Dennis Kucinich not starving himself for the post office

You might have been busy paying attention to more important matters, like the sudden and inexplicable decline of Bieber fever following a sudden and unprovoked attack by a set of French stairs but other unnatural small human beings have been having their own share of troubles.

It seems that, despite having lost to a primary challenger in his home district, career elf Dennis Kucinich has not taken the hint, and as such, remains involved in the day-to-day workings of American government. Or at least, the day-to-day protests which accompany any effort to successfully reform the more publicly and dramatically ineffective services which the government considers itself obligated to provide it’s willing public.

In other words, Dennis Kucinich is leading a hunger strike to save the Post Office. Or, sort of.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) on Monday helped kick off a hunger strike of postal workers protesting what they say is an effort to privatize and dismantle the cash-strapped United States Postal Service.

The strike — which includes 10 postal workers, union activists and supporters, but not Kucinich himself — is the latest in a long saga of efforts to reform the postal service as it faces a dim financial future.

While lawmakers generally agree that postal reform is necessary, they disagree on the specifics.

“Make no mistake about it, this is an effort to try to privatize even more postal services,” Kucinich said in reference to GOP efforts.

Apparently, it is Republicans and their distaste for mail or something that is systematically dismantling the post office and not, like, collective bargaining agreements that lock the government into contracts that assume every American is happily sending all of their mail straight through the USPS with a smile on their face, or technology or private competition from companies that could locate you on a map faster than John Edwards could locate a hooker with a heart of gold in the Second America (remember, ladies, he’s single!).

Kucinich explains that he’s not joining the hunger strike because he’s vegan. And the rest of the elves in the tree mandate he taste the cookies as part of a quality control agreement.