“MAILMAN STEVE” – HERO OR BUM?

Do you ever get tired of opening your mailbox and finding a pile of junk mail? I sure do! And as I walk back to my apartment, junk mail in hand, I dump it in the first garbage that I see.

I know that I should recycle it, but I’m so irritated by this bombardment of solicitations that I just want to vent. And somewhere in my pea-sized-brain, I think that I am really sticking it to the “man” by tossing it away, without even looking at it. Like I just wasted the advertiser’s money and it didn’t cost me a thing.

When I talk to my coworkers they express the same amount of hate for junk mail. So why do they keep leaving it? Somebody must be making a profit somewhere. The advertisers? The printers? The post office? Maybe all of them! If I thought that I could trust my mailman, then I might be willing to slip him a twenty to skip my daily dose of solicitations.

In Ralleigh (North Carolina), Steve Padgett, a former mail carrier, did it for free and the joyful neighborhoods where he worked knighted him as “Mailman Steve.”

However, somebody somewhere took notice. Postal inspectors discovered that Padgett had piled the junk mail in his garage and buried it in his yard. Then he got charged with a federal crime for delaying and destroying mail, which he plead guilty to in August.

When asked why he did it, he said that he didn’t hold onto the mail as a “personal stance” against junk mail, but because he couldn’t handle the “growing workload” while providing “personal attention” to the homes along his route.

Say what? You mean he wasn’t a hero fighting for the people he served. He was just too lazy to stick it in the box.

Well, he must have made an impact on someone, because the residents of the Apex neighborhood where he worked rallied to his defense, writing letters to the federal judge in his case saying that they didn’t miss the junk mail and commending Padgett for his “professionalism and kindness.”

Padgett avoided a possible prison term of up to five years and was given three years of federal probation, fined $3,000 and told to do 500 hours of community service.

When people hear his story, they thank him for standing up to the greedy corporate world, but his guilty conscience always gets the best him. He always tells them “what I did was illegal, what I did was wrong. It wasn’t a Robin Hood story. It wasn’t a protest.”

So as you’re tossing away your fliers for discounts on oil changes, pizza, and window replacements, don’t forget “Mailman Steve;” a lazy employee, but a neighborhood hero!!!!

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Did you hear about the 3-year-old boy who was denied a birthday cake because of his name? It’s a controversial story that’ll just break your heart. And what was that nice little boy’s name? Adolf Hitler Campbell!

Excuse me! Say what?

Besides the obvious question of who would be dumb enough to name their child after a cruel dictator who caused the deaths of some 43 million people. We have to wonder why a store would pass on the opportunity to make a buck!

To answer the first question, Heath Campbell told reporters that he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because "no one else in the world would have that name." Apparently, Adolf Hitler has never been found on any of the top ten lists for baby names during the last millennium. This is partially due to some dead German dude that preached hate and practiced genocide.

Heath went on to say: "I think people need to take their heads out of the cloud they've been in and start focusing on the future and not on the past . . . There's a new president and he says it's time for a change; well, then it's time for a change. They need to accept a name. A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did."

I guess he does have a point there. Our country just elected Barrack Hussein Obama as our president. Even though his name sounds like a mash-up of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, we can’t assume that he is on President Bush’s terrorist list.

But how will little Adolf react to a public school setting when his teachers are discussing WWII and his classmates are teasing him. Will it be enough to make him go Columbine on his peers?

Parents have many different reasons for naming their children after deceased relatives or famous people from history (respect, idolization, etc). And they hope that their children will reflect the positive qualities that they saw in that person. What is Adolf going to do with his namesake? Sing in the school talent competition a rousing rendition of Borat’s “Throw The Jew Down The Well”!

Poor little Adolf, his parents didn’t give him a snowball’s chance in hell to succeed in this life. And to further their legacy of goodwill, the Campbell’s gave their other two children unusual names, as well. There is 2-year-old JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and 1-year-old Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell.

Adolf Hitler? Aryan Nation? I’m starting to think that Heath may be some kind or racist hatemonger. Heath denies those claims, but does admit that his ancestors are German and that he was raised “not to avoid people of other races but not to mix with them socially or romantically.” However, he is trying to raise his children differently.

"Say he grows up and hangs out with black people. That's fine, I don't really care," Heath said. "That's his choice."

Lets be honest, is there any black parents who would want their daughter to marry a white boy named Adolf Hitler? I don’t think so! And Auntie Aryan Nation won’t get a Christmas card, either!!

Now back to that birthday cake. Heath and Deborah Campbell, Adolf‘s proud parents, ordered a birthday cake from the Greenwich (New Jersey) ShopRite bakery. There is no crime in ordering a cake, right? They wanted the cake to have their son’s full name printed on top of it. There are worse things that could be printed, right? However, the supervisor refused to place the order, because he felt the request was “inappropriate.”

Inappropriate? Obviously they haven’t had very many customers place orders for Bachelor or Bachelorette parties. And apparently nobody can remember the last time that family with Turret’s syndrome ordered a birthday cake.

Now don’t worry about poor little Adolf, he still got a birthday cake. The Campbell’s went to a Pennsylvania Wal-Mart and ordered the cake with no problems and about 12 people attended the party, including several children who were of mixed race.

The morals of the story:

1. Prospective parents should have their IQs tested before having children.

2. You can get anything from Walmart, because they have no morals.