Change

Most people are not very comfortable with change and certainly this feeling increases with age. So it is not surprising that the new program that the post office announced to begin featuring living people on postage stamps has been received suspiciously by the organized philatelic community. It’s always a good idea when reflecting on a change to speculate what it would be like if the situation had always been what the change would take us to. Supppose the United States Post Office never had it’s self imposed “ten years dead” rule? And also suppose that the new issues of the United States had continued to be responsible and used living persons in a reasonable way- advancing civic goals, good citizenship and at the same time encouraging people to save stamps because of their interesting current themes. And then suppose that a proposal came forth to restrict issues to commemorating only those ten years dead. Would you support that? Would any reasonable person? The new Post Office policy is not only a change for the better but it is hard to see why this new policy has not always been the issuing policy of our post office. The only thing that the current policy has going for it is that it is the status quo and, if that’s the main reason not to change, the new policy should be welcomed by all of us.