So take a letter, Maria....
The lines at the Post Office are long this week. Everyone who shopped for Christmas gifts over the weekend was there on Monday or today, standing in line to mail packages. Some were smart and hit the self-serve stations in post offices before the window hours began.
Next time you pass by that office, take a peek inside. That person behind the counter is a federal employee. The median salary for those jobs is more than $50,000 per year, plus health insurance and retirement benefits. You don't need a college degree, but the jobs are hard to get. The U. S. Postal Service isn't growing, is probably going to shrink and so new applicants face difficult exams and long waits to be hired even if they pass.
It is actually interesting to think that you can mail a letter from any point in the U. S. to any other point in the U. S. for only 44 cents. I needed to send someone an envelope of stuff a couple of months back and it cost me $23 to use the slowest method Fed Ex had available. That was from California to Illinois. Today I sent an envelope to someone in Sri Lanka and that was only $67, in comparison.
One of the main reasons given that no business would want to take on the task of privatizing the Postal Service is that it isn't profitable to charge the same amount to mail an envelope across town as it is to send it across the country. That's their excuse and there is some validity to it. But there is another reason no one wants to talk about.
That reason is a number. As of 2010, the number was 583,908. That's the number of "career" postal employees there were as of that year. It should also be noted that this number doesn't include part-time and season employees. No private business wants to step in and privatize the Postal Service, because part of the deal will be hiring on those employees and maintaining their salaries and benefits until they retire. Congress would insist on that.
Will the Postal Service go under? Probably not. Congress would have some explaining to do to the people, especially considering the mandate the Constitution contains for their to be a Postal Service.
* * *
A New Mexico teacher is on a paid leave while the administration considers what to do, after he admitted that he'd told a student that the student couldn't be Santa because the student is black. To be fair, it should be noted upfront that the teacher reported the incident himself. He admitted that it was a mistake and tried to make an apology by telephone. However, the student's parents say that such an apology is totally insufficient and they are calling for the teacher to be fired.
I'm not sure firing is appropriate, but something more severe than a reprimand is called for. It isn't about the rudeness of the comment itself, but the complete lack of understanding what the underlying message of the teacher's words are. It isn't just telling the student he can't be Santa because he is black. Beneath those words are the message that he will never amount to anything because he is black. Maybe the teacher is the least racist person in New Mexico; however, that message is implied in the words that he chose to speak.
Teachers have an affirmative obligation to ensure their students know that they can accomplish anything (well, almost anything) they set out to do, with hard work and focus. Poor people become billionaires. Uneducated people dedicate themselves to learning and earn Ph.Ds. They said a man could never run a mile in less than four minutes. Now the world's record for a man in the mile is 3:43 and the women's record has dropped to 4:12. Someday a woman will run a mile in under four minutes. Anything is possible.
Teachers shouldn't be telling students there are limits on what the students can accomplish. Especially because of their ethnicity, or religion, or their gender, or anything else!
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Barbara Walters recently interviewed Jennifer Lawrence. I wonder if Jennifer knew that when Barbara screened the most recent Hunger Games film, she had to ask an assistant to point Jennifer out to her.
The student who got a year's suspension for hugging his teacher from behind didn't deserve a punishment that harsh, but you don't hug people from behind unless you are 100% certain they want the attention and physical contact. That the teacher's immediate reaction was to push the student away is very telling.
The biggest non-story floating around in the media right now is the falling approval rating of President Obama. He has no elections in his future. History's judgment won't settle in stone until long after he's left office. That some polling data is showing that the public now thinks Republicans are better suited to "manage" the economy than the President is, is meaningless.
A TV reporter who opines that "it's the law" when criticizing police officers who refuse to enforce new gun control laws, and won't answer if that's the case when it comes to immigration laws not being enforced is either afraid of hypocrisy, or just refusing to admit he misspoke.
If people are serious about wanting to make the tax system more "fair", the first thing to change is the Walton grantor retained annuity trust, known as the GRAT. But that's not going to happen. Not when politicians on both sides of the aisle are beholden to the relatively small number of people this would impact for campaign donations. But just to illustrate its impact, Sheldon Adelson has avoided nearly $3 billion in gift taxes so far by using GRATs.
People are reading too much into Paul McCartney's reaction at an NBA game where he didn't get the free t-shirt that was shot into the audience next to him.
Shia LaBeouf's plagiarizing of a comic to make a short film was bad, and dumb. But plagiarizing his apology from one he saw online is downright idiotic.
The fact that there are unclaimed lottery tickets purchased in and around New York City that are worth over $48 million tells me people don't check their tickets.
I'm disappointed that Linda Ronstadt will probably be unable to attend the ceremony in New York where she will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She truly deserves the honor.
We'd all like to get the pay raise that Meg Whitman just got from HP. Imagine if your salary was increased by 150,000,000%. Hers was raised from $1 to $1.5 million.
John Beale was paid over $200,000 a year by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as an administrator. Now he's going to be headed to prison for defrauding the government of nearly $1,000,000. He would just not show up for work for months at a time, claiming to be a CIA operative, or other such outlandish nonsense. That he got away with this for more than 10 years is another clue as to why our government is broke.
The idea that AMC is losing money on "The Walking Dead" is ridiculous. They just don't want to give any of the profits to Frank Darabont.
* * *
No this date or movie quotes for this entry. More of that tomorrow.
Next time you pass by that office, take a peek inside. That person behind the counter is a federal employee. The median salary for those jobs is more than $50,000 per year, plus health insurance and retirement benefits. You don't need a college degree, but the jobs are hard to get. The U. S. Postal Service isn't growing, is probably going to shrink and so new applicants face difficult exams and long waits to be hired even if they pass.
It is actually interesting to think that you can mail a letter from any point in the U. S. to any other point in the U. S. for only 44 cents. I needed to send someone an envelope of stuff a couple of months back and it cost me $23 to use the slowest method Fed Ex had available. That was from California to Illinois. Today I sent an envelope to someone in Sri Lanka and that was only $67, in comparison.
One of the main reasons given that no business would want to take on the task of privatizing the Postal Service is that it isn't profitable to charge the same amount to mail an envelope across town as it is to send it across the country. That's their excuse and there is some validity to it. But there is another reason no one wants to talk about.
That reason is a number. As of 2010, the number was 583,908. That's the number of "career" postal employees there were as of that year. It should also be noted that this number doesn't include part-time and season employees. No private business wants to step in and privatize the Postal Service, because part of the deal will be hiring on those employees and maintaining their salaries and benefits until they retire. Congress would insist on that.
Will the Postal Service go under? Probably not. Congress would have some explaining to do to the people, especially considering the mandate the Constitution contains for their to be a Postal Service.
* * *
A New Mexico teacher is on a paid leave while the administration considers what to do, after he admitted that he'd told a student that the student couldn't be Santa because the student is black. To be fair, it should be noted upfront that the teacher reported the incident himself. He admitted that it was a mistake and tried to make an apology by telephone. However, the student's parents say that such an apology is totally insufficient and they are calling for the teacher to be fired.
I'm not sure firing is appropriate, but something more severe than a reprimand is called for. It isn't about the rudeness of the comment itself, but the complete lack of understanding what the underlying message of the teacher's words are. It isn't just telling the student he can't be Santa because he is black. Beneath those words are the message that he will never amount to anything because he is black. Maybe the teacher is the least racist person in New Mexico; however, that message is implied in the words that he chose to speak.
Teachers have an affirmative obligation to ensure their students know that they can accomplish anything (well, almost anything) they set out to do, with hard work and focus. Poor people become billionaires. Uneducated people dedicate themselves to learning and earn Ph.Ds. They said a man could never run a mile in less than four minutes. Now the world's record for a man in the mile is 3:43 and the women's record has dropped to 4:12. Someday a woman will run a mile in under four minutes. Anything is possible.
Teachers shouldn't be telling students there are limits on what the students can accomplish. Especially because of their ethnicity, or religion, or their gender, or anything else!
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Barbara Walters recently interviewed Jennifer Lawrence. I wonder if Jennifer knew that when Barbara screened the most recent Hunger Games film, she had to ask an assistant to point Jennifer out to her.
The student who got a year's suspension for hugging his teacher from behind didn't deserve a punishment that harsh, but you don't hug people from behind unless you are 100% certain they want the attention and physical contact. That the teacher's immediate reaction was to push the student away is very telling.
The biggest non-story floating around in the media right now is the falling approval rating of President Obama. He has no elections in his future. History's judgment won't settle in stone until long after he's left office. That some polling data is showing that the public now thinks Republicans are better suited to "manage" the economy than the President is, is meaningless.
A TV reporter who opines that "it's the law" when criticizing police officers who refuse to enforce new gun control laws, and won't answer if that's the case when it comes to immigration laws not being enforced is either afraid of hypocrisy, or just refusing to admit he misspoke.
If people are serious about wanting to make the tax system more "fair", the first thing to change is the Walton grantor retained annuity trust, known as the GRAT. But that's not going to happen. Not when politicians on both sides of the aisle are beholden to the relatively small number of people this would impact for campaign donations. But just to illustrate its impact, Sheldon Adelson has avoided nearly $3 billion in gift taxes so far by using GRATs.
People are reading too much into Paul McCartney's reaction at an NBA game where he didn't get the free t-shirt that was shot into the audience next to him.
Shia LaBeouf's plagiarizing of a comic to make a short film was bad, and dumb. But plagiarizing his apology from one he saw online is downright idiotic.
The fact that there are unclaimed lottery tickets purchased in and around New York City that are worth over $48 million tells me people don't check their tickets.
I'm disappointed that Linda Ronstadt will probably be unable to attend the ceremony in New York where she will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She truly deserves the honor.
We'd all like to get the pay raise that Meg Whitman just got from HP. Imagine if your salary was increased by 150,000,000%. Hers was raised from $1 to $1.5 million.
John Beale was paid over $200,000 a year by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as an administrator. Now he's going to be headed to prison for defrauding the government of nearly $1,000,000. He would just not show up for work for months at a time, claiming to be a CIA operative, or other such outlandish nonsense. That he got away with this for more than 10 years is another clue as to why our government is broke.
The idea that AMC is losing money on "The Walking Dead" is ridiculous. They just don't want to give any of the profits to Frank Darabont.
* * *
No this date or movie quotes for this entry. More of that tomorrow.
posted by me at 8:29 PM
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