Monday, December 21, 2009

Letter On The Way

Just sent in my first letter- to- the- editor for some time. David Lazarus, the writer of this piece in the Los Angeles Times about privatizing the Post Office suggested it after I sent a comment on the story to him. Not that it was all that great a comment.

I simply suggested that rather than worry about whether private shipping companies would even want to take over delivery of regular mail, why not remove existing regulations that prohibit private companies from delivering that mail? If some current shipper, or perhaps an upstart company, ends up taking a shot at it and ends up giving better service at lower costs, it might make the issue of privatizing the Post Office moot since it would likely end up withering on the vine.

So, I changed my comments a bit, checked the word count and sent it in. I've had at least two letters published in the L.A. Times and two and a half letters published in the San Francisco Chronicle. I'll admit to being somewhat proud of that accomplishment as I understand those bigger newspapers receive hundreds of letters to the editor each Monday- S.F. Chron said they receive 800 or more- so they can't print all of them.

Now I'll just wait and see if they publish it. I don't check the Times' letters regularly but they do call to confirm you wrote the letter and want it published. The phone call will let me know.

6 Comments:

At 2:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

So we're fed up with the government not being able to deliver our mail so let's have them provide our health care?

 
At 2:19 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Well, I don't know that I have much problem with the post office as far as delivery goes. UPS and Fedex make mistakes, too. The big problem now is they're bleeding money. The price of postage keeps going up but they're still billions of dollars in debt for one reason or another. Whether a private company could take it over and make it work right, who knows? I don't know that it would hurt anything.

 
At 6:22 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fred, would you educate your readers by explaining exactly what former President Richard M. Nixon did in 1971 to the United States Postal Service?

It would help us understand the whole private vs. government mail-delivering issue.

Thanks!

 
At 7:47 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Perhaps you could enlighten us. Nixon was a little bit before my time- at least time where I paid much attention to political stuff.

 
At 11:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh rats! Now I have to spend Christmas Eve refreshing my memory on the fine points of that big change to the Postal Service.

Well, give me a little while. I'll add another post in a little while.

 
At 11:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK, Fred. This is the best objective info I could find tonight in my rush to get back to Christmas preparations.

It's entitled Post Office Reform and I hope it will be helpful.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmailus5.htm

Merry Holiday!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home