3/28/2023

March 28, 2023

My dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            I loved reading the transcript of your remarks at yesterday’s SBA Women’s Business Summit when you made impromptu comments about how incredible your sister is. According to her recent memoir, you, two, have a fantastic relationship. As she puts it, “I had a PhD in my brother.” She used my favorite quote from Edith Wharton, to explain your relationship, “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. That’s me & Joe. Sometimes he was the candle, sometimes I was the mirror, but it also flipped. My light was never snuffed out. My life was doing what I wanted to do and what I could do best. I could talk about JRB much better than JRB could talk about JRB.” Warms my heart.

            Another promising story appeared in today’s CSM discussing the similarities between the mass protests in Israel & Iran in favor of equality before the law for all citizens, free of religious-based rule. They pointed out that a Sunni cleric, Mowlavi Abdolhamid Esmailzehi in Iran is preaching, “reform is not possible without criticism. Where there is no criticism, there is tyranny. Autocracy & dictatorship are the biggest dangers to humankind.” Isn’t it a miracle that the Ayatollah isn’t putting him in jail & is instead saying, “(he) should not be arrested … but should be disgraced?”

            Switching gears to something I find chilling, today is the day is the deadline for political parties in Burma to “register” with the junta. Of course, the NLD is refusing to do so because they know the election process will be phony. Please heed their request to “send a concerted message that polls are illegitimate.”

            Please don’t spend too much time castigating the GOP while in Durham today. Please do send our condolences to the people of Nashville traumatized by the latest school shooting.

            Please consider riding Amtrak next time.

            BYBS,