Letter to President Obama #37 | Subject: The Fourth of July and Parades

Dear President Obama,

As you’re well aware, it was the Fourth of July a little more than a week ago. I forgot the holiday was coming up, as I was pretty busy moving into my new digs. For a while there, I thought I’d moved into the wrong neighborhood, as my first week here was full of inexplicable bangs and booms and pops. Let me tell you, from a distance it’s pretty hard to tell the difference between a rifle retort and a black cat firecracker. And I live in a pretty rural area and since many people (my parents!) have told me that I look a lot like a deer, I wasn’t about to take any chances. (Admittedly, it doesn’t help that my favorite hat looks like a pair of antlers.)

Anyway, it took my girlfriend and me a week to realize that we were hearing fireworks, not gunshots, so it was a while before we stopped cowering on the floor. (In retrospect, that time was pretty productive; we have really clean floors now.)

You probably think that I’m exaggerating, but in my first few days here I met my new neighbors and one of them of had a HUGE confederate flag in their garage. I’ll admit, this was a little spooky. When I saw it, I wanted to mention the 1^st Minnesota and Gettysburg, but I figured that wouldn’t exactly be neighborly. Then again, referring to the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression” isn’t exactly neighborly either. (Especially in Minnesota!)

Anyway, I digress. So I wanted to express my patriotism for the Fourth, as I love this country. So I attended a 4^th of July parade, but when it ended I didn’t feel particularly patriotic. To be honest, I felt pain more than anything else—Mr. President, when Jolly Ranchers are thrown at you from a float moving at twelve miles per hour, they really hurt. By the time the Marching Band and the VFW and the Lions Club floats all went by, I had welts the size of nations. Everyone else was ready to stage readings of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence but I needed a nurse.

So I went home and tried to teach my family (my cats) something about patriotism. In short, my cats aren’t patriotic, as they don’t understand the concept. I tried to explain it to them by defining freedom in terms they could understand: I asked them how they would feel if someone tried to take away their right to sleep. They didn’t understand this, as the only English phrases they understand have to do with food, water, and of course, get-the-hell-out-of-the-refrigerator-you’re-not-produce. (Seriously. Every time I open the fridge my cat Xerox tries to get in. I don’t know why.)

To help them learn, I tried to be more direct. Every time they fell asleep, I walked up to them with one of those marshmallow roasting skewers (the kind with the metal fork on the end) and I poked them in the stomach until they woke up. Naturally, they weren’t pleased by this development, but I wanted to drive the point home, so every time I poked them, I said a word that I associate with a lack of freedom—to help my cats develop a Pavlovian association of sorts. For a few weeks, I woke them up and then screamed FASCISMO! The next week, I’d jab the skewer at them and start singing “the Internationale.” Finally, for the last week of their training, I’d jab the cats and immediately make references to Evildoers while continually referring to myself as the Decider. Of course, the training had no effect; they’re cats. On the plus side, they did develop an inherent distrust of marshmallow skewers, which I suppose is good.

All in all, it was a good, if painful, Fourth of July. I hope yours went well too.

Take care, and thanks for reading.

Brett

Letter to President Obama #35 | Subject: Babies and Baby Names

Letter to President Obama #35 | Subject: Babies and Baby Names

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing because I’ve got a more personal question to ask you—I’ve reached a strange point in my life—I guess I must subconsciously want a kid, because I’ve been thinking a lot about children, and specifically, what names I’d give them, if I were to have any. Now just in case my mom’s reading this, there isn’t a baby on the way or anything, so I’ve got some leeway here, but I’ve definitely been entertaining the idea.

But it’s not like the familial pressure isn’t there. My folks want a grandkid too. For instance, you know that the family abstinence-only policy has been thrown out the window when your parents see your cousin’s new son, look at you, and sigh before saying, “What about our grandbabies?” and then hang their heads dejectedly.

Anyway, Mr. President, I’m asking you because your family seems to be an unqualified success—and because your children have great names. For me, that’s a pretty big compliment; I’m a bit paranoid about names.

I mean, there are so many ways to screw up a name. Of course, there is the general problem of initials. Consider the following ostensibly appropriate names:

Anne Susan Stewart

Frank Upton Kilborn

Sarah Heather Thomas

Paul Oliver Ortler

When these names are made into acronyms, they are all dismal failures. I’ll leave the mental legwork to you, but they all stand for various naughty words. My name is an excellent example of this—my initials (BEO) can be short for “Body Odor,” but as I learned in middle school, they are also short for such treasures as:

Butts Eating Oysters

Busty Earthling Orgy

and of course, Burping Early Orlater

Needless to say, being called such things was pretty stressful. I certainly don’t need to tell you that children love swear words. They are experts in all things related to toilet humor and they’d endlessly tease any child with such initials. (In fact, I’ve always believed that children would be excellent plumbers if they could be appropriately trained. This probably explains the success of the Mario Brothers video game franchise; don’t forget that the Mario Brothers were plumbers. This explains all the pipes.)

Of course, there are other general naming rules. If possible, avoid middle names that are old-fashioned. I was named for my grandfather, whose middle name was Eugene. It’s a great name, and one that I like a great deal now, but as a child, I got a bit of grief for it. I mean, when a kid makes fun of your middle name you and scream back but it’s an important city in Oregon! that’s not much of a defense.

This next point might seem obvious, but it’s always important to avoid names that are already famous. The name “Jesus” is a good example. Like it or not, that name is already taken. And when viewed realistically, there’s no way your child will live up to such a name, unless he’s really good at making fishes and loaves. Really good. The same goes for any of the seven virtues—if you name your kid Faith, she’ll probably become an atheist. If you name her Chastity, she’ll be pregnant at 16. (I actually saw this at a Wal-Mart in rural Minnesota. No joke.)

By extension, if you name your kid Adolf, there’s no way they can screw that up any more than it already is. The same goes for Judas. Then again, those names come with their own problems, so I’m certainly not advocating for those.

Finally, there is the problem of shoddy etymology. My first name’s a great example. It’s “Brett,” a pretty rare name. When people ask what it means, I tell them it’s complicated. By that, I mean, that my parents thought it meant “strong”; that’s how they found in a baby book. They chose this name because I was born prematurely (three months!) and I was lucky to be alive. I had a rough go of it at first; I was in an incubator for three months (chicken eggs stay in incubators for 24 days, take that chickens) and I was only 2.5 pounds. My parents wanted me to get all the help I could get, and I can’t blame them.

As I learned in elementary school, many children knew what their names meant early on. The biblically-named kids had it pretty easy, I thought; I knew like 12 Jakes by the first grade. I only went to school with one other Brett; in fact, he’s the only one I’ve known personally. Sadly for me, he was about 6’4 by the fifth grade. I wasn’t. Thereafter, I was known as little Brett.

Only later did I find out what my name really meant. I learned German in high school. I was watching some boring German-language show in class and I heard a reference to a “Sprungbrett.” The show was about gymnastics. Then the lady in the show pointed to a spring board. So I went home and got online. I searched for my name; of course, I found a lot of references to people with my name, and then I found a lot of websites in German. At first, I thought Germans really liked me! Then I realized that my name was really just a German word—so I looked it up. My parents’ initial hunch wasn’t too far off, if viewed rather abstractly—Germans would probably recognize “Brett” as something “strong”; unfortunately for me, that’s because “Brett” means “a board” or “a plank” in German. So a springboard is a Sprungbrett, etc.

For all intents and purposes, my name literally means “a piece of wood.” This led to some odd encounters in Germany. I’d show up at a friend’s house and he’d greet me with, “Hello, my American piece of wood!”

Of course, things don’t seem to be getting any easier now. It seems the Internet is no help here. What I mean is, it’d be a little embarrassing to explain to one’s child where their odd name came from if you got it from the Internet; imagine that conversation:

Child: Where did my name come from?

Parents (in unison): Um, babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com

Anyway, I’ve made a little progress in my own search; I’m leaning toward the names Oliver William Ortler and Sophia Ann Ortler (Sophie for short).What do you think, Mr. President?

Thanks, and take care,

Brett Ortler

This is letter #35 to President Obama. No response yet, but I will let everyone know. If you like them, please let your friends know and tell them to tell their friends. Also, feel free to leave comments and join my Letters To the President Facebook group here.

Letter to President Obama #34 | Subject: Food-scented shampoos, cleaning products, and shopping

Letter to President Obama #34 | Subject: Household Products and Consumer Protection

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing because I’ve heard a lot of talk about consumer protection in the news recently, and I’ve got a few questions about consumer items myself. First of all, I’ve got a general question about shampoo. I’ve noticed that a lot of shampoos for women smell like food—you name it, strawberries, apples, coconut. This doesn’t make a lot of sense; shampoo isn’t even edible (believe me, I’ve tried). It smells good, but tastes terrible, like a snack Willy Wonka was making just before he totally lost it.

Food-scented shampoos lead to strange encounters at the store too—for instance, I’ll be at a store somewhere and a woman will walk by and I’ll catch a whiff of her hair. Then I get hungry! Subconsciously, I’ll follow her for a few seconds before realizing that the object of my hunger is a human being. That’s a pretty disconcerting situation, Mr. President; there is a lot of self-guilt and shame involved when you realize that, for a moment, you were some sort of hair zombie or in the movie Alive.

Food-scented shampoos can also lead to misunderstandings at home. My girlfriend uses this crazy strawberry shortcake like shampoo; she washed her hair one night and walked into the living room and I smelled what I thought was dessert; the conversation went like this:

Me (excited): Did you make a surprise dessert for me?

Girlfriend: Um, no.

Me (still excited, thinking she was tricking me but really had made food after all): Oh. Well, why does it smell like strawberry shortcake in here? (coyly smiling)

Girlfriend: I washed my hair.

Me (confused, less excited, no longer smiling): Wait, what?

Girlfriend: The shampoo was strawberry-shortcake scented.

Me (sad, angry at the Unilever corporation): Oh, darn.

Needless to say, hair shouldn’t make me feel hungry, Mr. President; I’m already hungry enough as it is. I mean I have enough to contend with at most Targets and Wal-Marts; there’s that terribly addictive rotisserie chicken that they put right by the checkout (I bet that’s another wonderful product from Philip Morris), the veritable phalanx of Little Debbie Snacks (why is Little Debbie not fat?), and the array of candy bars within arm’s-length of every checkout.

In addition, I also have a general question about cleaning products. Whose idea was it to use sponges as cleaning implements? The idea of using an animal (and one from the ocean!) as a household product is strange—I’d never consider using a flounder as a doormat or a pickerel as a pitchfork. Part of me wonders what sponges would say about this; I guess we will never know, as we have no way to communicate with them. Then again, maybe they are more intelligent than we think. Perhaps they can read; they do spend a lot of time near elementary school room chalkboards.

Anyway, if we are going to continue the using sea-creatures-as-household-objects trend, I’ve always thought that squids and octopi would make good (and fun!) mops, and I’ve always thought we should give starfish a chance at astronomy.

In any case, let me know what you think about these ideas.

Take care,

Brett Ortler



This is letter #34 to President Obama. No response yet, but I will let everyone know. If you like them, please let your friends know and tell them to tell their friends. Also, feel free to leave comments and join my Letters To the President Facebook group here.

Letter To President Obama #33 | Subject: Hospitals

Letter To President Obama #33 | Subject: Hospitals

Dear President Obama,

In a recent letter I mentioned that I was at the hospital, as I had this reoccurring pain in my side. Well, the doctor diagnosed it as a muscle strain, but it took a while to figure that out. In the interim, I sat in the examination room wondering what could be wrong with me. I’m a bit of a hypochondriac to begin with and all the exam rooms at the hospital had these “Rate Your Pain From 1-10” scales plastered all over the place. I don’t know about you, but I find them pretty disconcerting; they’ve got these little stick figure guys depicting varying levels of pain and discomfort. The first guy looks OK, but then he’s gets progressively more unhappy, until it’s quite clear that he’s in unbearable pain.

I’ve always felt these drawings are incomplete. I’d like to know what exactly is happening in the foreground of those pictures. There are a number of possibilities; for instance, maybe we could make each picture its own frame and make it a comic strip. For instance, in one, we could place stick-figure man into a brick-lined room, and show him entering the room with a pair of men wearing fedoras. He is offered a chair and sits. He is asked a question but doesn’t answer. Then he is tied to the chair and he looks uncomfortable. Pretty soon, in picture #4 or #5 we see that one of the fedora guys has taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves and he’s rifling through a toolbox for some reason. At that point, smiley-face man is really hurting.

We could also make each have a corollary message. For instance, the one listed above could be pretty general, like “Don’t Steal From The Mob” or it could be more specific, for hospitals in New York City say, and read, “Watch out for the Gambinos!”

Anyway, while I was waiting, I started wondering what had happened to stick-figure man, and I immediately thought of science fiction movies and specifically, the movie Alien. It seemed to be an apt reference; the guy looks fine and is at breakfast and suddenly he’s get worse and worse, until he’s a goner and an alien is loose aboard the ship.

Because I’m a hypochondriac, I started wondering if that might be what was wrong with me. (My girlfriend texted me and said it was probably a wandering uterus, which I didn’t think was very nice.)

Only later did I learn that the Alien sort of thing happens in real life. I was reading a science article about this crazy species of insects that lays its eggs inside caterpillars, and when the larvae emerge they cause the caterpillar to writhe all over the place before dying, just like in Alien. I never thought I’d say this, but boy am I glad I’m not a butterfly.

In any case, please let me know what you think about my revisions to the pain level chart; if you agree, please forward them on to Health and Human Services.

Take Care,


Brett Ortler

P.S. This is letter #33 to President Obama. I'm writing one a day (or thereabouts) and sending them. I haven't received a response yet, but I will let everyone know if I hear back from him. In the interim, please tell your friends and send these letters along.

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