> Do you have an indication that actual US Postal letters
> are more effective than contacting congresscritters
> electronically?

Short Answer:
-------------

Yes.
Without a doubt.
Fer sure.
The Bee Labs are worth a stamp.
'Nuff said.


Slightly More Humorous Answer:
-----------------------------

Well, what do YOU think, given that the
current President said, in his second
Presidential debate in 2004:

"I hear there's rumors on the, uh, internets..."

Clearly, politicians are not as hip and kewl
as you and I, don't instant message their kids
to call them for dinner, and have no idea that
their cell phones can pull up web pages.

So, communicate with them in a manner that they
are comfortable with if you want to influence
them.

Recall that the annual Budget of the USA itself
is several inches thick, printed in toxic
chemicals on compressed dead trees and distributed
to thousands of people who will never even open it.
So, your tax dollars are wasted just to document how
your tax dollars are going being wasted.

Clearly, they like paper.


More Serious And Much Longer Answer:
------------------------------------

I know a few congresscritters. They stop by at Farmageddon for
coffee, my wife's locally-famous baked goods, and the maximum
donations allowed by law, so I hear more than a little about
their technological assets from their rants and whines about
"the office" and "the computers".  (Not that I help them much,
I'm not into computers being used for mere administrivia.)

Now that the hardware and procedures are in place to quickly
process all mail and keep anthrax (both the disease
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/anthrax_g.htm
and the rock band http://anthrax.com , I am told) out of
the Capitol, we are back to the "normal" status of best
influencing elected officials through the use of paper.

Yes, paper.  Compressed dead trees painted with toxic
petrochemical byproducts, cheerily hand-carried by
quaintly dressed civil servants who are civil in the
extreme from any address in the country to any other
address in the country for one flat price.

Better yet, HAND-WRITTEN letters on paper, not even typed.
Best of all, letters showing actual style and panache in
penmanship, so get a female to do the writing for you
in fountain pen.

While every elected official LOVES e-mail, and many
encourage constituents to use e-mail, they like it
because it allows them to run software auto-responders
that scan your e-mail for keywords, and e-mail you back
a canned "thoughtful" response that you might think was
a personal reply.  Thus, using e-mail permits them to
ignore you and your request while still seeming "responsive".

Another problem with e-mail is "astro-turf", the inciting of an
organized group to "e-mail your representative" with thousands
of amazingly similarly-worded messages, created by some web site
somewhere with little more than contact information added by those
who participate.  Any significant e-mail "count" on a specific
issue runs the risk of being dismissed as "astro-turf", the
work of a special-interest group rather than individual concerned
voting consituents.

Paper on the other hand, postcards, letters, faxes, whatever,
are impossible to ignore.  If it is mail from a constituent,
it requires a reply by mail (unless you are foolish enough to
include your e-mail address on the paper communication, which
means that you will be certain to get a "canned" e-mail response).

People have to handle and process paper.  It MEANS more.
Staff members NOTICE paper mail, and will call the
congresscritter's attention to it more readily. Anyone
can hit "send", but how many are willing to go find a
stamp any more?  Answer: people who really, truly care,
and expect their elected representatives to not just care,
but to deliver. You can't flood an office with e-mail, the
bits just go onto a disc drive somewhere.  You CAN flood
an office with paper.  You really oughta wanna.

So, if you want to support something near and dear to your
heart like the Bee Labs, the better tool is a simple postcard.
No "security problem" at all, and the small space forces you
to keep your message brief and to the point.

But one postcard won't do, you need a buncha folks to send
postcards.  Like all in the same week.  To the same guys.
Like the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee,
Bob Goodlatte of Roanoke, VA and Ranking Minority Member
Collin Peterson of MN (hint, hint).  And don't forget to
also send one to YOUR congressperson, the one that represents
YOUR district, no matter where you live.

Now, if you still have a fax machine, those are so retro,
they would be cool if they were being retro on purpose or
in an ironic way.  But if the pen is mightier than the sword,
and a picture is worth a thousand words, then if follows that
the fax machine is truly the ultimate weapon, so fax them
into submission! Fax your request along with a picture of
you standing in one of your apiaries.

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