Portraits from our yard: episode 6

From July 22nd comes this portrait of Pavonia lasiopetala, known as rock rose, rose pavonia, and pavonia mallow (as its prominent stamen column confirms membership in the mallow family). This is yet another portrait in which the use of flash caused the sky to come out darker than it actually was. I like that look, even if it’s not true to life, and I hope you find it attractive, too.

◊
◊       ◊
◊

You may have noticed that we’re in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic. With continuing vaccinations, rising percents of the population in the United States and other countries have gained effective protection from the coronavirus. That’s good news. At the same time, the delta variant of the virus, which seemingly spreads more easily than the original strain and apparently affects more young people than before, has been infecting increasingly many people around the world. Sydney, Australia, for example, has had to return to lockdowns. Some places in the United States are now seeing their cases approaching the peak numbers of last winter.

So what is the current American administration doing during this resurgence of the pandemic? It’s illegally letting people come across our southern border as fast as it can and either turning many of them loose in border towns or paying to send them by bus or plane farther into our country. The number of people the government is illegally letting in is so large—on the order of 40,000 every single week—and border officials are so overworked trying to deal with the massive influx, that there’s no way to test all the people for Covid-19. Of those that have been checked, some have indeed tested positive for the virus. Statistically speaking, that means authorities have to be illegally letting in some Covid-positive people and turning them loose inside our country. Nice going, federal government!

Aside from the insanity of illegally letting in a million people every six months during a rising pandemic, the illegal entrants who aren’t carrying Covid-19 still present a huge burden for the towns where the government is dumping them, often with no notification to local authorities. Two days ago in the Texas border town of Laredo, which is 95% Hispanic, “Mayor Pete Saenz signed [a] disaster declaration and refiled a request to stop the transportation of migrants from the [Rio Grande] Valley to their city in an ongoing lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security.” In another Texas border town, “the City Commission also instructed City staff to demand relief from the federal government for the alarming number of immigrants that are being released into the city of McAllen,” which is about 85% Hispanic. Nice going, federal government!

UPDATE: After this post “went to press,” I learned about two whistleblowers who “have accused members of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of directing them to minimize the size of a coronavirus outbreak among migrant children housed in detention facilities.” You’ll find more about that, including a link to the official complaint, in an article by Hank Berrien.

© 2021 Steven Schwartzman