8/29/2020

Aug 29, 2020

My dear Friend & POTUS, DJT,

            As I write, you are on Airforce 1 flying to Lake Charles, LA, to survey Hurricane Laura’s damage. I hope you’ll stop by Mossville and talk to the folks there. They’re worried about the fire at BioLab, the local chlorine factory, which is spewing toxic smoke. Unfortunately, they are used to that kind of thing from the 14 chemical facilities in their vicinity. In a survey of residents, 77% reported having asthma. 51% had kidney &/or heart disease. I’m sure CV has hit them hard.

Mossville was settled by freed slaves & their descendants would like to breathe clean air. Please do your best to make that happen. At the very least, please enact some regulation to require factories to disclose the chemicals in their facilities so the hazmat teams know what they were dealing with.

            Changing topic, what do you think about the idea of having sports stadiums serve as polling places? I can imagine the players hanging out there to sign autographs & pass out goodies to folks who come to vote. Maybe that would violate some statutes about campaigning, but now-a-days we don’t seem to be too worried about that kind of thing. It might energize the young folk to vote. Wouldn’t that be great?

            It seems that yesterday’s march went well. I was pleasantly surprised to see Bayard Rustin (BR)’s name evoked by David Johns, who noted “without his(BR’s) brilliant mind & his commitment to intersectional social justice, there would have been no March on Washington.” You’ll remember that BR was the gay Quaker who convinced MLK to embrace non-violence. He’s one of my heroes.

            Please wear a mask today. You are heading into a CV hotspot.

            HYITL,