Month: April 2024

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Wednesday/ birds of a feather 🐦

South African Constitution (1996) Art. 47.1.e. 
1. Every citizen who is qualified to vote for the National Assembly is eligible to be a member of the Assembly, except ­..
e. anyone who, after this section took effect, is convicted of an offence and sentenced to more than 12 months imprisonment without the option of a fine, either in the Republic, or outside the Republic if the conduct constituting the offence would have been an offence in the Republic, but no one may be regarded as having been sentenced until an appeal against the conviction or sentence has been determined, or until the time for an appeal has expired. A disqualification under this paragraph ends five years after the sentence has been completed.

This year, general elections will be held in South Africa on 29 May to elect a new National Assembly as well as the provincial legislature in each province.

It’s been 30 years since Nelson Mandela was elected South Africa’s first democratic president. The African National Congress has in been in power all this time.

Let’s just say that after Mandela left office in 1999, the ANC has not exactly covered themselves in glory.
Jacob Zuma (elected in 2009) and his ANC cronies in particular, engaged in racketeering, money laundering, and fraud on a grand scale.

Zuma spent time in jail 2021, but only two months of his full sentence of 15 months.  This was due to a ‘remission’ program approved by the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa (the equivalent of a ‘pardon’ in the US).

Now 82 years old, Zuma is back in politics. He wants to become president again.
South Africa’s election court ruled that he cannot be disqualified by the 12 month rule in Art. 47.1.e. of the South African constitution.

Cartoon of an imagined phone call between candidates for presidential elections in America and in South Africa.
Zuma broke from the ANC and is the de facto leader of a brand-new political party called uMkhonto weSizwe (abbr. MKP,  and meaning ‘Spear of the Nation’).
Here’s Antony Sguazzin reporting for bloomberg.com:
Support for South Africa’s ruling African National Congress is plunging and a party backed by former President Jacob Zuma may become the country’s third-biggest after next month’s election, a new opinion poll shows. The ANC, which has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid, may garner just 37% of the vote on May 29, while Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party, or MKP, may get 13%, the Social Research Foundation said in comments sent to Bloomberg on Wednesday, citing a poll it carried out this month.
[Cartoon by Niel van Vuuren for Beeld newspaper]
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Tuesday/ I got royal mail 🫅🏻

There was mail from the Royal Mail in Great Britain for me today— with South African stamps inside, of course.
I looked up the details of the stamps used on the envelopes.

Birth Centenary of Sir Winston Churchill
Issued 1974, Oct. 9. | Perf.14×15 | ‘All-over’ phosphor Gum
962 444 4½p | Prussian Blue, pale turqoise-green and silver | Churchill in Royal Yacht Squadron Uniform
[Source: 1997 Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part I Volume I]
King Charles III Definitive Stamps
Issued 2023 | Perf. 15×14½ | Gravure print with phosphor bars | Bar-coded | Self-adhesive
£2.20 Dark green Portrait of His Majesty King Charles III
[Source: royalmail.com]
 

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Monday/ a total eclipse ☀️⚫️☀️

Bailey’s Beads* are seen just before totality in Dallas, Texas on Monday, April 8, 2024.
A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe.
*The Bailey’s Beads effect occurs when gaps in the Moon’s rugged terrain allows sunlight to pass through in some places just before the total phase of the eclipse.
[Photo Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber; shot with Nikon Z 9 | Lens: NIKKOR Z 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S | ƒ/11.0 | 560.0 mm | 1/8000 s | ISO 800 | Flash off, did not fire]
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Sunday/ the black sun is coming ☀️

Anticipation of the total eclipse of the sun that is about to be visible in a large swath of North America, is at a fever pitch.
The eclipse will be visible starting at 12:06 p.m. CDT near Eagle Pass, Texas, before progressing to totality by about 1:27 p.m. CDT.
It will progress along its path to the northeast over the next few hours and the last of the eclipse in North America will be seen from Caribou, Maine at 4:40 p.m. EDT.

It does look like there will be cloud cover in several places along the way.
Here in the Pacific Northwest we will only see some 20% of the sun being obscured by the moon, and that is if the clouds allow it.

The Black Sun at Volunteer Park tonight.  
The sculpture of black Brazilian granite on a concrete base was created in 1969 by Isamu Noguchi.
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Saturday/ here comes the Dromedaris 🐪

I spent a few hours on my South African stamp collection today, poring over my Scott stamp catalog to find the fine— but distinct— differences between the various issues of the ubiquitous 1 p Dromedaris stamps issued in 1926, 1932, 1940 and in 1951 (shown below).

A little history first:
On April 6, 1652 (372 years ago), Jan Van Riebeeck landed at the Cape of Good Hope in what is called South Africa today, with three ships; the Reijer, the Dromedaris, and the Goede Hoop. He was accompanied by 82 men and 8 women, including his wife of two years, Maria.
Van Riebeeck was requested by the Dutch East India Company to undertake the command of the initial Dutch settlement in the future South Africa.

About this stamp:
From the First Definite Series of the Union of South Africa (a redesign of the original 1926 version, issued in 1951)
Photogravure printing    Perf. 15×14    Wmk. Multiple Springbok head
49 A6    1 p carmine & black    Afrikaans-English se-tenant pair (’51, size 18x22mm) of Jan van Riebeeck’s ship, the Dromedaris
[Source: 2021 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue Vol. 6A]

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Friday/ the economy is strong 💪

Another month, another burst of better-than-expected job gains.
Employers added 303,000 jobs in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department reported on Friday, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent, from 3.9 percent in February. Expectations of a recession among experts, once widespread, are now increasingly rare.
– Talmon Joseph Smith writing for the NY Times

It was the 39th straight month of job growth. And employment levels are now more than three million greater than forecast by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office just before the pandemic shock.- Talmon Joseph Smith writing for the NY Times
Lower-wage earners, for their part, are experiencing a job market less hot than a couple of years ago, when switching jobs in search of better pay and benefits frequently garnered double-digit percent raises. The market is, however, still providing opportunities for earnings growth not seen since the late 1990s, according to key Fed measures.- Talmon Joseph Smith writing for the NY Times
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Wednesday/ EV sales slow down 📉

Sales of electric vehicles grew only 2.7% to just over 268,000 during the quarter, far below the 47% growth that fueled record sales and a 7.6% market share last year.
The slowdown, led by Tesla, confirms automakers’ fears that they moved too quickly to pursue EV buyers. The EV share of total U.S. sales fell to 7.1% in the first quarter.
– Reporting by Associated Press

Pete Buttigieg (Secretary of Transportation in the Biden cabinet) was asked today by some Fox News Channel (purveyor of right-wing propaganda) interviewer why President Biden was “pushing electrical vehicles down Americans’ throats”.
Buttigieg’s reply: 1. that is what car buyers want (more EVs are still bought every year), 2. that is where the auto industry is headed worldwide, and 3. the US should not fall behind China and import their EVs but rather manufacture them here in the USA.

A Polestar 2 electric car (manufacturer: Volvo) that I spotted on my walk tonight. I think it’s a 2022 model.
Mainstream buyers are wary of the limited range of EVs (in some cases it’s a perception) and charging times, or a lack of charging stations. 
The U.S. has a $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill President Joe Biden signed into law in November 2021.
More than two years later, though, only four states — Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and Hawaii — have opened stations funded by the program.
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Tuesday/ the earthquake in Taiwan 🏞️

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
The Associated Press
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in a quarter century rocked the island during the morning rush Wednesday, damaging buildings and creating a tsunami that washed ashore on southern Japanese islands. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries, and the tsunami threat largely passed about two hours later.

Despite the quake striking at the height of the morning rush hour just before 8 a.m., the initial panic faded quickly on the island that is regularly rocked by temblors and prepares for them with drills at schools and notices issued via public media and mobile phone.

Still, the earthquake was strong enough to scare people who are used to such shaking.

“Earthquakes are a common occurrence, and I’ve grown accustomed to them. But today was the first time I was scared to tears by an earthquake,” Taipei resident Hsien-hsuen Keng said. ”I was awakened by the earthquake. I had never felt such intense shaking before.”

A five-story building in the lightly populated southeastern coastal city of Hualien near the epicenter appeared heavily damaged, collapsing its first floor and leaving the rest leaning at a 45-degree angle. In the capital, tiles fell from older buildings and within some newer office complexes, while debris fell from some building sites. Schools evacuated their students to sports fields, equipping them with yellow safety helmets. Some also covered themselves with textbooks to guard against falling objects as aftershocks continued.
[Image taken from a video footage run by TVBS]

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Monday/ here’s April 🌷

The tulips are out here in the city.
The bell shaped flower of tulips have three petals and three sepals.
Yes, you read that right.
The outside ones are called sepals— not an April Fools’ joke!