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K: But what’s your best guess. Prognosticate.

K: My best guess is that on January 21, President Trump will issue an order to stop or pause parts of the US refugee resettlement program. No more Syrians.  Possibly fewer from camps and countries that are majority Muslim.  I’ve heard a few people wonder if the entire resettlement program could be paused.  My own view is that the new administration will put a moratorium on Syrians, Somalis, and maybe designate certain countries or camps as off-limits.  It’s kind of bleak.

K: What’s the rush? Can he do this? 

K: From what I understand, absolutely, yes.  He can't change the Refugee Act of 1980, but that law allows the president broad powers to determine or change the ceiling on the number of refugees that can legally be resettled in a given year.

A couple months ago, on our way home from visiting my parents in Switzerland, Kathy and I spent a few days in Paris and a morning at the Rodin museum.  Next to Chagall, Rodin is my favorite artist. There are moments when I wonder if he might have benefited from a better sense of humor, but I love the way his sculptures reach past the anxious buzz of my mind and tell my soul how much people matter. Emotion matters, gestures matter, hands and feet matter, the interplay of bodies in space matter, the movement of a body—even in bronze and without a head (okay, he does have some sense of humor)—matter.  Muscles matter.  In a way that is message of Rodin for me: every muscle matters. 

“For the first time in Olympics history, a team of refugee athletes will band together in Rio de Janeiro this August to represent the 20 million people in the world who have no one country to call home...At recent press conferences, it has become clear that the men and women who comprise the team are united in a simple, yet powerful message they hope to get across to the world:

“ ‘We still are humans. We are not only refugees. We are like everyone in the world ... We didn’t choose to leave our homelands.’ "

Providence Granola Project Entrepreneur Assistant Paula Cunanan doesn’t like to go far without access to one of the world’s tastiest granola bars. That’s why when she traveled through Europe volunteering at organic farms, she took along a good supply. Then, picking up on an idea of PGP Director of Strategic Partnerships Anne Dombrofski, she decided to post “Where In the World” photos of her traveling granola bars on PGP’s Facebook and twitter pages.

"Sesame Workshop and the IRC will adapt existing Sesame products and content for regions where the two organizations already have a presence working with young children and their families. ... The partnership is aimed at the children who make up half of the record 60 million people currently displaced around the world, specifically the one-third of that population under the age of eight."

The mayor [of Goslar] has also said, "Anyone who tells me Germany is full up, or that we can’t afford them, I say think of our past, and of the future. Of course we can afford them – we’re a rich country, and we have a duty to help those in need.”