If
you’re wondering when—and if—there’s going to be ANY good news about anything
in the world, you can stop now. Yes,
it’s true that February ended last week—the coldest February in New York City
since 1934, and third coldest EVER. But
March is living up to its reputation of “coming in like a lion.” One headline in The Gothamist reads: “Winter May Bless Us with 6 More Inches of
Snow.” (Bless?) While we New Yorkers are feeling sorry for ourselves,
alternately navigating black ice and slush ponds, Bostonians are probably thinking
we’re a bunch of wimps. Snow fall in
Boston—so far—is 102 inches this winter, including more than 30 inches in a two
day period last month. More snow is
expected there over the weekend. (!!) Is
it any wonder that that The New York
Times is reporting more and more visits to emergency rooms caused by people
slipping and falling on ice? According
to the chief of emergency medicine at a Brooklyn hospital, 30 patients arrived
within a single hour from falls due to ice.
Last week a good friend broke her wrist from a fall and now needs surgery.
This is particularly inconvenient and
stressful for a right handed reporter, who must now hunt and peck at the
keyboard with her left hand.
In
other bad news, according to The
Gothamist, the “Full Second Avenue Subway Might Not Happen,” (Are you
shocked? For some reason, I’m not.) Despite
the MTA raising our fares yet again, there won’t be enough money to complete
construction. Apparently, the MTA owes billions
in interest on its debts, and fare increases won’t make up the short fall enough
to extend the Second Avenue subway line from 96th Street to 125th
Street, The Gothamist predicts. Nothing like paying more for a metro card and
learning that you won’t be able to travel as far as expected. I have the added bonus of living on Second
Avenue, where my living room window overlooks construction sheds, Portosans, and snarled
traffic: a front row view of the ongoing eye-sore in the neighborhood. (See
Nest Shifts 6/3/14.) Construction from 96th Street to 63rd
Street is supposed to be complete in 2016. (?) What do you all think? Care to
place a wager on that one?
More cringe-worthy local news (also
reported by The Gothamist) reveals
this tantalizing environmental tidbit: “NYC Rats Now Carrying Same Fleas That
Spread Bubonic Plague.” Hard to believe that
headline, right? But according to a study published in the
Journal of Medical Entomology— which measured the fleas and lice crawling in
the fur of the Big Apple’s rats—this astonishing claim is true. After examining
133 Manhattan rats, (Is that a large enough sample? I’m gagging at the thought) researchers found a total of 65,000 fleas,
lice and mites, including Oriental rat fleas. Apparently, Oriental rat fleas
are the culprits responsible for transmitting the bubonic plague, a.k.a. the
Black Death during The Middle Ages.
Although researchers did not discover any plague bacteria in the fleas
sampled (yet!), there’s no guarantee of future safety. “If these rats carry fleas that could
transmit the plague to people,” says the study’s lead author, Matthew Frye,
“then the pathogen itself is the only piece missing from the transmission
cycle.” What’s our best bet? Denial. Stop
reading these on-line publications forwarded by well-meaning friends (and don’t
pet lab rats).
Okay,
so headlines about local weather, rodents and transportation aren’t the end of
the world. Spring will come (eventually?) and so will the Second Avenue subway
(although I might be dead or too old to use it). What about global news? Those headlines are so much worse that you
might want to consider cancelling your subscription to the local newspaper, and
pulling the covers (in this weather, preferably a down quilt) over your head.
What’s
the worst headline of the week so far? Check out “A Thin Line of Defense
Against ‘Honor Killings’” in The New York
Times (3/3). Not for the
faint-hearted, this article is the second in a series on “Women’s War,” and examines
the result of efforts to help Afghan females in a culture that treats my gender
as servants and sex slaves. Subject to life-long abuse by their husbands and
families, the women in the NY Times article carry deep scars, including knife
grooves on their faces and chain marks on their backs. Some limp from broken bones, while a few have
faces ravaged by acid (a favorite weapon).
And these are the lucky girls and women who have made it to shelters
built with our help during the war.
After
writing about the state of feminism in America last week in a (mostly) upbeat
tone, I had planned to move onto a completely new topic this week. (Feminism
–The Sound and Fury 2/27/15). But now I
find there is no escape from the dehumanizing horrors being perpetrated on my
sisters around the world. The hyped up
issues in local news suddenly seem light-hearted and humorous. Last week I wrote about on-line attacks
perpetrated against outspoken feminists here in the USA; these verbal assaults are a tempest in a teapot compared to
the torture and abuse of females by Muslim extremists on the other side of the
world, where anyone born with a vagina is doomed. Girls who rebel –daring to
choose their own lovers and husbands— are beaten, disfigured and tortured. Girls who run away to escape the abuse of
their assigned husbands are hunted down and killed to assuage family
“honor.” This is not breaking news. The
whole world knows about the systematic abuse of an entire gender. However, the word “honor” will need to be
re-defined if beating women and throwing acid in their faces is considered
honorable. Certainly there’s no “honor” (usually implies integrity) when Afghan
families convince their daughters it’s safe to leave the shelter and return
home, and then shoot them outside. Likewise “family” takes on a whole new
meaning in Afghanistan—or perhaps it loses meaning entirely, since civilized human
beings (and even many animals) have long understood that families exist to
nurture and protect the young.
Yes, I
know that the mistreatment of women across the globe has been going on for
thousands of years. Are we BORED by another recitation? Do we just fold our newspapers, change the TV
channel, and get on with our lives? I just can’t do it. Not today. Today my
mind fiendishly taunts me with questions, such as: What would have happened to
my daughter Sarah if she’d been born in Afghanistan? If neurotypical girls are treated as less
than human, what happens to females on the autistic spectrum? Are they killed outright? I shudder to think,
or just beaten and mistreated more severely for their inability to respond as
desired? I can’t really begin to imagine
Sarah’s life (or mine for that matter) if we lived in Afghanistan. After all, I
need to be able to sleep at night. That means I won’t stay awake worrying about
the rats carrying the bubonic plague, the unfinished subway or the bone
chilling cold. Instead I’m hunkering down here in America, swathed in extra
layers of clothes and snow boots, determined to wait for spring.
Labels: Afghanistan, autism, bad news, bubonic plague, February, feminism, MTA, Muslim extremists, New York, rats, Second Avenue subway, slush, snow, The Gothamist, The New York Times, winter