Open Letter to Barak Obama.

Dear Mr. President;

     From reading my blog, you will have come to know how highly I value the ancient technique of Dhyaan, Meditation.  In almost every posting, I somehow slip in a few good words about the practice.  I don’t insist that anyone start a daily practice.  I prefer to simply nag until the people roll their eyes, throw their hands up in the air and agree to try it out, just to get me off their collective backs.  I merely wanted to write and tell you, Mr. President, that I still believe in you, to encourage you further and, yes, to lightly suggest a daily practice of silent introspection. 

You’re terribly busy, I know.  And you have to deal with all kinds of weird and wonderful people.  I get it.  It can’t be easy.  You’re presiding over, as the forty-fourth President of those United States, a very tricky time-period.  You have to deal with terrorism, natural disasters, poverty, a growing cynicism, an alarming increase in adult bed-wetting and a failing economy.  And on top of all that, you have to deal with people questioning whether you were actually even born in the United States. 

The Donald, comb-over king of real-estate, is the latest to call for you to show everyone your birth certificate.  Personally, I couldn’t care less.  Keep it under your mattress, Mr. President.  Duct tape it to the lid of your cistern.  Let Michelle hang onto it.  She looks stronger than you anyway.  You may have come from Hawaii, Kansas, Kenya or Indonesia for all I care.  You could’ve come out of a Petri dish for all I care.  I don’t care if you’re Christian or Muslim, black or white.  I don’t care if you like to mud-wrestle, for that matter.  

The fact is that, while so many peoples of the world are concerned with protecting their heritage, I am a firm believer in the mixing up of the races.  To my mind and way of thinking, interracial marriages should be encouraged and celebrated.  I say, let everyone get so mixed up that we totally lose track.  Of course, I’m an irreligious Jew, unilingual English-speaking Canadian, with a home in French Quebec, who has spent most of his adult life in India.  My opinion might not be considered particularly valid.     

Be that as it may, what matters to me is that you’re one good man wanting to treat everyone with dignity and equality, Mr. President.  Ok, so you smoked a little pot, snorted a little cocaine in days gone by.  Who didn’t?  I did, and look how well adjusted I am.  All that I want to say is that, before the first mother, the first father, the first Petri dish baby, I’m pretty sure we all came from the same place.  And that place does not require birth certificates or a Department of Homeland Security.  It cannot be burnt by fire, drowned by water or blown away by the wind.  It’s pure, free and forever, Mr. President.  Meditate on that, Mr. President.   And may God bless America.