LizLetters

Blown Away

Patrick Davis, General Manager
Dublin Buick Pontiac GMC
4400 John Monego Court
Dublin, CA 94568

Dear Mr. Davis:

    We are all guilty of making a faux pas once in a while, and I see that your company made a minor gaffe recently by putting an ad on a billboard that some neighbors found offensive. Apparently, the ad featured a salesman holding a shotgun. The tagline read “we’ll blow the competition away.”
    You are probably looking for a new head of advertising, as you surely do not want to be paying rent on a blank billboard for long. I would like to throw my hat into the ring. I already have a winning idea for your new ad campaign. There is no need to change your slogan about blowing the competition away. It’s golden. But rather than implying that you’re out to destroy anyone, simply take a friendly tack! I envision a billboard with a group of kids, some of whom are blowing bubbles in a sun-drenched field. Others are cheerfully looking on. Okay, it doesn’t have anything to do with cars. But people like kids. And people like bubbles.
    I am eager to get started on this project and repair your good name with the community. It will blow them away!

Truly,

Liz Mann

Debra Bowen 2

Debra Bowen
California Secretary of State
1500 11th Street
Sacramento, California 95814

Dear Ms. Bowen:

    I recently became aware of how difficult it currently is for a man to take on his wife’s last name upon marrying. According to a news story about one couple, a man currently has to pay more than three times what a woman has to pay to change her last name to her husband’s, plus he has to “advertise his intention in a newspaper for four weeks and get a judge’s approval.”
    I understand that some of these procedures go way back, and the advertisement of a name change makes sense in case that individual is doing so simply to avoid debt. But why shouldn’t a woman have to do so as well? I do not understand the extra fees and requirement to see a judge.
    I did not adopt my husband’s last name when I married, though I do use it occasionally. We discussed the various options, such as hyphenating our names, or coming up with a new name, but we probably would not have even entertained these options if we had known about the extra fees and trouble.
    It saddens me that so few men seem to want to take their wives’ names in the first place. In many ways sexism is so rooted in our culture that we do not recognize it when we see it. It’s just easier not to change things. I hope that you will work to make the procedures equal for men , women, and same-sex couples in taking their spouse’s name.

Truly,

Liz Mann

Civil Disobedience

Ed and Elaine Brown
401 Center of Town Road
Plainfield, NH 03781

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Brown,

    I hope this letter finds you well. My thoughts are with you this morning, as I have just read that you are in a battle with the federal government that is coming to a head. You have reportedly refused to pay taxes for about a decade, citing the lack of any statute requiring you to do so, and it looks as though the feds have decided to come for you. It completely blows my mind that you, Ed, have even reached a point where you feel that your life is at risk if you refuse to go to court.
    Your actions embody the spirit of the great American Henry David Thoreau, and your situation illustrates that the government will not tolerate disobedience in any form. Whatever the outcome, I am inspired by your courage. Be safe!

Truly,

Liz Mann

Pelosi 2

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi
450 Golden Gate Ave., 14th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102

Dear Speaker of the House Pelosi:

    Congratulations on becoming the first woman Speaker of the House! Your “100 hours” have begun, and I am hopeful that this is the beginning of an era of much-needed repairs after years of damage that the Bush administration has wreaked. I find it personally encouraging that you have attained this impressive position after raising five children and being a stay-at-home-mom.
    I wanted to drop you a note and let you know that although you have stated that you will not seek impeachment of Bush, I believe that the best thing for this country would be to impeach him and Cheney, and make them accountable for their wrongdoing. I do not understand how they have managed to get away with dismantling our civil liberties, squandering billions on a senseless war and forever altering the world, jeopardizing the health and safety of future generations.
    This is not a time for slow change. You have already showed that you mean business, banning cigarettes from the Speaker’s Lobby near the House floor. I recommend that you make it a little easier for the Old Boys and hand out tubes of the new nicotine-laced hand cream Nicogel, so as they’re waiting in the wings wringing their hands, they can at least still be getting their nic fix.

Truly,

Liz Mann

A Gray Panther Growls

Frances Shankman
2053 Partridge Lane
Highland Park, IL 60035

Dear Mrs. Shankman,

    I am writing to let you know that I admire the determination you exhibited in your battle to keep your phone number. At 81, I’m sure you remember the days when companies took pride in their services and in the way they treated their customers.
    My family recently went through a nightmare with our phone company as well. We were tempted by a moneysaving “bundle package” with internet and phone service offered by Earthlink. After switching, we were told that Earthlink could not in fact provide us with phone service. We ended up switching back to AT&T, which should have been quite simple (after all, their ads claim that someone switches back every eleven seconds). But the whole thing took about five weeks and more than six hours on the phone!
    Though I’m sorry you were given any trouble in the first place, it’s heartwarming to read about someone who refuses to back down.

Truly,

Liz Mann

Happy New Year!

Dear Readers,

    Happy new year! Well, yesterday I posted my 365th letter and it will be off in the mail after the holiday. It’s been an amazing year, with plenty of surprises and a few days I thought the project might not continue. But through hell and high water, the letters went out. A number of lovely replies came back, and often not from where I would expect. I began a correspondence with a woman in prison, heard from Tony Blair and the president of Liberia (or at least their representatives), and got a hand written note from the founder of IKEA.
    I will continue to write, post and send letters in the new year, though not each day. I am glad I made the commitment this year, and I learned that I can indeed stick to a writing practice, but there were a few too many nights when I fell asleep next to my daughter while putting her to bed, only to jolt myself awake at ten thirty and rush to the computer to blearily peck out a note to someone. I also learned a great deal about myself. This is not a confessional type of blog like many of the diarists out there write, but early on I saw patterns in my own interests, what drew me to a subject around which to form a letter. I often found myself writing on behalf of someone I thought was unjustly fired. Animal rights, human rights, censorship, and other themes came up a few times. On several occasions I could not resist the urge to write something a little snarky or satirical.
    So what have I accomplished at the end of all this? It feels good to have completed what I set out to do. Maybe I stirred things up a bit. After perusing several news sites every day for a year, I actually feel a little less optimistic about the power of the individual than when I started out. But based on a couple of e-mails I got, my efforts did make a difference in peoples’ lives, and that alone makes the effort worthwhile. Above all I hope that someone out there who has stumbled upon this blog decides to become a squeaky wheel and write that letter to a senator, company, or whomever they’ve been meaning to contact but just hadn’t sat down to do it.

Truly,

Liz Mann