### Apollo BBS Archive - April 18, 1988

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    Message: 3328
    Author: $ James Taranto
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Cliff's name
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 22:00:43

    I suspect it will be a long winter in hell before any of us finds out.

    Message: 3329
    Author: $ James Taranto
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: TNR excerpts
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 22:09:48

         ....Now that first-class postal rates have gone up for the fifth time
    in 11 years, discontent is reaching new heights.  As if on cue, the Reagan
    Administration has come up with a proposal for reform.  The President's
    Commission on Privatization has urged repeal of the private expres statutes,
    the 1845 laws that guarantee the U.S. Postal Service a monopoly on first-
    and third-class mail.  And James Miller, director of the Office of
    Management and Budget, has seconded the motion.  What the USPS needs, he
    says, is the invigorating force of competition.
         It is tempting to dismiss this idea as another manifestation of the
    administration's undiscriminating passion for free enterprise.  But this
    time the Reaganites are right.  Monopoly has been a bad thing for the U.S.
    mail....
         ....[Postal officials] say that on the whole the USPS has performed
    admirably, and cite figures intended to dispel the common impression of
    inexorably growing inefficiency.  Since 1971, the year after the postal
    service was reorganized from a government agency to a semi-autonamous body,
    the consumer price index has risen 274 percent, while first-class postage
    rates have gone up 275 percent.  The real cost of mailing a letter, in other
    words, hasn't changed.  True enough.  But what kind of organization is it
    that boasts about not having *lost* productivity in the course of 17 years?
    This is an especially pathetic boast in view of the unusual opportunities
    for productivity growth during this period; relevant new technologies have
    emerged, and mail volume has roughly doubled.
         To be sure, postal officials have their share of excuses for the
    stagnation.  Powerful unions have prevented layoffs and raised the salary of
    the average postal carrier or clerk to about $27,000.  According to one
    study (paid for by USPS management), that's about 20 percent higher than
    market value for comparable jobs.  The unions attribute the difference to
    "wage discrimination" against black women and men in the private sector.  An
    alternative explanation is that private sector workers--black or
    white--don't have the luxury of belonging to a monopoly union that
    negotiates with a monopoly employer.  Hence the logic behind the
    administration's proposal:  if management has no incentive to bargain hard
    with labor, provide one in the form of competition.
         ....USPS officials--while conceding that first-class delivery has
    slowed a bit since 1960--proudly note that of roughly 80 billion pieces of
    first-class mail handled last year, about 90 percent were delivered on time.
    Well, that's better than, say, 50 percent, but it isn't the kind of
    performance that would land a CEO on the cover of Forbes.  And remember, the
    official definition of "on time" is ludicrously loose; the post
    office's "three-day standard" for coast-to-coast mail refers to the time a
    letter takes to travel from one post office to another.  Throw in some time
    spent sitting in a bin at each end, and you have "on time" letters taking a
    week to get from sender to receiver.

         Faced with these and other unpleasant truths, postal officials fall
    back to another line of defense.  At bottom, they say, the argument isn't
    about economics or efficiency but about political ideals:  the government
    should maintain its monopoly in order to keep the American people bound
    together with the common denominator of the mail....yes, of course a
    well-run company could successfully compete with the post office; but that's
    because the company would exploit lucrative inter-urban routes and
    neglect--or serve only at exhorbitant rates--farms and small towns in the
    hinterland....
         But the truth is that modern American culture is not in desperate need
    of a unifying force.  The Founding Fathers established a government postal
    service to link different regions of a young country, but today linkage is
    provided by, among other things, television, telephones, highways, and
    planes.  Granted, no one, in a nation founded on the principle of easy
    access to diverse opinion, should on grounds of geography be denied access
    to magazines, newsletters, or even junk mail.  But there is no reason to
    believe that in even a fully privatzized postal system anyone would be cut
    off completely or more than a handful of people would pay prohibitive rates.
    (Federal Express, whose core clientele is a quite narrow slice of the
    population, nonetheless serves 98 percent of American addreses.)  If it
    turns out that exposing the postal service to competition--and granting the
    freedom to set variable rates--leaves 5,000 Americans paying $20 for a copy
    of Newsweek, then the government can step in with targeted subsidies to keep
    rates below some ceiling....

         Would competition be the death of the USPS?  Ironically, an argument
    commonly invoked by postal officials against deregulation suggests not.
    They contend that the postal service is a "natural monopoly"--that, just as
    it would be wasteful of society's resources to privatize electrical service
    and have legions of underground cables snaking redundantly alongside one
    another, it would be hugely expensive to have five times as many letter
    carriers pounding the same millions of miles of sidewalk every day.  To the
    extent that this logic is valid, postal officials have little to fear from
    competition; given the immense postal infrastructure, and the high cost of
    replacing it, a USPS not burdened by regulated rates should be able to stave
    off competitors.
         It may turn out, though, that pavement-pounding is the only part of
    postal service that is so resistant to competition....Perhaps, then, a
    deregulated postal system would be comparable to the present phone system:
    long-distance information transmission would be competitive, while local
    transmission, for sound economic reasons, was still monopolized.  So the day
    may come when we buy our stamps--for something less than 25 cents--from
    companies that contract out pickup and delivery service to the postal
    service, whose letter carriers will still be clad in the traditional blue.
    The USPS's role will then be confined to the corridoors between dorrstops
    and those army green drop boxes on street corners.  This will be just as
    well, as this area is one of the few within which the postal service can
    plausibly claim competence.
    The preceding messages are excerpts from "Mail Menopause," an unsigned
    editorial on pp. 7-9 of the April 25, 1988, issue of The New Republic.

    Message: 3334
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: last few
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 06:28:03

    James, you're getting almost as bad as Apro Poet. Not having any original
    thoughts of your own, you quote extensively from other sources of
    misinformation and present it as fact, without apparenty even bothering to
    verify the validity of the statements made.
     In so doing, you have totally ignored some of the facts and figures I
    placed on this board the other day, most notably the figures on postal
    productivity. Your writer wrongly states that productivity in the Postal
    Service is stagnant, and indicates that it is barely surviving, when in fact
    just the opposite is true. As I pointed out, mail volume since 1971 has
    increased more than ten times the rate of posal employment, and that spells
    greatly increased productivity! When we have some 7% increase in employment
    handling some 70-80% increase in volume, it means that mal handled per hours
    worked has to show a marked increase. WHere your writer gets his figures
    from is anybody's guess, but I expect they must come from a source similiar
    to our late unlamented governor's bag of tricks.

    Message: 3335
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Cliff?????
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 06:29:28

    If it's not Kolostow, what is it? Legally, that is. And why in the world
    would you change the name by which you are so famous? (Or is that infamous?)

    Message: 3336
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Change Name...
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 11:01:39

            Well, I don't want my Dad to find me anymore when I move here
    next....  and frankly, I HATE the name... (problably because I hate my Dad.)

    Cliff....

    Message: 3337
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Post Office...
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 11:13:26

            Paul, we know the mail volume has increased in the last ten years
    ten fold, but that is mostly JUNK mail.   I would rather pay a LARGER
    fee to mail if it would rid the system of all this garbage mail and so would
    many others.  I have seen guys rip up checks they were getting thinking it
    was  junk mail, just because there is so much, who can wade though it all.
            I do not think a private company could do any better, but I knotice
    I get far more mail in little "Body Bags" than in years past.... again
    because there is so much JUNK mail... how do we "the Private Sector" get it
    across to the USPO that we would like it done away with?  If the USPO would
    charge FULL rate to the big mailers, just maybe it would filter out a few,
    and the USPO would make more on the one that would still mail no matter what
    the fee.
            I don't mind paying for a service that I get, but I resent paying
    for service I don't get.  Restore QUALITY!

    $tatus Club Bulletin Board command:EA

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    Subject:JT/Winter

    Enter a line containing only an <*> to stop
     1:        I don't believe that hell has a Winter.

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    Message: 1225
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Cosmos-Chatter
    Subject: Commercials
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 21:10:10

    This is an anarchy, though (though admittedly a small island in an otherwise
    dictatorship)

    Rev. Beau

    Message: 1226
    Author: $ Ann Oudin
    Category: Cosmos-Chatter
    Subject: Cliff/commercials
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 09:57:20

    No - don't do away with the commercials. I for one want to know what you
    have on sale and what you have stocked in the store. =*--ANN--*=

    Message: 1227
    Author: $ Michael James
    Category: Cosmos-Chatter
    Subject: one-balled mouse
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 14:51:04

    I think that's required to run Unix.

    Home of the Nuts Bulletin Board command:$C

    Message: 302
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Rockets
    Subject: Motor Mount
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 17:43:25

            I have the Motor Mount spacers done....

            Pick them up James....

    Message: 303
    Author: $ James Hawley
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Cervelli
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 21:41:22

    That's not how it supposed to work, but if he really wants a refund, *I'll*
    give his $20 back.

    Message: 304
    Author: $ Nick Ianuzzi
    Category: Crazy Chit-Chat
    Subject: last
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 02:19:44

    Let me put this another way. I think Peter would really like to attend the
    launch, and he's wondering if it can be postponed.

    Message: 305
    Author: $ James Hawley
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Last
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 03:26:58

    I'm not sure.  Can't HIS trip be put off?  (It's a JOKE!)

    We should come up with ONE date and keep it.  Plus it's possible that if we
    change the date, Pat Lamanuzzi may not be able to attend.  (And he is
    helping out with the camera, 1/2" launch rod, and tracking equipment.)

    If a majority of paying members want it so, I have no problems.

    Bulletin Board command:$C

    Message: 51792
    Author: $ Jim Lippard
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: last
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 14:57:52

    Isn't that the organization Deanna Kahn works for?  She's the woman who
    wrote a letter to the Arizona Republic claiming that the amount of
    plutonium that was supposed to have been on the space shuttle Challenger was
    enough to kill every man, woman, and child on the planet (implying that
    had it been on board, life as we know it would have come to an end).
    Her factoid is correct, but only in the same sense that a box of straight
    pins is enough to kill every man, woman, and child on the planet (i.e., if
    properly distributed through the population).

    Message: 51793
    Author: Apro Poet
    Category: Politics
    Subject: The Prince
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 18:01:54

    And one of the most potent remedies that a prince has
    against conspiracies, is that of not being hated by the mass
    of the people; for whoever conspires always believes that he
    will satisfy the people by the death of their prince; but if
    he thought to offend them by doing this, he would fear to
    engage in such an undertaking, for the difficulties that
    conspirators have to meet are infinite.  Experience shows
    that there have been very many conspiracies, but few have
    turned out well, for whoever conspires cannot act alone, and
    cannot find companions except among those who are
    discontented; and as soon as you have disclosed your
    intention to a malcontent, you give him the means of
    satisfying himself, for by revealing it he can hope to
    secure everything he wants; to such an extent that seeing a
    certain gain by doing this, and seeing on the other hand
    only a doubtful one and full of danger, he must either be a
    rare friend to you or else a very bitter enemy to the prince
    if he keeps faith with you.  And to express the matter in a
    few words, I say, that on the side of the conspirator there
    is nothing but fear, jealousy, suspicion, and dread of
    punishment which frightens him; and on the side of the
    prince there is the majesty of government, the laws, the
    protection of friends and of the state which guard him.
    When to these things is added the goodwill of the people, it
    is impossible that any one should have the timerity to
    conspire.  For whereas generally a conspirator has to fear
    before the execution of his plot, in this case, having the
    people for an enemy, he must also fear after his crime is
    accomplished, and thus he is not able to hope for any
    refuge.
      Numberless instances might be given of this, but I will
    content myself with one which took place within the memory
    of our fathers.  Messer Annibale Bentivogli, Prince of
    Bologna, ancestor of the present Messer Annibale, was killed
    by the Canneschi, who conspired against him.  He left no
    relations but Messer Giovanni, who was then an infant, but
    after the murder the people rose up and killed all the
    Canneschi.  This arose from the popular goodwill that the
    house of Bentivogli enjoyed at that time, which was so great
    that, as there was nobody left after the death of Annibale
    who could govern the state, the Bolognese hearing that there
    was one of the Bentivogli family in Florence, who had till
    then been thought the son of a blacksmith, came to fetch him
    and gave him the government of the city, and it was governed
    by him until Messer Giovanni was old enough to assume the
    government.

    Message: 51795
    Author: Michael Kielsky
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Taxes
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 20:29:30

    Actually, I was being quite serious, although my checklist was not
    necessarily exhaustive.  Let people *VOTE* with their *MONEY*!

    In addition to givin everyone a greater voice in government, this system (of
    allotting percentages of your annual income tax to various governmental
    agencies/programs) would greatly lessen 'voter apathy'.  Or would it?

    Michael Kielsky

    Message: 51796
    Author: $ James Taranto
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Kielsky
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 21:57:46

    Why not just have the government run a giant mail-order business and require
    everybody to order everything through the IRS?

    Message: 51797
    Author: $ James Taranto
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Hamilton
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 21:59:33

    The Framers of the Constitution included a provision for amendment, through
    which the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, was added to the
    Constitution.  Thus the abolishion of slavery is entirely consistent with
    the intent of the Framers.

    Message: 51798
    Author: Bubbles McGill
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Jim Lippard
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 23:17:35

    Thank you, Jim, for doing your part to expose the pernicious problem of
    androcentrism in our soceity.  Gender-specific pronouns is just one of the
    many ways in which the white male ruling class oppresses women, people of
    color, women of color, gays and lesbians, gay and lesbian women, gays and
    lesbians of color, and gay and lesbian women of color.  For too long women
    have been trated as sex objects, property for the amusement of their white
    male masters.  We are paid 59 cents on the dollar of what men are paid for
    comparable work.  We were not allowed to vote until recently.  Our sacred
    right to control our own reproductive organs is under constant assault from
    rightist white males who wish to keep us barefoot and pregnant.  A woman's
    place is in the home, a gay and lesbian's place is in the closet, a person
    of color's place is in the ghetto, that's what the white males want you to
    believe!  But it's time they woke up.  We are mad and we are not going to
    take it any more.  No more will we allow discrimination on the basis of
    gender, race, nationality, or social class.  Women of the world unite!
    You have nothing to lose except the misogynistic, androcentric, neanderthal
    attitudes of the white male oppressors!  Power to humankind!

    Message: 51799
    Author: Bubbles McGill
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: White males
    Date: 04/17/88  Time: 23:24:53

    Women are the soul of humankind.  We are caring, compassionate, and
    nurturing, while men are aggressive, hateful, and warlike.  But men have
    greater physical strength so they have been able to keep us under their
    control for many centuries.  Why do white men desire to overpower and
    oppress women?  Because they suffer from womb envy.  Men are angry that we
    can give birth and they can't.  Once all life was female--that is, able to
    reproduce itself.  Sex took away that capacity from males, and males have
    never forgiven Mother Nature (note: a woman) for it.  So they take it out on
    all women, leading to wage discrimination, date rape, and gender-specific
    pronouns.  But now women are becoming empowered.  We are throwing off the
    balls and chains which white male society has forced upon us.  With the help
    of a few sensitive males like Jim Lippard, we are nurturing a new social
    order, a matriarchy instead of a patriarchy, where all class distinctions
    will be eliminated and every body will love one another.  We have a long way
    to go, we must overcome the macho social order that is kept in power now.
    But we shall overcome!

    Message: 51800
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Tales & Tall Stories
    Subject: J.T. ERRED!!!
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 06:14:14

    I can't believe it! Tell everybody you know that you actually saw it here
    first! James Taranto, columnist, writer extraordinaire, etc. has made a
    spelling error! Absolutely unbelievable!
    James, my dear young friend, the word is abolition, not abolishion.
    Have a nice day.

    Message: 51801
    Author: $ Lloyd Pulley
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Bubbles McGill
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 09:24:29

      It sounds like Mark Adkins had a sex change operation.

    (LL)oyd Pulley

    Message: 51802
    Author: $ Ann Oudin
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Lloyd
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 09:52:31

    Where have you been? I thought we lost you to some inferior BBS or
    something. Welcome back. =*--ANN--*=

    Message: 51803
    Author: $ Peter Petrisko
    Category: In search of
    Subject: CHILDREN'S BOOKS
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 13:11:07

         I am currently looking for children's books, approx. size 5 1/2" wide x
    8 1/2" tall.  If you have any, or know of anyone who does, and are willing
    to give them away, please contact me via private mail on this BBS.
    Thank you.

    Message: 51804
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Lippard/Deanna Kahn
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 16:18:20

            I don't know but I will find out.  You missed a good American
    Atheist meeting last night.  The State director gave a talk on the First
    Amendment.

    Message: 51805
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Bubbles
    Date: 04/18/88  Time: 16:25:37

            I'm all for it, however I do not believe that males are mad because
    they cannot have babies.  I'm glad I can't have a baby, the tits on my chest
    would slow me down.
            The sex drive is very strong but our society is still in a warped
    state, thus rape and other problems come out of it.  Human kind may one day
    grow up and act intelligently.
            Glad you are doing your part.
                                    Rod