Dear President Biden, There’s just so much. So, so much. And it’s pretty distressing/depressing knowing that what I’m personally aware of from the news and from simply existing is just the barest tip of the proverbial iceberg. Do you sleep at night? At all? I don’t know if it’s because there’s so much heaviness and …
Hello ~ reality is intruding!
Dear President Biden, Is it just a coincidence that the WP published exceedingly little MLK-related material yesterday or was it a conscious tactic to duck the fact that we are again (or really, still) battling over the systemic racism (and thinly veiled greed) that’s driving the GOP’s efforts to roll back voting rights, state by …
Unpacking US style democracy (and enfranchisement)
Dear President Biden, It seems apropos to be winding down 2021 still stuck in our house due to Covid and the weather. The case count for King County is super high at 599.5 per 100,000 and the side streets here in Seattle are still impassable if one doesn’t have all-wheel drive. Plus, it’s not as …
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The end of our system’s lifespan is nigh
Dear President Biden, We’re starting Day 3 of our weather-related, housebound holiday vacation and as grateful as I am that we have a house in which to be bound and that the power has somehow stayed on throughout, this is not exactly the winter break we’d envisioned. Fortunately we got two hikes in on Christmas …
“all women and men are created equal”
Dear President Biden, If Twitter is to be believed it would seem that Fox News outlets reporting on your addition of “women” to your recitation of the “created equal” part of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence had completely lost their shit over it. Maybe there’s an outlet somewhere where that was true, but …
World-tilting invisible history
Dear President Biden, I think I told you a few months ago that I was reading James Loewen’s book Lies My Teacher Told Me, a world-tilting treatise on how American history is so thoroughly white- (and male-) washed as to wholly misrepresent how our country came into existence and the forces that shaped and continue …
The System continues to work as designed
Dear President Biden, I’m still checking in with the news a couple of times a day, but I’ve been making the check-ins briefer in an effort not to let myself get lost in the various mucky rabbit holes of our body politic. We’re a flipping mess. And yes, we would absolutely be more of a …
The embrace of anti-truth
Dear President Biden, The other day I registered my dismay at your American exceptionalism rhetoric and the toxic masculinity that’s laced through such posturing and today I will register my dismay at what’s happening several notches up the toxic masculinity continuum. As you may have guessed, I’ve been reading about the House vote to censure …
Circling back to what matters
Dear President Biden, Busy, tired, uninspired – I’m sure there’s more to it, but that trio of words sound good together and do a decent job of summing up why it’s been almost a week since I’ve written to you. Busy, tired, uninspired, and well, the overwhelm associated with living in this weird situation where …
Letting go of “both sides” for good
Dear President Biden, I do sometimes have original thoughts. Or at least I think I do. Mostly, though, my best thinking is reactive – or perhaps if I’m giving myself grace, my best thinking is responsive. Whichever adjective I go with here, what I’m referring to is my propensity to find the gaps in arguments, …
The Biden Letters 