_www.FantasyLibrary.com [Visit Who Is Joseph Teller?] Synthesis & Synchronicity 041

Synthesis & Synchronicity #41

We Are A Security Risk or at least we presented a Security Risk to the post office over the weekend. Last week Kiralee mailed off from work a package of docuemnts to our Lawyer who is handling helping us with the "legalize" on our Cambridge Zoning Board variance filing & Hearing. Today it came back in the mail, the envelope much the worse for wear. Pasted on it was a sticker with a "Universal No Airplanes" symbol and a second note, explaining that you basically can't mail a package of 16 oz (1 lb) or more just using postage stamps, except by doing so by hand at a post office.

Our Lawyer is in Cambridge, basically on the other side of town. Kiralee mailed the manila envelope package with a pile of the usual stuff leaving her company's office which gets dropped off as a bin at the post office in Boston. Most of the rest of stuff in the bin went thru the company postage meter machines, but since this was a personal mailing she sent it off with about $4 in stamps (in 2 large denomination stamps she paid for) rather than cause a book keeping hassel for the company mail room. Evidently this does NOT count as having the package "hand Delivered" to the post office... despite the bin is brought in by someone by hand.

So I spent a chunk of my Monday afternoon waiting in long Xmas lines at the Post Office.... where they carried out the top secret process of determining that the package was safe for them to again send back thu the mail system to Cambridge. This consists of me handing the clerk the package, and saying my wife had tried mailing it from the office and it had come back. The Clerk asked me what was inside, I said "papers". She said she'd take care of it. And I asked her to retape the envelope where the rough handling by the carrier had torn thru the envelope. She put tape on it and tossed it into one of the many bins in the post office behind her, along with all the various other letters and packages.

Yep. that was the entire process. They didn't xray it, they didn't open it, they didn't test it with a chemical sniffer. They didn't ask for any Identification from me, or photograph me, or anything. This makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE! They did NOTHING that couldn't have been handled when it was delivered in the office bin the first time (where everything in the bin consisted of envelopes with papers). There was no real security checking of the package.

In other words, it was just another round of ridiculous and unnecessary bureacratic nonsense that is supposed to produce the Illusion that the mails are now safe, secure and 'watched' by 'top people' in the government. What it was is a waste of my time, and of our money. There is someone somwhere who's job is to sit and weigh each package and stick the stickers on those above X weight and someone else has to then take them and send them back with the person who delivers our mail. There's no care about what happens to OUR mail carrier obviously, since they get to return the envelope. And the "Risk to Airplanes" is ridiculous, since the package was traveling from Boston to Cambridge, two cities that border each other and do not use Airplanes to move mail between them at all.

Someone needs to take the administration and beat some common sense into their heads. No terrorist would have been stopped by this process. I can think of dozens of ways a terrorist could have exploited this sort of silliness. I don't know who is handling the roleplaying and logistics for the government in homeland security, but its certainly NOT the professional roleplayers I know who work for other departments in the government. A roleplayer would look at this and laugh themselves silly.

Howard Dean News : In case you haven't hear the word, Al Gore has decided to endorse Howard Dean, and not his former VP running mate Mr. Leiberman in the upcoming presidential race. My guess, Al Gore can see the writing on the wall and knows someone riding a tech-trend or social trend when he sees one (considering his own history in the exploitation of the Internet). Still it's good news, as far as I can see, to have the man who had his Presidency stolen from him by a stacked Supreme Court supporting your bid for the office. This may draw some die-hard Al Gore supporters in the South to support Dean.

Snow : We dug out the porches on our building last night, one of them had 3' drifts, and the one on our level had 2' drifts. Our front was dug out, as usual, by the person that the other owner has contracted to do our sidewalk and steps. And then we get to wait for the rest of the city to catch up.

Many of the streets (including ours) are still stacked high with snow and with insufficient sidewalks. Many of the sidestreets are nearly blocked. Why? Because Cambridge didn't declare a snow emergency in effect until Sat Afternoon at 4pm (after we had some 8" of snow already on the ground) and then failed to enforce it and tow away cars. So they simply buried the cars, often making the street more hazardous.

I'm also annoyed because Cambridge has a shoveling ordinance. 12 hours after the storm the rules are that you are supposed to have your sidewalk, hydrants steps etc cleared of snow or face a fine from $50 to $250 (the high end of this is for businesses). Despite this there were sections of Mass Ave that weren't begun to be shoveled clear by the local businesses, and there was ZERO sign of the enforcement folks out there issuing tickets.

YET if you put your trash out on trash day an hour earlier than the official time that you are allowed to bring your stuff to the curb (normally 3pm the day before the trash is picked up) they'll have the Trash Enforcement people issuing tickets faster than a speeding bullet. And these trash enforcement folks don't even necessarily ticket the correct source of the trash.... if your home is within 20 feet of something someone has tossed on the curb you can get ticketed for it. Not logical in a city where buildings can be as little as 6' apart from each other and share frontage or an alleyway. And of course the ticket in regards to the trash is a mere $25.... and only applies to homeowners.

As a pedestrian, I consider the snow and ice a MUCH higher priority than trash enforcement.... and it would also be nice if the CITY itself would clear its own properties within the time limit it sets for everyone else. City Hall was just starting to be dug out at around 3:00 this afternoon (it's across from the post office so I could see them starting work on its sidewalks).

I HIGHLY suspect that no enforcement effort is going to be made on the storm... and that we'll be slipping and sliding thru slush for weeks to come (unless we get a real warm front, in which case it will all melt and a chunk will flood our basement, again.)

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