Curmudgeon's Corner
cur-mud-geon: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
Post Offices & Print Media
It seems like forever, but the World Wide Web, the Internet as we know it, is a relatively recent creation. In the several decades of its existence, major changes have been introduced to our lives. Among those are two that are currently manifesting.
The venerable Post Office is being affected by e-mail and by use of the Internet for shopping services, etc. Catalog mailings have continued to decrease, and, of course, snail mail has diminished considerably. That has reduced the money available to the Post Office and that has caused fewer and fewer employees. The postal service is considering delivery reductions and has targeted the cessation of Saturday mail deliveries since that is the lightest delivery day of the six they provide each week. Of course politicians are opposed since that means fewer union jobs and, for them, lesser contributions. This is an example of why private companies should never be run by government.
We also are in the midst of a print media revolution and that has seen several major daily newspapers cease to exist. It has caused many others to tighten their belts through staff decreases and the downsizing of print editions. Newspaper advertising has suffered considerably and much of that suffering has been created by the Internet being used instead.
When was the last time we saw an encyclopedia sales brochure featuring hard cover print editions? Google has become the defacto universal encyclopedia since one can seek the answer to virtually any fact-based question and have it available in seconds.
Our world continues to evolve; sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, but it does continue to evolve.
Of course, cell telephones have had a somewhat similar effect on land line telephones but now the Face Books and Twitters emerge with evermore intriguing uses of the Internet. The future has never been more exciting nor more threatening, but that will no doubt continue as my generation and that which immediately follows move into our "golden" years and turn the reins over to that new generation that always follows.
My father lived from 1896 until 1977, and remarked to me that he had 'seen' the first airplane fly and watched the first man to walk on the moon during his lifetime. I doubt that he expected that I would see similar or even more profound changes occurring with greater frequency, and I wonder if I ever thought that my future would hold all the change that it has produced.
What comes after this?
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The Curmudgeon Blog today is titled "Wasting A Crisis?".
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