Dear President Trump, Happy Solstice! Did you and the fam do anything to celebrate the shortest day of the year or did you studiously avoid it because you don’t acknowledge things that are the shortest, smallest, briefest? You generally are only in it for the biggest, hugest, longest whatevers so you probably let this day … Continue reading Fixes
Empowerment
“defiance of something”
Dear President Trump, Before I settle down and tell you about my biggest learn of the morning I’m going to throw some popcorn thoughts at you. Here goes: I so, so wish that the WP (and other outlets) would stop saying what you “believe” as though they know what you believe. In this morning’s long … Continue reading “defiance of something”
Kindness-R-Us
Dear President Trump, I’m feeling so done with you. I’m sick of you, sick of Giuliani, sick of Barr, sick of Nunes, sick of McConnell, and if Pence ever said anything, I’d bother to be sick of him too. In honor of my fed-up-ness, I only looked at the WP and HP for a combined … Continue reading Kindness-R-Us
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
Graced by a heron
Dear President Trump, Maybe it’s that it’s the Sunday at the end of a four-day holiday weekend or maybe it’s the time of year, but the day started out pretty challenging. First off, I overslept and was late getting to choir practice. Second, we didn’t have any of our actual tenors who can read music … Continue reading Graced by a heron
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
Revolutionary evolution
Dear President Trump, The Poem-a-Day this morning is by Todd Fredson and is entitled [Erratum: Found Ecology Piece], the brackets being part of the title (you can read it here if you want: https://poets.org/poem-a-day/ for today’s date). It’s a short poem and seems simple enough, but it’s had me thinking hard all day. It’s nominally … Continue reading Revolutionary evolution
It is our duty to overthrow despotism
Dear President Trump, While we wait to see what those tapes and other detritus that Lev Parnas has handed over to the House Intelligence Committee reveal about you and Rudy, I’m going to finish out the first section of the Declaration of Independence, which is basically the poetic portion most relevant today. The last two … Continue reading It is our duty to overthrow despotism
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
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