A Blast From the Past

Holidays are a good time to hear from people who are reconnecting from the past.  There are some I follow on Facebook, but rarely correspond with regularly. There are some who occasionally send a short email.  There are some who will call. And there are some who will send an update by USPS.  I really like the updates from people I do not hear from regularly, and appreciate the time and effort they make to correspond.

I, on the other hand, rarely send a note to update.  I do not call very many people regularly.  And I do not post much, especially personal, on Facebook.  Some folks read the Lisenby Lines, so that is my way of keeping in touch.  Those of you who do, you know who you are, and I thank you for doing so!

I Was Writing Christmas Cards Tonight

I was writing Christmas cards tonight.  For the most part, it was an easy project. But sometimes, Haiku interfered for reasons I could not fathom. She just wanted attention during the process. So, she got attention.  And, after a while Taki wanted attention, too. Her request involved a food treat, which was easy to provide.  Haiku's request was more difficult to decipher.  She seemed to just want attention.  I stopped the card writing process several times to just attend to her.  Even now that I am done for the night, Haiku wants attention, but I cannot figure out what to do to give her the attention she wants. I mean, I hold her, I pet her, and talk to her.  I play grab the pen games with her.  Really, the truth be known, she wants to sit on my chair at the computer.

Sending Emails

So, recently, I have sent some emails.   I sent an email to President Obama, supporting his efforts to provide emergency help and re-educate Central Americans regarding the immigration policies of the United States.  I agreed with him that we needed to do something to offer a humane response to the people coming from Central American with false expectations of humanitarian assistance from this country. I agreed we needed to provide humane aid, and we could not ignore the problem of the need of political asylum.  That could not we ignore the needs of the immigrants who made it to the United States. And that we needed to educate the citizens of the countries of Central America that the United States could not always offer the asylum they wanted.  On the other hand, we needed to be sensitive as a country to their dire and desperate needs for asylum.

It took several weeks, but I received a very canned form letter from the Office of the President. But, I did receive a response. By the time I received the response there were so many other emergency issues in the world, that the response seemed very anti-climactic.

Last week, I sent an email to the Prime Minister of Canada, The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P., expressing my condolences to the family of Corporal Nathan Cirillo, and to the Canadian peoples. I was horrified at the terroristic attacks on Canada, I received a response today.  I was surprised at receiving a response.  It, too was a "canned" response, but it was very timely, and lent the air of concern and interest.

Monday night, I sent an email to the mayor of Lubbock, http://www.ci.lubbock.tx.us/city-council/mayor Glen Robertson.  I had been at the Mahon Branch of the Library of the city of Lubbock, http://www.mylubbock.us/departmental-websites/departments/library/library-home.  The light in the primary parking lot of the library was out, and I was concerned about safety for library customers.  I sent an email to the mayor about that. I was astonished to receive a phone call from the mayor's office.

This was a bit of a misdirection phone call: The information was that the light had not been out long, the Lubbock Power and Light was having some difficulty getting it repaired, that the mayor's office was concerned about Library customer safety.  They would keep me advised.

Well, I understand it might take a few days to replace lights.

But Lubbock Power and Light is not getting any slack from me.  The incestuous political dealings in Lubbock have given Lubbock Power and Light free rein to misbehave, provide poor service, and to gouge citizens for electric service costs. They increase rates wantonly, and because the City of Lubbock voted to expel Excel http://www.xcelenergy.com/. there is no competition for LP&L.

So, anything the mayor's office tells me about the workings of LP&L is taken with a grain of salt.  The mayor's office said I would be apprised of the progress of getting the light fixed.  I think LP&L is "blowing smoke" to the mayor's office, and they are complicit with this. 

I will be agreeably surprised if this is not the case.  This is one email I can follow up on. 

Writing Letters

In high school, I discovered that if you send letters to politicians or corporations, there is a very good chance that you will receive a response.  I did not send spurious letters, but letters of interest to me.  And, I received responses. 

In the late 1980s, I discovered Lazlo Toth by Don Novello http://www.amazon.com/The-Lazlo-Letters-Don-Novello/dp/1563052857.  His letters were generally sent in jest, but he frequently received serious or satirical responses.  He has three books that you can find on the website, and that I own. 

Over the years, I got out of the habit of sending letters.  But, with the advent of the Internet, sending emails has become easy.  The sad part about that is that the volume of emails usually precludes a response, or the response is not timely, or so canned that it is meaningless.

But sending letters is still important.