Dear President Trump, Last night I finally got to see the Big Dipper. I managed to block the incredibly bright streetlight in front of our house with my right hand and after letting my eyes adjust for a few seconds, the Big Dipper appeared in the Northwestern sky in all its sparkly glory. And this … Continue reading “Thoughts and prayers” = morally corrupt shields
Distractions and Shell Games
Beginner’s mind
Dear President Trump, The big news flashes from my neck of the former woods is that today is my mom’s birthday and this morning Laura left for Atlanta to visit her brother over the holiday weekend. Our daughter will be housesitting over the weekend so it’s going to be an odd few days for the … Continue reading Beginner’s mind
Piling more suffering on suffering people is bad karma
Dear President Trump, Sometimes I know the night before what I want to write to you about in the morning, but last night was not one of those nights. I’ve been topically untethered for some 10 hours and I don’t like it. What’s worse is that this morning all I’ve been able to think about … Continue reading Piling more suffering on suffering people is bad karma
Handy targets
Dear President Trump, Dude, why don’t you just introduce a new Amendment to the Constitution allowing bigoted people to discriminate against anyone they want for whatever reason they choose to pull out of their asses? If you did it that way we could be done with this cynical, piecemeal game you all are playing with … Continue reading Handy targets
Mental health projects
Dear President Trump, A few days ago a very large, very heavy box was delivered to our door containing the makings of an 8-drawer wooden bureau that will hold my messiest art materials – the hundreds of dried leaves, flowers, crumpled paper, and random bits of cardboard that I use for printing. All this messy … Continue reading Mental health projects
Righting (or rather “lefting”) this American context
Dear President Trump, Today, in this American context we have dozens of families making funeral arrangements for loved ones killed by hateful young white men with twisted agendas and weapons of war. We have hundreds of children in Mississippi who don’t know where ICE took their parents. We have a biracial couple in Ohio looking … Continue reading Righting (or rather “lefting”) this American context
The most obvious proximal cause
Dear President Trump, Some days I can type the standard greeting to you pretty much on autopilot; today is not one of those days. I am not, however, seriously tempted to replace it with something nasty or accusatory since I’m doing my best to channel my inner Michelle Obama and thus working at going high … Continue reading The most obvious proximal cause
Thoughts, prayers, and our collective failure of imagination and will
Dear President Trump, Thoughts and prayers. Prayers and thoughts. And thoughts prayers. And prayers thoughts. Thoughts prayers and. Prayers thoughts and. It really doesn’t matter how the words are arranged, does it? The words can even be heartfelt and as sincere as humanly possible and that doesn’t matter either, does it? The people who are … Continue reading Thoughts, prayers, and our collective failure of imagination and will
The silver lining of long wait-lists for anti-racism workshops
Dear President Trump, I didn’t put it quite this way, but yesterday I argued that we need to keep our eyes and ears trained on the robust strands of truth reported by Mueller and his team that all point to high crimes and misdemeanors well worthy of impeachment. I also reminded myself that we need … Continue reading The silver lining of long wait-lists for anti-racism workshops
Cognitive dissonance and gaslighting aren’t the half of it
Dear President Trump, I’m not sure how I missed them both over the last couple of days, but this morning I saw two rather stale Op Ed’s that were pretty interesting to read as companion pieces. The first was by Kathleen Vohs who dove into a detailed explanation of cognitive dissonance. I’ve explained it to … Continue reading Cognitive dissonance and gaslighting aren’t the half of it
Daily Trump Letters 