Dear President Trump, When I read last week that you’d been planning a 16-day golfing vacation down at Mar-a-Lago I told Laura that it might be worth the $5 billion dollars in wall money if it meant you’d be preoccupied with lowering your handicap for over two weeks. I was actually kidding – the whole … Continue reading Personality Disorder twofer
Visibility
The imperative of doing things we love
Dear President Trump, This morning Laura and I went to a nearby coffee shop to meet an old friend of hers. They get together to catch up a couple of times a year and since I took the day off, I tagged along. It was lovely meeting her friend and getting to hear about their … Continue reading The imperative of doing things we love
Buddha as launch point
Dear President Trump, The other day I noticed that the Buddha head up next to the tree in our backyard was lying on its side so I set it back upright, nestling it firmly in the pea gravel there under the tree. Later, looking out the kitchen window I saw it was down again. Very … Continue reading Buddha as launch point
In the living room
Dear President Trump, How about we stick with the good news theme for now? During the hour between worship services the church staff and those of us on our pastor’s support team threw her a surprise party to celebrate her having finished her Doctor of Ministries degree. I didn’t think we could actually pull it … Continue reading In the living room
“They’re protecting what they hold dear”
Dear President Trump, I hope you played golf today and didn’t spend Earth Day ordering Pruitt to find yet more environmental protections to undo. Yesterday there was an article in the WP about the idea that millions of years ago there might have been another version of an industrial civilization on earth. The people floating … Continue reading “They’re protecting what they hold dear”
Distress tolerance
Dear President Trump, On my run this morning I was thinking about the incredible self-control and patience that people who have to put up with loads of crap day in and day out must have to have to survive. Then, along these same lines, I read a WP piece about being gay and living in … Continue reading Distress tolerance
It’s hard to study if you don’t have enough to eat
Dear President Trump, I read this morning that about 36% of university students in the US deal with food insecurity and close to that proportion cope with unstable housing. Given the secrecy and shame around not having enough and not appearing to be ok, the numbers are probably underestimating the real extent of these problems. … Continue reading It’s hard to study if you don’t have enough to eat
Stop defending the indefensible
Dear President Trump, You are certainly getting a crash course on the myriad ways that patriarchy and misogyny play out in the lives of women and men, and sadly, infuriatingly, you are failing miserably. At every turn you have given the exact wrong answers, like you looked at the multiple choice options and said to … Continue reading Stop defending the indefensible
Call us by our right names
(sent 11/14/17 due to power outage on the 13th) Dear President Trump, A couple of weeks ago our pastor's sermon focused on a young woman who came into her office off the street. She described how the woman was angry and prickly, how she seemed to want something she couldn't articulate. Our pastor asked her … Continue reading Call us by our right names
Not an anomaly
Dear President Trump, I read a piece yesterday in the NYT about the steady rise in young African American people moving to the South. The overarching message was that because there is racism everywhere, they are choosing to be where there are ample numbers of other Black people and where people take more pains not … Continue reading Not an anomaly
Daily Trump Letters 