*Premio Internacional Periodismo Y Periodismo Migrante*📃
La Información Directa a tu Celular 📲 de HOY *Jueves 26 de Octubre 2023* *En El Plano Nacional e Internacional*:
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*After Hurricane Otis, Mexican Officials Race to Assess the Damage*
The storm was one of the strongest ever to hit the southwest coast, but the extent of the destruction in Acapulco and elsewhere was unclear early Thursday.
Security and medical officials on Thursday were confronting the destruction brought by one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the southwest region of Mexico, one that struck a tourist haven with little warning.
Mexican officials have been working since Wednesday to restore communication and power to the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca after Otis, which made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane, cut off power for more than half a million residents, battered hotels and ripped the roofs from buildings.
The authorities were particularly concerned about Acapulco, a port city of more than 852,000 people on the Pacific Coast that was in the direct path of Otis. The city, in Guerrero State, was hosting an international mining industry convention when the storm hit; additionally, many hotels were packed with tourists. People stuck there posted videos on social media showing ravaged hotel rooms, doors ripped from hinges and collapsed ceilings.
With the region effectively cut off from the outside world, the extent of the injuries and deaths was still unclear.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador visited the region on Wednesday. Photographs showed him walking in the mud as he visited the Kilómetro 42 community, near Acapulco. Also on Wednesday, Zoé Robledo, the director general of the Mexican Social Security Institute, said he had sent an emergency team of nurses who had recently worked in Haiti.
“We are also preparing personnel teams for conservation issues: medicine supply, personnel strengthening, focusing on the patients,” Mr. Robledo said.
Otis rapidly intensified in the early hours of Wednesday; the storm made landfall with sustained winds of 165 miles per hour, before dissipating as it headed inland over southern Mexico. Just a day earlier, its sustained winds had been only 65 miles per hour.
Forecasters and the Mexican authorities were shocked by the magnitude of the storm. Their models largely failed to predict that it would intensify so abruptly, creating what Eric Blake, a forecaster with the National Hurricane Center, called a “nightmare scenario” in a forecast he wrote on Tuesday night, as the storm was approaching southern Mexico and its potential danger was becoming clear.
Guerrero State has also been plagued by violence in recent years. Just this week, an armed group ambushed and killed more than a dozen law enforcement officers, including a local security secretary and a police chief in Coyuca de Benítez.
*A Timeline of the Shootings in Lewiston, Maine*
Around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, shootings occurred at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine. The police said that a suspect was still at large on Thursday.
Around 7 p.m. Wednesday. A shooting at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, led to “multiple casualties,” according to the authorities. That was followed by reports of a shooting at Schemengees Bar & Grille, a 12-minute drive away.
Around 8 p.m. The authorities released photos of an armed suspect and urged people to stay inside with their doors locked. Hundreds of officers were working across Maine to find the gunman, said Mike Sauschuck, who oversees public safety for the state.
8:30 p.m. Officials in Auburn, directly across the river from Lewiston, urged residents to shelter in place, lock all doors and report suspicious people.
Just before 9 p.m. The Lewiston police identified Schemengees Bar & Grille as a second shooting location. They asked drivers to stay off the roads to allow emergency responders access to hospitals.
Around 9:15 p.m. The Lewiston police released photos of a vehicle they were searching for, a small white car whose front bumper may be painted black.
Around 11 p.m. The police department in Lewiston named Robert R. Card of Bowdoin, Maine, as a person of interest in the shootings, saying that he “should be considered armed and dangerous.” They urged the public not to approach Mr. Card or make contact with him if they saw him.
Around 11:30 p.m. Mr. Sauschuck said that a vehicle of interest had been found in Lisbon, about eight miles from Lewiston. The person of interest remained at large.
After 6 a.m. Thursday: Maine’s State Police said it was expanding its shelter-in-place advisory for Lewiston, the state’s second-largest city after Portland, to include Bowdoin, about 15 miles away. Classes at Bates College in Lewiston, at Lewiston Public Schools and in neighboring school districts were canceled for Thursday.
*Tragedy Interrupted an American Pastime at a Maine Bowling Alley*
The first of two shootings in Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday occurred at a bowling alley with a restaurant.
The first of the two shootings in Lewiston, Maine, took place at a bowling alley, interrupting an American pastime on an ordinary Wednesday evening.
The facility, which the police identified as Sparetime Recreation and whose website says its name is now Just-In-Time Recreation, has 22 lanes that host bowling leagues, corporate events and birthday parties with unlimited soda. Its restaurant’s offerings include nachos, wings and potato skins.
“Thanks for playing,” reads a sign on some glass doors near the exit, according to photograph posted on the venue’s Instagram page two years ago. “See you again in your spare time!”
On the bowling alley’s Facebook page, the management has posted photos of smiling customers and congratulated people for bowling perfect games. This month, there was a notice advertising an annual fund-raiser for fighting hunger.
In the predawn hours on Thursday, Lewiston was under lockdown and nearly deserted. Around 2 a.m., a few reporters were congregating near a sports bar and a Subway sandwich shop at the corner of Mollison Way, a road leading to the bowling alley. The Lewiston police said the road was among several near the locations of the shootings that would be closed.
“We all went bowling as kids growing up here,” said Mar Mcenery, 52, who lives four miles from the bowling alley and had come to see the scene for herself at 4 a.m. despite the citywide lockdown order. “Especially when the weather gets colder — the bowling alley and the ice rink, that’s what we do.”
Ms. Mcenery said the bowling center was a popular hangout for local teenagers. “There were a lot of kids there, children and teenagers,” she said. “Who do we know that was in there? We live in a town of 30,000 people — we have to know somebody.”
*The Speakership Is Yours, Mike Johnson. Good Luck With That.*
That House speaker mess was all Donald Trump’s fault. Yeah, yeah, I know you’re not going to argue with me if I blame him for something bad. (“Saturday night’s block party was canceled because of the threat of rain and … Donald Trump.”) Still, follow this thought.
The House Republicans are a rancorous crew, and they’ve got only a nine-member majority, one of the tightest in recent history. We’ve been hearing all week that a mere five rebels can halt progress on anything, even a basic task like electing a speaker. Interesting how narrow that majority is. Normally, in nonpresidential-election years, the party that didn’t win the White House gets a lift — often a huge one. Some voters are looking for balance, others are just kinda bored. Given the deeply nonelectric nature of Joe Biden’s victory, you’d figure the Republicans would have made a scary sweep in 2022.
But no — and one of the reasons was the completely loopy candidates running on Republican lines in districts that should have been up for grabs. Some had been handpicked by Trump, like Bo Hines, a 28-year-old former college football star who moved into a North Carolina swing district a month before the May primary, won the nomination with the ex-president’s enthusiastic support and then, well, went down the drain.
Trump endorsed three candidates in tossup districts last year; all of them lost. Plus there were lots of other dreadful Trump-backed contenders on the ballots — like Mehmet Oz, the longtime New Jersey resident who ran a disastrous race for the Senate in Pennsylvania and almost certainly pulled down the rest of his party’s ticket.
POP QUIZ:
Donald Trump, who’s facing 91 criminal charges around the country, is now on trial in New York for falsifying records to make himself look like an, um, non-failure in the real estate business. This week, he compared himself to a South African Nobel Peace Prize winner who served time in prison for his battles against apartheid. (“I don’t mind being Nelson Mandela, because I’m doing it for a reason.”) He’s also compared himself to:
A) Abraham Lincoln
B) Jesus
C) George Washington
D) The Mona Lisa
The answer is everybody but Jesus. And he did recently post a sketch on Truth Social showing Christ next to him in the courtroom.
All that flailing around over selecting a House speaker was due, in part, to the Republicans’ failure to corral their Flimsy Five around any of the original contenders. But it was also very, very much about Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for logical candidates like Tom Emmer, the House Republican whip, who’d made the dreaded mistake of voting to certify the results of the last presidential election.
“I have many wonderful friends wanting to be Speaker of the House, and some are truly great Warriors,” Trump declaimed. “RINO Tom Emmer, who I do not know well, is not one of them. He never respected the Power of a Trump Endorsement.”
RINO, of course, stands for Republican in Name Only, something Trump has truly hated ever since he registered as a Republican in Manhattan back in 1987. Until he registered with the Independence Party in 1999, followed by the Democratic Party in 2001. But hey, he became a Republican again in 2009, then dropped his party affiliation in 2011, and switched back to being a Republican in 2012. There is absolutely no reason to imagine he would ever switch again. Unless, you know, there was something in it for him.
Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who finally won the speaker’s job, is exactly the kind of guy you’d expect to come up on top. Right-wing anti-abortion activist who gets along with his colleagues and who, crucially, has items in his résumé that won Trump’s heart. A former radio talk show host who helped lead the Republicans’ battle to overturn the election results! What could be more perfect?
“GET IT DONE, FAST! LOVE, DJT!” our ex-president posted on Truth Social.
(Earlier, once Emmer had crashed, Trump praised all the possible successors to the ousted Kevin McCarthy as “fine and very talented men.” Quick question: What’s missing in that description? One minor detail — the candidate swarm was notably lacking in female representation. Just saying.)
So the beat goes on. Mike Johnson’s friends are celebrating. Much of the rest of the nation is wondering why the heck anybody would ever want to be speaker of the House with its current crush of Republican crazies.
Welcome to your new job, Mike. Hope you enjoyed your big day. Just remember that it won’t be long before Congress has to pass another bill to keep the government operating or send the country teetering into disaster.
*How Will Israel Pay for Its War?*
While the world’s eyes are on Gaza, another drama is unfolding in Jerusalem. There, lawmakers and government ministers are tussling over how to pay for the war against Hamas. There’s a debate over how much, if any, of the money should come from special allotments that were made earlier this year to the ultra-Orthodox and to settlers in the West Bank.
Eight days after the murderous Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, Bezalel Smotrich, the radical rightist who serves as finance minister in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said at a news conference that he had issued instructions to change the order of budgetary priorities. At the time, he didn’t seem to exempt so-called coalition funds, much of which are earmarked for the ultra-Orthodox and the settlers. Coalition funds are an obvious potential source for the war effort because they’re not required for the basic operations of government.
More recently, though, Smotrich has shown little interest in diverting funds intended for the ultra-Orthodox and the settlers to pay for the war and for aid to displaced civilians. “There really isn’t a lack of money,” Smotrich said, according to an article in TheMarker, a business daily published by Ha’aretz. Pressed on whether some war funding would come from the ultra-Orthodox and the settlers, he said, “At least in the war, let’s put populism aside.”
Smotrich’s seeming protection of the special allocations to the ultra-Orthodox and the settler movement isn’t likely to sit well with many Israelis. Impatience with those two groups was rising even before the war. It’s likely even stronger now.
One reason is that nearly half of ultra-Orthodox men don’t work, and the vast majority don’t serve in the army. (The Hamas attack did produce a burst of enlistments.) The ultra-Orthodox have their own school system, funded by the government, that teaches few if any skills needed by the modern work force. The budget passed last spring increases state funding for religious seminaries by at least 50 percent and more than triples funding for the ultra-Orthodox school system, according to an assessment by the Berl Katznelson Center, a political research group.
As for the settlement movement, its rapid expansion in the West Bank, subsidized by the right-wing government, enrages Palestinians as well as Arabs in other countries. (The International Court of Justice has stated that the settlements violate international law — a stance the Israeli government rejects.) Smotrich is one of the settler movement’s strongest supporters. He obtained new powers over civilian life in the West Bank as a condition of joining Netanyahu’s government. He approved construction of thousands more homes in the occupied territories and made it harder for Palestinians to build homes and move around. He has written that his goal is a full Israeli takeover of the West Bank, with Arab residents given local self-governance but no right to vote, at least at first, in national elections.
While the political system hasn’t stopped Smotrich and other right-wing figures in the Netanyahu cabinet — including Itamar Ben Gvir, the minister of national security — economic reality might slow them down. As war expenses grow, there will be increasing pressure to take back some of the special aid promised to the ultra-Orthodox and the settlers.
Israel has mobilized about 360,000 soldiers for a possible invasion of Gaza and to defend Israel from a potential full-scale attack by Hezbollah across the northern border. That takes many prime-age workers out of the labor force. In addition, many Israelis have been evacuated from towns and villages near Gaza and the border with Lebanon. Some are being housed at government expense. Revenue from tourism has shriveled. In the long run, perhaps the biggest expense will be strengthening defenses so people feel safe returning to those areas. The supposedly impregnable fence on the border with Gaza clearly wasn’t.
The Israeli shekel, which was already losing strength, has fallen 5 percent against the dollar since the beginning of the month, before the Hamas attack. The value of the shekel is a “seismograph” of investors’ feelings about Israel, Karnit Flug, a former governor of the Bank of Israel, told me. Israeli stock indexes have slumped and the cost of buying protection against the default of government bonds has soared. Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings have warned that they may cut the credit ratings on those bonds.
It’s important not to overstate Israel’s financial woes. Before the Hamas attack, the economy was healthy, unemployment was low, inflation was under control, the government budget deficit was small (at around 1.3 percent of gross domestic product), foreign currency reserves were ample and what’s called the current account — a broad measure of trade in goods and services plus investment income — was in surplus. The Bank of Israel projected on Monday that if the war is mostly over by the end of December and is confined to Gaza, gross domestic product growth will come in at 2.3 percent this year (down 0.7 percentage point from its prewar projection) and 2.8 percent in 2024 (down 0.2 percentage point from its prewar projection). Those are healthy numbers.
On the other hand, things could turn out much worse — say, if the Iran-backed Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon attack on a large scale or if things go badly for Israel in Gaza. Even a prolonged period of uncertainty would be harmful. Manuel Trajtenberg, an Israeli economist who has served in the Knesset and in government advisory roles, told me that Israel’s predicament is unprecedented since the nation’s founding in 1948: lots of troops mobilized, many people displaced from their homes, and no idea when it will end. “People are so devastated by this,” he said. “The idea of Jews being refugees in their own country. It’s inconceivable and we are experiencing that now within Israel.”
As a small country in a dangerous neighborhood, Israel gets less benefit of the doubt from investors than, say, the United States does. With that in mind, Trajtenberg argues that Israel should keep its financial house in order in part by diverting funds from the ultra-Orthodox and settlers to pay for the war, rather than just borrowing the money. “Once you go that route,” of borrowing rather than reprioritizing, “it’s a very bad signal for a country that’s already going through a crisis,” Trajtenberg said. “You want to signal that you can be fiscally responsible.”
Flug, the former central bank chief who is now the vice president for research at the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, had a similar message. “I think it’s very irresponsible” to run a big budget deficit, she told me. “We can’t afford getting to a point where our debt sustainability will be questioned by the market.”
At the moment Israel remains in shock over the lethal Hamas attack and torn over how to deal with the threat that continues to emanate from Gaza. As the weeks go on, though, I predict, people will return to the issues that troubled the country before Hamas struck. And the public pressure for givebacks from the ultra-Orthodox and the settlers — overlapping groups, by the way — is bound to increase.
*The Palestine Double Standard*
I’ve moved back to the United States twice since my birth. Once as a child, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Then again for graduate school. I’d had the privilege of a youth — adolescence and young adulthood — in countries where being Palestinian was fairly common. The identity could be heavy, but it wasn’t a contested one. I hadn’t had to learn the respectability politics of being a Palestinian adult. I learned quickly.
The task of the Palestinian is to be palatable or to be condemned. The task of the Palestinian, we’ve seen in the past two weeks, is to audition for empathy and compassion. To prove that we deserve it. To earn it.
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve watched Palestinian activists, lawyers, professors get baited and interrupted on air, if not silenced altogether. They are being made to sing for the supper of airtime and fair coverage. They are begging reporters to do the most basic tasks of their job. At the same time, Palestinians fleeing from bombs have been misidentified. Even when under attack, they must be costumed as another people to elicit humanity. Even in death, they cannot rest — Palestinians are being buried in mass graves or in old graves dug up to make room, and still there is not enough space.
If that weren’t enough, Palestinian slaughter is too often presented ahistorically, untethered to reality: It is not attributed to real steel and missiles, to occupation, to policy. To earn compassion for their dead, Palestinians must first prove their innocence. The real problem with condemnation is the quiet, sly tenor of the questions that accompany it: Palestinians are presumed violent — and deserving of violence — until proved otherwise. Their deaths are presumed defensible until proved otherwise. What is the word of a Palestinian against a machinery that investigates itself, that absolves itself of accused crimes? What is it against a government whose representatives have referred to Palestinians as “human animals” and “wild beasts?” When a well-suited man can say brazenly and unflinchingly that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people?
It is, of course, a remarkably effective strategy. A slaughter isn’t a slaughter if those being slaughtered are at fault, if they’ve been quietly and effectively dehumanized — in the media, through policy — for years. If nobody is a civilian, nobody can be a victim.
***
In 2017, I published a novel about a Palestinian family. It was published by a respectable publisher, got a lot of lovely press, was given a book tour. I spoke on panels, to book clubs. I answered questions after readings. There was a refrain that kept coming up. People kept commenting on how human the story was. You’ve humanized the conflict. This is a human story.
Of course, literature and the arts play a crucial role in providing context — expanding our empathy, granting us glimpses into other worlds. But every time I was told I’d humanized the Palestinians, I would have to suppress the question it invoked: What had they been before?
A couple of weeks ago, in a professional space, someone called Palestinians by name and spoke of the seven decades of their anguish. I sat among dozens of co-workers and realized my lip was quivering. I was crying before I understood it was happening. I fled the room, and it took 10 minutes for me to stop sobbing. I didn’t immediately understand my reaction. Over the years, I’ve faced meetings, classrooms and other institutional spaces where Palestinians went unnamed or were referred to only as terrorists. I came of professional age in a country where people lost all sorts of things for speaking of Palestine: social standing, university tenure, journalist positions. But in the end, I am undone not by silence or erasure but by empathy. By the simple naming of my people. By increasing recognition that liberation is linked. By spaces of Palestinian-Jewish solidarity. By what has become controversial: the simple speaking aloud of Palestinian suffering.
These days, everyone is trying to write about the children. An incomprehensible number of them dead and counting. We are up at night, combing through the flickering light of our phones, trying to find the metaphor, the clip, the photograph to prove a child is a child. It is an unbearable task. We ask: Will this be the image that finally does it? This half-child on a rooftop? This video, reposted by Al Jazeera, of an inconsolable girl appearing to recognize her mother’s body among the dead, screaming out, “It’s her, it’s her. I swear it’s her. I know her from her hair”?
***
Take it from a writer: There is nothing like the tedium of trying to come up with analogies. There is something humiliating in trying to earn solidarity. I keep seeing infographics desperately trying to appeal to American audiences. Imagine most of the population of Manhattan being told to evacuate in 24 hours. Imagine the president of [ ] going on NBC and saying all [ ] people are [ ]. Look! Here’s a strip on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. That’s Gaza. It is about the same size as Philadelphia. Or multiply the entire population of Las Vegas by three.
This is demoralizing work, to have to speak constantly in the vernacular of tragedies and atrocities, to say: Look, look. Remember? That other suffering that was eventually deemed unacceptable? Let me hold it up to this one. Let me show you proportion. Let me earn your outrage. Absent that, let me earn your memory. Please.
I don’t hesitate for a second to condemn the killing of any child, any massacre of civilians. It is the easiest ask in the world. And it is not in spite of that but because of that I say: Condemn the brutalization of bodies. By all means, do. Condemn murder. Condemn violence, imprisonment, all forms of oppression. But if your shock and distress comes only at the sight of certain brutalized bodies? If you speak out but not when Palestinian bodies are besieged and murdered, abducted and imprisoned? Then it is worth asking yourself which brutalization is acceptable to you, even quietly, even subconsciously, and which is not.
Name the discrepancy and own it. If you can’t be equitable, be honest.
There is nothing complicated about asking for freedom. Palestinians deserve equal rights, equal access to resources, equal access to fair elections and so forth. If this makes you uneasy, then you must ask yourself why.
*Can’t Sleep? Try This Proven Alternative to Medication.*
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is considered the most effective treatment for people who continually struggle to fall or stay asleep.
About one in four adults in the United States develops symptoms of insomnia each year. In most cases, these are short-lived, caused by things like stress or illness. But one in 10 adults is estimated to have chronic insomnia, which means difficulty falling or staying asleep at least three times a week for three months or longer.
Sleep deprivation doesn’t just create physical health problems, it can also harm our minds. A recent poll from the National Sleep Foundation, for example, found a link between poor sleep health and depressive symptoms. In addition, studies have shown that a lack of sleep can lead otherwise healthy people to experience anxiety and distress. Fortunately, there is a well-studied and proven treatment for insomnia that generally works in eight sessions or less: cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or C.B.T.-I.
If you cannot find a provider, C.B.T.-I. instruction is easy to access online. Yet it is rarely the first thing people try, said Aric Prather, a sleep researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who treats patients with insomnia.
Instead, they often turn to medication. According to a 2020 survey from the Centers for Disease Control, more than 8 percent of adults reported taking sleep medication every day or most days to help them fall or stay asleep.
Studies have found that C.B.T.-I. is as effective as using sleep medications in the short term and more effective in the long term. Clinical trial data suggests that as many as 80 percent of the people who try C.B.T.-I. see improvements in their sleep and most patients find relief in four to eight sessions, even if they have had insomnia for decades, said Philip Gehrman, the director of the Sleep, Neurobiology and Psychopathology lab at the University of Pennsylvania.
Sleep aids can carry risks, especially for older people, who may experience problems like falls, memory issues or confusion as a result of using the medication. C.B.T.-I., on the other hand, is considered safe for adults of any age. It can even be adapted for use in children.
What is C.B.T.-I.?
Many people mistakenly assume that C.B.T.-I. is entirely focused on sleep hygiene — the routines and environment that are conducive to good sleep, said Shelby Harris, a psychologist with a private practice in the New York City area who specializes in C.B.T.-I.
C.B.T.-I. does use a series of treatments to target behaviors that are inhibiting sleep, like daytime naps or using digital devices before bed, and replaces them with more effective ones, like sticking to a consistent wake time. But it also aims to address anxieties and negative beliefs about sleep.
Much of the time, insomnia can lead to the feeling that sleep has become “unpredictable and broken,” Dr. Prather said. “Every day people with chronic insomnia are thinking about ‘How am I going to sleep tonight?’”
C.B.T.-I. teaches people different ways to relax, like deep breathing and mindfulness meditation, and helps patients develop realistic expectations about their sleep habits.
It is especially important that people with insomnia learn to view their bed as a place for restful sleep rather than associating it with tossing and turning. Patients undergoing C.B.T.-I. are asked to get out of bed if they are not asleep after around 20 or 30 minutes and do a quiet activity in dim lighting that doesn’t involve electronics. In addition, they are told to stay in bed only while drowsy or sleeping.
“C.B.T.-I. leads to more consolidated sleep and shorter time to fall asleep which is a major gain for many,” Dr. Harris said.
How do you find a provider?
If you’re having problems sleeping, first visit your health care provider to rule out any physical problems (like a thyroid imbalance, chronic pain or sleep apnea) or a psychological issue such as depression that might require separate treatment, the experts said.
You can search for a provider who is a member of the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine or use the Penn International CBT-I Provider Directory. Your primary care doctor may also provide a referral. If you’re using a general online therapist directory like Psychology Today, be wary of those who claim to offer insomnia treatment but do not have specific training in C.B.T.-I., Dr. Harris warned.
Finding someone who specializes in C.B.T.-I. may prove difficult — especially one who takes insurance — because there are fewer than 700 clinicians trained in behavioral sleep medicine in the United States. And one 2016 study found they are unevenly distributed: 58 percent of these providers practicing in 12 states. The clinic where Dr. Prather works, for example, has hundreds of people on its waiting list.
Can you try C.B.T.-I. without a provider?
A review of clinical trials found that self-directed online C.B.T.-I. programs were just as effective as face-to-face C.B.T.-I. counseling. If you are self-motivated, there are several low-cost or free resources that can teach you the main principles.
One option is the five-week program Conquering Insomnia, which ranges in price from about $50 for a PDF guide to $70 for a version that includes audio relaxation techniques and feedback about your sleep diary from Dr. Gregg D. Jacobs, the sleep and insomnia expert who developed the program.
You can also check out Insomnia Coach, a free app created by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that can be used by anyone. It offers a guided, weekly training plan to help you track and improve sleep; tips for sleeping; an interactive sleep diary; and personal feedback.
Sleepio is another reputable app, Dr. Harris said. There are also free online resources from the A.A.S.M. and educational handouts from the National Institutes of Health, which include a sample sleep diary and a guide to healthy sleep.
And for those who prefer to avoid technology entirely, more than one expert recommended the workbook “Quiet Your Mind and Get to Sleep” by Colleen E. Carney and Rachel Manber.
*Por si le faltara algo a Guerrero*
Las desgracias caen sobre los guerrerenses un día sí y otro también.
No se tenía registro de un huracán que ingresara a tierra firme siendo categoría 5 y ahí están los resultados. Las primeras imágenes de los destrozos provocados por “Otis” son impactantes, pues la otrora alegre Costera “Miguel Alemán” se parece a la franja de Gaza. No quiero imaginar cómo están los habitantes de otros municipios.
¿Cuánto costará la reconstrucción? Difícil saber a estas alturas. Por lo pronto, el presidente de la Comisión de Turismo, el diputado Jericó Abramo (PRI), ha solicitado que la Secretaría de Hacienda redirija 10 mil millones de pesos para enfrentar el desastre. ¿Habrá tales fondos en las arcas públicas? En teoría deben estar en la Unidad de Política y Control Presupuestario de la SHCP ante la desaparición del FONDEN, pero con eso de que las megaobras siguen consumiendo recursos… Por su parte, Hacienda ha informado que el gobierno cuenta con seguros para enfrentar la catástrofe. Ya veremos.
El huracán “Otis” vendrá a exacerbar la de por sí lamentable situación de la entidad, al tiempo que ocultará temporalmente sus grandes deficiencias institucionales.
Según CONEVAL, 72 por ciento de la población se encuentra en condición de pobreza multidimensional y una cuarta parte está en pobreza extrema; es decir, las carencias campean lo mismo en las zonas urbanas que en las rurales (Reporte de Pobreza de Guerrero 2022).
Hay algunas dimensiones de la pobreza que no necesariamente tienen que ver con los ingresos de los guerrerenses, pues las autoridades estatales o federal las debieran atender. Me refiero al acceso a servicios de salud, el cual empeoró entre 2018 y 2020, al pasar de 14 a 33 por ciento, probablemente como efecto de la transición del Seguro Popular al INSABI. Una cuarte parte de la población sufre rezago educativo. Sería de esperar que el IMSS-Bienestar y la SEP se dieran una vuelta por ahí.
Poco más de la mitad de los habitantes tienen insuficiencia de servicios básicos en la vivienda, como un baño funcional o suministro diario de agua. Lo más grave es que una tercera parte está mal alimentada. Ninguna de estas carencias son de extrañar, pues 70 por ciento de los guerrerenses tienen un ingreso inferior a la línea de pobreza.
Desde hace varias décadas, en Guerrero se aplican programas sociales pero no han sacado adelante a la población. De hecho, la pobreza apenas disminuyó 1.5 por ciento en los últimos tres años.
En Guerrero, los programas sociales cumplen con 13 de las 14 normas que los rigen; la excepción es… ¡Adivinó usted!, el Padrón de Beneficiarios. Si no se sabe a quién se le entregan los apoyos, por muy bien que esté el resto de la normatividad, la transparencia en el manejo de los recursos se pone en duda. Y con los datos de pobreza que le comparto, pues no veo efectividad alguna de los programas. ¿Corrupción? Tal vez.
Lo anterior nos lleva a la debilidad institucional que, sumada a la pobreza, hace de Guerrero el lugar perfecto para el arraigo del crimen organizado.
Desde hace seis décadas, en la entidad se inició el cultivo de amapola y de marihuana, aprovechando su orografía y sus condiciones climáticas. Claro, las ganancias siempre han sido para los narcos, porque los campesinos siguen en la postración intergeneracional.
Al día de hoy, hay 16 bandas principales operando en siete regiones, como Los Tlacos, Los Ardillos y Los Rojos; hacia arriba, cada una de ellas se liga con alguno de los grandes cárteles y, hacia abajo, también cada una tiene bandas menores adheridas. Durante todo este año han sido notorios los enfrentamientos entre las bandas por la disputa de las plazas y sus alrededores, pero no solo por la producción y trasiego de droga, sino también ppr el derecho de piso, el control del transporte público, el abasto de alimentos y toda actividad económica legal de la cual puedan extraer alguna ganancia ilegal.
La debilidad institucional es tal que en julio pasado cuando fue detenido un líder transportista ligado al narco, Chilpancingo se paralizó por completo sin que la Guardia Nacional pudiera poner orden. Al final, la gobernadora tuvo que sentarse a negociar.
En Guerrero lo mismo asesinan taxistas que no se someten, que a delegados de la FGR y no pasa nada. El lunes pasado, 13 policías municipales de Coyuca de Benítez fueron emboscados y, en el colmo, la Fiscalía del Estado suspendió actividades en Tierra Caliente para no exponer a su personal. Si la Fiscalía no puede, ¿quién?
Corrupción, delincuencia organizada, negligencia gubernamental y pobreza han caracterizado a Guerrero por décadas. Y ahora, hasta la Naturaleza se sumó.
Me temo, señora secretaria, que Guerrero necesita mucho más que esos 10 mil millones de pesos.
*ATENTAMENTE*
*MAESTRO FEDERICO LA MONT*
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