Mailbag

Two (odd) things I got in the mail yesterday:

• A birthday card from my State representative. Boy, what a swell guy! He must be a really great friendState rep to have remembered; I should vote for him!

  Ok, so my State rep has a mailing list of his constituents and their birthdays. Seems an awful waste of time and money. And it skeeves me out just a little, as it reminds me that privacy has become a fairly tenuous concept at best these days, and really, is more like an imaginary curtain we draw across our eyes to make us feel better.

• Marketing propaganda from IBM's "Business Development Executives focused on sales in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) segment." (No really, that's what it says.)

  Again, two things:
  

  1. they have a special group that markets specifically to GLBT businesses? Because gay businesses only work with other gay businesses? Because IBM's regular business development group is too homophobic to conduct business effectively?
  2. why am I getting this? Ok, I know why I'm getting this. I'm getting this (and subscription offers to Out magazine --- not to be confused with Outside magazine) because with all the stupid discriminatory constitutional amendments flying around the state and the country, I've donated to several GLBT advocacy groups. But I guess it riles me that there's this idea that only gay people support gay causes. It reminds me of the junk mail I get that's written entirely in Chinese (usually for phone plans, I think -- I'm not entirely sure, I can never read them), presumably because I have a Chinese surname. Or the telemarketers that immediately start talking to me in Chinese, hoping to make that quick connection and quick sale. (Usually after I give them a perplexed "excuse me?" they hang up, occasionally after a brief apology. But usually not.)
  I suppose I understand the reasoning behind it, but for whatever reason, it just rubs me the wrong way.