10/19/2022

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            9 minutes to compose this letter. Here goes.

            Sorry to miss my past 2 notes but things on Team Dept. Chair have kicked into high gear so my letters may diminish in number until the personnel season is over.

            In the interest of time, I am just going to share the news items that hit me today.

Starting with Burma – Did you hear that a couple of bombs went off in the Insein Prison mail room? Among the 10,000 prisoners confined there are a large number of political detainees including Japanese journalist Toru Kubota & Former UK Ambassador Vicky Bowman. 8 people were killed in the blasts. The other Burmese news that hit me even harder was the junta’s beheading of a math teacher, U Saw Tun Moe, in the Magwe Region. He was teaching at a NUG school. According to a resident, speaking to the Irrawaddy, “His head was hung at the school door and his body was leaned against the door” to intimidate the other teachers.

            When I meditated with my BFF this AM, she read a piece from Thich Nhat Hanh about finding an island of peace within ourselves. The stories from Burma make it hard for me to find that place as they challenge my faith in the divine spark that I believe exists inside every person. How can those soldiers do something like that? What can I do, a half a world away, to respond to those actions? Can something like that happen here?

            I found some hope in reading the CSM which reminded us that “the public’s desire for accountable government are holding firm against disinformation and cynicism,… (because) voters in their 20s are determined to exercise their power….In the past, midterm elections were mainly seen as a report card on the current president. This year’s might be more – an affirmation that, despite democracy’s troubles, self-government can remain an exercise in honesty and hope.”

            I’ll leave it at that because I have gone 6 minutes over time in crafting this note.

            BYBS