calling your representative is weird

Over the last few years, I've written a bunch of email to Mike Honda, Dianne Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer, my elected representatives in Congress, asking them to vote one way or another on some bill - you know, stop torture, avoid war, preserve basic human rights. It's okay. I write a paragraph or three, as eloquently as I can; it makes me feel like I've spoken my mind, and in time, someone on the elected official's staff scans it for keywords, possibly marks a tally somewhere, and sends me a form letter in his or her name, vaguely related to the topic I so carefully addressed.

(One exception: the time when Feinstein's office responded to a call for impeachment, verbosely founded on the administration's disregard for both statute and the Constitution, by arguing that the 9/11 Commission had no evidence that Bush was behind the attack on the World Trade Center. Which, of course, had nothing to do with my letter.)

( Then one day, everything changed. )