Recently I visited the local branch of the United States Postal Service. This is one of those 38,000 beleaguered outposts of citizen service that our congress years ago in its infinite wisdom simultaneously put under the control of something called a Board of Governors and washed its hands of the only service in the United States that was (is) more hard-pressed than the DMV. (That is if you don’t count the welfare office in New York.)
Only two counter clerks were working and my wait time was between 20-25 minutes. The clerk who serviced me said another clerk was on vacation, something I could appreciate. What I don’t understand is why one of the 100,000 part-time workers who back up the 800,000 full-time workers couldn’t be pressed into service at our local post office. Look at the numbers: 38,000 post offices, 100,000 part-time workers, an almost three to one worker ratio.
And another thing. Every one of sound mind and body agrees that smokers do not have the right to pollute our air space. During my wait at the post office I had to listen to a blond haired woman in tight jeans and wearing high heels, about 50-55 years old, with a German accent, talk on her stupid cell phone to another female dimwit on the other end and dispense advice on to how to correct, improve and put up with some male dimwit who had the unfortunate luck to be connected somehow to these two female dimwits. She was two customers ahead of me and only stopped talking on the cell phone when she was next to being called to the counter. Cell phone usage in post offices by patrons should be outlawed until the wait time is reduced to two minutes or less.
I have communicated these views to the Postal Service and I am sure they will be on the agenda at the next meeting of the nine-member Board of Governors. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Last night on the local news (Charleston, SC) we had a substitute weatherman who said the regular guy was on vacation and the weather would be good for a couple of weeks. This brings up two questions: Did the regular guy arrange the weather to accommodate his vacation schedule and if the weather is going to be good why do we need a substitute weatherman?
Died: June 11, 1979Born: May 26, 1907
When I was a city judge in Hanahan I had authority to issue search warrants and did so upon affidavits by sworn police officers which usually took up less than one page and often related to minor criminal activity. The judge who issued a search warrant on Congressman William J. Jefferson was given an 85 page affidavit from the FBI alleging major offenses. This is not an issue about the separation of powers, it is about possible major criminal offenses and no one - not even a Congressman - ought to be beyond the law. (Published as Letter to the Editor, The Post & Courier, Charleston SC, June 6, 2006.)
THE OPIATE OF THE PEOPLEIt is a source of wonder that rising five years into the AFGHANISTAN story, (21st century edition), we find that Allied soldiers lives and nations' treasure, are being expended in a country whose principal contribution to the world was to have been the base HQ and training centre to the terrorists of 9/11; which remains the world's prime source of opiates, and whose citizens are grouped into tribal and religious factions that hate each other - almost as much as they hate foreign soldiers on their soil. The end game from the point of view of the west is to stay until the fledgling democracy is secure, the terrorist threat is no more and, well, hopefully not until they all love one another. Is it just irony to observe that the Taliban government, (pre 9/11) in their final year 2001, under some persuasion no more, from the west, had reduced the poppy harvest to a mere74 tons? Last year with US and NATO forces in country, a new national army and all manner of inspectors and mercenaries tasked with destroying the crop in the ground, the harvest ran out at about 4,500 tons, just 2.4% down on the previous year. It is true that alternative crops have not been forthcoming and that the farmers just have no other crop. That problem needs bigger brains working on a permanent solution than seem currently to be deployed, because the billions squandered on a clearly failed mission might be better used in intervention purchasing to keep the farmers alive, whilst alternative crops are propagated. (Published by Newnations (a not-for-profit company) PO Box 12 Monmouth United Kingdom NP25 3UW Fax: UK +44 (0)1600 890774 enquiries@newnations.com )
