Dear President Trump, I am reading things besides editorials and I am reading editorialists besides Jennifer Rubin, but I want to make a quick note that in her piece this morning about Buttigieg’s decision to leave the race, she calls on Klobuchar and Bloomberg to step up and step out as well (by this evening … Continue reading Straight up ~ I want everyone to see that the emperor is butt naked
Accountability
Coronavirus ~ is there a method to their madness?
Dear President Trump, Last night starting shortly after dusk we had a lovely view of the waxing crescent moon and the bright, especially close-looking, Venus out our front window. At bedtime I let the dogs out for their last tinkle hurrah and found that the atmosphere had shifted such that the moon was an incredible … Continue reading Coronavirus ~ is there a method to their madness?
Apologies and amends
Dear President Trump, As you know, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about historical corrections and it occurs to me that I should clarify that there are at least two different types of historical corrections: 1) corrections to the historical record itself (e.g., telling the story more completely and accurately by bringing in points of … Continue reading Apologies and amends
Righteous prohibitions
Dear President Trump, Following on from yesterday’s letter about history and privilege and how we are finally getting some traction with new, corrective history, today was pretty much a banner day. First, earlier today the US House passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act 410-4, making lynching a federal hate crime (for the record these four … Continue reading Righteous prohibitions
Such a redundantly tangled mess
Dear President Trump, Oh, where to start? Who the hell knows? I don’t. The original question implies there’s a single right answer and it also implies that it’s important to choose the starting point correctly. And yes, sometimes it is critical to start somewhere specific, like the beginning or maybe another strategic juncture that helps … Continue reading Such a redundantly tangled mess
Yucky bookends to the day
Dear President Trump, Today looks to be a day that will be bookended by rather spectacularly shitty stuff between the debacle in Iowa and your State of the (dis)Union speech tonight. Then you get to top it all off with the acquittal cherry tomorrow – feels like it might be a good time for a … Continue reading Yucky bookends to the day
Time to whistle in the dark
Dear President Trump, Can you whistle? Probably not, but surely you can hum. I bet people within earshot of you are hearing an off-key hummed version of “Oh Happy Day” or something like that now that you’ve locked down the impeachment trial and avoided the disaster of involving witnesses and document discovery. You are getting … Continue reading Time to whistle in the dark
Bolton ~ sleaze or target?
Dear President Trump, I may well have missed it – I don’t spend THAT much time reading the news and it does turn over quickly enough that if one isn’t constantly scanning sources it would be fairly easily for things to slip under an individual’s radar. But this thing that I might have missed seems … Continue reading Bolton ~ sleaze or target?
Breathing out and breathing in
Dear President Trump, I’m afraid I don’t have much for you tonight, but I’ll give you what I’ve got. It’s raining again (we’re at 131% of normal thus far for 2020) and the forecast is for more and more and more rain this week. Lately it’s been sounding like there’s a creek under our house … Continue reading Breathing out and breathing in
Professed beliefs are perhaps not real beliefs
Dear President Trump, Recent events have me going back to Barbara Kruger’s installation at the Hirshorn Museum. I told you about it when I visited there in 2017 and since I’m sure you don’t remember, I’ll remind you that it involves the entire central open space of the museum’s bottom floor as well as the … Continue reading Professed beliefs are perhaps not real beliefs