DeePee (RE: U.S. mail to slow down even more): Ah, “Hatred!” as Mickey Rourke cheered to those dogs in “Barfly.” (or as the Davies boys sang to each other on that great late Kinks album). What a thread you’ve got going here. Here’s the thing. The Post Office was Ben Franklin’s idea of the Internet way back then. And should the power go out we’ll need it as much as the folks in the 18th Century did. What’s killing the Post Office, excuse me, Postal Service, is the perpetual lie of the price of a stamp. Let it rise with the price of everything else. Let us keep the great service we have — in the past two weeks I have gotten letters sent from Wallace on a Friday and received in Connecticut and New York on Monday — but charge fair value for it. I think a buck or even $2 is fair, to get a letter picked up from my house and delivered to somebody’s front porch on the other side of a continent is a very fair value. Eggs aren’t 25 cents a dozen anymore, and a gallon of milk ain’t a dollar anymore either.

Question: What do you think of DeePee's idea of mail users paying fair, higher value for letters?

Letter carrier Diosdado Gabnat moves boxes of mail into his truck to begin delivery Monday at a post office in Seattle.  (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Dropping a first-class letter in the mail in the morning and expecting it will get to its destination by the next day would be a thing of the past under changes the U.S. Postal Service is detailing this hour. But there will be no change in the Post Office's commitment to deliver a first-class letter anywhere in the continental U.S. within three days, spokesman Dave Williams just told reporters on a conference call. Widely anticipated and laid out in broad terms back in September, the changes are part of a broad restructuring — which includes the anticipated closing of up to 250 or so processing facilities and the elimination of about 28,000 more jobs/Mark Memmott, NPR. More here.

Question: Can you live with even slower snail mail?

This “forever” stamp honoring The Indianapolis 500 is included in the U.S. Postal Service’s 2011 postage stamp collection.

WASHINGTON – Rummaging around for 1- and 2-cent postage stamps when postal rates go up is heading the way of the Pony Express. Beginning in January, all new stamps good for 1 ounce of first-class mail will be marked as “forever.”

The move is designed to help customers cope with postage increases, a U.S. Postal Service official told the Associated Press on Tuesday.

How often do you mail letters or bills?

Item: Additional postage has absentee voters licked: Post office admits ballots should not have been returned to citizens/Tom Hasslinger, Coeur d’Alene Press

More Info: Absentee ballots across Kootenai County were returned to voters who tried to mail them back to the elections department recently after a postage snafu - even though post office rules regarding mailed votes say they should have been delivered anyway. Turns out, mailing back the two ballots on weight and size alone should cost 61 cents, not the standard 44 cents. Post office rules state that votes should be delivered anyway, as a way to ensure they are counted, post office staff said Wednesday.

Question: What do you make of this snafu?

The post office wants to increase the price of a stamp by 2 cents to 46 cents starting in January. The agency has been battered by massive losses and declining mail volume and faces a financial crisis. Postal officials announced a wide-ranging series of proposed price increases Tuesday, averaging about 5 percent, and covering first class, advertising mail, periodicals, packages and other services. The request now goes to the independent Postal Rate Commission which has 90 days to respond. If approved, the increase would take effect Jan. 2/Associated Press. More here.

Question: Should the U.S. Postal Service be thinking of ways to transform its mission in this era of the Internet, rather than continually asking for hikes in first-class mail?

Item: Postal service offers fired letter-carrier hero another job, but … it cuts his pay in half and eliminates vacation and benefits/Alecia Warren, CDA Press

More Info: But the post office’s gesture doesn’t have the 21-year-old elated. The casual clerk position is a big step down the ladder for him, he said, after climbing the ranks through the post office for three years. “It will basically cut my pay in half, take away union, take away vacations, no other benefits,” he said. But doubting he could find anything better with the state of the economy, he accepted.

Question: Is this sufficient amends by the U.S. Postal Service for a wrong-headed decision to fire a young hero?

Isaac Fish, a mail carrier for the United States Postal Service, makes his way back to his mail truck Wednesday after hand-delivering mail to June M. Smith on his route in Coeur d’Alene. (AP Photo/Coeur d’Alene Press, Shawn Gust) 

So North Idaho isn’t known for having a longstanding love affair with government. But the anger that erupted online Tuesday — not just from the peanut gallery, but from some readers who claim to be insiders — set a modern local standard for governmental disgust. The cause? Our front page story Tuesday about the heroic postal carrier who saved a woman’s life, had a minor accident running into a mailbox later that day, and has been fired from his job starting this Saturday. “Every silver lining has a cloud,” wrote one reader. “If you are a hard worker, and do a good job working for the people — you have no future in the government,” posted another/Coeur d’Alene Press. More here.

Question: Should the postal service rehire Isaac Fish?

Item: Mail may show up less often after cut: Post office considers five-day delivery/Washington Post.

More Info: Worsening economic conditions and the changing habits of Americans are threatening to do to the U.S. Postal Service what few things can: stop delivery of the mail, at least for a day. In testimony before a Senate subcommittee Wednesday, Postmaster General John “Jack” Potter said the post office may be forced to cut back to five-day delivery for the first time in the agency’s history, citing rising costs and an ongoing decline in mail made worse by the global recession.

Question: Would you be drastically affected if the U.S. Postal Service delivered mail 5 days per week instead of 6?