2/14/2024

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

Ignore today’s papers! Rather than discussing the progress of the national security package that the Senate just passed with 70 votes or the impeachment of Sec Alejandro Mayorkas, the headlines are about your age.

Robin Givhan explains that “the broad obsession with (your) age speaks to our vision of masculinity” & that you are experiencing what mature women have to deal with by “ learning what it’s like to have an arbitrary expiration date stamped across your forehead.” She opines that 45 is not getting as much criticism because he exudes “cartoon masculinity…a Clint Eastwood version that’s defined by toughness, meanness and chest-beating.”

            How do you like the decorations on your lawn? I liked the giant hearts with “Joe + Jill,” & “Choose Love.”

            I find myself being a Valentine’s Day Scrooge. Based on personal experience & my reading of authors, such as bell hooks, I have concluded we are sold a narrative of romantic love, which shackles women in a subservient position. To use Jill Filipovic’s words, it “feeds into a female understanding of self as relational – we are not simply who we are, we are defined by our role as someone’s wife or mother or daughter or sister.”

            Last night I read my former self writing in 1986 about my relationship with my sort-of-boyfriend. I let his confusion over his own sexuality define ME. Pathetic!

My new anthem is Mylie Cyrus’ Grammy winning song, Flowers, where she sings about how she can love herself better than “he can.” To put it another way I have decided to be my own best friend.

            If you do look at the news, please note that Burma is getting some attention. The WP has an article about the “plunging morale” of the military & CSM has an overview of the civil war which concludes, “the junta is doing damage control, & hope for rebel victory & postwar stability rests on its opponents’ ability to continue cooperating.”

WINTA!

BYBS,