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got a call tonight
Jul. 29th, 2008 11:29 pmIt was a machine calling, but it said that there was a telephone town hall meeting live with my congressional representative and to join it I just needed to stay on the line. If I wanted to ask a question I was supposed to press '0'
I stayed on. At first he was reciting all the things Congress had done recently, with the implication these were good things, but some I didn't think were. He was doing it in such a dead tone and delivery it was very hard to listen.
Then a moderator asked people to press 0, 1, or 2 as to whether they thought they were financially better off than 8 years ago, the same, or worse.
And they started taking questions.
One of the most interesting was someone who started off talking about the WWII Japanese internment and how Congress eventually apologized (Mike Honda is of course Japanese-American). Then the caller started talking about how there were Germans and Italians interned too and that that is not talked about or apologized for and treated as a classified topic even now. It took a while for Mr Honda to start responding really, but then he went into a whole lot of details of ways Germans and Italians were harassed during the war. That non-citizen immigrants from these countries were not allowed to live west of Hwy 1 and forced to move even if their citizen children lived on the west of it. That citizen or not, police would come in the middle of the night and drag people of German or Italian descent out of bed and make them recite the Pledge of Allegiance. etc. He said that this is talked about in Congress and that more people should know about it.
Some predictable questions about people wanting mortgage bailouts and withdrawal from Iraq. A few more polls on these topics, and whether we've changed our driving habits since the gas prices went up. All had predictable results for a heavily democratic district.
Some people asked about single-payer health care, which he says he supports, but there was no poll on that topic.
Someone wanted the FDA to regulate cigarettes.
Someone else asked about nuclear power. He paused a bit on that one also. Then said 'you caught me in a bias I have'. He says the reason he's not for increasing nuclear power is that there's not yet been good research on what to do with the waste, but that EPRI would probably figure out how to use it to generate more energy and reduce the half-life in the process. Hmm, as boring as I thought he was at times, that's an example of how to straddle the middle of a possibly contentious question.
I didn't ask anything because I had no idea this was happening and was not psyched up or prepared. I was tempted to say something about being someone who ought to be able to afford a house, but is actually cautious and prudent about taking on something like a mortgage, so shouldn't they let the housing prices correct to where they really belong? Some woman was complaining about how much her mortgage($1100) was compared to her income (38% of it not 35%) and how her house that she's lived in for 11 years was worth in the $600ks two years ago and only $400ks now, as if she actually lost $200,000 which is total bs because 11 years ago her house would have cost her maybe $150-200k so she's still way ahead. The mortgage she quoted sounds about right to have been with her from the beginning purchase price, or only slightly re-fi'd. She's been paying something like that amount for 11 years so why the whining about fear of foreclosure and wanting some sort of bailout now? Either she's a moron or thinks everyone else is.
Anyone ever hear of these automated teleconference town hall meetings? It got me totally by surprise.
I stayed on. At first he was reciting all the things Congress had done recently, with the implication these were good things, but some I didn't think were. He was doing it in such a dead tone and delivery it was very hard to listen.
Then a moderator asked people to press 0, 1, or 2 as to whether they thought they were financially better off than 8 years ago, the same, or worse.
And they started taking questions.
One of the most interesting was someone who started off talking about the WWII Japanese internment and how Congress eventually apologized (Mike Honda is of course Japanese-American). Then the caller started talking about how there were Germans and Italians interned too and that that is not talked about or apologized for and treated as a classified topic even now. It took a while for Mr Honda to start responding really, but then he went into a whole lot of details of ways Germans and Italians were harassed during the war. That non-citizen immigrants from these countries were not allowed to live west of Hwy 1 and forced to move even if their citizen children lived on the west of it. That citizen or not, police would come in the middle of the night and drag people of German or Italian descent out of bed and make them recite the Pledge of Allegiance. etc. He said that this is talked about in Congress and that more people should know about it.
Some predictable questions about people wanting mortgage bailouts and withdrawal from Iraq. A few more polls on these topics, and whether we've changed our driving habits since the gas prices went up. All had predictable results for a heavily democratic district.
Some people asked about single-payer health care, which he says he supports, but there was no poll on that topic.
Someone wanted the FDA to regulate cigarettes.
Someone else asked about nuclear power. He paused a bit on that one also. Then said 'you caught me in a bias I have'. He says the reason he's not for increasing nuclear power is that there's not yet been good research on what to do with the waste, but that EPRI would probably figure out how to use it to generate more energy and reduce the half-life in the process. Hmm, as boring as I thought he was at times, that's an example of how to straddle the middle of a possibly contentious question.
I didn't ask anything because I had no idea this was happening and was not psyched up or prepared. I was tempted to say something about being someone who ought to be able to afford a house, but is actually cautious and prudent about taking on something like a mortgage, so shouldn't they let the housing prices correct to where they really belong? Some woman was complaining about how much her mortgage($1100) was compared to her income (38% of it not 35%) and how her house that she's lived in for 11 years was worth in the $600ks two years ago and only $400ks now, as if she actually lost $200,000 which is total bs because 11 years ago her house would have cost her maybe $150-200k so she's still way ahead. The mortgage she quoted sounds about right to have been with her from the beginning purchase price, or only slightly re-fi'd. She's been paying something like that amount for 11 years so why the whining about fear of foreclosure and wanting some sort of bailout now? Either she's a moron or thinks everyone else is.
Anyone ever hear of these automated teleconference town hall meetings? It got me totally by surprise.
