Sunday, April 12, 2020

The Postman





The Postman is a 1997 American post-apocalyptic action-adventure film produced and directed by Kevin Costner and features him in the lead role. The screenplay was written by Eric Roth and Brian Helgeland, based on David Brin's 1985 book of the same name. The film also features Will PattonLarenz TateOlivia WilliamsJames Russo, and Tom Petty.

It is set in a post-apocalyptic and neo-Western version of the United States in the then near-future year of 2013, sixteen-plus years after unspecified apocalyptic events, starting with the breakdown of society through “hate crimes and racially motivated attacks (by) a militia-like group” led by Nathan Holn, progressing to war, followed by plagues, that collectively left a huge impact on human civilization and erased most technology. Like the book, the film follows the story of a nomadic drifter (Costner) who stumbles across the uniform of an old United States Postal Service mail carrier, and unwittingly inspires hope through an empty promise of a "Restored United States of America."
Released on Christmas of 1997 from Warner Bros.The Postman was a major critical and commercial failure, grossing a total of $20 million worldwide. Nonetheless, it was nominated for three Saturn Awards.
If some of the phrases shown above sound familiar, here is why:

Hate crimes and racially motivated attacks” – currently, Asian-Americans in this country have been attacked because some of our leaders have been saying “Wuhan virus” or Chinese virus” instead of the correct term, which is “coronavirus”. If you want another example, how about "They're sending people that have a lot of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

Plagues – COVID-19 is the worst disease to hit the world since the Spanish flu of 1917-1918.

“Restored United States of America” – sounds a lot like “make America great again", doesn’t it?

Today, mail carries are more important that ever, and I’ll explain why.

The postal service is actually older than the United States of America. It was established on July 26, 1775, by the Second Continental Congress.  Benjamin Franklin was its first postmaster general. Franklin (1706-1790) put in place the foundation for many aspects of today’s mail system.

My dad was a mail carrier from 1955 until 1976, so I have always been fond of the postal service, which provided my dad (a union man) with an income adequate to support a comfortable middle class living.Today, the postal service has collective bargaining agreements with seven different unions, representing nearly 500,000 employees. Every two weeks, the Postal Service pays $2 billion in salaries and benefits.


Last week’s disastrous election in Wisconsin highlights why voting by mail should be available to everyone in the country. Due to the fact that voters in Wisconsin had a choice between being exposed to the coronavirus or not voting, the House of Representatives just introduced the Universal Right to Vote Act, which would allow everyone in the country to vote by mail in federal elections.


Many of our Republican leaders, including Donald Trump, vote by mail, but don’t like the idea for the rest of us, since low voter turnout benefits the Republican Party, and high turnout benefits the Democratic Party. 14 states have passed voter ID laws since 2011. Since there is virtually NO evidence of voter fraud being committed in this country, the real purpose of the laws is to prevent minorities (who tend to vote for Democrats) from voting. A few of these laws have been revoked by court systems. In the case of North Carolina, the judge had ruled that blacks had been excluded “with surgical precision”. I’m not quite sure how it would be possible to reverse those voter ID laws, but I suspect it would need to be done by a non-partisan review of the laws by members of Congress to determine if they are actually necessary.

In the 2000 Florida election, at least 1,100 eligible voters were wrongly dropped from voting rolls in an attempt to purge a list of felons.Many of those who were dropped showed up to vote and were told they could not. In a presidential election decided by 537 votes, that erroneous purge may have been a factor. Twelve years later, Gov. Scott ordered state officials to clear the rolls of non-citizen voters.

The state department whittled a list of 182,000 potential noncitizens to about 2,700 by comparing driver's license data, which contains some citizenship data, against voter rolls. County supervisors, again, were told to notify those listed by mail of the need to urgently prove their citizenship. Like last time, some supervisors decided to sit out the purge.

Already, a Pasco County woman and a 91-year-old World War II veteran from Broward County have made headlines for being wrongfully targeted. In fact, elections supervisors found that most names on the list belong to citizens — probably because the motor vehicle department's citizenship information is out of date, the Miami Herald reported.


In 2018, Brian Kemp, who was simultaneously Secretary of State (and overseer of elections) and gubernatorial candidate, purged 340,000 voters from voter rolls.


Stacey Abrams lost the election by 55,000 votes.


Prior to the passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, House Democrats unveiled a plan for a different stimulus package that included a $25 billion cash injection into the Postal Service. The Senate compromise left that provision out, instead providing USPS with a $10 billion line of credit. In a letter to congressional leadership on Tuesday, a group of House Democrats renewed their push for a $25 billion appropriation in a forthcoming “phase four” coronavirus relief bill expected to receive a vote in the coming days.
Trump and other Republicans want to privatize the post office, which is why they keep claiming the postal service has lost money. It has  not.
In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.
If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years. This extraordinary mandate created a financial “crisis” that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal privatization. Additional cuts in service and privatization would be devastating for millions of postal workers and customers.
Postal employees today need to be considered “critical workers”, but they don’t have the option of working from home like many people do. Our mail carrier wears gloves and a mask while delivering our mail, since it is a fact that the virus can be present on the mail that they are delivering to our homes (which is why I wash my hands with soap and water after opening our mail.)




In order to protect the integrity of this year’s presidential election, it is CRITICAL that the USPS gets an immediate injection of the $25 billion it needs to stay in business, and it is also critical that Congress passes the Universal Right to Vote Act. If those two things don’t happen, it’s possible that the Russians could win.

Again.





Sunday, April 5, 2020

Joe Btfsplk






One of my favorite comic strips when I was growing up was L’il Abner, which ran from August 13, 1934 until November 13, 1977, an astonishing run of 43 years.


The strip ended almost exactly 2 years before the death of its creator, Al Capp, on November 5, 1979. The main characters were L’il Abner Yokum, Daisy Yokum, Mammy Yokum, Pappy Yokum, Honest Abe Yokum, Tiny Yokum, and Salomey. In addition, though, there were numerous supporting characters, one of whom was Joe Btfsplk, who is famous for being the world’s worst jinx.




Joe’s name was pronounced something akin to the Bronx cheer. If you don’t know what that is, here’s a sample:


The Yokums live in the fictional town of Dogpatch, and it was set someplace in one of the southern states of America. Inspired by the comic strip, an area of San Francisco was renamed “Dogpatch” sometime in the late 1940’s and 1950s.   It was initially a working-class neighborhood, but has experienced rapid gentrification since the 1990s. Now it boasts similar demographics to its neighboring Potrero Hill – an upper middle-class working professional neighborhood.

If life ever returns to normal, and it’s safe to once again to travel to other cities in the country, I’d recommend a trip to San Francisco, a town that I used to get to frequently when I worked for Fireman’s Fund. The “city by the bay” has a lot to offer, and it is considered to be a very safe city. However, if you see Joe Btfsplk walking down the street, run the other way as fast as you can.