dear congress

I've been mouthing lately about writing letters to my elected officials and there are so many of them from president right down to county commissioner and school board member. I don't have much of a dog in either of those last two fights so I'm aiming mine at the Congress of the United States. You people were elected by your constituents mostly on face recognition from TV commercials or signs and mostly not by people who know what you stand for. They trust you blindly because of party lines and then are disappointed when you don't represent what THEY believe instead of putting your own agendas first. Here's the skinny, like it or not. We have been in three wars now over access to foreign oil to put into our highly inefficient combustible engines. Alternatives do indeed exist but the giants who control the whole deal want to keep the whole rape the public thing going. When I read about the tar sands in Arkansas and remembered what you are trying to do to us and Canada, I wanted to puke. Notice that I didn't leave out Desert Storm as an oil based skirmish. It is insane to think that we can keep damaging the earth and expect it to be there for our children. Alternative sources of energy are a must and the forces of evil don't want them to be developed.

I understand your hesitance to recognize a civil union when considering benefits and whatnot. It's new territory and there's a long fight ahead for that to happen because corporate won't condone it because it costs them money. HOWEVER...whatever your race, sex, creed or sexual preference everyone is guaranteed the freedom to love whomever and whenever they want unless it infringes upon YOUR rights. If you don't like it...avoid it. Attempting to pass a law that makes anal and oral sex illegal is a little bit like a law against adultery. Big Ernie made that one, by the way. You and your cronies did not.

Roe v Wade was a done deal in 1973 following years of women's health crisis calls over botched abortions by back alley practitioners. If it is a state's right to say no to legal abortion, then they should figure on a big increase in the welfare rolls and budget accordingly. By the way, I would not live in that kind of state. Tennessee might be redneck, but there's enough hippie blood around here to keep things stirred up. That the governor of TN has failed to participate in setting up an exchange for you-know-who-care says volumes. Preventive health and access to such is the future of healthcare. Obesity is an epidemic in this country and it's a whole lot because we eat processed food that is packed with additives and drive our oil powered big ass cars instead of walking. Just sayin'.

The gun thing is being talked to death ever since Newtown and Aurora but it started long before that. When BG was at Dyersburg State some nut job off the street wandered in and held a whole class hostage with a firearm. Now, it happens every day somewhere. Mental health is an area that needs serious attention and not in the way that corporate healthcare usually approaches things. The EPA at my employer provides five visits with a therapist at no cost to help keep me same enough to hold my job while the world collapses around me. It has kept me from climbing the water tower on numerous occasions. That type of benefit is a perk that most people don't have and I totally appreciate it. My past, while full of the usual hurts and pains, is nothing compared with the abuse that many people live with. From that comes abuse of numerous kinds of habits to try to fill up that empty spot. Co-dependency is rampant yet is never addressed as a mental health issue unless you end up in drug court or rehab. It's a never ending cycle.

I want the military of our country to focus on our safety here at home and work on our infrastructure just in case little Kim gets crazy or the drug lords in Mexico decide to take over the US. Our response to natural disasters, as a country, has been quite sub-par (Katrina,Sandy,etc.) so if you want the states to take care of that, help them out with the bill and make it sooner rather than later. Otherwise, they will all recede and pull guns on you. We are at a turning point here sort of like in the Old Testament days when God got really mad and wiped the whole slate clean because he was so pissed at the idiots. It happened more than once, you know.

I expect to be represented as a US citizen in ways that empower me to have a hopeful future, one where there are jobs in my own country rather than halfway around the world. I expect big banks to be prosecuted by the AGs office and fined accordingly, using the money to feed the poor and homeless HERE rather than those in Africa. I admire your efforts Clooney, but we've got our own problems on the table and it doesn't look good for honest hard working men and women who just want to enjoy life. As for my social security and medicare benefits, if you use them to fund another war or pay another lobbyist, I will personally hunt you down like a dog and ye shall know the wrath of Poopie.

Sincerely yours,

Janie Poopster