Living People to Appear on US Stamps

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: ABC News and Associated Press

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID Associated Press
WASHINGTON September 26, 2011 (AP)

For the first time, living people will be eligible to be honored on U.S. postage stamps.

The U.S. Postal Service announced Monday that it is ending its longstanding rule that stamps cannot feature people who are still alive and it's asking the public to offer suggestions on who should be first.

Since Jan. 1, 2007, the requirement has been that a person must have been deceased five years before appearing on a stamp. Before that, the rule was 10 years. (By tradition, though, former presidents are remembered on a stamp in the year following their deaths.).

The post office announced that it will consider stamps for acclaimed American musicians, sports stars, writers, artists and other nationally known figures.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/living-people-us-stamps-14607022

---

Here comes a bad idea.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Never fear, the idea won't work.

Think of it:

The Palin stamp, the GWB stamp, the Cheney stamp--

These stamps will fail because people will always be spitting on the wrong side.

[Richardo]

6. !!

:rofl:

[HopeHoops]

2. Fish - nobody knows if he's dead or alive anyway.

[Proud Public Servant]

3. Dear God, with this Congress in place?

And the USPS on the chopping block? Here comes the Grover Norquist stamp and the Koch Brothers commemorative.

[slackmaster]

4. I'm glad I bought 500 "Forever" stamps when they were 41 cents each

:kick:

[avaistheone1]

20. Good thinking.

[slackmaster]

27. Thanks. I may regret not having bought more of them.

They've fared much better than most of my investments. My stamp usage has gone down to about 1 per week.

[Richardo]

5. "Here comes a bad idea." Absolutely correct.

Anybody ready for their Glenn Beck stamps?


Next up: Advertisements!

[Jackpine Radical]

13. OMG, ads on stamps. Of COURSE!!11!

The PO could solve its financial problems overnight with that one.

Aaaaaaaaaaaack!

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. They floated that idea already, and not too long ago.

[Jackpine Radical]

28. There was a time when news like that would have outraged me.

These days, by comparison with everything else that's coming from the Right Wing, I can at most arouse a sense of mild annoyance at things like this.

[dixiegrrrrl]

29. You do know that is deliberate, all that lurching from crisis to crisis etc?

See if this sounds famliar:

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter."

"One had no time to think. There was so much going on."

"And on top of that were the demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was 'expected to' participate that had not been there or had not been important before. It was all rigmarole, of course, but it consumed all one's energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time."

" kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machination of the 'national enemies', without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.

from Chapter 13 of They Thought They Were Free, by Milton Mayer.
Interviews with ordinary German citizens after the war, on how fascism crept up on them.

More excerpts here:

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security.

http://o7hj.blogspot.com/2006/10/its-quote-time-they-thought-they-were.html

[Jackpine Radical]

34. Yes.

I think, though, then as now, it's not so much a matter of habituation as of stimulus overload. People feel helpless & respond with apathy, believing that any action on their part is not merely futile but dangerous.

TPTB are once again trying to drive that lesson home on Wall Street.

[dixiegrrrrl]

36. You actually brought up the major difference between "them" and "us"

The Regressives ( using various disguises as: republicans" "Tea Party" " Christian Right" etc)
have united around a focused., determined,unwavering long term goal,
while those of us who oppose them are running around on the defensive playing political whack a mole.

[Jackpine Radical]

37. Seems kind of inherent in the difference between

the authoritarian personality structure and the creative free-spirited rebel.

I wouldn't want to sacrifice our flexible individualism for their lockstep rigidity.

[hunter]

16. Would you like the GEICO gecko stamps...

...or the E-trade talking baby?

[bigworld]

7. This sets a bad precedent

I could sort of understand honoring someone like a Neil Armstrong, but I reckon this will get trite really quickly. Snooki on a stamp, anyone?

[valerief]

8. Here come the Pat Robertson and Mike Huckabee stamps! Ugh!!! nt

[Bluenorthwest]

9. Terrible idea

Just awful.

[hlthe2b]

10. TMZ takes over the USPS...

:puke: Very bad idea

As much as I am working to counter the propaganda campaign against the USPS--the attempts by the RW to dismantle it, honestly, if I had to deal with Justin Bieber on a friggin stamp, I would just plain lose it. Hell, I'd choose a Charlie Manson stamp, just to counter the celebrity obsessed.

[TacticalPeek]

11. Idiots.

:thumbsdown:

[TomClash]

12. Imagine licking a Dick Cheney stamp?

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:


Now Nicole Kidman or Megan Fox . . .

[madmom]

14. I have gone into the post office for stamps and they asked what kind, they tried to give me

ronnie raygun stamps, I refused them. So you don't have to buy the ones you don't like.

[LeftinOH]

15. I can't wait for the collectible Kardashian series of stamps-

(sarcasm intended)

[Ian David]

17. I know who will be on the first one...

Or maybe...

[eShirl]

18. the winner of American Idol, of course!

new stamp issued annually, or however often they do seasons

[dipsydoodle]

19. They'd have to be very small people

A tadpole might be easier.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

26. Ha! Good one.

I believe they meant that the **likenesses** of people would appear on postage stamps.

Thanks for the laugh - I love it.

[Liberal_in_LA]

30. hee!

[Poll_Blind]

21. Does ANYONE have doubt this change is a precursor to them doing something wildly offensive?

Like putting Bush or Cheney on a stamp? Or allowing "sponsors" to fucking advertise on their stamps such as a hypothetical "Great American Innovators" series with Steve Jobs or Bill Gates?

There are good reasons we do not put the living on stamps, currency and some other things- I believe we used to not name military ships after living folks but I think we do now. I think it's a terrible idea.

PB

[Historic NY]

22. They could close their budget gap.......

I'm sure there are enough rich people so enamored with themselves to purchase a run for lets say a 10 million price tag.

[bemildred]

24. Soon they will be selling "stamp ads". nt

[pitohui]

33. that would be too cool...

too david foster wallace "year of the trial sized dove bar" (in the novel infinite jest, as you prob. already know it's an alternate universe and at some point in the late 80s or early 90s they go to "subsidized time," so instead of it's like the year 1999 maybe it's the year of the trial sized dove bar (that was an actual year, maybe not 1999 but i'm too lazy to look it up at the mo...)

i think stamp ads would be TOO FREAKING david foster wallace/PKD cool

PKD saw the day they'd put ads on our carts in the grocery store and so they did, don't remember if he lived to see it, as he died in 1982 but it's just TOO COOL

don't think of it as an ad, think of it as the 20th century gone mad and still radiating forward in time even tho it's over...

[makhno]

25. What for?

Can't find a sufficient number of prominent figures from the rich history of our Republic?

MoH recepients from the WoT, I'd bet that's what's on the bureaucratic mind.

Idiots. (my default assumption of people making the news nowadays: left, right, center, or miscellaneous)

Here's an idea: if a living person wants to be on a USPS stamp, let that person pay the expenses of designing, printing and possibly disposing of unsold stamps. Steve Jobs with an Apple logo? Go for it. Michael Vick and a puppy? A big hit in Philly. A no-money figure who can't afford the treatment? Wait ten years for the recognition, as it's not that big of a deal and there are no royalties involved.

As long as we aren't paying a dime for the production and disposal of the stamps, who really gives a shit? The stamp as vanity plate for rich people. An additional revenue stream for the "beleaguered" USPS.

Push it even further: a vanity stamp will be free for the consumer.

[izquierdista]

31. McDonald's

Since corporations are people, I can't wait to see the Ronald McDonald stamp (great product placement)!

[pitohui]

32. i vote lilo...if you're gonna sell out sell out BIG

tsia

[Freddie Stubbs]

35. I believe that Steven Colbert is going to have a lot of fun with this

[Honeycombe8]

38. Wasn't it on the Jetson's that their stamps were of living people...literally?

The people on the stamps moved & such. Wasn't that the Jetson's? Or was it the Flinstones?

That's what I thought of when I saw your subject line.