San Diego enjoys the nation's highest prices for gasoline and
electricity. Now we appear to be going for the record in pokiest mail
delivery.

Yesterday's mail (Saturday, 4 Aug 2007) included letters from Port
Angeles, Washington, and Riddells Creek, Australia. Both were post-
marked 30 July.

Odds are, most modern-day Americans won't see anything unusual in a
letter taking six days to travel 1,300 miles at a cost of nearly half
a dollar. But when I was a kid in it took about six days for a letter
from my aunt in New York to arrive in San Francisco. Cost three cents
and traveled by train.

By accepting incompetence we become a party to it. "You're doing a
heck of a job, Brownie."

-R.S.Hoover