Prefatory note: All I wanted to do was send a fax to both my senators expressing my dismay with the prescription drug "benefit" that I, soon to become 65, will be forced to deal with in the next few months.
John Cornyn, the more obnoxious of my two senators, who combines the arrogance once found only in Prussian junker aristocracy with social views well to the right of Otto von Bismarck, tries to make it as difficult as possible for a constituent to contact him. His fax was busy. His fax, in my experience, is always busy.
So, next I try to email him. His email form, even more complicated now than the last time I gave his office my input, demands that I provide a phone number, and pick from a list of 40 or so options as to what kind of street (road, lane, trail, footpath, etc) I live on. Clearly he hopes I will give up and go away.
But, being retired and persistent, I did not.
And, having a blog, albeit a low-traffic one, I will greatly multiply the number of readers (maybe by 2 or 3) of this missive to Senator Cornyn, which would otherwise be restricted to one senate intern, at best.
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Dear Senator Cornyn:
I am 3 months away from turning 65. I am writing to protest the unbelievable and essentially incomprehensible Medicare drug "benefit" passed by Congress a year or so ago.
I have discovered that, in practice, I would need both a lawyer and an MBA specialist in cost-benefit analysis to make any kind of rational decision on how to navigate through this hideous maze.
It is awful.
It is incomprehensible.
You should see the mail I am receiving from companies anxious to take my money as part of this supposed "benefit." The information I get is contradictory, insanely complicated, and I have NO IDEA WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. Neither does anyone else in my situation.
This makes me really angry, and I certainly consider you, as well as the other senator from Texas, to be personally responsible for it.
You and your senatorial colleagues have _very_ generous lifetime pensions, not to mention lifetime medical care, provided by the taxpayer.
Meanwhile, we, the taxpayers, get this "BENEFIT" that is anything but a benefit--it fact it is a disgrace and an outrage.
And I am outraged.
Sincerely,
Jim McCulloch
P.S. Also, your email form gets more and more obnoxious. Is it your way of saying screw you to your constituents, especially those of us who do not wish to be categorized as Mister or Mistress or Right Reverend, or the Honorable Grand Wizard, and who moreover do not wish to offload our phone numbers into Republican phone banks?
REQUIRING our phone numbers? No thanks.
And when you say screw you to your constituents, one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, they will say it to you in return.
P.P.S. And just why in the HELL do you demand that I scroll through dozens of options to select "Road" as a separate part of my address, in your incredibly detailed list of options (kind of like the alleged drug benefit) for the kind of byway one lives on, rather than just TYPE IT IN? Are you crazy? Are you just trying to make it as difficult as humanly possible for anyone other than a lobbyist like Jack Abramoff (who probably has your personal pager anyway) to contact you?
Please explain.
Yes, I know. Republicans never explain. It seems to be point of honor amongst you, and I understand it also helps avoid indictments.
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