1/11/2025

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

Have you been to the WWII Museum? If not, you should go! I’m grateful to my uncle & his buddy, Gordon Mueller, for starting the museum, to “maintain awareness of the war & its aftermath as the generation that lived through it dies off & as the Baby Boom generation raised on its lore reaches old age.”

            My visit there with my BFF for the past few days spoke to my condition in so many ways. In the interest of brevity, I will only mention a couple.

1)WINTA! It is atrocious & haunts us for another generation. The museum might do more to make this message explicit by expanding the corner of the Liberation Pavillion where PTSD & war orphans are addressed with some artifacts from POW camps, a display case with books from the 1940’s for supporting families in helping their war-scarred veterans & oral histories of men haunted by the killing that they did.

2) 45/47’s activities harken back to those used by Germany’s leader as he convinced his “Aryan” countrymen that they were the master race who could conquer the world. As I listened to our excellent tour guide talking about scapegoating, I wondered how many people know this history & realize where we might be headed.

It was hard to focus on everything that museum had to offer with the pall of the recent tragedy on Bourbon Street & the LA fires hanging over us.

Speaking of the fires, I was discouraged to hear some misinformation being shared by sales staff at the museum about fish taking precedence over people. I redirected the conversation to the lack of water in the West but am not sure they followed. It’s a complex matter & I appreciate what you & your team are doing to address it.

            Speaking of war, I was sad to see that the junta continues to assault its own villages, the latest being a Rakhine village where 40 civilians were killed, including at least 26 Muslims. A Burmese journalist, Khin Nadi, writing in the Irrawaddy, shared his one wish for his country in 2025, specifically, the fall of Min Aung Hlaing’s regime. You could expedite this eventuality by sanctioning entities supplying the junta with air fuel.

            My heart & brain are full & I could write so much more. I will refrain from doing so in order to commune with other spirits.

            BYBS,