Homeward Bound

If all goes as planned, I will be landing at SFO in 24 hours.

Joy unbounded.

Thanks to everyone who made it possible, support, both moral more than financial, has made it possible. I don't like to beg, but I am still looking for work, so donations are still being accepted.

As ever, prints are for sale.

California, here I come...

Got mail?

Maybe not for much longer:

USPS to consider reducing offices by as much as two-thirds

Two-thirds of the over 4,800 postal stations and branches nationwide will be submitted for review, a review process which does not involve public or media notification, involves only a ten-day input period from the public (remember, with no prior notification required), and for which there is no appeals process. These evaluations of post offices in your city will happen over the course of sixty days. Sixty. That is all the time they are going to take to determine how much this will affect the American public and paying USPS customers....

The USPS management also wants to outsource retail and delivery services, completely destroying what is called the "sanctity of the mail," and creating enormous potential for exploitation. Very dangerous exploitation. Without the USPS' rigorous background checks, you would never know who was delivering your mail, including bank statements and official documents and records, personal items, and so on. They would know where you lived, what sort of car you drove, whether you had children, what your names were, all sorts of personal things. They would have a good idea of when you were home, what your cars looked like, how to get into your yard, whether you have a dog.

Have you thought about this? Have you thought about the fact that your mail carriers and in-plant mail handlers have been selected to be safe and trustworthy people? And what it would mean if they were not?

What would it mean if the USPS outsourced these services? What would happen if your mail was being delivered by the lowest bidder? Do you think that the level of service would remain the same? Would it be consistent countrywide? Would it be safe?

Look at how well privatizing, and the associated "slim-lining" and so forth have gone. The US Mail is amazing. It gets greif, but it really is outstanding. How many times have you mistyped an e-mail address (.com, not .net, or inverted a set of digits, etc.). Generally, it bounces.

I had a girlfriend in San Diego. I miswrote her address, and the mail got there. It got there for months. It wasn't until the sixth or seventh letter was sent back that I knew I had it wrong. I sent her an e-mail, asking if she'd missed any letters... nary a one.

Think a contractor is going to be so assidous, as to figure out the address is wrong (there was no such piece of the street) and look to see that a simple inversion gets to a name she recognizes, and then deliver it?

I'm not willing to bet on it. Who, by the way, is going to be making the money? This is a tax. A tax from me and thee, to some corporation. We are being forced to pay them (unless we want to forego the mails). That's a redistribution of wealth,and it's going the wrong way.