Multi racial city states have a wealth of choices of cultural influences to explore. Here you get to explore it in regards to traditional music instruments, So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp issue consisted of two Indian instuements, two Chinese, and one Malayan. You have to cut it off somewhere I suppose, but a certain colonial power might feel left out.
Todays stamp is issue A22, a 1 cent stamp issued by independant Singapore on November 10th, 1969. It was a five stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 used.
The origin of the Mridangam drum in ancient south India. The name comes from an amalgamation of the Sanscrit wods for clay and limb. The early drums had bodies made of clay. On modern versions this material has been replaced by wood from the jackfruit tree. Before use, a creamy gum is applied to the leather to enhance the bass sound of the drum.
A relief from an Indian Temple showing how the drum was played. Modern doctors sugest instead mounting the instuement on a stand because this way can cause a serious form of scoliosis.
The instument is most often played in the performance of Carnatic music. A small band of a singer, a violin, a mridangam drum, and a guitar like instument called a tampura. The melodies performed are called ragas, The have both composed and improvisation sections. Listen here. https://youtu.be/S_frNc_CHho.
The world center of this type of music is Madras in India which hosts annual weeks long festivals of Carnatic music. I can find no evidence of such festivels in Singapore, though it is taught in local music schools, but there is a farely large one in Cleveland, Ohio.
Well my drink is empty, Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.
The Vikings traveled far and wide both for war and for trade. To do this they invented new techniques in shipbuilding that managed light weight and ocean seaworthyness, often goals in conflict. In this stamp issue, Denmark went beyond the long ago by including a modern tanker to imply the tradition continues. That was so in 1970. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The light colors, perhaps faded over the last 52 years, do not make the modern supertanker image jump out. The image does make the ship seem quite large. Sort of strange as traditional Viking shipbuilding emphasized compact size and low weight/water displacement. Perhaps to imply that shipbuilding is bigger and better than ever. You can’t fault the Danes for optimism.
Todays stamp is issue A134, a 90 Ore stamp issued by Denmark on September 24th, 1970. It was a four stamp issue on Viking shipbuilding with this new ship getting the highest denomination. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 mint or used.
Scadinavian shipbuilding began all the way back in the Bronze Age, as also shown as part of this stamp issue. It is thought that the geography of Scandiavia with long coastlines with many natural ports compared to interiors of high mountains, was condusive more to sea travel than by land.
The Vikings designed ships with wood that overlapped the adjoining piece of wood that allowed a higher bow. The wood peices were riveted together by wrought iron that added much stiffness. The resulting ships proved capable of crossing the north Atlantic ocean while other Bronze Age shipbuilders we building for the peaceful Mediterranian Sea.
A modern Viking ship replica
Scaninavia eventually broke up into modern nation states. So where did that leave the shipbuilding industry. At the time of this stamp in 1970 not bad. Ships, now almost all comercial, were being made for the worldwide market. Japan and South Korea were also coming on strong. However knowing Danish workers earned higher salaries than Asian competitors, the Danish government subsidized the shipbuilders so the product could still compete.
In 1996, the government subsities to Danish shipbuilders came to an end. Within four years the three largest shipbuilders in Denmark had closed at the loss of over 10,000 direct jobs.
There was an old Viking tradition that upon the death of an important person. a votive offering to the Gods would be made were the dead person would be sent to sea alone on a ship except with household goods and perhaps his also sacrficed dogs, horses, and maybe even a serf. A supertanker like on the stamp to some is an image of ecological sin. Thus that the shipyard that built it has been sacraficed and repurposed as a windfarm for clean energy is perhaps pleasing to the Gods in keeping with Viking tradition. It is just too bad the old workers had to play the part in the passion play of the old dogs, horses, and serfs.
Wind Energy has gone beyond the old shipyards. Here are offshore wind farms that have been Christened the Thor project
Well my drink is empty. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. Also have a Happy Easter!
In modern times TB kills a million and a half people a year. That is 15 percent of the people that catch the active form of it. So progress in fighting it deserves to be honored, even a 100 years later in the form of German physician Robert Koch. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
There is a lot going on on this stamp with a portrait of Dr. Koch, lab equipment. and even a rendering of the TB bacteria growing on a lad culture. Not sure the rendering in black and white was the best choice. It resembles a pre painting artist sketch rather than a finished work.
Todays stamp is issue A948, 2.60 Franc stamp issued by France on November 13, 1982, the 100th anniversary of Dr. Koch isolating the bacteria that causes tuberculosis. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.
Tuberculosis seems to have originated near the Horn of Africa around the time the first man also originated in Africa. Africa is still the most likely place to find an outbreak. Luckily 90 % of the people that catch it get the latent variety that can’t be passed and has no symptoms. The bacteria attacks the lungs and causes shortness of breath, bloody flem, night sweats, and weight loss. The weight loss is why the disease was traditionally called consumption.
Building on the earlier work of Bengamin Marten who postulated that consumption was caused by a micro organism that is itself alive in consumption sufferers, German Robert Koch tried to isolate the tiny organism. The goal was then to grow the bacteria in a lab from which a vaccination could be developed. Working with Koch was Mr. Petrie of Petrie dish fame, so one can see how new this stuff all was. Koch announced that he had succeeded in 1882 and soon he won a Nobel Prize for his work.
A drawing by Robert Koch, or the TB bacteria
It was not without controversy. French rival Louis Pasteur claimed that the fact that the bacteria was present did not prove causation. The rivalry got quite nasty. The real beef was that the two men had rival TB treatments in testing and the one that was accepted would get rich. Unfortunately neither solution worked as hoped.
In this corner, Robert Kochin this corner, Louis Pasteur
In fact, Koch’s Tubercullan treatment actually made the disease worse. You are after all injecting someone with more of the bacteria from which he was already sick. Koch tried to keep secret the negative results and when he was found out, he was fired from his German government supported lab in Berlin.
There is now a vaccination for TB, but it is considered too dangerous to give unless one is already exposed to an outbreak. The treatment today is to administer antibiotics. As with many other bacteria caused diseases, over time the bacteria becomes itself more resistant to antibiotics that don’t change over time.
Well my drink is empty. I wonder if I have been a little hard on Robert Koch. His discovery was important and being human, can he really be blamed for trying to cash in on the discovery? Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.
Here is a fun style of modern stamp. The watch out for the Boogeyman stamp, where a country uses the post to warn it’s citizens of a danger. In this case it is the danger of an industrial worker getting electrocuted when mishandling electric wires. So you know, watch out! Also slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, trying not to set your self on fire, take your first sip of your adult beverage, but only the first sip because accidents happen to the tipsy, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp was part of a three stamp safety series. So what hazards did Spain choose to warn. The funniest one is the one where a cartoon style construction worker is falling from great height. Luckily he seems to be falling into a net but what makes it especially funny is his hard hat falling off. We must mandate chinstraps. The other hazard is fire.
Todays stamp is issue A647, a 16 Peseta stamp issued by Spain on January 25th 1984. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint or used or which denomination in the issue, The low value shows there are not enough topical collectors of nanny state issues.
Deaths from man made electricity first happened in 1879. Arc lighting had an early application in the lighting of a theatrical stage and the first death happened when a stage carpenter touched a 250 volt wire. Soon the high voltage arc lighting was becoming common for night lighting of streets and deaths from touching the wires mounted. Interestingly it was noted that the deaths were near instant and left no marks on the body.
A more modern xenon arc light. Tread lightly.
This quickly lead to the idea of an electric chair as a humane form of execution for criminals. The first use of the electric chair was in the 1890s in New York. The first use was kind of a fiasco. William Kemmler had been sentenced to death for killing his common law wife Tillie with a hatchet. He was shocked with 1000 volts for 17 seconds and declared dead by a doctor. Then witnesses noticed that he was still breathing and the prison warden had the chair restarted at 2000 volts and Kemmler’s body caught fire and the room was permeated with the smell of burning flesh.
Man in electric chair awaiting execution. Nice he wore his Sunday best.
In regard to how common accidental electrocution is in the workplace, the answer is not very. There was a study of five years of electrocution deaths in the Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences. Who could have imagined there was such a thing? The methodology was the autopsies on 4000 unnatural deaths. 15 percent of the deaths were by burning and 15 percent of those were caused by electrocution. Every case was accidental. They found about half of the deaths were at home and only 22 percent in the workplace. Doing the math we get that about .5 of one percent of the unnatural deaths in Egypt are caused by accidental workplace execution. Usually the culprit in the death was handling small appliances. Maybe it is time for Egypt to do a stamp on this.
One interesting detail coming from the Egyptian study was that almost 90% percent of the electrocution deaths were of males, most commonly between 18 and 40 years of age. For once it wasn’t women and minorities hardest hit. You can read the study here, https://ejfs.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41935-018-0103-5
Well, my drink is empty. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.
Here we have a statue honoring Romanians and Soviets that fought against fascist forces in World War II Romania twenty five years later. In 1990, it was repurposed to honor World War I fallen. So going from some of sacrificed in the second war to all those sacrificed in the first war. Confusing isn’t it, but creating statues is dangerous stuff in the modern. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The stamp artist Aida Costantinescu had a challenge. The monument honored communist partisans of two countries, Romania and the Soviet Union. However the stamp might mean more to people if it was more inclusive to include all the fallen. Perhaps that is why the Romanian flag is obvious, but the Russian flag is faded and seems just like a red background. Perhaps if similar care had been taken, the monument might not have been disturbed upon the next revolution.
Todays stamp is issue A658, a 55 Bani stamp issued by Romania on the 25th anniversary of VE Day. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents cancelled to order.
Statuary is a temporary thing. As the Red Army approached in 1944, the Romanian King Michael had Prime Minister Antonescu arrested and appointed a new communist Prime Minister. Antonescu was killed by firing squad after a show trial. The bending with the wind did not save King Michael he was forced to abdicate when the Prime Minister pulled a gun on him. Rough place, but the regime like that is going to be very particular about who it wanted honored.
In the 1990s after the 1989 Revolution, the statue was repurposed but allowed to stand in honor now of less contreversial fallen of World War I. The nearby masuleam that was part of the complex had the remains of the fallen communists replaced by WW 1 remains taken from the main monument of that war.
During the same period after 1989, at least a half dozen statues of firing squad victim Ion Antonescu went up. This time he was revered not just by right wingers but communists who felt left out of the post war government. Apparently he was now a strong leader.
The overkill firing squad for former Prime Minister Antonescu. With that much living in their brain, was post execution rehabilitation inevitable?
This also didn’t last, and like 1945 by decree. Romania wanted to join the European Union. Like the communists of 1945, they had definite ideas on who an EU country could honor, and that did not include Antonescu. The Romanian government was forced to hire a committee led by Ellie Wiesell to put together a case that Antonescu was anti Semetic and responsible for Jewish deaths. Upon receipt of the report, Romania enacted a law against new statues of Antonescu and requiring old ones removed. Of the six statues, one was removed and another was encased in a metal box. With the other statues, private property was claimed.
Other statues went up after the 1989 revolution. Unfortunately, the modern are better at taking down statues instead of creating new ones. A statue meant to illustrate the Romulus and Remis story of the she wolf nursing the Roman leader instead just resembles a naked guy being chased by a stray dog, a common occurrence in Bucharest, but hardly worth a statue. It was later taken down.
Naked man and stray dog statue
Another was the statue commemorating the 1989 revolution. It is meant to convey an idea crystalizing simultaneously among a large crowd. What was built however resembles an obelisk impaling a potato.
Impaled potato statue
Similarly the base of a former statue of Lenin has gone through 17 itinerations since Lenin was removed. Perhaps the eighteenth should just put Lenin back in his place, understanding it was one period in a long history.
Well my drink is empty, Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.
North Korea has always had the ambition to be an exporting nation. To help bring that about, a fleet of maritime cargo vessels was acquired, often from abroad. Now with sanctions on North Korea, as a result of the country’s nuclear program, there can no long be stamps showing off assets, lest they be seized. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
North Korea did later have a new stamp issue of Korean ships in 2013. The lead stamp was a ship that did dinner cruises.
Todays stamp is issue A952, a 5 Chon stamp issued by North Korea on May 5th, 1978. It was a five stamp issue showing various cargo ships, freighters, and tankers belonging to North Korea. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.
The ship on this stamp is the Hyok Sin. It was built in Japan at Mukaishima Shipyard in 1971. The name is a Korean male name but the only prominent Korean with that name I could find was a soccer star born 21 years after the ship was built. The ship served for 33 years before it was broken up in China in 2004. The Hyok Sin 2 still exists but is not of the same design.
An earlier time when the Hyok Sin was free to roam. It is here seen in Rotterdam in 1980.
The North Korean merchant fleet is managed by a government owned company called Ocean Maritime Management. In 2001 North Korea was named part of the axis of evil by the United States. By 2013 sanctions became universal and United Nations enforced. The sanctions apply directly to Ocean Maritime Management and even the administrators of the company are subject to having their bank accounts seized.
To try to get around the sanctions, North Korean ships now have often changing names. Also shell companies based out of Hong Kong are given theoretical title to the ships. The North Koreans have a sense of humor about it. Among the names chosen for the shell companies are “Trendy Sunshine Limited” and “Advance Superstar”.
It now being almost impossible to acquire new ships from the outside and the fleet aging and indeed shrinking due to ships being seized, North Korea has begun to try to build their own ships. The former ship repair facility at Ryoungnam is now a full shipyard although the output is quite small. The third vessel, the Jang Su San was launched late last year. It was not registered with the International Maritime Organization.
The new to the water Jang Su Sin.
Well my drink is empty. I wonder if Russia is about to receive the same treatment as North Korea. By the time the cancelers are done, perhaps every nation will have been given the same treatment. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.
Laos did something interesting. They gave you a window into the origins of the subway system of several important world cities. This allows you to contrast the different timeframes, ideas for technology, and methods of management. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist,
This is a farm out issue from a country that has no subways in country. Thus perhaps such an issue better belongs with the United Nations Post Office.
Todays stamp is issue A262, a 15 Kip stamp issued by Laos on January 9th, 1993, the 130th anniversary of the worlds first subway. The issue contained five stamps plus a souvenir sheet that contained a sixth, otherwise unissued stamp. The metros of New York City, Berlin, Paris, London, and Moscow were featured. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint or used.
This stamp shows off New York’s system, so that is what we will cover. The subway got previewed in two ways. In 1869, Alfred Ely Beach invested $350,000 dollars to construct a 300 foot long, one station pneumatic subway as a demonstration of what could be done. 400,000 people paid to ride it. It took four years to gain approvals from the city to expand it. However in 1873, there was a stock market crash, and Beach was unable to raise the capital needed and he closed the demonstration.
The Beach Pneumatic transit demonstrator. He did manage to build it in 58 days. try that now.
Around the same time the terminus in Queens at the site of the ferry to Manhattan of the Long Island railroad went underground after it was required to not locate the steam train at street level. At first it was just a cut but was later roofed over. Walt Whitman waxed poetic about how going underground gave a wonderful feeling of entering a big city. The use of this tunnel ended when the borough put a large tax on locomotives and the tunnel was sealed up. Later the knowledge of the tunnel underneath became fascinating to the police. During World War I, they dug into it expecting to find a bomb making operation by German spies. In the 1920s, it was again dug into and searched hoping to find a large scale distillery during alcohol prohibition. Nothing was found either time, That was for the best, imagine how bad that water to make the whiskey would have been.
By the 1890s it was realized that it would have to be the government to build a large subway system serving all the boroughs. It was going to be an electric railroad and the timing meant there was an interesting technology choice. At the time there was a current war between the companies of Thomas Edison and of George Westinghouse over how electric current should be delivered. Edison promoted a direct current DC. Westinghouse’s alternating current AC eventually won out but to this day the New York City subway still uses Edison’s DC direct current.
The subway built out rapidly and peaked out in 1946 at over 2 million annual riders. There was a lot of inflation in the post war period and reorganizations to cut cost did not succeed. The 5 cent fare went to 15 cents in a six year period and ridership dropped a third. This put on unending hold on any expansion plans. The citizens could see the system deteriorating and twice passed bond initiatives to modernize and expand the system, however the money raised was syphoned off for other projects.
Starting in 1954, there was a new New York city planner named Robert Moses. He emphasized parks and highways for suburb commuters to easily get into the city by car. Since poor people of the period did not have cars and were also housed in more large subsidized housing projects that were assessable by the subway but had little car parking, this was hoped to keep crime only in certain neighborhoods. This strategy was later vilified by liberals as racist and when Moses was opposed to a plan to redirect bridge tolls into the city to fund subway shortfalls, he was fired by liberal Republican mayor John Lindsey. The vilification of Moses went so far that a liberal biographer claimed that Moses had tricked his mother into excluding his brother from her estate. It turned out that Moses’s brother was a drug addled bum and his mother had made the decision herself. After Moses budgets then went up but so did crime and ridership continued to drop.
Robert Moses with a model of a commuter bridge that never got built.
Well my drink is empty. With modern standards and small construction crews, it gets ever more difficult to build a new subway. Elon Musk through his operation, “The boring company” is trying to invent new technology for underground emission free travel. Obviously boring has a double meaning to Musk, but I don’t think it’s boring and I hope he is able to pull it off. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.
North Yemen’s Rassids Royal House was forced out in 1962 and the Mutawakalite Kingdom abolished. On the other side of the world in 1963, American President John F Kennedy was assassinated. It is kind of strange then that a Mutawakalite postal authority would issue a stamp on JFK’s memorial opening in Virginia in 1967. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The story of how this stamp came to be begins with an American child stamp collector named Bruce Conde. He wrote a letter to then North Yemeni King Ahmad hoping to be sent real Yemeni stamps. He got a letter back from then young Prince Badr who was also a stamp collector. The two became pen pals and eventually Conde was invited to North Yemen. He converted to Shia Islam and was decreed a Yemeni citizen. In 1962, King Ahmad died of natural causes and Badr became King. Before the stamps of North Yemen could reflect having a philatelist King, Nasser’s Egypt funded a coup by the Royal guard that forced King Badr and Bruce Conde out of the capital Sana. From mountainous areas of the country, King Badr, with the support of Saudi Arabia was able to maintain an insurgency. Bruce Conde was authorized to issue stamps to raise funds for the insurgency. Eventually the Saudis tired of the lack of success and made peace with the recognized Egyptian backed government. King Badr went into exile in London where he died in 1996. Bruce Conde was left without a country as he renounced USA citizenship and North Yemen renounced him and his stamps. He moved to Morocco.
King Badr in 1962 during his short time on the Throne
Since this stamp is fake, there is no catalog value.
What to do about a grave memorial for President Kennedy was an area of discussion after his death. The family initially intended to have him interred in the family cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts. His died soon after childbirth child Patrick had been buried there a few months before. The widow Jaqueline Kennedy however had other ideas. She wanted him buried in a valley at Arlington National Cemetary that Kennedy had found peaceful during visits there. She also insisted on an eternal flame. This was inspired by two things. An eternal flame for France’s fallen soldiers at the Arc de Triumph she had seen on her Paris trip. Also the T. H. White book Candle in the Wind that was the basis for the play Camelot, a family favorite. Many thought the eternal flame tacky, but thought it would be wrong to go against the widow’s wishes.
Jacqueline Kennedy contracted family friend and landscape architect John Warneche. There was a simple New England style black granite headstone flat to the ground of grass with the body facing the Washington monument and in the shadow of Arlington House, the former home of General Robert E Lee. When the three acre site was ready in early 1967, John F Kennedy and two children died in infancy were interred. Later they were joined by Senator Robert Kennedy after his own assassination and later by the widow Jacqueline upon her natural death in 1996 and Senator Edward Kennedy in 2009.
The grave stone and eternal flame at Arlington National Cemetery. Robert E Lee’s former family home is in the background.
The Eternal Flame went out briefly twice. Once when a group of Catholic schoolchildren sprinkled holy water on it. Later during an exeptionally heavy rain the electric gas igniter was flooded and shorted out. In 2012, the igniter system of unique design started clicking loudly and was replaced while keeping the flame going.
A real American stamp honoring President Kennedy’s eternal flame
Well my drink is empty. I think I will have another since a nice story was found from even a fake stamp. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. Next week’s won’t be fake, I promise.
This is a great semi modern stamp. It gently and unthreateningly reminds how things once were. In doing so, it subtly reminds the 1987 Tory who he is, and maybe where a controversial Thatcher fits in. Pretty cool for a small piece of gummed paper that proves you paid the postage fee. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Todays stamp is issue A359, a 31 Penny stamp issued by Great Britain on September 8th, 1987. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 65 cents whether used or unused.
The first view, on the left, is of the Prince Consort Albert Memorial in London. Prince Albert was a large influence on Queen Victoria, preaching progress, a less political Monarchy, and more looking out for the common man. Prince Albert died young at age 42 of typhoid fever, and for the 40 years remaining in her Reign, Victoria wore black.
Victoria had the final say on what type of memorial should be. What was chosen was a bronze statue protected by a ciborium canopy as in a gothic church. It was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott, a noted period gothic revival architect. The grounds near the Albert Hall had aligorical representations of the people, ideas and places important to Prince Albert. Showing the many aspects of Albert’s life, the Memorial gives a sense of his importance to the era.
The bronze Albert statue under the canopy. The book he is holding is the guide to the London Exposition he was so involved with.
The other two scenes are related showing a ballot box and long time but off and on Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. As more people had a say on their political representatives, Disraeli sought to imbue his party with a common set of principles so they would no longer just be vessels used by an individual politician. For the Tories he advocated a one nation conservatism that combined preservation of the institutions, with a program to uplift the common man. On this Disraeli and Victoria were simpatico.
Interestingly the one nation also had an aspect of including outsiders in the one nation. This perhaps comes from Disraeli’s Jewish heritage although his father had converted the family to Anglican when he was 12. As Prime Minister, There was much British involvement in trying to role back the declining Ottoman Empire. Disraeli would probably point to the Suez Canal as a benefit of the policy. It is not hard to see the British, Anglican power being used to move along the idea of a modern Jewish nation state in the then Ottoman territory of Palestine. Well when you include outsiders their goals become your goals. Indeed the current Tory manifesto expands the idea of one nation conservatism to a one world one. Are you sure about that one guys?
The Right, Honourable Member of Parliament Damian Green. He is the current Tory head of the One Nation caucus.
Well my drink is empty and this stamp allows for three additional toasts. To Victoria, to Albert, and Mr. Disraeli. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.
90 percent of the schools in Haiti are run by foreigners. The 10 percent of schools run by the government are for the elite and teach a French curriculum designed to prepare the student for overseas university. How is some sort of reform possible when 80% speak Creole. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp doesn’t look like much and that is pretty reflective of the then current state of education. Haiti had a desire to design a local education system. However qualified local teachers who get paid regularly is not an asset of Haiti. So what to do? Put some lipstick on the pig and kick the can down the road.
Todays stamp is issue A132 a 1.5 Gourde airmail stamp issued by Haiti on August 12th, 1969. The top three values of the issue were airmail stamps. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 80 cents unused. There is a canceled value implying at least Haiti had a system of airmail at the time. The Haitian postal system is even worse than it’s education system. The last stamp issued that is not considered bogus came out in 2003. In 2000 the last airmail stamp came out in the form of a new surcharge on a stamp from 1968.
Haiti won it’s independence from France in the early 19th century. The new constitution proclaimed a right to a free, compulsory public elementary education. What limited budget there was in Haiti were directed at a few schools for the elite in the capital modeled on French schools so the elite will be prepared for a French or Canadian University. In the early 20th century there was an American occupation of Haiti attempting to collect Haitian debts. The education system was redirected to more Creole areas and instead of book learning concentrated on personal hygiene and farming techniques with American teachers. 10 years after the Americans left, Tuskegee University, a black school in Alabama checked up on how the American schools were doing under Haitian control. They found a return to a French curriculum but unqualified teachers and no books. Interestingly the Education authority actually had gotten written in French a local geography and science textbook.
Things got a little better under the father and son Duvalier regime. Instead of committing money they didn’t have, they simply required the many foreign missionaries to have an affiliated school if they wanted to operate a church. This finally got more children in school. Younger Duvalier also tried instructing the children in Creole the first year before introducing the French alphabet the second year before teaching in French the third and the last fourth year. This is what was being celebrated on the stamp but ended at the end when the dictator was overthrown.
The interesting thing is that public as well as private local for profit schools charge the student’s parents a fee. For this reason, Haitian schools are jokingly called lottery schools because you buy the ticket and if you beat the odds, your child learns something. A recent President tried to stop the habit at least at the public schools but it did not work. Without the parent paid fee, there was no money coming into the school and it evaporated.
Nice counterfactual. Studying vector calculus in Haiti.
There is a public university in Port au Prince named the State University of Haiti. It got it’s start all the way back in 1860 and according to the brochure it has advanced under a system of trial and error in a backdrop of hardship. Where to sign up?
As part of a system of trial and error, former USA President Bill Clinton hands out nursing degrees at the State University of Haiti.
Well my drink is empty. Perhaps via trial and error we should learn not to overpromise on stamps as they seem so sad later. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.
