The U.S. Postal Service says
Monday (Dec. 18) is peak mailing day with 900-million pieces of mail expected to drop into the system on this one day alone. The
Morning Sentinel in Waterville, Maine, put it this way -- today, some post offices will handle double the amount of mail they might handle on a July day.
The story adds:
The agency also offers online shipping (
usps.com) that allows shippers to weigh packages on their bathroom scales, enter the information into their computers and print out a stamp. Postal carriers will pick up the packages as part of their regular route. Use of the online option is up at least 50 percent from last year, making lines at post offices a little shorter.
Cell Phone Troubles at School
My colleague Jill Geisler spotted this story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The story says kids are using cell phones to photograph tests and pass the pictures on to other students. Teachers have to change the tests hourly. Other kids are using cell phones to summon backup when a fight breaks out.
The story says:
The cell phone phenomenon has shown up in other schools in MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools], in the suburbs and nationwide: When trouble breaks out, students reach for the phones, and within moments, other youths are on their way to the scene, sometimes literally from miles around.
Bradley Tech Principal Ed Kovochich said he has had teachers change tests every hour because students take cell phone photographs of the documents and sell copies to peers who haven't taken the exam.
Although use of cell phones is generally banned in schools, both in Milwaukee and the suburbs, it is obvious to anyone around a high school or middle school -- and sometimes even elementaries -- that a vast majority of students carry them and use them frequently. Sometimes when schools have tried to crack down on the phones, parents have been the ones to object the most, saying they want their children to be able to reach them during school hours.
Cell phones are banned during MPS basketball games, largely because they have been used during incidents in prior years to summon "help" when trouble breaks out among kids.
Kovochich said he doesn't know how to stop students from using cell phones in school, a problem he said has gotten out of control.
"We keep having problems with extended members of someone's family coming up to intervene," he said. "I'm telling you, this whole thing with the use of cell phones is coming to a head. If we have a simple fight, everyone text-messages or calls their friends, half the school knows about it and shows up."
It is a hot topic in many parts of the country -- in Akron, Ohio, for example. Also in Nashville, Tenn.; Fargo, N.D.; and Concord, N.H.
Some parents strongly oppose laws that forbid kids from carrying cell phones. Education World reported in 2002 that after 9/11, kids in New York City said they had trouble getting in touch with their parents because the public phones were tied up and they weren't allowed to carry cell phones.
Secret Cell Troubles
MSNBC.com's Bob Sullivan is really on to something that other journalists should start pressing. Sullivan has, for many months now, been trying to get his hands on Federal Communications Commission documents that show which cell phone companies experience service outages. The feds first told him it was a national-security issue, and then they said it was protected trade information. As I told him for his story, I think consumers not only have a right to this information, but they also have a need to know which carriers are most reliable. As Sullivan reports:
Complaints about cell phone service are near the top of every list of consumer gripes. The Illinois attorney general's office, for example, last year ranked cell phone complaints as the fourth-most-common complaint, trailing only gas prices, credit card firms and home improvement scams.
Cell phone service is not a luxury -- it is a necessity. The majority of 911 calls now are placed from cell phones. If airlines can report late arrivals and lost bags to help consumers make choices (and force airlines to be accountable), cell phone companies can do the same. The good ones will be rewarded with public attention, and the bad carriers will be forced to clean up their act. Now that would help national security, it seems to me.
Mountain-Climber Sidebars
Al's Morning Meeting reader Dan Zinkand from Salem, Ore., sent in a bunch of story ideas linked to the mountain-climber rescue drama in Oregon. None of these ideas requires mountain climbing to be a big deal where you live. He suggests:
1.) Should the public bear the cost -- both financial and human -- to rescue people who choose to put themselves in potentially dangerous situations? This also could apply to boaters, pilots, skiers, campers and others who choose exhilarating activities in which there is little margin for error. In this case, it's been reported that the climbers could have rented a $5 Mountain Locator Unit (MLU), which enables rescuers to pinpoint where the wearer is. That saves time, which is so critical in cold weather.
(Note from Al: See this story about Oregon's law that can fine a climber up to $500 if a rescue is launched and the climber has no MLU.)
2.) Should mountain climbers and others be required to buy insurance policies to pay for (part of) the cost of rescue efforts? As far-fetched as that might seem, people who hunt and fish are required to buy licenses to use public lands. Similarly, users of national parks and forests must buy daily or annual passes.
3.) Many mountain climbers are from urban areas. It's an interesting contrast -- urbanites challenging remote areas. It would be interesting to see how many mountain climbers there are in urban areas. Experts at outdoor stores are great sources. Many of our public lands, rivers, lakes and oceans are extremely accessible, and there is often relatively little regulation of who (regardless of skill level) can use them. The consequences of changes in the weather or an injury, or both, can be deadly.
(I worked at Timberline Lodge, on the south side of Mount Hood where the three climbers planned on descending, in the early 1980s. During the spring, the "South Side" route is climbed by hundreds. I and two other climbers paid a guide who had summited the mountain more than 40 times for our climb in 1983. The two climbers ahead used inadequate equipment. When visitors at the lodge would ask how difficult it was to climb, I responded, It's an easy mountain to climb on, using the South Side route. It's an easy mountain to die on, because it's so accessible it can lull people into a false sense of security.
[There is] the same potential-danger-vs.-enjoyment-vs.-access relationship for swimming and sailing in the ocean, the Great Lakes, and in county and state parks.)
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.
A National Park Service ranger once told me the rangers...
