0611 - Break

Break [OO #611]

We’ll just start with a reply to a Reader who didn’t like last week’s sour comments on City, State and federal incompetency as demonstrated in the New Orleans disaster. We respect the Reader’s right to disagree with our view of the Big Botch in Iraq and the Big Botch in Louisiana. [Well, actually, we don’t respect his intemperate dismissal of our rather acute analysis, and our right-on comments on bureaucracy. But, one is supposed to say that one respects someone trashing oneself, even if one doesn’t. Is that too many uses of “one”?] Anyway, Reader, you are wrong. The head of FEMA is a political appointee with no experience, so are his assistants, the Mayor of New Orleans is an ineffective whiner with no sense, and we have our doubts about the local Governors, too. We were, as usual, dead right.

This week, we would like to move on (no connection with the rather noisy organization of the same name) to several smaller outrages. First, there is mail. Mail in Anguilla is important – how else will we know what the world is saying, other than listening to CNN, or cruising the Internet, or reading the New York Times on the Net? Several years ago, the kindly Post office in Anguilla recognized (1) that many in the U.S. Postal Service had no idea where Anguilla, B.W.I. was and kept sending mail to Angola or wherever (we had one letter sent to North Vietnam), and (2) international air mail rates are very expensive, and mailers forget to pay the higher rates. The Post office then set up a forwarding address in Dallas, TX, where mail and packages and blessed magazines arrived at U.S. rates, and made their way to Anguilla. Well, that forwarder didn’t work out too well, and the magazine arrival time lapse extended to two months or so. So, the kindly Post Office selected another forwarder at a Miami address, which actually turned out to be a Medley, FL address. [Ever heard of Medley, FL? Perhaps a music center? You’ve heard of medleys?] Well, while the service was growing in popularity, it seemed to swamp that forwarder, too. So now we have a third forwarder, this time in Miami. But, this week, some bureaucrat objected to forwarding mail by air, so we are told all forwarded mail and packages will come by boat.

Why are we telling you this? Well, all these address changes have confused the senders of catalogs. As Readers know, the making of fat catalogs is a major U.S. industry, and catalog mailers swap addresses, so if you order from one lingerie supplier you will soon get catalogs from all others, as well as some pretty embarrassing offers of rather unconventional gadgets. Our Objective Observatory complex is supplied with much food, reading, and less essential paraphernalia from abroad. Thus, we are now flooded with four or more copies of every catalog known to man, woman or FEMA official, because they send a copy to each past address. Every magazine sends at least six notices a year about re-subscribing (and by the way, each magazine contains half a dozen “blow-in” cards to subscribe, though we obviously already do so). The result is a flood of wasted paper, the cutting-down of forests, and Global Warming.

Which reminds us, are you noting that the spate of Florida hurricanes and Katrina in the Gulf seems to have been connected in the public mind with the Global Warming threat? Of course, the Bush Administration doesn’t believe in Global Warming, but that may be because the President has adequate air conditioning in Crawford, TX, where he spends most of his time. But yet, but yet, the public seems to be forming a connection between fuel burning, warming, and storms. We are not expert on the subject (note the humility), but we know a trend when we see it ... so follow the polls. They may lead to a change.

Next time: Thinking [OO #612]

| Printer-friendly page | Send this article to a friend |

Home