Dayhoff Westminster

Dayhoff Westminster
www.kevindayhoff.city Address: PO Box 124, Westminster MD 21158 410-259-6403 kevindayhoff@gmail.com

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Recent articles in www.thetentacle.com by Kevin Dayhoff

Recent articles in www.thetentacle.com by Kevin Dayhoff
Kevin E. Dayhoff http://www.thetentacle.com/author.cfm?MyAuthor=41
The Tentacle

June 5, 2013
Craig Steps to the Bottom of The Mountain 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Although the Maryland gubernatorial primary is over a year away, on Monday the 2014 contest began to take shape in earnest with Harford County Executive David Craig announcing his candidacy for the Maryland State House.

May 29, 2013
A Fallen Son of Carroll County 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
The weather was perfect for the 146th Memorial Day exercises at the Westminster Cemetery on Monday. The keynote address speaker for the community ritual of spring was Army Sgt. 1st Class Joseph T. Schultz, a North Carroll High School graduate.

May 23, 2013
A Renewed Purpose and Meaning for Pentecost 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Many believe that the current decline in church attendance directly contributes to the erosion of our quality of life, the deterioration of our sense of community and lack of confidence in the future.

May 22, 2013
Pentecost Sunday 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday; the 50 day after Easter and the birthday of the church. Along with Easter and Christmas, Pentecost is one of the three most important holidays in the church. It’s time to renew the spirit of Pentecost in our daily lives. Here’s why.

May 15, 2013
The Spiritual Practice of Shredding Stuff 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Last month my wife and I left our house in the wee-hours of the morning and joined other households in Carroll County for the shared experience of putting box after box of old documents in a large ravenous shredder-truck which devoured the paper voraciously.

May 8, 2013
Another Boot on Your Neck 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
On Monday the U.S. Senate voted 69-27 for the Marketplace Fairness Act, which allows states to collect sales taxes on certain online purchases.

May 1, 2013
Alvin Lee is coming home 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
It has been almost two-months since British guitarist Alvin Lee, the legendary rock-blues master and lead singer of the band “Ten Years After,” passed away March 6.

April 24, 2013
The Presidents Club 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Last Thursday, Time magazine editors Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy provided a sneak peek into the most exclusive club in the world, “The Presidents Club,” to a crowd that filled McDanielCollege’s Decker Lecture Hall in Westminster.

April 17, 2013
Tragedy Strikes at Heart of America 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
The cheers of joy and excitement quickly turned to screams of terror on Monday at 2:50 in the afternoonwhen an act of senseless horror shattered the 117th running of the Boston Marathon, arguable the world’s oldest and most prestigious endurance foot race.

April 10, 2013
March Job Creation Flatlines 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Last Friday the Labor Department announced the unemployment numbers for March and it was not a pretty picture. The Obama Administration quickly mustered the mainstream media and the party faithful spinmeisters to parrot that the numbers were as a result of the sequestration that only took effect at the beginning of the month.

April 3, 2013
Marissa Mayer: The Changing Face of Leadership 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
In a recent ‘lean in’ story posted on the new website launched by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Google employee number 20, Marissa Mayer weighed on how she decided to accept the position of president and CEO of Yahoo!

March 27, 2013
Obamacare: The New Repetitive Stress Disorder 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
On January 1, 2014, the revolutionary change in how we will receive our healthcare in the future will become fully implemented. Last Saturday was the third anniversary of the law and even the mainstream media, which coordinated its passage, cannot avoid reporting on how it is already making all of us sick.

March 20, 2013
The Economic Roots of Democracy 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
On a recent trip to Europe, I found myself reading The Economist while standing on an ancient foundation that dated back to the Bronze Age. This gave me great pause when I considered that literally and figuratively, much of the economic basis of democracy that we enjoy today had its beginnings in ancient Greece.

March 13, 2013
President Obama: The sky is falling 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Almost two weeks have gone by since the so-called “sequester” of the federal budget went into effect and all indications lead us to believe that the Zombie Apocalypse has not happened. Nor has it otherwise resulted in the end of the world as we know it.

March 6, 2013
How I learned to love the sequester 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Last Friday, March 1, the much ballyhooed and overhyped “sequester” of the federal budget began. A key and critical provision of the Budget Control Act of 2011, sequestration was signed into law on August 2, 2011 by President Barack Obama.

February 27, 2013
The new Dali Museum in St. Pete 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
The new Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, has now been open for over two-years. The much-anticipated fantastical $36 million, 66,450 square foot museum doubled the capacity of the previous 1982 building that I had the opportunity to in February 2009.

February 20, 2013
A Look Back At The War With Spain 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Early in the morning of last Friday, I found myself pondering a watershed moment in American history in the middle of a cemetery plot for the battleship U.S.S. Mainelocated in the Key West Cemetery, Key West, Florida.

February 13, 2013
A Visit to Ancient Olympia 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
A January tour of Greece included an opportunity to get away from the crowds, hectic tourist mainstays and urban landscape of Athens, to venture on the Peloponnesian Peninsula and visit many places, including Mycenae, Nafplion, Epidaurus, and one of the many highlights of the trip – ancient Olympia.

February 6, 2013
Commissioner John L Armacost – R.I.P. 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Many were saddened recently to learn that the well-respected longstanding community leader and former Carroll County commissioner, John L. Armacost, died January 13.

January 30, 2013
Big fat Greek surprises 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
In spite of the profoundly dulled senses that come as a result of a day of international travel, Greece takes hold of you the very moment you arrive at the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport.

January 23, 2013
Is Charter Right for Carroll County? 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
The decision last November by Frederick County voters to go to a Charter form of government has kept local political junkies preoccupied ever since the election results were announced.

January 16, 2013
Letters Reveal Divided Shriver Family 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
This Saturday the Historical Society of Carroll County will give a presentation on the letters and documents which shed additional light on the divided loyalties of the Shriver family of Carroll and Frederick counties during the Civil War.

January 15, 2013
Demonstrations in Athens 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Athens, Greece, January 12 – Demonstrators once again took to the streets in central Athens Saturday afternoon, in another of a long series of strikes, demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience that have rocked Greece since a worldwide economic downturn officially got underway in December 2007.

January 9, 2013
Colonial cooking was hard labor 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Cooking in pioneer and colonial Frederick and Carroll County was certainly not the romanticized picture of women wonderfully adorned in long dresses, hovering over large kettles of aromatic delights, cooking over an open fire with a loaf of bread or two strategically placed nearby.

January 2, 2013
Happy New Year – Past and Present 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
According to widespread superstition, evil spirits are frightened away by loud noise and this is why we have the tradition of using noisemakers to bring in the New Year.

December 26, 2012
Yes, Dear Readers, Fruitcake Has A History 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
The holidays are upon us and I can only be sure that many thoughts have turned to getting together with family and friends – and of course, the wonders of fruitcake.

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Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoffTwitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff
Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net

Tumblr: Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems www.kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/
Smurfs: http://babylonfluckjudd.blogspot.com/
Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/

E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/
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Harford Co Exe David Craig announces bid for governor’s office http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5816

Harford Co Exe David Craig announces bid for governor’s office http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5816 by Kevin E. Dayhoff Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Photo courtesy of http://www.davidcraig.com/

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2013/06/harford-co-exe-david-craig-announces.html

Labels: Elections 2014, Governors MD, People Craig–David Craig - See more at: http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2013/06/harford-co-exe-david-craig-announces.html#sthash.HfKjtHVA.dpuf

Although the Maryland gubernatorial primary is over a year away, last Monday morning the 2014 contest began to take shape in earnest with Harford County Executive David Craig announcing his candidacy for the Maryland State House.

Outside of Saint Patrick's Hall in Havre de Grace, dark clouds formed and it threatened to rain. Inside, there was no doubt that Mr. Craig’s formal announcement has threatened to shake up the contest for governor by launching what many political insiders consider to be a serious and credible Republican bid to regain the governor’s office after eight-years of liberal governance by Democrat Governor Martin O’Malley.

I felt badly that I was not able to make my way to Harford County last Monday. Mr. Craig went out of his way to visit Carroll County on several occasions to lend me a hand when I was an elected official. Over the years Mr. Craig has been a perfect host for a number of my sojourns to Harford County.

When I served for many years on the Maryland Municipal League board of directors, then-Havre de Grace Mayor Craig, along with many others such as then-Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley and then Ocean City Mayor Jim Mathias were a constant source of help with the many difficult challenges facing municipalities throughout the state.

However, for better or worse, Maryland political campaigns are more often than not insufferably long and I am only sure that I will be able to see my old friend Mr. Craig on several occasions before the voters have their say on the day of the Maryland primary election on June 24, 2014. (The general election next is scheduled for November 4, 2014.)

Mr. Craig’s candidacy raises many questions for political junkies…. http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5816

 The next year ought to have plenty of fodder for political writers and armchair political pundits.

Mr. Craig’s quest for the governor’s office has been one the worse-kept secrets in Maryland politics for years. Although I never wanted to ask the obvious and put a friend in an awkward position, even I figured it out several years ago and I can sometimes be the most inept and oblivious political junkie in the room.

As recently as January 4, 2012, I wrote in TheTentacle.com, a reference to liberal-governance fatigue… As much I admire my old friend Governor O’Malley’s accomplishments, one may actively debate whether or not he went way too far with Maryland voters with his uber-liberal approach to government and how much will O’Malley-fatigue will plague the uphill candidacy of Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, D, who was the first to formally announce his candidacy - on May 10.

In that January 4, 2012 column, “Scenarios Abound,” I observed, “The next big political roundelay in Maryland will not take place until 2014 and by then chances are most Marylanders – read Democrats – will have long gotten over any tax increases…

“That is, unless current Harford County Executive and likely 2014 Maryland gubernatorial candidate, David Craig, can remind voters of their pain...”

On September 10, 2011, Richard J. Cross, III, wisely noted, “If history is any guide, 2014 looks like it will be an anti-establishment year. Maryland voters will be restless after eight years of Martin O’Malley, just as they were after eight years of William Donald Schaefer and Parris Glendening.

“Plus, if President Obama is reelected in 2012 and experiencing the traditional mid-term slump that most presidents do, a Republican like Craig could benefit from these anti-incumbent forces.”

Another of the many questions is whether or not the consistent and steady-as-you-go political leadership of Mr. Craig can overcome the two-to-one lead Democrats hold in the voter rolls.

Mr. Craig, an accomplished historian and an academic, is well-known for his measured, thoughtful, and scholarly approach to government. Other than Maryland State Senator Joe Getty, R-Carroll and Baltimore Counties, and Senate President Mike Miller, D-Anne Arundel County; few in Maryland state politics today are as knowledgeable as Mr. Craig about the mysteries of formulating public policy and how government works.

Whether or not Mr. Craig’s comfortable and easily-accessible personality, his decades of qualifications and experience, and his government acumen are enough to overcome the hyper-partisan politics of Maryland will remain to be seen.

Then again, there are always the bizarre byzantine voodoo mysteries of Republican primaries. Specifically there is the not-so-small matter that the hard right wing of the Republican Party hardly ever resists an opportunity to pee on its own leg and tell you that it is raining. Never in my 60-years have I ever seen an organization snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as well as the hard right wing of the Republican Party.

If you will recall; towards the end of the Ellen Sauerbrey (R) campaign for Maryland governor in 1994 - the hard right wing of the Republican Party decided that Ellen Sauerbrey was moderating on some core conservative values. Ultimately this resulted in the hard, uncompromising and inflexible elements of the right wing of the Republican Party electing Governor Parris Glendening (D) for 8 years.

And the uncompromising and inflexible elements of the right wing of the Republican Party worked hard for Governor O’Malley in his gubernatorial contests with former Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich.

Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat - you have to admit that this is quite a paradox. I recall that in one of David Horowitz's books a number of years ago, “The Art of Political War and other Radical Pursuits,” it begins by saying: "Politics is war, but in America the left is doing all the shooting.  Shell-shocked conservatives blame their failures on the media or unscrupulous opponents, but they refuse to name the real culprit – themselves…”

To loosely paraphrase an old partisan aphorism; these days, the only difference between a Republican and a cannibal is that the cannibal only eats its enemies.

. . . . . I’m just saying…

kevindayhoff@gmail.com


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June 5, 2013
Craig Steps to the Bottom of The Mountain 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Although the Maryland gubernatorial primary is over a year away, on Monday the 2014 contest began to take shape in earnest with Harford County Executive David Craig announcing his candidacy for the Maryland State House.

May 29, 2013
A Fallen Son of Carroll County 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
The weather was perfect for the 146th Memorial Day exercises at the Westminster Cemetery on Monday. The keynote address speaker for the community ritual of spring was Army Sgt. 1st Class Joseph T. Schultz, a North Carroll High School graduate.

May 23, 2013
A Renewed Purpose and Meaning for Pentecost 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Many believe that the current decline in church attendance directly contributes to the erosion of our quality of life, the deterioration of our sense of community and lack of confidence in the future.

May 22, 2013
Pentecost Sunday 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday; the 50 day after Easter and the birthday of the church. Along with Easter and Christmas, Pentecost is one of the three most important holidays in the church. It’s time to renew the spirit of Pentecost in our daily lives. Here’s why.

May 15, 2013
The Spiritual Practice of Shredding Stuff 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Last month my wife and I left our house in the wee-hours of the morning and joined other households in Carroll County for the shared experience of putting box after box of old documents in a large ravenous shredder-truck which devoured the paper voraciously.

May 8, 2013
Another Boot on Your Neck 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
On Monday the U.S. Senate voted 69-27 for the Marketplace Fairness Act, which allows states to collect sales taxes on certain online purchases.

May 1, 2013
Alvin Lee is coming home 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
It has been almost two-months since British guitarist Alvin Lee, the legendary rock-blues master and lead singer of the band “Ten Years After,” passed away March 6.

April 24, 2013
The Presidents Club 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Last Thursday, Time magazine editors Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy provided a sneak peek into the most exclusive club in the world, “The Presidents Club,” to a crowd that filled McDanielCollege’s Decker Lecture Hall in Westminster.

April 17, 2013
Tragedy Strikes at Heart of America 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
The cheers of joy and excitement quickly turned to screams of terror on Monday at 2:50 in the afternoonwhen an act of senseless horror shattered the 117th running of the Boston Marathon, arguable the world’s oldest and most prestigious endurance foot race.

April 10, 2013
March Job Creation Flatlines 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Last Friday the Labor Department announced the unemployment numbers for March and it was not a pretty picture. The Obama Administration quickly mustered the mainstream media and the party faithful spinmeisters to parrot that the numbers were as a result of the sequestration that only took effect at the beginning of the month.

April 3, 2013
Marissa Mayer: The Changing Face of Leadership 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
In a recent ‘lean in’ story posted on the new website launched by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Google employee number 20, Marissa Mayer weighed on how she decided to accept the position of president and CEO of Yahoo!

March 27, 2013
Obamacare: The New Repetitive Stress Disorder 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
On January 1, 2014, the revolutionary change in how we will receive our healthcare in the future will become fully implemented. Last Saturday was the third anniversary of the law and even the mainstream media, which coordinated its passage, cannot avoid reporting on how it is already making all of us sick.

March 20, 2013
The Economic Roots of Democracy 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
On a recent trip to Europe, I found myself reading The Economist while standing on an ancient foundation that dated back to the Bronze Age. This gave me great pause when I considered that literally and figuratively, much of the economic basis of democracy that we enjoy today had its beginnings in ancient Greece.

March 13, 2013
President Obama: The sky is falling 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Almost two weeks have gone by since the so-called “sequester” of the federal budget went into effect and all indications lead us to believe that the Zombie Apocalypse has not happened. Nor has it otherwise resulted in the end of the world as we know it.

March 6, 2013
How I learned to love the sequester 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Last Friday, March 1, the much ballyhooed and overhyped “sequester” of the federal budget began. A key and critical provision of the Budget Control Act of 2011, sequestration was signed into law on August 2, 2011 by President Barack Obama.

February 27, 2013
The new Dali Museum in St. Pete 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
The new Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, has now been open for over two-years. The much-anticipated fantastical $36 million, 66,450 square foot museum doubled the capacity of the previous 1982 building that I had the opportunity to in February 2009.

February 20, 2013
A Look Back At The War With Spain 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Early in the morning of last Friday, I found myself pondering a watershed moment in American history in the middle of a cemetery plot for the battleship U.S.S. Mainelocated in the Key West Cemetery, Key West, Florida.

February 13, 2013
A Visit to Ancient Olympia 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
A January tour of Greece included an opportunity to get away from the crowds, hectic tourist mainstays and urban landscape of Athens, to venture on the Peloponnesian Peninsula and visit many places, including Mycenae, Nafplion, Epidaurus, and one of the many highlights of the trip – ancient Olympia.

February 6, 2013
Commissioner John L Armacost – R.I.P. 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Many were saddened recently to learn that the well-respected longstanding community leader and former Carroll County commissioner, John L. Armacost, died January 13.

January 30, 2013
Big fat Greek surprises 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
In spite of the profoundly dulled senses that come as a result of a day of international travel, Greece takes hold of you the very moment you arrive at the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport.

January 23, 2013
Is Charter Right for Carroll County? 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
The decision last November by Frederick County voters to go to a Charter form of government has kept local political junkies preoccupied ever since the election results were announced.

January 16, 2013
Letters Reveal Divided Shriver Family 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
This Saturday the Historical Society of Carroll County will give a presentation on the letters and documents which shed additional light on the divided loyalties of the Shriver family of Carroll and Frederick counties during the Civil War.

January 15, 2013
Demonstrations in Athens 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Athens, Greece, January 12 – Demonstrators once again took to the streets in central Athens Saturday afternoon, in another of a long series of strikes, demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience that have rocked Greece since a worldwide economic downturn officially got underway in December 2007.

January 9, 2013
Colonial cooking was hard labor 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Cooking in pioneer and colonial Frederick and Carroll County was certainly not the romanticized picture of women wonderfully adorned in long dresses, hovering over large kettles of aromatic delights, cooking over an open fire with a loaf of bread or two strategically placed nearby.

January 2, 2013
Happy New Year – Past and Present 
Kevin E. Dayhoff
According to widespread superstition, evil spirits are frightened away by loud noise and this is why we have the tradition of using noisemakers to bring in the New Year.


*****

+++++++++++++++
Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoffTwitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff
Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net

Tumblr: Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems www.kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/
Smurfs: http://babylonfluckjudd.blogspot.com/
Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/

E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/
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The Tentacle: Fighting the “Stuff Monster” - The Spiritual Practice of Shredding Stuff

The Tentacle: Fighting the “Stuff Monster” - The Spiritual Practice of Shredding Stuff

The Spiritual Practice of Shredding Stuff by Kevin E. Dayhoff May 15, 2013

http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5780

http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-spiritual-practice-of-shredding.html

Labels: Dayhoff Media Explore Carroll, Dayhoff Media The Tentacle, Environmentalism, Paperless, Self-employed

Last month my wife and I left our house in the wee-hours of the morning and joined other households in Carroll County for the shared experience of putting box after box of old documents in a large ravenous shredder-truck which devoured the paper voraciously.

It was quite a liberating experience. Of course, there was a certain irony in the ritualistic-feeding of the paper-eating monster truck sponsored by the Carroll County Office of Recycling.

The vast majority of my papers to be recycled are from the 40 or so years I served on local, county or state boards, committees or commissions – for many years, as an elected official – all of which were accompanied by bringing home boxes of papers, documents and records. It was only fitting and proper that I ‘give’ the papers back to the county.

The further irony is that many of those 40+-years were served on various committees and commissions which focused on the environment, municipal solid waste, agriculture, forestry, water and wastewater treatment – and recycling.

I, for one, am quite thankful for the shredding service. The recycling office reported that we were one of 316 other households that made the trek to the county maintenance facility.

The paper shredder in my office only allows me to feed it up to 16 pages at a time. At that rate, it would take me about two hours to shred one box full of papers. The county shredding service saved me days of mind-numbing work.

As I discussed in my column in TheTentacle.com on June 20 last year, “Fighting the ‘Stuff Monster,” goals are simply tools to focus one’s energy in positive directions. These goals can change as one’s priorities change and new ones are added, and others dropped.

One of the several priorities I have established in recent years is to greatly simplify my life and cut-out as much of the clutter as possible… Please read more here:http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5780

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Eagle Archives: Standard, aka junk, mail goes back to 19th century http://tinyurl.com/oye7pyo

By Kevin E. Dayhoff, May 23, 2013 http://www.baltimoresun.com/explore/carroll/neighborhoods/westminster/ph-ce-eagle-archive-0519-20130519,0,823668.story

Labels: Dayhoff Media Explore Carroll, Dayhoff Media The Tentacle, Environmentalism, Paperless, Self-employed

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2013/05/eagle-archives-standard-aka-junk-mail_26.html

http://kevindayhoffwestgov-net.blogspot.com/2013/05/eagle-archives-standard-aka-junk-mail.html

The nation's first countywide free rural postal delivery service got off to a shaky and contested start Dec. 20, 1896, in Carroll County.

According to multiple media accounts, including the Baltimore Sun, "One of the first pick-ups postal clerk Edwin Shriver had on the inaugural day of Carroll County's Rural Free Delivery service was a greased pig…"

"I'm sure he (the customer) did it as a joke," said Shriver. "But I slapped a 42-cent stamp on its rump and delivered it. That pig squealed the whole way."

A little over three years later, Charles Emory Smith, the 39th postmaster general of the United States and a journalist by trade, visited Westminster on April 30, 1900.

"Like" explorecarroll on Facebook

[…]http://www.baltimoresun.com/explore/carroll/neighborhoods/westminster/ph-ce-eagle-archive-0519-20130519,0,823668.story

If Smith were to come back today, he would find the current state of affairs of the Postal Service look more like that haze produced by the forest fire.
These days, the future beautiful vista at the post office is less than clear, if my last visit there is any indication.

After I opened my box, I let out a squeal much like that of that greased pig in December of 1896. I quickly realized that I had once again fallen prey to the modern scourge upon the postal system that has significantly impacted our lives today, junk mail, or as it is politely referred to by the postal system, "standard mail."

[…]http://www.baltimoresun.com/explore/carroll/neighborhoods/westminster/ph-ce-eagle-archive-0519-20130519,0,823668.story

Don't complain about the flood of unsolicited mail. "The Postal Service is hoping to deliver even more," according to an article in the New York Times last September.

"Faced with multibillion-dollar losses and significant declines in first-class mail, the post office is cutting deals with businesses and direct mail marketers to increase the number of sales pitches they send by standard mail…"

Now isn't that just special … Unbelievable… http://tinyurl.com/oye7pyo

Read the entire story here: http://www.baltimoresun.com/explore/carroll/neighborhoods/westminster/ph-ce-eagle-archive-0519-20130519,0,823668.story

See also:

Kevin Dayhoff - The Tentacle: Fighting the “Stuff Monster”

The Dayhoff Paper Reduction Act of June 20, 2012, Fighting the “Stuff Monster” http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5178

Fighting the “Stuff Monster” http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=5178

The mindless meanderings of a mad writer. Kevin E. Dayhoff June 20, 2012 http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2012/08/kevin-dayhoff-tentacle-fighting-stuff.html The Tentacle http://www.thetentacle.com/author.cfm?MyAuthor=41 http://twitpic.com/hnwxx

There comes a time in a person’s life when one needs to get a fresh supply of trash bags, buy a new heavy-duty paper shredder, back the pick-up truck to the basement door, get out the large party-size coffee maker, and clear the clutter.

http://www.thetentacle.com/author.cfm?MyAuthor=41

For me, periodically fighting the “Stuff Monster” has been a survival tool – or I would have been the tragic-lead character in a serial reality horror show on hoarding a long time ago.

Yet, in my personal journey of a life-long struggle with the “Stuff Monster,” the deck has always been stacked against me.

For, you see, my situation has been exacerbated by the fact that I have been self-employed all my life. Many colleagues have been able to fight the “Stuff Monster” much more easily because all the filing cabinets full of papers and pallets of boxes in records storage, has been the responsibility of their respective employers.

Well, with me – since the late 1960s – I’ve been my own employer and keeping records, documents and stuff has always been my responsibility.

And, of course, for the last 35 or so years, in addition to art and farming, I have continuously served on any number of local, county or state boards, committees or commissions – and for many years, as an elected official – all of which was accompanied by my bringing home papers, documents and records by the wheelbarrow load.

[….]

http://www.thetentacle.com/author.cfm?MyAuthor=41

I am trying to go as paperless as possible.

My paperless initiative is in part, because technology has advanced to the point that I can now handle many office and administrative functions more efficiently - without paper.

However, my reasons for going as paperless as possible are in part, as a matter of practicality. Above and beyond the fact that we travel a lot and are simply not at home to get hardcopy paper-mail at our post office box; at my advanced age, handling mountains of paper day-in and day-out has not gotten any easier.

Curiously, after almost 40-years of office administration, if you hand me a piece of paper, in several hours, I have no clue as to where it is. However, I always seem to be able to find electronic paperwork… Caroline will tell you that I have come to like reading online so much that I scan-in letters and writing-newspaper-research materials just so that I can read it on the computer…

Moreover, a large part of my decision to go paperless is a product of my environmental activism, which in part springs forth from faith beliefs…

Whatever - - I am a geek and although a few electrons may be inconvenienced; paperless is far more efficient…

That said, LOL – the initiative sure has had some interesting moments – and a few profound failures; however, it has been for the most part, quite successful…

Fighting the “Stuff Monster”

Kevin E. Dayhoff June 20, 2012 The Tentacle http://www.thetentacle.com/author.cfm?MyAuthor=41 The mindless meanderings of a mad writer. Click here for a larger image: http://twitpic.com/hnwxx
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Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:

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