Dealing with E-Mail

Dealing with E-Mail
Friday, August 3, 2012
by Burt Prelutsky

A few years ago, most of the email I received from strangers involved Nigerians who wanted nothing out of life except to shower me with money. These days, I am besieged by politicians of both parties who want me to share those Nigerian dollars with them, but I also apparently embody every woman’s sexual fantasy, be she Russian, Hispanic or just happen to reside within my Zip Code.

Who would have guessed that so many women were just aching to get it on with a short, bald, 72 year old, happily-married, Jewish guy? When hair began to sprout in my nose, my ears and on my back, I assumed it would be the ultimate turnoff, but apparently I am exactly what these hotties are looking for. So perhaps a decent sense of humor does count for more than height, good looks and money in the bank. Who would have guessed it?

But when it comes to politicians, I draw the line. It’s not just that I resent being pestered by Democrats, either; I don’t like it any better when I’m targeted by Republicans. The problem is that while they don’t think twice about approaching someone who lives 3,000 miles away for campaign contributions, I can’t even send an email to a representative whose district abuts the one in which I live.

Just recently, because my congressman is the very liberal Brad Sherman, I decided to share a few thoughts with Rep. Buck McKeon, a conservative congressman whose district ends about two blocks from my house. Because I was obliged to type in my address at his site, I was blocked from leaving him a message.

It’s bad enough that I can’t communicate with Mitt Romney, but I’m not yet paying his salary. But when you can’t send an email to a congressman or a senator, whose votes greatly affect the life you lead, simply because you don’t get to vote in their elections, I say they have a lot of gall constantly asking me to donate to their campaigns.

I can sympathize with John Boehner, Paul Ryan and the other Republican members of the House, and I share their frustration when Harry Reid prevents their budgets and other bills from reaching the floor of the U.S. Senate. Still, I hope they keep in mind once they regain control of the White House and Senate that being opposed to the liberal agenda doesn’t quite cut it.

The only reason that the Democrats were able to push through ObamaCare was because the Republicans did nothing to overhaul health insurance when they held the reins of power between 2001 and 2007. They didn’t allow people to purchase policies with health insurers across state borders, they did nothing about tort reform, and they didn’t prevent insurance companies from dropping people who contracted life-threatening diseases.

Instead, they played footsies with the likes of Russ Feingold, and hoped they got to have lunch with the cool kids and be invited to the prom by Ted Kennedy.

It’s not my intention to pile on the insurance industry, but it was over 30 years ago that I wrote a TV docudrama about an actual person, an old man who sued a major insurance company. It seems that he needed a new pair of glasses, but the company, which at the time focused most of its attention on insuring large groups of retired Americans, had arbitrarily rewritten millions of such policies and no longer covered eye tests.

To make up for that lapse, they expanded their coverage to include pre-natal care. The jury, which fortunately included a great many people in their 60s and 70s, didn’t see the humor in that. As a result, they awarded the gentleman a two million dollar judgment.

Over the ensuing three decades, as we all know, Republican politicians did absolutely nothing to improve the lousy system. Well, if this coming November, they take back the White House and the Senate, while hanging on to control of the House, we’ll be expecting them to do more than whine about those nasty liberals.

I’m sure it will be very tempting to take a page out of the left-wing playbook and blame everything on Obama, just as the libs have blamed everything but my lower back pain on Bush, but that simply won’t cut it.

It’s high time that the Republicans got to work earning their fat salaries and their even fatter perks and pensions.

Actually, it’s way past time they stopped acting as if their sole obligation in Congress is to prevent the Democrats from getting the biggest offices, the largest staffs and the lion’s share of pork and graft.
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.