By John Lindstrom
Publisher
Posted: February 28, 2019 4:16 PM

Technology has in so many ways made life more … convenient, you will shout. Yes, yes, my friends, it has made life convenient. Ask those of us who struggled through the horror of the Verizon blackout on Wednesday. My gosh, our cellphones were worthless without a wifi signal, how could we check emails, play Words with Friends, keep ourselves awake during committee meetings watching YouTube videos. How did humanity survive for 500,000 years before cellphones, we moaned.

Yeah, but the word I was seeking was confusing. Ask East Lansing Mayor Mark Meadows. Or possibly ask U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-North Carolina).

Few of us have unique names, after all, so getting emails intended for someone else is not an unusual occurrence, especially for those folks with a Yahoo or Gmail address. This reporter has been invited to Thanksgiving dinners in California, gotten complaints about not taking care of the parking at the apartment building I apparently own in London and had to spent part of a night calling Finnair in Helsinki to make sure the ticket for someone else named John Lindstrom was routed to him before his flight from Helsinki to Kuopio took off at 7 the next morning. All on his Gmail account.

Which leads us to Mayor Meadows – now in his second stint as East Lansing's mayor which was broken up by six years in the Michigan House – getting email and social media messages intended for U.S. Rep. Meadows.

Rep. Meadows is noted as one of the more conservative members of the U.S. House, is chair of the Freedom Caucus which is the uber-conservative caucus and is one of President Donald Trump's biggest defenders. Those who watched the testimony of Mr. Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen on Wednesday saw Rep. Meadows go after Mr. Cohen vigorously.

Mayor Meadows is a staunch Democrat and a pragmatic liberal who is overseeing major redevelopment of the city's downtown (which not everyone is happy about) and helped convince city voters to enact an income tax to provide greater financial security for the city's retirement system and provide more funds for police and fire protection and improving the city's infrastructure.

Late Wednesday, Mayor Meadows posted on his Facebook page that he had gotten a message saying, "You stupid ignorant man, defending the clown racist Trump. Shame on you. You will be remembered in the history books as a kiss ass defending a devil."

Mayor Meadows went on to say, "Have I mentioned that I receive bunches of Facebook messages and emails directed to Congressman Mark Meadows on a daily basis. I like getting them. And I like responding to them – especially those that are laudatory. I wonder how many votes he has lost."

Mayor Meadows also said Rep. Meadows had "truly embarrassed" the Meadows name. He said he sometimes calls himself Angel MM and Rep. Meadows as Devil MM. And as the mayor believes Mr. Trump to be a "serial liar" he also considered "Devil MM" a "damn fool."

Mayor Meadow's comments drew lots of responses, mostly praising him and criticizing Rep. Meadows.

But one person did wonder what Rep. Meadows might think if he gets emails intended for the mayor. One could imagine the representative trying to figure out why he would be expected to deal with afterhours parking in the neighborhood or why can't the city deal with the ratty looking house on Yibbittyyoppitty Street.