Sunday/ Father’s Day 👨‍👦

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads.

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’.

Saturday/ the charade 🪖

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.

Friday/ daisies 🌼

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]

Thursday/ an outrage 😡

”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

Wednesday/ the strawberry moon 🍓

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

Monday/ a touch cooler today ☀️

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.

 

Sunday/ an epic final 🎾

“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.

Post on X by US Open Tennis @usopen

Saturday/ French Open champ 🥂

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]

Saturday/ South West Africa’s first definitives ✉️

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.

Friday/ another week 💔

Happy Friday.

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.)

Thursday/ an e-bike ride⚡🚲

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.

Wednesday/ my new thermostat 🌡️

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.

Tuesday/ South Korea’s new president 🇰🇷

Headline and photo from the New York Times

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.

Monday/ you got mail— official mail 📩

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.

Sunday/ Tesla spotting⚡

Here’s June, and the 9.00 pm sunsets of 2025 have arrived here in Seattle.
So even if one is quite late making supper or dinner, there is still plenty of time for an after-dinner stroll.

A brand-new pearl white Model Y that I had spotted tonight.
The driver was looking for parking and as he got out I walked up and said ‘I love your car’.
Yes, it’s already the fourth Tesla his family had bought, he said. He had a Model 3 that he gave to his son, which has since been replaced with a new Model 3. 
This Model Y is a replacement for his old Model Y.
And does your new car have Full Self Driving (Supervised) enabled? I asked. No, the one free month of FSD for the new car has expired, and right now it’s a little too expensive for him to purchase, he said.
(It’s $99/ month to subscribe or $8,000 to purchase outright).

Saturday/ something fishy 🐟

Here’s a cartoon from today’s Seattle Times.

And what do sardines eat, actually?
Sardines are primarily planktivores, meaning they feed on small organisms in the water column.
Their diet includes—
Phytoplankton: 
Microscopic plant-like organisms, such as diatoms and dinoflagellates;
Zooplankton: 
Small animal-like organisms, such as copepods, crustacean larvae, and small fish eggs;
Dead organic matter: They may also consume debris and waste products found in the water.
Sardines are filter feeders, using their gills to strain food from the water.

Friday/ a Dutch icon 🇳🇱

Happy Friday.
There was a single letter in my mailbox from the Netherlands today, with four South African stamps inside (An Ebay purchase).
Here’s the stamp from the envelope.

Dutch Icons
Issued Jan. 2, 2014
Serpentine Die Cut Perf. 11¼ | Self-adhesive | Design: Joachim Baan & Fleur | Issued in booklet panes of 5 | Litho. | Engraving: Walsall Security Printers Ltd. | No Watermark
1461 A664 1,05€ Red, blue, dark blue, black & beige | Dutch windmill
[Sources: stampworld.com, Scott 2018 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 5]

Thursday/ burgers and beers 🍔

Three amigos had beers and burgers at Elysian Capitol Hill Brewery tonight.

My beer is called ‘Little Guy’— a light American lager weighing in at 4.7% ABV.
The burger is a ‘smash burger’— a beef burger with cheese and the usual trimmings of tomato, lettuce and pickles.
The salad is pretty fancy but simply called their ‘house salad’.

Wednesday/ the queen of the garden 🌹

The rose is from the little rose bush in my front garden.

From Google Search Labs | AI Overview:
Roses have a long history, with the earliest evidence suggesting their existence dating back 35 million years. Fossil evidence indicates roses were present in North America as early as the Late Eocene period (38 to 33.9 million years ago).
However, their cultivation in gardens, particularly in China, began roughly 5,000 years ago. Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, wrote about roses being grown in imperial gardens about 2,525 years ago.