Dear Mr President

Everybody’s Gulf War Syndrome is a little bit different. Or so believes Larry, who returns home from Desert Storm to find his hair gone and his bones rapidly disintegrating. Then there’s Lance Corporal James Laverne of the US Marines, who grows a third ear in Kuwait. And in the audaciously comic novella “Notes from a Bunker Along Highway 8,” a Green Beret deserts his team after seeing a vision of George Washington, only to find a new calling—administering aid to wounded Iraqi civilians; he’s hindered only by the furtive nature of his mission and an unruly band of chimpanzees. Together these narratives form a bracing amalgamation of devastating humor and brilliant cultural observation, in which Gabe Hudson fearlessly explores the darker implications of American military power.

Dear Mr. President presents a delirious potpourri of 87 letters, written by people from all walks of life, from children to the working man to the very famous. This carefully selected batch of letters includes the letter from a ten year old Fidel Castro to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 requesting ten bucks; an offer from Annie Oakley to President McKinley to raise a company of fifty American lady sharpshooters in the event of a war with Spain; a scrawled note on American Airlines in flight letterhead from Elvis Presley to Richard Nixon offering his services to fight the Hippie Elements; and a very moving letter about the state of civil rights from Jackie Robinson to President Eisenhower. The letters themselves are reproduced where possible as full size facsimiles and are accompanied with commentary to help the reader place them within historical events. Some archival photos also run with the letters, in cases where the writer and the President were photographed together.

One boy's appeal for justice in the form of a dividing wall

In "Dear Mr. President...Reagan/Gorbachev and the Correspondences that Ended the Cold War", historian Jason Saltoun-Ebin sheds new light on the end of the Cold War by presenting, in many cases for the first time, the top-secret correspondence between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that started the first day Gorbachev came to power. Saltoun-Ebin shows, through this private correspondence, that the most important reason for the end of the Cold War was simply the trust that Reagan and Gorbachev built through their letters. Although Reagan and Gorbachev at first found little to agree upon, they started the path towards the end of the Cold War by agreeing that despite their differences, they would continue to correspond. From when Gorbachev took office on March 11, 1985 till Reagan left the presidency in January 1989, the two most powerful leaders in the world exchanged over forty letters. It was this dialogue -- this decision that they could individually make a difference -- more than anything that led to the cooling of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union and then the end of the Cold War. Trusting did not come easy for either of them. The letters presented in "Dear Mr. President..." show, once again, that the pen is mightier than the sword.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Musicology, grade: 1,0, University of Vienna (Institut für Musikwissenschaft), course: VO Gender, Race and Social Justice in Anglo-American Popular Music, language: English, abstract: [...] For my analysis I have chosen the song Dear Mister President by Pink which is a direct criticism of President George W. Bush. The first time I heard it, I was really impressed by it because the song is very critical and provoking, but the music is in a slow way and creates a very reflective and melancholic atmosphere which makes it a very touching song for me. The music of the song is, as just mentioned, very slow, just going along with the text, so you really have to listen to the words and are not distracted by it. This song was one of the most important songs on her album called I’m not dead and it is an open letter to the former President of the United States George W. Bush. It was written on Martin Luther King Day in 2005, but released for the first time in 2007. An interesting fact is that this song has won the Amadeus Austrian Music Award as the best international single of the year. [...]

An educated, inquisitive young girl in Philadelphia corresponds with President Thomas Jefferson about current events, including the Lewis and Clark expedition, new inventions, and life at Monticello.