So I saw on cnn.com a while back (I am a cnn.com JUNKIE) that the post office is now selling cloud stamps.  That's right people, start getting in line to get your pictures of clouds.  Have they given up?  I realize that with the advent of e-mail, the postal service has lost some steam, but good grief.  It's like they don't even try to be interesting. 
     So in my relentless pursuit of knowledge, I turned to the USPS web site (isn't it a bit ironic that they have one?) to see what else they choose to place on the nation's correspondence.  The answer?  A whole bunch of people I don't know about.  So I looked them up. 
   Apparently James Baldwin is not the other Baldwin brother who they honored on a stamp because he didn't annoy the rest of us by trying to act.  He was a civil rights activist who moved to Paris so that he could have a better perspective from which to write about his life growing up in Harlem.  He wrote books that tackled tough subjects like homosexuality and interracial relationships long before these subjects were commonplace fodder for the literary machine.  He gained much of his skills as a writer from earlier years preaching from the pulpit.  He later said that his years as a pastor gave him an understanding of "that anguish and that despair and that beauty" needed to write.  I'm checking up on his books next chance I get just because he wrote that phrase.
   Next was Edna Ferber, who apparently wrote short stories about an underskirt saleswoman during the 1920s and 1930s.  Why the heck does the USPS think underskirts are important?  Apparently she also wrote "Showboat" and "Giant" (James Dean's last movie) - but how the heck does she rate a stamp?  I really don't understand this?  Did she leave a lot of money to the post office or something?
   They also sell stamps of various wildlife I never heard of (probably the reason for the stamp).  But my question for today is:  who do you think deserves a stamp, and why?  Please leave answers in the comment section below (click on "send me a note, peeps").  I'd love to hear your ideas.