Intrepid Letter Carrier John Gorham (now retired) would love to help you in a disaster.
John Bonanno photograph, December 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) - If the nation ever faces a large-scale attack by a biological weapon like anthrax, the U.S. Postal Service will be in charge of delivering whatever drugs and other medical aid Americans would need to survive. In an executive order released Wednesday, President Barack Obama put the Postal Service in charge of dispensing "medical countermeasures" to biological weapons because of its "capacity for rapid residential delivery." The Rest Of The Story Is Here
The President's Executive Order Is Here

As many of you may know, I am a letter carrier in the USPS who will be retiring December 1, 2010. And, as usual, I have an opinion on this story. The President has made a "feel good" statement to the public in this executive order and nothing more. And I do agree that the USPS is the only organization capable of carrying out this mission. However, the letter carrier who will be tasked to deliver emergency supplies in an environment contaminated with nuclear, biological or chemical agents has received no training to succeed under these conditions. There are no personnel tasked to to train the letter carrier and there is no program to do so. There is no protective equipment now available for the letter carrier to perform this task safely. There are no stocks of supplies warehoused that could be distributed in an emergency. The Postal Service certainly does not have the money to prepare for this function and no funds have been appropriated by Congress for this purpose. The President has not made clear how the Postal Service will prepare to perform in this potentially hazardous environment, nor where it will get the money to train personnel and stage the necessary material needed to successfully achieve this goal. In other words, this is nothing but propaganda. At this time this order is a wish, not a program. The Devil is always in the Details.

Quotes From The Executive Order:

"This policy would seek to: (1) mitigate illness and prevent death; (2) sustain critical infrastructure; and (3) complement and supplement State, local, territorial, and tribal government medical countermeasure distribution capacity."

"In support of the national U.S. Postal Service model, the Secretaries of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and Defense, and the Attorney General, in coordination with the U.S. Postal Service, and in consultation with State and local public health, emergency management, and law enforcement officials, within 180 days of the date of this order, shall develop an accompanying plan for supplementing local law enforcement personnel, as necessary and appropriate, with local Federal law enforcement, as well as other appropriate personnel, to escort U.S. Postal workers delivering medical countermeasures."
-Barack Obama, Executive Order, "ESTABLISHING FEDERAL CAPABILITY FOR THE TIMELY PROVISION OF MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES FOLLOWING A BIOLOGICAL ATTACK" December 30, 2009

This Order indicates that we should have some details on its implementation some time in early July. There is no provision for funding in the order.

Quote of the Day

"Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."-Dr. Samuel Johnson, (who was born 300 years ago 19 September last) Boswell's Life of Johnson

Some Christmas Murders, as discovered on Google News.
Hans Baldung Grien, Death and the Maiden, 1518-20
Horresco referens.

"Happy Chap store owner Naushad Virani was shot and killed on Christmas evening by Stevie Ray “Bubba” Walder during a robbery of the store."-Liberty County Vindicator, Liberty, Texas

"A Detroit woman has been charged with murder, accused of fatally beating her 2-month-old daughter on Christmas Eve and covering up her death. The woman's boyfriend is also charged in the case."-AP

"A convicted felon now charged with first-degree murder in the Christmas Eve slaying of an elderly Hyde Park man on was ordered held without bond Saturday."-Chicago Sun Times South Side, Chicago

LIVONIA, Mich. (WXYZ) - Livonia Police are investigating the murder of a 68-year-old man whose body was found on Christmas Day.Officers went to do a wellness check at a house on Auburndale at around noon. At the house the found the body of Geofrey Charlesworth in the back bedroom. Investigators say Charlesworth's arms and feet were bound with duct tape and that it looked as if he had been assaulted over the course of several days."-WXYZ, Detroit

As police in North Little Rock, Ark., continue to search for two suspects who shot and killed a Salvation Army major in front of his three young children on Christmas Eve, the reward money has been increased to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest in the case.-New York Daily News

DOVER, Del. - Investigators say the kidnapping and murder of a Maryland girl, whose body was found on Christmas Day, calls out for the death penalty."I was a believer in capital punishment before this, but I'm a stronger believer today," says Wicomico County Sheriff Michael Lewis.- WTOP

A 55-year-old man from Universal City has been charged with murder following the shooting death of an Austin man on Christmas Day in Temple. - Temple Daily Telegram, Temple, Texas

Glasgow, Scotland-Police investigating the murder of a Glasgow man on Christmas Day say they have received a good response to their appeals for information....Mr Spence had been celebrating Christmas with friends at a house party in Dalmarnock. After leaving the house, he and a group of friends became involved in a brawl which was believed to have involved at least 10 people. BBC News

Glasgow, Scotland-Police are to carry out door-to-door inquiries to try to establish the motive behind the "brutal" murder of a 63-year-old in her Glasgow home.Hannah Smith was found on Monday after a "prolonged attack" in her flat in Cranhill's Soutra Place. She last spoke to her family on Christmas Day. BBC News

The teenage girl accused of fatally stabbing a man in Queens was arranged on murder charges today.Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says 16-year-old Cyan Brown was arraigned on charges of first-degree manslaughter and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.Cyan Brown is accused of killing Thomas Winston, 29, at the Queensbridge-21st Street Station on Christmas Eve.-NY1

After firing the first gunshot of his life on Christmas Day into his son's chest, pastor Kirk Caldwell dropped to the ground and cradled his 21-year-old child's dying body, according to court documents.In the moments before the shooting, Caldwell's son, Jordan, had been brandishing a knife and hitting and throwing family members - including his father - around during a Christmas gathering of 15 to 18 people at the Caldwell home in Darby Borough, police and court documents said.-Philly.com

COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. - Deputies say a South Carolina homicide suspect has been found dead in southwest Florida.South Carolina police put out an alert for Leon Johnson just a day earlier in the death of his girlfriend.Deputies say Johnson's body was discovered in an abandoned restaurant near Davis Boulevard AND U.S. 41. Right now, deputies are treating it as a death investigation, but they tell us his death isn't being treated as suspicious.Johnson was the main suspect in the death of 42-year-old Angela Vance. Her family believed the suspect and victim were out of town together for Christmas; in fact, they thought Johnson was getting ready to propose. The family became suspicious when vance didn't answer the phone. Her body was found Tuesday, but the exact cause of her death hasn't been released.-WINK News Now

Jake Johnson, 19, sustained fatal injuries after plunging 30ft into an alleyway in Cheltenham, Glos.He was taken to Cheltenham General Hospital shortly after 11pm on Christmas Day but was pronounced dead at 2.25am the following morning. Two men, aged 18 and 25, have been arrested on suspicion of murder.Police said one man was arrested at the scene and the other was arrested shortly afterwards at a separate address. A total of six people had been arrested in connection with the death.-Telegraph.co.uk

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WISH) - There are new details in the brutal murder of an IU English professor.Court documents reveal Bloomington police believe Don Belton was brutally stabbed in a "crime of passion."Michael Griffin, the man suspected of killing Belton, appeared in court Wednesday for the first time to face the charges.The probable cause affidavit said Belton wrote in his journal the week before Christmas that, "(Belton) is very happy that an individual by the name of Michael has come into his life."Police believe that "Michael" is 25-year-old Michael Griffin.Officers tracked down Griffin after finding a card near Belton's home computer that had his name, phone number, e-mail and directions to his home. Griffin's girlfriend also told police she thought he may have been involved in Belton's death. Police said Griffin admitted stabbing Belton several times with a knife he bought before serving in Iraq. Griffin claimed the attack was the "result of Mr. Belton sexually assaulting him two times on the evening of Christmas." - WISH TV8

The Golem, picture from Paul Wegener's 1920 silent film, Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam

"After saying certain prayers and observing certain fast days, the Polish Jews make the figure of a man from clay or mud, and when they pronounce the miraculous Shemhamphoras [the powerful seventy-two syllable name of God] over him, he must come to life. He cannot speak, but he understands fairly well what is said or commanded. They call him golem and use him as a servant to do all sorts of housework. But he must never leave the house. On his forehead is written 'emeth.'[truth] Everyday he gains weight and becomes somewhat larger and stronger than all the others in the house, regardless of how little he was to begin with. For fear of him, they therefore erase the letter, so that nothing remains but 'meth,'[death] whereupon he collapses and turns to clay again. But one man's golem once grew so tall, and he heedlessly let him keep on growing so long, that he could no longer reach his forehead. In terror he ordered the servant to take off his boots, thinking that when he bent down he could reach his forehead. So it happened, and the first letter was successfully erased, but the whole heap of clay fell on the Jew and crushed him."-Jakob Grimm, Journal for Hermits, 1808


Gershom Scholem tells us that Adam was termed a golem in the Talmud on the first day in the second hour when he was an unformed mass and before the soul, neshamah entered him and before he named the animals. Scholem also states in his book On The Kabballah And Its Symbolism, that a midrash [(pl. Midrashim); containing extra-legal material of anecdotal or allegorical nature, designed either to clarify historical material, or to teach a moral point.] from the second or third century describes Adam in this state "not only as a golem, but as a golem of cosmic size and strength, to whom, while he was still in this speechless and inanimate state, God showed all future generations to the end of time." Scholem further describes a fragment of the lost Midrash Abkir, which describes God as waiting until Creation was finished before providing the "golem, in whom the whole force of the universe is contained" with a soul so none could presume He had a companion during the Making of the World. I think that if this story is true, the Lord was wise in so doing; a man with a soul would do more than witness such great acts. He would experience too fully and would know too much and feel too much. The water would be driven from the clay and the body would fall apart. But if it didn't, man would be unleashed with the power of God.

emblem from,
Devises et emblemes anciennes & modernes, tirées des plus celebres auteurs, oder, Emblematische Gemüths-Vergnügung : bey Betrachtung siben hundert und funffzehen der curieusesten und ergötzlichen Sinn-Bildern, mit ihren zuständigen teutsch-lateinisch-französisch- und italianischen Beyschrifften.

"Each and every man therefore that will be a Magician must explore the Universe for himself. This is pre-eminently the case in the matter of the Astral Plane, because the symbols are so sensitive. Nothing is easier than to suggest visions or to fashion phantasms to suit one's ideas. It is obviously impossible to communicate with an independent intelligence -the one real object of astral research- if one allows one's imagination to surround one with courtiers of one's own creation."-Aleister Crowley, Notes for an Astral Atlas, Appendix III, Magick, Book Four, Liber ABA