Quote of the Day
The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.
Felix Adler
Our Thoughts and Prayers With the Victims of Terrorist Attack in Russia
At least 35 died and more than 150 wounded (including a number of Western European visitors) at Moscow's Domodedovo airport via a suicide bomber; it is expected that an Islamic radical from the North Caucasus region is responsible. We express our solitary with the Russian people and visitors in this tragic event and wish the Russian government Godspeed in finding the source group responsible and bringing them to justice.
Jack LaLanne: RIP
Perhaps young people today know him from juicer promotions, but Jack LaLanne was the exercise guru when I was growing up, before Jane Fonda created the exercise video cassette franchise.
The USPS and Politics
Over the weekend one of my favorite films was playing on cable: "You've Got Mail", the last film in the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy trilogy and a contemporary remake of the 1940 film "The Shop Around the Corner". Joe Fox, a mega-bookstore businessman, unknowingly becomes an anonymous email penpal with Kathleen Kelly, a bleeding-heart liberal, small, independent bookstore owner. Kathleen's bookshop faces stiff new competition by Joe, whom is opening up a Fox Books superstore around the corner. Kathleen mounts an anti-Walmart style campaign against Fox, which fails, and Kathleen eventually goes out of business. The battle has left the two people embittered at each other. I won't reveal the ending here (Meg's facial expressions alone are worth the price of the movie). Already time has moved on, with dial-up Internet service an anachronism and Borders itself the subject of bankruptcy rumors.
The post office itself has largely become an anachronism since the early days of the republic (specifically mentioned in the US Constitution itself) and has repeatedly run at deficits, with sharply reduced first-class mail as customers shift to the Internet to email (versus write letters), receive and pay bills, shop, etc. In particular, the Post Office lost a record $8.5B last year. It has attempted to pare costs; it has reduced headcount by a third over the past decade (mostly by attrition). In fact, the USPS loses money at over half of its 32,000 post offices. But, unbelievably, there's a Congressional law saying that management can't close a branch simply because it's losing money. (Should we be surprised? After all, the military has sometimes been blocked from the closing of a domestic military base because of the political pull of the base's Congressman or Senators. And, of course, there are military goods or supplies manufactured by a legislator's home territory business that are imposed on the military, requested or not (which is forced to manage the inventory of unrequested equipment and supplies.)) Senator Carper (D-DE) has proposed striking the language in question, and I strongly support this. (I have not read the bill language, but it's possible the intent of Congress was to eliminate a situation where a postmaster could simply purge all post offices in rural areas. If this is the intent, one way of approaching is to define a consistent, minimal standard of service, e.g., some level of regular delivery service is available within a reasonable distance for pickup. Thus, you might be able to consolidate contiguous rural post offices, but not eliminate all of them (assuming they can't be serviced by nearby urban/suburban areas).
Another hoop the Postmaster must jump through is the independent Postal Regulatory Commission which reports to Congress. For instance, Congressmen want to ensure that the Postmaster isn't jumping at any minor reason (even a lease expiration) to justify closing a branch.
In any event, the Post Office is in the middle of closing 500 offices (since late last year) and has plans to close another 2000 offices. This concerns Senator Susan Collins (R-ME); she believes that the Postmaster should concentrate by having mail personnel pay roughly the same amount into benefits (including health care) as other groups of federal employees, before one starts shutting down services. (I think there have been some labor givebacks; I think progress is relative to the timing of labor agreements.)
The bottom line, from my perspective, is to delegate authority to management (i.e., the Postmaster)--in terms of personnel and operations. Otherwise, if the Congress micromanages the Postmaster, the Congress must accept full responsibility for the deficit. Yes, you have to jawbone compensation issues to get unfunded mandates under control. Yes, with declining first-class mail, you need to consolidate branches. Review the Postmaster's performance? Of course.
I Was Wrong: Obama DOESN'T Know Symbolism
Anti-American Song at White House State Dinner?
My dad is a Korean War vet, so I'm sure he won't appreciate the following news item:
Political Humor
New research has found that Angelfish can distinguish between large and small and can count to three. So Angelfish are ahead of American students in math and science. - Jay Leno
[Well, Jay, it's all the time fish spend in schools...]
And now--what you won't see tomorrow night during is former Speaker Nancy Pelosi leading the Congress and home audience in calisthenics during the State of the Union address, so for the benefit of those dieters whom were counting on Pelosi-zing tomorrow night, I offer the following retrospective:
Musical Interlude: One-Hit Wonders/Instrumentals
Tommy Tutone, "867-5309"
