It’s from a documentary that I know that the elephants move their ears in order to hear better. And they can hear noises from 250 km. None of the information I knew about elephants could help me here. The AWC wanted a 23-word story inspired by the picture above. I took the challenge and this is what I wrote: ‘The room looked too small for the great idea she suddenly got. And she started writing right away – the manuscript had blank pages.’ (23 words)

What 23-word story inspire you this photo?

Who’s the MAN in the post – HuMANitarian Crisis at the U.S. Southern Border?

by Laura Lai/ Essay

This month last year I was asking myself in a blog essay: ‘Who’s the MAN in the [southern border] HuMANitarian crisis? (to read the article click here). Although I answered my question in that essay, now I am asking myself: ‘Who’s the MAN in the post – Humanitarian crisis? I am wondering if it is still the same person… 

            The U.S. Southern border with Mexico is mainly a Normandy-barrier border meant to stop vehicles from illegally crossing into the United States. It definitely cannot stop drug smugglers, human traffickers and illegal migrants. Although this border has been illegally crossed for many decades, it is starting with 2018 that the number of crossings became growing overwhelmingly. The month of May 2019 was the third consecutive month topping 100,000 apprehensions. And it was for the first time since polls were made that 23 percent of the Americans were naming illegal immigration among the threats to the national security.

            The constantly growing number of illegal crossings had also several other implications: an overburdened Border Patrol, overstretched services and overcrowded facilities. Furthermore, many of the illegal migrants were posing as false families – kidnapping, buying, using or re-using other people’s children – in order to benefit from laws that favor families with children. According to the law, an adult with a child cannot be held in custody for more than a couple of days; then they are released into the United States and they never show up at the court hearing for asylum. What happens to the children after the ‘false family’ adult gets into the United States? Some of them are recuperated on the way, but obviously, they are a tremendously vulnerable category of people.

            It is in this context that the U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency situation at the southern border and asked the Congress to approve a $4,6 billion for humanitarian aid and border assistance. The reasons for constant delays in getting through this crisis were several: the American political system and the Democrat majority in the House of the Congress; Democrats’ preoccupation to impeach the president; their doubts that this fabulous sum of money would be used for the wall-building rather than for humanitarian and border assistance; their reluctance to accept the existence of the crisis itself, and so on. However, it was on 2^nd July 2019 that Donald Trump signed the $4,6 billion in humanitarian aid and border assistance prizing the bi-partisan victory. Therefore, the ‘man’ in the humanitarian crisis was the one constantly accused of being lacked of compassion, but actually having acted with compassion in working out this crisis: the U.S. President himself. If ‘man’ were spelled at plural as ‘men’, then the ‘men’ in the ‘humenitarian’ crisis were definitely also the Border Patrol officers, who kept doing their jobs the best they could amid politicians’ fights, and the Church organizations, which faced and helped this humanitarian crisis with little dons and great divine strength and inspiration.

Trump Administration’s approach to this migration crisis was holistic. Internally, it fought on two fronts: on the one side, to convince the U.S. Congress to approve the aid, and on the other side to change the immigration laws and the asylum system. Externally, it worked closely with the Mexican President Lopez Obrador, whose collaboration and commitment to respect Mexico’s part of the deal, played a major role in decreasing the number of illegal crossing (and, implicitly, of the sufferance (of kidnappings, of traffickers, of raping, etc.) that goes with it).  I am wondering: ‘Who’s the MAN in the post – Humanitarian Southern Border Crisis?’

            A significant decline in apprehensions was evident in the months that followed the crisis, with September 2019 at its lowest point (52,000) and October (42,000). The month of November was the sixth consecutive month when the illegal apprehensions dropped. In December the illegal crossings were 32,858 (of whom two-thirds were adults and 10 percent unaccompanied children) in comparison to the May-peak with 132,887 apprehensions, or in comparison to the 170,000 unaccompanied children that surrendered at the border, of whom more than 50 percent were under the age of 12. Although a clashing point between the Democrats and Republicans, the Border Patrol officers name firstly the building of the border wall between the United States and Mexico with spyware technology as a main factor to decrease the illegal crossings, human smuggling and assaults on the border officers. In June it was reported that other 200 miles of the border wall were built – on pace to build the 400 miles by the end of the year. And positive statistical results came with it: general illegal crossings are down to 84% from this time last year, while illegal crossings from Central America are down to 97% from this time last year; and 450,000 pounds of drugs were seized by the border officers.

These numbers translate a less burdened Border Patrol, less stretched services and less crowded facilities. And since October 2019, the Border Patrol officers have more time to conduct DNA testing that were dramatically expended, in order to identify the false families. This resulted in the identification of 238 false families and 50 adults posing as minors; other 350 people are prosecuted for false statements, illegal entry and other felonies. The illegal migrant crossings from 2019 showed that many women were raped on the way to the border and all girls above 10 years old were given pregnancy tests, let alone the illegal drugs that cost lives or put at risk youngsters and the society in general. These statistical results translate a higher number of safer children and women from dangerous and merciless gangs and traffickers.

The President of Mexico Andres Obrador paid recently a historic working visit to the White House to discuss trade, health, immigration and other issues of mutual concern. It is on this occasion that the U.S. President Donald Trump publicly declared:

 ‘I want to thank Mexico because Mexico is doing a lot right now; they have almost 20,000 soldiers between the two borders. They have 6,000 on their southern border by Guatemala. And they have about . . . 16,000 at our southern border.’

The common efforts caused a drop of illegal apprehensions from 132,856 last May to 21,475 in May 2020, but what the U.S. President Donald Trump seems to say is that he acknowledges the President of Mexico to be the ‘man’ in the post –humanitarian crisis at the border between the United States and Mexico. And dinner at the White House was included in the program in the honor of the President of Mexico.

REFERENCES:

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1182363303722569729

https://dailycaller.com/2019/10/17/ice-cbp-migrants-family-status/ 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-acting-cbp-commissioner-mark-morgan-2/?utm_source=ods&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1600d 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-court-ruling-allowing-construction-of 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/illegal-border-crossings-in-december-dropped-sharply-from-peak-in-may

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/illegal-immigrant-crossings-fall-78-once-overcrowded-cells-are-empty

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/new-border-wall-blocks-90-of-illegal-crossings-up-from-just-10

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/dhs-warns-150-000-immigrants-from-72-coronavirus-nations-at-border

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/10/trumps-decision-to-end-catch-and-release-stops-the/

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1275505341493579777

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-and-lopez-obrador-will-talk-long-term-solution-to-illegal-immigration

Reflecting on the USMCA’s Deadlock. A Follow Up (I)

by Laura Lai/ Comment

Last year in November I was ‘Reflecting [on this blog] on the USMCA Regional Free Trade Agreement’s Deadlock’ (click here to read the article). My reflection's starting points were that the regional free trade agreements were as old as the Australian-New Zealand ‘CER’ agreement in the 1920s and that every continent has its free trade agreements: North America had NAFTA, South America has MERCOSUR, Asia has the ASEAN, and so are the European and the African continent – with the difference that the European Union evolved from an economic project to a political supranational entity with a certain degree of national sovereignty loss.

            Another point I was making was the fact that NAFTA (‘The North American Free Trade Agreement’) was an outdated agreement, whose shortcomings were evident particularly in fields that were not even under discussions in 1994, such as biotechnology. Donald Trump was one of NAFTA’s earliest critiques and the updating of this old agreement to USMCA (‘United States – Mexico – Canada Free Trade Agreement’) – that addresses more fairly all the trade imbalances – was included in the campaign to ‘Make America Great Again’.

            I was pointing that 12 million jobs depended on the USMCA and I was bringing concrete examples of commercial links between some of the American States with either Canada or Mexico: the State of Indiana (main trade deals are with Canada and Mexico and more than 17,000 jobs depend on this trade, let alone the fact that Indiana is second largest automobile manufacturer in the U.S and home to several car brands);  the State of Minnesota (undertaking more than 70,000 farming operations exports mainly to Canada and Mexico); the State of Colorado, which is quite in the middle of the United States, not necessarily in the vicinity of either Canada or Mexico, did a $2,7 billion trade with Canada and Mexico in 2017, mainly in processed food and machines; and the examples can go on with Missouri, Pennsylvania, Alaska and others.

            Mexico was the first country to ratify the USMCA, Canada ratified soon after, but despite the official visit of the Canadian Prime Minister to the United States to urge the ratification of the USMCA, and despite the U.S. President’s hope to see this trade agreement passing the Congress before the Thanksgiving recess, the USMCA was facing a deadlock because the Democrats were investing lots of time in impeachment procedures and because they needed impact assessments of the USMCA on the environment, workers’ rights and job creation particularly in areas with a job loss in the last 25 years.

Almost half of the U.S. trade involves three countries: its neighbors Canada and Mexico, and China. It makes perfectly sense, if a candidate runs with a slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ to renegotiate the trade agreements with these three countries. It was mid-January when it was announced the triumphant end of ‘Phase One’ of a trade agreement with China. China’s commitment to purchase American agriculture goods worth $50 billion was considered a ‘monumental achievement’ (1). Following this dynamic in US-China trade negotiations and positive steps made to replace NAFTA with the USMCA, the ‘Wall Street Journal’ quoted an agricultural trade publication in which 83 percent of farmers and ranchers approved this Administration’s performance. (2) Previous to this successful ‘Phase One’ trade agreement with China, Donald Trump concluded a $7 billion agreement with Japan - following a trip to Japan. And it was at the end of January 2020 that the U.S. President could sign the USMCA agreement.

            I wonder what part from the negotiations between the Democrats and the Republicans took the longest: Shall it be the impact on the environment? Shall it be the workers’ rights? Or the job creation in the areas with a severe job loss in the previous 25 years – under different administrations. I can’t possibly know, but it is also not the object of this writing exercise on this Writing Blog. However, although the USMCA signed, was not yet into force.

In the meantime a coronavirus pandemic seemed to have slapped countries and woke us up to a different reality to which all people and countries, somehow, needed to adapt. The United States was no exception. Surprisingly, the U.S. Bureau of Statistics were issuing in March encouraging employment results: 20,000 jobs were added in February, which brought the unemployment rate to a 50 years low to 3,5 percent. (3) Donald Trump himself expressed his surprise on the ‘really unthought-of’ achievement’ on the Hispanic American employment rate. (4) In May, although not yet fully healed by the pandemic and the U.S. already added 2,5 million jobs. (5) And for June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced an all time historical record of 4,8 million jobs created. (6) (to be continued)

Reflecting on the USMCA’s Deadlock. A Follow Up (II)

click on the picture for a maximized image

by Laura Lai/ Comment

I am  not reflecting on the USMCA deadlock anymore, but on these fantastic numbers. Obviously the measures the Executive/the Administration takes are miraculous in terms of job creation. I obviously cannot explain how, but we may all find out from the next book about success signed by Donald Trump. Anyway, what I can tell for sure is that it is on July 1^st, 2020 that it went into force. It is on this occasion that the U.S. President issued a statement:

‘The USMCA is the largest, fairest, and most balanced trade agreement ever negotiated and contains innovative provisions to help grow the economy and support American jobs.  It is a tremendous victory for our manufacturers and autoworkers, meaning more cars and trucks will be produced in the United States.  The USMCA is also a historic breakthrough for American agriculture.  Canada will provide greater access for American dairy products, poultry, and eggs, and finally give fair treatment to American-grown wheat.  In addition, the USMCA includes groundbreaking provisions to address digital trade, services, small business, and more, which will protect America’s competitive edge in technology and innovation.’ (7)

The advantages of the USMCA are numerous (8) particularly for the agriculture and the auto industry. It is a win-win type of agreement for all three signatories: Canada, Mexico and the United States. For example, in order for a car to be considered duty free on the North American market it has to have 75 percent of its components made in North America (not purchased cheaper from other continents) by workers that are paid at least $16 per hour – which is great improvement for the Mexican workers. It is expected to add other 76,000 jobs in the auto industry and to spur $34 billion in new investments in this industry. Furthermore, the USMCA addresses intellectual property rights, digital trade, biotechnology and other issues that were not included in the NAFTA agreement (to read the opinion of the U.S. Trade Representative on this ‘state-of-art’ agreement, click here).

To sum up, each continent has a free trade agreement, with the exception of Europe that was both an economical and a political project and that has been evolving in this supra-national direction. The North American continent had since 1994 the NAFTA agreement that required an update to correct both commercial imbalances and to address new issues such as: biotechnology, digital trade, etc. The USMCA that replaces NAFTA was signed and ratified by both Canada and Mexico in the shortest delay, but it was in the United States that it was subject to a certain deadlock. It finally entered into effect, on the 1^st of July 2020. Till this date the U.S. Labor Statistics was publishing all time historic records of job employment. The USMCA will only add others.

            Fortunately, there is no more USMCA deadlock to reflect on, as many people are now impacted by the USMCA in a positive way. In plain English, this means many happy people and, for me, one topic less to reflect on. There will be other topics to practice online comments, essays and reviews on this Writing Blog.

            The Trumps and the Administration were an inspiration for many authors. To me, too! It inspired me a play that I am working to self-publish. Donald Trump himself is surprised by this all time historic record after record in employment rate – meaning, in plain English, that he knew that he was competent, but not that competent. I wonder what inspires him. The U.S. President applied on a ‘building’ infrastructure project to ‘Make America Great Again’, but he proves a ‘job generator genius’. I hope he will write about this in his new book about success and that it will inspire other governments – because we are many looking for and wanting a job.

As a political scientist who loves theory and writing (and I went even for the writing of a doctoral thesis on a theoretical political topic), I am skeptical about politics in practice. Although data can be manipulated, it is hard for me to believe that this outstanding employment data can be manipulated month after month by an Administration in power that seems to have more subjective critiques than objective appreciations. It is the first time in many skeptical years, when based on this performance after performance, that I start to believe in the political words of a character newly converted to politics: ‘and the best is yet to come’. To which I would only add: ‘So help us God!’ (the end)

           

OTHER LINKS on this topic:

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/trump-usmca-deal-christian-whiton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApANiPz9Qis

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/505493-usmca-is-the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-for-our-economy

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1268930637819449344

 

10 Years since the Last Launch from American Soil. ‘Born on the 4th of July’ Film Review

by Laura Lai/Review

This month last year I was posting on this Writing Blog the entry ‘50 Years after Apollo 11. Armageddon’s Film Review’ (1). It was the 50^th anniversary since Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins made the first man’s step on the moon. It was also the 50^th anniversary since an American President (Richard Nixon) made the first phone call to the moon – extraordinary events made possible by the initiative of President J. F. Kennedy to increase NASA’s budget by 300 percent.

            I thought then – for the sake of this Writing Blog – to try an original ‘writing experiment’ and correlate these historical events to the review of the film ‘Armageddon’ (with Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck) – whose action also takes place in the space. This enjoyable ‘writing experiment’ to me, must have been ‘odd’ for some lectures, but otherwise not original, others might have raised an eyebrow and, hopefully, smiled – one thing I’m sure: nobody got harmed!

If I had to repeat the ‘writing experiment’ this year, I would probably need to somehow correlate the dynamic of the current U.S. Administration on the space issue to the movie ‘Born on the 4^th of July’ (directed by Oliver Stone, with Tom Cruise, 1989). I would have done this in more details if I could see the movie again on YouTube, but it is not available. In this drama war Tom Cruise plays the role of Srg. Ron Kovic wounded in the Vietnam War and son of a WWII veteran. The life story of Srg. Ron Kovic is a tremendously dramatic story. The movie has several heartbreaking scenes and I remember Tom Cruise having made a sensational role in the wheelchair – it is recently that I found out that he practiced for this role a year before. No wonder that for this role he got a Golden Globe and a nomination at the Best Actor by the American Film Academy.

This year is again a reason to celebrate the space. The American Space Force – recently established by President Trump as the sixth branch of the U.S. Military – got a new flag that was displayed this year at the White House (2). Furthermore, a video call was made by the current president … not to the moon (at least not yet!)… but to the International Space Station, in order to congratulate two American astronauts, Cristina and Jessica:

 

‘We’re thrilled to be speaking live with two brave American astronauts (…) during their spacewalk outside the International Space Station. They are conducting the first ever female spacewalk to replace the exterior part of the space station’. (3)

The First Lady, Melania Trump hosted in February 2020 a Family Theater Evening playing at the White House the movie ‘Hidden Fingers’ – presenting the valuable contribution of the African-American women to the NASA project. (4) On the occasion of a visit made by the Vice-President Mike Pence to the Langley Research Center at NASA he said:

 

‘Here at Langley Research Center (NASA) you broke a color barrier as well and all of America celebrates. You all know, we are all standing at the home of the legendary ‘Hidden Fingers’ – African-American women known as human computers, who despite the injustice of working in a segregated facility lend our nation their incredible intellects and talents (…).’ (5)

         Last but not least, at the end of May 2020, a new launch was made from American soil: SpaceX. It was the first launch after less than ten years (6). All this time, the Americans relied on the Russian Soyuz rocket from Baikonour Cosmodrome, for which only last year the Americans paid almost $100 million for a seat. ‘This launch will also signify one giant leap towards the Trump Administration’s goal of securing American dominance in space’ (7) said the U.S. Vice President on the occasion of the SpaceX launch from Florida.

The moon has always fascinated people from astrologists, to medical doctors, musicians, etc (for a fascinating summary click here). Presidents could make no exception. Therefore, the U.S. President Donald Trump is determined to make America greatly returning to the moon by 2024, have a first woman astronaut to make woman’s first step on the moon and to have a constant human presence there by 2028 from which further space exploration to be possible. And to where the U.S. President can make the first … collect phone call to the moon!