3/22/2021

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Did you get some R&R at Camp David this weekend? I hope you got outside & did some bike riding & walking in the woods. My friend is on the board of an organization called, “Thrive Outside,” dedicated to getting urban kids into the great outdoors. Don’t you love that name? Maybe you can start popularizing the idea.

            I am wondering if anyone on your end is reading these letters. I like to think so, but it’s hard to tell when all I get is the same email receipt each day, showing the letters landed on your website. Sending these missives off is like putting a letter in a bottle & throwing it in the ocean – not knowing who will find it, when they might read the contents & how they will respond. It’s an act of faith.

            As you know, my radar is tuned to all things related to Myanmar & today’s NYT story about Rohingya artists in refugee camps in Bangladesh caught my attention. In case you didn’t see it, an NGO called, Artolution, funds folks to paint murals & teach kids. They promote the idea that artwork is food for the mind & provides children with a way to retain their dignity and self-worth. I encourage you to recruit Artolution to set up art spaces in our border camps so the kids there have an outlet as they wait for a chance to get into the US.

            Speaking of which, let’s make some space for the Rohingya in the US. Our rural communities have plenty of room. We’d need to educate the locals. We could follow the lead of the little town of Barron, WI, where Somali refugees have resettled for the past 20 years & now make up 13% of the population. While there are some cultural tensions, the town’s governors recently voted in favor of continuing to sponsor refugees in the community. 5,625 Burmese refugees lived in WI in 2016 so I’d hope they would welcome the Rohingya.

            I hope your meeting with the Senate Democratic Caucus during their annual retreat goes well today.

            HYITL,