Like most people of my generation, I learned that Eli Whitney, who invented the cotton gin (and who is featured on today's #stampoftheday, was one of America's "Great Men." What I didn't understand or know then is that Whitney's legacy is, to say the least, mixed. Whitney, who was born on December 8, 1765, was honored …
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Sometimes a thin stamp contains layers of meaning. Today's #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp issued on December 9. 1948 that pictures Joel Chandler Harris, is one of those stamps. Before I started writing this post, I didn't know who Harris was. But it turns out I am indirectly familiar with his work because Harris, who was born …
"I know all about refugees," Sesame Street's Grover tells "Deputy Secretary Tony Blinken from the State Department," in a marvelous, now-viral video made in 2016. (Google it if you haven' seen it!) "You do?" asks Blinken, who President-elect Joe Biden will nominate to be the next US Secretary of State. "Of course I do," Grover replies. "They …
I haven't thought about Jean Shepherd for a long time. But there was a time - I think it was when I was in junior high school - when, like many adolescent boys in metro New York, I couldn't get enough of him. You may know Shephard are the voiceover of and inspiration for the movie …
Poor John Jay. He's an important founding father. But he's often overlooked or forgotten. And today he's displaced by poinsettias, the Christmas season's ubiquitous potted plants. You see, today's #stampoftheday was going to be a 15-cent stamp, issued on December 12, 1958 that pictured Jay, who was born on December 12, 1745. I would have written …
"What does labor want," asked Samuel Gomers, who is pictured on today's #stampoftheday. "We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate …
Consider the following, which appeared in the December 14, 1952 edition of the Sunday New York Times: "Philatelists, an impatient species in the hobby world, are prone to consider attention to their demands as one of their own special human rights." So wrote Kent Stiles, who from 1937 until his death in 1961 wrote a weekly …
For obvious reasons, the 5-cent stamp honoring "Amateur Radio" that is today's #stampoftheday made me think of the "Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map," an amazing website curated by David Goren, my talented brother-in-law. An award-winning radio engineer, Goren has been tracking these stations since the mid-1990s. In July 2018, he launched the sound map, which now …
From badly needed toilet paper to much desired outdoor heaters, many households have been relying on a variety of services to deliver the items they need, or think they need, during this year of the pandemic. The services are so ubiquitous that it's easy to overlook the fact that the U.S. Post Office Department only …