4/17/2026

My Dear Friend & POTUS, DJT,

How have you been? I know you’ve been busy & agitated, but how’s your physical health? Any new aches or pains? Bruises or sores? Stumbles or falls? You know that stress can affect your body, so take care.

I’m asking about your health because an intestinal bug attacked me this week. I’m not sure if I got it from changing a dirty diaper, eating 3/31/26 Best By frozen veggies or shaking someone’s hand, but that microbe unleashed a war in my gut that laid me low! I imagine that my immune system unleashed every pathogen in its arsenal to all 18 ft of my digestive tract engorging it with red blood cells to attack those critters. Ouch!

I kept wondering, how can something so small generate so much havoc? 

Perhaps you are wondering the same about Iran. Of course, they aren’t small, but their weapons are. I learned this from David Wallace-Wells writing in the NYT about “the simple math of munitions.” He pointed our we are “destroying quite a lot of Iranian targets … with extremely expensive weaponry & depleting (our) fragile stockpiles … the Iranians (are) doing less damage, … much more cheaply, with … a bountiful supply of low-cost drones, missiles & mines.”

As a business guy, I’m sure you can see it’s time to cut your losses & walk away from the venture.

Speaking of enduring mismatches, Beech & Berehulak provide new insights about the conflict in Burma in their piece “Where Even Flowers Stoke Fear.” The title refers to what the authors call “an Orwellian diktat … in which the wearing of flowers in one’s hair on the birthday of the imprisoned civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi can lead to a jail sentence.” The junta’s got itself ensnared in a conflict, where despite aerial bombardments, their foes refuse to give up. Not only do they use their rifles & hand grenades in skirmishes on the battlefield, they assassinate military officials on the street. We both are familiar with this story, but this piece serves as a reminder that WINTA!!!

Maybe we have to put up with some internal strife in our guts, but we don’t have to inflict that kind of pain on nations.

LYGST,