Day 360- Betsie Gallardo

Dear Mr. President,

When I read about a woman dying in a Florida prison, refused release on humanitarian grounds and facing a slow death by starvation, I wanted to navigate away from the page, to forget the story and to write about something else tonight. But I can't. Betsie Gallardo, born HIV+ and impoverished in Haiti, was sentenced in 2008 to 5 years in prison for assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon, a charge based on the fallacious premise that she could spread HIV to a police officer by spitting on him. Gallardo had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by a police officer in Haiti and had an intense, emotional reaction to the arrival of an officer at the scene of a car accident. She had no previous criminal record. She has since been diagnosed with terminal cancer and is no longer able to digest food. The state has refused requests from her family for release on humanitarian grounds and also refused to allow them to be with her when she dies.

Mr. President there are rapists and drug dealers and no shortage of white-collar criminals who serve far less than 5 years in prison for far worse crimes. The outrageous nature of this charge, which was certainly exacerbated by Gallardo's HIV status, is compounded with the truly cruel treatment of a dying woman and her family. How is this justice? How is a system that can look so dispassionately at the suffering of a human being the best that we can do in America? I don't approve of what she did, but this sentence (especially in light of her cancer) is stark evidence of the racism and irrationality that infect our criminal justice system. How am I supposed to feel good about sending the shoplifters I catch to a system so obviously broken? How are we supposed to criticize Iran or China for human rights abuses when we allow things like this?

You might throw up your hands and say it's a state issue, but you probably have a more direct means of reaching Governor Crist than Gallardo's family. Pick up the phone and ask him to pardon her, allow her to die at home with her family and her freedom. No reasonable human being believes she deserved a death sentence, but that is exactly what her punishment has become. The entire system needs reform, and that will take time, but right now one woman deserves a different fate. Please do the right thing.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

If I have readers in Florida, I urge you to contact Governor Crist and the rest of the Executive Clemency Board:

Charlie Crist, Governor of Florida
(850) 488-4441
E-mail: charlie.crist@myflorida.com
http://www.flgov.com/contact_governor

Bill McCollum, Attorney General
(850) 414-3300
Click here to e-mail Mr. McCollum
www.myfloridalegal.com/contact

Charles Bronson, Commissioner Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
(850) 488-3022
commissioner@doacs.state.fl.us
http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/

Alex Sink, Chief Financial Officer Florida Department of Financial Services
(850) 413-3100
Alex.Sink@myfloridacfo.com
http://www.myfloridacfo.com/

Day 218- Spain, Haiti and China

From College Humor:




Dear Mr. President,

Apparently the First Lady's trip to Spain is upsetting some people, and it is no surprise that Rush Limbaugh is one of them. He is, predictably, spewing his usual racist nonsense about something as silly as a First Lady going on vacation. This from the man who paid a million dollars to have Elton John sing at his latest wedding. I'm glad that Limbaugh chimed in, because his contributions to public discourse usually remind thinking people just how ridiculous some of the accusations by the right actually are.

What do you think about Wyclef Jean running for President of Haiti? I suppose I don't know enough about Haitian politics to have an informed opinion, but my initial reaction is that a nation so devastated by natural disaster and economic calamity should probably have a more experienced leader. On the topic of Haiti, tonight I heard some news of a woman I attended high school with, Katie Zook. She was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building after the earthquake hit. She's recovered now, and going back to Haiti soon, to continue working as a teacher. Seeing the courage it must require of her to return to a place still so damaged after survivng such a tragedy has got to give a person hope for the future.

I've also heard two rather disturbing stories out of China. The first is about China's policy of locking the poor up in their own neighborhoods during the night. The second is about the 600,000 Chinese workers who die from overwork in manufacturing every year.
Both stories illustrate, to me, the dangers of a society where wealthy corporate interests are placed above the value of a person (even, or especially, a poor person.) What is most disturbing is how much the purchasing habits of the American people contribute to this system. Our demand for cheap goods has created this tragedy, and we continue to support it almost unconsciously. Recently, you offered three words to frame our best hope for economic recovery; made in America. Don't Americans have a moral imperative, as well as an economic interest, in making sure the good they buy are, whenever possible, produced by fairly paid workers in safe conditions? I don't think that most Americans want to support a system that contributes to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths, or the extreme poverty of many workers. There has to be a way to wake people up to the human cost of our cheap imported goods.

Anyway, Mr. President, I wanted to make a cleaner connection between all of this, but I don't know that I can. It's something about our priorities, about celebrity worship and service to others and putting our own immediate gratification away for the greater good. Maybe these stories aren't connected anywhere outside of my own mind, but I hope that people wake up and realize that obsessing over how many Secret Service agents are working to keep the First Lady safe is not fair or productive to complain about. There are so many terrible things happening in this world, and we ought to stop worrying about appearances and ephemera. I hope that the Rush Limbaughs of the world don't frustrate you into forgetting about the Katie Zooks. I think, at heart, most Americans are good people like Katie who are concerned about preventing or easing the suffering of others. We don't always go about it the right way, and we don't always make the important connections between our own decisions and their consequences, but I think that slowly we will change for the better.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 21

With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans. This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington--while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates. That's why I am instructing my Administration to get to work immediately with Congress on this issue. We are going to talk with bipartisan Congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less.

Dear Mr. President,

Good luck talking with Congressional leaders about today's Supreme Court decision. I'm in complete agreement with you on this issue, but I have little hope that a congress already so beholden to special interests will be particularly helpful in developing "a forceful response." I think today's ruling would be considerably less effective if large donors were a legitimate political liability for candidates. If being purchased by a company, union or lobby could be more embarrassing and detrimental to a candidate than a sex scandal. I have no problem with politicians who sleep around, unless I'm married to them. I have a considerable problem with politicians who represent special interests and not the voters. Unfortunately, having and affair with a powerful organization will never make quite as many headlines as having an actual affair.

I feel exhausted trying to write this, tonight, but I'm sure it does not begin to rival the exhaustion you feel. Between the arbitrary "one year in office" retrospectives, the election, the supreme court, the economy, and Haiti, I don't know how you haven't collapsed yet. It will get better. It feels like it won't, it feels like we are fighting on too many fronts to prevail, but that must be wrong. At my store, I was chatting with a regular customer and I mentioned you, and she asked me if I still had faith in you. I said that I did, and she cheered out loud. So many of us still have faith in you, sir, don't let our voices get lost in the din. I am struggling to find something meaningful to say, so I will resort to theft. The following is by one of my favorite poets, a Nobel laureate and a woman who survived much darker times.

The Turn of the Century

By Wislawa Szymborska

It was supposed to be better than the others, our 20th century,
But it won't have time to prove it.
Its years are numbered,
its step unsteady,
its breath short.

Already too much has happened
that was not supposed to happen.
What was to come about
has not.

Spring was to be on its way,
and happiness, among other things.

Fear was to leave the mountains and valleys.
The truth was supposed to finish before the lie.

Certain misfortunes
were never to happen again
such as war and hunger and so forth.

These were to be respected:
the defenselessness of the defenseless,
trust and the like.

Whoever wanted to enjoy the world
faces an impossible task.

Stupidity is not funny.
Wisdom isn't jolly.

Hope
Is no longer the same young girl
et cetera. Alas.

God was at last to believe in man:
good and strong,
but good and strong
are still two different people.

How to live--someone asked me this in a letter,
someone I had wanted
to ask that very thing.

Again and as always,
and as seen above
there are no questions more urgent
than the naive ones.

I'll end tonight with a naive question, Mr. President. What can I do?

Respectfully yours,


Kelsey

Day 18

Dear Mr. President,

This morning my family took me to breakfast. We were discussing Haiti, and one of my sisters got upset at the idea that Americans were given higher priority for rescue and medical care. I responded with some feeble defense of the hostilities that you would face from the public if we weren't doing everything we could to help the Americans, but her point that all lives have equal value was not lost on me.

Each day the stories get worse. Each day the photos grow more horrific. Today, I actually had some one ask me what all the fuss about Haiti was. I thought he was being appallingly insensitive until I realized he actually had no idea the earthquake had even occurred. How is that even possible? Sometimes we really do live up to worst stereotypes about Americans.

The Martha Coakley race has me worried. The economy has me worried. Haiti has me worried. But I'm stuck at work tonight, the front door lock is broken, and I'm unable to take the time to articulate any of these worries more clearly. This is not to complain- I just read a story about you on NPR that said your workday ends around 1am. So tonight, let me just say that I am sending you all of the good thoughts that I can and hoping things get better soon.

To end things on a more positive note, on e-bay right now, the Pat Robertson voodoo doll is up to $1200, with all the proceeds to benefit the relief effort in Haiti. I think this is the most reassuring thing I've ever seen on e-bay. Sometimes we make the stereotypes work, I suppose.


Respectfully yours,

Kelsey


PS

I just noticed that the First Lady's birthday was yesterday. I wanted to send her my best wishes, from a fellow Capricorn.

Day 17- Man vs. Wild

Dear Mr. President,

In this time when mother nature is doing her best to remind us that we'll never play in the same league when it comes to death and destruction, it's good to know that some countries are still doing their part to at least keep our skills sharp. CNN has a video of the efforts. Does the Israeli government miss the irony of sending one team to Haiti, to rebuild houses, and another to the West Bank to demolish them, in the same week? Some may find it tasteless of me to invoke a comparison with the much more destructive earthquake, but I find this kind of wanton destruction far more offensive than anything any one can say. (Also, I do not overlook the commendable efforts of the Israelis in Haiti. Israel's moral failings towards the Palestinians do not make it an inherently immoral nation, or lessen the nobility of those efforts.) But I watch this video, and I feel hopeless.

Then I read your speech from this morning. "Sometimes I get a little frustrated when folks just don't want to see that even if we don't get everything, we're getting something....It's not enough, but it's progress. Progress is possible. Don't give up on voting. Don't give up on advocacy. Don't give up on activism. There are too many needs to be met, too much work to be done." "So, yes, we're passing through a hard winter. It's the hardest in some time. But let's always remember that, as a people, the American people, we've weathered some hard winters before."

I do appreciate the idea that suffering makes us stronger. I do appreciate that in the tragic history of Haiti, or Palestine, or America, the obstacles overcome have prepared people for the obstacles ahead. But today, it seems so exhausting to consider. Doesn't it ever end? If an earthquake this horrifying can't make us stop and consider our own actions, our own unnecessary destructiveness, what can?

"There are times when progress seems too slow. There are times when the words that are spoken about me hurt. There are times when the barbs sting. There are times when it feels like all these efforts are for naught, and change is so painfully slow in coming, and I have to confront my own doubts.

But let me tell you -- during those times it's faith that keeps me calm. "

Yes, sir. It seems too slow. It seems too difficult to believe that things will get better, that we will stop being awful and destructive towards one another. And much of the faith that keeps me calm in the face of this is faith in you. It is Sunday, and it is difficult to think this week will be any better than the last. But it seemed impossible that a man like you could ever become President, so, for now, I will stay calm with the faith that things will, slowly, improve.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 15

Dear Mr. President,

It is difficult to think of anything to write about besides Haiti. I've donated via SMS to the red cross, I've read the news all day, I've worried and worried and worried. Not particularly helpful, to be honest. I don't think I can write to you, who is doing so much, about something I can do next to nothing to help. So this letter is going to be about the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee, which I just heard about from the e-mail that the Vice President's office sent out.

I already added my name to the petition, and I hope that the tremendous popular support for this idea is enough to get it passed over the objection of the banking lobby. I'll be writing my congressman (not that contacting Rick Larsen has done me much good in the past) and state senators as well. Don't back down on this, sir. Conservatives are saying it is a mere distraction. Michelle Malkin claims that the fee will be passed on to consumers, which may be true, but seems like it should be an indictment of the banks, not the government. If my bank tries to charge me more, I will simply take my business elsewhere. I say all of this as some one with a layman's understanding of economic policy. I could be entirely wrong, but I think a number of Americans are confused about the nuances of this, and we are putting our trust in you and your administration not to take advantage of this crisis for political gain.

Tomorrow I return to work after 2 days off, and as much as I'm dreading getting up early and dealing with the tedious and often absurd public, I'm thankful to be among the employed. I'm still worried about the economy, but I think that things will slowly get better. Bearing in mind my admitted lack of economic expertise, I've previously mentioned John Edward's campaign promise to reform college financial aid systems and work to lessen current student debt. Maybe this is oversimplifying things, but wouldn't it stimulate the economy if the recently graduated who are struggling with loan debt could spend the money elsewhere? Or invest in their own futures, by purchasing houses or starting businesses? If we can bail out banks and auto companies, why not students who are facing unprecedented amounts of student loan debt? Especially as much of that debt is the product of a system already exposed to be rife with corruption and predatory practices. I don't know, maybe it's a terrible idea, but it seems to me that as a society, we benefit more from a well-educated youth with less debt than we do from lending institutions making huge profits off of the dreams of the middle class.

I don't know. It seems frivolous to be asking about debt relief while thinking about the conditions in Haiti, or in any number of places across the globe. Perhaps this is a discussion for another day.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 14-Pat Robertson is the worst Christian ever

Dear Mr. President,

"To the people of Haiti, we say clearly, and with conviction, you will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten. In this, your hour of greatest need, America stands with you. The world stands with you." Your words to Haiti were such a relief after the appalling ignorance of Pat Robertson the day before. After tragedies like this, I often feel as though I should have studied something more practical, like medicine. This helplessness is mitigated (though not completely assuaged,) by the secure knowledge that my government, at least, is doing all it can.

I hope this latest display of bigotry and hate will finish Pat Robertson's career for good. Sadly, there will probably always be those who listen to what he says and believes him, simply because he claims to be a man of God. I wasn't raised in a religious household, and my forays into Christian churches were always because I had friends inviting me along for dances, camps, or some other social activity that only peripherally involved God. Now, I have friends who are Catholic, Mormon, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Wicca, Buddhist and hardcore atheists. I don't know where I fit in amongst them. I used to think I was an atheist, but absolute knowledge has never suited my disposition, and being sure, absolutely sure, that there is no God or power too complex for me to understand, is, in my mind, arrogance on the same level as any religious zealot.

One of the Arabic tattoos I have reads, "In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful." This line is often said or written at the beginning of things in the Muslim world, letters, stories, meals, and the Qur'an. The idea that everything I do, every action though, and word; every heartbeat, is done in the name of whatever force and reason governs the universe appeals to me. If there is one tenant of Islam that resonates with my own belief system, it is the tawheed, or supreme oneness of God. The idea that God is not some bearded patriarch, or some moody tyrant, is something I can reconcile with my intellectual side. And it doesn't leave much room for Pat Robertson's Devil. This may not make me a particularly good Muslim, in the traditional sense, but Muslim is literally "one who submits" and what choice to any of us have but to submit to the higher laws of our universe? The nature of those laws may be more like scripture or Karma, or as impersonal as gravity, but I don't claim to know enough about them to say for sure.

I know your faith is in all likelihood closer to the defined, unambiguous faith of Mr. Robertson than my own nebulous collection of dishes from the theological buffet. That being said, I don't think that, just because you're a Christian, you should have to dignify the words of Mr. Robertson by denouncing them, in order to demonstrate that not all Christians are ignorant nutcases. I feel the same way when Muslim groups feel compelled to denounce acts of terror or the hateful words of holocaust deniers or other crimes, just because they are perpetrated by those claiming to be Muslim. The faith of true Muslims stands in opposition to these acts, and that faith alone should suffice as a rejection of them.

Anyway, I know people of all faiths are praying for those in Haiti, and I suppose that can't hurt. Thank you for sending aid, and for the addressing the people of Haiti with the respect due to them. I don't think that my idea of God can forsake people, so I'll just hope that America, really that the whole human race, collectively forsake Mr. Robertson and that one day he finds himself lost, alone, (preferably somewhere being occupied by the 18th-century French) and is forced to reflect, honestly, on his life.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey