3/29/2023

My dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Another noisy Wed AM when 3 different trucks haul away our refuse. 1 truck with 3 different receptacles would be so much quieter.

            Speaking of quiet, did you know that the Balinese celebrated Nyepi last week with 24 hours of silence to avoid attracting negative energy to have a purified start to the year? It’s preceded by a parade of “Ogoh-Ogoh” effigies the night before. I encourage you to acknowledge it next year.

            Please send my appreciation to Archbishop Elpidophoros at tonight’s reception celebrating Greek Independence Day for making “good trouble” in the Orthodox church by baptizing the children of gay couples & alluding to women’s right to choose. Brave man!

            Please thank your writers for penning my new favorite sentence:

We will continue to show the world that the darkness that drives autocracy can never extinguish the flames of liberty that lights the souls of free people everywhere.

            I suspect you will say it today as you welcome folks to the Summit for democracy.  Don’t listen to the nay-sayers who are skeptical of the summit. While the WP may be correct in noting that we “go to bat for human rights in some contexts & look the other way in others (& that) we need non-democracies to help us in the world, from sanctioning Russia to slowing climate change,” democracy beats other forms of government & should be spotlighted.

            Please use the occasion to remind the world that the junta is trying to pervert democracy by calling for elections in Burma that are transparently unfair & dangerous & will provoke the ethnic armies into resistance attacks on electoral targets. The whole thing will just escalate the violence there.

According to International Crisis Group, Min Aung Hlaing does not want to share power as the 2008 constitution requires so he’s in a quandary. He needs an exit ramp. Please use your influence to find a way for him to save face & step away.

            BYBS,