Unfettered Letters

A suggestion, please?

Will someone please give me ideas for using countless personal address labels I receive from various charities? I say “countless” because I don’t intend to count them. Such a project would take hours, perhaps days, to complete.

I can’t bring myself to toss them all. It seems such a waste. Yet there they lie, stacked up. I have managed to throw a high percentage of them away because the address is wrong, but that doesn’t lessen my shudders at the waste.

I write letters, begging, imploring the charities to “Please send no more labels.” Obviously, no one reads anything but the checks. The barrage of labels has gotten so heavy that I hesitate to contribute to any charity. But that certainly doesn’t assuage my concern, for both the charity and the ever-increasing size of the label mass.

Virginia Schneider
Bonner Springs

Graves mailing offends

When I first saw the full-color, letter-sized postcar that arrived in the mail on Jan. 3 (“Working for Missouri’s families in Congress”), I thought Congressman Sam Graves’ campaign committee had made a foolish mistake.

The election was two months ago, and Graves won, so why did they mail this obvious piece of campaign fluff?

I then noticed Graves’ signature in the upper-right-hand corner where a mailing permit should be. And in the upper-left-hand corner I saw the words “PUBLIC DOCUMENT” and “OFFICIAL BUSINESS.”

But the topper was, “This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.”

I think Graves has crossed the line. The “franking privilege” allows a member of Congress to mail official letters and other communications to voters but prohibits mailings that are “laudatory and complimentary.”

What did this full-color self-promotion cost taxpayers?

Graves owes voters in Missouri’s 6th District an apology, and he should reimburse taxpayers for the cost of production and postage.

Charles L. Beucher Jr.
Kansas City

It’s (all) in the mail

I want to apologize, in a way, to all the people who have asked for help, and I have ignored them or declined. This refers to a large number of requests for donations to causes, mostly charitable.

Many are doing good work. I do make modest donations about three times a month. What happens then is that my name and address are then conveyed to a proliferation of mailing lists. So around 100 appeals a month come in, plus possibly 20 phone calls.

Some callers get argumentative and won’t take no for an answer. I hang up.

A large selection of catalogs also arrives, plus several appeals a week from a political party.

The Postal Service says it has no control over mailing lists, except for sexually oriented material.

I feel that any sale or exchange of one’s address is an invasion of privacy and should be controlled.

Bruce C. Cornish
Lee’s Summit