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  • Courtesy of National Association of Letter Carriers
How many hundreds of people packed downtown for a march and two rallies yesterday against devastating federal budget cuts aimed at the U.S. Postal Service? That all depended on who did the counting.

The main organizers of the event, the local branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), had the most exuberant estimate: "Over 800 Portland-area letter carriers, other postal workers, family members and allies," the group said in a statement last night. Among those allies? Sympathetic members of Occupy Portland and the labor coalition Jobs With Justice.

More from NALC's statement:

From a rally at downtown Pioneer Courthouse Square, the boisterous marchers chanted and sang down Fourth Avenue, ending with a rally at the Main Post Office on Northwest Hoyt. Signs calling for saving 6-day delivery, door-to-door and curbside delivery, community post offices and family wage jobs dotted the blocks long procession.

But the TV reporters who followed the marchers, making their own best guesses, were way more miserly. KGW had a still-impressive estimate of 400 people—double the paltry 200-person figure given by KATU.

Even without taking drastic steps like shuttering rural post offices and ending Saturday delivery, the postal service has been making other annoying cash-saving changes in recent months: chiefly, slowing delivery of first-class mail—affecting things like Netflix DVDs and magazines.

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