My grandchild, your open thread

My daughter had her baby yesterday. I cut short my tour in California to come and be with her and her husband. Thank God mother and baby are doing well.
This is my first grandchild. In recent weeks I’ve been thinking quite a lot about the life of my maternal grandmother, Blanche Mary Marlow, nee Williams. She was born in London in 1888 and died in London in 1981. Her only brother was killed in WW-I and her only son in WW-II. For the rest of her life she was a very sad woman.
The world has changed a lot in the past 120 years. I am deeply convinced that we have the chance to make the 21st century a much better time for the flourishing of all humankind than either the 19th or 20th centuries. But that depends on all of us– especially those of with relatively privileged positions in the world order– acting with foresight, wisdom, and compassion.
Anyway, I’ll be spending the next few days snuggling the grandbaby and helping out the newly enlarged family. (While Obama is saying what must be a poignant farewell to his grandmother.)
I’ll leave this thread open for readers’ comments.

9 thoughts on “My grandchild, your open thread”

  1. helena, big congratulations. I’ve been reading your blog, and re-engage, in the last few years since the 2006 UNU conference in Ammman.
    your presence made a big impresssion.
    best,
    Dustin Andres

  3. so glad to hear about the safe arrival of the new addition. Congrats to all concerned. miss your columns when you cannot get one out, but understand. so much reliable info and wisdom. Thankyou
    donprohad

  4. Congratulations on the new addition to the family tree!
    While I don’t agree with everything Kristof writes, he penned a wise op-ed in today’s NYT. Why is this so difficult for people to see this?
    Today, Somalia is the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster, worse even than Darfur or Congo. The crisis has complex roots, and Somali warlords bear primary blame. But Bush administration paranoia about Islamic radicals contributed to the disaster.
    Somalia has been in chaos for many years, but in 2006 an umbrella movement called the Islamic Courts Union seemed close to uniting the country. The movement included both moderates and extremists, but it constituted the best hope for putting Somalia together again. Somalis were ecstatic at the prospect of having a functional government again.
    Bush administration officials, however, were aghast at the rise of an Islamist movement that they feared would be uncooperative in the war on terror. So they gave Ethiopia, a longtime rival in the region, the green light to invade, and Somalia’s best hope for peace collapsed.
    “A movement that looked as if it might end this long national nightmare was derailed, in part because of American and Ethiopian actions,” said Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia expert at Davidson College. As a result, Islamic militancy and anti-Americanism have surged, partly because Somalis blame Washington for the brutality of the Ethiopian occupiers.
    “There’s a level of anti-Americanism in Somalia today like nothing I’ve seen over the last 20 years,” Professor Menkhaus said. “Somalis are furious with us for backing the Ethiopian intervention and occupation, provoking this huge humanitarian crisis.”
    Patrick Duplat, an expert on Somalia at Refugees International, the Washington-based advocacy group, says that during his last visit to Somalia, earlier this year, a local mosque was calling for jihad against America — something he had never heard when he lived peacefully in Somalia during the rise of the Islamic Courts Union.

  5. H,
    Congratulations on this wonderful achievement! You are a Teta/Siti?! Best wishes to you and yours. What is the baby’s name….without one she/he remains “selfless” to those of us in your “social world”!
    KDJ

  6. Congratulations & blessings to you Helena and to your family. Welcome to the club! (My “second” is due in February!)
    How fitting to that you are remembering another grandmother — your own, at this precious time.
    May the world of promise we detect yet become reality, with our efforts emboldened, for all the grandchildren yet to come.

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