4/1/2024
My Dear POTUS, JRB,
Has Jill pulled off her annual April Fool’s trick, yet? When she pranked the WH reporters by dressing up as a flight attendant in 2021, I thought we were in for an annual newsworthy event. I guess it’s hard to top that one. Perhaps she has been too busy planning the EGGucation event at the WH today.
I was hoping to catch a glimpse of it this AM, but it seems to be running late. Darn.
Where are you headed this week as you brag about health care? According to Dan Diamond, it’s miraculous that Obamacare, “once toxic, now popular,” can be used to “pound the GOP.” I’m grateful that “Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) blocked the repeal in a dramatic late-night vote,” so that now ACA is baked into our social safety net. A piece on PBS by John Yang indicated some folks still need help, so let’s continue to enhance coverage.
As I start the spring quarter & try to rev up for my classes, I was uplifted by a piece about Econ Prof Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winner who died last week. According to Cass Sunstein, “he experienced real joy working with others to discover the truth, even if he learned that he was wrong (something that often delighted him).” He eschewed, “angry science, which he described as a ‘nasty world of critiques, replies & rejoinders’ & ‘as a contest, where the aim is to embarrass’ “ preferring instead, “adversarial collaboration, when people who disagree work together to test a hypothesis, they are involved in a common endeavor. They are trying not to win, but to figure out what’s true. They might even become friends.” He encouraged better science while also strengthening the better angels of our nature. We need more academics like him!
Regarding Burma, Benu Prasad Ghosh, writing in Eurasia Review, cautions that Burma & Bangladesh are turning toward China & that India would be better off if it promoted democracy in both countries. I encourage you to consider his points & talk to Modi about the situation with his neighbors.
WINTA,
