Last Saturday, two US Border Patrol agents were on night duty investigating on foot along a section of the US-Mexico border which is mountainous terrain. One of the men (Rogelio Martinez) ended up dead & the other seriously injured from head injuries & broken bones. The local sheriff investigating the incident said “the evidence is not obvious” about what happened & believes the agents might have fallen in hazardous terrain down a 14-foot culvert.

CBS national news reported that the Border Patrol union (which endorsed Trump for president) believes the agent was killed & the other injured by undocumented immigrants throwing rocks. Texas governor Greg Abbott & Senator Ted Cruz (two of the biggest nimrods in US politics) denounced the attacks & Abbott announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest & conviction of whoever killed Martinez & wounded his partner. (There’s a mountain in Texas just waiting to be apprehended & charged with murder.) Trump denounced the assault & murder & used the incident to push for the border wall. (There’s a federal penitentiary in Texas just waiting to put him on a chain gang.)

The least likely possibility is that undocumented immigrants attacked the agents with stones or fists. The most likely is exactly what the local sheriff investigating the scene reported: that it was a tragic accident. May the agent Rest In Peace.

All the threats & saber-rattling against North Korea which may be a repressive regime but is not engaged in foreign terrorism–while Trump curtsies to & does saber dancing with the Saudi monarchs who have just as repressive a regime & fund & arm foreign terrorists in Syria & Afghanistan. That’s not the derangement of Trump but the norms of US foreign policy.

This is a bird love story to show they aren’t just flying machines but have profound emotional lives. In 2003, a woman asked me to take a cockatiel she’d found. The girl I named Maggie was one of the most traumatized birds I’d ever rescued. Free flight is the best way for traumatized birds to get back their sense of power & they love to fly so I make my home bird-friendly. Maggie never let me touch her but would sit behind me & nuzzle my neck. She also didn’t connect with the other birds–a reflection of her suffering since cockatiels are quite sociable birds.

Sometime later I was in the Hmong market across the street from me & heard a cockatiel screaming hysterically. The vendor said the bird was inconsolable after his mate was sold. The man had clipped the bird’s wings so short he was almost disfigured. Such an ignorant man should not have the bird’s fate in his hands so I bought him. I named him Jacques-Pierre because such a sad unfortunate fellow deserved a fancy name. Little Jacquie couldn’t fly for a long while because of his wings but he flourished at my house where cages are for perching, not for captivity. In one of life’s magical moments, he fell in love with Maggie perched all by herself. To see two once miserable birds in the throes of love was its own reward. I don’t breed birds but didn’t interfere with Jacquie & Maggie canoodling. It would have been messing with love. After about a year, Maggie, who still wouldn’t allow me to touch her, pecked on my foot. She had suffered a prolapse laying an egg & was coming to me for help. She died from an infection after surgery to repair the prolapse & a fortune spent on special medical treatments. Jacquie was bereft & grieved a long time, as birds do. They don’t do better with grief than humans do. But he lived & being a little fellow who couldn’t live without love fell for Annie, another traumatized screaming bird I got from the Hmong market.

After we moved to Texas, Annie & Jacquie had a baby named Rocky born with splayed feet. I tried various devices to correct his feet but little Rocky rebelled so I removed them at night. One evening I went out & put them all to bed, including Rocky in his box near Annie & Jacquie. When I returned, I found Rocky had gotten out & unable to land got stuck in the coils of the refrigerator, where he died. Annie & Jacquie spent months on top of that fridge wailing for their baby.

Jacquie got sick so I reluctantly took him to a vet when my remedies didn’t improve his condition. The vet didn’t know what was wrong with him & threw all sorts of meds at him; the vet tech dropped him on the floor. Jacquie was terrified & died in my lap while I was driving home. I pulled off the highway & sobbed. I’ve never again taken my birds to a vet. Annie died about a year & a-half after Jacquie.

This is a video of Jacquie tending to Rocky from November 2009. Jacquie died November 18, 2010. They all live in my heart. Humans don’t do any better with grief than birds.

https://www.facebook.com/MaryScullyReports/videos/1194388232932/?fref=mentions

Without a massive active international antiwar movement, there is no meaningful way to pay tribute to the children Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Congo, Palestine, Kashmir, Arakan state. You cannot substitute sentiment for united action in their defense.

The historic mission of this generation is to rebuild the antiwar movement on principles of unconditional opposition to war with no dispensations or mitigations like national sovereignty for dictators.

Israeli occupying forces arrested three young boys from the West Bank town of Nabi Saleh near Ramallah while they were on their way to school. The boys who are cousins are Ahmad Shaker al-Tamimi, Muhannad Essam al-Tamimi, & Muhannad Hamza al-Tamimi. There’s no indication the boys were engaged in anything other than walking while Palestinian in occupied Palestine.

It is reported that 700 Palestinian children are arrested & prosecuted in Israeli military courts every year. Not just because Palestinian children & youth are part of resistance to apartheid & ethnic cleansing, but because Israel is determined to crush the spirit of rebellion by demoralizing or destroying youth.

Stand with Palestinian children by honoring & promoting the economic & cultural boycott of Israel. Buy nothing with barcode beginning 729.

Photo is the three boys being kidnapped by Israeli troops.

Kashmiri photojournalist Basit Zargar’s tribute to Kashmiri children on International Children’s Day.

(Photos all by Basit Zargar)

November 20th is designated International Children’s Day by the UN. To make it more than ceremonial & hollow–or God forbid, merely sentimental–we need to recommit ourselves to active solidarity with children against inequality, war, occupation, genocide. Under the barbaric phase of capitalism children are a threat to tyranny. They are not just inspiration for rebellion against oppression but themselves rebels. They become primary targets of the oppressors with the hope that by demoralizing or destroying children’s spirit of rebellion, they can end resistance to tyranny.

The only original sin is teaching children to bend the knee to oppression & unjust authority. The closer adults remain to the spirit of children & their demand for freedom, the more likely we are to make this world suitable for all children to come of age in & for all human beings to live & love in.

“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf & the lion & the yearling together; & a little child will lead them.”

(The photo is a crying Rohingya child in a refugee camp. Not what this little guy deserves from life.)