Discussion for article #226098
Especially since they didn’t use postage or post offices in the Potter books.
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When you depend on people obsessed with an exceptionally weird hobby for a big part of your revenue, you need exceptionally weird people designing your products.
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Something tells me that Bailar would have absolutely no problem with postage stamps featuring chacacters from another popular work of fantastical fiction penned by foreigners – yep, the Bible.
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This is just like being raped at gunpoint.
Gee, yeah, let’s cut off sources of revenue that might be able to keep consumers’ costs down, in the name of some illusory purity.
That’s how to keep the post office alive!
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The former postmaster probably thinks that the Saint Reagan postage stamp that is currently available is the only stamp anyone could ever want. Me, I’m going for the Janis Joplin stamp.
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We’ve had US postage stamps with Shakespeare on it.
Would he have also objected because it was fiction created by a non-American?
Just asking,
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How do you feel about Moses?
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The word “Fuckstick” immediately comes to mind. What I want to hear from the philatelic prostitution-hating nimrod is how he feels about the Republican’ts in CONgress driving a stake through the heart of the Postal Service by requiring it to fund 75 years-worth of retiree healthcare in just ten years…
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I’m sure the Elvis stamps were big sellers.
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By all means sir, let’s get persnickety about the USPS attempts to try and replace the billions in revenue that Congress voted to syphon off in an effort to drown the entity that is still paying your pension in a bathtub.
Stupid to the point of painful doesn’t even begin to cover this guy’s commentary.
I realize the media is pretty much in a steady stenographic gig these days, but did anyone bother to ask him about previous memorialization style stamps like those posted in this thread, and why Harry Potter is so different in comparison to, say, Elvis? I mean, five seconds of Google research is all you need to do the trick.
And of course there’s this:
Well, maybe they was tired of your pseudo Christian wrapped fake outrage. Just a possibility among many, I’m sure…
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One of our national institutions might be lacking in gravitas? Bummer.
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TPM: Former Postmaster General Benjamin F. Bailar recently resigned from the secretive Citizen’s Advisory Stamp Committee because he believes the U.S. Postal Service should not “prostitute” itself by featuring stamps with pop culture subjects like Harry Potter.
I haven’t any problem with the Harry Potter series and think it would make a fine subject for a series of British stamps, but why would it be the subject of an American series of stamps?
Color me philatelically perplexed.
On the other hand, since the USPS is getting screwed by the GOP and doesn’t take any tax dollars, I suppose anything they can do to add a little money to their coffers should be supported.
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A friend just reminded me that we’ve had Simpsons stamps.
Yeah, what’s that about gravitas??
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“abundance of pretty and popular culture subjects” is creating a stamp program that Bailar said “lacks gravitas.”
Seriously you use them to pay bills, and to send letters. And not even a large majority do that anymore. Does that really require gravitas?
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Personally, I haven’t actually used a stamp in years. Probably over a decade.
They used to have a rule that you couldn’t appear on a stamp until you had been dead for a decade.
Great way to promote your avatar!
Compared to other TV sitcoms, The Simpsons are the epitome of gravitas.