Archive for the 'USPS' Category

Stamps

Cidu Bill on Oct 4th 2011

Yesterday, officially abandoning their time-consuming mission of delivering mail in favor of issuing collectable stickers (always their more profitable endeavor), the United States Postal Service canceled their centuries-long ban on stamps commemorating living people. It’s still theoretical for now — they didn’t issue a series of Lady Gaga stamps at the stroke of midnight — but when they do actually begin putting living people on stamps, who would you like to see there? And who should be the first to receive this honor?

And yes, this ban has not been absolute: the stamps commemorating the Gemini 4 and Apollo 11 flights clearly portrayed Ed White and Neil Armstrong respectively, though Post Office spokepeople disingenuously claimed that these were just “generic astronauts.”

gemini4.jpg
apollo11.jpg

Filed in Bill Bickel, USPS, stamps | 58 responses so far

Today’s Postage Rate Increase

Cidu Bill on May 12th 2008

…or as most of you are probably thinking right now, “today’s what???”

I can’t remember — and I’m old enough to recall the 4-cent stamp replacing the 3-cent stamp — an increase in the first-class mail rate receiving this little publicity. Could it be that first-class mail is simply irrelevant now?

(When my son went off to college last September, I offered to buy him a bunch of envelopes and stamps. He said “That’ll be helpful if I ever want to contact somebody really, really slowly”)

Still, I foresee credit card companies reaping huge late fees, as people’s payments get returned to them for insufficient postage and have to be re-mailed.

Filed in Bill Bickel, USPS | 20 responses so far