11/8/2022

Nov 8, 2022

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

Election Day – so exciting! It’s raining here, but that won’t have much effect on turnout since most folks in CA mail in their ballots. Already 21% of the 22.2 million ballots that were issued in CA have been returned.

I plan to deliver our ballots to our polling place once we fill them out. The most exciting races on my ballot involve the city officials. I have to get some advice from my neighbor about who to vote for.

This will be a quickie as I am heading out to do some. math with the 5th graders today. We’ll be doing groups of groups of groups designs to build an understanding of exponents & our base-ten number system.

My asks of the day regard human rights. First, please have a convo with Linda Thomas-Greenfield (LTG) about the UN’s latest gaffe involving Burma. According to the Irrawaddy, 2 reps of the NUG were barred from participating in the Global Town Hall 2022 meeting at the last minute after the UN complained to a co-organizer that their inclusion would amount to taking sides in the country’s conflict. Press materials released ahead of the meeting show NUG Foreign Minister Daw Zin Mar Aung among the speakers. The whole affair is a slap in the face of the NUG & all those who are resisting the tyranny of the junta. Please make some noise about that.

Second, I am concerned about Alaa Abd El Fattah, the activist & software developer, imprisoned for most of the last 9 years over his condemnations of Egypt’s authoritarian government. He’s about to die from his hunger strike. His sister is urging the international leaders assembled for COP27 to persuade President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to let him go. Please do what you can on his behalf.

BYBS,