New Shoes in the Rain

Did you watch the Oscars at your house, as we did at our manse?  All in all it wasn't a bad show, although not very fulfilling for a variety of reasons. Let's get the business of the first time host, animation producer and part-time big-band crooner Seth MacFarlane, out of the way right up front.  The guy is the brains behind numerous animated programs like "Family Guy," "American Dad" and others, and also wrote, directed and kind of starred in a movie called "Ted" last year.  Subtlety and propriety are not among his strong suits, and were Seth here now to discuss with us, he'd most likely agree readily. I thought MacFarlane was entertaining, somewhat bawdy, sang and performed well when called upon (he often sings in character in the context of his animated programs) and did the host "thing" well enough.  The theme of the ceremony was some sort of a salute to music in the movies, and I'm sure he didn't object but he also h...

Did you hear that the United States Postal Service is really, finally going to suspend delivery of regular mail on Saturdays?  But they're waiting until August?  And the Post Offices that are currently open on Saturdays will continue that practice, and packages where the sender has paid the extra fees for Saturday delivery will also be delivered. Let's think about the Postal Service for a moment.  They're the only federal government agency or program that's required to fund in advance and in full its retiree healthcare program for 75 years.  The agency lost over $11 billion just in the first three quarters of 2012. Heard somewhere that UPS contracts with the USPS to deliver a large percentage of its packages.  Why?  Because the Postal Service is already delivering mail to remote areas.  UPS (and FedEx and the other package services) figured out long ago that they couldn't do what the Postal Service does and try to make a profit, which, of course, i...