On the recordApril 17, 2012
first I thank my friend, the Senator from Massachusetts, for his kind words about me. It has been a pleasure to work with him. He has been a great and devoted member on our committee. He introduced, along with Senator Gillibrand, the two bills that became the anti-insider trading bill and worked as a ranking member on the subcommittee that Senator Carper chairs that has been working, focused on saving the United States Postal Service. I appreciate his kind words and the stated intention, to name a post office for me. I hope he names one that is not then closed shortly thereafter. I also thank him for doing his part personally for the Post Office by continuing to write letters and sign them. If we all personally--I am using e-mail as much as anyone else. I am going to wander a bit here in preparing for this my last year in the Senate and how you wind things down. They actually keep our e-mails on disks. They can be stored in libraries, as you would normal memos. We do reserve the right to edit somewhat. We are privileged in that way. But so much of the communication that goes on between people on e-mail is effectively lost in the ether of cyberspace. When you think about the richness of history, how much of history comes from letters that were written or typed over time, I think-- though the trend here is clear, more and more will be done on the Internet, on e-mail--I think people are going to still want to write and receive letters.…
