Dear President Trump, Our church celebrated its 150th anniversary with a doozy of a service this morning. We opened with a short poem by Hafiz: Everyone Is God speaking. Why not be polite and Listen to God? Pretty dang provocative, right? And radical. And incredibly hard for me to wrap my head and heart around … Continue reading Guided by poems
Misogyny
May we vote as if our lives depend on it
Dear President Trump, Last night at about 8 Laura went to the grocery. There weren’t all that many items on the shopping list, but chief among them was Kozy Shack Tapioca or some other Kozy Shack pudding product – it had been a long, fairly rough day and some caloric comfort was a priority. Well, … Continue reading May we vote as if our lives depend on it
It’s not ok. It’s just not.
Dear President Trump, You’re no doubt aware that there’s a lot of talk about the GOP Senators who’ve already gone on record saying that they plan to acquit you. Actually, you’ve probably been sorting them into “naughty” and “nice” piles ahead of Christmas as the early adopters (co-opters) put their tent stakes through the heart … Continue reading It’s not ok. It’s just not.
Abuse of power, abusive power
Dear President Trump, I know a fair bit happened with the impeachment process today and that you made an ass of yourself in Europe this week, but I’m not going to focus on either of these things today. Instead I want to tell you about three recent encounters with sexism. The first was yesterday on … Continue reading Abuse of power, abusive power
History lessons
Dear President Trump, In the midst of all my imagining of a democratic society that finally fully embraces empowerment for all of America’s diverse peoples, it occurred to me that I needed a better historical handle on what motivated White men to enfranchise Black men and then eventually men to enfranchise women. All I knew … Continue reading History lessons
Revolt until we get it right
Dear President Trump, Remember how the other day I offered a modest re-write of the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence, swapping in ‘people’ for ‘men’ and ‘we are endowed by Creation’ for ‘ they are endowed by their Creator’? Well, I’d like to move us on to the next major sentence fragment. It … Continue reading Revolt until we get it right
No, “men” does not now mean “all people”
Dear President Trump, Did you tune in this morning to Nunes’s screed about the impeachment inquiry into your Majesty? I couldn’t bring myself to listen and only watched the live closed-captioning for a few minutes – where do you find these louts? Over the course of the hearings thus far it’s almost been funny watching … Continue reading No, “men” does not now mean “all people”
Early voting rights and lack thereof
Dear President Trump, Yesterday I told you that I want to refocus my attention on the work we’ll need to do after you’ve finally high-tailed it out of office. We have such a tremendous amount of very, very hard work to do together to close all the loopholes you’ve managed to exploit and to do … Continue reading Early voting rights and lack thereof
Women’s anger is still being weaponized
Dear President Trump, All afternoon I’ve been thinking about anger and how it continues to be weaponized against women who express it. As I was trying to come up with a way into this vast, touchy topic, it occurred to me that it might be instructive to list reasons why men get angry. So what … Continue reading Women’s anger is still being weaponized
What did you do? What will you do?
Dear President Trump, Well, today marks the 1,000th consecutive day that your inbox has received a letter from me. Next Saturday will mark the 1,000th consecutive day that I kept copies of the letters, but I think today is the real anniversary. Would I have taken on this daily correspondence to you if I’d known … Continue reading What did you do? What will you do?