6/22/2021

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            It’s my husband’s birthday. He’s not in the mood to celebrate, but I will do my best to make him smile. Watching the Clippers play the Suns will be a nice diversion for him.

            It’s a quiet news day. Your name appeared on the front page of the WP 4 times versus DJT whose name appeared 9 times. Thanks for keeping a low profile.

            Another indicator of today’s quiet news, is that a cooking article was 4th on the list of the “most read” articles in the WP. I indulged myself in reading about the distinction between baking soda and baking powder. Ever since I learned how to visualize the polyhedral structure of molecules, I have become a huge fan of chemistry so I loved the article. Baking soda (NaCO3H) is cool because the big N atom shares an electron with 1 of the oxygen atoms. It’ll break apart when mixed with an acid under the right conditions. When the Na & OH break off it releases CO2 which makes your cake rise. Magical!

            Speaking of magical, according to 10 musicians quoted in the G today, Joni Mitchell’s album, Blue, is magical. The record was released 50 years ago so it’s in the news. Maybe you missed it. You were busy running your long-shot race for the DE Senate seat when it came out.

Did you see the WP’s op-ed piece by Katrina vanden Heuvel who is worried that you are rekindling Cold War rhetoric in an effort to get bipartisan support when you should be trying to collaborate with China to fight climate change. Her opinion merits some attention. Perhaps when you meet with Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood (ES) today, you could ask for her reaction. As you know, ES is brilliant & even though she’s meeting with you to talk about weather disasters, you could take advantage of her knowledge of global politics to get her take on how to approach our relationships with China & Russia.

ES might have some ideas about how to work with China to help Myanmar. Please ask her about that.

BYBS,