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Show Free Press - Wednesday, November 26, 1997 - Page 2 Opinion Turbo-charg- Like IRS, Postal Service is its own worst enemy As a newspaper and business mailer, we have relied on the U.S. Postal Service as a business partner for as many years as we've been in business. And, for the most part, local postmasters have been good partners. They have been committed to providing timely service to our readers and their postal customers. Unfortunately without notice or time to adjust, that business partnerat ship abruptly changed last week least in Pleasant Grove. And the U.S. Postal Sen-ichas demonstrated that, like the IRS, it is often its own worst enemy Understanding postal regulations is akin to understanding the U.S. tax code. If you need someone to interpret and apply the regulations, you can get almost as many opinions as people. Last Tuesday, the day before we normally deliver the newspaper, we received a terse note from the Pleasant Grove Postmaster that our "periodical 'Pleasant Grove Revieu "... must be presented for verification and weighing before being accepted for mailing. If you expect a Wednesday delivery, it must be presented prior to 4 p.m. on Tuesday" Since we don't even print the newspapers until about 10 p.m. on Tuesday, meeting their new deadline is obviously not an option. In spite of the fact that the U.S. Postal Service has provided same-da- y delivery for well over 15 years, they will no longer do so, effective immediately. Are they concerned about suddenly delaying service to hundreds of mail customers? No, the regulations, or the current interpretation of them, is e Recently my turkey, Christmas is coming fast e I heard someone Easter celebrations of today have got to be the most bizarre. say that the first Thanksgiving celebra- Think about it: For millions of people throughout the world, Easter is technically related to the three-hou- r feast, give or take a few very person that gives Christianity hours here and there, and not beyond the original. its name. So how did that person, is Christmas another leftover the that the sine qua non, if you will, turn holiday counting turkey that has changed drastically from from a venerated Divine Being into can last up to an additional week. That first event was held to three wise men bringing gifts of a giant bunny who brings presents to children (who don't even have to praise Divine Providence for the gold, frankincense and myrrh. bounteous crops that would keep Today, only the gold would cut it measure up to the same standards the Pilgrims going during the for many people, and even then it as required by Santa Claus)? would have to be genuine 14 karat; Not only have we turned the upcoming winter. The Indians may still be involved anything less would be unacceptfocus from a religious figure to one able. Forget the frankincense and of a merely philanthropic nature, in modern Thanksgiving events, but we now pray for divine interferbut we have made it even more outmyrrh, nobody gives those anyence as we watch the teams battle more. landish by juxtaposing In fact, while we're at it, let's just for the title in the numerous footeggs to a creature that does ball games that are held on Turkey forget Thanksgiving, too, because if not lay eggs as part of its physiowe don't get an early start on the logical capacity. Day. Is there any connection between buying of gifts, it will just ruin the The advertising geniuses at the original celebration and today? spirit of Christmas for everybody. Cadbury Chocolates have gone even Have you noticed that we don't a step beyond just an ordinary Does stuffing our faces with all manner of food not just that even have enough time to write out bunny: theirs lays creme eggs. which we have raised through the the word 'Christmas' in full? St. Patrick's Day is surely the So now we deal with the next on the list. We've already sweat of our own labor, but that Christmas push starting at accomplished the first part by elimwhich has been processed with artificial colors and flavors resemble Halloween instead of the day after inating the religious part of the holthe Pilgrims' humble meal for Thanksgiving. And since we've iday, which seems to have been creAll Hallow's Eve a ated to honor the person who introwhich they were grateful? Somehow I don't think the two night that was also tied to the har- duced Christianity (see Easter no one seems to above) into Ireland.vest at one time are the same. notice too much. As we eat our celery sticks garNow we use the symbol of a cute nished with grated cheese in a light little leprechaun to justify pinching Many years ago, people roasted mayonnaise mixture this Thursday, nuts and apples, symbols of the anyone who doesn't get into the perhaps we should consider what harvest, on bonfires designed to spirit of the holiday by wearing the Pilgrims were eating nearly 400 scare spirits away. green. Today we still have the nuts out But why stop there? Perhaps we years ago. If the feast that we have become accustomed to through the on Halloween, but the apples have could get this little sprite to start years were suddenly removed, given way to candy as a symbol of bringing us presents during the could we be as grateful as those the "harvest" of those who go out middle of March. That way we won't door to door. I guess it is still the have so long to wait until the early settlers? I don't think we could handle the same, because the little goblins and Easter Bunny comes, which is right witches of today reap what they sow. before shock. We have taken simple tradiHalloween- the Fall isn't the only time for s Thanksgiving-Christmations and humble celebrations and rush that " we have them far holidays. In my mind, the we all dread. tion was actually a feast. three-da- y Through the years, we have shortened that three-da- y feast to a all important, and that is that! Rather than being treated as a long-terloyal customer, the newspaper has been treated as a criminal. And until we can straighten out the misunderstanding, our Pleasant Grove Rev iew customers who receive the;r newspaper in the mail may receive their newspaper at least one day late. (Fortunately, most of our customers receive the Review from our own private carriers.) Apparently, the crux of the misunderstanding is that the Pleasant Grove Postmaster is applying Standard Class rules to a Periodical Class mailing. Of course, each class has its own set of rules; in fact, Salt Lake City has a Standard Class specialist and a Periodical Class specialist. We know because we've talked to both of them. Unfortunately, neither has been very helpful because, in each case, some of what we ask is not their area of expertise. Hence, the analogy to the IRS! At the center of all this red tape is the local postmaster, who typically does not fully understand the rules in either class, but is expected and audited to enforce them nonetheless. As we work to resolve the problem, we realize that the best option is to just do our own delivery. The irony here is that the U.S. Postal Service claims to be working very hard at increasing revenue by increasing volume. From our perspective, poor customer relations, poor communication and poor service force us to take our many thousands of dollars of business elsewhere. As this scenario is repeated all over America, regular postage costs have nowhere to go but up. multi-colore- d turbo-charge- d turbo-charge- d "turbo-charged- A Thanksgiving away from home Mexico has a lot of holidays, prob ably more than the U.S. But they don't have anything resembling Thanksgiving Day. That meant that our 1971 Thanksgiving would be a hollow holiday. I was living in Guamuchil, Sinaloa, at the time, just a little r more than a year into a mission for my church. And I was learning that it's hard to be away from home for these benchmark holidays that are punctuated by traditional food and family gatherings. My companion, Noah Sifuentes, and I would have neither. Noah was missing Texas; I was lonely for Idaho. We had seen one turkey during our months in Guamuchil, but it started out alive. The woman who cooked our food lived next door to our apartment. She had purchased a live bird and brought it home to all of which slaughter and cook was accomplished in the same day. I saw too much of the process to enjoy eating the bird, and it wasn't cooked anything like the turkey my mother used to roast in the oven. The resulting meal was a kind of turkey stew that failed to stir my appetite. So as Thanksgiving neared, Noah two-yea- and I decided we would prepare, as much as we could, a traditional holiday dinner for ourselves. Never mind neither of us had spent time in the kitchen doing anything besides sampling the fruits and vegetables of the labors of others namely our mothers. The entire 14 months I had spent in Mexico, someone else had prepared my meals. We were both 20 years old and still couldn't boil water, but we were determined to make a "real" Thanksgiving dinner when that Thursday came around. It was harder than it looked. Even assembling the different ingredients proved to be a challenge. My only shopping experience in Mexico had been in the corner stores that existed in every neighborhood. We had no trouble buying the potatoes, and we located cans of Del Monte whole kernel corn on the grocery shelves. While corn tortillas were present at every meal along with frijoles (refried beans), I don't think we had eaten corn in this form since leaving the United States. While we had seen that single turkey which was purchased alive, it was impossible to find any such bird in the grocery store or the market. The idea of preparing such a large Doing your best bird all at one time in an oven is foreign to Mexican cooks. So we settled for the largest chicken we could find. The chicken would provide all the two of us would need anyway. These three basics would form the foundation of our Thanksgiving feast. In the end, they were the entire feast. We could not locate any cranberries, fresh or canned, to enhance the meal. Pumpkin pie was as foreign to Mexican cuisine as Yorkshire pudding. Thursday morning we began our labors We used the kitchen of our neighbor's home, and provided a day's worth of entertainment for the women of the house, who could tell that we didn't have a clue what we were doing. We guessed at the oven temperature to roast the chicken, peeled the potatoes and set them to boil on the stove. We didn't attempt any stuffing, being very aware of our limitations. As it was, the potatoes were done way before the chicken was finished. Noah set about mashing them, but no one had told us you are supposed to use milk and butter to enhance the mashed potatoes, so the results were a bit watery. The corn cooked well, and the chicken turned out okay, too, By Dick Boland 1997 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Winners, regardless of the position their team might be in as far as the score is concerned, are always going to win. One of the most impressive team efforts I've ever seen occurred during the Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl nctory in 1993 over the Buffalo Bills. Everything that can go right for a team went right for the Cowboys, and everything that can go wrong for a team went wrong for the Bills. The Cowboys were leading the The game was virtually over; the Bills game had the ball. However, they fumbled, and as it hit the ground and bounced up, Cowboy Leon Lett, one of the premier defensive players in the game, grabbed it and lumbered toward the end zone. When Lett was within 20 yards of the goal with a certain touchdown in his hands, he started doing a silly dance, holding the football away from his body. Don Bebe, an outstanding wide receiver for the Bills, was 10 yards behind, but he made up the 10 yards' difference and ran the 20 yards faster than Leon ran his 10. He slapped the ball away from Lett. The game was over. There was no way the Buffalo Bills could win, but Don gave it a super-huma- n effort and prevented that last touchdown. Incidentally, Don Bebe's effort kept the Bills from losing the most onesided game in Super Bowl history. Yes, a lot was at stake. The same can be true of each of us, regardless of our age or our job. When team or personal pride is at stake, and big effort makes a big difference, that's when winners show their colors. although neither of us had a clue how to carve the bird. The only problem was gravy, which we attempted to make from the drippings of the crechicken with limited success ating a greasy liquid that ran all over our plates. It was delicious anyway, especially the canned corn, which recalled more than the anything Thanksgiving feasts of old. By the time the day was over, we had spent a good part of it in the kitchen, cooking or eating, chasing away any feelings of homesickness. The next year, I would be home for Thanksgiving, feeling homesick 52-1- for Mexico. I get to go back to Mexico next week, just for a few days of vacation, some 26 years since that Thursday when we tried to recreate a little bit of home in a kitchen in Guamuchil. I don't expect it to be the same. But I think perhaps it will be a chance to reclaim a little bit of what has been lost over the years. I'm looking forward to the tortillas and frijoles. Soft money has become the chief culprit in Washington power plays just CH (Mm At the heart of Seymour Hersh's new book, "The Dark Side of Camelot," d is the fear of blackmail. Hersh's dread both informing and used to justify the book's sordid reveis that some external force, lations in this case a blackmailer, will force our political leaders to make decisions based not on principle or good policy but on motives. Here is a juicy example from the book. According to an FBI agent, in August 1962, two men broke into the apartment of JFK paramour Judith Exner. It turned out that they were the sons of L.B. Hale, head of security for General Dynamics Corp. At the time of the break-in- , the company, in serious financial trouble, was bidding for a $6.5 billion government contract to build a new jet fighter. Even though expert opinion considered Boeing the better choice, General Dynamics got the job after, Hersh presumes, it blackmailed Kennedy with evidence of his affair with Exner. So, we are told, "The Dark Side" is not just a high-minde- self-servin-g detailed rehashing of unrelenting sexual high jinks, not another account of the tarnished dignity in high offices, but a book about the subversion of the democratic process itself. Thank goodness Seymour is paying attention. But if the integrity of our political system is what really interests him, he should turn his considerable energies in a different direction. Every day in Washington, a different a big donor external force uses campaign contributions to induce elected officials to make decisions they wouldn't make on the merits. Political blackmail based on politicians' sexual escapades is a boogie d man by the Trojan Horse already comfortably parked inside the fortress. With soft money, we are awash in the very subversion of democracy that Hersh and his champions cite as the reason his book is so not just a good read but "necessary" good for the country. If journalists, producers and Kennedy-hater- s really cared about guarding against the forces that make our political leaders pre-empte- Published weekly by ISSN No. 8750-466- U.S.P.S. No. A llie 9 309-50- iewiihews 0 IJroup member ol NATIONAL NEW. 7 ASSOCIATION tH 59 West Main American Fork, Utah 84003 act against the public interest, they should be condemning the legalized bribery of today rather than the illegal blackmail of the past. Survival, sex and power are recognized as three universal instincts driving man. But modern politicians are so overwhelmingly 'driven by power getting it and keeping it that blackmailing them through their sexual indulgences is unnecessarily complicated. It would be like robbing a bank when you already own it. Why threaten someone when you can buy him off? and legal to boot It's so much easier to get out one's checkbook and send a hefty donation. & Circulation .... Classified Advertising News Publisher Managing Brett Editor Marc City Editor Subscription price $24 Bezzant Haddock Russ Daly per year Second class postage paid at American Fork, Utah . noon .Tuesday, Display Advertising Monday. 5 p.m. News Missionaries Monday. Calendar Letters to the Editor Obituaries 2 p.m. (printed AND signed) and ters for clarity, punctuation, Monday, 2 p.m. . pm. a m. Monday. 10 a m Monday. 10 y light. It goes without saying that the shapely figures of Marilyn Monroe and Judith Exner are of more immediate interest to the American public than politicians in bed with donors, let alone the figures on mind-numbin- g Federal Election Commission reports. But it's not political sex that's doing us in it's political money. What's a gifted investigative writer like Hersh for, anyway, if not to breathe life into abuses of power that make the old saw of political blackmail outdated, redundant and irrelevant? Mr. Hersh, we are eagerly waiting "The Dark Side of Soft Money." Arianna Huffington can be reached for questions or comments at the foaddress: llowing ariannahufaol.com. Tuesday. 11 am All letters must include the author's name a telephone number. We reserve the right to edit lettaste and length. Letters are welcome on any topic. By Mail P.O. Box 7, American Fork, UT 84003 In Pottmntcr Mnd addraw change to 59 West Main, American Fork, Utah 84003 garden-variet- HOW TO REACH US Monday. 2 Weddings Community ht lists and sift through omnibus appropriations. Yet for the sake of the democratic process Hersh is so worried about, he should turn his estimable talents to getting the public fired up about the subversion that goes on all the time in broad day- We weit:me letters to the editor. Deadlines Telephone Numbers Advertising Just ask Big Tobacco. It got a $50 billion tax write-of- f into the budget without any compromising photos of the Speaker of the House canoodling with Marv Albert's dominatrix. (Clearly, using donations is also easier on the viewing public.) And the Fortune 500 heavyweights loans from the that receive cut-rat- e federal Overseas Private Investment Corp. didn't need to catch Trent Lott sneaking hookers up one of the Capitol's "senators only" elevators to get what they wanted. Nor did the broadcasting giants that were given $70 billion worth of new channels on the publicly-owne- d spectrum need to catch Al Gore cavorting around with a modern-da- y Clyde Tolson. And it didn't take a videotape of the president with Paula Jones to get Nike, Coca Cola and AT&T a hefty federal subsidy for their overseas advertising. It is, of course, much more titillatto investigate and lucrative ing skinny-dippin- g in the White House assignations with pool and late-nigmovie stars than it is to look at donor 59 W. Main, Person American Fork By Fax 756-527- 4 By newtahaol.com |