a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a $70-million initiative to open five city-owned grocery stores—one in each borough—that will offer a guaranteed 30% discount on a core basket of everyday essentials.
The stores will only open in 2029, though— and this repost on X from chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov (and New Yorker) illustrates the challenges with what Mayor Mamdani efforts to help New Yorkers to better afford their groceries.
David E. Sanger writes for the New York Times:
President Trump often celebrates his unpredictability, declaring that it keeps allies and adversaries alike off balance.
By his telling, his willingness to bomb Iranian nuclear sites 13 months ago, and send Delta Force commandos in to snatch President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela from his bed in early January, reflected his determination to execute military operations that would have made his predecessors blanch. He told The New York Times he was limited only by “my own morality,” as he wielded the world’s biggest hammer.
But in recent weeks, he has seemed trapped, his presidency gradually consumed by a war he cannot find his way out of.
He has discovered limits on his power that he could have scarcely imagined as he began full combat operations on Feb. 28, when he set out goals for a swift end to Iran’s nuclear program and the overthrow of the country’s government.
There goes my ballot for the August 2026 Primary Election here in Washington State’s King County.
November with the 2026 Midterm Election is essentially three months away. Republicans have the presidency, the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court.
They are responsible for the war in Iran, for taking away healthcare from Americans, for ignoring the brazen corruption in the White House, and for pushing up the cost of living for all of us.
Senator Mitch McConnell was reportedly resuscitated at his Washington DC home on June 14, following a medical emergency where emergency responders performed CPR.
Not his staff, nor his family, nor John Thune (leader of the Senate) has given any details of his condition for three weeks now, other than saying he is ‘continuing his recovery’.
Then this week, several senior Republicans tells us they had 20-minute long ‘substantive’ discussions with McConnell.
Scott Jennings, perennial defender of the insanities of the Trump Administration on CNN, would have us believe he called up his ‘old friend’ (McConnell) and that they had talked about Iran, Ukraine, the unfolding situation in Maine, Scott’s visit to the [Teddy Roosevelt] Presidential Library, and even a little bit of Senate history.
So: a coordinated effort by GOP leadership to hide a reality that is glaringly obvious— and telling us stories that are completely unbelievable.
It has arrived, the semiquincentennial— the 250th— of all the Independence Days that America has celebrated.
Issued Apr. 10, 2026
Perf. 11 | Design: Ethell Kessler | Photolithography | No watermark
FOREVER Standard Postage ($0.78) Multicolored
The Figures of the American Revolution stamps each feature a different portrait of an individual whose actions were vital to achieving independence and establishing the principles that continue to guide the United States. A single image of the American flag is layered behind the 25 portraits.
[Sources: stampworld.com, usps.com]
Employment figures show that the American economy continues to stride past obstacles, including the inflationary pressures of the war with Iran.
Employers added 57,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 4.2 percent from 4.3 percent the previous month, data from the Labor Department showed on Thursday.
The unemployment rate has been at or below 4.5 percent since October 2021, the longest streak since the late 1960s.
– Talmon Joseph Smith writing for the New York Times
The Fourth of July is looming, and it looks like the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is not going to be fixed by then. It is about to be drained, again.
Maxine Joselow and David A. Fahrenthold report for the New York Times:
President Trump says the peeling blue coating and algae blooms that mar his $16.4 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are the fault of vandals working with “knives” in the “dark of night.”
But government documents obtained by The New York Times show that while National Park Service workers found two cuts in sections of foam between the pool’s expansion joints, those were not directly related to the “American flag blue” coating that is now peeling, or to the algae that has turned the pool a bright shade of green.
Happy Friday.
I’m reading up about the stamps from Greenland that had I bought at the stamp show from a friendly guy from Nuuk, at the Greenland booth at the stamp show.
Issued Jan. 31, 2025
Perf. 13 | Design: Miki Jacobsen | 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
01100788 19.00 Kr | Multicolored | SIRIUS Patrol with provisions and dog sled
The headquarters of the SIRIUS patrol is Daneborg, located on the east coast of Greenland, close to 74 degrees north latitude. The headquarters is completely cut off from the outside world. To get there, you have to fly in a small propeller plane from Iceland. At the station, twelve men and 80 sled dogs are each other’s only company for a radius of about 250 kilometers. There are not many distractions outside of work. There is mail from home six to seven times a year.
SIRIUS’ northernmost station is called Station Nord. Five men are stationed here year-round. The main task is to keep a large runway free of ice, but there are also many other tasks. On the patrols, the menu is freeze-dried food, powdered milk, chocolate and rye bread, but after arriving at the station, there is food in abundance, as well as videos, music and even a shower. Everything is in sharp contrast to the patrols’ harsh living conditions. Station Nord is therefore a very popular place to stay for the patrols.
In a modern era, when surveillance of Northeast Greenland could easily be carried out using satellites or aircraft, the SIRIUS patrol may seem redundant.
However, the fact is that, according to international conventions, sovereignty can only be enforced by entering the areas that a country possesses. So the unique Danish military unit will probably continue to operate in Greenland’s northernmost regions in the future. [Sources: stampworld.com, stamps.gl/greenland-collector, Google AI]
Issued Jan. 31, 2025
Perf. 13 | Design: Konrad Nuka Godtfredsen | 56 mm x 33 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
895 AEK 3.00 Kr | Multicolored | East Greenlandic sled
896 AEL 38.00 Kr | Multicolored | Greenlander with East Greenlandic sled
[Sources: stampworld.com, Google AI]
Issued May 26, 2025
Perf. 13 | Design: Maya Sialuk Jacobsen | 30 mm x 40 mm, 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
902 AER 25.00 Kr | Black and white | Boy with animal skin clothing from the Thule culture
More:
Qilakitsoq is an abandoned Inuit settlement on the Nuussuaq Peninsula on the West coast of Greenland, about 450 km north of the Arctic Circle. The settlement is renowned for the discovery of eight mummified bodies from the Thule culture in 1972. The discovery was made by two local reindeer hunters, Hans and Jokum Grønvold. In two graves were the mummies of six women and two boys. They comprise three generations with close familial links across the graves. Although the causes of death are unknown, they probably died at the same time in the Autumn shortly after arriving at the Winter settlement. They were wrapped in animal skins and fully clothed. They were equipped for a long journey to the underworld, carefully prepared according to ancient, traditional rites. They had extra skins and clothing to afford them a safe journey and a good life in the realm of the dead. The five oldest women have almost identical facial tattoos that can express both kinship and social status. The youngest woman of about 20 years is not tattooed. Perhaps she was either unmarried or childless. Tattoos have been in common use among Inuit women for thousands of years. There were amulets on and among their clothing. The Inuit probably employed these amulets to muster strength and protection from evil spirits. The mummies from Qilakitsoq have since afforded valuable insights into the life of the Inuit who lived in the area some 500 years ago. The stamp reproduces the most recognisable and most iconic of the eight mummies. It is presumed to be a small boy of about six months. While the gender is based on the clothing, the age has been ascertained from the development of teeth and bones through radiographic examination.
903 AES 28.00 Kr | Black and white | The Kingittorsuaq rune stone
More:
The Kingittorsuaq rune stone was found in 1824 by a man called Pelimut. The discovery was made on top of the mountain on the small island of Kingittorsuaq about 20 km north of Upernavik. At the highest point of the island, he saw three collapsed cairns placed in a triangle formation. Near the largest of the cairns, he spotted a stone with several markings that he did not recognise. The stone, which is known as the Kingittorsuaq Runestone, bears medieval rune inscriptions. It is conclusive evidence that Norsemen in Greenland on their fishing trips along the West coast of Greenland reached as far North as North of the present-day town of Upernavik. The stone, which currently resides in the National Museum in Copenhagen, has been dated to the Middle Ages between 1250 to 1333 AD. The last part of the runic script remains undecipherable as it appears to be a group of meaningless characters. However, the first part of the writing on the runestone translated from Old Norse reads: “Erling, son of Sigvath and Baarne Thordar’s son and Enriði Á’s son, on Saturday before Rogation Day raised this stone and rode…”
[Sources: stampworld.com, europe-stamps.blogspot.com, Google AI]
Issued Sep. 12, 2025
Woven cloth with embroidery | 100% Recycled polyester | 55 mm x 42 mm | Mfg. by Hämmerle & Vogel (Austria) | Self-adhesive
909 AEY 75 Kr | Stylized, white-and-blue embroidered dove carrying an olive branch
Part of an international joint initiative where multiple postal services worldwide issued identical embroidered stamps. It features the exact same dove motif across over a dozen postal organizations (including the UN, Switzerland, Austria, and the Faroe Islands) with only the country name and local currency varying.
[Sources: stampworld.com, Google AI]
Issued May 23, 2026
Perf. 13 | Two stamps in minisheet (140 mm x 80 mm) | Design: Martin Mörck | Stamps 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
01100819 25.00 Kr | Multicolored | Leif the Lucky’s discovery of Vinland*
01100820 37.00 Kr | Multicolored | Thor Solberg’s flight aboard the Leif Eriksson biplane**
*Leif Eriksson, also known as Leif the Lucky, was a Norse explorer who is thought to have been the first European to set foot on continental America, approximately half a millennium before Christopher Columbus did.
Vinland is the coastal region of North America (Newfoundland & eastern Canada) explored and temporarily settled by Norse Vikings around 1000 CE.
**Thor Solberg was a Norwegian-born aviation pioneer who made the first successful flight from the United States of America to Norway in 1935. He made the journey, which started in New York City, in an open-cockpit single-engine aircraft with no landing instruments.
[Sources: stampworld.com, stamps.gl/greenland-collector, Google AI]
Happy Friday.
Trump is back from China, where he tried hard to undo the catastrophic damage of his trade war— the one that he had started last year in April.
The headline of the order for 200 Boeing jets looks good, but the article mentions that Boeing was hoping for an order of up to 500 jets.
I asked Google AI to summarize the trip for me— what is publicly known about it, anyway.
At the bottom: “Highlighting deep-seated paranoia over Chinese surveillance, White House staff immediately confiscated and threw away all Chinese-issued credentials, delegation pins, and burner phones before anyone was permitted to board Air Force One to return to Washington.”
King Charles III is on his first state visit to the United States as monarch, and addressed congress today.
The Washington Post: As the king spoke, the White House posted an image of Trump and Charles on X, calling it “TWO KINGS,” with a crown emoji.
My comment: The United States of America has no king.
Meanwhile, my latest purchase from an Ebay seller in London arrived yesterday, with a stamp on the envelope that features the king.
Expensive diesel is a much bigger problem than expensive gasoline.
The world economy runs on diesel because diesel has more energy per gallon and powers trucks, marine vessels and heavy equipment.
Supplies of diesel were tight even before the war in Iran— and, writes Emmett Lindner for the New York Times— refineries in the Persian Gulf exported much more diesel and jet fuel than gasoline, while no other countries have the capacity to make up for that loss.
Reporting by Josh Holder, Adina Renner and Blacki Migliozzi for the New York Times:
On Monday, the United States imposed its own naval blockade, intent on ending Iran’s dominance of the waterway and cutting off its oil income by blocking all traffic to and from its ports.
More than 12 American military vessels were stationed in international waters in the Gulf of Oman, beyond the strait, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.
And the military is likely monitoring the region from a distance, using radar, patrol aircraft and drones, said Jennifer Parker, a former naval officer now at the University of Western Australia’s Defense and Security Institute.
Since the U.S. blockade took effect, no ships linked to Iran have been spotted leaving the region, according to the vessel‑tracking company Kpler.
Headlines, images and captions below are from the New York Times:
With record turnout, Hungarians chose to end the 16-year rule of the prime minister who was a self-proclaimed champion of illiberal Christian democracy.
– Headlines from the Washington Post
Péter Magyar is the prime minister-elect of Hungary, set to take office by early May 2026 following a landslide victory by his Tisza Party.
The election in Hungary made me look up these pictures of political and propaganda posters that I took inside the Budapest History Museum.
It was December of 2008 and a heady time for me.
I had just voted in my first election— as a new American citizen— and Senator Barack Obama was now President-elect Obama.
It was time for another ‘No Kings’ protest today.
Here in Seattle, we gathered at Cal Anderson Park at noon.
There were a few speeches, and then the crowd made its way along Pine Street, past the Seattle Convention Center and on to Seattle Center.
My two amigos and I made it to the Convention Center, from where we surveyed the long parade of protesters and their signs that kept on coming.
As Stephen Colbert said tonight on The Colbert Show: Iran does have a nuclear option.
It is to close the Strait of Hormuz.
Happy Friday.
Breaking News: The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled today in a 6-3 decision that Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imports from nearly every U.S. trading partner are unconstitutional.
Last April, in 2025, Trump had claimed that a 1970s emergency statute* (which does not mention the word “tariffs”) allowed him to unilaterally impose the duties without congressional approval.
*The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977.
It authorizes the President to regulate international commerce, including limiting or taxing imports, upon declaring a national emergency in response to an “unusual and extraordinary threat” from abroad.
The SCOTUS justices for the majority noted that no other US president had invoked the statute to impose any tariffs — let alone tariffs of this magnitude and scope. Tariffs are a tax and the President of the United States must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it.
The U.S. Treasury has collected about $240 billion in tariff revenue since April 2, 2025. Consumers paid about 90% of that.
Trump is, um— shall we just say, mightily upset— over this ruling, and immediately ordered a new 10 percent tax on all imports to the USA.
For justification, he is using the 1974 Trade Act and a provision called Section 122.
(No president before him had invoked that provision, either.)
Section 122 was designed to address short-term emergencies, not long-term trade policies.
It can only be put in place for 150 days.
Ben Casselman and Ana Swanson write for the NY Times:
The total trade deficit, including trade in both goods and services, shrank slightly last year, as growth in exports narrowly outpaced growth in imports. But that was entirely the result of an expanding trade surplus in services. The trade deficit in physical goods, which has been Mr. Trump’s focus as he has sought to use tariffs to restore the U.S. manufacturing sector, actually grew in 2025.
The trade deficit grew sharply at the end of the year, rising 32.6 percent in December as imports rose and exports fell.
[Graphic by Keith Collins]
“There is such a sadness for all we have lost, the rage and disgust that propels us forward, unimaginable before, held together by our trust in our democracy, now shattered by video proof, we do live in a police state. Maybe not in your neighborhood, yet, but history teaches that they will arrive.
It was the cameras in Viet Nam that relentlessly showed Americans what was being perpetrated in their name, that turned sentiment against the war. It was the videos in the murder of George Floyd that amassed protest against racism. And it is the videos of Gestapo tactics, used indiscriminately against all of us, exposing villainous lies, that will be that pivot point to what we knew was coming.
We the people do not consent.”
– NY Times reader DL, commenting on a report called ‘Watching America Unravel in Minneapolis’ by Charles Homans.
Homans is from Minnesota, and a political correspondent for The Times. He spent 10 days in and around Minneapolis observing clashes between federal agents and city residents and interviewing immigrants, activists and the mayor.
This Greenland situation feels even worse to me than the run-up to the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The Diamond Princess arrived at the pier in Cam Ranh at 7 am this morning.
My coach bus excursion to Nha Trang was a whirlwind tour consisting of a visit to Po Nagar Temple, a short cruise on Cai River, and visits to an ancient house built from ebony wood, a mat weaving shop and an arts & crafts market.
The shutdown of the US government is going to end*, after eight Democratic senators broke with their party’s blockade to make a deal.
*For now. Most of the government is funded only until the end of January.
It seems to me the Democrats should have let the Republicans own the Republican shutdown.
A lot of people are being hurt right now with the shutdown, though. Of the eight senators that supported the deal with the Republicans, two are retiring, and the rest are not up for reelection in 2026.
