Gone Postal

         

             The United States Postal Service recently announced that they plan to end Saturday delivery this coming August.  Reactions among the general public seemed mixed.  Most people became more comfortable with the idea when they learned that parcels will still be delivered to city delivery routes.  This mixed, and somewhat indifferent, reaction could not be more different from reaction the major postal unions had.

            But first, here is a quick lesson on postal unions.  If you divide the blue-collar workers of the USPS into their individual jobs, you are left with four major job types, or crafts.  These crafts are the City Letter Carriers, Rural Letter Carriers, Mail Handlers, and the Clerks.  Each of these crafts has their own union representation, the NALC, NRLCA, NPMHU, and the APWU respectively.  Confused?  Don’t worry, I am too and I’ve been a City Letter Carrier and member of the NALC for over six years.

            Now, as you might expect, the four unions unanimously agreed that ending Saturday delivery is a terrible idea.  The NALC concluded that it is a “disastrous idea” which will have “profoundly negative effect(s) on the Postal Service and on millions of customers”.  They concluded their statement by calling for the “immediate removal of the postmaster general, who has lost the confidence of the men and women who deliver for America every day”.  And it is at that point right there, when the dialogue between unions and management become nothing more than a competition of who can yell the loudest and say the most outlandish statement, that I lose the ability to pretend to care.

            The obvious question at this point is how did it get this bad?  How is it that a federal institution, with roots dating back to the Second Continental Congress, is now forced to reduce its service?  The answer is pretty surprising.  It all started in 2006, a time when the United States Postal Service reached a peak mail volume of 213 billion pieces (by 2011 that number dropped all the way down to 168 billion pieces.).  It was at this time of record high numbers that Congress passed the Postal Accountability Act and Enhancement Act of 2006.  This Act required the USPS to prefund its retiree’s benefits for the next 75 years within a 10 year period, meaning the Post Office was suddenly given a deadline of 10 years to pay $103.7 billion to the Treasury.  It is not surprising that when you go back and look at how much the Post Office has lost each year, that number closely resembles the amount paid to the Treasury to prefund the retiree's benefits.

            The story only gets more bizarre from there.  Last June, the Post Office’s Office of the Inspector General published their findings that the Post Office has actually paid more than enough money to fund future retiree's benefits with a surplus of $13.1 billion dollars.  If this finding is true, it would mean that the Post Office's yearly net losses have been wildly exaggerated.  And that is while prefunding all future retiree's benefits for the next 75 years during a massive economic downturn.

            Ive worked at the Post Office long enough to know it has its share of problems.  It is an archaic system of outdated rules spanning back generations where decisions are constantly met with union opposition.  Add to that an inbred management system where important positions are not made available to the open market, but rather the limited pool of internal employees.  It sometimes seems like promotions within the Post Office are only a matter of the largest turd floating to the top.  But when it’s all said and done, postal management didn't ruin the Post Office.  That blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the men and women in our elected Congress.  At this point we aren't left with many choices.  Saturday delivery is gone and unlikely to return.  The United States Postal Service still faces substantial financial shortcomings.  But the dilemma now is whether it is better for Congress to pass legislation to help save the Post Office or to just stay the hell away.  I'm hoping for the second option.

Stupid Chair

           I’m not really sure why, but most of the times Hollywood references the Ozarks, it is not in a real positive way.  If you were to judge strictly from movies, the Ozarks are synonymous with meth use like in Winter’s Bone or barefoot yokels wearing overalls like The Beverly Hillbillies.  Occasionally, the Ozarks means something else, like in the Bourne movies, where world class badass Jason Bourne ends up being from Nixa Missouri.  Sometimes in rare cases, like 2004’s hit Million Dollar Baby, we get a mix of the two stereotypes.

            Now, before I go any further let me just say SPOILER ALERT.  The movie has been out for nearly a decade and won 4 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Leading Actress, so if you haven’t seen it by now it’s your fault, not mine.  On the off chance this applies to you and you haven't seen Million Dollar Baby, you can watch a 5 second version of it or just keep reading, either way you won’t miss much.

            The movie is about Maggie Fitzgerald, a tough waitress from the Ozarks played by Hillary Swank, that goes to LA to train as a boxer.  She meets up with the crotchety old trainer played by Clint Eastwood, who insists he doesn’t train girls.  He winds up changing his mind, because that is what Clint Eastwood does in every movie he’s in.  He comes across as some pissed off old guy with borderline sexist or racist ideas, and then by the end of the movie we all realize that underneath it all, he’s really a caring person…just don’t walk on his lawn.

            Clint Eastwood transforms Maggie into an impressive physical specimen of a fighter in a single montage that even includes the narration of Morgan Freeman.  She quickly rises up the ranks with knockout after knockout until finally landing a title fight.  Bet you didn’t see that one coming!  Her opponent is an East German former prostitute known for being a dirty fighter.  The fight begins with Maggie getting pummeled before she delivers a Rockey-esque comeback at the end of the round.  Saved by the bell, the former commie hooker hits Maggie from behind knocking her neckfirst into a poorly placed stool and breaking her neck.  It’s really no wonder that Clint Eastwood took to talking to chairs after watching one crack his prize fighter’s neck like a pencil.

            The break is serious and Maggie is left paralyzed from the neck down   The negative Ozarks stereotypes surface when Maggie's hillbilly family makes the trip from Theodosia to visit her in the hospital (after visiting Disneyland first, of course).  Her brother wears a black tank top with arms covered in tattoos and one of those obnoxious Bret Michaels hats that you can only pull off if you were once the lead singer of Poison, otherwise you look like an idiot from the Ozarks.  Rather than showing concern for their paralyzed relative, they only want Maggie to sign a form transferring all of her fight winnings to them.  Maggie refuses to mouth sign the form and the family leaves.

            Bedridden and unable to care for herself, Maggie decides that she would rather die than face life in her condition so she asked her trainer to help her commit suicide.  He refuses at first but again changes his mind.  He is Clint Eastwood after all and killing is kinda his thing.  So, in a tearful scene, he calmly sneaks into her hospital room after hours and pulls out his trusty Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum and does what he has to do.  At least that’s what I assume happened, I pretty much mentally checked out after she broke her neck.  The end.