Do you know your congressman, county commissioner or governor? Do you know how your government works? Here are some great links to help you keep in touch and get answers to questions you may have about you local and state government.
In the state of Georgia you can click on Georgia and get to the website of all the agencies and departments in the state including the Governor's Office.
For other states, in your search box type in the state name followed by government.
For local government sites, in the search box type in the city or county followed by the state.
Here are some links to the federal or United States government offices:
- The Library of Congress provides access to legislation and bills
- The USA website provides access to all United States agencies, departments and authorities
Any elected official would be happy to receive a letter from you whether to let them know you approve of the job they are doing or to answer your questions.
Stay in touch with your elected officials.
Aren't words wonderful? Do you have a favorite word?
For years my favorite word was acclimate. I loved the way it rolls off the tongue. I would find a way to appropriately fit it into a conversation as often as possible. I used it so much at one time that my co-workers started calling me Miss Acclimate. Among my other favorites are intuitive and demonstrative. I also love words that express feelings - joy, happiness, glee, elated. Words don't have to be long and hard to pronounce to enjoy them.
Another of my favorite words is appropriate or its opposite inappropriate. I started this love of words in middle school when our class subscribed to the Reader's Digest and utilized (another favorite word of mine)the word games it contained. It was a very effective way to get me and my fellow students interested in new words. Reader's Digest still has those word game in their magazine today. One of my professors' favorite words was behoove. He was constantly telling us that it was behoove us to thoroughly read a chapter or it would behoove us to know this information.
When I took my first course in Computer Science a whole new world of words opened with the learning of bits or bytes and ram and rom. Today a new way of spelling has emerged with cell phones and texting. Some I can understand, but others leave me wondering. The merging of alpha and numerical sometimes stumps this old lady, but makes perfect sense once you can decode the message. That goes to show you that you can teach an old dog new tricks. It reminds me of my court reporting class with all the letter combinations and shortcuts. It all goes back to a good background in phonics, but definitely throws some of the rules of phonics straight out the window. Actually texting has gotten people back to the written word and hopefully over the long haul will result in better writers and spellers, unless of course they don't start writing 2day, some1, 4ward or u r the 1. Can you imagine what the business letters of tomorrow might look like?
Can you decipher these?
- the 10or n the back row needs some1 2 help them out
- I would like 2 c the company go 4ward n a positive manner
- if u would ): more people would b more receptive 2 ur ideas
Of course many changes have taken place over the years with words, descriptions and phrases. The meanings of words have expanded and words are now utilized in different ways and concepts. I read not long ago that there is an accepted word list somewhere out there and some words were being banished from the list. Who in the world goes to a list to see if they are using the appropriate words?
Words communicate. Write, type or text and keep in touch with words.
