I love postal systems. They go back thousands of years and are an attribute of culture and civilization. I dig the US Postal Service -- it's incredibly fast. But the reality is this: changing technologies and practices are sapping its funding base. Something has gotta give -- or take.
We could go to widespread seven day service: there's no rational reason not to. Conversely, we could cut a couple of days of service per week. Another option would be to declare Red Letter Days once or twice per month, encouraging everyone to post letters. In the US, that'd probably go over like a lead zeppelin, however. What we need is a led zeppelin. Something luckier than the Hindenburg, to boot. Hell-bent for leather as we are, email and mobile phones and texting have sped things up so much that tons of mail these days is junk, not much better than snail spam. What are we gonna do about it? What can we do about it? Any thoughts on the matter? Something must be done.
At top: USPS flow chart. Bottom: artist's take on Japanese address system. ZIP equals Zone Improvement Plan, not to be confused with Dow's Ziploc system. In Japan, addresses are typically in reverse of the US system.
Today's Rune: Flow.
6 comments:
I appreciate our postal system, too. It's funny, but I don't recall there being Saturday delivery when I was growing up in NY. I was totally surprised when I moved to NOLA & learned the mail ran on Sat. Was it always that way? Am I nuts?
Good question. I could see them going to five day a week distribution, although I'd think with the increase in online ordering of items they shouldn't be hurting as bad as one might think. Certianly they aren't carrying the bulk of letters they used to, but the online purchasing has skyrocketed.
I do believe that come October we are losing Saturday delivery and hiring is frozen.
Here in NZ, the post mostly gets used for mailing online auction items and the like.
And a few retro-folks like me who enjoy writing a nice letter...
Erik, let me get this straight. You LOVE postal systems? Crazy guy..My Mom always says, "hell bent for leather", whatever that means...
A postal system is one of the foundations of a modern society. As much griping as people do about the postal service, my experiences have been mostly good. One example-- I dropped a Netflix disc in the box near my home, and it was recieved by Netflix less than 24 hours later, and new disc shipped.
I've made a recent resolution to send more postcards.
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