HatCat’s Neighborhood

So recently my American Government class received an assignment in which we were to contact our three representatives - two senators and our district representative - about any federal issue of our choosing, and write to them. It was not required to bring in a response, however, I felt that mine warranted further inquiry. As you read the content of the discussion, you will quickly understand why.  I will post them in chronological order. If more follow at a later date, I will continue to post them as well.

My original message:

                                                                                                                                                 11-18-2009

David Worley

a.david.worley@gmail.com

Senator Murray, I am contacting you because I am a newly registered voter, and have recently obtained the legal age of majority in the USA, and am interested in gaining information on various issues of controversy now that I am able to vote.  I did not exercise my right to vote in the most recent election, as I did not feel I was properly informed on the issues.  Be that as it may, to remedy this in time for the next election, I am writing to the current senators of my state - Washington - as well as my district representative, and am questioning them on issues and topics that I feel interest me, or are pertinent to me in such defining way that they may influence my future votes. 

I took the liberty of viewing your public voting record and noted that in 1996 you apparently voted “yes”  on an issue regarding the definition of marriage.  You define marriage as something between only a man and a woman.  My question for you is how is it fair of you to discriminate against people of homosexual orientation, and not allow them the privilege of being married?  That is punishing them for being homosexual, something they have no choice over.  What gives you or the rest of the Senate for that matter, the right to punish a group of people for something they have no choice over?  Equal opportunities, and equal rights should be available for all individuals on all levels.  My next question is how can you remain a member of the democratic party if you are going to vote in a conservative direction?  How can you remain a democrat when you know that likely a majority of democrats would look down their noses at you for having voted the way that you did? 

Respectfully, I do hope that you provide me with an appropriate explanation to my questions.  I sincerely hope I have not offended you with my statements or questions.

I remain truly exhilarated while anticipating your response.

Regards,
David Worley

Her first and only response so far:

Dear Mr. Worley:
 
Thank you for writing me to share your thoughts on health care reform.  It is good to hear from you.
 
I believe that health care reform is one of the most critical issues facing our nation.  Our current health care system is unstable and unsustainable.  Too many people do not have health care coverage and many of those who have coverage are worried about losing it in this uncertain economy.  Businesses and families are finding it harder and harder to deal with increasing health care premiums.
 
In addition, Washington state family budgets cannot sustain the continual rise in health care costs and hidden taxes in the form of rising premiums to cover the uninsured.  If we do not get health care costs under control, local, state and federal government budgets will have to take on the weight of rising health care costs.  While health care reform may require an initial cost investment, it will pay off in the long term and the cost of letting the system become more unstable is much greater.  Without reform to our health care system, premiums will continue to rise, coverage will become more uncertain, businesses will lose competitiveness, and it will be harder for Americans to have access to care.
 
To address these issues, the Senate released the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on November 19, 2009.  This legislation lays out policy changes for health care reform in America.  This package works to rein in health care costs with a goal of lowering them in the long term and ensure that all Americans have access to high-quality, affordable health care coverage.  It allows those who like their health insurance to keep it and provides options to those who do not have access to health insurance coverage.
 
This bill also includes provisions to implement several key health insurance reforms.  For example, insurance companies would no longer be able to refuse coverage to individuals due to preexisting conditions, patients' out-of-pocket expenses would be limited and all annual and lifetime caps on insurance coverage would be eliminated.
 
In addition, an independent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office determined that this bill is fully paid for, will provide coverage to more than 94% of Americans, and will reduce the deficit by $127 billion over the next ten years.  This analysis shows the American people that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act saves money while extending the life of Medicare and putting patients first.
 
The House of Representatives passed their own version of health care reform on November 7, 2009.  There is still a lot of debate and work to be done on health care reform legislation and as the Senate moves forward on health care reform legislation, I will be weighing the many concerns that I am hearing from constituents all across Washington state.  As this effort continues, I will certainly keep your thoughts in mind.
 
For more information, the Senate health care reform bill can be found on my website at: http://murray.senate.gov/healthcarereform/
 
I hope all is well in Walla Walla.

Sincerely,
Patty Murray
United States Senator

My second message to her, in reply to her ignorance.

                                                                                                                              12-1-09
David Worley

a.david.worley@gmail.com

Dear Senator Murray: I recently wrote to you, concerning an aged topic, though still relevant to my interests, and decision making process, and that topic was the Defense of Marriage Act, of 1996. 

I questioned your right to prevent two people from being married, as well as your party membership in the democratic party. The issue I wrote on had absolutely nothing to do with the recent issues of healthcare and healthcare reform.

I am extremely offended that you have the audacity to respond to me when you have clearly not read, or taken into account what I actually questioned you on, and are instead informing me of your current views on healthcare reform.  It was entirely inappropriate of you to respond in this manner, and I currently expect your appropriate response to the issues in question.

The message you wrote to me as an initial response is attached, along with my original message.

Thank you for your continued consideration,
-David Worley

I'm done shopping and I think I covered all the basics but want to make sure I didn't forget something obvious. (I've been known to do that.)

First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!

The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.

A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.

Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.

On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.

And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!

~ daisy

 

As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.

The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.

When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.

It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.

Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.

As always, thanks for your patience.

~daisy

It's so tiny..and green!

Go forth and fill your libraries with media.

Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.

~daisy

She's probably tripping Saint Peter down the stairs as we speak!

While it's sad, it's not surprising. She was 536 years old. Strangely enough, DeWitte and I were talking about it and neither one of us has ever had a cat die of old age before. That's probably because we always had indoor/outdoor cats growing up and they'd either get hit by a car or run away. They only let you dress them up in your doll clothes so many times before they feel the need to take up residence in a less humiliating household.

She was a mean old grouchy bat of a cat who attempted to murder me often but I'll miss her anyway. Now we've gotta tell Nathan. This isn't gonna be pretty. He's never known a life without Cleo and he's a major cat person so this is just gonna kill him. Too bad they don't let you take time off for the death of a pet...I'll have to wait until after homework and piano then maybe DeWitte and I can do it together.

So, around 5:30, I asked DeWitte where his fancy "see in the dark" video camera, that I bought him just for Halloween night, I might add, was so that I'd be ready. He said that the battery was dead and he didn't know where the charger was. He was too busy to stop to look for it and I looked where he thought it might be but no luck...so I used the Flip video camera instead. It does not see in the dark so I followed one of my Mom's from school through because her kids all have on glow necklaces. There's kind of a dead spot right in the middle, they were going down a dead end and I didn't follow and can't figure out how to edit that part out to save my life because I'm tech-savvy like that.  Anyway, so you can't see much but you can hear it.

It was the best year ever. 364 people came in about 2 1/2 hours. That's a hundred more than last year.

My neighbor kid painted this on the front because he's awesome like that!

The view from my bedroom window

Nathan (the clown) and my niece (the beast) heading out trick or treating. The other two kids were part of the crew.

Various rooms in the maze

I didn't have anyone to wear one of my new masks. I paid $50 for that thing, someone was gonna wear it so DeWitte wore it in the chain saw room. :)

It's true, I had my own Halloween Miracle occur this very morning and it happened right in my very own bedroom! (No worries..this is very rated G) For weeks I've been looking for my Jack mask (Latex prosthetic masks are really expensive or I wouldn't care). Somehow, I didn't put it away with the rest of the stuff last year. I'd known where it was..and I remember when I moved it, I just couldn't remember where I moved it to. We went through every box in the garage, the studio next to the garage and the apartment over the garage (DeWitte keeps a lot of boxes of stuff)..nothing. This morning, I woke up and saw Nathan's see-thru engine model box in the corner of my room..which got moved the same time my mask did..and sure enough, there it was! Now Nathan can wear a big boy mask this year after all! :D

Speaking of Nathan, he wanted to be my Spider Man..I thought he just wanted to be in the maze but no. He figured he'd get to keep all the left over silly string and if he was the Spider, he could conserve it and keep the rest for himself. "A little squirt for you, a little squirt for you, 35 cans of silly string for me!" I don't think so, Clark.

We've got a cool new thing we're trying this year. We're having a moving wall on one of the dead ends that can close after someone goes down that path. When they come back the way they came, it'll seem like they're stuck...and hopefully a little panicky.

Half a dozen Fire Fighters came down to our house last night and asked if they could go through the maze. I was kinda worried they'd be looking for fire code infractions but no, they just wanted to play. I turned all the effects back on and turned them loose. They had a ball running around scaring each other and getting lost. Afterward, they told me we should charge admission..which we can't do because then we would have to comply with the fire codes and that many extension cords can't be legal! I planned to ask for donations, though, to give to my PTA.

Hope everyone has a great Halloween!

I don't think I showed you guys this last year..I couldn't find the video of if I did anyway. This is our Jack-In-The Box..he's the distraction in the room that gets your attention while the real Jack sneaks up behind you. (He's not so scary in the light but glowing under the black lights with creepy Monkey Chased the Weasel music..he is.)

DeWitte made him work with the air compressor, a screen door closer and a switch. How he did that, I have no idea..I just tell him what I need and he makes it for me because DeWitte's awesome like that.