i before e

Mnemosyne, the ancient Greek Titaness, is the goddess of memory, sleep, and dreams. She was the daughter of Uranus and Gaea. Mnemosyne and Zeus were the parents of the nine Muses. Thus she became the mother of inspiration.

The word, mnemonics, is derived from her name; it is the study of methods to aid remembering. Samuel Johnson wrote, “The true art of memory is the art of attention,” and the Greek word for memory also means mindfulness. Paying attention is sine qua non to memory. But inattention may also be a factor in the process. Allowing the mind to unconsciously absorb bits and pieces that will become the fabric of memory is equally necessary. One also needs to include Mnemosyne’s other responsibilities—sleep and dreams. These are the states when “unlearning” and re-organization occur. Too often the work of sleep is overlooked when memory is considered. It is an important factor.

There are myriad methods and techniques to assist memory. These comprise the study of mnemonics. Various techniques can be employed. Rhyming is simple yet extremely effective. Some examples include:
> i before e, except before c or when sounded as “a” in neighbor or weigh (spelling, beware exceptions);
> Slander is said; Libel, pencil lead (law);
> Click it or Ticket (reminds us to fasten our seat belt);
> Thirty days has September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31 except for February which has 28 and in leap year 29 (rhyme scheme deficient but a good way to recall the days in a month);
> Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning – red sky at night is sailor’s delight (weather); and
> Left is loose, right is tight (turning a screw).

Acronyms aid memory. >  KISS, stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid reminding a speaker to be clear, brief.
> To assess a stroke Think FAST: is Face drooping on one side; can victim lift both Arms; is victim’s Speech slurred, confused or stopped; Time is critical, call 9-1-1.
> HOMES reminds one of the names of the Great Lakes.
> Have you met Mr. Roy. G. Biv? He’ll help you with the colors of the rainbow from longest to shortest wave lengths.
> The order of operation in mathematics is learned by remembering PEMDAS—parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition and, finally, subtraction. One extremely clever junior high school teacher had the class act the order out, ala the Village People’s YMCA song, adding left to right where appropriate.

Singing a rhyme and physically acting out are useful techniques, especially with younger people. If you wish to remember what to do with your clocks at time change, act this out with body memory: Spring Forward, Fall Back. How many of us learned our ABCs singing the song? I still cannot spell the word “encyclopedia” without singing the accompanying melody. Have you ever hear the periodic table elements being sung in a patter song from The Pirates of Penzance!

Letter mapping, known as first letter mnemonics, is a frequently used technique that fosters memorization and help in spelling.
> To spell RHYTHM, think Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move; A Rat In The House Might Eat The Ice Cream spells arithmetic.
> My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nachos places the planets in our solar system in order from the sun.
> "Apple Pies are round" yields the formula for the area of a circle; whilst the number of feet in a mile can be expressed as 5 TOMATOES = 5280.
And while we’re on the topic of food, how about the taxonomic classification system:>  King Paul Cried Out For Garlic Soup reminds us of Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species.
> The order of operations mentioned above can also be remembered with this phrase: Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.

Another form of letter mapping uses the number of letters in a word to aid memory.
> FEED a Cold; STARVE fevers—each have the same number of letters.
> When setting a table, on the LEFT (even number of letters) side place the FORK (4), NAPKIN (6), and bread DISH (4); on the RIGHT (odd number of letters) side place the KNIFE (5), SPOON (5), and GLASS (5).
> To recount the numbers of π remember this: May I have a large container of coffee ready for today. (The number of letters in each word gives you the answer 3.1415926535)
> Want to know the speed of light in meters per second using the same method? We guarantee certainty, clearly referring to this light mnemonic. (299,792,458)

Individual letters are sometimes used to prod one’s memory.
> Stalactites grow from the Ceiling; Stalagmites grow from the ground;
> To correctly spell dessert, remember the two “s” mean something sweet;
> When is it safe to eat oysters? In months with “r” in their name;
> The Tropic of Cancer is in the Northern Hemisphere;
> The harder the stem, the hotter the water.
> Use alphabetic proximity to learn which remedies work on bee and wasp stings: Ammonia for a Bee sting and Vinegar for Wasps.

I am certain the reader knows dozens of others, or variations on the above. Make up your own. I often use association to remember phone numbers. For example, the final four digits in this number, area code 537-543-1316 might remind me of the dates of someone’s birthday or of a year when something memorable happened. The middle three are simply one down in order and use simple subtraction as a reminder. The area code numbers are all prime numbers with first and middle number sets beginning with 5, both having a 3 in the second and third spot. To get the number "7" just add 4 + 3. It's not as complicated as it sounds.

Two areas of memory not often discussed are habit and use of the sense of smell. If you ALWAYS do something it helps the memory. For example, if you make a habit of ALWAYS unplugging the coffee maker when you pour your last morning cup you won’t need to remember whether or not you unplugged the pot while driving to work. If you ALWAYS put your keys in the same place, you won’t need to search the house for them. Habit has saved my bacon several times.

Some research points to the coupling of smells with memory. It would be interesting to try using this sensory mnemonic: When trying to memorize a passage or something for work or school, have an orange or spice nearby to smell while working on the passage. Use the same stimulus each time you rehearse your passage. Then use the memory of that smell to rehearse further. When you really need to recall the memory, its association with that certain smell might make the task easier. Give it a try. We have more than one sense. Why not try Smell and/or Touch? Sing and Move--whatever helps. Take your inspiration wherever you find it.

A Postal Service Proposal--Minus the "P" Word

Today’s news brought notification that the U. S. Postal Service (USPS) reports losses of $5.7 BILLION for the first 7 months of 2011.^a  Reduction in the number of delivery days is planned soon.  The Postal Service blames much of its deficit on the Congressional mandate to pre-fund pension and disability benefits. The Postal Service explains that this overpayment is funded, not by tax dollars, but by rate payers who undoubtedly pass on higher costs to those who use their products and services:  read “tax-payers.”

Officials seek to have this mandate recinded, using the savings to fund postal workers’ health care benefits.  Legislation introduced by Senators Susan Collins and Tom Carper to eliminate this requirement and forbid no-bid contractual arrangements with retired postal workers was noted in a Wall Street Journal ^b article. The WSJ  reported that more than 2000 postal workers, age 70 and over, receive workers’ compensation at 75% of their salary—tax free—instead of less costly retirement benefits.

The USPS has been bleeding dollars for decades.  In 1990 the difference between income and expenses was ($835,054,000), partly reflecting the loss of tax dollar funding. In 2000 USPS made a profit of $1,548,000,000.  In 2007 losses reached ($5.1 Billion); ($2.8 Billion) in 2008; ($3.8 Billion) in 2009; and ($8,374,000,000) in 2010.  How can they operate that way?

Post offices have been closed, nearly 2000 fewer since 1990. The delivery process relies heavily on labor-saving automation. A FY2002 report in the Postal Reporter^c reveals that 94.5% of letters were distributed using automated equipment in that year. “Letter mail productivity in processing plants improved nearly 50% from 1993-2001. Production in time devoted to sorting allowed the Postal Service to reduce the number of city delivery routes by 4100 from 1995-2001, while simultaneously absorbing about a 4% increase in the number of delivery points.”

[I can personally attest to the reduction of delivery routes. We lost our reliable 10:35 am delivery by the same mail carrier for over 25 years. Now our mail is delivered any time after 4:30 pm by a different person each day. It is not uncommon to receive our mail—often our neighbor’s mail—after 6 pm.  The mis-delivery record is 8:20 p.m.!]

Use of the U. S. mail is on the decline because of the Internet. Pieces of Mail Handled numbers have fallen since 2001, yet the Pieces Handled per Employee ratio has continued to rise every decade, up 11% between 2000 and 2010, thus validating the Postal Service’s investment in automation.  Mechanization began in the 1950s. Zip codes were introduced in the mid-1960s. Zip plus 4 began in 1983. Each innovation was made possible by the introduction of a variety of Optical Character Recognition capabilities. Multiple Optical Character Readers (MLOCRs) read the entire address and spray an 11 digit barcode (the zip +4 + the last two digits of the delivery address) onto the envelope and sort materials at a rate of 9 per second. Images that cannot be read automatically are sent to Remote Encoding Centers (REC) to create a bar code.  In 2003, there were 11,000 part-time, non USPS employees, processing 6 billion images at 20 REC Centers.  The Postal Reporter states that in 2003, “Barcoded letter mail can now be sorted at speeds of up to 34,650 letters per hour on sorters requiring 4 people to operate.” Automation makes it possible to face, read, code, sort, and put in walking order today’s mail quickly and accurately.  Yet the USPS reports record deficits.

A National Journal Daily article^d quotes James Miller of the Postal Service Board of Governors, “The system is biased in favor of labor and against management.” The American Postal Workers’ Union is one of the country’s largest labor unions. While the newest labor agreement freezes some salaries, the latest agreement raises the salaries of more than 200,000 employees. Increased workers’ health insurance contributions do provide a savings of $3.8 billion. The National Journal Daily quotes California Congressman Darrell Issa “We have deep concern that some of the provisions of the contract might in fact be the wrong direction toward less flexibility, less ability to trim the work force, and less ability to make the kind of investments for the future that we need to make.” 

Payscale.com^e reports that the average (carrier) postal worker’s salary range is between $37,214 and $58,859 in the Midwest. At least 60% of the workers have 10 years or more experience.  The USPS is the second largest employer in the country.^f Union membership guarantees employment security and vigorously protects habitual “light duties” and “disabled” workers. The previously mentioned no-bid contract system of retirees being rehired at 75%, tax free games the system.

[Our assigned mail carrier has been off work and on “disability” for the better part of two years, non-consecutively. Apparently she is a bit "accident prone." It delights me no end to learn that one of our erstwhile mail carriers is being handsomely rewarded for continuously talking on the phone, rudely interrupted only the necessity of placing  junk mail in my box. Perhaps I should apologize to her?]

What is my Swiftian “Modest Proposal”?  It is NOT to privatize the Postal Service. Privatization causes Democratic masses to swoon while Republican businessmen salivate.  What possible advantages might accrue if the USPS as we know it today were to be dissolved? However can the universality and privacy of mail delivery be maintained if services escape the incompetent Postal Service? It is a little known fact that the USPS tried to make a grab for email in the 1980s—the good old days of telnet and ftp.^g   Fortunately that benefit did not ensue for the USPS which already received the benefit of monopoly, partial immunity from competition, no tax payment requirements, and federal taxpayer dollars paid into the postal infrastructure for more than 200 years, through 1982 to be exact.

Privatization has already been employed by the Postal Service. The 2003 Postal Report stated that, “Research and Development efforts were moved out of the Postal Service and to the companies that would ultimately become the original equipment manufacturers.” In the 1980s conversions to newer Optical capabilities, “The new approach sought out multiple suppliers in a competitive environment.” In the past decade the Postal Service has reached agreements with delivery services like FedEx to cooperate in the delivery of parcels. Private contractors have maintained service in the very profitable rural delivery routes for years. Part-time, non-postal employees work at REC sites. These incursions into the private sector have worked well.

I seek a different solution.  Postal services should be franchised. The NEW USPS would be the Franchisor. Revocable franchises will be licensed in accordance with postal legal protections. Businesses, small and large, would compete for delivery and handling licenses at the local (probably large section or all of an MSA area), regional, national and/or international levels. Networked levels would provide for a regulated continuity of service. Small business would be given incentives for local job creation. Franchisees would pay taxes. Franchisee fees would include the right to use postal automation equipment, the rights and responsibilities pursuant to   protecting the privacy and integrity of the mail, and access to the institutional infrastructure appropriate to the level of service level. Royalties would be paid annually. Franchises can be terminated for failure to meet strictly defined performance standards. Ingenuity and creativity will be encouraged.

 

The Franchisor will retain its postal “trademarks” and the exclusive right to print postage stamps. It may need to retain some autonomy over equipment like MLOCRs, leasing time to franchise providers.  Economies of Scale can be shared with franchisee. The Franchisor will provide regularly scheduled training, access to technology, affordable facility insurance, and expert assistance. It will set minimum days of service requirements and enforce uniformity in privacy standards, services, and equipment. Enforcement of standards and operational oversight will be the responsibility of the Franchisor. Reasonable rights of petition and review would protect franchisees.

Franchisees will create competitive structures whereby consumers contract for mail delivery while maintaining choice in dispatching services. Franchisees will retain the right to innovate within the parameters of service standards set by the Franchisor. End user fee structures can be set by franchisee and may be contractually varied, e.g. some may opt for daily delivery while others choose fewer delivery days; others may wish to save money by picking up mail at the point of service. Franchise agreements must run for a reasonable amount of time but can be rescinded if performance falls below certain expectations.

Why would Revocable Postal Service Franchises work?  The legal force of the USPS would be maintained, ensuring privacy and universality. Licensing would be competitive but various levels would be statutorily networked to insure continuity and conformity of services. Franchises would be independently owned and operated. Innovation, especially in electronic delivery, will be encouraged and rewarded. Hours of operation can be tailored to the convenience of users. Private sector franchisees can choose which type of mail it will handle, or contract to deliver all types—letters, flats, and parcels. Different organizations can choose to operate within areas of various complexities—local, regional, national, or international.

Postal employees will use their experience as a positive attribute. They can be given preferences in franchisee hiring for a limited time.  Their termination from the USPS would result in the conversion of their retirement benefits into 401Ks, thus awarding them autonomy in controlling their futures. 

 

The USPS can divest itself of nearly all physical property.  Instead of applying the cumbersome process of right of first refusal from a long list of federal and state organizations, the real estate can be put up for sale in a timely manner, returning tax revenue to the community. The USPS, relieved of all disability, pension, and health care financial burdens responsible for today’s deficits will be able to pay its own way.  What would emerge is a lean, focused Expert Organization with regulatory powers. Royalties and licensing fees will cover much of its administrative costs, relieving taxpayers and end-users of punitive expense. Research and Development would benefit from new customer bases and challenges. Consumers would receive better service. What’s not to like?

Your comments are welcome. I do not expect that this conversion would be easy or quick. I do think it’s worth a try.  Sources consulted include:  a) “Postal Service Delivers Red Ink” Daily Herald 6August2011, p.3.1; b) “The USPS Needs Fairer Pension Rules, Not a Bailout” (Anon) Wall Street Journal 19May2011 p16; c) “Distribution Technology in the Postal Service: Past, Present and Future” Thomas Day, USPS Vice-President, Engineering. (circa 2003) www.postalreporter.com/usps/dist_tech.htm; d) “Postal Service is Latest Battleground for Public Unions and Government” Ben Terris, National Journal Daily, PM Update 5April2011; e) Payscale.com “Salary for Employer: U.S. Postal Service (USPS) 15July2011, www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=U.S._Postal_Service_(USPS)/Salary; g) “Competition Policy and Comparative Governance of State-Owned enterprises” D. Daniel Sokol, Brigham Young University Law Review 2009.6 p.1753 ProQuest Document ID: 194366995; and, finally,  some statistical and technology information is from the Historian of the Postal History section of the USPS website, www.usps.gov .