Happy Friday.
Happy Summer Solstice (here in the northern hemisphere).
The arrival of summer weather has been delayed by a few days here in Seattle, with cool and rainy weather expected this weekend.
The high today was only 62°F (17°C).
The amigos had better luck this morning, finding an open court for pickleball at the Mount Baker Pickleball and Tennis Courts. On the near side it’s a tennis court, officially, with no pickleball nets. We brought our own net, and it is set up and ready for play. Over on the far side there is a pickleball lesson is in progress. I am marveling at the number of plastic baskets that the coach had brought to the court. As far as I can tell there are 57.
It was a quiet and mild Juneteenth* holiday here in the city today, with a high of 68 °F (20°C).
On this last day of spring, the rain gauges still show zero for June.
That should change tomorrow, with much needed rain in the forecast.
*Juneteenth, officially Juneteenth National Independence Day, is a federal holiday in the United States. It is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.
The amigos ran out this morning to play pickleball, but found the courts swamped with players, everywhere. So we met at Chuck’s Hop Shop in Central District for beers early in the evening. I walked back home from there, and took pictures of the flowers with my phone’s Portrait mode (so that it blurs the background). These are cotton lavender, belonging to the family Asteraceae.
My Ebay stamp dealer from Bishop’s Stortford (northeast of London) included this French postcard and stamp with my purchase.
It is of a cast iron balustrade plaque by French architect and designer Hector Guimard (1867 – 1942).
Look for the stylized ‘M’ at the bottom.
Guimard was a prominent practitioner of the art nouveau style.
French Decorative Art Issued Jan. 22, 1994 (one of a set of four stamps) Perf. 13¼ x 12¼ | Design: Jean Paul Véret-Lemarinier | Litho. | Engraving: ITVF Boulazac | No Watermark 2993 CMK 2.80Fr Multicolored | French Metro balustrade by Hector Guimard [Source: stampworld.com] __________ More about Guimard from Wikipedia: Between 1890 and 1930, Guimard designed and built some fifty buildings, in addition to one hundred and forty-one subway entrances for Paris Metro, as well as numerous pieces of furniture and other decorative works. However, in the 1910s art nouveau went out of fashion and by the 1960s most of his works had been demolished, and only two of his original Metro edicules were still in place.The first day post office stamp, used on the front and back of the 1994 postcard, with art nouveau lettering.It turned out I have a few pictures of this metro entrance designed by Guimard. I took them while I was in Paris in Sept. 2008. This entrance is for Pasteur station on Line 6 and Line 12 of the Paris Métro, in the 15th arrondissement. It features several of the Guimard balustrade plaques and meticulously designed street lamps. Even the font (the lettering style) for the ‘Métropolitain’ sign, was Guimard’s invention. [Shot with Canon EOS 20D f/14, 1/400s, ISO-1600, 36mm focal length]
Here is a primer of the three sites in Iran that are in the crosshairs of Israel’s attack.
Per the Washington Post: Israeli strikes on Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan pose little regional radiation risk but could release plumes of toxic chemicals, experts say. [Map from Washington Post online]
From Joshua Yang and Karen DeYoung’s report for the Washington Post titled ‘These Iran nuclear sites are the focus of Israel’s attacks’:
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran confirmed that the Israeli attacks had damaged Natanz and that chemical and radiation pollution had been detected inside the facility. Though the extent of the destruction remains unclear, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said Tuesday that the underground portion of Natanz, which contains the centrifuges, had been directly struck. The Natanz centrifuges were “severely damaged if not destroyed altogether,” IAEA head Rafael Grossi told the BBC on Monday.
The existence of Iran’s second nuclear enrichment site, Fordow, was publicly confirmed in 2009 after Iran constructed it in secret. Fordow is ostensibly designed to produce uranium enriched to 20 percent purity, but IAEA inspectors found samples of uranium enriched to 83.7 percent purity in the facility in March 2023.
A former Iranian missile base about 100 miles south of Tehran near the city of Qom, Fordow is dug into a mountainside hundreds of feet belowground. Though Fordow houses fewer centrifuges than Natanz, the facility’s subterranean design renders it far less vulnerable to airstrikes.
Israel did not include Fordow in its initial round of attacks but launched airstrikes in the vicinity of the site hours after it hit Natanz, Iranian authorities told the IAEA. The IAEA has not detected signs of damage at Fordow, Grossi said Monday.
Analysts say that Fordow could be destroyed by multiple GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs, known as “bunker busters,” which use massive force to destroy targets deep underground. Israel has neither the bombs nor the planes needed to lift the heavy explosives. The United States possesses both*.
Isfahan houses the plant where natural uranium is converted into the uranium hexafluoride gas that is fed into centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, according to the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). Israel struck Isfahan on Friday, and Grossi confirmed Sunday that the attack had damaged four buildings, including the uranium conversion facility.
Iran’s nuclear program also includes the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, a commercial nuclear reactor in the south near the Persian Gulf, and the Tehran Nuclear Research Center, which contains a small research reactor supplied by the U.S. to the previous Iranian regime in 1967.
*WASHINGTON, June 17 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday repudiated Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s assessment that Iran has not been building a nuclear weapon, publicly contradicting his spy chief for the first time during his second term.
In rejecting his top spy’s judgment, Trump appeared to embrace Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s justification for launching airstrikes last week on Iranian nuclear and military targets, saying he believed Tehran was on the verge of having a warhead.
Here is the latest page that I just added to my set of albums for South Africa.
This unusual sheet of stamps— round stamps on gold foil paper, for nine different countries, in one sheet— was issued in 2010 to celebrate the 2010 World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa.
P.S. In June and July of next year, six matches of the 2026 World Cup will be played right here in Seattle. The USA team features in one match, and I wondered if there would be any tickets left.
Yes, there are, at a very dear price.
Ticket reseller Stubhub offers tickets starting at $2,235, for seats in the stadium.
But hold on to your beer. Right there on the pitch, one ticket is offered for $892,803 and another for $1,116,003. ‘Can relist if plans change’ it says for these. Yes. Or if the stock market crashes and you go from billionaire to millionaire.
Cartoon from The New Yorker online, by cartoonist Bernard Schoenbaum. Schoenbaum was a son of European emigrants, and born and raised in New York City. He passed away in 2010. I had trouble finding the original publication date of the cartoon, and asked ChatGPT to help me. It came back with ‘Based on style and signature, it likely dates from the 1980s or 1990s’.
On his 79th birthday, President Trump spent more than three hours on Saturday taking in the scene at a military parade commemorating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army.
The event, which was officially billed as a tribute to service and a showcase of American military history, was hailed by the president’s supporters as a show of strength and a savvy recruitment tactic.
But his critics argued that the event was a further politicization of the military, especially after of a tense week in which Mr. Trump deployed the Marines in Los Angeles to quell protests.
– Zach Montague reporting from Washington D.C. for the New York Times
A picture is worth a thousand words. The cover of the upcoming Jun 23 The New Yorker magazine.
Happy Friday.
The white daisies are out, here on Seattle’s Capitol Hill.
There are over 20,000 species of daisies— the flowering plants belonging to the Asteraceae family. It is one of the largest plant families. The central disk is actually a cluster of small, tightly packed flowers called disk florets. The ring of larger, more showy petals is called ray florets. [Shot on iPhone 16 Pro’s Portrait mode with Natural Light filter]
”If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country”
– US Senator Alex Padilla speaking at a news conference, appearing to briefly be overcome with emotion
This is not normal.
It’s really shocking, to see the video— and a next-level outrage, that United States Senator Alex Padilla was man-handled and cuffed for asking a question at a Dept. of Homeland Security news conference in Los Angeles, his home state.
A post from Annie Grayer (CNN Senior Reporter covering Congress) on X
We had a little bit of June gloom this morning with cool weather and low clouds.
The clouds are mostly gone now, so maybe I will get a good look at Junes’s Strawberry Moon* tonight.
*Named thus not because of the reddish glow, but because strawberries are harvested in June.
Headlines from the New York Times with photo by Gary Hershorn/ Getty Images
The Seattle metro area is coming out of the summer’s first heat wave.
A record high for June 8 was recorded at the airport on Sunday (90°F / 32°C).
It was still hot today, with a high of 87°F (31°C).
The amigos went out to the Mt Baker tennis courts for pickleball at 9.30 am before it got too toasty.
“Difficult to accept now because I had lots of chances, but this is the good part of the sport ..
Also today it got me the sad part, no? But, you know, if you watch only the sad part, you’re never going to come back.”
– Jannik Sinner after his heart-breaking defeat against Alcaraz
Congratulations to Carlos Alcaraz for defending his 2024 French Open title successfully.
It was an epic match, that saw Alcaraz face down three match points in the fourth set: trailing 3-5 and 0-40 (on his serve).
But no, Alcaraz won three points in a row, won the game, went on to win the fourth set tie-breaker.
Fifth set goes to a 10 point tie-breaker, and Alcaraz plays flawlessly to run up a 7-0 lead. 7-2, 8-2, 9-2, 10-2. The championship is his.
The Rolex clock showed 5 hours 29 minutes when it was finally over.
Congratulations to Coco Gauff for winning the French Open.
It had been a decade since an American had won this title (Serena Williams, in 2015).
Coco Gauff (21, 🇺🇸) beat world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka (27, 🇧🇾) 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4 in a dramatic French Open final today. Simon Chambers writes for ESPN: Sabalenka went into the match as the favorite, having beaten Gauff in the Madrid Open final last month. But with the roof open and a strong wind gusting around Court Philippe Chatrier, clean ballstriking was almost impossible, the ball dying on the clay one minute and flashing through the court the next. [Photo by Adam Pretty / Getty Images]
The stamps to complete my 1931 set of South West Africa’s* first definitive stamps arrived in my mailbox today, and I promptly added them into my album.
*Namibia, since 1990. Namibia’s history spans from the arrival of hunter-gatherers like the San and the Bantu-speaking peoples to European colonialism and finally, independence.
Key periods include it as a German colony (1884-1915), a South African mandate (1915-1990), and the struggle for independence during that time, culminating in the nation’s independence on March 21, 1990.
[Source: Google Search Labs | AI Overview]
The 1½ penny was issued later (1937), but I included it in the set .. why not? I have a mint 1½d pair coming, but the used ones that I have now with OTJIEWARONGO and GROOTFONTEIN postmarks are cool, too. What’s unusual with this set is that the country name is in a different font for each denomination. Usually, the lettering for the country name is identical for all the stamps in a definitive set. The 20 shilling stamp denomination at the very end of the set is an extremely high value and must have been intended for very heavy or very large parcels. (20 shillings translates to a modern currency value at least 10x than the highest denominated modern stamps!). Furthermore: The “Okuwahakan Falls” depicted on the 1931 20-shilling stamp of South West Africa is something of a mystery. Despite its prominent appearance on the stamp, there is no well-documented waterfall in present-day Namibia known by this name, either historically or currently. Chat GPT says it is possibly a former or obscure name for a known waterfall: One candidate is Ruacana Falls on the Kunene River (the border with Angola). Another is Epupa Falls, further downstream on the Kunene. Both are among Namibia’s only notable large waterfalls. It is speculative, but “Okuwahakan” could be an old or alternate indigenous name for one of these falls.
It’s the 81st D-Day Anniversary today.
The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are dragging on.
And we are left with the smoldering wreckage of the Trump-Musk bromance.
‘I HATE MY X!‘ ‘says’ Trump of Musk on the cover of today’s New York Post .. and ‘Big, beautiful break-up—Trump-Elon bromance explodes into insults, threats*.
*X is formerly Twitter, now owned by Musk, from where he flung insults and allegations. (Trump fired back on his social media platform, called Truth Social). The big, beautiful is a reference to the The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’, the massive and garbage federal bill proposed by Trump and his Republicans that includes tax cuts for the rich, debt ceiling increases, and changes to social programs. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that by Fiscal Year (FY) 2034 the bill would increase America’s debt by nearly $3 trillion.
Reporting from the New York Times. One wonders if Trump took even one turn at the wheel of this Tesla Model S. (Definitely not on a public road, but presidents ARE permitted to drive on private property, such as golf courses or within controlled estates.)
Four amigos met at the Seattle waterfront this morning.
We rode our e-bikes along the bike trail to Elliott Bay marina where we met up with a fifth amigo for lunch.
I took the G-line bus along Madison Street to the waterfront. There goes my bus, actually, but it does not matter. It’s only 6 minutes between buses, so there is no need to even look at the schedule, or worry that you might miss your bus and wait a long time for the next one.It’s a short walk from the 1st Avenue bus stop to Colman Dock, also called Pier 52, the primary ferry terminal in Seattle. That’s the Kaleetan ferry, just leaving for Bainbridge Island. The Kaleetan went into service in early 1968 serving the Seattle-Bainbridge Island route. Over the years it has been upgraded and it has also served the Seattle-Bremerton route and the Anacortes-San Juan Islands route.Our rendezvous point for starting the bike ride was Molly Moon Ice Cream up ahead. I’m stopping for a moment to admire the public art made of ‘dolosse’. Dolosse* is a South African invention, first deployed in 1964 on the breakwater of East London, a South African port city. * A dolos (plural: dolosse) is a wave-dissipating concrete block used in great numbers as a form of coastal management. It is a type of tetrapod. Weighing up to 8 tonnes (8.8 short tons), dolosse are used to build revetments for protection against the erosive force of waves from a body of water. [From Wikipedia]Look! No Alaskan Way Viaduct in sight. We’re on our way, on the bike path along Alaskan Way (originally Railroad Avenue, until 1936), and the major north-south street that runs along the Elliott Bay waterfront. I don’t have my own e-bike, so I picked up a Lime bike for rent that was on the sidewalk near Molly Moon Ice Cream. ($1 to unlock plus 43 cents per minute).Irises in the flower beds that line the promenade on the waterfront.This is further up north along Alaskan Way, just past Pier 66 on the left. The construction work (of the overwalk and the aquarium extension) along Alaskan Way has been completed, but not all the paving work for the intersections and bike lanes.A brief stop by Myrtle Edwards park with its 1.25-mile winding bike and pedestrian paths along Elliott Bay, offering beautiful views of the Olympics Mountains. There’s a Carnaval cruise ship in the distance at the Pier 91 cruise terminal. It was scheduled to depart at 3.30 pm for its ‘Alaska Inside Passage Glacier’ round trip.We reached our destination: Maggie Bluffs restaurant with its outdoor patio with views of Elliot Bay Marina.
My new Google Nest Learning Thermostat is installed, and it looks very stylish. I set it to display the temperatures in Celsius, for now.
This is the current outside temperature (18 °C/ 64°F) with a look-ahead for the next three hours. It was cloudy today, and on the display the clouds drift slowly in the background. This picture was taken around 9.00 pm tonight. I’m going to see if I can change the time of 10:00 to 22:00, the 11:00 to 23:00, and 12 midnight to 24:00 or 0:00. The outside temperatures are obtained from a weather service (usually The Weather Channel or Weather Underground) and not from a thermometer outside my house.The display automatically switches to this one, with again the outside temperature in large digits. To the right it shows that the thermostat is set to maintain an inside temperature of 19.5 °C (67 °F). The humidity inside the house is 61%, and the temperature inside the house (upstairs) is 20.5 °C. The temperature from upstairs is transmitted to this thermostat from a wireless sensor in my bedroom that looks like a white pebble.
South Korea is in a vastly better place now that former President Yoon Suk Yeol has been replaced— the president that declared martial law during a televised address on 3 December 2024.
Here is Choe Sang-Hun reporting from Seoul for the New York Times:
If there is one characteristic that defines Lee Jae-myung, South Korea’s new president, it’s that he is a survivor.
He has survived criminal charges, a near-fatal stabbing attack and the martial law enacted by his fiercest enemy, former President Yoon Suk Yeol. Now he is taking on what may be his toughest test yet. He must lead a deeply divided nation through daunting challenges, both at home and abroad.
Mr. Lee, who won South Korea’s presidential election after his opponent conceded early Wednesday, takes office as one of the most powerful presidents that South Korea has elected in recent decades. Much of South Korea’s political power is concentrated in the presidency, and Mr. Lee will also wield considerable control over the National Assembly, where his Democratic Party holds a large majority of seats.
But long is the list of problems that Mr. Lee faces.
The political turmoil set off by Mr. Yoon’s short-lived declaration of martial law and his subsequent impeachment and removal has exposed a country deeply fractured between the left and right, between generations and between genders. South Korea is facing mounting pressure from its sole military ally, the United States, even as the nuclear threat from North Korea grows. President Trump has not only slapped South Korea’s export-driven economy with heavy tariffs but also demanded that it pay more to keep American troops on its soil.
I found this set of envelopes on Ebay, and I “had” to buy it.
It has South African stamps with OFFICIAL overprints on that I was still missing in my collection.
I guess I will put the envelopes as is in my album.
My policy is not to remove stamps from an envelope with significant labels, postmarks, and markings.
Sent by registered mail from Pretoria, South Africa, to Folkestone, England. Folkestone is on the English Channel just to the south of Dover). A postmark on the back from the Folkstone post office is dated Apr. 27, 1936. The lettering at the top says ‘In Sy Majesteits Diens’ / ‘On His Majesty’s Service’. ‘His Majesty’ would be King Edward VIII, at the time king only since Jan. 1936. He would abdicate in December of that same year, to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson. George VI then became the next king of England.Sent by registered mail from Pretoria, South Africa, to Minchinhampton, England. Minchinhampton is south of Gloucester in the Stroud District. A postmark on the back indicating the arrival date shows Jul. 10, 1933.Sent by registered mail from Johannesburg, South Africa, to New Cross in London, England (postcode district SE14) on Dec. 23, 1931. It looks like it arrived on Jan. 11, 1932, so the letter must have been sent by airmail.Official souvenir cover from the Johannesburg National Philatelic Exhibition. Sent on Oct. 28, 1950 to Indonesia. It looks like official stamps were offered for sale to collectors at the exhibition. (Stamps with the ‘Official’ overprint are designated to be used by government departments and agencies for official correspondence.)Another envelope, just a plain one, sent from the Johannesburg National Philatelic Exhibition. It was sent on Oct. 24, 1950 and just to Cape Town. The customized registered mail postmark mentioning the exhibition is unusual.Sent registered mail and airmail from Johannesburg to the town of Gomersal in West Yorkshire, England (southwest of Leeds). It was sent on May 4, 1948. The 1947 stamp on the left features King George VI. That uniform he is wearing looks like a navy uniform (he served in the Royal Navy as well as the Royal Air Force; was the first member of the British royal family to be certified as a fully qualified pilot).Sent in 1938 from Johannesburg to Cape Town by registered mail, with official stamps. I love this 1936 stamp that depicts the mine shaft machinery of a Johannesburg gold mine. Also on the stamp, the mine dump of excavated earth, and the skyscrapers of Johannesburg behind it.Envelope for registered mail, printed by De La Rue & Co. in London, England, with an embossed 5½ penny preprinted stamp on the flap (depicting King George V) and official stamps added. The letter was sent to King’s College Hospital in London SE5 in August 1935. The hospital was established in 1909, and is a major teaching hospital and major trauma center today. It is referred to locally and by staff simply as “King’s” or abbreviated internally to “KCH”.Registered letter with official stamps and very nice air mail label, sent from Johannesburg, South Africa, to an address in Southsea (literally on the English Channel, in Portsmouth) on Jul. 14, 1951. The coat of arms with the leopard on the rock and motto “Lux in Tenebris” (“Light in Darkness’) is that of Nyasaland— a British protectorate, later part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and now the country of Malawi.
