Write It Well

We might all benefit from following President Obama’s e-mail policy. He keeps his address a tightly-held secret known only to the closest few. Don’t feel bad if you don’t have it; even Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi doesn’t know it, according to today’s article in the New York Times. While free from spam and forwarded lists of jokes, Mr. Obama’s inbox is primarily designed to be hack-proof. Recipients can’t even forward his e-mail. 

George W. Bush had no e-mail at all; he left his inbox behind when he moved to the White House, on the recommendation of his lawyers.

Clearly most of us need our e-mail on a regular basis, and hiding our work e-mail addresses wouldn’t accomplish much of anything. But we can guard our personal e-mail addresses with presidential care, limiting the amount of junk we have to screen. Try having a designated “junk” e-mail address for all the sites that require e-mail addresses to sign up. Alternatively, you can use your e-mail client’s filtering services to direct e-mail to different folders according to sender. Not as effective as the Secret Service, no doubt, but plenty effective for those of us without national security messages in our inboxes.