Don’t these people know what a human right is? It’s not just something you happen to like or enjoy. Or is watching American Idol also a basic human right, together with ski vacations and ice cream?

It’s also not just something convenient. Or are dishwashers, electric razors, and cell phones also fundamental human rights?

The secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, Dr. Hamadoun Toure, says that “the right to communicate cannot be ignored.” How did internet access suddenly become equated with a so-called right to communicate?

The BBC report tells us that “countries such as Finland and Estonia have already ruled that access is a human right for their citizens.” If we’re talking about human rights, we’re not talking about rights that are particular to citizens of one country or another. There is such a thing as a legal right that is particular to one country or one kind of person. Ancient Roman citizens had the legal right not to be crucified. Slaves had no such right. People on trial in the U.S. have the legal right not to incriminate themselves. No claim is made that people in Mongolia have such a right. It’s not a human right but a legal one.

There is so much confusion evident in this BBC report that I wonder how much of it is due to poor survey design incorrect interpretation or reporting of the results, or just plain shallowness by the respondents. Let me help shed some light: when we’re talking about human rights, we’re really talking about human obligations and duties. If someone else has a human right, then I have a moral obligation and duty to that person, and so do you, to protect and preserve whatever it is he has a right to. If to life, then I must not take the person’s life and must do all I can to protect it. If to religion, then I must not try to coerce a person to believe something or to act in a way that would violate his genuine religious scruples, and I must defend a person’s right to hold his religious beliefs and act according to their dictates.

If you believe internet access is a fundamental human right, then you should by all means act immediately to fulfill your own personal obligation to give internet access to anyone who doesn’t have it. Have fun!

I think cutting back to five-day delivery is a very bad idea. It would be different if we had always had five-day delivery. But think about how losing that extra day will affect cash flow and timing of payments for businesses and individuals. Let there be no doubt: some marginal businesses, ones that are barely hanging on as it is, will be driven out of business because of the transition. A five-day delivery schedule is not something that should be accepted quickly.

I think the problem lies with bad employees (not all employees-plenty of them are exemplary, but there are lots of bad ones too) and the unions that shield them from correction. When was the last time you saw a UPS (as in United Parcel Service) delivery driver sauntering down the sidewalk, deep in conversation with someone on a cell phone? No, they’re always rushing past in a streak of brown! The employees in the post offices are also incredibly inefficient and slow. If postal employees would only work 15% smarter and harder, all these problems would go away, I suspect.

Congress and the USPS: here are some suggestions of ways you can reduce costs or increase revenue without eliminating Saturday delivery altogether:

• Raise rates for commercial advertising pieces. If it’s junk mail that creates unnecessary paper waste, why not reduce it to the most valuable commercial advertising, the pieces that are least junky, most appealing, and hence are worth paying a higher rate?
• Stop delivery of commercial advertising pieces on Saturday. Only deliver correspondence, parcels, and periodicals–the things that people want and need to receive.
• As a last resort, eliminate Saturday delivery but allow anyone to pick up accumulated mail at their local post office on Saturday, without having a P.O. box rental agreement. And keep the post offices at peak staffing levels on Saturdays so people don’t have to wait in horrific lines.

It’s now over a year since I last posted here on the eve of the 2008 presidential election. I have a new blog at a new location, and I hope you’ll visit: phwdennis.com. It’ll have more of a professional orientation than Agkyra had, but I hope you’ll still find it interesting and worthwhile to read. If you have a subscription (whether in a blog reader or by e-mail), you’ll have to re-subscribe at the new site if you want to keep up to date without having to visit the site manually.

Thanks for your consideration and conversation in the past!

Yours sincerely,

Agkyra