Letter writing: wither thou goest?

Lately I've read some articles and heard some talk on public radio about personal communication. More to the point, in summary nobody writes letters any more, and many lament the loss of handwriting. Writing as someone who usually got "D"s, with the rare “C”, in penmanship and who's been typing for almost forty years, in some ways that's a good thing. I can print clearly but it's tedious, slow, and the longer I write the harder it becomes to read. On the other hand I can type about forty words a minute with very few errors (thank you, backspace key!) and the print is clear.

And yet I think the discussions made a good point. With Twitter, blogging, Facebook and texting nobody writes any more. Even email seems to have run its course with some people. So I decided I need to write more letters. Many of them will, of course, be emails (I'd rather not waste the paper to send a letter to two dozen or so people), yet I do want to get more in touch with people.

Writing letters is not quite the same as speaking to people, whether face-to-face or over the telephone. Frankly I'd much rather sit down with people; that's so much more enjoyable. Unfortunately distance makes that impossible for some, and so they get letters instead.

Some will argue typing an email is less personal than writing a letter by hand, and I won't argue with that. I remember during and after college exchanging letters (sometimes quite long ones!) with friends from other states, sometimes as many as five or six a year. I still think, though, if I write in a stream-of-conscious style (as if speaking) that is just as personal as typing a letter, which I did sometimes do even if the typewriter was a clunky, old manual which needed a sledgehammer to use the "Q" and "P" keys.

And I have to admit I still have some of those old hand-written letters, some of them from a high-school pen pal from England named Titilope Omomo (if I remember the spelling correctly). I'm not sure where they're packed other than they are in a box with other memories such as knick-knacks, papers, yearbooks, and other things. There's something about holding a thirty-year-old piece of paper and reading words written in pen that's somewhat faded which you can't get from saving emails.

I've decided I'm going to write to my friends more often. Of course it'll be emails, mostly, but sometimes they will be hand-written letters. I'm not abandoning the old ways, just adding new ways to them.

Amazing "vomits"

Anyone who hasn't been in a box the last couple of days knows there was a terrible earthquake in Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people are in dire straits in that already poor country. While the devastation, death, and injury toll are immense, even worse are the probable longer-term effects of a vast increase in infectious diseases.

Haiti is a tropical island. We've long known tropical habitats are hot spots for diseases seriously affecting the human condition: yellow fever, malaria, cholera, typhus, and so on. With much of her infrastructure gone, finding clean water will be difficult and many of the destroyed areas will become breeding grounds for insects (particularly mosquitoes) which spread these and other dread diseases. It's going to be a long, hard road back for the Haitians.

I truly feel bad for the people of Haiti... and yet there are still people who can take a true tragedy and turn it into a circus to spread their particular brand of hate. I'm talking about Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh.

Robertson said, in effect, the earthquake in Haiti is the result of their "making a pact with Satan to remove the French." Limbaugh said the earthquake would let the Obama administration "use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, in both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made to order for them. ... We've already donated to Haiti. It's called the U.S. income tax." (quotes from Zennie Abraham, Zennie62.com.)

While hate speech like this ought to be embarrassing to any Christian, at least most people agree Pat Robertson is a certifiable lunatic and genuinely believes what he says. Because of that I can somewhat tolerate his deplorable comments, at least relative to Limbaugh's (after all, aren't the ravings of the truly insane just empty words?). Further, Robertson has since backed away from his comments; Rush stands by his. Limbaugh says the things he does simply to inflame people and further his political agenda, so he doesn't even have the "excuse" of being insane; he does it deliberately. It's so disgustingly, disturbingly low I don't think English has a suitable word to describe it.

Why does the broadcast media pay these people to spew their hatred? I'm all for free speech but this isn't free; Limbaugh has a $400 million contract with ClearChannel Broadcasting. Stop paying him, put that money toward helping the people of Haiti, and let him scream from a soapbox like all the rest of us.

Annual Credit Report

The only real place to get a truly free credit report is AnnualCreditReport.com. While the guys singing cool songs advertise "FreeCreditReport.com" (/~tell your friends, tell your boss, tell your mom~/) that site is not really free. The best advice: stagger getting credit reports from the three major bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax) every four months. That way you have a frequently-updated list of credit reports and yet leave a gap of one year for each bureau.

If you want your FICO score along with your credit report, good luck; it's not free. However, on AnnualCreditReport.com both Equifax and TransUnion (Experian and FICO don't work together any more) offer a cheap FICO score, at $4.95 each. If you want a reasonably good estimate for free, the calculator at MSN's Money Central. Take the 10-question survey and get a fairly accurate (if broad) estimate of your FICO score.

Finally, don't forget to check for errors (cards not closed, mistaken late payments, theft not reported, etc.) and send each bureau a letter to be attached to your credit report. Those letters do get looked at, and they're leverage for you if a lender questions some aspect of your credit report or score.

If this is new to you, start doing it this month. Let keeping up with your credit situation be your New Year's Resolution for 2010. Good luck!