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Japan 2001, Showing off Nikko’s temples now that it is a world heritage site and not merely a national treasure

This stamp was part of a series of souvenir sheets that celebrated historic sites around Japan that were now recognized as world heritage sites. I often make fun of the United Nations for fecklessness, but this is one of the best things they do. Recognizing what is important culturally and historically  and speaking above politics and with one world voice for the preservation. 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.

One can see from the detailing how much care was taken to show these stamp subjects in the best light. This stamp issue comprised six sheets of 10 stamps each. Think of the effort that must have gone in to getting just the right photo and then making sure that it is going to show properly on a small postage stamp. Now add the detailing for the rest of the souvenir sheet. Now combine that effort 60 times over and remember this is all just one stamp issue of many. Good job, Japan.

Todays stamp is issue A2129, an 80 Yen stamp issued by Japan in 2001. Each of the 6 souvenir sheets contained 10 stamps and showed views of the UNESCO World Heritage site in a certain locale, in this case Nikko. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents individually used. The full sheet of 10 is worth $18. All the six sheets and all the individual stamps have the same stated value.

The Nikko temple and shrines complex was built in the 17th century. The 103 buildings of the complex include 3 temples, two of which are Shinto and one of which is Buddhist. The buildings are still under the ownership of their respective religious organizations. The whole complex is surrounded by an old growth forest that dates from the time of the buildings. They are considered to be great examples of the Edo period of Japanese architecture and are quite reverential to Shogun Tokugawa leyasa. This period is important because at the time Japan was united but closed off to the outside world, with the exception of a small Dutch trading post. The growth of a new aristocracy led to decorations from this period to be notably elaborate.

Yashamon Gate, Nikko

Japan applied and was successful in applying for the UNESCO declaration of the importance of the site at Nikko which was granted in 1999. Already back in 1950 the whole complex was declared a national treasure that limited changes that could be made. The site is blessed in that it has never gone through a period of being looted or neglected. In 1957 the old growth forest that provides such a strong background and context to the site was made a national park to avoid development.

The biggest threat to a complex like this is fire and this is where changes were allowed. Sprinklers and hydrants now abound and there is a designated fire brigade.

Well my drink is empty and I will happily pour another to toast Japan for doing such a good job with their heritage sites and their stamp designers for highlighting the effort. Come again tomorrow for another storythat can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Congo 1969. President Mobutu just before he became Authentic

Sometimes dictators can be fun when viewed from afar. President Mobutu wanted his country to be more authentically African. So he picked a Portuguese name to replace the Belgian one. He wanted a whole new style of clothes and found inspiration in China. Some of the changes though could have only come from him. 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 was a long running series of stamps. They lasted through the renaming of the country to Zaire. The launch of the new currency also called the Zaire, the renaming of President Mobutu and the devaluations of the new currency. The post offices were still selling you versions of this stamp after this style of dress had been banned by the country. The country got it’s moneys worth from the De la Rue design.

Todays stamp is issue A127, a three Franc stamp issued by the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1969. It was a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused. There is also an imperforate version of the stamp, but the value only rises to 30 cents.

Joseph Mobutu was born in 1930 the son of a hotel maid that had escaped the harem of her home village chief and his father was employed as a cook of a Belgian judge, The judge’s wife took a liking to Joseph and taught him to read and write in French and when his father died secured a place for him at a Catholic Boys Boarding School. Joseph ran away to the capital Léopoldville with a girl but when the priests caught up to him, he was done with the school and joined the colonial Askari army. In the chaos that followed independence Mobutu was made a high officer as was done with many Askari corporals. Mobutu became President in a coup in 1965.

At the start of the 1970s Mobutu got serious about remaking the Congo more legitimately African, a common theme then and now. He was counseled by a Portuguese anthropologist on the importance of the Congo River to the country. He hit upon the anthropologist’s mispronunciation of the Kikongo word nzere. He realized that  in many tribal languages Zaire would be understood as the the large river that swallows the lessor ones. Mobutu decided on the the three Zs with Zaire becoming the name of the river, the country, and the new currency. The President also required the Priests in the Catholic country to stop Baptizing with western names.

The renaming got to Mobutu himself. He dropped the Joseph and added Sese Seko. His full name now translated to,” The all powerful warrior, who because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake” The evening newscast began with a graphic of Mobutu descending from heaven. During this time the newscast was not allowed to name any other person just the title they held.

The style of clothes also changed. Mobutu was inspired by a 1972 trip to China and their style of dress. He designed a abacost, which translates into “Down with the Suit”. It was often worn with a toque hat and was to replace the coat and tie. Mobutu’s were tailor made for him in Brussels.

President Mobutu wearing his Abacost and toque

Eventually Mobutu’s popularity declined and in 1990 he was forced to allow some opposition figures into the government. For some strange reason they got the enforcement of the new rules suspended. When Mobutu was overthrown and replaced by Joseph Kabilla, the African authenticity program ended and the country reverted to it’s old name. The opposition was sure Mobutu had stole billions but after his death they only found 3 million dollars. I bet he spent it all. Kabilla turned out just as bad a ruler as Mobutu but was even worse as he completely lacked style.

Well my drink is empty. I wonder if Mobutu was still around would he be quarantined in one of his palaces only wearing the top half of his abacost while live streaming. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Canada 1997, Canada gets ahead of the game by delving into supernatural goblins while still in the 20th Century

Attracting kids to the hobby is a goal of the creators of stamps. Here we have Canada with comic book style images of vampires, werewolves, goblins, and ghosts. This stamp issue in now over 20 years old. At some point will we realize that stamps should tell us about their part of the world and give up trying to catch the eye of the never collector. 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 need to write things out in two languages was clearly a challenge. The writing had to go up two sides and leaves the image of the goblin off centered. Makes you wonder how it came when you bought a sheet of them. I presume they were attached together as standard horizontal stamps as I have chosen to have mine photographed. I usually base this decision on the direction of the denomination. The stamp designer is perhaps inviting the sender to affix it in a diamond shape. Judging by the cancellation on mine, the user was confused or unnoticing and put the stamp sideways.

Todays stamp is issue A681, a 45 cent stamp issued by Canada on October 1st, why not 31st, 1997. It was a four stamp issue all in the same denomination. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used. Canada had issues on serious subjects that same year and the low valuation is the same according to Scott. Not sure if this means that this stamp failed to attract the kids or just all the stamps failed to attract.

The image of a goblin as a miniature monster goes back far in European folklore. The word comes from the Greek Kobalos. Others think the word derives from a diminutive of the French name Gobel. Either way he a treacherous and sneaky character who lives in a hollowed out rock. He can take the form of a Gypsy King in Moldovan fiction or as a green arch rival of Spider Man in the comics or even as a banker in the Harry Potter universe. Watch out in Scotland for the goblin wearing a red hat. It is red because it is dipped in blood. He often accosts a traveler, perhaps giving the useful advise to be aware of your surroundings while in a strange place.

In modern times, the goblin has been a continuing part  of the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons. A player may face a combat encounter with a goblin or an orc, which in older fiction are the same thing. The game master periodically is to role the dice and consult a random encounter table as to whether a questor will face an goblin while travelling. The percentages change based on the terrain being crossed. Fighting off the goblin wears down the player costing him valuable hit points and forcing him to use up his healing potions.  I am more a Avalon Hill game player than D & D. Random encounters with goblins became less popular in video games as players found them annoying and repetitive. The Tales and Final Fantasy series’ have dropped the random goblins.

Final Fantasy, now random goblin free. Take note postage stamp designers!

Well my drink is empty and and I hope to be leaving you wondering about your random encounter with a new postage stamp when you visit The Philatelist again tomorrow.

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Housekeeping, Join me in trying to get used to the new WordPress theme

John C Publisher

There was a php update yesterday that caused an outage and forced me to change the theme to get the site going again The functions that used to be on the side bar are now on the bottom if you scroll down. Change is hard. The ads seem fewer which is an improvement but still keep an eye out for them.

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Germany 2005. Die Brucke, For 100 years there has been a bridge, should you take it?

“We call all young people together, who carry the future in us, we want to wrest freedom of our actions and our lives from the older comfortably established forces”. This was from the manifesto of the young German expressionist art group that this stamp remembers 100 years later. The group called itself the bridge, but was that really the only bridge to take? Might there have been another that uplifts the viewer of the art not just the artist. 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.

Look at the darkness of this woodblock image on the stamp. An underage girl, not trying to make a record of her innocent beauty, but rather how she appeared in the twice her age artist’s den of “free love”. Was the artist made better from the experience. Was the young girl. Was the viewer of the art. Or are we all just a little dirtier.

Todays stamp is issue A1174, a 55 Euro cents stamp issued by Germany on May12th, 2005. It was a single stamp issue. According to Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 75 cents used.

Around 1900, there was much innovation going on in the Paris art world. Where does that leave the artists of other places. To a group of German artists toiling away at their upper middle class University this was an opportunity. They were not interested in creating traditional art. Rather they wanted to to do a more German version of what was going on in Paris with the Fauvists. Typical not as smart as they think they are out of the box thinking that is really pressing up on the box. There were of course paintings, but they went back to pre Christian Germany and sought to recreate the old woodblock art of that time. To banish their minds of their upper class comforts, Die Brucke rented a former butcher shop in the seedier side of Dresden. The studio justified their mostly underage subjects by saying the bodies are less damaged by the corsets of period mature women. Also more fun to have in a free love den where nudity was encouraged.

Self portrait of the artists of Die Brucke. Notice the pink factory outside the window to give them that “men of the people” look.

Most of the artists of the group faded away into jobs in academia. Their art, though remembered, was not commercially successful in the period. As the young rebels matured they faced a different Germany that was as denouncing of them as they were to their parents. The style of art was branded un German, anarchist, and Jewish, some of the artists were some weren’t. The Nazis were or course wrong about so much, but I am not sure they were wrong about Die Brucke.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast those that push back against the drive away from civilization. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Saint Kitts & Nevis 1920, The Society of Adventurers survives the Bloody Point thanks to Barbe

Saint Kitts and Nevis are islands in the Leeward chain that are only two miles apart. The portraits of British King George V show him in an explorative mood, so why not learn a little of the colonies founding. 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.

These issue of stamps show the King in various adventurous poses beside his official profile. This is perhaps in keeping with the colony being founded by a Society of Adventurers acting with a Royal patent. Most would not have thought of George V as an adventurer. Philatelists knew different. The King had put together one of the world’s great stamp collections. To do that requires more than a little adventure.

Todays stamp is issue A3, a half penny stamp issued by the Crown Colony of Saint Kitts and Nevis in 1920. The two islands now have separate stamp issues. This was a thirteen stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $6.00 used.

Before Europeans found the islands, there were three groups of Indians that had occupied the volcanic islands. Not much of known about the first group called Sibony because they left behind no relics of having been there. The Taino people followed about 800 AD but were believed to be fewer in number. Lastly the islands were conquered by the Caribe Indians, who were quite warlike, and perhaps because so, were again fewer in number. Christopher Columbus was the first European to spot the islands on his second voyage and later Sir Francis Drake visited. One early British explorer that did well financially from his visit was Bartholomew Gilbert. He did not try to set up an outpost but rather collected samples of exotic plant life and their seeds that he then traded back in Britain. He had done the same thing on Cape Cod in the USA.

In 1620 three British gentlemen received a patent from King James I to colonize the Leeward Islands. They formed a Society of Adventurers and arrived on Saint Kitts with 15 settlers in 1623. They found Caribe Chief Tegremante agreeable to selling some land. Tegremante already had a steady business offering refuge to Frenchmen needing a place to hide. The first years tobacco and vegetable crop was mostly wiped out by a hurricane that September but the colony survived. In 1625 a heavily armed French warship arrived and both the Society of Adventurers colony and the Caribe came to terms with the French presence. They were heavily armed. When Cardinal Richelieu heard of the success, he formed a French company to exploit Saint Kitts and bought 60 slaves in Senegal  for it.

Chief Tegremante decided in 1826 there were too many Europeans and slaves on his islands and began quietly bringing in extra Caribe warriors to raid the French and British settlements. A native woman named Barbe warned the Society of Adventurers what was about to happen. The settlement then invited the Caibe for a large party where the liqour flowed freely. Then overnight they themselves raided Chief Tegremante’s camp when they were not in a position to know what hit them. Most of the high chiefs including Tigremante were killed.

The next day the thousands of Caribe warriors were angry but in disarray. At a place now called Bloody Point there was a large battle. 2000 Caribe and two hundred settlers died. Several more settlers were left insane from injuries sustained. The Caribe had been dipping their arrows in a poison from the machineel tree. It was decided jointly with the French to remove the remaining Caribe to Dominica. Barbe was allowed to stay. This is portrayed today as a genocide among those steeped in sore loserism.

The Society of Adventurers merged into the Royal African Company in 1664. The French company also merged into a larger one in 1665. After that relations between the French and British settlements on Saint Kitts deteriorated. In 1666 at the battle of Sandy Point the French were defeated and the British had the islands to themselves. The new company management was more about profit than adventure and the main cash crop moved from tobacco to more slave labor intensive sugar cane. The planters became rich, and Saint Kitts was the richest colony per capita in the British Empire at the time of the American Revolution. That number of course requires you to not count the many slaves and count the Jewish planters of Spanish heritage as British.

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

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Egypt 1953. Big changes coming for farmers, small farms but a big dam and even a new valley

After the end of the Monarchy, Egypt has been governed by the top down but in the socialist style. That as meant land reform and giant projects to turn the deserts green and get agriculture beyond the Nile Valley. 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 was the first issue of stamps after Egypt became a republic. On them we have a modern farmer, a modern soldier, and an ancient profile of Queen Nefertiti. The farmer had the task of feeding locally a fast growing population. A soldier, finally local who would keep out any would be colonials. An ancient Queen, a strong contrast to the recently deposed and a reminder of when Egypt was important in the world. Not bad for a first issue.

Todays stamp is issue A109, a three Millimes stamp issued by the Egyptian Republic in 1953. This was a 19 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 45 cents used.

Agriculture in Egypt used to center on raising cotton in the Nile Valley mainly for export. The British had built a much smaller dam at Aswan in 1903. After the republic was declared there was a large scale land reform. Farm size was limited to 190 feddans. A feddan is about the size of acre and comes from the Arabic for the yoke of an oxen. That is the area than an oxen can be expected to till in a period of time. The government was trying to discourage cotton in favor of food grains. It was important so less food would have to be imported and population was rising fast. That population meant a further land reform in 1969 that now limited farms to 50 feddans

The Aswan High Dam was completed in 1970. It increased arable land by about a third. There was still big problems with irrigation. Over use of wells caused seawater intrusion into the aquafers and the government became ever more concerned of water usage. In the mid 1980s the drought in Ethiopia caused water levels in Lake Nasser to fall to scary low levels. Then God/Allah smiled. The water level in the 1990s rose beyond the amount governed by the Nile deal with Sudan. This water was free for Egypt to use as it saw fit.

Starting in 1997, work started on  a new canal running west and then north from Lake Nasser for a length of 200 miles. The idea was that the New Valley project would open new land to live in and be available for agriculture and industry. Construction was slow going but in 2005 a new large pumping station named after President Mubarak started sending water up the part of the canal already dug and as well to a new series of lakes named Toshka after a former village now at the bottom of Lake Nasser.

The change in government in 2011 saw progress on the New Valley stop. The project was labeled a boondoggle and could never work due to the ever present problem of salt intrusion and evaporation. The soil near the canal also suffers from much clay, The current government under President el-Sisi restarted work. He has pledged that half the newly useful land be given to recent college graduates one feddan each if they agree to use it. The plan is funded by something called the Long Live Egypt Fund.

New Valley Canal

Agriculture has changed again in recent years. As with other countries like China with large populations and limited farmland, it is realized that grains are poor uses of scarce land compared to fruits and vegetables. Dates and figs of course but also onions, eggplant, strawberries and watermelon. Around the time of this stamp, 87 percent of Egyptian exports were cotton. Now agricultural exports are down to 11 percent.

Well my drink is empty and I hope dear readers you are enjoying this kick I have been on lately of turning deserts green. I had no idea how many projects there were to do such things that seem so antithetical in this time of climate doom. Not the kind of story I expected to learn from stamp collecting. Come again tomorrow.

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Austria 1976, Remembering Rilke and his thing poems translating Rodin

A recurring theme that keeps coming up in what we learn here through postage stamps is what a productive period there was in the arts in the first decade of the 20th century. Here we have a Bohemian poet who was so taken by how sculptor Auguste Rodin studied a subject before sculpting it he became his secretary and used what he learned to develop a new type of poetry, thing poems. 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 image on the stamp is an accurate one of a dark mysterious bohemian figure. Quite apart from the aristocracy of Vienna in Rilke’s time. Yet this fellow, born in Prague who accomplished most of his best work in Paris and Zurich is being portrayed as Austrian. This is based on the borders of then Austria Hungary of the time. This was from 1976 before the EU was actively began minimizing Euro nations differences. To American eyes, it seems a little odd.

Todays stamp is issue A465, a 3 Schilling stamp issued by Austria on December 26th, 1976. It was a single stamp issue on the 50th anniversary of Rainer Maria Rilke’s death. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Rene Maria Rilke was born in Prague to wealthy parents. His mother was distraught over loosing Rene’s older sister at ten days of age. She treated and dressed Rene as a girl. When Rene’s parent’s marriage broke up, his father sent him to military school in hopes of toughening him up but Rene dropped out. At 16 he was on is own. He took up with a much older married female psychoanalyst Lou Andreas Salome. She made Rene a frequent travel companion visiting European artistic salons. She helped him prepare for University examinations and encouraged him to change his name to Rainer to be more masculine. After University in Switzerland he made is way to Paris. He married and stayed married to sculptor Clara Westoff but they were separated for most of their marriage.

Rene Andreas Rilke as a feminine child
Rilke mentor, patron and lover Lou Andreas Salome

In Paris Rilke became the secretary of sculptor  Auguste Rodin. He also wrote a biography and an academic presentation on Rodin. Rodin made extremely in depth studies of his subjects before sculpting. This inspired Rilke to change the style of his poems from the subjects of romance or loneliness to long poems that very closely and realistically described things. The subjects of his thing poems were often flowers and written as sonnets and mostly written in French.

As with many other creative types in that period, World War I intruded. He was banned from Paris and his apartment there was raided with his possessions taken and auctioned off due to his Austrian citizenship. In Prague, he was deeply depressed and desperately trying to avoid military service. His beliefs became more left wing and political. In 1916 he was able with rich patronage to get established in a Swiss mansion. He was a big proponent of the Bavarian Soviet Republic but took it hard when it failed. In the early 1920s, there was finally another productive period for his poetry before succumbing to poor health from leukemia that ended his life in 1926.

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Israel 1989, Floating in the Dead Sea, ironically great for the health

Israel has become a top tourist destination. The area is quite historic in three religions. No Muslims don’t travel there but the sites allow others to explore the Muslim sites without threats from being non believers. Israel also offers a hospitable Mediterranean climate and so has been trying to branch out to the beach party crowd. This stamp also hints at the unique experience available at the natural wonder of the Dead Sea. 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 from 1989 does a good job  of showing there was more to do in Israel than visit historic sites. Temperate beaches are also on offer. Tourism got going in Israel by offering Christian centered tours of sites from early Christianity. This was a bigger business than the visits of Jews. Visiting beaches can add a new dimension to expand the industry and has been a goal all the way back to 1989.

Todays stamp is issue A434, a 60 Agorot stamp issued by Israel on March 12, 1989. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents whether used or unused.

Tourism is a big and growing business in Israel. It employs over 300, 000 workers and generates about 6 percent of GNP and export revenue. Over 60 percent of visitors are Christian and many from the USA. Recently the country has been welcoming more visitors from poorer parts of Europe like Romania and the Ukraine. Also Chinese tourists are becoming ever more common. There is no mention in the literature of visitors from Muslim countries. Perhaps that will soon change with peace being admitted with the Gulf States that have recently become so important to international air travel.

This stamp promotes visiting the Dead Sea which at first seems a hard sell. The Dead Sea lies 1200 feet below sea level and consistently has very high temperatures and little rainfall. The Dead Sea name comes from the very high salt content of the water preventing any sea life. The salt content of the water is not from being so far below sea level but rather the very high evaporation rate which takes the water and leaves the salt.

Enough of the negative though. The consistently high temperatures and low humidity can offer some relief for sufferers of lung ailments such as asthma. The fairly unique thick atmosphere over the Dead Sea allows helpful UVA sun rays while filtering out burning UVB rays. Thus there is no need for sun screen. There are several beach front all inclusive resorts for those inclined and it is not far from Jerusalem.

Man enjoying the Dead Sea cure while practicing social distancing has required in this time of COVID

There is one thing counteracting the success of tourism in Israel. It is probably in the nature of the Jewish state. With Israelis having  so many ties to other countries around the world; for every dollar Israel earns from tourist, an Israeli spends two dollars visiting another country.

Well my drink is empty and at this time of the year I am more looking forward to temperatures dropping than thinking of a place even hotter. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Qatar 1972, Wonder who Sheik Khalifa will send to the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference

Qatar was a new independent country in 1971. So 1972 was spent joining all the UN Agencies and getting to hear what was in it for them. In the case of the ITU, quite a bit. Swiss leadership had been pushed aside in favor of Tunisian Mohamed Ezzedine Mili, just the man to make sure a new Muslim country would get all the goodies. There is always somebody else to hand the bill to. 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.

Qatar had two issues of stamps celebrating telecommunications, one before independence and this one just after. The first issue showed off existing infrastructure for telecommunications in the UK, including the Post Office Tower. This one features UN emblems and a wish list of not yet existing in Qatar tech like a satellite and a tracking station. To bad Qatar did not go further and replace Sheik Khalifa with the smiling generous face of ITU General Secretary Mohamed Ezzedine Mili. The people had a right to know who was playing Santa Claus.

Todays stamp is issue A50, a 1 Dirham stamp issued by the State of Qatar on October 24th, 1972. It was a 6 stamp issue in various denominations showing various UN agencies and what they will be doing for newly independent Qatar. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used.

The ITU was formed by a group of European counties in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union. It is the second longest still operating International Agency. It’s purpose was to standardize telegraphs being interoperable, the use of Morse Code and to ensure access to telegraphs by all. Over time they added radio and telephones to their purview. For the first 80 years it was a Swiss based and run Agency. In 1947, the Agency agreed to be put under the United Nations, and while still based in Switzerland began to be run by various people decided on in huge Plenipotentiary Meetings held every four years at various resorts.

In the early 70s the ITU was run by Tunisian Mohamed Ezzedine Mili. He excitedly marketed the Plenipotentiary Meeting at Telecom 71. Desks were set up to show off the high tech wares available from top companies. Imagine the excitement of a free trip to a Spanish resort only to be presented with a shopping list to be paid for on someone else dime. Makes you proud to be a third world welfare queen while you spit on the usefulness of the original agency. It really puts into context the myriad 1970s middle eastern telecommunication stamps.

Wouldn’t Mr. Mile have looked handsome in Sheik Khalifa’s place on this Qatar stamp

Times and favored areas change. More recently the ITU was run by Hamadoun Toure’ from Mali. After a gratis education in the Soviet Union and a distinguished career in satellites, he started a new program called Connect Africa. It raised $55 billion dollars to improve Africa’s cell phone infrastructure. Now the Agency is run by a Chinaman named Houlin Zhao. No doubt he will come up with a houlingly expensive wish list for China.

Dr Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary-General. The UN always finds the best people

Well my drink is empty and I think I will have another. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.