Postage Stamps

Consumers apparently still believe a penny saved is a penny earned, as many rushed this week to buy "forever stamps" that will help them avoid a pending one-cent rate hike in first-class postage. The U.S. Postal Service announced this week that the price of mailing a standard letter will rise from 41 cents to 42 cents beginning May 12.

Ella Fitzgerald, the first lady of song, is being honored on a new postage stamp. The 39-cent stamp will be released today at ceremonies at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York and will be on sale across the country. It's the 30th stamp in the U.S. Postal Service's Black Heritage series. "She would be very honored, very pleased and a little surprised," said Ray Brown Jr., Fitzgerald's son. "She didn't go through life expecting all the accolades that she got.

A resolution urging the U.S. Postal Service to honor former Mayor Tom Bradley with a commemorative stamp was passed unanimously by the City Council on Tuesday. A Postal Service official told the council that the agency receives about 1,000 proposals for commemorative stamps each year and the service typically takes about three years to decide. The resolution was written by Councilman Bernard C. Parks.

The cost to mail a first-class letter looks likely to rise again -- but in the future, postal customers may not need to buy those annoying little 1- and 2-cent stamps to make up the difference. The U.S. Postal Service is poised to introduce its first "forever stamp" that would always be valid for mailing.

Suppose you are chosen from among your fellow citizens to tell the story of the Iraq war in a single image. One image, to represent the thousands that have flickered like tattered phantoms through the history of the last four years. In every war that Britain fights, the Imperial War Museum selects an artist to render that one image. Steve McQueen was chosen for the task at the start of the Iraq war, and he struggled for months to come up with it.

It's called the "forever stamp" -- and it might just take that long for customers to catch on to it. Unveiled Thursday, the 41-cent stamp is eternally valid for first-class postage, regardless of how far rates climb in the future. The American Postal Workers Union has called it "a major victory for the American people," but few folks in the line at the post office at the Federal Building in Westwood had heard of their "victory" -- and even fewer were planning to buy the stamp.

The historic case that desegregated Orange County public schools 60 years ago has been commemorated with a postage stamp unveiled Saturday in a ceremony honoring five Mexican American men who sued for the right to send their children to school with other American kids. The 41-cent stamp recognizing Mendez vs.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to support efforts for a postage stamp honoring former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. The honor for the late Bradley, the city's longest-serving -- and only black -- mayor, is being considered by the Postal Service's Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee. Led by Supervisors Yvonne B. Burke and Zev Yaroslavsky, the board sent a letter to the governor and legislators backing a state Assembly resolution to issue the stamp.

A stamp honoring James Stewart will be released Friday by the U.S. Postal Service in ceremonies at Universal Studios in L.A. and at the Jimmy Stewart Museum in Indiana, Pa., his hometown. The photo on the stamp is based on a portrait of Stewart as he appeared in a publicity photo for 1949's "The Stratton Story." Stewart, who died in 1997, starred in more than 80 movies including "It's a Wonderful Life," "Rear Window" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

In honor of trailblazing newsman Ruben Salazar's relentless efforts to chronicle the complexity of race relations in Los Angeles, the U.S. Postal Service in 2008 will issue a commemorative stamp of the former Los Angeles Times reporter and columnist. "He was a groundbreaker for Latinos in this country, but his work spoke to all Americans," Postmaster Gen. John E. Potter said Monday. "By giving voice to those who didn't have one, Ruben Salazar worked to improve life for everybody.