dear barack

i hung out with an out-of-work carpenter last night, and today can't help thinking that a lot of that government bailout money for haiti might be well-spent sending a planeload or two or six or eleventy-seven of such folks down there for spring break with a container ship or two or six full of construction materials. we could house 'em in some of your army-issued quonset barracks down by the beach, and have the logistics guys give 'em three squares and some cash for the weekends in return for putting a few hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of people who really need it back in some decent accommodations. on the flight back you could even hand out some dearly-needed bonuses for a job well done along with their regular well-earned and dearly-needed paychecks. best part for you is that i can't imagine anybody would be able to complain at all about that kind of policy, even for the yahoos with those crimson R's on their name badges.

what da ya say?

i'd be happy for you to steal the idea, and i wouldn't even want you to mention where you got it when you bring it up in your state of the union address--full credit to the guy who can make it happen.