I try not to get embroiled in politics or discussions that touch in any way on politics for the most part because I have well thought-out but strange political views, and they take a long time to explain to anyone. For instance they have taken nearly three years to explain to El Yo alone. But circumstances here force me to comment, if only briefly on how life is whacking me upside the head with political science.

First of all, The Guardian has a piece here by Jessica Cutler, the infamous Senate staffer who lost her job after keeping a blog of her sex life for all the world to see. I'm not going to comment on why she lost her job and whether that was blah blah blah faircakes, but instead I draw your attention to the following quote from the Guardian article:

"Imagine dropping your diary on the street somewhere, and the next day, it's world news. That's what happened to me several days ago. Except, I posted my diary on a blog."

Oh where to begin. Okay. Wow. Ma'am? Ma'am. Here's the difference between keeping a diary that you can carry around with you and drop, and keeping a blog: the Publish button. It's not that you "dropped" your sex diary exactly and it was found and published against your will, it's that you went out and whanged people over the head with it. Please don't think we don't notice that the URL for said diary appears no less than three times in the article. Work with me.

Second, later on in the article, Cutler talks about opening constituents' letters and either throwing them away or making fun of them with her coworkers. As an avid writer of letters to my representatives (shocked? anyone? no?), I am torn between being disenchanted, being only mildly surprised, and wanting to throw Cutler into a pond full of giardia and leeches.

"Letter-writing is a huge waste of time, energy and tax dollars, on everybody's part. I realise that I played my part in this waste, so I would like to take this opportunity to put an end to it by telling you to please stop writing letters to politicians. It makes absolutely no difference to anybody. Also, stop calling their offices. It's so annoying."

Aaaaand the leeches win. Is this seriously what happens to the earnest missives of the American people? I was under the impression that writing to your representative was one of the last bastions of individual participation in government. No? Is it all a tremendous waste of time and energy? I don't give two wet voles about the appropriateness of Cutler's sex blog. I honestly do not care whether she got nailed by four sailors, a goat, and the ex-Presidents Clinton, Carter and Nixon simultaneously on Senator DeWine's desk (and I haven't read her blog, so I don't know if she didn't), but I do care about a Senate staffer who trashes constituents' letters and is annoyed by their calls to the office.

And I understand that not everyone loves their jobs, and everyone's heard horror stories about long hours, lecherous congresspersons and whatnot, but seriously: is this what's happening to all constituent mail? I need answers. Or perhaps valium, so I can calm my reactionary self down about this. Then again I am a dirty brown little naturalized immigrant, so I may be having some difficulty with the language.

Luckily I live in Vermont, where contact with congresspersons is facilitated not only by having their names, addresses and home phone numbers on the Vermont government website, but also by finding them drinking next to you in a bar. Which apparently was the case a couple nights ago for El Yo and I.

We went out for a post-prandial beer at one of the local watering holes (for local people) and noticed one of the cars in the parking lot had the nifty House plates on. Now, we're unsure which of our duly appointed representatives was quaffing with us (well, next to us) but as all six people in the bar were rooting for the Yankees it was obviously the Communist one. (Note to VT Congresspeople: so kidding. Mwah crazy VT Congresspeople.) I have no idea, but hopefully I can get up to speed on this, so I can publish on my blog which of our duly elected representativess is a Miller Lite fan. Scandal!

Vermont vocabulary: