June 19, 2009

Attorney General Edmund G. Brown

State of California DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Dear Mr. Dow,

Thank you for your correspondence to Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.

We have reviewed your correspondence and determined that the following law enforcement agencies are in a much better position to render assistance to you in this matter. If you wish to pursue the matter further, we suggest you contact:

Los Angeles Police Department

150 N. Los Angeles Street

Los Angeles, CA 90012

877/275-5273

California Highway Patrol

2901 West Broadway

Los Angeles, CA 90041

323/259-2000

We hope that our effort to help you identify the correct government office to address your concern will be beneficial to you. 

Again, thank you for contacting the Office of Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.

Sincerely,

C. Hallinan

Public Enquiry Unit For EDMUND G. BROWN JR. Attorney general

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They say that when you write letters, you get responses. I have to admit that I'm really just figuring out the whole institutional-interaction thing. The above reply from the Attorney General's office is something of a milestone in my process.  I wrote a letter to several government agencies addressing the issue of unlicencsed vehicles on the streets of L.A. The attorney General's office replied and politely informed me that I was barking up the wrong tree. Or in their words...

We hope that our effort to help you identify the correct government office to address your concern will be beneficial to you. 

I had to laugh at that line. I'm like; Okay okay, clearly I don't shit. I write to the Attorney General to complain about psychotic maniacs in Los Angeles who remove their vehicle's liscence plates in order to get away with mischief. And those guys come back to me and say it's police business and I should go bother them. And it makes sense now. You have to work your way up the chain of command. As Attorney General, Edmund "Jerry" Brown is the top-cop in the state. I figured all the police chiefs answered to him, but that ain't the order of things. So I'm learning as I go along.

I'm also learning that there is a language accepted among gentle people, and I need to brush up on mine. The words need to be non-accusing, no matter how pissed off I am about something evil that's going on in my town (and there's a lot). But no matter. You still keep your voice down, address everyone as Mr. or Missus, and be a model of composure. Anything else is counter-productive, not to mention dangerous. Writing official letters is an interesting process. It makes me think of the notes that a solitary researcher or scientist would keep on an ongoing experiment. It's the document. It's in writing. You have to look at what you thought then versus what you think now. You can't hide from yourself. All the false and egotistical stuff will grow bolder, darker, smellier and harder to deny. I love it.

My conclusion is this. The old-fashioned letter is the primary tool for interacting with government. It's quiet and it's slow - almost imperceptible in its advance of progress. But street protests and demonstrations unsettle me. They offer little in the way of reflection or self-examination. Instead, the crowd with its banners and drums elicits a kind of mob catharsis, full of sex and romance and power. Not so good for me. I think it's better I write letters, so at least if I'm wrong I'll have a left a paper-trail from which to embarrass myself down the road. From embarrassment springs the desire for change!

NEXT STEP will be letters to LAPD and California Highway Patrol about the glaring problem (in my opinion) of unliscenced vehicles on the highways and by-ways of Southern California. I'll work on my wording a bit; Try to be less accusing and antagonistic. Maybe I'll learn something new about why the way things are the way they are. But we have to do something in L.A.