Dear President Trump, I’ll start with a handful of positives from my morning walk since I seem to need to collect them like so many shiny bits of sea glass. First, there was the large, colorful “Happy Birthday!!!! Love You! We Love You!” chalk message outside the elderly woman’s home down the street. This is … Continue reading Shiny bits of sea glass
Manipulation
We can’t take to the streets
Dear President Trump, It might just be too early in the season, but I noticed this morning that although our rose bushes are leafing out mightily, they don’t have any aphids, which seems pretty weird. Don’t get me wrong, it’s super nice to see all those tender greenish yellowish leaves doing their thing without aphids … Continue reading We can’t take to the streets
April Fool’s Day and willful ignorance; a serendipitous pairing (of sorts)
Dear President Trump, When I woke up this morning I had no idea that it would make sense to address the topic of your willful ignorance on April Fool’s Day, but the universe is apparently doing it’s universe thing and here we are. Jennifer Rubin used the term “willful ignorance” in her WP editorial this … Continue reading April Fool’s Day and willful ignorance; a serendipitous pairing (of sorts)
POTUS and Putin share another playbook
Dear President Trump, This morning on my allowed walk for exercise, it occurred to me to wonder why we’ve not been hearing anything about covid-19 in Russia, as in zip, nada, radio silence. There are a lot of people in Russia, healthcare isn’t so hot in Russia, and, very importantly, Russia has the same winter … Continue reading POTUS and Putin share another playbook
Leveraging lessons learned
Dear President Trump, It felt odd yesterday that there wasn’t some equivalent of a Town Crier cruising the streets at 5pm to announce the official start of our state’s shelter in place order. We tuned in to Representative Jayapal’s virtual 5pm Town Hall meeting so I suppose that was sort of similar, but still – … Continue reading Leveraging lessons learned
Hand washing tips, and then some
Dear President Trump, I don’t think I noticed the nice string of 2’s and 0’s on either January 20, 2020 or February 20, 2020 (which was 02/20/2020), but I’m glad I didn’t wait until November or December to pick up on it and now have most of the rest of the year to enjoy the … Continue reading Hand washing tips, and then some
Bad politics kill
Dear President Trump, Throughout this primary season our daughter has been texting with Laura about the candidates, about how the process is going, how the issues are (and are not) being covered, and who we are voting for and why (I get the texts about recipes and airline schedules). A couple of weeks ago she … Continue reading Bad politics kill
45 to 0
Dear President Trump, Has covid-19 got you spooked? Seems so. You’ve been tossing out baseless, rosy hunches all morning (who in their right mind would trust a hunch of yours?), including that the fatality rate is only 1%. You’re also pushing the name “covid-flu” and telling people to go ahead and go to work as … Continue reading 45 to 0
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
Sport and social control
Dear President Trump, This morning on my walk I was thinking about a comment I read or heard sometime in the last several months about how the Chinese government was confident that mainland Chinese citizens would grow weary of coverage of the protests in Hong Kong and would soon be entranced again by their TV … Continue reading Sport and social control
Daily Trump Letters 