¡Nouveau nom!

Even Koffi's excited.

Postage Stamps from the Periphery, Part II

At long last, here's some more stamps from the remote, random, and no-longer-existing nations and territories of the world.

We'll go alphabetically......

Borneo

Borneo is the second largest island in the world
(definitions are important here), and is currently
shared by Indonesia and Malaysia. Back in the day, of
course, nearly all of it was the territory of the
kingdom of Brunei. The deeper history of the island
can't really be summed up in a paragraph (read: too
lazy to transpose), but it seems to have been one of
those British colonies retained solely for the
economic gain of the British [fill in territory here]
Company... oh wait, that's all of them. Still, cool.

/"Payau" meens deer. Apparently the highest cave
entrance in the world is on Borneo, to a
cave called Gau Payau. Inside it's roughly 5 times
the size of St. Paul's Cathedral. Damn.
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Cuba

I'm not going to get too bogged down here, either,
because Cuba isn't really the periphery per se. Most
of the other stamps not pictured here are fairly similar,
featuring a) beautiful women, b) tobacco/cigars, or c)
revolutionaries. Um, hell yeah.


Maximo Gomez - One of the foremost generals in the
Cuban war of independence last century. Although he
could have been president, he declined to run because
he didn't feel like a Dominican-born man should lead
Cuba. That's what I call integrity.

Jose de la Luz Caballero - Renowned Cuban professor,
once attempted to construct a magnetic observatory on
the island. Later founded the first Cuban university.

Jose Marti - Everyone likes to think Che Guavera was
some kind of Jesus figure for Cuba and pays capitalist
American dollars to hang flags with his picture on
them in their dorm room, but it was Marti who was
behind it all. After being charged with treason by
the Spanish government, he left the
country, published the Montecristi Manifesto
proclaiming Cuban independence, returned with Maximo Gomez
to lead the war of independence, called the US "the
Goliath of the Americas", and was later killed.
Havana's airport is named in his honor.

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Gilbert and Ellice Islands

Discovered by the British in 1764, these islands became a protectorate only in 1892, and later were proclaimed a full-blown colony in 1912. Not much goes on here, though; they were occupied briefly during WWII as a central base during America's island-hopping campaign, and eventually declared themselves two different independent nations (Kiribati and Tuvalu) in 1974. Like many former colonies, these islands were bound only in name, not by any shared culture or ethnicity: the inhabitants of Kiribati are of Micronesian descent, the Tuvaluans Polynesian.

Interestingly, Kiribati is likely to become the first nation ever to file suit in a court of law against the United States for damages incurred by global warming. Most of the nation is only several feet above sea level, and if current trends continue, the country will literally be swallowed by the sea.

Kiribati is also the first nation to enter the new year.

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Gold Coast

Now known as Ghana, the Gold Coast was settled by Britain in 1821, although Portuguese settlers had been using the area as an exclusive trading zone for decades. Obviously it was originally named for the extensive mineral wealth in the northern interior, but as time went on the value of the slave trade in the area surpassed gold as the prime economic motivator for retaining it as a colony. Several wars between the British and the native Asante tribe were fought over the course of the 19th century.. you can guess who won. Eventually it was officially recognized as Ghana upon its independence in 1957, becoming the first "black" African nation to achieve independence. Although there were several political upheavals over the ensuing decades, it's now a relatively stable and prosperous democracy.

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Greenland

Greenland is actually a self-governing Danish territory, although it was held by Norway up until 1815. Apparently there were a few spats involved with the handover, as Norway considered most of the country no man's land and refused to leave; one of the International Court of Justice's first decisions of its existence was to grant the territory to Denmark. The head of state is officially Queen Margerithe of Denmark, although it's administered by a 31-member parliament. The capital is called both "Godthaab" and "Nuuk", which are both fucking rad names for a city.

I don't really know who is portrayed on this stamp, but I have a hunch it's Frederick IX, former King of the Danes.

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Iceland

Most people can identify Iceland on a map, but beyond Bjork, most people don't know a damn thing about it. It hosts another sweet capital city, Reykjavik, and is home to the oldest parliamentary body in the world, the Althing, founded in 930. The entire population (296,737) is less than that of Richmond, Virginia, but from what I gather, the Icelandic people possess one of the keenest senses of modern style in the world. Do your own research on that one.

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Malta

Like Iceland, everyone vaguely knows Malta. I can't really think of a single interesting thing to say about it, except that it hosted a pre-historic civilization that predates the Pyramids in Giza by nearly a millenium. Hot shit? I think so.

I was given several more Maltese stamps by a dear friend, but couldn't locate them at the time of scanning. One of them had a motorcycle on it.

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Manchuria

Northeast China. Neat but kinda boring.

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As you can probably gather, I've grown tired of typing. Next post will start with Mauritius....

Eat my butt, Mr. Congressman

Over the past 24 hours I've been reading a lot about all these Congressmen donating all their ill-gotten gains from Abramoff to local charities.

First and foremost, they're all a bunch of shitheads. Secondly, I've noticed that all these charities are for some lame cause like "inner-city children", "women's shelters", and "hunger". Come on, assholes. Give the money to some real causes:









"Rounding out the ongoing trend of high-ups dumping cash received from embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA) has just announced a $10,000 donation to Amnesty International..."

a-ha. ahahah hahaha. Shitheads...

Une petit découverte...

God bless you...

Alpendub