Dear Mr. President

 Dear Mr. President,

It was really hot today--not the normal kind of hot you'd expect mid to late April, though perhaps I could expect it in May.  No.  This was one of those days where the heat snuck in from the outside and smothered things on the inside making it hard to do much of anything at all.  Yeah.  It was one of those kinds of days today.  Which is fine really, since I don't really plan a lot on the weekends if I can help it.  Those are days where I'm meant to relax and try to catch up with myself a bit after working through all the craziness that happened during the week.  And I have to say, I think I had an almost perfect weekend save for that heat.

I finished a few books this week/weekend--nothing but pleasure to read, but I'm also in a new book club and we're currently reading Camus' The Stranger.  Trying to understand that book is like going back in time and trying to untangle a narrative that I feel is still depressingly relevant.  The stories of colonization and slavery, segregation and religious intolerance around which that narrative is entwined leaves me wondering if we've actually ever really addressed the problems, or if we've just been covering things up and dealing with the symptoms as best we can hoping time and memory will make the problems just magically disappear.  Which, for the record, I don't think works too well.  And when we gloss over things--pretend they don't matter for long enough, we start to believe the lies someone else long before us told us.  And I don't think that's a healthy thing either.

There are some old enmities still floating around in the dark spaces of our current conversations, and I guess I just feel like those shouldn't be overlooked in our biases and the way we look at the world.

Speaking of old things, I have been reading a lot about making more seats on the Supreme Court, and I don't have any good reason to like the idea, but I do.  Just the same, I know that some of the best group work happens in smaller groups (scientifically speaking) of about 4 to 6 people.  Still, I love the idea of having thirteen supreme court justices--one for each of the original 13 colonies of the United States.  And think about how having a larger court might make decisions to retire less...worrisome over time?  Still, some voices might get lost in that large array of justices, but maybe that isn't a bad thing either.  Maybe our justice should reflect more ideas than just those of four or five people.  I guess what I'm saying is that without studying the matter a whole lot, I still like the idea and the number 13 for no other reason than that it sounds pretty cool.  Not a great reason for making decisions; I know.  But it is what it is.

I can't speak much on the childcare and military withdrawal efforts you worked on this week as I don't have kids of my own, nor am I much involved or well-versed in our current military goings-on.  So I will leave that to better and more informed voices.  I did want to say how glad I was to know about your allowing transgender people to serve in the military once more, though.  It may be the only way that they can get the care they need, sadly, since we're not about to go and overhaul our whole health care system--even if we really should.  But I guess I just wanted to say thank you for that.  From where I'm sitting, it feels like a good thing; I just hope that one day all of society will stop being so hung up about all of that.  But I guess if we're still holding on to old ethnic and religious grudges, I'll likely be waiting a long time for trans acceptance as an established thing here in all of America, too.  Still, it's a step in the right direction.

I felt really happy to see that states and cities were stepping up to help you all with the border situation.  I know it's only a stop-gap measure and that you're all working on the real problems, but those aren't likely to be solved any time soon either.  So it makes me proud to see Americans working to help solve the problems rather than just condemning them.  And you should be proud of those mayors, governors, and city officials, too.  We do need to look at a longer-term plan here, though, and I hope you've got something in the works.

The biggest thing I wanted to talk to you about tonight is nuclear energy--which inevitably means I need to speak to you about nuclear waste.  I know that you've said moving forward that nuclear energy needs to be on the table, and while I like the idea of it (especially with our newer technologies and methods,) we shouldn't start something without figuring out what we're going to do with our nuclear waste.  It's a problem Japan is having to deal with.  That Russia had to contend with.  That the EU on Russia's borders are having to monitor.  And the thing that's making our relationships with other countries such a nightmare right now--not nuclear waste specifically, but nuclear proliferation.

The only solution I've come up with in over twenty years of thinking about the problem is to send it into space toward the Sun.  But, of course, there are the hazards of getting it into space, and then what does it do to the Sun?  And if the ship explodes...etc. etc. etc.  But the more I think about it, the more I am still convinced that shipping nuclear waste to the Sun is not a bad idea.  I mean, the Sun is full of nuclear reactions--right?

I guess my point here is that before we start building the nuclear energy dreams of our future, we should look at the costs associated with it--especially the costs of the waste it generates.  We are spending millions of dollars dealing with that right now, and if we continue down the path of nuclear power generation, it isn't going to magically decrease or become less of a problem unless we figure out how to deal with it now.  That's not something we should be leaving to future generations; it's not something that should have been left to us.  But here we are, and there you are.  And I just want you to really stop and take a moment to consider this thing before we get sucked into some "great American Dream" that becomes a great American tragedy because we didn't think about the whole life cycle of something we create.

And with that, I think I'll end for today, Mr. President.  It's late; I'm tired, and I just spent the whole day looking at a screen (reading.)  And I guess I just want to rest a little.  Hope you're having a good week, and hopefully this next one will be even better.  John and I are set to get our vaccine shots on Thursday; so, we'll see how that all goes.  And I guess until next week, let's both do our best.

Until then, Mr. President....

~~ Jenni

Tom Brenner / Reuters
President Joe Biden and Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga arrive for a joint news conference in the Rose Garden at the White House on Friday, April 16, 2021