Times 'a Changing:
Lyndsey Layton reports in today's Washington Post on the state of the U. S. Postal Service, which is expected to lose $1 billion this year.
The Postal Service was founded at the beginning of this country in order to promote the general well-being of the new nation. Postal services were a relatively new concept, and having a national postal service was revolutionary in and of itself.
It was believed that the federal government ought to provide a postal service that would allow the people and their government to communicate with one another over what was then a broad geographical area. In addition it was believed that a national postal service would benefit business.
During the 1950s, with a Republican administration in the White House, a push to make the postal service behave more like a business was voiced by the government. The postal service should, it was argued, pay for itself at the very least.
As the years progressed, the postal service began to encounter competition as well. Now, in addition to competition from private companies, the Internet seems to be finally living up, at least in part, to its promise as a widely accepted mode of communication, not just for personal matters, but for business communication from advertising to bill paying. For the first time in the postal service's history, the volume of mail is actually decreasing.
In addition, the rapidly increasing cost of energy, specifically oil prices, are also taking a toll on the cost of operations.
P.S. The cost of a first class stamp is going up shortly.
Leashing (or is it "leasing"?) the Power of the Sun:
Another sign of change is shining brightly in the west. Today's New York Times reports on the increased potential for solar energy. The western states are full of potential for generating solar power, but the main problem is how to transmit it to where it's needed most. While water shortages make the case for keeping population in the western states low, there may come a time when the argument to move west in order to take advantage of cheap and environmentally friendly solar energy pushes larger chunks of the population to move westward.
Has anyone mentioned the fact that this might be a good time for strong leadership? Currently the media seems to be focused primarily on "gamesmanship."
The Political Scene: All the news seems to focus on whether Hillary's advisers can help generate worry enough about who answers the phone during a national crisis to overcome Obama's charismatic charm. And will this battle split the Democratic party so that McCain can gain the Oval Office to ensure that we have four more years of failed Bush policies.
No one seems focused on the need for true leadership. To date, no one has voiced a vision of where we need to go as a nation. Even Obama, with his charming talk of "hope," has not offered a vision of where this nation needs to go in the near future. His most promising image of change is the physical image he presents when he stands before a crowd.
But then JFK didn't offer much more than that either. But then, if an assassin's bullet hadn't martyred Kennedy, it's likely his administration would have gone down in history as middling at best and nearly catastrophic at worst, in light of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the near miss on nuclear holocaust over the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War.
Those who fantasize that Kennedy would never have pursued the McNamara policies in Vietnam that Johnson did forget that the latter was Kennedy's man before he was Johnson's and that the Democratic party at the time was desperate to prove to corporate America that it hated communism just as much as any Republican did.
Speaking of History and the Future: "In this job you've got a lot on your plate on a regular basis; you don't have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, 'How do you think my standing will be?'" — George W. Bush, Washington, D. C., March 2005.
Lyndsey Layton reports in today's Washington Post on the state of the U. S. Postal Service, which is expected to lose $1 billion this year.
The Postal Service was founded at the beginning of this country in order to promote the general well-being of the new nation. Postal services were a relatively new concept, and having a national postal service was revolutionary in and of itself.
It was believed that the federal government ought to provide a postal service that would allow the people and their government to communicate with one another over what was then a broad geographical area. In addition it was believed that a national postal service would benefit business.
During the 1950s, with a Republican administration in the White House, a push to make the postal service behave more like a business was voiced by the government. The postal service should, it was argued, pay for itself at the very least.
As the years progressed, the postal service began to encounter competition as well. Now, in addition to competition from private companies, the Internet seems to be finally living up, at least in part, to its promise as a widely accepted mode of communication, not just for personal matters, but for business communication from advertising to bill paying. For the first time in the postal service's history, the volume of mail is actually decreasing.
In addition, the rapidly increasing cost of energy, specifically oil prices, are also taking a toll on the cost of operations.
P.S. The cost of a first class stamp is going up shortly.
Leashing (or is it "leasing"?) the Power of the Sun:
Another sign of change is shining brightly in the west. Today's New York Times reports on the increased potential for solar energy. The western states are full of potential for generating solar power, but the main problem is how to transmit it to where it's needed most. While water shortages make the case for keeping population in the western states low, there may come a time when the argument to move west in order to take advantage of cheap and environmentally friendly solar energy pushes larger chunks of the population to move westward.
Has anyone mentioned the fact that this might be a good time for strong leadership? Currently the media seems to be focused primarily on "gamesmanship."
The Political Scene: All the news seems to focus on whether Hillary's advisers can help generate worry enough about who answers the phone during a national crisis to overcome Obama's charismatic charm. And will this battle split the Democratic party so that McCain can gain the Oval Office to ensure that we have four more years of failed Bush policies.
No one seems focused on the need for true leadership. To date, no one has voiced a vision of where we need to go as a nation. Even Obama, with his charming talk of "hope," has not offered a vision of where this nation needs to go in the near future. His most promising image of change is the physical image he presents when he stands before a crowd.
But then JFK didn't offer much more than that either. But then, if an assassin's bullet hadn't martyred Kennedy, it's likely his administration would have gone down in history as middling at best and nearly catastrophic at worst, in light of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the near miss on nuclear holocaust over the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War.
Those who fantasize that Kennedy would never have pursued the McNamara policies in Vietnam that Johnson did forget that the latter was Kennedy's man before he was Johnson's and that the Democratic party at the time was desperate to prove to corporate America that it hated communism just as much as any Republican did.
Speaking of History and the Future: "In this job you've got a lot on your plate on a regular basis; you don't have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, 'How do you think my standing will be?'" — George W. Bush, Washington, D. C., March 2005.
Labels: Politics
posted by Jim | 11:47 AM
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