3/23/2021

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            My heart is heavy today. The news of the shootings in Boulder & the fire at the Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh have set me back a notch. I know that you are trying to get on with things like bragging about the American Rescue Plan, fighting cancer & rebuilding our infrastructure, but I think these tragedies demand immediate attention. Perhaps you can postpone your trip to Ohio to visit the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute & instead head over to Capitol Hill to sit in on the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about background checks or you could come to UC Davis where you could visit our Comprehensive Cancer Center AND our Firearms Violence Research Center. This would enable you to draw attention to your cancer initiative as well as sharing research on the gun pandemic. It would give you a chance to share the sobering data that of the 39,740 gun deaths in the US in 2018, 61% were suicides.

            Please consider my suggestion in yesterday’s letter to admit Rohingya refugees to the US. As I’m sure you heard, one of their camps had a terrible fire yesterday. It must be devastating for them to lose the few possessions they had, but even worse to lose any sense of security & normalcy that they may have experienced. Let’s open our doors to them.

            BYBS,