Dear DonateBarackObama.Com,

I am honored (as always) that you have taken the time to include me in your plans and consider me worthy of personal consideration as you work so diligently to further the goals of the administration and re-election campaign.  However, (and it pains me to have to say this) your communications strategies and techniques baffle me and as a fellow member of the intrusive communications industry I hope you'll consider this note in the spirit of constructive criticism.

Reprinted below(BOLD)  is a copy of your most recent missive.  My comments are italicized...

--Richard -  Puleeez,  'Dear valued supporter' would more than suffice. Sarah Jessica Parker is a loving mom, an incredibly hard worker,  and a great role model. She's one of those people you can't help but admire.

Well good for her, but what does Sarah Jessica Parker have to do with job creation, Mid-East war and peace, giving Chief justice Roberts a spanking or any other issues that I might even remotely associate with the administration of the Executive branch of the United States government. Besides, I don't know what kind of mom Ms. Parker is and I don't really think you do either. And I don't want to hear (and I suspect there are others like me)  that she's ('incredibly' no less) hard working?  Hard working?  She's a TV/Movie star.  They're the highest paid and least hard working people on the planet. And did you say 'role model'?  Okay, she is a model of sorts, but her greatest claim to fame is the portrayal of an entitled shopaholic status obsessed urbanite for whom the cost of a pair of shoes is equivalent to the average american's weekly paycheck. And I 'can't help but admire her'? Yes I know there's no escaping the culture of celebrity...but on the other hand, why wallow in it?  Couldn't you raise the same kind of money without such a silly display of star struck banality? Oh you couldn't?  Ok then, never mind. 
Barack and I are thrilled that we're invited for an evening at her home in New York next week.
And I'm thrilled for you too.  I know how little time you have for such special treats.
And I'm hoping you'll be there, too, along with whoever you'd like to bring. Tonight at midnight is the deadline to enter. 
I said it before and I'll say it again.  Stop.  Just stop.  I do this stuff for a living and even for something as mundane as a TV show, we hesitate to stoop to sweepstakes and contests to rustle up business for fear of debasing the quality of our product--so stop with this lucky lottery stuff-- besides, with all your sophisticated marketing technology, it's hard to believe that your system hasn't already taken me off your list and filed me under:  Poor responder/poor supporter/ or just plain poor.
Chip in $3 or whatever you can to this campaign, and you'll be automatically entered to win --transportation and hotel included:
Transportation and hotel included? Why didn't you say so in the first place. Hey, if 3 bucks (or whatever I can?) get's me a free trip and hotel accommodations, then count me in. Oh, wait a minute, I forgot.  It simply gives me a chance at all that. And what kind of chance would that be? One in a Hundred thousand? A million? Can I place a bet on the Belmont Stakes with you? 
Thanks for all you do for Barack,
Oh, don't mention it.
Michelle

Oh yeah, right.  This really bugs me cause I really like (the real) Michelle, and I suspect that if she read this letter you wrote in her name she would have you all sent off to work on Libyan Government Public Relations.  Hey folks, she's a busy woman and has entrusted you with an important job, the least you could do is respect her enough to bring it up the kind of standards that might make her tolerant of your knucklehead tactics even if outright pride would be out of the question. 

I hope when you receive this note you are too engaged in more productive pursuits to give it much of your attention, let alone even read it.  But like you, I too like to fill page after page with digital ink regardless of whether or not anyone cares or it makes any kind of difference.  In that regard (alone) we are cut much from the same threadbare cloth.


Sincerely, 
Your still loyal fellow citizen with one vote (unless you have any clue as to how I might multiply that...)
The Drifter. 

If you noticed, I called out Chief Justice John Roberts above.  And that's cause I read this piece last week in The New Yorker 

ANNALS OF LAW

Money Unlimited

How Chief Justice John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision.


link below: 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/21/120521fa_fact_toobin

If you want a small carrot to get you chasing after more, consider that after reading this piece you will better understand how a highly educated, seemingly sane and reasonably civilized man who carries the burden of the duties of the highest judicial post on earth could come to the conclusion that as it relates to the first amendment of the constitution--a corporation has rights equal to those of an individual.  Actually, the most compelling thing about this article is that after all you learn, you still can't believe that this is actually what our high court chief truly believes.  And Toobin does a fine job in spelling it all out.   

My kind of hero. The night before he blanked  the St. Louis Cardinals with  the no-hitter that some thought would never come to the Amazins of Flushing--let alone come from a guy who missed an entire year to recover from major shoulder surgery - Johan Santana was helping former teammate Carlos  Beltran, now a Cardinal, raise money to build a baseball  academy in Beltran's native Puerto Rico.

Doc Watson.  RIP
Bluegrass music is a world unto itself and requires a set of skills that are technically demanding and require a hell of a lot of practice.  A few years ago I heard Watson do his version of Deep River Blues, and I was so hooked on it
that I spent a few months with it every day until I got someplace close to getting it right.  I still give it a go from time to time and it's a helluva workout.  I think I posted a video of it some months back, so I'll bid farewell to the fine flatpicking fella with this one
with David Grisman and Jack Lawrence.  Grisman is all over it  (as one would expect from a true virtuoso) but Doc gets his licks in too at about the 1:20 mark.  For those dubious about the challenges of this music, consider that in 2010 Doc was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by The Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Oh, and Doc once said something that actually makes a lot of sense, especially for a Bluegrass player...

"I'd think learning to play the guitar would be very confusing for sighted people."