Willem's Planet – Page 11 – a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010

May 21, 2025May 22, 2025

Wednesday/ South Africans in the White House 🏛️

South African daily newspaper ‘Die Burger’ (‘The Citizen’) reporting about the meeting in the White House between the South African delegation, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
I added in some translations for the Afrikaans.
This newspaper, and the BBC’s reporting, says that Ramaphosa ‘survived’ the attacks against him by not fighting it too vociferously, and by staying calm and by making a joke about offering a plane to the US.
**P.S. Trump formally (openly, brazenly) accepted the $400 million dollar jet** gifted to him from Qatar today*.
Does that make it official that he is the most corrupt president in America’s history— or was he that already, long before this?
*The **Foreign Emoluments Clause** (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8) states: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And **no Person holding any Office** of Profit or Trust under them, shall, **without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present**, Emolument, Office, or Title, **of any kind whatever**, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Here are the other South Africans that came with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to the White House today.

John Steenhuisen: South Africa’s Minister of Agriculture, who clarified political affiliations of individuals featured in a video presented by President Trump.
Ernie Els (nickname “The Big Easy”) and Retief Goosen: Professional South African golfers who were part of the delegation and contributed to the discussion during the meeting.
Johann Rupert: A prominent South African businessman who emphasized the broader issue of violence affecting all South Africans and proposed technological solutions to improve safety.
Zingiswa Losi: A trade union leader who stressed that crime in South Africa affects all demographic groups, not just whites.

Here’s Erica L. Green and Zolan Kanno-Youngs writing for the New York Times:
The encounter in some ways echoed the February visit to the Oval Office by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Mr. Zelensky in front of TV cameras, cutting short a visit meant to coordinate a plan for peace.

The meeting with Mr. Ramaphosa on Wednesday was also striking because of the ways in which Mr. Trump dismissed attempts to push back on his fringe claims by those who knew most about them.

Mr. Trump scowled and dismissed Mr. Ramaphosa and his delegates during the meeting, including a Black woman who tried to explain that brutal crimes happen to Black people in the country as well.

By contrast, Mr. Trump joked around and listened attentively as Mr. Els, Mr. Goosen and Johann Rupert, a white South African billionaire, said crime was prevalent across the board in the nation, not just against white farmers.

Mr. Ramaphosa entered the meeting seemingly optimistic about maintaining a cordial conversation with Mr. Trump. He offered olive branches to Mr. Trump, including a book about golf. He complimented Mr. Trump’s décor in the Oval Office.

He even tried to joke with the president, who had become irate when a reporter asked him about a free plane from the Qatari government.

“I am sorry I don’t have a plane to give you,” Mr. Ramaphosa said to Mr. Trump.

“I wish you did,” Mr. Trump replied. “I’d take it. If your country offered the U.S. Air Force a plane, I would take it.”

Mr. Trump seemed more intent on relaying the talking points from leaders of Afrikaner lobbying groups, who have traveled to the United States repeatedly over the years to gather support for their claims of persecution. When one of those groups met with Mr. Trump’s top aides this year, the White House identified them as “civil rights leaders.”

May 20, 2025May 20, 2025

Tuesday/ pink and white 🌼

Here’s a bunch of cute little Santa Barbara daisies from my walk tonight.

May 19, 2025May 19, 2025

Monday/ stamps from Great Britain 🇬🇧

These stamps were on the envelope that landed in my mailbox today, mailed from the suburb of Northwood to the northwest of London.
(The Trump tariffs do not seem to affect my purchases of stamps on Ebay from overseas vendors. These are just envelopes with stamps in, though. I’m not sure what will happen if I order new albums and pages from overseas that come in a proper package).

Clockwise:
**Merry Christmas**
Issued Nov. 2, 2004
Perf. 14½x14 | Design: Raymond Briggs | Engraving: De La Rue | No Watermark
2238 BPD1 1st Class | Multicolored | Santa with red suit looking at sunset
**25th Anniversary of Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme**
Issued Aug. 12, 1981
Perf. 14 | Pair of stamps with gutter | Design: P. Sharland | Phosphorized paper | Litho. | No Watermark
1163 638 18p Greenish yellow, magenta, pale new blue, black, cobalt & gold | Woman at pottery wheel (“Skills”)
**Folklore**
Issued Feb. 6, 1981
Perf. 15×14 | Design: F. Wegner | Phosphorized paper | Litho. | No Watermark
1144 620 18p Dull ultramarine, lemon, lake-brown, bright green, black & gold | Morris dancers ‘A Merry May’
**British Wildlife**
Issued Oct. 5, 1977
Perf. 14×15 | Design: P. Oxenham | ‘All-over’ phosphor | Litho. | No Watermark
1043 522 9p Reddish-brown, grey-black, pale lemon, bright turquoise-blue, bright magenta & gold | Badger (Meles meles)
**Millennium Stamps**— **Life and Earth**
Issued Apr. 4, 2000
Perf. 14¼x14½ | Design: Post office artists | Engraving: De La Rue | No Watermark
1837 BBX 2nd Class | Multicolored | Ecos Nature Park, Ballymena, Northern Ireland
[Sources: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1 Volume 1 British Commonwealth 1998, stampword.com]

May 18, 2025May 18, 2025

Sunday/ Carlos wins in Rome 🎾

Congrats to Carlos Alcaraz (22, 🇪🇸), winning the Italian Open today, against his old nemesis and world No. 1 Jannik Sinner (23, 🇮🇹).
The score was 7-6 (7-5), 6-1.

Here’s Matthew Futterman writing for The Athletic:
In one sense, this was one of the most predictable outcomes of the season. Sinner entered the tournament coming off a three-month anti-doping ban. Alcaraz, the Roland Garros champion who grew up on the red clay of Spain, had won the Monte Carlo Masters, reached the final in Barcelona, and then taken the Madrid Open off to nurse an injury. He came to Rome ready and rested, while Sinner arrived understandably not match tough enough to live with the player with whom he has split the last five Grand Slams.

Still, over the past 10 days, Sinner had played some of the most scintillating tennis of his life in front of an Italian crowd that wrapped him in their arms and powered him to a frightening level. He met the newly elected Pope Leo XIV one day. The next, he played what was statistically the best match of this season and the last on the ATP Tour, in annihilating Casper Ruud 6-0, 6-1.

The Italian Open champion with his trophy.
[Posted on X @alcarchive]

Here’s a few stills of the Alcaraz forehand. (The comments below are all mine, and I hope I describe the Alcaraz forehand more or less accurately.)
Alcaraz uses a semi-western grip, which is a popular grip on both the men’s and women’s tours— but one which I was not taught as a junior tennis player.
We used the “greet the tennis racket” grip (the continental grip), which is a fundamental grip also used for serves, volleys, and overheads.
[All stills made from a video clip by the TennisTV streaming channel]

It’s all in the timing, split-split-second timing. This is not golf with a stationary ball. That ball comes in at 80 mph, sometimes, and Carlos is in position, and now whipping his arm around, and rotating his upper body.

The racquet head meets the ball way out in front of his body, and this picture makes it look as if the strings are vertical or even angled up a little bit ..

.. but no— a rotation in the wrist and jumping up from the clay enables him to brush the racquet face completely over the ball, giving it a fierce topspin.

The ball is flying back. The completion and follow-through of the whip shows that the side of the racquet head that hit the ball is now facing completely down.

May 17, 2025May 17, 2025

Saturday/ a battery of Teslas ⚡

A battery of Teslas filled up the driveway, while their owners walked down the two blocks to Elysian Fields Brewery for burgers and beers tonight.

Deep blue metallic Model 3, the new ultra red Model Y and the new quicksilver Model Y.

May 16, 2025

Friday/ just fixing the antenna 📶

Happy Friday.
I bought a few 1960s magazines at the Friends store in the Seattle Public Library for a dollar each on Monday.
This cartoon is from The Saturday Evening Post of Sept. 9, 1967.
(That would be the Empire State Building. It opened on May 1, 1931).

May 15, 2025May 16, 2025

Thursday/ a postcard from Japan 🇯🇵

These days, stamps from Japan is one of my favorite searches on EBay.
I couldn’t resist this beautiful postcard and stamp from 1921 that was offered for just a few dollars.

**50th Anniversary of the Establishment of Postal Service in Japan in 1871**
Issued Apr. 20, 1921
Perf. 13 x 13½ | Uncoated paper | Engraved
164 A47 3 sen violet-brown Ministry of Communications Building, Tokyo
____________
Translation of the Japanese text on the postage stamp:
At the top 貳拾五年紀念奉祝 (Nijūgo-nen Kinen Hōshuku) – “50th Year Commemorative Celebration”
At the bottom 日本郵便 (Nihon Yūbin) – “Japan Post”
三銭 (San sen) – “3 Sen” (Sen is a sub-unit of the yen, used until 1953. Following World War II, the yen lost much of its pre-war value as Japan faced a debt crisis and hyperinflation)
Bottom right: 大日本帝國政府印刷局製造 (Dai Nippon Teikoku Seifu Insatsu-kyoku Seizō) – “Manufactured by the Printing Bureau of the Government of the Empire of Japan”
[Sources: stampworld.com, Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue 2017, Vol. 4, Chat GPT]

May 14, 2025May 14, 2025

Wednesday/ a story with a long tail 🐁

From capenature.co.za:
One of the Western Cape’s most mysterious mammals, the Boosmansbos long-tailed forest shrew (Myosorex longicaudatus boosmani), has made a reappearance, 46 years after it was last recorded!

The Boosmansbos long-tailed forest shrew (Myosorex longicaudatus boosmani)
[Photo by Cliff Dorse, posted on capenature.co.za]

Conservationists from CapeNature, Grootvadersbosch Conservancy and Helihack, together with volunteer biologists, were ecstatic at finding one of these tiny mammals on the edge of a pristine forest patch on CapeNature’s Boosmansbos Wilderness Area.

First described in 1979 by scientist Nico Dippenaar, the shrew was recognised as a unique subspecies, geographically isolated from its relatives by the Gouritz Valley. Its limited known range, combined with forest habitat loss and climate change, led to it being listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2016.

Nico Dippenaar, the scientist who first described the shrew in 1979 and recognised it as a unique subspecies, geographically isolated from its relatives by the Gouritz Valley.
[Photo from capenature.co.za]

Armed with Dippenaar’s habitat descriptions from his published account of the shrew, the team embarked on their fourth attempt in four years to find the shrew. Dippenaar, now retired, wished the group luck and fondly referred to the species as “a bit of a darling”. The survey took place from 3-6 May, with the shrew found on 4 May.

Previous attempts to catch the elusive shrew using standard rodent live traps had been unsuccessful, and it was hoped that a new method – pitfall traps – would be more rewarding. But getting all the necessary gear up to the remote wilderness area, with no vehicle access, was a challenge.

Fortunately for the team, Helihack came to the rescue. This initiative is focused on safeguarding the protected area from invasive alien pines, using helicopters to reach otherwise inaccessible areas. In partnership with CapeNature, Helihack has already made huge strides in addressing this threat to the World Heritage Site. The team were airlifted to a wilderness campsite and then hiked down to set 76 pitfall traps across various habitats.

Each trap was prepared with bedding, shelter, and the occasional earthworm. At first, the traps yielded nothing—but one of the final traps revealed a small mammal with a 6 cm tail, unmistakably the long-lost Boosmansbos long-tailed forest shrew. Weighing just 13.7 grams, it was measured, photographed, and released unharmed into its forest habitat.

Left to right: Dominique Coetzee and Makoma Mpekwane (CapeNature Conservation Officers, GVB), Dr Andrew Turner (CapeNature Restoration Ecologist), Dr Marienne de Villiers (CapeNature Faunal Ecologist), Cliff Dorse (biologist).
[Photo from capenature.co.za]

This remarkable discovery was made possible by a group of enthusiastic, motivated, and skilled partners working together to achieve a range of biodiversity goals—from conducting surveys to managing invasive alien plants—all in an effort to keep the superb Boosmansbos in a healthy state for all to enjoy. A genetic sample of the shrew will now be analysed to clarify its relationship to lower-altitude relatives, while further research is needed to better understand its life history, behavioural ecology, and the status of its only known population. Intensive surveys of other forest patches may yet reveal more about its distribution. But for now, it’s enough to celebrate that the special shrew of Boosmansbos is still alive and well!

May 13, 2025May 14, 2025

Tuesday/ inside the new Y⚡

I tagged along for a test drive in a new Tesla Model Y today.

The cabin inside feels familiar to the old model Y’s, but it has a number of upgrades, of course. The inside is quieter, for starters, with double pane glass all around now. The console has been upgraded, with a second smaller screen for those in the back seats. (The same media— radio station, game, movie— plays on both the front and back screens, but the vents and air conditioning for the back can be adjusted separately on the second screen).
Check out the lavender LED accent stripe that runs around the dashboard and windows. It can be set to any color, or to white, or turned off altogether).
The materials used for the dashboard and inside are mostly not top-notch, but seems good enough. Everything fancy costs extra money, right?

All right. Now we’re heading north on I-5, with the Full Self-Driving (FSD) (Supervised) engaged (the blue line on the console).
The FSD is getting better and better and performed well at intersections. Things can still get complicated when trying to get the car to pick a parking space in a parking lot, or when a vague destination is given to the car, such as just to go to a large shopping mall.
The drive mode stalk on the right of the steering wheel was taken out, and the console is now used to engage Park or Drive or Reverse. (The turn signal stalk is still there, on the left of the steering wheel.)

Yes, you are very cute, Grease Monkey 🙊 .. but we are just going to wave back at you and drive on by.
Our car does not use gas and oil – Yay!

May 12, 2025May 12, 2025

Monday/ downtown Seattle 🏢

I had lunch at the Washington Athletic Club in downtown today, and took these pictures.

The **U.S. Bank Center building** between 5th and 6th Avenue is 44 stories tall and opened in 1989.
I had worked inside it on occasion— once upon a time, and years ago now. The American Eagle clothing store that used to be in the domed structure on the corner is long gone.

There are still lots and lots of empty storefronts downtown.
This used to be the **Nike store** in downtown Seattle (formerly NikeTown), on 6th Ave and Pike St. It closed down permanently in January 2023.

A line of lavender taxi cabs at the entrance to the **Sheraton Hotel**. (So yes, they are still in business and have not been completely supplanted by Uber drivers).

Here is where I had my lunch, on the second floor.
It is open to **Washington Athletic Club** members only, and I was invited by a member of the club 🤗.

Done with lunch and now I am snapping a few more pictures on the way to the Seattle Library.
The **Skinner building** was built in 1926 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I love the detail on the frames above the entrance.

A close-up view of **Park Place building** on 6th Avenue.
It is a 21-story office tower built in the 1970s and fully renovated by international architect and tenant Gensler in 2012. Is this an example of brutalist architecture*? I wondered.
*Brutalist architecture is a style known for its use of raw concrete, bold geometric forms, and functional design, often characterized by a rough, unadorned aesthetic.

The **Crowne Plaza Seattle-Downtown** on 6th Ave is a 34-story hotel that was built in 1980 and renovated in 2019.
That’s the Park Place building from the previous picture, in the reflection.

Looks like **Seattle International Film Festival 2025** is about to start. That first frame on the film negative below is from the 2023 romance/drama movie Past Lives. (I have seen it and I liked it a lot).

Arrived at the **Seattle Public Library**‘s entrance on 5th Avenue, and I’m taking the obligatory shot (obligatory for me) of the diamond pattern of the outside frame.

Done in the library and waiting for the G-line bus. In the reflection is the 1928 building of what is today the nine-story **Executive Hotel Pacific**.

And here comes the **G-line bus** on Spring Street, to take me back up to Capitol Hill.

May 11, 2025May 11, 2025

Sunday/ Mother’s Day 💐

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms!

May 10, 2025May 11, 2025

Saturday/ 30 days gone ⌛

“It’s really not at all clear what it is we should do”
– Fed Chair Jay Powell explaining at a news conference this week why the Federal Reserve Board decided to keep interest rates steady (instead of cutting them)

We are 30 days into the 90 day-hold that was announced by Trump for the (ridiculous) reciprocal tariffs on April 9. Now he ‘might’ lower the rate from 145% to 80%.

And what were the tariffs before all of this insanity?

Average US tariffs on Chinese exports now stand at 124.1 percent. These tariffs are more than 40 times higher than before the US-China tariff war began in 2018 and are already 6 times higher than the average US tariff on China of 20.8 percent when the second Trump administration began on January 20, 2025.
[Source: Peterson Institute for International Economics]

May 9, 2025

Friday/ the woodpeckers visit 🪵

Happy Friday.
Mr. and Mrs. Woodpecker* came by today.
They were looking for ants in the cracks between the cement pavers on the sidewalk.

*They are northern flickers (Colaptes auratus)

May 8, 2025May 8, 2025

Thursday/ the new Pope ⛪

VATICAN CITY — Habemus Papam! The world’s 1.4 billion Catholics have a new leader — Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, the first American-born pope.
Prevost, 69, is originally from Chicago and has chosen the papal name Leo XIV. He was most recently the head of the dicastery responsible for the appointment of bishops and the archbishop emeritus of Chiclayo, Peru.
– Senior Reporter Alexander Smith writing for NBC News

The new pope on the balcony in Vatican City.
[Still image from NBC News]

A 2018 tweet from Cardinal Cupich, archbishop of Chicago at the time, that was retweeted in 2018 by the new pope.
At the time in 2018, Robert Prevost was bishop of Chiclayo, a city in Peru. He became an archbishop in January 2023, and a few months later pope Francis made him a cardinal.

May 7, 2025

Wednesday/ irises 💜

I found these bearded irises on my walk tonight.
Similar-looking ones online are called ‘Stepping Out’, and that may be what this white-and-purple variety is called.

May 6, 2025May 6, 2025

Tuesday/ felt like summer 🌳

It felt like summer today.
The high was near the record for this day on the calendar:
78°F (26°C) today, and the record is 81°F (27°C) recorded on May 6, 1957.

There will be cooler weather again for the rest of the week.

May 5, 2025May 6, 2025

Monday/ different by a hair 📏

I updated this page in my stamp album today.
I added a new line of ½ penny springbok stamps, from 1947.
Only a very finely calibrated ruler will show the ¼ mm size difference between the printed designs of the stamps issued in 1937 (18½x22½ mm), in August 1947 (18¼x22¼ mm) issue and in November 1947 (18×22 mm).

A quarter mm is only one one-hundredth of an inch!

The postal authorities tried to squeeze in a little more white space between the stamps in the 1947 printings, for the perforation machine.

I added in one more line with ½ penny springbok stamps, and pushed the red 1d Dromedaris* ones onto the next page.

*The “Drommedaris” was a Dutch ‘jaght’, a type of sailing vessel, built in 1645. It was operated by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) from 1645 to 1661. The Drommedaris played a significant role in the establishment of a halfway stop for VOC ships on the trade route between Europe and the East Indies.
Ultimately, the Drommedaris’s voyages to Table Bay led to the establishment of a crucial trading post and settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, in what would become the Mother City— the city of Cape Town, South Africa.

May 4, 2025May 4, 2025

Sunday/ humming along ⚡

Here’s a Hummer EV SUV that I found on the street tonight.
It made me look up the history of the Hummer, as well as a picture I had taken in Chicago of a Hummer stretch limousine.

Here it is (information gleaned from Wikipedia):
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV; colloquial: Humvee) rolled into service in the US military in 1985, and saw widespread use in the Gulf War of 1991.
The Hummer H1 was released for the civilian market in 1992, followed by the Hummer H2 (2002-2009) and a Hummer H3 pickup truck (2005-2010). There was a Hummer HX open-air, off-road prototype concept car in 2008, and a prototype plug-in hybrid in 2009.

It was only in late 2021 that the GMC Hummer EV (badged as HEV) made its debut, though— a line of battery electric heavy-duty vehicles produced by General Motors, and sold under the GMC marque.

Here’s the GMC Hummer EV. There’s a HUMMER EV 2X (2 electric motors) and a 3X (3 electric motors) but I don’t know which one this is. I believe this color’s name is Tide Metallic. Look for H-U-M-M-E-R in the small headlights under the hood.
Hard to say exactly what this beast cost its owner, but it must be close to $100k, or even more than that.

Here’s a Hummer stretch limousine from 2005, in downtown Chicago, Illinois.
A Hummer H2 was cut behind the cab, and the chassis was extended to create a passenger section for more than a dozen passengers.
There is surely a mini-fridge inside as well, to chill a bottle of champagne, or two— right?

May 3, 2025May 3, 2025

Caturday 🐈‍⬛

Copy cat.

May 2, 2025May 2, 2025

Friday/ another week, done 📆

It was beautiful outside today (68°F/ 20°C).
I walked down to Capitol Hill library to return two books, where I found the latest issue of The Atlantic on the magazine rack, with some unsettling writing inside (see below).

In the upside-down place we find ourselves with the Trump administration, it’s almost a positive that his 42%-or-so approval rating after 100 days in office is the lowest of any modern US president.

P.S. The US stock market held up surprisingly well this week, and April’s jobs report showed a gain of 177,000 jobs, exceeding expectations. Unemployment remains steady at 4.2%, and average hourly earnings rose modestly.