Dear President Biden, I have a grant due on Tuesday and have been pouring pretty much everything into it so I’m sending along a quick haiku to say hello. They say empathyis your main superpowerand I am grateful. May we be safe while we work on the important work.May we be happy to have a …
Training our eyes on the prize
Dear President Biden, What a frothy, weird, unsavory, hopeful jumble the headlines are this morning. We’ve got everything from the half dozen stories about the numerous ground-shifting positives of the American Rescue Plan to lamentations about the past year since the WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic to stories about the GOP and their mouthpieces grasping …
Gratitude haiku III (with a serious catch)
Dear President Biden, There’s space in my headfor quiet. I can hear ducksquack as they fly North. Thank you for this. There’s still plenty to do, including some missteps to call out and some strongly preferred directions to encourage, but I’m grateful for the longish stretches of quiet in my head. I hadn’t realized how …
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The revolutionary gift of seeing and naming
Dear President Biden, I told you the other week about my now favorite podcast Hear to Slay by Roxane Gay and Tressie McMillan Cottom. Well, this past week R&T talked with a young Black activist named Amber J. Phillips and at the end of the conversation when they asked her how they and their listeners …
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He who does not name
Dear President Biden, I’m not quite done with the alumni magazine photo spread I brought up the other day. I neglected to tell you that all of the photos are credited and the apparent genders of the photographers add another layer to the Anonymous is Still a Woman story. Again, I am only focusing on …
Anonymous is still a woman
Dear President Biden, This morning I was perusing one of the alumna magazines we get quarterly and was dismayed, but not really surprised at all, to see that in the opening photo spread of five snapshots, the two featuring White male students included their names while the three featuring either Asian or Hispanic female students …
The CPAC DJT statue ~ an image that cannot be unseen
Dear President Biden, I am happy to report that so far I’ve managed to keep my Lenten commitment not to read any news articles or editorials that focus on DJT. I will admit though, that it’s been a little hard with a few things, especially the SCOTUS ruling requiring his accountants to release his tax …
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“THIS IS ART.” A redux of sorts…
Dear President Biden, When I showed Laura the picture of the gallows with the “THIS IS ART” sign, she noticed that there was another square nailed up on the opposite side. Although it’s impossible to tell from the WP picture that’s been circulating whether that other square conveys another message, I did see that I …
“THIS IS ART”
Dear President Biden, I know this whole letter is going to feel super random but I need (actually need) to tell you about something that’s been troubling me since early yesterday morning. I’m guessing you’ve known about it since January 6th or 7th and that I’m just late to the party, but yesterday when I …
Bathroom breaks
Dear President Biden, This week has already been one of those completely full-on weeks. As I’ve done my best to navigate it as gracefully as possible, I’ve taken a lot of deep breaths and have reflected on how grateful I am for routines that I like. Thinking about likeable routines and how they end up …
