Month: December 2020

The US Postal Service: Bah, Humbug

Okay, admittedly this is a first world problem. With thousands of Americans dying every day because of our government’s failed response to the pandemic, I guess there are bigger fish to fry than worrying about Xmas gifts and cards going undelivered.

But here is a case where you do have to give Trump some credit. POTUS and his lackeys tried hard to slow down the mail service as a way to help him win reelection. That didn’t work. But one lingering effect has been to delay the shipments of packages and cards during the holiday season.

Folks, if grandma hasn’t received the fruitcake yet, well good luck.

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And just to show you that I don’t make all of this stuff up, here’s from an article in The Washington Post:

“Competing crises are slamming the U.S. Postal Service just days before Christmas, imperiling the delivery of millions of packages, as the agency contends with spiking coronavirus cases in its workforce, unprecedented volumes of e-commerce orders and the continuing fallout from a hobbled cost-cutting program launched by the postmaster general.

“Nearly 19,000 of the agency’s 644,000 workers have called in sick or are isolating because of the virus, according to the American Postal Workers Union.

“Meanwhile, packages have stacked up inside some postal facilities, leading employees to push them aside to create narrow walkways on shop floors.
Some processing plants are now refusing to accept new mail shipments. The backlogs are so pronounced that some managers have reached out to colleagues in hopes of diverting mail shipments to nearby facilities. But often, those places are full, too. Meanwhile, packages sit on trucks for days waiting for floor space to open so the loads can be sorted.”

Well, I’m sure these are difficult times for the U.S. Postal Service and for its employees. And I imagine that working at the Post Office isn’t always ideal under even the best of circumstances.

Here’s the perspective of Newman, from the classic TV show Steinfield:

Oh, well. Like I said, the inability of the Post Office to deliver mail during a pandemic is a first world problem. And I’m not going to let it ruin my Christmas.

But it’s disappointing that for the first time in decades a running calendar that I send to a friend in Florida each year isn’t likely to make it.

I mailed the package at the Woodland Park, Colorado, Post Office on December 7. Now on December 22, it has made its way all the way to Aurora, Colorado, about a two hour drive by car.

But since there isn’t anything I or anyone else can do about this, I might as well just sit back and enjoy the holiday season.

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So it goes.

Signs Of The Times

Okay. I’ll admit it. I’m more than a little concerned about our country these days. It appears that the USA is circling the toilet bowel, waiting for Trump or one of his lackeys to pull the handle.

Need evidence of this?

Well, Congress continues to dither over a financial relief package, despite the death and suffering that the virus has caused for millions of Americans.

The Russians apparently have the ability to wage a massive cyber attack on the USA, putting at risk everything from our electrical power grids to the nation’s nuclear codes. And the response of POTUS is to suggest that maybe it is China, not Russia, causing the threat. I’m beginning to believe that Putin is one of the few people in the world who will be sorry to see Trump leave office. Oh well.

And then there is the virus — and the administration’s pathetic and lackluster response.

Folks, we now have more than 300,000 dead in this country, with the number growing by the minute.

And I wonder where we would be today if Trump and company hadn’t lied to the American public about the severity of the pandemic — and if our so-called leaders didn’t promote the notion that it was patriotic to ignore the advice of the health experts to stay home, social distance and wear a damn mask.

I really have a hard time seeing how wearing a mask to protect yourself and others is somehow a threat to our personal and constitutional liberties. But what do I know?

Anyway, I see signs of this stupidity every week when I shop at the Safeway in my little mountain town.

Safeway, like most other grocery stores and retail outlets, has a large sign posted at the front entrance saying that masks are required. Yet inside on any given day you see plenty of shoppers proudly loading their carts with their faces as bare as the bottom of a newborn baby

And Safeway management took a stab at getting people to social distance by trying to get people to go in one direction in each of the aisles. This actually doesn’t seem like such a hard concept. Think driving on a one way street. People are smart enough to figure that out all the time.

And at Safeway, you even have visual cues to help the dim witted:

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I take that sign — plainly marked — to mean don’t go that fucking way.

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And I assume that when you see this one it means go straight ahead.

Pretty simple. Right?

Well, actually, no.

On any given day, if you could get a dollar for every person going in the wrong direction in these plainly marked aisles you would have enough to get your groceries for free.

I’m not sure if people ignore the directions because they are self-indulgent to a fault. Or if they are just plain stupid. I stood there Saturday and watched one asshole proudly go in the wrong direction in every aisle. Wonder who he voted for? I digress.

But I know two things:

One, people who won’t wear a mask or social distance aren’t patriots protecting civil rights. They are asshats who are more than willing to endanger the health of everyone they come into contact with.

And two, if as a society we are unwilling to follow simple rules for the benefit of everyone, then we only have ourselves to blame when somebody pulls that toilet handle.

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So it goes.

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Gee, let’s see what has been going on in our little world since I last posted in this space.

Well, the virus, despite the rosy forecasts of the Trump administration, continues to get worse, not better. In the USA, we’ve topped 16 million cases and more than 300,000 deaths. And those numbers climb every day, in fact, every minute. Oh, boy.

Still, there are millions throughout the country who still believe this is a hoax, or an attempt by the government to take away our personal freedoms and constitutional rights. I suspect these are the same people who can’t (or won’t) follow the clearly marked directions in the aisles of my town’s local Safeway. Oh, well.

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Fortunately, there does appear to be some light at the end of the tunnel, as the first wave of a vaccine is starting to make its way across the country. Of course, only about half of the people who have been asked have said they will take the vaccine when available. Wonder if someone is working on a vaccine to cure stupidity? I digress.

And while the CDC has established protocols for how the vaccine should be distributed and administered (first up: health care workers, first responders, those in nursery homes and so on) there is some talk that members of the administration and those in Congress should be able to jump the queue and get a dose before us common folks.

Well, I don’t want anyone to get the virus. But from where I sit, White House staffers and their Congressional counterparts should be the last people in line. They at first downplayed the virus and later wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a mask. Folks, without putting too fine a point on this, those people are the ones who need to take responsibility for this deadly fiasco, not get rewarded because of their job status.

And then there is Congress itself. Since before the election, our elected leaders have been stewing over a plan to provide relief — money and essential supplies — to the millions who desperately need it. But as of this morning, they can’t reach a deal. I imagine that before the election, the Democrats didn’t want to pass anything because it might help Trump. And following the election, the Republicans have once again turned into deficit hawks and appear unwilling to fund anything other than an inflated defense budget.

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Yet there might be some light at the end of the tunnel here as well.

In a little over a month, President-elect Biden will take the oath of office, and Trump will be back in Florida point what he does best, puttering around the golf course.

Or will he.

Various news outlets, including the Daily Mail in the UK, are pointing to a CNN story that Trump is still considering not leaving the White House in January.

Trump is telling advisers he’ll REFUSE to leave the White House on January 20, is ‘throwing a tantrum’ and is plotting revenge on Republicans who turned on him, report claims
President Donald Trump has told advisers that he will refuse to leave the White House on Inauguration Day, a new CNN report claims
‘He’s throwing a f***ing temper tantrum. He’s going to leave. He’s just lashing out,’ one adviser said
Trump now reportedly spends his days mulling over the lost election, plotting ways to contest it, and devising revenge on Republicans who ‘turned on him’

Remember that this is based on a CNN report. 

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But I guess on January 20 we might get to watch the spectacle of Federal marshals dragging Trump’s sorry ass out of the Oval Office. 

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Or maybe we can find some other uses for the former POTUS if he wants to stay in Washington.

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Oh, well.

The coming weeks and months should be interesting.

And let’s just hope that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t a freight train heading our way.