4A
Thursday, September 8, 1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COLUMNIST
Postal Service gains at businesses expense
Mike Royko
A bureaucrat's mind is not
easy to figure out.
easy to figure out,
especially when it does
things that make no sense.
Let us once again consider the strange workings of the bureaucratic mind.
There are many businesses, big and small, that require prompt mail delivery. Some live or die by it.
One such company is Iroquois Industries, on Chicago's South Side, a label printing firm.
It advertises in catalogs, promising 24-hour order filling, and most of its business comes through the mail or by fax.
"If mail is delivered late or it is lost, we lose the order. If a customer sends an order and he doesn't get the merchandise promptly, he cancels the order," said Marvin Gordon, who started the company 40 years ago. "So slow mail could ruin us."
Considering the bleak reputation of Chicago's mail delivery, it's surprising that Gordon hasn't been eaten by ulcers or been plunged into poverty.
"No, I saw what the problem might be from day one, or at least 10 days after I opened.
"Right in the beginning, I saw how the mail delivery didn't work very well. It was being delivered late or not at all. We found some mail all burned up under a viaduct.
"Well, I couldn't survive that for long, having our employees sitting around all day and twiddling their thumbs until 3 o'clock when the mail and our business orders might or might not arrive."
So, to prevent the early collapse of his business, Gordon quickly started
This means that as mail is being sorted at his local post office, his mail is put aside, and he has it picked up in the morning.
using something called "Firm Hold- out Service."
"We pay a messenger service to pick it up at the post office and bring it in every day. We've been doing this since we started about 40 years ago."
Currently, it costs Gordon about $4,000 a year in messenger fees to get his mail. So in today's dollars, he's probably spent about $160,000 to get prompt mail delivery throughout four decades.
A few weeks ago, Gordon found himself reading a letter and sputtering as his blood pressure jumped.
The letter was from the Postal Service. It was notifying Gordon that if he wanted to continue picking up his own mail, he would have to pay an annual fee of about $400.
Gordon's reaction was shared by businessmen all across the United States, since it was a new national policy. Thousands of businesses that pick up their own mail were being told they would have to pay to do so.
"What is incredible about this," Gordon fumed, "it that we make their job easier. They don't have to deliver our mail because we deliver it ourselves. You would think they would thank us. Instead, they want to charge us."
The Postal Service representative said, "Actually, when businesses pick up their own mail, it is less work for us. It lightens the load for the carrier. We
can shorten the routes if there's a significant volume of businesses picking up their own mail."
Nobody could tell us which bureaucrat's daffy idea it was to charge people for delivering their own mail."
Uh-huh. Then why in the heck are you going to charge them for making your job easier.
The representative said, "It is now a moot point since the status quo remains."
Actually, it should not be a moot point. If we are to survive in society, we should try to understand the weird thought processes of the bureaucratic noggin.
Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
VIEWPOINT
State drug rehabilitation could lessen taxpayer costs
Crime, health care and climbing taxes are all problems that concern Americans. But one action by the states could help solve
them all: subsididrug treatment programs.
Last week, the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Pro-
ing or one-half addicts stopped using cocaine, as the study found, fewer people would commit crimes to obtain drugs or end up in the hospital.
DRUG TREATMENT
A California study shows that one year of supporting drug programs can save taxpayers $1.5 billion in other costs.
grams released a one-year study estimating that state-supported treatment programs saved the state $1.5 billion.
Yes, taxpayers would be the ones paying for the drug rehabilitation. But don't we also pay for their unpaid hospital bills or time in jail?
Even if only one-third of alcoholics stopped drink-
The other 49 states should follow California's lead and begin direct steps to curb crime and rising costs by subsidizing these programs.
ROBERTA JOHNSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Ireland's cease-fire is only a step to ending terrorism
aglimmer of hope shot across Ireland last week with the announced cease-fire by the Irish Republican Army. While this is a
We do not mean to say that the cease-fire is bad.
momentous occasion for peace, we should not praise a ruthless terrorist organization for halting its bloody activities.
have been tragically lost, a vast majority of which had been ended by the notorious terrorist group.
IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY While the cease-fire announced by the IRA is a positive step, we should limit praise to terrorist groups that announce they will stop killing people.
The stoppage of violence will pay immediate dividends.
For decades, an unofficial war has been waged all across Great Britain. During this war, thousands of innocent lives, from London to Belfast,
However, praising the IRA for its recent action is like thanking the Ku Klux Klan for ending lynchings. This is a good step forward for peace, but we must remain tempered in our thanks.
RICHARD BOYD FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
KANSAN STAFF
CHRISTOPH FUIRMANS Managing editor
STEPHEN MARTINO Editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
CAMERON DEATH Retail sales manager
JEN CARR Business manager
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH Systems coordinator
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
News  Sara Bennett
Editorial  Donella Heame
Planning Editor  Susan White
Campus  Mark Martin
Sports  Brian James
Photo  Daron Bennett
Mellissa Lacey
Features  Trael Carl
Design  Noah Muuss
Assistant to the editor  Robbie Johnson
Editors
Business Staff
Campus mgr ... Todd Winters
Regional mgr ... Laura Guth
National mgr ... Mark Masto
Coop mgr ... Emily Gibson
Special sections mgr ... Jen Pierer
Production mgr ... Holly Boren
Regan Overy
Marketing director ... Alan Stiglie
Creative director .. John Carton
Classified mgr .. Heather Niehaus
The Kauai reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kauai newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
Guest columns should be typed, double spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photogranched.
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Florida are required to type their letters on separate lines.
Sean Finn / KANSAN
Scott MacWilliams Graduate student
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Everyone can be a star
I was intrigued by Erika Rasmuson's column on the standards that society sets for those who become famous. I agree with her contention that "famous" folks are not always given the same latitude for making mistakes as us regular Joe's, but I think there is a larger idea that needs to be offered for discussion.
I have a real problem with the entire concept of "stardom" and all that it entails. The problem has many facets, but I feel that the most damaging one is the socially accepted notion that if you are not of "star quality" then you are little more than a hump of clay. Each time we tell ourselves, "Oh, he or she is so great! I wish I could be just one-tenth as good!" we give ourselves a negative message.
The truth is we each have heroic qualities within us, and it is up to us to find our own strength. We can't all pull a baby from a burning building or sack the quarterback, but there is something that we can affect. We can be a hero in our own way.
The real heroes are our friends and neighbors. It always strikes me how the ordinary citizen-heroes respond when they have been involved in some sort of emergency. "I didn't really think about it. Anybody else would have done the same thing."
Letters to the editor may be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
Where, Mr. Vargas, does the Second Amendment speak of hunters? Indeed, current gun control measures are not even a threat to hunters. Your editorial viewpoint "Guns should be banned despite hunter opposition," fails to recognize that the movement to restrict and eventually end firearm ownership is not about hunting.
As you dangerously stereotype gun owners as backwater hicks who prefer not to "sacrifice the hobby of killing animals to saving human lives," we will maintain our position on firearms ownership precisely because we value human life.
It is about repealing a specific freedom that would alter the entire relationship between the state and the individual — a freedom that the founding fathers recognized was important enough to write into the Constitution.
gun rights benefit all
We're not all hunters, Mr. Vargas. Many members of organizations, such as the National Rifle Association and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, are simply concerned citizens who fear a government that fears our guns.
Darin Nugent Overland Park junior
Mindy Pendreigh, dining services manager, said that students weren't applying for jobs because they had not learned time management yet. Or, maybe, it's because the jobs pay only once a month.
Residence hall dining services are having trouble filling part-time positions, and the manager and assistant director think they know the reason.
Dining work doesn't pay
Barbara Quintero, assistant director of dining services, has a grasp of the real reason that students aren't applying to work there. Obviously, it's because they simply don't need the money. Everyone knows that all parents give their children money so that they don't have to work.
Why don't students want to work for dining services? It can't be the money; it pays 10 cents above minimum wage. If a student works four hours a day, that's an extra 40 cents!
Those lazy, spoiled students don't deserve more money. It's obviously much more economical to pay the full-time staff overtime and continue using paper and plastic products.
It can't be that there are hundreds of other jobs where students don't have to slop food. It can't be that there are restaurants in town willing to pay more than $4.35 an hour.
David Day
Special Projects Coordinator
KU Bookstores
COLUMNIST
ERIKA RASMUSSON
One of the hardest parts about going away to college is saying goodbye to the people you leave behind. Whether you are a freshman or a fifth-year senior, leaving your friends and family behind can be hard.
As a senior, I've had four years of experience in saying goodbye. Every summer I have gone home to my family and old friends, and as every summer ends, I find myself sad at the prospect of saying "see you at Thanksgiving" once again. And as excited as I always am to come back to KU, I have to wonder if this will be the year that I lose touch will some high school friends.
But to be honest, I don't think that will happen.
If there's one thing I have learned from going to an out-of-state university, it is that long-distance friendships can last. It just takes a little extra effort and understanding on everyone's part.
Some of the people I consider my best friends in the world are the ones I went to high school with. The fact that most of us are hundreds of miles apart nine months out of the year only makes us realize that the time we do spend together is more precious.
Another thing I've learned is that it is not just high school friends you sometimes have to say goodbye to. College friends leave, too. In fact, I started this year without two of the best friends I've made in my years at KU. Although both made decisions for their future that required them to leave Lawrence, that doesn't mean our friendships have ended. It just makes them more complicated.
However, if a friendship is special enough, it will survive both time and distance.
One of the best parts about coming to college is, of course, the opportunity to make new friends. The relationships you make while at school are the best part about it.
College, as we are all finding out, is a place to grow up and mature, find out who you are and who you want to become, and most importantly, a place to learn the significant lessons of life.
But making new friends doesn't mean you have to give up your old ones. The key, I've found, is to strike a balance between the two groups. You don't have to sacrifice one group for the other.
Keeping old friends and making new ones is one of those lessons.
Erika Rasmussen is a Mimetonka, Minn., senior in magazine Journalism.
HUBIE
By Greg Hardin