Letter to Obama #25 | Subject: A Note About Healthcare

Letter to Obama #25 | Subject: A Note About Healthcare

Dear President Obama,

I got an email yesterday from info@barackobama.com, in which you said that you need my help passing your health care legislation. Well, I couldn’t finish my letter, as I had a migraine. In this respect, it is the only migraine ever to be opportune, because it made me think a lot about healthcare.

So I have a quick suggestion about doctors. I think it’d be nice if, one day out of the year, we could declare a national holiday that reverses the doctor-patient relationship. I think they’d be better doctors if they understood what it was like on the other side.

First, of course, they’d have to make an appointment, which would entail talking to the robotic operator, and it wouldn’t be one of those easy-to-use voice recorded ones, no, it’ll be the “please say your option aloud” kind. Every time I call them up, the machine tells me to say the word “Appointment” if I want to schedule a visit.

So I say it slowly. The machine tells me it didn’t understand. So I say it again. It asks me to repeat it again. I do so, but now I’m saying it so slowly my voice sounds like I’m either in slow-motion or trying to do an Andre the Giant impression. Of course, it doesn’t process this either.

I really don’t get why this is so hard—there aren’t that many words that rhyme with appointment. Sure, I guess it’s conceivable that I could be saying I’d like to make an ointment, or I’d like to make an anointment, but that’d be pretty strange. Mr. President, why do we even use these robot things if they can’t hear? That’s like using my great-grandmother as a receptionist. She had two miracle ears for a reason.

Anyway, after the third attempt, I usually try making a bunch of modemy noises, you know, to try speaking the robot’s language, but no dice. This usually gets me transferred to the operator, so I guess I must know how to swear in robot or something.

Of course this is no real solution to my problem. I get put on hold and a really stilted voice tells me that my call is valuable to them and there is synthesized background music that was apparently composed by the answering robot in its copious free time. (Speaking of the voice message, if my call is really valuable to them, I wish they would give me money.)

Anyway, once the doctor set the appointment up, they’d get called into the examination room. I’d breeze in twenty minutes late, the smell of formaldehyde and those latex gloves wafting into the room behind me. Of course, I’d be wearing a lab coat (except I’d splatter mine with red food coloring and some uncooked headcheese to keep them guessing).

Then I’d start the interrogation, because that’s what a doctor’s visit feels like sometimes. I mean, no matter what you’re being seen for, they start you off with curt, terse questions. And no matter how truthful you are during the inquisition, the interrogation always gets worse—they shine bright lights in your eyes, stick things in your ears, and you’re often forced to wear a demeaning paper dress. A dress, Mr. President, and one that closes from the back. If that doesn’t make you feel threatened, I don’t know what will.

And don’t think I haven’t noticed the examination table, which looks like a tiny bed, until you realize that it’s really a torture implement for short people. Yes, Mr. President, I’m short, and I’ve seen the foot clamps and arm clamps. I pulled one out during one visit and asked why it was hidden, and the doctor said, “Oh, we don’t usually show people those unless we need to.”

And if you’re really unlucky, they put you in this torpedo-tube thing that makes loud noises and you think they’re going to shoot you at a ship or something. Or worse yet, they tell you need a shot or that they need to draw blood, which is really just another way to say that they are going to stab you slightly. If that’s the case, they’ll sometimes pull out the most painful torture tool of all; that finger catapult thing—the one that’s supposed to “just be a pinprick” but makes it feel like one finger is being attacked by some sort of raptor.

Of course, since I’m not a sadist, I wouldn’t subject my doctor-patient to any of this cruel treatment. Instead, I’d simply make sure to repeatedly test the doctor’s reflexes with that little hammer. You know, the one they always use on your knees? Mr. President, I have pretty small knees. And they are sensitive. If you wanted to torture me, that’s all you’d have to do. You can tell the CIA that; they wouldn’t have to waterboard me. Every time I go to the doctor’s office, I see that little hammer while I’m waiting for the doctor to arrive, and I always want to hide it so he skips that part.

I’d then spend the next ten minutes asking doctor-patient about their “symptoms,” and every once in a while, I’d whack them with that little hammer just to keep them guessing. Then, no matter what their symptoms were, I’d use big words like “nonspecific” and “hypochondria” and tell them that things should clear up on their own. And I’d threaten them with that little hammer and tell them not to come back.

Take Care,

Brett Ortler

Letter to President Obama #14 |Subject: The Internet and Facebook

Dear President Obama,

I was glad to see that you started a Facebook page. I must admit that I don’t understand Facebook myself, as there are too many bells and whistles. The first week I joined, I had about a hundred notifications. I didn’t understand some of them. For instance, I was informed that one of my so-called “friends” threw a sheep at me. I was perplexed, and I still am.

Mr. President, has anyone thrown a sheep at you on Facebook? If so, who? Iran? North Korea? Who throws sheep? I guess I could see sheep throwing sheep, but that’s different. If a big sheep were training for the discus at the sheep Olympics, maybe it’d throw a littler sheep for practice or something. That’d make sense. If that were the case I suppose that the little sheep would be OK; I mean, sheep are essentially walking pillows.

Anyway, I’m not writing because of the sheep matter. I’m writing because I have some concerns about technology. First of all, I know your administration is trying to help improve our access to technology and improve technology education. I’m writing because I’d like to encourage you to set up a national tech support line for the Internet.

I’m doing so for very personal reasons—right now, I’m my mother’s tech-support guy, and let’s put it this way, she calls me an awful lot.

Let me explain: My mother got Internet access a year or two ago. Immediately afterwards, she began using search engines, but on her first day she called me, frantic. The conversation went like this:

Mom: Brett, I think the Internet is broken!

Me: Wha? Whaddya mean?

Mom: I wanted to know if Hogan’s Heroes was out on DVD so I decided to try one of those search engine things. So I tried the first one you told me about, and it didn’t work! Then I remembered about that other famous one, and it was broken too! I just got this “not found” message.

Me: OK, ma, what websites did you try?

Mom: The big search engines you told me about: Goggle and Yoho.

Mr. President, I’ve been getting calls like this ever since. Now don’t get me wrong, my mother’s a lovely woman and the greatest mother ever. (Yes, Mr. President, I think my mom's better than yours. But don’t get me wrong, I’m sure your mom’s nice too.)

Anyway, I’m not the only one with such troubles. I know there are a lot of people who have trouble with technology, and a few people even fear it. For instance, I’ve got these friends who think the Terminator movies are documentaries. Let me tell you, they are terrified that a new one is coming out this summer and shiver if you even mention the word California. They’re convinced Arnold and the robots have already taken that state over. (I don’t think they ever saw the 2^nd or 3^rd movie.)

Personally, I’m not that afraid of evil robots. I mean, think about it—if there were evil robots, they’d probably run on Windows, right? I mean, I can’t even watch half an episode of Lost on the Internet without my computer crashing. Defeating evil robots on Windows would be easy, all you’d have to do is to trick them into doing two simple things at the same time and they’d probably burst into flames. Or at least, they’d freeze and fall over.

Now if Apple made evil robots, we might be in trouble. I mean, they’d probably be all chique and stylishly designed, and everyone would want to be attacked by one, because it’d be the thing to do.

In any case, the national tech-support hotline could help allay these fears, and it could help everyday folks out too.

Thanks for your time.

Take care,

Brett Ortler

This is letter #14 to President Obama. Brett's writing (and sending) one a day.

Letter to President Obama #4 | Subject: Robotic Maids.

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing you with yet another pressing policy concern. I was watching a television program called The Jetsons and I was fascinated by many pieces of technology on the show, but one thing in particular caught my eye—the robotic maid. After the show was over, my cat walked out from using the litter box, throwing cat litter all over the place with each step. This meant I had to vacuum. Because of my cats, I have to vacuum about thirty-seven times a day. (If I were I vacuum company manufacturer, I’d send cats to all of my clients. Because if you have a cat, you need a vacuum. It’s a perfect marketing ploy. Or maybe there’s a conspiracy here, maybe vacuum companies are run by cats?)

Anyway, like most Americans, I have a manual vacuum, but its headlight scares the cats and I think my girlfriend’s afraid of it too (I don’t think she likes the noise), so she always insists that I vacuum. So I finally decided to get a robotic maid like on the Jetsons; I called up the local department store and asked them to send me the most advanced robotic maid they had. This seemed to confuse them a bit, but after I insisted that such technology existed, they acquiesced; a week later, there was a small box on my doorstep.

My robotic maid was a lot smaller than I expected, but that didn’t bother me at first. I had been thinking of what to name my robot ever since I called the department store, so I was pretty bummed out when I saw that it already had a name—Roomba. I hadn’t decided on a name yet, but I’d narrowed down the field. I wanted to name my robot after someone I didn’t like, because that’d make ordering the robot around a lot more fun. I had decided to name the robot either Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly. I don’t like those guys. (I mean, how much fun would it be to yell, “Hey! Sean Hannity/Bill O’Reilly” go take out the trash! Yackety-Yak! Don’t Talk Back!”) And then the little robot would wheel away, doing your bidding. It’d be great!

So I thought about renaming it, but that didn’t seem fair. I mean, once something has a name, you can’t take that away. (This is why I was so mad about Pluto getting called a “dwarf planet.” I mean, imagine being Pluto, The Planet and having to change all of your IDs, your bank account; I mean, what if Pluto were on some sort of beer-league softball team and its jersey said, “Pluto, the Planet” on the back? Then it’d have to get it changed to “Pluto, the Plutoid.” How embarrassing (and redundant)!

Anyway, to alleviate my disappointment about naming my robot, I decided to dress it up in a maid’s outfit. This seemed appropriate, but it was a lot harder than I thought. I made a black and white costume for it, but it ended up looking more like a round nun than anything else. So I gave up on that, and I told it to start vacuuming. It didn’t move. So I read the instructions, and it turns out I had to use a remote control. This seemed a little archaic, but OK. Then it starts vacuuming, sort of. Actually, it just started driving in circles; I thought it was either drunk or broken. (My uncle was drunk once and then decided to mow the lawn; it looked a little bit like that.)

I called up the department store where I got it, and they said it wasn’t broken, that’s how it works, which I thought was outrageous. After getting nowhere with them, I thought about bringing the Roomba to a doctor; maybe it had vertigo or something. Before doing that, I decided to put myself in the Roomba’s shoes. I decided that if I had lived for who-knows-how-long in a sealed-up box, I’d probably be hungry. So I gave my Roomba a cookie. The transformation was amazing! First, of all, it loves Girl Scout cookies. After it had a snack, it did whatever I told it to! It’d vacuum in any pattern I wanted, even those intricate lawn patterns like you see at the Major League Baseball All-Star Games!

I’m telling you all this because I know the White House probably has a few Roombas and I bet you think yours are broken. They’re not! You just need to feed them cookies! I hope this bit of information helps you keep the White House clean, and I’d encourage you to adopt this technology for other areas with a lot of floor space. Perhaps the Library of Congress?

Thank you for your attention, Mr. President.

Brett Ortler


This is letter #4 to Mr. Obama. I'll be sending a letter a day.

Letter to President Obama #3 | Subject: Horses, The Big Three, and Robots

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing you with another pressing policy concern—I know GM and Chrysler have been going through a pretty rough stretch lately, and I think I know why.

First, I think the big car companies are going about naming their products all wrong. Generally speaking, I think too many of cars made by the Big Three are named after horses. For instance, consider the Dodge Colt. I mean, really, who names a car after a horse? When I think of what I want in a car, I don’t think of the common features available on many ungulates. (OK, I’ll admit it, the GMC Alpaca does have a nice ring to after it.)

After all, horses don’t have AC, they don’t have one of those cigarette-lighter adapter things, they don’t even have anti-lock-brakes! And I think I speak for the American public when I say that I generally would like my car to have more horsepower than 1, which is the standard amount available on your average horse. I know what you’re going to say—“but Brett, all Dodge Colts have a lot more horsepower than a horse!” I know they do, but the name already has me thinking of Mr. Ed and carrots, not speed and chic design. (For instance, if GM were to name a car “the StupidSlowmobile,” it wouldn’t matter how fast or cool the car actually was, the name would stick.)

I mean, if we’re going to name a car after a horse, then let’s go all out. Let’s amp up the giveaways and offer to give away a cowboy hat and a free year’s worth of oats with every purchase. Maybe a pitchfork, too. And if we could pull a few strings, perhaps we could get a test model of the new car in the running for the Kentucky Derby. This could drum up PR and who knows, it might even win. (But watch out, I’ve heard that the horse Vallenzeri is pretty fast.)

Secondly, I know that robots are an essential part of the automotive assembly line these days, but they also might the cause of some of our problems. Let me explain: I began thinking about this after calling up GM and Chrysler and asking them how much their robots were paid. Their answer astounded me; the robots aren’t paid at all!

From an executive’s point of view, I understand this; the robots probably don’t know any better, so why pay them? But what if someone else (representatives from Honda or Mitsubishi, say) snuck into one of our factories and made our robots a better offer? What if corporate spies bribed our robots with fancy Japanese electronics like the Wii and flat panel TVs? To wit, Mr. President, have you ever considered the possibility that there are robotic traitors in our midst?

Assume this is true for a moment—this would explain the American reputation for shoddy workmanship, and in turn, our flat-lining sales. Clearly we must offer our robots a living (sentient?) wage in order to prevent this problem.

I hope you take time to consider these points; I think if we were to make changes in these areas our automakers would be in better shape.

Take Care,

Brett Ortler