If you know any kids trying to break into journalism, there are two interesting stories waiting to be developed that have gotten scant attention from the mainstream media, what with all the fuss over a packet of cocaine left in the White House by you-know-who). The first concerns the collapse of America’s postal delivery system. We’re all familiar with the unofficial motto of the USPS: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” Well, you can fuggeddaboutit, since, these days, it would seem, just about anything can, and does, keep the mail from getting delivered. I discovered this in the worst way when an alimony check that I mailed out on April 24 failed to reach my ‘ex’ by the first of May.  In fact, it still hasn’t reached her, and a subsequent check for the month of June took 16 days to be delivered — four days late, as it happened. If you are a divorced guy, then you know that few things are as likely to provoke one’s former spouse as an alimony check that has failed to arrive when due. Well Fargo, my banker, acknowledged that postal deliveries have been ‘slow’, but they said there is nothing they can do about it. My solution is to use Zelle for money transfers, even if it, too, has caused problems requiring many hours of back-and-forth on the phone to resolve.

Unfortunately, there is no way to Zelle a card for Mother’s Day, Valentine’s day or a birthday card, and so one must emply an old-fashioned method to ensure a timely delivery — i.e., mailing the card three or four weeks in advance. There’s no guarantee it will get there in time, but when it doesn’t you can always phone the intended recipient on the day of the occasion

and the second has to do with Amazon scamming its customers.  Concerning the USPS, I discover.

ed its appalling state of derelicition