August 31, 2020
Dear Mr. President,
What can I say about the weekend? It’s been kind of a letdown after the big party you had on Thursday night. Remember that I wrote to you that I fell asleep and missed most of your speech and all of the fireworks even though the tv was still on? Thankfully, the whole shebang was covered by various news’ sources, so it was possible to hear a bit of the speech. I still think it was boring and too long, so I took a nap instead of reading the entire speech.
However, that was all last week and I’ve been thinking about what lies ahead for you and the country. This is a big week for so many of us. First, we celebrated M’s birthday (oldest grandson) last Friday and tonight we celebrate our Dad’s 96 birthday! The plan is for our family to meet in a park, see him in person for the first time in more than 5 months and have dinner, dessert and sing Happy Birthday. The added bonus is this is the park where he had his garden since he moved to Ann Arbor. We are caring for it and he will be able to see one of the beds. There are lots of plants doing great right now. He and the great grandchildren can pick eggplants, peppers, kale, and beans and enjoy the bounty of goodness and love all around us.
Usually this week or next is the time the kids return to school. One of our grandchildren started today in person. Another has a new desk set up in the living room and an Ipad given out by the school system to “go to school”. The others are doing a variety of on- line learning but they miss seeing all their classmates. I read that you want to learn firsthand about what’s happening in Kenosha, Wisconsin but the governor and the mayor don’t want in person learning just yet. Maybe you should follow their rules and have a Zoom lesson instead. There may even be some reading assignments before the lesson or some homework assignments after you learn the history of this area of the country. At this point in time you probably have a long reading list to prepare for the start of the fall semester. You have a full load of classes including Constitutional Law for One L (1st year law students), Sociology 401, the Effects of Racial Injustice on Communities of Color, and Poly Sci. 101, Elections in the United States, an introduction.
In addition to your classes, you need to start preparing for the debates. No one knows how these are going to work yet but here’s what I would like to see. Joe Biden, sitting at home or in his basement and you, sitting in your living room or in your bunker. There would be one or two moderators like Dana Bash and Jonathan Swan. They would ask each of you to explain specific policy plans or ideas on 5-7 topics/problems. You would take turns as to who goes first, and you would each speak for 5-10 minutes on that policy plan. Here are my ideas for this discussion: 1) Your plans for preparing for Pandemics of the Future and the continued outbreak of the Donald Trump Virus
2) How to Safely Restart the Economy by Helping Small Businesses
3)How to Restore Liberty and Justice for All
4) How to Prepare for the Negative Effects of Climate Change
5)How to Lead the World as a Democratic Nation.
The rules include NO TALKING ABOUT WHAT YOU DID IN THE PAST.
I hope you have time to study for the finals.
Dear Mr. President 