We met in the winter of 2021 shortly after the Kabul airport fiasco. He was wearing flip flops in the snow carrying 2 garbage bags filled with his worldly possessions. I bought him some shoes and socks, helped him get settled and have been friends since.
For months 500 Words has been an overview of some of the things that caught my eye the preceding week focusing on politics. I want to start this week with something more personal. Not some outrage for all of us to be force-fed but something that happened to someone I know.
His family got separated at the Kabul airport when one of them tripped in the melee while others got pushed passed the gate. Only he and his step mother got out. There, she’s an engineer. Here she cleans toilets at a school.
He has a wife and 4 sons in Afghanistan. The youngest he’s never met as his wife was pregnant at the airport so he’s watching him grow up on Zoom.
He was granted asylum and they’re now eligible to come here to join him. Or were. His specialty was bomb detection and he was singled out by the Taliban for teaching women how not to detonate landmines. For his efforts the Taliban gifted him with a 10 day coma, a jaw broken in multiple places by rifle butt, and his tongue nearly sliced out of his mouth.
His family are targets and go back and forth to Pakistan in efforts to evade the Taliban. His sisters were professionals but are now forced to stay in their courtyard instead of work and are experiencing severe mental health issues.
Since there’s no embassy in Afghanistan they had to go to Pakistan to apply but also had to live there while going through the process which took a couple months.
Properly vetted in every way with letters of support from my alderwoman and state senator, they were denied.
Trump’s travel ban in action and truly heartbreaking. Telling him he may want to consider relocating to Canada was hard for me to say let alone know is true.
One can only imagine how he feels.
You may remember Rebekah Jones- climate scientist and former Dept of Health data analyst from Florida who alerted us that her state was lying about Covid statistics. Last week she warned that colleagues in multiple federal agencies were ordered to stop any release of public info data for all government materials.
A blanket data blackout.
“The importance of continuity in climate records is paramount and this will undermine trust in public institutions. You can’t just turn off reporting data funded with taxpayer money. We’re now not allowed to know what our government is doing or what they know. From the Dept. of Agriculture to NOAA, researchers from local governments depend on a steady stream of data. This is terrifying. More so than when they were lying about covid because they’re just not saying anything now.”
Highlighting the potential dangers of such a blackout, Jones noted that withholding information on diseases, weather alerts, and other vital statistics pose significant risks to public safety. This government
information suppression erodes trust in public institutions and hinders
efforts to address issues like climate change and public health crises.
Finally, Fiona Hill, Trump’s former senior adviser to Russia offered her succinct observation on the Alaska summit: ‘I’m going to beat you up, and my concession is that I stopped beating you up.”
Chef/percussionist/writer/reprobate and lover of all things beautiful & delicious, Chef Alan Lake’s culinary career includes East Bank Club in Chicago; Sunset Marquis in W. Hollywood; Izakaya Hiwatta in Ichinomia Japan and legendary nightclub Purpur in Zurich, Switzerland. Working all around the world for over four decades, he's won numerous awards, professional competitions and distinctions. He’s the author of Home Cookin'- The Stories Behind The Food and The Garlic Manifesto- the history of garlic going back to 10,000-year-old Neolithic caves and contains facts, fiction, folklore, myths and legends (besides 100 recipes).
A lifelong musician that plays 70+ percussion instruments, he coined the term “Jazzfood” to describe his cooking style i.e. “solid technique coupled with tasteful improvisation.” He views his food as he does his music and writing and has been known to bust a pout if subpar in any way.