Screw the Post Office

The U.S. Postal Service is suffering. Hemorrhaging at the rate of some $25 million daily. The reasons are identified as a near demise of letter mailing due to the ease and simplicity of electronic mail… and parcel competition from UPS, DHL, FedEx and a small host of similar services.

I’m as guilty as most. Couldn’t tell you how long it's been since I actually affixed stamp to envelope, and even with my work communications I’ve taken to drafting letters in MS Word, applying an electronic signature and sending as an email attachment. This saves some money and generally offers a greater level of certainty that the recipient will actually receive what I send.

Yep, my confidence in the U.S. Postal service is at an all time low. Where I live is on a rural route and my mail is delivered by a contract carrier to a box out by the road. In the past five or so years I’ve had missing mail on numerous occasions, and I’ve received mail addressed to my neighbors. My carrier appears both lazy and a bit hazy.

I say lazy because her job requires that if a parcel is too large to fit in the box that she bring it to the house. She has resisted this... tying parcels to the box to avoid driving down and dropping it on the porch.

I’d complained about missing mail in the past so you'd think she'd get a clue, but only after I’d had two rather expensive parcels stolen and showed him a photograph of another dangling from the box by a rubber band did the Postmaster scold my carrier.

She straightened up for a bit, but a new problem cropped up when she still refused to get out of her vehicle, dropping packages in the middle of the driveway instead. She claims my dog won’t let her out of her car, snarling and snapping. At least a few reading this blog have met Elvis and will recognize just how ridiculous an excuse this is.

She must have gotten tired of the complaints because after that she just wouldn’t leave the package at all. I'd come home to find a form in the box informing me that I must pick it up at the Post Office between the hours of 8:30 and 4:15, Monday through Friday.

Monday through Friday I leave for work at 5:30, and if traffic isn’t too bad that afternoon I might make it to the Post Office by 5:00. Making it within their piss-poor hours meant taking time off from work, so I complained again.

Things got better for a time, but she still wouldn’t get out of her vehicle. At least she would get as close to the carport as she could and toss the package onto a chair I started leaving there for that purpose.

Today something changed. When I returned home I found another of those forms telling me I would have to pick up my package at the Post Office on Monday.

This is not just any package. It's the last of the parts needed to complete a project in the works for over a month and already past due. I've waited all week for these parts so that I could complete things on Sunday and move to the next level.

This kills the next weekend too. What I should have done tomorrow will have to be done then, and I’d already made arrangements with others for work to be done both Saturday and Sunday. The whole plan is now upset, very likely costing a bunch more money and the resulting domino effect could kill yet another plan for the Labor Day weekend that has been in the works since last year.

I’m pissed.

This is the final straw. Not only am I going to go postal (pardon the pun) on the Postmaster, but I will no longer shop with online retailers if they ship via USPS. When I place an order I will instruct the shipper to ship via UPS or FedEx, neither of which has drivers afraid of Elvis and both of which have no problem carrying the package to the stoop.

And I’m selling my stamp collection.

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A break is what we need

I'm on Casey Anthony overdose.

Why is it that every damn time CNN, FOX, HLN or any of the faux news organizations gets a feather up their butt about some heinous crime or another, we the people are suddenly force fed more speculation than a reasonable person could possibly swallow... and every hour of every newscast is suddenly required to regurgitate that which Nancy Grace has already screeched out on the hour, every hour of the past untold number of weeks?

No wonder the soap operas went away. The daily news gives us all the semi-factual pablum and imaginary drama that we could possibly stomach.

As EBM observed, Nancy Grace's head must have exploded once it was reported that the jury had found Anthony not guilty. Now we find that it wasn't just the fireworks and our dear Nancy we heard blowing up on July 4th. It seems there is an internet petition circulating promoting a new federal law that would effectively make it illegal for a parent not to report the death of a child within 24-hours.

The American people simply don't have enough to do.

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From whence it comes

Hate

This will take some time. The sermon is an hour long and the juicy parts don't start immediately, but if you want to see a small example of the origins of hate in this country you should click on the link, find the sermon titled "Why I hate Barak Obama", and listen.

I'm particularly fond of when pastor Anderson says "I love all of God's creations" as he describes how to kill snails. Then he wishes Obama the same death. Then he says. "Don't get uncomfortable. I'm just preaching God's word."

Download and listen, then understand that the dude that showed up carrying guns at the Obama appearance in Phoenix on the 17th of August, had been in the congregation listening to this sermon the day before.

Then take a look at Pastor Anderson's blog, where he praises the dude toting the guns...

Then remember that these are the same people the far right wingnuts have courted since the days of Barry Goldwater.

Then decide.
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Nuremberg Interrupted

The theory of the responsibility of a commander for the illegal or unethical behavior of those of under his command goes back a ways. Sun Tsu, in his 6th century tome, The Art of War, declared it a commander’s responsibility to make certain those under his command behaved civilly, even in armed conflict.

In 1474, in what may be the earliest war crimes trial, Sir Peter von Hagenbach literally lost his head after a Roman court deemed him guilty of failing to prevent atrocities committed by his army in the occupation of Breisach. Hagenbach claimed immunity with what has more recently been called, the Nuremberg defense. “I was only following orders.” Even by 15th century law that didn’t keep his head from ending up in a basket.

The principle of Command Responsibility has been bantered about a good bit over the years, and the goal posts seem to move depending on whether the person under indictment is on your side or the other. Take for instance the Nuremberg trials, in which 22 Nazi leaders were convicted of war crimes. The defense of “I was only following orders” didn’t fly, and just like Hagenbach, all 22 were convicted.

In another part of the world at about the same time, Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita was on trial for atrocities committed by his subordinates in the waning days of Japan’s occupation of the Philippines. The outcome mirrored Nuremberg and would set a standard followed for decades.

The Yamashita Standard

General Yamashita was represented by American lawyer and Army colonel, Harry E. Clarke. Clarke's defense asserted that “the Accused is not charged with having done something or having failed to do something, but solely with having been something….American jurisprudence recognizes no such principle so far as its own military personnel are concerned….No one would even suggest that the Commanding General of an American occupational force becomes a criminal every time an American soldier violates the law…one man is not held to answer for the crime of another.”

Clarke's impassioned defense made no difference in the outcome. Yamashita was convicted by the American military tribunal and sentenced to death. Appeals were rejected by first the Philippines Supreme Court, then later by SCOTUS. Yamashita was executed early the following year.

The responsibility of a commander for the actions of his troops was set in stone. Or so it seemed, until Viet Nam.

The Medina Standard

In 1968, the Court Martial of U.S. Army Captain Ernest Medina would set a new standard by which Command Responsibility would be judged. Medina was commanding officer of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Brigade of the American Division. This is the unit responsible for the infamous My Lai Massacre. Depending on which body count one believes, American soldiers killed anywhere from 200 to more than 500 old men, women and children that day; and not a single fighting age male.

Although there were 26 military personnel originally charged with the atrocities at My Lai, only one; Lt. William Calley, was ever convicted. Calley is the only one of the 26 to confess full responsibility for what happened, to truthfully tell the tale, and for that he was sentenced by a Court Martial to life in prison (later reduced to four years). Although Calley admitted his actions, he excused them with the Nuremberg Defense. He was only following orders. The Court Martial applied the Yamashita Standard and disregarded that defense.

The orders, according to Calley and many of the men in his squad, came from Cpt. Ernest Medina. Due to these allegations, Medina became one of the 26 charged, and was placed on trial for the events of that day. In his testimony, Calley claimed he had been directly ordered, by Medina, to “kill everyone in the village.” Medina denied that.

The day before My Lai, Charley Company stumbled into a booby trap that killed one of the units more popular soldiers. Cpt. Medina came before Charlie Company that night following a wake for the dead soldier and gave them a pep talk to pump them up for the morrow’s mission. Medina later claimed he never said anything about killing women and children, but many of those present that night believe he said just what Calley remembered; that they should kill any and every “gook” they encountered. Payback for the loss of a comrade.

When all of this finally came to trial, Medina would face charges of responsibility for the murder of 102 Vietnamese civilians. The indictment was based on the Yamashita Standard of Command Responsibility. i.e., if Medina was in charge of Charley Company, he should be accountable for the actions of Charlie Company. Famed defense attorney F. Lee Bailey defended Medina, and managed to get key evidence suppressed and beat the charges. The acquittal was upheld on appeal. A new standard was set for Command Responsibility. [It was only after the statute of limitations had expired that Medina admitted he had lied and suppressed evidence that would have convicted him.]

The Chrystal Ball

Briefly, the Medina Standard is “the direct proving by prosecutors in court of an officer, or officers, directly ordering soldiers under their command to do something that they know is illegal."

So, under current standards, if the U.S. Justice Department and A.G. Eric Holder cannot prove a direct link between the orders issued from the Bush/Cheeny White House with the actions of CIA torturers, Abu Ghraib abusers, and Hiditha murderers… those ordering such atrocities will skate while those in the field will go down in flames.

Perhaps this will explain why the Obama administration has been so reluctant to waste time chasing tails.
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