Dear President Biden, Laura had surgery on her right shoulder Friday. When the surgeon called me after the procedure to update me he said that when he got in there he could see why she’d been in so much pain. Laura opted for a nerve block (in addition to the general anesthesia, of course), which …
Conspi-racist candidates and middle names
Dear President Biden, Maybe it was because of the heretofore unusual pairing of “conspiracist” and “candidates” in the WP Editorial Board’s piece “A Weird Story Out of Colorado Shows the Dangers U.S. Democracy Faces”, but when I first read it, I parsed “conspiracist” as “conspi-racist.” Here’s the full sentence: “Across the country, conspiracist candidates are …
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The violence of nooses
Dear President Biden, It’s been a minute since I’ve had a moment to write to you. I don’t usually go this long between downloads, but a combination of being more tired than usual, having more work than usual, and playing more Scrabble than usual (as in playing Scrabble at all) have led to low letter …
That sort of day
Dear President Biden, Happy (Observed) Juneteenth, a worthy federal holiday, for sure. I am, however, holding out for voting day being designated as a federal holiday as well as passage of a robust version of HR1 and the John Lewis Voting Act, so please don’t let me (and democracy) down on these things. And really, …
“Always make new mistakes”
Dear President Biden, I fixed it on my blog, but of course I couldn’t fix it on your correspondence page so I need to apologize to you for the slip up of having conflated you and Mitch McConnell -- “Joe McConnell.” It really was a slip up – perhaps of the Freudian sort – since …
Remembering Darnella, Joe, and George’s moms
Dear President Biden, How are you this evening? By now you’re probably trying to wind down for the night since it’s almost 10pm Eastern. I’m guessing it’s going to be kind of hard for you to settle and maybe even harder for you to sleep tonight after meeting with George Floyd’s family this afternoon, especially …
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Joe Manchin ~ ‘he’s got the whole world in his (grubby, power-hungry, little) hands’
Dear President Biden, At the end of his article about where things stand on the For the People Act (HR1/S1), Mike DeBonis quotes Senator Richard Durbin (Il) as saying: “I say a prayer every morning and evening for Joe Manchin.” Indeed. Joe M. may just become the most difficult person in my loving-kindness meditation not …
Safety, love, and respect are not pies to be apportioned
Dear President Biden, I’m pretty sure it was Saturday, but it could have been Friday, and I was sitting in our living room looking out the window when the 73 bus passed by heading south on the arterial out front. This is not a remarkable thing in and of itself – buses go up and …
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Magpie words
Dear President Biden, I don’t think I’ve confessed to you before that I’m a magpie – I collect things, ideas, words, stuff that catches my eye, or my heart. Some of the physical bits are sitting on the kitchen windowsill or the mantel, but mostly the stuff gets incorporated into these letters or my art. …
Weevils and worms
Dear President Biden, This morning I started a cup of dried chickpeas soaking in water so I could make falafel for dinner tonight. It was to be a Sunday treat – “was” being the operative word here. After several hours I looked into the bowl to check on the plumping progress and noticed some weird …
The Biden Letters 