It's unfortunately too late to vote -- the deadline was Feb. 28 -- but THE SCRAPBOOK would have recommended stuffing the U.S. Postal Service ballot box in favor of a "Fall of the Berlin Wall" stamp to commemorate the 1980s. Not that THE SCRAPBOOK is necessarily in favor of commemorating the 1980s, but the new, improved, and privatized Postal Service -- which THE SCRAPBOOK theoretically approves of -- is. And it has been inviting patrons to participate by filling out an official ballot, "Vote for your favorite stamps of the 80s."
Back in the era when THE SCRAPBOOK collected stamps -- when the Post Office was still a government monopoly and didn't refer to itself cheerfully as "your United States Postal Service!" -- stamps fell into approximately two categories: dead presidents and flags. Now, however, we all get to vote. As the official ballot asked, "How do you picture the 80s? Is it aerobics? The fall of the Berlin Wall? The San Francisco 49ers? Or the compact disc that moves you?"
Among the many "totally awesome" potential commemorative stamps that your Postal Service will soon issue, depending on how the voting turns out, are Beach Volleyball (shades of the Newt Gingrich era), Video Games, Mountain Biking, "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial," and THE SCRAPBOOK's favorite, "Hip-hop Culture," described thusly in the Postal Service brochure: "Created by inner-city youths from the South Bronx, hip-hop culture -- rap music, break dancing, disc jockeying, and graffiti -- spread across America and the world."
Ah, the spread of graffiti across America and the world; there's something to commemorate.