...remember the rest of that phrase? How could ya not... Anyway the point of this missive is ta support the Postal Service. Buy stamps, mail yer letters, and packages by USPS. Use yer mailbox for cards and letters ta granny, and the cousins in Florida, or Arizona...
Please keep the Post Office viable and moving the mail! Lotsa people are depending on ya. Especially our old frien... BoiseBoatBoy, AKA: Brain. Let's not forget his motto... Never mind!
In Florida, These Retirees Deliver a First-Class Protest
Town of Former Letter Carriers Strives to Aid Post Office; Shunning Email, Dogs...
NALCREST, Fla.Lots of folks are fretting over how to save the U.S. Postal Service, but retirees here in central Florida's citrus country are really pushing the envelope.
A retirement community in Florida caters to retired mail carriers with the U.S. Postal Service. WSJ's Jennifer Levitz finds many prefer mail to email, and no dogs are allowed.
There is heavy pressure in Nalcrest, a rambling retirement community that is its own little town, to use the U.S. mail, rather than email or competing shipping companies, to pay bills and mail parcels to the grandkids. "We sayit's got to come through the U.S. mail or we don't want it here," said Matty Rose, 67 years old, manager of Nalcrest.
One can't blame the town. Seventy miles east of Tampa, it's the nation's only haven solely for retired postal service mail carriers.
The attachment to mail runs deep. Residents joke that Nalcrest, which stands for the National Association of Letter Carriers Retirement, Education, Security and Training, is actually short for National Association of Letter Carriers at Rest. It has its own mailing address and post office. A mailman statue graces the village square. There is a stamp club, and a minigolf course, where the obstacle on the first hole isn't a windmill but a blue mail collection box.
Carriers who spent years pounding the pavement relax under palm trees in a kind of mail carrier bliss: no ice to tumble on, no snow to slosh through, and best of all, no furry foes.
"This is a no-dog community," said Mr. Rose, a retired mailman from Hollywood, Fla. "That's because if you're a letter carrier, you've had experience with dogs. In my career, I was bit twice and chased about 100 times."
Now the 700 residents are fighting a new menace: the crisis enveloping the 236-year-old postal service, which is bleeding cash as technology erodes volumes of first-class mailand raising questions about whether traditional mail is going the way of the buggy whip.
"It stinks," said Robert Riley, 89, a former mailman from Wrentham, Mass., resting in a golf cart parked in Nalcrest's sun-drenched village square.
Congress is debating multiple proposals to revamp the agency, including dropping Saturday delivery and closing thousands of post offices that are unprofitable. A perceived assault on their beloved profession has Nalcrest in a tizzy.
"Why? Why? Then they got to make some 80- or 90-year-old woman go two or three miles to the next post office," said Frank Wright, 70, who carried mail in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. "The post office was originally meant to be a service to the people, not a profit-making operation."
Posted on the community bulletin board, by bingo announcements, are alerts about the postal service's recent proposal to pull out of federal health plans and run its own less-costly onean idea that has retirees anxious about their benefits. March's "Nalcrest Monthly Bulletin" touted softball, horseshoes, a coming party"our past winner of musical chairs just had a hip replaced so everyone has a chance this year"and invited everyone to the auditorium to discuss the postal service and "get on board" to save it.
They sent a 600-signature petition to Washington, by first-class mail, against dropping Saturday delivery, and raised $350 to send to their national union's lobbying arm. "That's the money we buy off the Congressmen with," cracked John Alversa, 72, a retired mailman from Flushing, N.Y.
Bill LaFrana, 69, and retired from carrying mail in Lexington, Ky., has written to Congress and his local paper back home against the postal service's proposal to slow delivery of some mail to save money. "That just wasn't acceptable when I had to work," he said.
His girlfriend, Ellen Hollon, 72, said all the talk about the postal service is no fun.
"Every time a news blip comes up, it occupies even a barbecuethe wives and girlfriends will finally say, 'hey,'" she said, making a timeout gesture with her hands. "We don't want to hear this mailman stuff."
The retirees acknowledge the postal service must make changes to stay afloat. Theyand the postmaster general, and some members of Congresssay one solution would be to ease an unusual requirement imposed by Congress in 2006 that the agency aggressively fund retiree benefits decades ahead.
Supporters of the pre-funding, including U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross, (R., Fla.), say it will insure the agency can provide benefits for retireeslike the ones in Nalcrestfar down the road and that the tab doesn't fall to taxpayers.
Nalcrest residents picketed outside Mr. Ross's local office last fall. They had hoped for a bigger crowd, "but a lot of the snowbirds weren't here yet," said Janet Russo, 63, a retired postal clerk whose late husband carried mail in Medford, Mass.
Mr. Ross said changes he is proposing won't likely affect Nalcrest retirees, but that he isn't surprised they are mad at him. "Change never comes easy," he said.
The community, where the modest mint-green cottages start at $395 per month, broke ground in 1962, the brainchild of William Doherty, a former Ohio mail carrier and union leader, who envisioned a low-cost retirement haven entirely owned and funded by letter carriers through union dueswhich long ago paid off the mortgage. The postal service contributes no money toward the town.
Nalcrest has its own ZIP Code. "We had a little pull with the post office," says Mr. Rose, the manager.
The village has a barber shop, cafe and market. Each morning, residents head to the busy and profitable post office to retrieve mail from their boxesno door-to-door delivery hereyelling to the clerk, in mailman lingo, "is first-class up?"
BlackDog said
7:15 PM, 03/27/12
My granny's are both dead. I don't think I will be writing them anytime soon, if at all.
Uke said
9:19 PM, 03/27/12
Sorry. But you must have a few (Very few in your case...) frien... Relatives ta write to, or send birthday greetings, or anniversary cards to. How 'bout dear old dad? Or yer pup... Hey do this, send a check, by regular mail ta the "Uke Retirement Fund" (Tax deductible), PO Box 45737, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA 02338-0573.
We'll send you a plaque, or a previously used saphety plate. And thanks for supporting USPS!
Cy Valley said
12:12 AM, 03/28/12
Uke wants you to write that answer on the bottom of a brand new Ranger pickup, and be sure to send it to Cambridge "our fair city", MASS.
Uke said
2:37 AM, 03/28/12
Cy, it's Cambridge "Our fair city" MAAHhhhh... Like that. With a stuppid Boston accented laugh!
Troll said
2:49 PM, 03/28/12
Fuck the post office.....I never did get my Brian jacket.
Uke said
3:34 PM, 03/28/12
We're holding your "Brainless" jacket until ya pay your dues... Lemme see here, yeah your membership dues are in arrears at least six and a half years. About $619, and change oughta be enough ta welcome ya back inta the fold.
Maybe get in touch with Rob for details.
Troll said
3:55 PM, 03/28/12
Uke wrote:
We're holding your "Brainless" jacket until ya pay your dues... Lemme see here, yeah your membership dues are in arrears at least six and a half years. About $619, and change oughta be enough ta welcome ya back inta the fold.
I see my efforts on your behalf are just more wasted words. And here I thought we'd gotten past all the rancor, and negative messages, but nope! My hand was extended in friendship, and what do you do? You bite that hand!
My feelings are hurt! Much worse than BlackDog's bruising of my tender ego! The saddest part in all this? My loyalty! But not ta worry Troll. I will say a few prayers for you when I return ta church. Hey that reminds me, maybe you should try seeking help through your neighborhood church tu! One of your own choosing though...
What does 50 cents buy these days? Not a cuppa joe, a pack of gum or a newspaper. But you can get a steal of deal for a 50-cent piece: a first-class stamp. Plus a nickel in change.
Each day, six days a week, letter carriers traverse 4 million miles toting an average of 563 million pieces of mail, reaching the very doorsteps of our individual homes and workplaces in every single community in America. From the gated enclaves and penthouses of the uber-wealthy to the inner-city ghettos and rural colonias of America's poorest families, the U.S. Postal Service literally delivers. All for 45 cents. The USPS is an unmatched bargain, a civic treasure, a genuine public good that links all people and communities into one nation.
So, naturally, it must be destroyed.
For the past several months, the laissez-fairyland blogosphere, assorted corporate front groups, a howling pack of congressional right-wingers and a bunch of lazy mass media sources have been pounding out a steadily rising drumbeat to warn that our postal service faces impending doom. It's "broke," they exclaim; USPS "nears collapse"; it's "a full-blown financial crisis!"
These gloomsayers claim the national mail agency is bogged down with too many overpaid workers and costly brick-and-mortar facilities, so it can't keep up with the instant messaging of Internet services and such nimble corporate competitors as FedEx. Thus, say these contrivers of their own conventional wisdom, the Postal Service is unprofitable and is costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year in losses. Wrong.
Since 1971, the postal service has not taken a dime from taxpayers. All of its operations including the remarkable convenience of 32,000 local post offices are paid for by peddling stamps and other products.
The privatizers squawk that USPS has gone some $13 billion in the hole during the past four years a private corporation would go broke with that record! (Actually, private corporations tend to go to Washington rather than go broke, getting taxpayer bailouts to cover their losses.) The Postal Service is NOT broke. Indeed, in those four years of loudly deplored "losses," the service actually produced a $700 million operational profit (despite the worst economy since the Great Depression).
What's going on here? Right-wing sabotage of USPS financing, that's what.
In 2006, the Bush White House and Congress whacked the post office with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act an incredible piece of ugliness requiring the agency to PRE-PAY the health care benefits not only of current employees, but also of all employees who'll retire during the next 75 years. Yes, that includes employees who're not yet born!
No other agency and no corporation has to do this. Worse, this ridiculous law demands that USPS fully fund this seven-decade burden by 2016. Imagine the shrieks of outrage if Congress tried to slap FedEx or other private firms with such an onerous requirement.
This politically motivated mandate is costing the Postal Service $5.5 billion a year money taken right out of postage revenue that could be going to services. That's the real source of the "financial crisis" squeezing America's post offices.
In addition, due to a 40-year-old accounting error, the federal Office of Personnel Management has overcharged the post office by as much as $80 billion for payments into the Civil Service Retirement System. This means that USPS has had billions of its sales dollars erroneously diverted into the treasury. Restore the agency's access to its own postage money, and the impending "collapse" goes away.
The post office is more than a bunch of buildings it's a community center and, for many towns, an essential part of the local identity, as well as a tangible link to the rest of the nation. As former Sen. Jennings Randolph poignantly observed, "When the local post office is closed, the flag comes down." The corporatizer crowd doesn't grasp that going after this particular government program is messing with the human connection and genuine affection that it engenders.
America's postal service is a true publicservice, a grassroots people's asset that has even more potential than we're presently tapping to serve the democratic ideal of the common good. Why the hell would we let an elite of small-minded profiteers, ranting ideologues and their political hirelings drop-kick this jewel through the goal posts of corporate greed? This is not a fight merely to save 32,000 post offices and the middle-class jobs they provide but to advance the BIG IDEA of America itself, the bold, historic notion that "yes, we can" create a society in which we're all in it together.
Uke said
7:54 AM, 04/16/12
Andy Rooney had a few words ta say about 'the post office' we oughta heed!
Troll said
5:27 PM, 04/16/12
Uke said
6:16 PM, 04/16/12
Hey Rob, ya got a few minutes? How about we BAND Troll once and for all? His dues are in arrears, and everything he posts is a put-down, and negative in its context.
Better still, just close his account, block his ISP, and end his crap forever! That oughta make everybody else feel free ta post whatever they want!
...remember the rest of that phrase? How could ya not... Anyway the point of this missive is ta support the Postal Service. Buy stamps, mail yer letters, and packages by USPS. Use yer mailbox for cards and letters ta granny, and the cousins in Florida, or Arizona...
Please keep the Post Office viable and moving the mail! Lotsa people are depending on ya. Especially our old frien... BoiseBoatBoy, AKA: Brain. Let's not forget his motto... Never mind!
In Florida, These Retirees Deliver a First-Class Protest
Town of Former Letter Carriers Strives to Aid Post Office; Shunning Email, Dogs...
By JENNIFER LEVITZ
NALCREST, Fla.Lots of folks are fretting over how to save the U.S. Postal Service, but retirees here in central Florida's citrus country are really pushing the envelope.
A retirement community in Florida caters to retired mail carriers with the U.S. Postal Service. WSJ's Jennifer Levitz finds many prefer mail to email, and no dogs are allowed.
There is heavy pressure in Nalcrest, a rambling retirement community that is its own little town, to use the U.S. mail, rather than email or competing shipping companies, to pay bills and mail parcels to the grandkids. "We sayit's got to come through the U.S. mail or we don't want it here," said Matty Rose, 67 years old, manager of Nalcrest.
One can't blame the town. Seventy miles east of Tampa, it's the nation's only haven solely for retired postal service mail carriers.
The attachment to mail runs deep. Residents joke that Nalcrest, which stands for the National Association of Letter Carriers Retirement, Education, Security and Training, is actually short for National Association of Letter Carriers at Rest. It has its own mailing address and post office. A mailman statue graces the village square. There is a stamp club, and a minigolf course, where the obstacle on the first hole isn't a windmill but a blue mail collection box.
Enlarge Image
Carriers who spent years pounding the pavement relax under palm trees in a kind of mail carrier bliss: no ice to tumble on, no snow to slosh through, and best of all, no furry foes.
"This is a no-dog community," said Mr. Rose, a retired mailman from Hollywood, Fla. "That's because if you're a letter carrier, you've had experience with dogs. In my career, I was bit twice and chased about 100 times."
Now the 700 residents are fighting a new menace: the crisis enveloping the 236-year-old postal service, which is bleeding cash as technology erodes volumes of first-class mailand raising questions about whether traditional mail is going the way of the buggy whip.
"It stinks," said Robert Riley, 89, a former mailman from Wrentham, Mass., resting in a golf cart parked in Nalcrest's sun-drenched village square.
Congress is debating multiple proposals to revamp the agency, including dropping Saturday delivery and closing thousands of post offices that are unprofitable. A perceived assault on their beloved profession has Nalcrest in a tizzy.
"Why? Why? Then they got to make some 80- or 90-year-old woman go two or three miles to the next post office," said Frank Wright, 70, who carried mail in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. "The post office was originally meant to be a service to the people, not a profit-making operation."
Posted on the community bulletin board, by bingo announcements, are alerts about the postal service's recent proposal to pull out of federal health plans and run its own less-costly onean idea that has retirees anxious about their benefits. March's "Nalcrest Monthly Bulletin" touted softball, horseshoes, a coming party"our past winner of musical chairs just had a hip replaced so everyone has a chance this year"and invited everyone to the auditorium to discuss the postal service and "get on board" to save it.
They sent a 600-signature petition to Washington, by first-class mail, against dropping Saturday delivery, and raised $350 to send to their national union's lobbying arm. "That's the money we buy off the Congressmen with," cracked John Alversa, 72, a retired mailman from Flushing, N.Y.
Bill LaFrana, 69, and retired from carrying mail in Lexington, Ky., has written to Congress and his local paper back home against the postal service's proposal to slow delivery of some mail to save money. "That just wasn't acceptable when I had to work," he said.
His girlfriend, Ellen Hollon, 72, said all the talk about the postal service is no fun.
"Every time a news blip comes up, it occupies even a barbecuethe wives and girlfriends will finally say, 'hey,'" she said, making a timeout gesture with her hands. "We don't want to hear this mailman stuff."
The retirees acknowledge the postal service must make changes to stay afloat. Theyand the postmaster general, and some members of Congresssay one solution would be to ease an unusual requirement imposed by Congress in 2006 that the agency aggressively fund retiree benefits decades ahead.
Supporters of the pre-funding, including U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross, (R., Fla.), say it will insure the agency can provide benefits for retireeslike the ones in Nalcrestfar down the road and that the tab doesn't fall to taxpayers.
Nalcrest residents picketed outside Mr. Ross's local office last fall. They had hoped for a bigger crowd, "but a lot of the snowbirds weren't here yet," said Janet Russo, 63, a retired postal clerk whose late husband carried mail in Medford, Mass.
Mr. Ross said changes he is proposing won't likely affect Nalcrest retirees, but that he isn't surprised they are mad at him. "Change never comes easy," he said.
The community, where the modest mint-green cottages start at $395 per month, broke ground in 1962, the brainchild of William Doherty, a former Ohio mail carrier and union leader, who envisioned a low-cost retirement haven entirely owned and funded by letter carriers through union dueswhich long ago paid off the mortgage. The postal service contributes no money toward the town.
Nalcrest has its own ZIP Code. "We had a little pull with the post office," says Mr. Rose, the manager.
The village has a barber shop, cafe and market. Each morning, residents head to the busy and profitable post office to retrieve mail from their boxesno door-to-door delivery hereyelling to the clerk, in mailman lingo, "is first-class up?"
We'll send you a plaque, or a previously used saphety plate. And thanks for supporting USPS!
We're holding your "Brainless" jacket until ya pay your dues... Lemme see here, yeah your membership dues are in arrears at least six and a half years. About $619, and change oughta be enough ta welcome ya back inta the fold.
Maybe get in touch with Rob for details.
My feelings are hurt! Much worse than BlackDog's bruising of my tender ego! The saddest part in all this? My loyalty! But not ta worry Troll. I will say a few prayers for you when I return ta church. Hey that reminds me, maybe you should try seeking help through your neighborhood church tu! One of your own choosing though...
The Truth About the U.S. Postal Service
What does 50 cents buy these days? Not a cuppa joe, a pack of gum or a newspaper. But you can get a steal of deal for a 50-cent piece: a first-class stamp. Plus a nickel in change.
Each day, six days a week, letter carriers traverse 4 million miles toting an average of 563 million pieces of mail, reaching the very doorsteps of our individual homes and workplaces in every single community in America. From the gated enclaves and penthouses of the uber-wealthy to the inner-city ghettos and rural colonias of America's poorest families, the U.S. Postal Service literally delivers. All for 45 cents. The USPS is an unmatched bargain, a civic treasure, a genuine public good that links all people and communities into one nation.
So, naturally, it must be destroyed.
For the past several months, the laissez-fairyland blogosphere, assorted corporate front groups, a howling pack of congressional right-wingers and a bunch of lazy mass media sources have been pounding out a steadily rising drumbeat to warn that our postal service faces impending doom. It's "broke," they exclaim; USPS "nears collapse"; it's "a full-blown financial crisis!"
These gloomsayers claim the national mail agency is bogged down with too many overpaid workers and costly brick-and-mortar facilities, so it can't keep up with the instant messaging of Internet services and such nimble corporate competitors as FedEx. Thus, say these contrivers of their own conventional wisdom, the Postal Service is unprofitable and is costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year in losses. Wrong.
Since 1971, the postal service has not taken a dime from taxpayers. All of its operations including the remarkable convenience of 32,000 local post offices are paid for by peddling stamps and other products.
The privatizers squawk that USPS has gone some $13 billion in the hole during the past four years a private corporation would go broke with that record! (Actually, private corporations tend to go to Washington rather than go broke, getting taxpayer bailouts to cover their losses.) The Postal Service is NOT broke. Indeed, in those four years of loudly deplored "losses," the service actually produced a $700 million operational profit (despite the worst economy since the Great Depression).
What's going on here? Right-wing sabotage of USPS financing, that's what.
In 2006, the Bush White House and Congress whacked the post office with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act an incredible piece of ugliness requiring the agency to PRE-PAY the health care benefits not only of current employees, but also of all employees who'll retire during the next 75 years. Yes, that includes employees who're not yet born!
No other agency and no corporation has to do this. Worse, this ridiculous law demands that USPS fully fund this seven-decade burden by 2016. Imagine the shrieks of outrage if Congress tried to slap FedEx or other private firms with such an onerous requirement.
This politically motivated mandate is costing the Postal Service $5.5 billion a year money taken right out of postage revenue that could be going to services. That's the real source of the "financial crisis" squeezing America's post offices.
In addition, due to a 40-year-old accounting error, the federal Office of Personnel Management has overcharged the post office by as much as $80 billion for payments into the Civil Service Retirement System. This means that USPS has had billions of its sales dollars erroneously diverted into the treasury. Restore the agency's access to its own postage money, and the impending "collapse" goes away.
The post office is more than a bunch of buildings it's a community center and, for many towns, an essential part of the local identity, as well as a tangible link to the rest of the nation. As former Sen. Jennings Randolph poignantly observed, "When the local post office is closed, the flag comes down." The corporatizer crowd doesn't grasp that going after this particular government program is messing with the human connection and genuine affection that it engenders.
America's postal service is a true publicservice, a grassroots people's asset that has even more potential than we're presently tapping to serve the democratic ideal of the common good. Why the hell would we let an elite of small-minded profiteers, ranting ideologues and their political hirelings drop-kick this jewel through the goal posts of corporate greed? This is not a fight merely to save 32,000 post offices and the middle-class jobs they provide but to advance the BIG IDEA of America itself, the bold, historic notion that "yes, we can" create a society in which we're all in it together.
Andy Rooney had a few words ta say about 'the post office' we oughta heed!
Better still, just close his account, block his ISP, and end his crap forever! That oughta make everybody else feel free ta post whatever they want!