Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 7, 1993 TAG: 9304070124
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I'VE GOT SOME NEWS FOR CONGRESSIONAL NEWSLETTER FOLKS
If you are among the many Americans who would just as soon not get newsletters from your congressmen, I may be able to help.I'd like to have about five minutes in the alley with the guy who invented the congressional newsletter.
I'm just not particularly interested in that town meeting Rep. Malvolio is having at 7 p.m. April 14 at the Gushing Meadows Elementary School cafeteria.
Or that he has been instrumental in passing a bill protecting the Leather-Lunged Bandicoot.
I don't wish to see pictures of Sen. Balderdash using a gold-colored shovel to break ground for the new commuter parking lot in Happy Valley, for which he got $350 in federal money through selfless work for his constituents.
I'm especially not interested in seeing pictures of Sen. Balderdash, wearing a safari jacket while in Lower Transylvania during a fact-finding tour for the Senate Select Committee on Vampirism in the 20th century.
What we do, then, is write our own newsletter and send it to those guys.
We'll have articles like this:
"While Sen. Balderdash was junketing in Lower Transylvania, his constituents, the Chumleys, were trying to survive until they got their tax refund, which wasn't as much as they thought it should be.
"Aristotle Chumley, the head of the household, held a news conference in his backyard and told family members that he doubted if he would vote for Sen. Balderdash again.
" `It's very nice to have the Happy Valley commuter parking lot,' Chumley said. `Except everybody around here doesn't have a job to commute to. We'd rather have had some groceries.' "
We use a picture or two - of loving family members starving to death, maybe, or old people being mistreated while standing in line to make copies of their medical bills down at the public library.
We could have a notice that said revolutionists interested in violent change for the better in America are meeting May 2 at 6:30 p.m. on the Happy Valley commuter parking lot.
We could change the text a little bit and send essentially the same thing to Rep. Malvolio, adding the question of why he should be fooling around with the Leather-Lunged Bandicoot when people are out of jobs.
You see what we're doing here, don't you? It's simple blackmail. When the congressman's staff person calls up to protest, you make a deal.
One had washes the other. That kind of thing. You don't send me newsletters, I don't send you newsletters.