“Ben Franklin Rocked One Of History’s Finest Bald-Mullets”

January 27, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Jesse Lichtenstein has followed up his “Do We Really Want to Live Without the Post Office?” article in Esquire with an Ask Me Anything on Reddit. A few excerpts follow.

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Question:

Who was the coolest postmaster general?

Answer:

Ben Franklin rocked one of history’s finest bald-mullets. And then there was Frank H. Hitchcock, 43rd postmaster, who paid a pilot out of his own pocket to demonstrate the usefulness of airplanes when the Army wasn’t convinced.

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Question:

Why does/should the USPS have a monopoly on a person’s mailbox? As I understand it, only the USPS can place mail in someone’s mailbox. Is that correct?

Answer:

This is correct. The post office is established in the US Constitution (in fact, the post office was established in 1775, before the US itself, but a federal post office is written into the constitution) and it’s been given this monopoly by law. In theory, that lawful monopoly could be changed by new legislation. 

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Question:

What’s the biggest problem you think we will face if the USPS does get shut down?

Answer:

I think there won’t be a lot of interest in the private sector in rebuilding anything with the scope of the USPS. And that means nothing close to the same delivery standards for the whole country, and probably much more variable pricing.

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Question:

Where do you see the future of the postal service industry, and what new and innovative inventions do you think will revolutionize the way we receive mail?

Answer:

I think the growth of ecommerce and our rising expectations that things can and should be delivered to us quickly could be the way that the postal service survives and even thrives. There’s a generational problem USPS has to grapple with. In broad strokes, more older people still want to do their business through the mail (bills, bank statements, etc. — they trust a hard copy) and more younger people have very little meaningful relationship with mail — except getting STUFF.

There’s also room for the postal service to grow into the area of hybrid mail. I talk about this in the piece — the idea that we should have scanned images of mail arrive in our inboxes and we can decide which pieces we want delivered, and when; and maybe for a fee, we could have the USPS open the mail and email us a scan. By the same token, we should be able to type something up, email a file to USPS, and have them deliver a physical document.

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Question:

Assuming you could ship a live animal, which would be easier: 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?

Answer:

It’s really a question of how much extra space you have to budget for containing the waste matter. Horses’ diets are so fiber-intensive, while ducks break it down to a liquid. I’m going with h-s duck.