An Open Letter To Robert F. Kennedy Jr. From A Reader

"At Last, I See A Leader Who Stands Up For The Wee Things, The Tadpoles and The Fish and The Birds and The Soil Microbes, And The Salt Of The Earth People…" By Emily Peyton

I had not reflected on these lyrics since I was 13, in Örebro, Sweden, probably sitting on the sofa in the bleak apartment of Raimo Siltala, my Finnish friend, who played the song over and over, drinking straight vodka, railing against the Swedish welfare state in ways that were over my head, until finally, he fell asleep. I would place a blanket over h…