Free and Easy e-mail...

Ever tried to e-mail any senators? Know how difficult it can be, if you want to contact more than one of them?

I tried it out today. Many, perhaps most, have so-called web-forms for e-mail. What that means in practice is that instead of having the convenience of your e-mail tool of choice for communication, what you get is a web page on which you can compose a message after you provide full and detailed contact information about yourself. Oh, and the message must be kept to fewer than 10,000 characters.

Senators appear not to think much of their constituents. So when next you go to vote, keep that in mind. They need to work a good deal harder for the people who put them in office, and spend a lot less time wasting time and money on foolishness such as filibusters in committee.

In the meantime, I would like to suggest that as many as possible write to their senators and representatives, and lodge their complaints with that system, and insist on simple e-mail addresses. They are so fond of referring to what they do as serving the people that I believe we should let them. But what that should mean is serving in a way satisfactory to citizens, not to themselves, nor to their office staff.