EOTO #1 The Postal Service

                                                                          The Postal Service

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,”  is the United States Postal Service, USPS motto, dating back to our country's beginnings there has Postal Service. But not many people know the origin of the Postal Service and how it has evolved and advanced along with the country through time.

Going all the way back nine thousand five hundred years to Mesopotamia using clay tokens were used as letters by people they would include lines and dots carved into the tokens to send messages. Along with clay tokens, there were ballue, envelopes during the Mesopotamia era. Which lead to tons of people writing letters to one another the clay tokens used to be really only used for goods between merchants.  

Throughout history following Mesopotamia, you can see many examples of postal services from Egypt to ancient China to the Persian Empire and a great example of this is the Silk Road. An example of the modern postal service you would have to look at France, specifically Paris, France in 1653 to Jean-Jacques Renouard de Villayer who set up and established an array of postboxes throughout Paris. Villayer would drop off letters inside the postboxes but only if they utilized pre-paid envelopes which he sold. To keep track of the pre-paid envelopes he would use receipts which were called billet de port payé and they are deemed to be an early precursor of the postage stamp. But the birth of the modern mail system in the previous century King Henry VII organized the Master Of The Post but it was primarily only used to carry letters between the King and the Court.

Then in 1635 Charles 1 opened the Master of the Post to the public and it was used in the colonies. Benjamin Franklin is considered to be the father of the postal service, but like many other colonists Franklin worked for Britain's colonial mail service from 1753 to 1754, in fact, he oversaw the whole service and improved the service too.  He was able to connect the 13 colonies and the mail service was able to speed delivers connecting Philadelphia to New York in just a mere 33 hours. The efficiency of the mail service that Franklin designed and ran helped prove that the colonies can operate without the help of Great Britain.  

In 1775, Franklin was fired from Britain's colonial mail service because of his ties to the revolution. Franklin and his patriot allies created their own version of the mail system using a similar system to what Franklin had designed for the British. They used underground networks to transport mail such as the Declaration Of Independence. This mail system was first named the Committees of Correspondence but then it was later renamed the Constitutional Post. Then with help from James Madison and others, the Constitutional Post expanded, and by 1831 the United States boasted twice as many post offices as Britain and five times as many as France. 

As the country expanded westward the Pony Express would deliver mail out west because the train tracks only went as far as Missouri. The Pony Express helped shape The Wild West with the fastest delivery being Lincoln's inaugural address it was delivered in 7 days and 17 hours. The Pony Express helped pave

the way for the transcontinental railroad and telegraph. But it was short-lived, 18 months to be exact because of the telegraph and people stopped using the riders. 

 

Jumping to 1870, to be exact September 23,1870  the first airmail by a hot air balloon but it is unknown if the balloon and its 500 pounds of mail ever made it to its destination. Now jump about 40 years to the Wright Brothers who successfully flew in 1903 mail wasn't delivered by air till the end of World War 1 but the mail was already being delivered via ground transportation similar to how it is today. 

Now across the country, the United States has over 40,000 post offices. USPS delivers more than 200 billion pieces of mail each year and they deliver to over 144 million businesses and houses across the States but they also deliver to Guam, the American Virgin Islands,  Puerto Rico, and American Samoa. The United States Postal Service employs nearly 500,000 career workers who deliver mail no matter the weather and just like throughout its history they deliver the mail in many different ways. 

 

Key Post #1 Speech Theories #2

 Speech Theories #2 

 ''Participation in Self-Government — see Alexander Meiklejohn, Free Speech and Its Relation to Self-Government  It has been suggested that citizens will not make wise and informed choices in elections if candidates and proponents of certain policies are restricted in their ability to communicate positions. We want an informed electorate involved in debate.''

I would say out of the Eight Values Of Free Expression Alexander Meiklejohn's Participation In Self-Government resonates with me the most because it is the fundamentals of our government and how it operates. Another reason why I resonate with this is that most people don't do the proper research into the candidates running most people only look at if the person is a Democrat or a Republican, the reason why I say that is because humans are tribalistic or they like to be part of a pack or group. This is why both the Democrats and Republicans have a lot of blind followers who agree with them on everything and blame the other party for everything wrong with the country. Another reason why the political climate is so divided today. Why a lot of people, including myself, are neutral in politics and they aren't part of a political party we just vote for whoever's policies that agree with our beliefs no matter what party the candidate affiliates themselves with. 

Another thing is that people only care about stuff if it affects their day-to-day lives, an example of this is the current spike in gas prices recently and most people are blaming the current President or the current party in office. So when it comes time for the next election people remember things like expensive gas prices and vote for the other party because they blame the current one for the gas prices. Also, most people only follow news sources that agree with their beliefs and refuse to listen to any other news sources. They will claim that the other news sources are fake news or some sort of propaganda.  

If you look at the last presidential debates between Donald Trump and Joe Biden and then then the debates between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris they weren't really debating it was just the two candidates from the different sides saying how one side is better and how their policies are better. Then anything is wrong with America or the government was the other party's fault. So there wasn't much talk about each candidate's policies they just pointed out where and how the other party had failed. 

This is what I personally believe is why we have become so divided when it comes to politics and why voters have become so ill-formed when it comes to politics these days which has led to a lot of people, including myself, distancing from political parties and being independent. Voting for whichever candidate we agree with the most no matter if there is a D or an R next to their name. That is why Alexander Meiklejohn's theory about speech resonates with me so much and why I chose it to write about for my first key blog post. 

Sources

http://medlawlit.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_9.html

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1302/alexander-meiklejohn

https://jackmillercenter.org/cd-resources/alexander-meiklejohn-free-speech-relation-self-government/

https://abc11.com/nc-gas-prices-average-price-of-prediction/11629450/

The Supreme Court

                   

I personally don't know much about the Supreme Court only really just the basics and some fun facts I have learned here and there but that's it. I do have a basic understanding of how our government operates but I don't follow politics unless something major happens. I did already know about the origin of the Supreme Court but I kind of forgot some of it to be completely honest. But when I was reading about the Supreme Court on Hisotry.com it quickly came back to me.  I knew that the president is allowed to nominate someone to be on the Supreme Court and that the Supreme Court is the highest level of jurisdiction over the laws in the United States. I also knew that even though a lot of cases get sent to the Supreme Court not all of them actually make that only a handful do. Something surprising that I learned was that even though the Supreme Court was first assembled on February 2, 1790, they didn't make their first decision till August 3, 1791. But I guess for something like the Supreme Court it would take a while to figure out the court's organizational procedures. What I think is a big takeaway is that three Presidents have gone to the Supreme Court over trials of impeachment and that all three have been acquitted is kind of suspicious to me if you want to get all conspiratorial about our government.  Another thing I find interesting is that after over 200 years of the Supreme Court being around only 112 justices have served on it but then again I guess it makes sense for how long the terms are. What I took away from the video is that it reminded me of how slow our government is and that throughout most of the Court's existence that not many minorities or women have served on the court.  

Source:

https://www.history.com/topics/us-government/supreme-court-facts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWRoXYRsaeo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca8qSuWxcG8

Post #1 My Top 5 News Sources

Nowadays you get news instantaneously from many different sources that may or may not be reliable. Or if the stories themselves are real or fake or have been altered to fit an agenda.  I don’t follow the news unless something pops up in my feed or it’s some big event like Russia invading Ukraine or how gas prices have skyrocketed but that’s kind of it. The only times I only really see an actual news channel is when I visit my grandparents and they are watching Fox News but that’s it even my brother, mom, and dad don’t follow the news. But I would say my top 5 main new sources are from social media mainly or if someone tells me something but that’s it.

 

 

#1 Instagram

         Throughout the day I check Instagram it’s one of the main social media platforms I use. I have been using Instagram since 2015. That’s where I get most of the news for things I am interested in like movies, tv shows, and video games. But I occasionally get real news that is posted by people I follow. Like I follow a lot of celebrities and some of them post about things in the news and about charities to help support those in need. It also helps that a lot of the news feeds are quick, they are almost the cliff notes of the story, so you get a general sense of what the story is.

 

#2 YouTube

         This is another place where I spend a lot of time and I subscribe to a lot of channels that follow the entertainment industry one them I watch daily which is how I keep on top of the news and know what is going on in the industry. I also subscribe to a lot of gaming news channels that follow the gaming news and one of them sometimes talks about news going on in the world during his live streams. But whenever I open YouTube, they have a section of videos from news sources across the world and they are short videos about the news.

 

 

#3 Snapchat

 

         Definitely not my go-to place for news but when I check out my friend’s stories, I will see news when I am using app most of the news on there is usually just stupid celebrity drama, but they will occasionally have real new stories.

 

 

 

#4 Friends

 

         Another place where I get my news is from friends when they tell me things that they heard about. Also, I am part of HPU Vision and that is where I will hear about news going on around the world and the campus. But I don’t trust everything I hear from people I take some of it with a grain of salt there are only a few people who. I would say are reliable sources.

 

  

#5 Apple News

         A place that will occasionally notify me of the news is the news app on my iPhone that is Apple News which pulls news stories from all different news sources and the app you can find stories that cover everything. I don’t open the app too often, but the app will notify me of news if something big happens or it will notify me of the news from the past couple of days.