2021
August
30
Monday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 30, 2021
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Trudy Palmer
Cover Story Editor

What do puns have to do with the environment? Lots, if you are rising fifth grader Merwan Robinson, who spent his summer writing, illustrating, and publishing – with help from his parents – the two-book series “Martha’s Vineyard Puns to Bring a Smile.”

His primary goal is to “start a PUN-demic where healing smiles are spread around the planet.”

But many of the illustrations and puns suggest a second goal, saving the planet. For example: “Our oceans deserve better protection. They are so kind and always wave.”

Earnest and animated, Merwan tells me what he’s learned – out of curiosity, not as part of his home schooling – about the Mariana Trench, where the goblin shark lives. 

The information is “a little bit scary and maybe a bit creepy,” he warns, before explaining how the shark “can extend a jaw and snap the prey.”

Why does this matter? In a word, hope.

Though he’s barely 10, Merwan is already pitching in to protect the environment. After completing the books, he and his father, Walter Robinson, met with Collin Ward, assistant scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, to introduce the idea of a puppet show using Merwan’s sea creatures to educate children about the ocean.

His message isn’t just for kids, though. In fact, Merwan and his dad are hoping that, through a friend, the books reach former President Barack Obama, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday on Martha’s Vineyard, a Massachusetts island. 

Speaking to everyone from preschoolers to presidents, on behalf of “Pure Seas the Sea Horse,” one of his sculptures, Merwan urges, “‘Sea’ if you might please kindly help ‘Pure Seas’ during this critical ‘sea’-son of planet earth’s history to ‘sea’-lect the best conservation choices for our oceans so they continue to happily wave to us in the future!”


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Mickey Welsh/Montgomery Advertiser/USA TODAY Network/Reuters
Highway 51 is flooded after Hurricane Ida struck LaPlace, Louisiana, Aug. 30, 2021. The storm dumped torrential rains across much of the state, but levees near New Orleans did their job in preventing worse floods.

Key levees held as Hurricane Ida slammed New Orleans, but now major humanitarian needs have to be met. Although rattled, residents are grateful for progress since Katrina – and are helping one another amid power outages.

Brazil's calamitous handling of COVID-19 has hurt President Jair Bolsonaro's prospect of being reelected. His defiant response and courtship of the military has raised fears of democratic backsliding.  

Abdullah Imran Qureshi
Shaqoor Ahmad and Rafiqa Shaqoor sit with their two youngest daughters at their home in Lahore, Pakistan. Ms. Shaqoor is a domestic worker, as are three of the couple’s six children.

Legal reforms can provide protection to domestic workers, but changing social attitudes is much harder, as Pakistan’s experience has shown. 

Essay

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Staff Sgt. Keith Fidler kisses his wife, Cynthia, as their son, Kolin, looks around during a homecoming ceremony in New York, April 8, 2011. For many soldiers, returning to U.S. soil is just the first step in the journey home.

As this veteran learned – and is proving – the journey home from war isn’t a straight line. But you can reach the destination: healing.

Q&A

Michael Woolsey/Algonquin Books
Shugri Said Salh is author of "The Last Nomad: Coming of Age in the Somali Desert," which chronicles her journey from Africa to a refugee camp to North America.

Labels can make things easier to understand – and also oversimplify them. In her memoir, Shugri Said Salh strives to paint a fuller picture of growing up in Somalia, documenting the good alongside the bad.


The Monitor's View

AP
Afghan kids play at a U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany, Aug. 30, after being evacuated from Afghanistan.

Six years ago, when tens of thousands of people fled Syria’s conflict, Western countries panicked at the refugee flows. Politics in the United States and Europe turned sharply against migration, boosting a rise in populist politicians. Today, with more than 100,000 Afghans so far airlifted from Kabul after the Taliban’s takeover, the welcome mat is wider.

Instead of panic, there is a compassion. One good sign: On Sunday, nearly 100 countries agreed to keep their doors open to those fleeing Afghanistan.

One big difference from the Syrian refugee crisis is that the West has learned how to better screen an exodus of refugees, which helps lessen fears of terrorists or other dangerous people joining the migration. Another change is a newly formed consensus on the benefits from migrants. In late 2018, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Global Compact on Refugees, a nonbinding agreement to better integrate refugees into host countries, enhance their self-reliance, and aid them in returning to their home countries.

As the U.S. and other NATO powers end an emergency evacuation of Afghans with ties to Western countries, they have held out a carrot to the Taliban. The West will deliver humanitarian aid inside Afghanistan if the Taliban allow further migration. So far the group has agreed. “We have very significant leverage to work with over the weeks and months ahead to incentivize the Taliban to make good on its commitments,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ABC News.

The West is hardly alone in its hospitality toward Afghans. The tiny Gulf Arab state of Qatar, for example, played a major role as a “lily pad,” or transit point, for about 40% of the evacuees. At least 25 countries are temporarily serving as way stations. And several private groups, many based in the U.S., sent planes to Kabul and helped at-risk Afghans through checkpoints.

The Kabul airlift could be just a prelude. The U.N. refugee agency estimates that 500,000 people will leave Afghanistan by year’s end as the Taliban consolidate their hold. Yet a further exodus could be met with a welcoming heart as more recipient nations learn how to assist those fleeing violence and persecution.

Helping strangers in desperate need can bring something good instead of panic. Most of all, it can serve as a moral counterpoint to any killing of Afghans by the Taliban.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

​​As we open our hearts to divine harmony and praise to God, strength and healing replace fear and discord, as a man experienced when faced with chest pain and difficulty breathing.


A message of love

Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
Salum Ageze Kashafali of Norway, who is sight impaired, celebrates winning gold and setting a world record in the men's 100-meter at the Tokyo Paralympic Games, Aug. 29, 2021.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for starting your week with us. Come back tomorrow to meet three 2021 high school grads who aren’t letting the pandemic define the future for them.

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