The Mail Must Go Thru, Or the Mail Is Through

The United States Postal Service is struggling and wants to eliminate 220,000 jobs, close more than 300 facilities, and faces another quarter with losses totaling more that $3.5 billion.

It needs to become more efficient with the way it deals with the average customer and two recent instances help me to understand why the USPS is failing. In July I received a postage-paid envelope in my postal box at the local branch along with a note saying that my annual rental fee was due. I immediately wrote out a check for the correct amount, as I have done for more than twenty-five years, put it in the envelope and mailed it.

Two weeks later when my wife Carmen went to check the box, our key wouldn’t work. After she waited in the stamp line and told her tale to the clerk, the clerk said the lock had been changed since no payment had been received. When Carmen explained that we sent a check two weeks earlier, she was also told that if we didn’t make a payment in the next two days, we would lose the box forever. We charged the amount, still wondering what happened to our check and the postage-paid envelope addressed to this post office branch.

We found out three weeks later when we opened the box and found an envelope with the original check inside and a note saying that this check is being returned since payment was already received. No one at that branch could explain what had happened to the wayward envelope.

Yesterday I sat in the side office at the branch with Eduardo, the supervisor, as I tried to find an explanation to another postal mystery. When I had stayed in Henderson, Nevada a few weeks earlier, I had left a pendant behind that had the Chinese symbol for The Way; apropos since I am finishing a book entitled The Oy Way, whose web site is www.theoyway.com. The hotel mailed the pendant to me and when I found their envelope in my home mailbox, it contained the stamped words “POSTAGE DUE $1.27.” However, it did not contain the pendant only the bubble wrapping inside and a neat, square 1 ½ x 1 ½” tear in the lower left corner which someone did in order to steal the pendant, which they did.

Eduardo defended all of the postal employees in Henderson, then Las Vegas, San Jose and in his branch in Santa Cruz. He said that the neat tear and deft removal of the pendant from the envelope was most likely caused by a sorting machine. He vehemently stuck to that explanation no matter what I said, and suggested that I fill out a report describing the pendant and he would send it to the USPS Lost and Found Department in Georgia. Our conversation ended after I asked if there was also a Stolen and Found Department near by.

Raise You A Penny

To solve all of the above problems, the USPS announced today that as a birthday present, it would raise postal rates on January 22, 2012, including a 1-cent increase in the cost of first-class mail, to 45 cents.

Nu? Math? The Odds Are Against Them

When Hamas finally released Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit after more than five years in captivity in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, his captors gloated claiming it a great victory for their side. It was, for 1,000 of their fighters were released, but does it mean that one Israeli soldier has the same value as 1,000 members of Hamas?

They'll Get Buy

The first two weeks of the 2011-2012 season for the National Basketball Association has been cancelled as players and owners fight for their “fair share” of the projected $3.8 billion in Basketball Related Income (BRI). BRI constitutes all the money made through basketball operations, including gate receipts, broadcast revenues, in-arena sales of novelties and concessions, arena signage revenues, game parking and program revenues, and sponsorship revenues.

Under the previous contract, the BRI was a 57-43 percent split in favor of the players and the owners want it to be a 50-50 deal. The last time that the two sides met, each was reluctantly willing to accept a 53-47 split in their favor. However, each side can’t have 53 percent of the BRI, for any math-challenged person knows you can only divide 100 percent of the total, not 106 percent.

The practical, cost-conscious owners want a greater share based on their claim that most NBA teams are losing money, while the players don’t want to relinquish their current share. Just how practical are the owners? In November 2011, the NBA board of governors approved the sale of the Golden State Warriors for a record $450 million to a group of financially knowledgeable investors. The buyers were well aware that since the 1999-2000 season that franchise had qualified only once for the playoffs and boasted a 371 won and 603 lost record during that period. What a bargain.

Then there is the other half of the equation — the players whose average salary is $5.15 million. This isn’t too bad considering that their main talent is to run around in their underwear and try and put a round sphere into a wire hoop.

Carmelo Anthony, the star of the New York Knickerbockers team, was set to “earn” $17,149,243 for the season. With the cancellation, Melo already stands to lose approximately $1.6 million in salary and he lamented, "It's stressful. If it's a dollar, if it's 10 dollars, losing money is losing money, regardless of how much you have."

For the moment, Carmelo may be able to commiserate with the 14 million currently out of work, and with those who do have a job earning the median salary of under $47,000 a year. When the strike ends, he will be able to get buy with his salary of $209,137 for each game that he plays. Since he averaged 35.7 minutes playing time in each game during the past season, based on his present salary that would come to $5,858 per minute played. It would take him less than nine minutes on the court to reach that yearly median salary.

Carmelo’s salary was larger than most Americans, but was only thirteenth in the NBA. With that fact weighing heavily upon him, Melo might not be mellow regardless of the outcome.

An Ode to Ineptitude

Think about the party, tea,

It now controls the GOpee.

When the tea party makes a wish,

Scared Republicans start to pish.

This stifles success, makes chances wetter,

But Obama now, is not that much better.

His lack of action is quite banal.

Smooth in talking, actions anal.

Problem with all of this inaction,

Our country has lost, all its traction.

We are about to run, dry as can be,

Does it really matter to you and me?

Wish this were the election year,

Both parties would live in fear.

But if we vote to throw them all out,

Those voted in will still cast doubt.

About their ability to lead a nation,

Both ins and outs are a sad rotation.

The solution is, without hesitating,

Move to a land with a AAA rating.

Oh Canada! We Stand On Guard for Thee

The Oy Way, or Oy Vey?

While the use of the Yiddish expression Oy Vey is far more prevalent in society today, there would probably be far less of a need to utter that agony-induced phrase if people would only inculcate the calm-inducing, meditative lessons learned by following The Oy Way.

However, in this fast-paced electronic world, seemingly fraught with unattainable demands, we have little time to quietly meditate upon our condition, yet alone being able to find a small oasis to relax in, even if it’s for only an hour.

Expect or Accept?

A psychologist friend once told me that we humans expect too much and that the multitudes of disturbances that occur in our lives are just a natural part of our existence. She further emphasized that the best response is having the right attitude and learning how to accept the overwhelmingly large number of infringements that can rob us of our peace and tranquility

Here's the Rub

Earlier this week, I scheduled a massage in my living room from the masseuse who helps relieve unwanted stress for my wife and myself. Before she came, I disconnected all phones, put a sign on the front door that reads “Massage In Session, Please Do Not Disturb,” and turned on the small fountain by the window. I enjoy listening to the soothing sounds of the gently flowing water as I let my aching body succumb to healing hands.

Then as I sank deep into state of pure relaxation on the massage table, I was rudely yanked out of it by the unnerving sounds of a power mower cutting the lawn immediately outside my front door. I took a deep breath and was grateful that the insidious sounds lasted but a few minutes, as the operator moved on to the next lawn in our nine-unit townhouse complex. But the noise abatement was momentary as the man in charge of edging the lawn approached with his own instrument of aural destruction. His intrusion was also short lived, but it lasted long enough to stop any relaxing flow. Oy Vey.

Ballet Shoes and Roller Skates

These two intrusions were like a light-footed field mouse wearing ballet shoes noiselessly walking across the floor, compared to the thundering sounds of a rampaging rhinoceros on roller skates. The latter came in the form of another landscaping craftsman wearing impervious-to-sound ear plugs, who had turned his leaf blower up to the maximum disturbance level. Oy Vey.

He completely obliterated the fountain’s soothing sounds and for the next forty-five minutes, I barely felt the healing massage, and was unable to follow the advice of my masseuse. “Think of it as the sound of a swarm of bees,” she advised me. I ignored her suggestion believing that a swarm of bees flying around me would not lend itself to my peace of body and mind. Oy Vey.

The Oy Way

What I desperately needed was to remove myself from this hectic world and escape to another where peace could more readily be found. The way to realize this was to follow The Oy Way.

I have learned to do so and you, too, can follow the path of most resistance by mastering the lessons learned in The Oy Way. Rather than encumbering you with excessive, unnecessary descriptive verbiage, simply go to the source at http://www.theoyway.com.

An Elephant Should Never Forget, Neither Should a Don Quixote

I will be going to Vienna this July and playing in the 13^th Maccabi European Games as a member of the Men’s Masters Table Tennis Team, and have been reading Vienna and Its Jews, The Tragedy of Success, 1880-1980s.

On page 172 the author notes that Hitler addressed the Austrian Nazi party conference in 1920, spoke in several cities the next year to “the party faithful,” and in 1922, Hitler was the main speaker at the Party’s first major public rally in Vienna.

It’s My Party and I’ll Shout If I Want To

The main political parties were the Social Democrats whose ideology was basically Marxist, and the Christian Socials with its strong relationship with the Catholic Church. In late 1926 while setting their sights on the following year’s elections, the Christian Socials emphasized their opposition to Marxism and to the “predominance of the decomposing Jewish influence.”

As you may readily discern, these parties promulgated their opposing ideologies, much like America’s two major political parties do today.

The following paragraph found on page 177 is put forth here almost verbatim, only inserting any changed words in Italics including the substitution of “Congress” and “Congressional” for “Parliamentary” and “Parliament.”

“Insert names here had both learned the arts of compromise and conciliation as party leaders but they nevertheless took a sacred view of their respective missions. Consequently, the two major parties confronted each other across a chasm that was both wide and deep. Congressional interchanges were marked with a minimum of courtesy and a maximum of acrimony. Personal insults including racial slurs were traded back and forth. One noted writer says the whole set up ‘emphasized division instead of debate, doctrine positions rather than weighing of concrete issues. Congress, then, instead of nursing a basic consensus, as it generally does in western democracies, emphasized the divisions in the country and contributed to the destruction of consensus.’”

2010 Is Dead and Gone, 2012 Is Now in Sight

Santayana is well known for his perceptive and sadly reaffirmed line, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In Volume I of his 1905-1906 five-volume “The Life of Reason,” Santayana offers that thought and another for ineffectual, conciliatory weaklings like Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner and Harry Reid, who will be serving his fourth consecutive two-year term as Senate Democratic Leader. The two parties seem to have no knowledge of or have forgotten to heed or understand Santayana’s other pronouncement, “Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.”

George Santayana, Philosopher, Essayist Poet. December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952

Absurdity Becomes Reality

Certified Absurdity

On May 2, I sent an entry to the Huffington Post entitled “Certifiable Idiocy in the Matter of Birth and Death.” It described both the insanity of the birthers and the denial of European insurance companies who refused to pay claims to families of Holocaust survivors. The reason for the latter’s purposeful injustice was based on the fact that the Nazi had not issued death certificates “after they had extracted the victims gold teeth, gassed them, and then burned their bodies in the crematoriums in Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps.” The complete post can be found at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harvey-gotliffe-phd/trump-bin-laden-_b_856717.html

At the conclusion I facetiously wrote, “Now that Osama Bin Laden has been killed, there is sure to be Doubting Donalds who see it as a sinister ploy by Obama to boost his ratings and increase his chances for re-election in 2012. They may demand to see a properly signed, official death certificate.”

The next morning when I turned to the letters-to-the-editor page of the San Jose Mercury News, John W. Lillpop had written in part, “Osama bin Laden’s death must be tempered by the probing question: Where’s the death certificate?” On his home page, J.W. describes himself as “a recovering liberal, 'clean and sober' since 1992.” On a recent blog he lauds the GOP’s leader writing,

“Donald Trump has demonstrated that he, and he alone, has the grit, determination, prestige, and intelligence to lead where the weak dare not go!”

I sent an email to J. W. praising his work and within five minutes he responded, “Wow! Thank you ever so kindly for your words. I was actually shocked that the SJMN published that.” Many others probably had the same feeling.

He added in another email, “Good to know there is another conservative in San Jose!” My problem is that J.W. is now sending me three emails a day, believing he has found ideological kinship with me.

Bay Area Absurdity

Leave Me Out of the Ball Park

When Atlanta played the Giants in San Francisco on April 23, the Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell allegedly made homophobic comments and crude gestures toward fans before a game. The leader of young men was also accused of using a baseball bat to threaten a fan that objected to his actions. McDowell was suspended without pay for two weeks by Major League Baseball and was fined an undisclosed amount. He will be required to complete sensitivity training and apologize directly to the fans involved.

Across the Bay, to celebrate the killing of Osama bin Laden, the Oakland A’s public address announcer asked fans to “Raise their Budweisers” in appreciation of those who serve their country.

Previews of Coming Distractions

Are you at all curious about the following juxtapositions?

1. On May 2, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the USA cost $3.963.

2. One year earlier, the cost was $2.898 per gallon.

3. During the first quarter of 2011, Exxon Mobil “earned” $10.7 billion, up 69% from one year ago.

4. In the same period Chevron “earned” $5.69 billion, up a mere 25% from 2010.

5. In 2010, Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon, survived on $21.6 million in compensation.

6. John Watson, CEO of Chevron, got by with $14.0 million in 2010.

That’s the Way the Ball Bounces

In a recent table tennis contest, one player was quite ebullient after winning a close game. Have you ever been ebullient and if so, when? If not, why not? We await your response by clicking on “Post a Comment” found below.