3/11/2021

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            I will be all ears tonight as you address the nation on the traumversary of the WHO’s pandemic declaration. The WP has an interesting scrolling article today that gives a full chronology of the year along with a map which lights up to show where people died as the days went by. I didn’t have time to look through the whole thing. It’s a lot.

            I revisited my year by looking back at my March 2020 letters to DJT which included a recount of my last day in the 5th grade classroom where I asked the kids to tell me what they knew about CV. One girl explained that Corona was a beer. Several others noted that CV was spread from bats, & one suggested, “you can catch it if you breathe air corona.” Many kids danced along with the viral Vietnamese handwashing song. We were all having some fun learning something new. Little did we know this would be the last time we’d see each other in person.

            At that time, I was reminding DJT of Norman Peale (NVP)’s advice to “understand to overcome.” As you probably know, DJT is a devotee of NVP so I hoped dropping his name would get DJTs attention. If only DJT was better at paying attention, we might not be having this traumversary, but alas, that was not to be.

            I encourage you to put in a word for Burma during your address tonight. The tiny town of Myaing has just experienced a mass shooting, where a crowd gathered at the local police station inquiring about why 2 young monks had been detained were fired on. 8 people died. The people of Myaing usually spend their days harvesting thanka bark to make a special kind of makeup which the people of Burma use to protect themselves from the sun & the heat. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to protect themselves from their own army. Let’s keep pressuring the UN to evoke the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine so we can do more to help.

            BYBS,