Letter to President Obama #36 | Subject: A Housewarming Present from the President?

Dear President Obama,

First of all, my apologies for not writing sooner. I’ve been pretty busy for the past few weeks, as I’ve been moving into a new house. Nevertheless, I’ve been scribbling down notes for these letters, so here we go:

I didn’t know how to set this up, so I’m just going to out-and-out ask it: Can I have a housewarming present from the White House? Not from you, personally, I mean; I know you’re basically the busiest dude on the planet right now. Instead, I’d just like something that had been at the White House that you don’t really need. As things currently stand, the only items that I have from the White House are those Christmas ornaments they sell every year and some of those White House Easter Eggs. Unfortunately, I only have ones from the Bush Administration, as a friend of a friend got them for our family. Don’t get me wrong, they’re pretty nice, but it’s a little weird at Easter. I’ll see the Easter Eggs on display and then I’ll inevitably think of Dick Cheney in an Easter Bunny costume, which is basically the worst image imaginable. In this recurring mental image, he’s always armed with a shotgun in a blaze orange bunny costume and slowly hopping towards me. Then I’ll snap out if it and the Easter Egg hunt starts, but by then it’s too late and I’m hesitant and wary and subconsciously shielding my face.

So an Obama Administration Easter Egg would be great, as it’d help me cleanse my emotional palette, so to speak. I’m not asking for anything big—a White House pen or a towel would be cool (though if it’s a Clinton-era towel, I’d really want it sanitized first). Anyway, if those are too spendy, that’s ok; the weirder the object, the better. Maybe just a Tupperware top that the White House chef can’t find the container for—that happens to me all the time. In fact, I’m pretty confident that I could start my own business just manufacturing extra Tupperware tops and containers; then I’d sell them separately and people would be able to create a new pair. Conceivably, one could do the same thing with other things that often go missing, like socks or pet cats, or children. Anyway, you could find one of these and you could just write “FROM THE WHITE HOUSE” on it or something and that’d do. I’d totally frame it and put it on my wall.

If that sort of thing isn’t available, I just have to ask, did Nixon ever make a mix tape? I knew he was big in recording everything (and himself, which I never really understood); anyway, if he made a mix tape, that’d be great. I’ll take a copy. On second thought, maybe that’s not a great idea. I’m pretty sure that he liked music I’d hate. I just looked up Nixon’s favorite song and apparently it was Richard Rodgers and his song, “Victory at Sea.” This doesn’t sound promising, unless it’s a cool Johnny Horton “The Battle of New Orleans” sort of thing.

Update: I just listened to the Rodgers song on YouTube. It was more than a little terrible. With my luck, Nixon probably liked Lawrence Welk too. And I’ve reached my lifetime quota on champagne music, so please scratch that idea. In retrospect, a pen or a towel would be best.

Thanks for reading, and take care.

Brett Ortler

P.S. This is letter #36 to President Obama. Brett was writing a letter a day, but then he moved. So there was a delay. Now he's writing letters again. Let him know what you think, and he'll let you know if he gets a response.

Letter to President Obama #32 | Subject: Dreams

Letter to President Obama #32 | Subject: Dreams

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing because my girlfriend had this dream I wanted to tell you about. She dreamt that you lost the keys to the White House and you addressed the nation on primetime TV and asked for our help in looking for them. Of course, all the reporters and newscasters giggled and as you were probably expecting this, you told them that there was presidential precedent for this sort of thing. You said that President Bush had done this all the time during his eight years and that’s why the terror alert system kept changing colors.

After she told me this, it got me thinking, and now I’ve got a few questions. First, does the White House even have keys? My girlfriend and I have a bet going on this one. I bet her a dollar that it’s so high tech that it doesn’t even need keys—you probably have thumbprint identification pads and retina scanners and all that. If I were you, I’d be careful about the retina scanners; I’ve always been leery of them since I saw Demolition Man and Wesley Snipes poked out that one guy’s eye just to use it for the scanner. If the security folks insist on the retina scanners I’d recommend that they teach you a Jujitsu version of that Three Stooges move where you protect your eyes from the crazy eye poke. They probably even have special hats (you know, with eye shields!) for that; I’d get one.

If you do have keys, I bet you guys have all sorts of other security too. That makes sense. If I were you, I’d get something like those Life Alert notification things; you know, those things featured in the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercials. Except yours could play a version of “Secret Agent Man.” (As a kid, I always thought the title of that song was “Secret Asian Man.” Really!)

Then again, Life Alert isn’t a panacea either. One of my friend’s grandmas had one of those Life Alert notification things, but he lived with her and was kind of a misfit, so he always put it on his dog. This was a big dog, some Rottweiler mix and it was always rolling around and roughhousing. I hardly got to hang out with him because the cops were there every time I’d try to visit, which was a lot, like five times a week. It was kind of like the boy who called wolf, except in this case it was the boy who called fire department. A few months later, their house burned down and the dog died, so I didn’t get to go over there anymore.

Finally, I have a general question about dreams. I’ve been tuning in to most of your speeches, and I’ve enjoyed them. I’m a particular fan of your cadence, which is wonderful, and at times, it reminds me of other great speakers, particularly John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

I was listening to one of your speeches the other day and a line reminded me of MLK’s famous, “I Have a Dream” speech; I went to sleep thinking about it, and that night I also had a dream. I dreamt of little black boys and little black girls joining with little white boys and little white girls as sisters and brothers, but in the end, they all turned out to be zombies and they tried to eat me. That was weird.

I’ve looked through all the Freud I have on my bookshelves and I can’t find anything about zombies and what they mean if they appear in your dreams. If you can help with this latter question, I’d appreciate it. I’m a bit flummoxed.

In any case, I wish you the best, and thanks for the good work.


Brett Ortler

Guest Letter To the President by Matthew Hicks | Subject: Beards

Dear President Obama,

I saw your speech in Cairo reaching out to the Islamic world, and let me tell you it made me proud to be an American. Since the speech I've been brainstorming to try and help with your outreach, and I think I've hit on a great idea. No, not burkhas on our statues: John Ashcroft already tried that. America needs to cover something else that Muslims like to cover. It's time to bring back the public figure with facial hair.

Our country has a grand tradition of prominently bewhiskered people. Two of the presidents on Mount Rushmore were carved with their facial hair. Teddy Roosevelt had a mustache that he used to help him aim at Spaniards and lions, and Abraham Lincoln had a beard that comforted him when Mary Todd was off hunting ghosts. Lincoln actually started a long trend of bearded and mustachioed presidents, and look at what presidential leadership accomplished: General Ambrose Burnside went with the "bat attacking the face" look, Andrew Carnegie built the world's largest steel company along with one of the world's most impressive beards, and John Rockefeller saved time to think up anticompetitive practices by not shaving under his nose. Today what do we have among the rich and prominent? Not much beyond Larry Ellison's baby's first beard and Governor Charlie Crist’s wife. Half the senate is hiding a bald spot yet none of them let their hair grow where it still can. Americans used to the world leader in innovative facial hair (Burnside gave us the word “sideburns”), and I believe with a little presidential leadership we can be again.

Now I remember reading once that you said you don't really grow decent facial hair. That's okay. Groucho Marx was known for his moustache, but in truth it was nothing more than greasepaint. Alright, that might be a little tacky for the president, but you encourage other people inside your administration to grow something. How about Joe Biden with mutton chops, Rahm Emanuel with an evil-Spock goatee, or Hillary Clinton with a soul patch? It doesn't need to be all of you, the idea is just to take back the public space for follicled faces. Once John Boehner is sporting a ZZ Top beard, then everyone who wants to can shave. But I bet by then they'll be loving it.

One more thing before I'll let you get back to running the free world. I know you love trying to act like Lincoln, giving speeches where he did and following the same route to the inauguration. Well Lincoln didn't have a beard when he was elected. He actually grew it in response to a letter he received. Did I just blow your mind?

Your fellow American,
Matthew Hicks

Letter to President Obama #31 | Subject: Cats, The Transportation Security Administration, and U.S. Customs

Dear President Obama,

As you know, I’ve been writing you letters fairly often, once or so a day for about a month now. But I’ve slacked off the last week or so, as I’m pretty busy, as I’m moving into a new house soon. As you can imagine, I have boxes all over the place.

Unfortunately, I also have cats. This means that my cats keep investigating every box I have, and by “investigate,” I mean they tip them over. Then they spread all of the contents over the floor and then hide in the box. They usually do this at night, so every morning I wake up, I find that my “kitchen” box is halfway down the hallway and it looks like a culinary hurricane passed through the living room in the night.

This has some unexpected consequences—because when I’m in a rush to get to work, I sometimes miss a few items. Then I’m at work and I get a phone call from my girlfriend, who reminds me (again) that it is less than pleasant to sit on the couch and then realize you’re sitting on a spatula. I always tell her that it could be worse, it could be a whisk, or something, but apparently that’s not much consolation.

In any case, I haven’t gotten that much packing done yet. In any event, to prevent this from happening again, I’d like to get my cats temporary jobs. That’s where I need your help, Mr. President; I think my cats could be a great fit for one of several government positions.

First of all, I think my cats would be a great fit for the Transportation Security Administration. As I mentioned, my cats love all varieties of packages, boxes and luggage. Sitting by the conveyor belt with all that luggage would be perfect for my cats. Dogs would be a poor choice for this position. For instance, my dog’s pretty selfish; he just investigates every plastic bag we bring in the house because he thinks there is a toy in it for him.

My cats are also really, really crabby, which I’ve concluded is a necessary requirement for candidates at the TSA. Even better, my cats are also quite suspicious, but unlike their human counterparts, they don’t discriminate on the basis of race. In fact, my cats don’t discriminate whatsoever; my cats are suspicious of me all the time. More than that, sometimes my cats are outright contemptuous. (To tell the truth, sometimes I think my cat wishes I didn’t exist. Especially when I try to make the bed when he’s sleeping on it.)

Now, there is a downside to employing cats at the TSA. There is the problem of catnaps.

Even if the TSA thing didn’t work out, I think my cat would be a great Customs Agent. I mean, other than the general curiosity and grumpiness, my cats are also very clever; I mean, there’s no swindling a cat. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure I could get my dog to bite his own tail if I gave him enough treats. Not so with a cat.

I think this characteristic would be a benefit for the Customs Agency. For instance, if someone were trying to sneak a few dozen cases of Labatt’s Blue Beer across the U.S.-Canada border without paying the required taxes, my cats would see right through that. Once, I tried to trick one of my cats, Xerox, into thinking that I’d put extra food into his dish, but I’d really just moved some from his sister’s dish (Peanut) into his. He looked at both dishes, back at me, and then he literally shook his head “no” three times. If he could have reported me to some sort of authority, he would have.

Finally, my cats also have the chutzpah to stand their ground and turn offenders and rule- breakers in, if necessary. I have personal experience with this—I was coming back to the States from Canada, and I was bringing a whole bunch of fruit back from Vancouver. I didn’t know that certain foods weren’t allowed across the border, so according to the rules, the Customs people had to seize it as contraband.

If that were me, I wouldn’t be able to do this all the time; I’d probably be too nice about it and let them go. Instead, the border control person, who looked a little like a cat, seized my food. For a moment, I thought she was going to eat it in front of me. She didn’t, but I’m still pretty sure they never have to bring in lunch to work. Jerks. To be sure, I have no doubt that my cat would have done the same thing.

So please consider my cats for the TSA or the Customs Agency; if they have jobs, maybe I can get some packing done.

Thanks, and take care,

Brett Ortler

This is letter #31 to President Obama; I was writing one a day for about three weeks, but slowed down the pace a bit because of the problems listed in this letter. I'm sending all of these letters to the President; I'll let you know if I get a response. If you like these, please let me know and tell your friends. Thanks.

Letter to President Obama #30 | Subject: Patriotism and Religious Symbols

Letter to President Obama #30 | Subject: Patriotism and Religious Symbols

Dear President Obama,

As you know, I’ve been writing you letters fairly often, once a day for about a month now. But in the last few days I haven’t written much at all; I have a pretty good excuse—I was in the emergency room for most of Wednesday afternoon. As it turns out, I’m fine, but it took a while for the doctors to find that out. In the interim, I hung around at the hospital for a while, and I read every good magazine that they had—two copies of Smithsonian and one of National Geographic. After that, the only magazines left were things like Good Housekeeping and Ladies’ Home Journal, so I reluctantly started reading those. I don’t remember which magazine I was looking at, but I was taken aback by the cover of one of the magazines, which had the phrase “God Bless America” prominently displayed on the cover.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against America, or God, or God blessing America. On the contrary, I think it’s quite clear that God has done so, and quite abundantly. The phrase just seems to be a little obvious—it kind of goes without saying. And it seems like an unnecessary addition; I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever wished for the converse—for God, or any other deity for that matter, to damn a particular nation. Now that I think of that, it’s a little disappointing that I haven’t. It would be kind of fun to yell out “God damn you, Swaziland!” in the break room or have “Shiva, please destroy Iceland!” emblazoned on a button or a bumper sticker.

Then again, I don’t have any real beef with the phrase, it’s their magazine; they can put whatever they want on the cover. I’m writing this because those covers made me think of the fish symbols that some Christian folks put on their cars. I’ve always been disappointed that car dealerships only offered a few different choices—the fish symbol, the Darwin one, and the fish eating the Darwin symbol. That seems like a pretty limited selection to me, and certainly not one representative enough to cover everyone’s religious and metaphysical beliefs. So I went to my local car dealership and asked if they had any other symbolic options.

I started out with the big three monotheistic religions, thinking it was my best bet. I asked if they had Christian symbols, and of course they had the fish and the anti-Darwin fish (which has no teeth, oddly). I then asked if the symbols got more specific. The salesman was confused. I told him that I was Catholic and wanted an outline of the Pope’s hat or maybe the Popemobile for my car. He said they didn’t have that. I was surprised, and so I thought they had only one symbol per general monotheistic religion. So I asked if they had the crescent moon symbol. He didn’t know what I was talking about, so I told him it was Islamic. He looked like he was going to call the police. After that, I didn’t bother asking whether he had an agnostic question mark or a symbol for Rastafarianism; I simply asked if he had other biblical symbol options, like the burning bush, Jacob’s ladder, or David’s sling, or maybe even a sheep, but they said no, they just had the fish. I asked if they had chips, but they didn’t get it.

Needless to say, I think this is an area where American automakers could certainly take the initiative and beat the competition. Specifically, I’d like to have a Noah’s Ark symbol; I’d put that on my car. Maybe just the outline of the ark with a pair of giraffes’ heads peeking out of the top? (Though in that story I’ve always thought that Noah would have made the giraffes little umbrella hats—I mean, if he didn’t that’s not very nice. 40 days of rain would get pretty old if your head was sticking through the roof.)

I just thought of this—if the 10 plagues of Egypt could be encapsulated in car-symbol form, that’d be pretty sweet too.

Finally, it’d be nice if the automakers made those symbols a bit easier to remove. One of my pals, an ardent atheist, bought a used car and a nice one at that, but it had one of the fish symbols on it. Like I said, he was an ardent atheist, but he was even more particular about keeping his car in immaculate shape. This led to some odd meetings—people would see the symbol and think he was quite religious and then invited them to church or tried to discuss Scripture, and he’d have to try to explain the situation. In this respect, it was sort of like a pass code, but he didn’t really belong to the club.

In any case, let me know what you think about these comments and thanks.

Brett

Letter to President Obama #29 | Subject: Presidential Public Service Announcements

Dear President Obama,

I’ve got a question about public service announcements. Every once in a while, I drive by this billboard with this strange public service announcement on it—it says Leadership: Pass it On. I don’t like this billboard. Every time I drive past it I immediately signal the wrong way with my blinker and begin swerving.

I’ve seen others like it, and I’d like to know, is the government responsible for these? If so, can we please stop funding them? I saw one a while back that essentially told me not to swear, and I never wanted to swear more in my life! And boy can I swear! (For a while, looking up swear words was my job. Really! I researched swear words in about 30 languages for a multinational corporation to make sure that those bad words didn’t appear in their products.) In the process, I learned how to tell someone to “have no cow!” and to “get blind at celebration time” in Rwandan. Anyway, so I drove past this sign and I started swearing, and the guy in the car next to me did too, and I think the school bus driver behind me did as well (though that probably just comes with the territory.) It was sort of like that movie Pay it Forward, but with curse words.

And it’s not just that these billboards are pretentious, they seem to indicate that the “negative” emotions are totally worthless, but I couldn’t disagree more. Every emotion has its place and time. For instance, I think a giant advertisement featuring Marvin the Martian with the tagline, Anger: Sometimes it’s funny would be a great fit!

Anyway, I’m not just angry about the weird values billboards. There’s another sign just off the highway by my apartment that bothers me too, but I don’t know if it’s by the same people—it’s a little blue highway sign that just reads, “Concentrate on Driving.” Let me tell you, I’ve never wanted to hit anything with a car more in my life! Every time I drive past it, I want to start texting and swerving and playing chicken with oncoming traffic. Mr. President, can you please call the Isanti County Department of Transportation and tell them to change this sign? If I call, they’ll probably hang up on me. But you could probably make it happen.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against Public Service Announcements, generally. I just think we could be doing a better job. I think the current ads are ineffective and self-defeating. I’d like to encourage you to create Public Service Announcements based upon various U.S. Presidents. To be sure, the presidents represent all sorts of virtues as well as a variety of cautionary tales.

For instance, we could feature William Henry Harrison in an ad for the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control. You know, he was the 9^th president and the one who gave that really long inauguration speech (two hours!) in the rain without wearing a hat or a coat. Then he died of pneumonia on his 32^nd day in office. That PSA has already written itself—we’d just need a picture of Henry Harrison looking deathly ill with one of those speech bubbles: If it rains, don’t forget a coat!

And of course we could feature President Taft in anti-obesity PSA. We could show a picture of his giant bathtub along with the tagline: Don’t eat that burger! Or you might need a bathtub like mine—and it could hold six people!

If we really got into the swing of things, we could even co-opt the likenesses of various presidents to support various contemporary causes that didn’t exist during their time. For instance, we could feature George Washington in a PSA for climate-change awareness, but the tagline would be a little more esoteric. Something like: Turn off that wood-burning stove you young lad! It’ll pollute the phlogiston or whatever it was they thought the air was made up of back then.

Of course, this might be going a little too far. But you get the general idea. In any case, I think the Presidential PSAs would be far more effective than the current approaches.

Thanks for reading.

Brett Ortler

Letter to President Obama #28 | Subject: Public Education

Letter to President Obama #28 | Subject: Public Education

Dear President Obama,

I attended public schools for my entire life and overall I think the public schools I attended served me admirably. Nevertheless, I've got a few things I'd like to ask/suggest about the system.

First of all, I know there’s been a lot of talk about standardized tests in the last few years, but I’ve got a question of my own that has never been asked. As a kid, I usually did pretty well on standardized tests, but on a few occasions I didn’t, because I was transfixed by the possibility that there might be an underlying code on the test sheet, like those crazy numbers on Lost. And if I managed to figure out the code and filled in the bubbles correctly, I’d get a secret prize, like ice cream or getting to skip the fifth grade. Anyway, on a few occasions when I got bored (the math sections of the tests, usually) I tried to spell out that secret with my answers, but it’s hard only using A through E. The best I came up with was A BABE CEDED ABE A BEE. Is that correct? If so, I’ll still take the government up on the free ice cream. Please send it, you already have my address.

I also have a question about school funding priorities. I know that school budgets are quite tight these days, but I think we should retain as many music and art classes as possible. I know music classes can be an especially tough sell—I mean, let’s face it—they’re often noisy, chaotic, and disorganized. I mean, the other day I was down the hallway from a room full of fourth graders with recorders, and for a moment I thought I was overhearing a flock of poisoned, deranged birds. (Or healthy loons.) And then I got into the classroom and found that many of the kids were armed with those padded xylophone mallet things and they were whomping each other on the head like in Whack-A-Mole. This reminded me of the music class at my elementary school: A lot of clashing and a sugar-crazed kid with the cymbals, then the teacher trying to sing over the top of all that noise. Eventually she gave up and just started screaming along with the music. I’m pretty sure that this is where death metal originated.

That’s exactly my point; the end product doesn’t always seem all that important (or even melodic) but these classes can be productive in really surprising ways.

Of course, the same could be said of most art classes—but I think our kids do a pretty good job of depicting the human form. I mean, really, if I were forced to choose, I would rather take my six year old cousin’s drawing of a woman out on a date rather than either of the women depicted in Pablo Picasso’s painting Femmes devant la mer (Women before the Sea), because my cousin’s figure, while sporting a serious unibrow and really disproportionate features, was not some sort of human-triangle hybrid.

So please do consider retaining funding for such courses. If we need to cut back in other areas; I’d suggest cutting math. And if, as I suspect, we won’t be cutting math classes, I’d like to spruce them up. I’ve always thought the music triangle should have been incorporated into math class somehow. Then maybe math class would have been fun. (In retrospect, it seems like a perfect fit for trigonometry.)

In any case, that’s another topic altogether. Please let me know what you think, and thanks.

Brett

This is letter #28 to President Obama. I'm sending one-a-day, or thereabouts. I haven't received a response yet, but will let everyone know if I do.

Letter to the President #26 | Subject: Military Tribunals

Letter to the President #26 | Subject: Military Tribunals

Letter to the President #26 | Subject: Military Tribunals

Dear President Obama,

Like many Americans, I’ve been reading a lot about the prison at Guantanamo Bay and about all of the controversy about what to do with the prisoners there once Gitmo is closed. I’ve read that you’re suggesting we create a variety of military tribunals to try these prisoners.

Personally, I don’t get why we just don’t just try them in civilian courts. I mean, we tried all sorts of scary people in criminal courts, and that process worked out pretty well. I mean, we even tried Jeffrey Dahmer in a criminal court, and that guy ate people. (I have a question about the Dahmer case; I read that he got killed with a mop handle in prison. This surprised me; I didn’t know that mops were a capital punishment option. That seems a little old fashioned, if I may say so.)

Anyway, if you’re determined to try these people in military courts, then I have a few suggestions. First of all, I think Judge Judy would be a great selection as Chief Justice of the Military Tribunals. Of course, we’d probably have to give her a military title so she’d fit in, so maybe we should make her a field marshal or something like that. Then again, I’m pretty sure that if we did, it’d go to her head. She’s kind of crazy like that. I could see her reaching over the bench and throwing a gavel at a disrespectful defendant as she yelled don’t you know that I’m a field marshal!? So maybe that’s not a great idea after all.

Of course, if we choose Judge Judy, the trials will have to be broadcast live on television, as otherwise Judge Judy would be out of her element. I’d suggest that we air these on the regular channels, not cable, so everyone could watch them. (Pay-per-view would be the wrong choice; these are military tribunals, not boxing matches or adult entertainment, Mr. President.)

Of course, if we choose Judge Judy for the tribunals, we’ll have to choose an appropriate bailiff. Have you ever noticed that the bailiffs on the judge-type TV shows are always really diverse? On Judge Mathis’s show, the judge is black and the bailiff is white. Then there’s the People’s Court where the judge is white and the bailiff is black. And one of the other judge shows has a male judge and a female bailiff. I think this was a nice gesture, so we should continue it at our Military Tribunals. Of course, we’d still have to choose carefully, as the bailiffs really help out the show, as the witty banter between the judge and the bailiff really lightens the mood. Of course, our bailiff would have to be tough, so I’d suggest someone from the Special Forces. Hey—do any of our Navy Seals do stand-up? If so, I think we’ve found our bailiff.

Finally, since your critics will probably say these tribunals will be kangaroo courts, perhaps you could preempt them and include a kangaroo (or at least a wallaby) in some nonessential court position. Perhaps the kangaroo could be a backup transcriptionist. Or maybe a koala could be the bailiff’s assistant. (It’d look so cute in one of those rent-a-cop uniforms!) In any event, some Australian animal should be included, as it’ll give the court an air of international inclusiveness. As I understand it, judges in the United Kingdom wear wigs to court; to augment the afore-mentioned inclusiveness, perhaps everyone present could wear wigs.

Please let me know what you think about these suggestions, and thanks.

Brett




Expand Tags: obama, series, hu

Letter to President Obama #24 | Subject: Fruits and Vegetables

Letter to President Obama #24 | Subject: Fruits and Vegetables

Dear President Obama,

Like many Americans, I’m concerned about the prevalence of obesity, and I’ve been thinking about ways we could help our population get in shape. I’m going to focus on one part of the problem—too many Americans are eating unhealthy foods.

I think I know why this might be—shoddy marketing. What I mean is, whoever is doing the marketing for fruits is pretty good, but we need to fire the person responsible for marketing vegetables. The fruit branding campaign was a total success. If you mention the word fruit, many people will think of delicious, fresh food that smells really, really good. There are almost no negative connotations, except for one use of the word as a homophobic slur. (And that was almost certainly an attempt by a jealous vegetable—probably a cauliflower or something—to tarnish fruit’s good name.)

On the other hand, if you mention the word “vegetable” you’ll get all sorts of negative reactions. The first association I make is with hospital patients who are brain dead, or those in permanent comas. Now I don’t know about you, but when I think about the brain dead, I don’t get particularly hungry. Contrary to popular belief, I am not a zombie.

Another popular and less-than-flattering association occurs at the dinner table. Every night, all over America parents are telling their children to “eat your vegetables,” which is essentially the equivalent of saying, “Here, child, eat this thing you don’t like very much.”

We must ask ourselves, why do people make these associations and how can we avoid them? Well, to be frank, I think it is because people generally consider vegetables to be pretty boring—I mean, I work for a publishing house and we’ve published all sorts of fruit cookbooks like The Joy of Raspberries, The Joy of Peaches, and so on, but thus far, none of our cookbooks have featured vegetables.

The reason why should be pretty obvious. I mean, consider cauliflower. There’s no joy there, just general bewilderment about its unseemly shape and texture and a lingering association from high school about the wrestling coach and his nasty cauliflower ear. Let me tell you, The Bewilderment of Cauliflower wouldn’t sell, Mr. President. Neither would The Mundanity of Lettuce.

Thankfully, we’ve got a lot of vegetables that have a lot more zip to them, and our new vegetable marketing campaign just needs to feature these. Of course, this means that we’ll be highlighting some different vegetables than we have in the past. Clearly cauliflower and lettuce are out—but I’d also like to demote onions and Brussels sprouts.

I’d like to do so because I’d like to institute two commonsense general rules when it comes to food: (1) Food should not make you cry. (2) Food should not smell like shoes. I think these are rules everyone can agree on, yes?

With that said, onions clearly violate the first rule and Brussels sprouts violate the second.

Now I know that some people will say that Brussels sprouts smell good. These people are incorrect. That is, they process smell incorrectly. Their noses are broken; perhaps they were punched and did not know it. We shouldn’t condemn this misled portion of our population or look down upon them; instead, we should help them learn to smell correctly. (We could do this by running Public Service Announcements juxtaposing Brussels Sprouts with universally-agreed-upon images of evil—Stalin, math equations, and for the younger crowd, Voldemort.)

Even if we decide not to adopt my two rules, I think we should choose vegetables that are more inclusive. Onions and Brussels sprouts are anything but inclusive. You either love them or hate them. Needless to say, they are dividers, not uniters.

I think the chili pepper would be a good representative for vegetables. Even if you don’t like them, you can’t dislike them, as they are so colorful and feisty, like the Irish. In this respect, the Chilis restaurant chain has been stealing our thunder for years.

I’d also like to play up more of the health benefits of vegetables. Yes, we always hear tidbits about cancer fighting ability and so on, but this news is always conditional and hypothetical. Give me a story that begins “research suggests” and I’ll tune out after ten seconds. I think our erstwhile vegetable marketer caught onto this, and I’ve been noticing that the ketchup manufacturers have been really pushing the Lycopene campaign. This was a valiant attempt, but Mr. President, it’s pretty clear that Lycopene is a term some marketing guy made up out of desperation. I’ve only heard it on ketchup commercials, nowhere else. Lycopene sort of sounds more like a disease than anything else. If we’re going to make up some terms, let’s at least ask the pharmaceutical companies to give us a few suggestions. They always come up with clever, uplifting product names for products that are often pretty gross.

So in conclusion, please consider my suggestions, and let me know what you think.

Thanks,


Brett Ortler

Letter to President Obama #22 | Subject: Code Names and The Secret Service

Letter to President Obama #22 | Subject: Code Names and The Secret Service

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing because I have a few questions about the Secret Service. First of all, I understand that the Secret Service issues codenames for the First Family and for important members of government. Now, I know that I’m not a member of the government, but I’d really like to have a codename.

I’ve put a lot of thought into my secret codename options. Of course, I don’t want it to interfere with any of the official business at the White House. And really, the Secret Service folks wouldn’t have to memorize it or even use it; I’d just like them to call it over the earpieces once.

Really, this is my attempt at a footnote in history. I’d like my name to make it in on Wikipedia, with a short note saying, “was once referred to as _____________” by the Secret Service.

So I’ve got a few options lined up. My first choice would be “Rabid Wombat.” I know it sounds silly, but there’s no way you’d mistake it for anyone else’s codename (unless that name is already taken by Dick Cheney), and think about how cool it would be to hear Roger that, the Rabid Wombat is entering the Library of Congress. If that name is already taken, “The Do-Gooding Pirate” would be a good one for me too; I think it’d be great to hear, The Do-Gooding Pirate Is in the Capitol Cafeteria. (Wait, does the Capitol have a cafeteria? If so, do they have those little chocolate milk things like in Elementary School? And do they have lunch ladies, or do they have really attractive scantily clad 20-something co-eds as lunch ladies?)

In any case, if the codename doesn’t work out, I’d like a little help obtaining some Secret Service gear. Don’t worry, I’d like to do this for entirely benign reasons—I’d like to go as a Secret Service agent at Halloween next year.

To that end, I’d like to know: Do they sell those Secret Service earpieces anywhere? And by the way, what do Secret Service agents listen to on their earpieces? Is it just a running update on the status of the situation, or can they tune into radio stations? I ask this because one time I saw a Secret Service guy on TV and he was dancing, or at least bouncing around a bit as he scanned the crowd, and I swear I heard a really tinny rendition of a Bob Marley song in the background. Of course, I could be wrong, but this was during the Bush Administration, and I don’t know why they would have been playing Bob Marley. Ever.

Anyway, if Secret Service Man was listening to music, I’m not saying this is a bad thing. On the contrary, I think relaxing music would probably help those guys focus, and I’d encourage this. But whatever you do, don’t let the Secret Service guys listen to New Age-y music—in my experience, that stuff either puts me to sleep or makes me really, really angry. I’ve never wanted to suplex someone more than when listening to the supposedly relaxing music of Yanni or John Tesh. Either scenario could end badly if it occurred on the White House lawn.

In this respect, New Age-y music is sort of like those motivational posters. Both have noble intentions but utterly fail. An example: Once, my boss bought a motivational poster with a picture of the Great Wall of China on it and the word “Teamwork” in big letters. I started laughing when she showed it to me, thinking it was some sort of absurd joke. When they didn’t say anything, I frowned, and told them that I’d read that the Great Wall of China was built largely by slaves and it was rumored that some of those folks were buried in the wall when they died. Now it was my boss’s turn to frown, mutter something about demotion, and then she made it quite clear that the stupid thing was going above my desk. I don’t work there anymore.

Anyway, if I can’t get all of the Secret Service agent gear, maybe I could combine costumes; I could dress up like a Secret Service guy and then double as the guy who has that briefcase handcuffed to his arm all the time. But in order to make my costume as accurate as possible, I need answers to a few questions. First, is the whole briefcase thing in his job description, and what is his job title, by the way? Is it something simple like Nuclear Code Briefcase Man or something more grandiose, like The Protector of the Codes? In either case, I’m pretty sure there’s a comic book superhero in there somewhere, Mr. President.

And what happens if that briefcase handcuff chafes his arm a lot, it gets infected, and he has to take medical leave because of it? I imagine that’d get pretty awkward, especially if he had to specify on some form that he was missing work because of handcuff usage on the job. In this respect, I can empathize with The Protector of the Codes. Once when I was a kid, my sister handcuffed me with those fake kid handcuffs and then broke off the latch. I had that thing on my arm for a week. There’s nothing weirder than explaining that you have a handcuff on your arm because your sister handcuffed you to the deck. That story gets even worse—my neighbor friend, who was ten at the time and thought he was MacGyver, wanted to use an ax to get the handcuff off. Let me tell you, it’s not as easy to do as on TV.

Thank you for reading Mr. President, and let me know what you think.

Thanks,


Brett Ortler

Letter to President Obama #11 | Subject: Predator Drones and the Microsoft Paperclip Guy

Letter to President Obama #11 | Subject: Predator Drones and the Microsoft Paperclip Guy

Dear President Obama,

I’ve got something of an odd request for you—I’d like to borrow a Predator Drone for a weekend. Now, don’t worry, I had a lot of remote-controlled cars as a kid, so I’m pretty sure I could learn how to fly it. To back my claim up, you should know that I’m really good at video games with airplanes. Especially Top-Gun for the Nintendo Entertainment System. (I wasn’t very good at Captain Skyhawk for the NES, but that shouldn’t be held against me. That game involved aliens and was pretty hard.)

First off, I know we’re using the Predators a lot, and I’m not asking to use an active-duty Predator. That’d be crazy. Instead, I know we’re building a lot of those things, and before they can be shipped overseas, they have to be declared flight-worthy, right? This is where I can help! I can test the Predator for airworthiness and then let you know how that specific plane panned out.

Of course, to adequately test the Predator to the satisfaction of The Air Force, I’d need the requisite camera gear and I’d especially need working weapons. That last part is very important. But I wouldn’t need a full complement of two Hellfire missiles; I’m pretty sure I can get by with just one. Like I said, I’m pretty good at video games. And when I think about it, I probably don’t even need all the camera gear. If necessary, I’ll just put my digital camera on video mode and tape it onto one of the wings.

Let me explain why I’d like to borrow one of the Drones. As you’re now probably aware, I’ve been writing you letters fairly often—about once a day so far. I use Microsoft Word to write my letters. If you’ve ever used Microsoft Word, you’re probably aware that every time you try to do anything in the program, an “assistant” immediately pops up. This assistant also happens to look like a paperclip. When he pops up, he says, “It looks like you’re writing a letter!” He does this whether you’re writing a letter, a paper, or just typing up a grocery list. He’s apparently obsessed with letters. (Rumor has it he’s an ex postal worker.)

What set me over the edge was that this—the whole time I’ve been writing you letters—clearly identifiable letters that begin with “Dear Mr. President,” our paperclip friend is nowhere to be seen, though this is the same version of the program and everything. This time around, he’s spooked. This makes me think that he’s a coward, probably afraid to talk to you, Mr. President. That makes me like him less, but Mr. President, I’ve hated that paper clip for a long time. I was an English major in college, and we had to write a lot of papers, and that stupid paper clip thought every one of them was a letter.

I’ve often wondered why; maybe he has a long lost lover and he writes all sorts of letters that he can’t send. I mean, we’ve already established that he’s a coward. Given he’s a piece of office equipment (and a minor, dispensable one at that), his “lover” is probably lame anyway—maybe a set of post-it-notes, probably a stapler. All I want to do with the Predator Drone is to put him out of our misery and save us all a little strife. It’d be doing a public service, Mr. President. Opinion polls should tell you that. I’ve conducted an informal opinion poll (involving me, my girlfriend and my cats) and all of us agree—Clippit, the paperclip, has got to go.

We think America would agree. Please let me know what you think, and thanks for your consideration.

Take care,

Brett Ortler

This is letter #11 in a series to President Obama. You can see the rest at www.knockoutlit.org/brett.html

Letter to President Obama #7 | Subject: Clowns and The War on Terror

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing because I have suggestions that might help our country in The War on Terror. Up to this point, much of The War on Terror has dealt with overseas organizations like Al-Qaida, which seek to harm the U.S. at home and abroad, or domestic groups with similar aims.

Nevertheless, one dangerous and terrifying group has faced little scrutiny so far in the War on Terror, and that group unfortunately preys upon children, our most vulnerable citizens—of course, I’m speaking of clowns.

Let’s be clear—clowns are terrifying and children hate them. A recent study indicated that 100 percent of children were afraid of clowns. As a former child, I can attest that clowns are, in fact, terrifying. But that’s only the part of the study that was made public. Privately, that study indicated clowns also hate children and that clowns even hate clowns. Now you’re probably wondering where I’m getting all this inside information, and I’ll tell you, I’m not some armchair observer. I’ve been there—when I was a child, I attended clown college; I was a clown college child soldier.

In one sense, clown college was like any other terrorist organization; it was based upon a cycle of social distrust and self-loathing (this is probably why clowns paint their smiles on). The social network was tight (we all drove in the same, tiny car), and we attempted to strike society’s most vulnerable, at times of expected levity like birthday parties and circuses. When we arrived, children would do anything they could to escape. I remember one time visiting a church carnival and joining in for a game of “The Cake Walk,” in which music plays as you walk on selected tiles; the winner who is left standing on the specified tile when the music stops playing wins a cake. The music stopped playing for a particular game and a small boy was left standing on the winning tile. He was handed his cake, and I walked over, in full clown attire, to congratulate him. He screamed wildly, and in an apparent attempt to distract me and escape, he thrust the uneaten cake into my arms.

It was only then that I recognized the extent of terror that I had just inspired; Mr. President, children do not just give away cake.

Even though that story was terrible, it taught me a valuable lesson—clowns were so scary that they could prevent children from eating fatty foods. That’s why I’m not suggesting we ban clowns. Instead, I’m suggesting we use the terror they elicit to our advantage to prevent childhood obesity. After doing some initial research on this front, I realize that it’s been happening already.

I don’t know which administration forced McDonald’s to choose a clown as its main mascot, but this certainly must have prevented a significant number of cases of childhood obesity. I’d simply like to encourage you to expand upon this existing campaign. In short, I don’t think Ronald McDonald is scary, or prominent, enough. Perhaps if we could get the CDC or the NIH to require all McDonald’s doors to feature giant superimposed images of Ronald McDonald’s face, this would be a start. Of course, we’d need to make him more grotesque. Perhaps we could give him bloody fangs. And those really terrible dark circles under his eyes. And maybe some stubble too.

I’d also suggest updating a few of his friends in McDonaldland. Grimace already has a perfect name, but he looks a little bit too friendly. Maybe we could make him morbidly obese and put him in a wheelbarrow? This might prevent children from eating an extra apple pie. And as much as I love the name of the Hamburglar, what if he stole cute, adorable pets, instead of hamburgers?

Finally, I’d like to suggest updating the National Threat Level; right now, I think things are pretty vague. If there were corresponding stick-figures for each level, perhaps it’d be clearer where we stand. (An example: the “low” ranking would have a smiley face, the “guarded” level could have a stick-figure peering over the fence at his neighbors suspiciously, etc.) This could go all the way up to “Severe” which could feature a stick figure on fire or with bubonic plague or something like that.

In any case, that’s just an idea. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for your attention in these important matters.

Sincerely,

Brett Ortler

Letter to President Obama #7. See the rest at www.knockoutlit.org/brett.html

Letter to President Obama #6 | Subject: Pirates

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing you with yet another pressing policy concern. I, like many Americans, was enthralled by the whole piracy saga involving Captain Robert Phillips and the Maersk Alabama last week. I’d like to offer my sincere thanks and congratulations to the Navy Seals and sailors who were involved in his rescue. I’m genuinely glad Capt. Phillips is safe.

In addition, given my experience with the strategy of naval warfare, I think I might have some helpful suggestions to help prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future.

First, I’d like to ask the obvious question—why haven’t we sunk their battleship? I mean, I looked in the news for a headline like “Torpedo strike sends pirates’ main vessel to the Davy Jones’s Locker” or something of that sort, but I didn’t find anything at all.

I think this is somewhere I could help. Not to brag, but I’m basically the best Battleship player I know.

And given that I’m assuming that promotions in U.S. Navy are still determined on the basis of success in Battleship, I think it might be helpful if the Navy (or the Naval Academy) were to host a Battleship contest, in order to drum up some new strategies and ways to deal with the pirates. The winner could be declared Admiral and they would be put in charge of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which, as I understand it, is responsible for dealing with the pirates. (A related question: If I were to win, could you make me an admiral and give me a three-corner hat? If so, great. it’d probably be better if I were want to direct my forces from shore; I get sea sick.)

New naval strategies are one way we can fight the pirates, but like Ron Paul recently suggested, I think we need to go further. I was particularly intrigued by Paul’s recent suggestion that we arm our merchant vessels and send privateers after the pirates. To really discourage piracy, we should go even further-—using examples from 17th century piracy in the Caribbean—-we can assemble a counter-piracy dream team. This vessel and its crew would serve two purposes—first, it would strike fear into the hearts of the pirates and second, it would serve as a great recruiting tool for the Navy.

The first thing we need is a vessel, and I have the perfect ship in mind—to me, no other ship is scarier than the Exxon Valdez.

But of course we’d need a captain, and he’d need to be as scary as possible. Do we happen to have any admirals who are, say, over six and a half feet tall, with a ZZ-top-length beard and thick, long black hair? And if so, do we still have any cannon fuse lying around? (Do we still use that stuff?) If so, we could ask said admiral to wind that cannon fuse into his hair and beard, lighting it on fire before the inevitable boarding of the opposing vessel and voila—instant Blackbeard.

In order to make the crew truly terrifying, I have some other suggestions about crew members too—I don’t know about you, but I’ve always thought that Rob Zombie looks a little like a pirate, and if you’ve seen his movies, you know he’s really, really creepy. In addition, if you could contact Governor Schwarzenegger, I could probably get in touch with the Jesse the Body Ventura, as a friend of a friend knows him. (He was my governor, after all.) That makes three really tough, creepy guys, and given proper plundering and pillaging training, all three would make good pirates. I’d like to make an unorthodox selection for ship’s band, instead of including the standard string ensemble or anything like that, I think we need something a little more terrifying. I think the band Rammstein would a great fit for this project. One reviewer said they wrote “music to invade Poland to”—how’s that for creepy? Even better, they’re German and they reportedly love to set things on fire! Perfect!

Of course, the crew would need the proper uniforms and modern armament—but I’m also convinced that we’d need swords. I remember that the Marines have swords in their commercials; does the Navy have swords? If not, could we borrow a few from the Marines?

Finally, I know recruitment might be an issue for the Navy at this point—and I think our anti-piracy dream team would be a recruitment boon and it could help clear up some negative stereotypes about the Navy. For instance, in high school I thought about going into the Navy to fight pirates, but my guidance counselor steered me away from the idea. In so doing, he mentioned two spooky words—scurvy and eye patches.

I’m not going to lie—scurvy’s a little scary. But I think there’s an easy way around this problem, after reading a little bit about scurvy, I know it’s not an issue for Navy crews these days—so why not run a Navy ad featuring a well-known celebrity, Johnny Depp, say, about Exxon Valdez on the hunt for pirates. And while we’re at it, why not show him with all sorts of Vitamin C sources all around him, and maybe show Johnny drinking a big glass of orange juice or something. This could help clear up that misconception.

As far as eye patches go, now don’t get me wrong—I’m a pretty big fan of them. (I even wore one as a joke to my senior prom—it was on a riverboat.) But I certainly don’t want to wear one all the time, and until I did some research recently, I thought that it was required equipment in the piracy business. To avoid this stigma, perhaps our anti-piracy Navy ad could highlight the Navy’s excellent vision care plan and show lots of smiling (grimacing?) pirate faces in glasses, contacts, those light-to-dark prescription sunglasses and pirates waiting in line at the optometrist, that sort of thing.

If we were to adopt these suggestions, I think our fight against the pirates would go that much better.

Sincerely,


Brett Ortler

Letter to President Obama #4 | Subject: Robotic Maids.

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing you with yet another pressing policy concern. I was watching a television program called The Jetsons and I was fascinated by many pieces of technology on the show, but one thing in particular caught my eye—the robotic maid. After the show was over, my cat walked out from using the litter box, throwing cat litter all over the place with each step. This meant I had to vacuum. Because of my cats, I have to vacuum about thirty-seven times a day. (If I were I vacuum company manufacturer, I’d send cats to all of my clients. Because if you have a cat, you need a vacuum. It’s a perfect marketing ploy. Or maybe there’s a conspiracy here, maybe vacuum companies are run by cats?)

Anyway, like most Americans, I have a manual vacuum, but its headlight scares the cats and I think my girlfriend’s afraid of it too (I don’t think she likes the noise), so she always insists that I vacuum. So I finally decided to get a robotic maid like on the Jetsons; I called up the local department store and asked them to send me the most advanced robotic maid they had. This seemed to confuse them a bit, but after I insisted that such technology existed, they acquiesced; a week later, there was a small box on my doorstep.

My robotic maid was a lot smaller than I expected, but that didn’t bother me at first. I had been thinking of what to name my robot ever since I called the department store, so I was pretty bummed out when I saw that it already had a name—Roomba. I hadn’t decided on a name yet, but I’d narrowed down the field. I wanted to name my robot after someone I didn’t like, because that’d make ordering the robot around a lot more fun. I had decided to name the robot either Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly. I don’t like those guys. (I mean, how much fun would it be to yell, “Hey! Sean Hannity/Bill O’Reilly” go take out the trash! Yackety-Yak! Don’t Talk Back!”) And then the little robot would wheel away, doing your bidding. It’d be great!

So I thought about renaming it, but that didn’t seem fair. I mean, once something has a name, you can’t take that away. (This is why I was so mad about Pluto getting called a “dwarf planet.” I mean, imagine being Pluto, The Planet and having to change all of your IDs, your bank account; I mean, what if Pluto were on some sort of beer-league softball team and its jersey said, “Pluto, the Planet” on the back? Then it’d have to get it changed to “Pluto, the Plutoid.” How embarrassing (and redundant)!

Anyway, to alleviate my disappointment about naming my robot, I decided to dress it up in a maid’s outfit. This seemed appropriate, but it was a lot harder than I thought. I made a black and white costume for it, but it ended up looking more like a round nun than anything else. So I gave up on that, and I told it to start vacuuming. It didn’t move. So I read the instructions, and it turns out I had to use a remote control. This seemed a little archaic, but OK. Then it starts vacuuming, sort of. Actually, it just started driving in circles; I thought it was either drunk or broken. (My uncle was drunk once and then decided to mow the lawn; it looked a little bit like that.)

I called up the department store where I got it, and they said it wasn’t broken, that’s how it works, which I thought was outrageous. After getting nowhere with them, I thought about bringing the Roomba to a doctor; maybe it had vertigo or something. Before doing that, I decided to put myself in the Roomba’s shoes. I decided that if I had lived for who-knows-how-long in a sealed-up box, I’d probably be hungry. So I gave my Roomba a cookie. The transformation was amazing! First, of all, it loves Girl Scout cookies. After it had a snack, it did whatever I told it to! It’d vacuum in any pattern I wanted, even those intricate lawn patterns like you see at the Major League Baseball All-Star Games!

I’m telling you all this because I know the White House probably has a few Roombas and I bet you think yours are broken. They’re not! You just need to feed them cookies! I hope this bit of information helps you keep the White House clean, and I’d encourage you to adopt this technology for other areas with a lot of floor space. Perhaps the Library of Congress?

Thank you for your attention, Mr. President.

Brett Ortler


This is letter #4 to Mr. Obama. I'll be sending a letter a day.