How not to handle a messaging system

The NYS Department of Labor has a place where people who are collecting unemployment benefits (or other people who have created logins) can leave messages. I have left two messages in the last several weeks, and when I log in for other reasons I check, and so far there have been no answers to either.

This morning they sent me email, to my regular address, to let me know that I had a message on their system, and could log in and read it. I did so, and I still don't know why they didn't just put the actual message in the email, with a note saying "this is an answer to your query of 1/7/13." It's not just that my email is probably as secure as my login on their system (on average, and in this case I think my email password is the stronger of the two). It's that there is no personal information of any sort in my question or their answer, so no risk if someone did intercept it. It doesn't include ID numbers, what benefits I am receiving, or anything like that: in fact, it was clearly written by someone who didn't know how long I have been receiving benefits, and almost certainly doesn't have the other information.

At least they answered my question. I wonder if anyone will ever answer the other one.

Wednesday reading meme

What are you reading now?

The Spy Princess by Sherwood Smith—I'm one chapter into this, and enjoying it so far. It seems to be a first-person narrative of a war or revolution in a fantasy kingdom, from the viewpoint of someone who is a pre-teen at the beginning of the events.

The Story of Julia Page by Kathleen Thompson. This is a mainstream novel, set around the turn of the 20th century; the story starts before the title character is born, with descriptions of her poor/dysfunctional family background. At this point in the story, Page is several years into working happily in a settlement house, after walking into the situation by accident: she took a streetcar nowhere in particular after an unpleasant visit with some relatives, got off at the end, and turned up at the right time to help the woman who runs the settlement, who recognized her from a chance meeting some months earlier. (This was recommended by papersky.)

What did you recently finish reading?

Magic Lessons, by Justine Larbalestier. This is a sequel to Magic or Madness, which continues the story, and shows us and the characters a bit more what's going on and how magic works in their world. The stakes are higher than in the first volume, but in ways that seem plausible: this isn't a case of someone arbitrarily telling the characters "you have to save the world now."

Tomb of the Fathers, by Eleanor Arnason. This is labeled "a Lydia Duluth adventure," but somehow didn't quite get the tone of adventure, even as the characters were being sent on a first-contact mission and in various sorts of danger. When they're stranded and the AI tells them "if I can't figure out X and Y, three of you will starve to death," it doesn't feel like there's any doubt that it will figure those things out. That said, there's some fun exploring and world-building, and Arnason makes me believe in the alien who keeps quoting Marx and Engels.

What are you likely to read next? "Next" may be a bit, given how many books I'm getting through right now and how much of The Spy Princess I have yet, but possibilities include the third volume in the Larbalestier trilogy; Bruce Schneier's Liars and Outliers; and Nancy Anderson's Work with Passion in Midlife and Beyond, which I took out of the library on the theory that the job hunt is crawling so maybe I should refocus it, but keep not actually reading. (I also have several things on the Kindle that I downloaded free from Project Gutenberg on someone's recommendation, and a few that Nightshade Press was giving away to celebrate that the world hadn't ended.) The current process seems to be one kindle book, and one other, or occasionally a kindle book, a paperback, and a hardcover. (I rarely carry hardcovers around to read on the train these days.)