11/18/2023

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            What do you think of these headlines: “Former lawmaker dies in police custody after arrest for Myanmar scams” & “China says ringleader in Myanmar telecom fraud committed suicide”? Same story, different emphasis. Intriguing!

            It’s raining & when it does, I find myself reciting, “Drip, Drop, it’s raining,” the beginning of a poem from Highlights Magazine I taught my daughter when she was small. You are lucky to have memorized so many poems. Your guy Dan Cluchey, says use your vast store of memorized stanzas when you need “the perfect words to encapsulate a feeling.”

            Evan Osnos claims that Yeats’ verse “The world has changed, changed utterly,” is one of your favorites. It certainly is apt for the past month, especially for folks of Jewish descent. I’m not sure how you can help them get their equilibrium back, but events of Oct 7 have rocked their worlds.

            As we enter the holiday season, I am grateful that I can spend my Saturday preparing our home for my daughter’s visit. I have so much that others in this world lack: a roof, a bed, a shower, plenty of food, calm neighbors, skies free of bombs, drones & F-16s, leisure time, quiet. News of refugee camps in NYC, Cox Bazaar, Lebanon & elsewhere reminds me these privileges are too easy to take for granted.

            I’m sure you are exhausted from your many meetings in SF. It was nice to see AMLO calling you a “good man” & an “extraordinary president.” I hope your conversation about fentanyl brings about some changes.

I appreciate your lofty goals for managing migration humanely. The single best thing you could do is to stop the sale & manufacture of weapons of all kinds. Less violence in the world would enable people to enjoy the kind of serenity that I am enjoying today & they wouldn’t have to leave their homelands to find peace.

BYBS,

RCA