U.S. Department of Personal Assistance
Bureau of Mentoring
1113 K St. NW
Washington, DC 20002
January 23, 1998
Ms. Ann T. Dote
206 Lagrima SW
Albuquerque, NM 87102
Dear Ms. Dote:
Ever wonder why people make mistakes? It’s because we let them. And it costs them and our society plenty.
It’s a proven fact that days are wasted and lives are ruined when people do things that don’t work. With thousands of years of human history under our belts, the entire spectrum of fallibility and foibles is well-known. The question is how to use this knowledge to prevent people from making mistakes. History is an unbroken example of the failure of parents, schools and friends to adequately prevent their offspring, students and peers from making mistakes. Let’s face it – children don’t pay attention to parents no matter how capable and competent those parents might be. Young adults don’t pay attention to anyone and adults pay attention to all the wrong things. The job of providing a non-parental, extra-curricular, programmed way of preventing mistakes is the obvious role of government!
That’s the fundamental principle of the Department of Mentoring. We find people who have made and learned from mistakes and pair them up with kids as young as two and a half. If the parents object, Public Law 87-13 USC section B-19292 – A-719 permits us to jail them for up to seven years. Few parents make THAT mistake!
We have taken the word “Torch” as an example of providing light and combined it with the concept of “mentoring” or providing leadership and learning. Our Tormentoring Program is available on a voluntary basis until be get the resources in place to make it mandatory. Therefore, we ask you to kindly call today and arrange for one of our interviewers to visit you in the comfort of your own home to see whether – based on how much you have learned or how much you need to learn – you fit into the program as a Tormentorer or as a Tormentored participant.
Please call us today at 1 800 232 9922. Don’t wait for us to call you. That would be a mistake.
Sincerely,
S. Duane Ricecake
Assistant Deputy Director for Voluntary Compliance
Letter Rip 