The stamps are so beautiful, bright and colorful, large and small. They are like seeds blown by powerful winds from all corners of the world, like wishes.
                                             from The Stamp Collector 
                                           written by Jennifer Lanthier 
                                       illustrations by François Thisdale
                                             Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2012
                                 (accessed on YouTube May 29, 2022)
    
    Since my dad was a philatelist, I’ve always been aware of postage stamps. I’ve written about the United States Postal Service (USPS) in this space before (7/28/20 & 2/22/22) and it seems timely to delve back in. 
    Who says our Congress can’t get anything done? Who says they complain, stonewall, won’t compromise, cause gridlock? 
    Last month, on April 6, 2022, President Biden signed the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022, that was delivered to him earlier in the day. Representative Carolyn B. Maloney (D) from New York introduced the Bill on May 11, 2021. On February 8, 2022, the House of Representatives voted to pass, 342-19. One month later, March 8, 2022, after discussion, debate, and a timeout, the Senate voted 79-19 in favor.
    Even though the Postal Service receives no taxpayer funds, it is not allowed to set its own prices. Only Congress can do that. Because of that and an unfair funding burden put into the USPS’s budget in 2006, the Postal Service has been operating in the red to the tune of almost $5,000,000,000.00 (five billion dollars) in 2020 alone.
    The passage of this new law assures the viability of the USPS. It involves money, employee health insurance, and health benefit plans for retirees including enrolling in Medicare when they are eligible. 
    It repeals the unfair requirement that the USPS annually prepay future retirement health benefits. This line alone is responsible for saving the organization $72 billion. In 2006, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a fund to pay for the cost of its retiree’s health care benefits 75 years into the future. Seventy. Five. Years! No other federal agency or private corporation is burdened with this Congressionally-created liability.
    Postmaster Louis DeJoy has been complaining about the un-sustainability of the Post Office since before he was appointed by former president Trump. Within his first month, DeJoy issued orders that slowed mail service. Bills were late. Packages were late. Voting by mail became unnecessarily complicated, controversial, and political. 
    The new legislation relieves a lot of the Postal Service’s debt giving it the financial flexibility to buy new trucks, make mail routes more efficient, and while it still cannot set its own prices, starting in January, 2022, scheduled increases will take place twice a year. The next increase, 2 cents, is scheduled for July, 2022. It will raise the rate to 60 cents for a first class letter. Other rates will also increase. Here's info from the USPS itself.
    It’s time to stock up on Forever Stamps. They are worth the current postal rate no matter how much they cost when you bought them. 
    The Postal Service already cooperates with the US Passport office. Now, the USPS can contract with other more local government agencies to handle dog licenses, fishing licenses, and other non-postal products and services to bring in additional revenue.
    And the new law mandates mail delivery six days per week, allowing for recognized Federal Holidays. 
    Oversight regulations are built in.

    Simply stated, it takes seven steps for a Bill to become a Law. 
1.  Senators or Representatives write, sponsor, and introduce a bill for consideration
2.  A committee is assigned to study the bill. They might request reports, hold hearings, decide on revisions. The committee might decide to recommend to pass the legislation.
3.  The bill is sent back to the full House or Senate for more debate and approval. Amendments can be added.
4.  House and Senate members vote on their respective versions of the bill.
5.  A bill must be passed by the House and the Senate. The two chambers resolve legislative differences through a conference committee. The final compromise is agreed on by the House and the Senate.
6.  When the bill is passed by both Chambers, it is sent to the President to sign into Public Law.
7.  The Office of Federal Register assigns the Public Law a number so it can be codified by subject order. That way all laws on the same topic are together and easy to find. 
    Simple, right?
    Then why is it so hard for our Senators and Representatives to write, sponsor, and present for consideration sensible gun laws? Could it have to do with complaints, stonewalling, refusing to compromise? Gridlock? 
    
    Fifty-eight cents is a small price to pay to let your Senators and Representatives know how important it is to protect our children and other innocent victims of gun violence. If you wait till July, the cost goes up a couple of cents. Still *so* worth the effort, but lots can happen between now and July 1.
    Find your Congressional Representatives here.  
    Find your US Senators here. 
                                      -—stay curious! (and write a letter)    

    That’s it! William pulled out his pad and drew pictures. He scribbled words next to the pictures. He wrote. He wrote. He WROTE! He ran to find the umpire.
    The umpire read William’s notes. “Yes, that could work,” he said.
                                         from The William Hoy Story
                                            written by Nancy Churnin
                                                 pictures by Jez Tuya
                                    Albert Whitman & Company, 2016

    With baseball season in full swing, so to speak, I discovered someone who made such a big impact on the game that he changed it forever.
    William Hoy was born May 23, 1862, in my home state of Ohio. Lots happened three years later. The Confederate States surrendered to the Union Army and ended the Civil War. P.T. Barnum was elected to the Connecticut legislature.
    And three-year-old William Hoy contracted meningitis. 
    As a result, he lost his hearing and speech. When he was old enough, William’s parents sent him to the Ohio State School for the Deaf in Columbus, Ohio, where he learned American Sign Language (ASL) and a love of baseball. He received a traditional education and was valedictorian when he graduated in 1879.
    Even though some people including his own father were skeptical, William did not let his deafness keep him from achieving his baseball goals. He signed his first contract with a minor league team in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, when he was only 24 years old.
    Sometimes pitchers took advantage of William. In one game, because he was too far away to read the umpire’s lips, he didn’t know that his first three pitches were strikes. He thought they were balls. He waited and waited for the next pitch but it never came. Instead, the pitcher burst out laughing and pointed to the stands behind William. They were filled with laughing fans.    
    William was good at making connections. He transferred his knowledge of ASL and adapted it to the baseball diamond. He convinced the third-base coach to raise his right arm if the umpire called a strike, and his left arm if the call was a ball. His suggestion to that third-base coach caught on and changed baseball forever. I think William Hoy would be surprised at how important signaling has become to the game he loved so much.
    Non-verbal signals became more and more popular. They helped fans, too, especially those seated high in the stands who couldn’t hear the calls either. 
    Of course, the purpose of signaling is communication. Umpire signals need to be standard across all the teams in the League. But a catcher’s signal to the pitcher needs to be strategic. And discreet. The catcher tells the pitcher what kind of ball to throw and where it should land. Playing on a particular player’s strengths and weaknesses, the ball/strike count, who’s up next, what inning is being played, how many outs, even weather conditions go into a catcher’s decision.
    That’s a lot of information to communicate and a lot of information to keep secret from the other team. It’s especially tricky when a player is on second base, directly across from the catcher. No one wants the opposing team to be able to “read” those signals.
    This year baseball’s adding a new technology. It’s called PitchCom and it turns a catcher’s signals from a learned and predetermined sequence of finger-flips, points, and wiggles, to his touch of a button on the wrist of his glove-hand. An electronic signal is transmitted through an antenna and changed to a voice signal. A small devise worn inside the pitcher’s ball cap receives the voice signal and sends it to the pitcher’s ear. Verbal but inaudible to most everyone but the pitcher, this could bring signal-stealing to an end. 
    ProMystic is the company that developed PitchCom. John Hankins, the company co-founder, was fascinated by the Huston Astros’ scandal where an electronic devise videotaped catchers’ signals and decoded them by playing them back in real time. Hankins and his team adapted the technology he had developed for magicians and mentalists to baseball. 
    PitchCom is available in Spanish, Korean and Japanese. A less expensive version is being developed for school teams and Little League. 
    After being tested in the Minor Leagues last year, Major League Baseball announced that PitchCom will be allowed for the 2022 season. It is optional, based on the pitcher’s comfort level with the technology and the catcher’s comfort with the learning curve involved in changing flying fingers to tapping buttons.
      I like to watch baseball on TV and listen to all the talk about how the game is played and how well the players and teams are doing. I can see close-up all the wind-ups, the fly-pops, and where the second-baseman spits. And I can share my popcorn with Frances, my cat. 
    This year I’ll keep an eye out for the catchers’ signals. And whether or not there are any.
    I started watching baseball in high school My priorities have changed since then, but the crack of a bat and flying signal-fingers still pull at my nostalgic heartstrings.
    The 2022 season officially started on April 7 and will finish up October 5. Then post-season games will determine who will play in the World Series. Then the series, itself. I’ll probably be shopping for turkey and trimmings by then, but batter up, anyway!
                 -—stay curious! (and communicate your intentions)

    Arthur was making a sign. It said Bikes Washed…Good as New, 25 cents.
    “There is no soap or Brillo,” said Violet. “We have to buy some.”
    Arthur put his money in a bag and they went to the store.
                                            from Arthur’s Funny Money
                                  written and illustrated by Lillian Hoban
                                                       Harper & Row, 1981

    My grandpa (Mom’s dad) had a banker’s set that my brother and sister and I played with when we visited. It was hinged metal and folded out to a three-sided “banker’s window.” A drawer was full of play money, and we’d take turns counting and sorting the coins and bills. Sometimes we’d pretend to buy stuff from each other. 
    Grandpa taught us how to save money. He taught me about interest, too, the money the bank paid me for letting them use the birthday and Chanukah gifts I added to my account. I was little, and I didn’t get how they used it. Giving my money to the bank so someone else could buy a house or a car didn’t make sense to my six-year-old brain. Grandpa never got into the part of the interest equation where the house-buyer or car-buyer had to pay the bank for using its money, which when you think about it could have been mine.
    And when he convinced me to put my collection of silver dollars into my bank account, I did it. I gave my ten silver dollars to the bank teller. He stamped my book with the amount of the deposit. I’m still sad that when I wanted them back, well, let’s just say I learned a little about how you don’t get back the exact same money you put in. I still had ten dollars, but I never saw those beautiful, silver women in their flowy dresses again.
    I like the feel of cash in my wallet and the heft of a pocket full of coins. It is real, solid, tangible. My husband likes to buy everything with his credit card. When he gets his statement, he pays in one fell swoop. Everything’s in one place. One payment and he’s done. 
    When I buy new shoes or have lunch with a friend or a get my car washed, I like to pay with cash. I feel in control. 
     An amusement part a couple of hours drive from my house announced that beginning this season it will no longer take cash. All purchases: parking; rides; food; are paid by credit card or debit card. When your credit card bill comes, you’ll be days or weeks away from the amusement park experience. All you’ll have left are your memories. So, maybe it’s the memories that we are really buying when we spend money to go to a baseball game or a concert or an amusement park.  That’s pretty nice, actually. 
    Cashless venues are becoming more common.
    It’s more convenient, I agree. But most people who rely solely on their credit or debit card spend more than they would if they spent cash. Turns out, a lot more. According to shiftprocessing.com consumers spend 83% more on credit cards than they do with cash. The average credit or debit card purchase is at $112, while the average cash purchase is just $22. Factor in, though, that most people spend cash on small purchases while most large-ticket items go straight to a credit card. 
    Spending cash is final. No debt, no interest accumulation, no paybacks. Spending cash might be safer than using credit, too. In 2018, the identity of 14.4 million Americans was stolen. Stealing credit card information is the way most of this happens.            
    And what about all the people who don’t have access to a bank?
    The latest FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) statistics (2019) show 6.5 percent of U.S. households did not have a checking or savings account. In order to access credit, they need to use an alternate source like payday loans, check cashing services, money orders, pawn shop loans, or borrowing from friends or family. Most of these options come with a heavy interest cost. So while using cash instead of using credit usually means spending less overall, some people just don’t have enough cash. That’s a subject I’ll have to save for another time.
    Now there’s a new way to pay. Actually, it’s not so new. people started talking about cryptocurrency on the internet in 2008. In August, the name bitcoin.com was registered online. Bitcoin’s mission is to create more economic freedom in the world by providing choices regarding a one’s own personal resources. Bitcoin’s complete Mission Statement is here. 
    Enter Satoshi Nakamoto. Maybe a single person or maybe a small group of people, no one knows for sure, Satoshi Nakamoto circulated a white paper (an in-depth report that explains a complicated topic and provides a solution) in 2008, to describe the powerful banks and banking institutions and the public’s distrust of them during the financial crisis. 
    Instead of depending on a bank or lending institution, transactions can use cryptographic proof to verify the movement of money from one person to a corporation like Amazon or a seller on Ebay or Etsy without using a bank or third party as an intermediary. So no check to write. No debit card amount to keep track of. No need to pay off credit card debt.
    “Bitcoin was created so people don't have to rely on government or financial institutions to make financial transactions.” (usnews.com Feb. 4, 2022)
    But cryptocurrency itself is complicated. And extremely volatile, worth thousands of dollars one week, and crashes to almost nothing the next. It’s almost impossible to know how much you have. 
    So, while I don’t have those beautiful, silver women in their flowy gowns in a tangible form anymore, I keep my checkbook balanced and try hard to stay within my means.
                             -—stay curious! (and responsibly generous)

Come Mr. Tally Man
Tally me bananas
Daylight come an’ me wan’ go home.
                                                                    “Day O” 
   from The 2nd Raffi songbook : 42 songs from Raffi's albums 
                           piano arrangements by Catherine Ambrose 
                            design and illustration by Joyce Yamamoto
                                                  Crown Publishers, 1986
     Also watch live performances on YouTube (if you love Raffi)

    Ever since my mom fed me solid food, bananas were on my rejection list. I spit them out every time. There’s not much that I hate, especially when it comes to food, but bananas—yuck! I don’t like the smell, the texture, or mostly the taste, but I love the color. All my grandkids think this is the funniest thing! How can yellow be my favorite color when I hate bananas? They’re yellow! I don’t know, is the answer they always get.    
    My oldest grandson’s favorite color is green. He loves everything green except green beans, okra, spinach, pretty much all the green vegetables.     
     When he was really young, maybe 5 or 6, I had an idea. I told him I’d take a very small bite of a banana if he’d try a green bean. He ate his green bean and waited patiently for me to live up to my end of the bargain. Boy, was that hard. The smell. The squishy-ness. The awful anticipation. 
    I took the smallest nibble I could get away with. YUCK! It was the first time in my life (and the last!) that I actually swallowed a banana, a microscopic bit to be sure, but still.
    So why should I care that bananas might go extinct? 
    The demise of the banana would effect the economies of some of the world’s poorest countries. Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala all depend heavily on their exports of bananas. For export, these countries and virtually all other exporters grow the Cavendish variety exclusively. It is the only kind you find at the grocery store. 
    But that was not always true. Before the Cavendish replaced it, most of the banana exports were the Gros Michel variety. Most people thought the Gros Michel was tastier than the Cavendish. It was definately more difficult to bruise. But in the 1950s, a strain of banana wilt hit the crop so hard that a banana emergency was announced. The Gros Michel variety was declared commercially extinct in 1965. Commercial extinction is when a particular species is so depleted that it is no longer profitable to harvest. 
    The fuel for the helicopters and fixed-wing planes used to spray fungicide and the fungicide itself harm our environment. Pulling off the affected leaves and burning them can (and does sometimes) promote  fungal spread by sending airborne some particles that find their way to unaffected areas. The disease that started in Central America quickly spread to most of the world’s commercial banana plantations. There was no choice but to destroy whole plantations.
    And so the replacement. Cavendish bananas at first seemed resistant to the fungus that wiped out Gros Michel. But now the Cavendish banana is the only species currently being produced commercially, and now it is threatened by a different strain of the same fungus, Panama Black Sigatoka, that thrives in hot, humid conditions. 
    Bananas are the most popular fruit in the world and rank 4th in commodity exports after rice, wheat, and milk. World banana trade totals $2.5 billion annually. An acre of land on a banana plantation can yield 30,000 pounds (15 tons) of bananas per year. With over 1,000 types of bananas, the global market is made up of Cavendishes, exclusively. Cavendish bananas are clones. They are genetically identical. New banana plants are cultivated from an existing root or propagated from a “pup,” a small shoot near the bottom of the plant. They don’t have seeds. 
    Wild bananas *do* have seeds. Black, inedible, unappetizing seeds. Here’s the inside of a typical wild banana. (Scroll about 1/2 way down)   
    Countries that grow Cavendish for export grow some of the other varieties for consumption at home. Some are too fragile to ship. Others ripen too fast to survive the journey. 
    Research scientists are working on a grafting technique that could save the Cavendish. Banana trees lack an internal tissue called the vascular cambium. It is this tissue, from two different plants, that fuse together to propagate a new plant. Now scientists are doing a work-around by grafting the seeds and roots of a banana plant instead for the propagation. If it proves successful, a fungus-resistant banana could be in our, well make that your, future.
    My family likes bananas. When the kids come to visit, I buy bananas for them to snack on or add to their oatmeal. They like banana pancakes, but that’s a step too far for me. Most of the time, one or two bananas are leftover. I peel them and stick them in the freezer till I have enough for banana bread. Here’s the banana bread recipe from my old Settlement Cookbook. (Simon and Schuster, 1965)
    (Almost) everyone loves it! We mark up our recipes. This one has a happy face, a star, and “yum!” next to it.

BANANA BREAD
2 cups sifted flour (I have never sifted flour. The recipe is fine with
          flour straight from the bag.)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter (I only ever use real butter.)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 medium ripe bananas (if you use them from your freezer, let them
          thaw first. Use the liquid.)
1/2 cup sour milk or buttermilk (I use what I have, usually almond milk and add 1/2 teaspoon vinegar or lemon juice.)
    Sift flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, mashed bananas, and milk. Gradually add flour mixture to dry ingredients. When well blended, pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake 350 F for 1 hour. Toothpick or butter knife will come out clean when it’s done. May be doubled. 
                            -—stay curious! (and try something new)

At night, of course the dark went out and spread itself against the doors and windows of Lazlo’s house. … But in the morning, the dark would be back in the basement where it belonged. … and without the dark, everything would be light, and you would never know if you needed a lightbulb.
                                                       from The Dark
                                         written by Lemony Snicket
                                            illustrated by Jon Klassen
                                             Little, Brown & Co., 2013
   
    I usually wake up before the sun. I can use the bathroom, turn on my coffee pot, feed the cats, and find my way to my reading chair before I turn on a light. If I’m lucky enough to have a book downloaded on my Libby app, I can read on my phone or iPad and not turn a light on all morning.
    It’s not that I have anything against electricity or that I prefer the dark. Even though he did not act alone, Thomas Edison was really onto something when he invented the lightbulb. Roads and stores, barbershops, playgrounds, and sidewalks are safer if we can avoid trippers and other hazards as we move through our day. 
    But, let’s step back into history. Remember that kite and key experiment we all learned about in elementary school? Well, turns out Benjamin Franklin didn’t really discover electricity after all. According to an article on the Franklin Institute’s website, people were aware of electricity for thousands of years before that famous experiment. What Ben Franklin (and his son) proved by flying a kite in a thunderstorm was the connection between lightning and electricity.             
    Franklin’s kite was a simple square. He attached a wire to the top to attract lightning to his kite. He attached a length of hemp to the bottom and a silk thread to the hemp. He attached a metal key to the silk thread. Then he waited for the thunder and lightning. When lightning struck the kite, it traveled through the hemp, soaked by the rain, to the silk, kept dry in his hand. When Franklin noticed that the loose hemp strands stood out in every direction, he moved his knuckle toward the key. He felt an electric jolt. Fortunately, he had brought a Leyden jar, a container with conductors on the inner and outer surfaces that become positively and negatively charged. When it is charged, the jar holds electricity. Franklin “collected electric fire very copiously,” as was recounted by a contemporary British scientist, Joseph Priestley. 
    The first constant electric light was demonstrated in Great Britain in 1835. For forty years, scientists and inventors from around the world made improvements to the incandescent light. Basically it works like this. A filament, a slender, threadlike fiber, is attached to the base of a glass bulb. The filament is heated by electricity passing through it. When the filament is hot enough, it glows. It emits light and heat. Only 5% is emitted as light. The other 95% is generated as heat. What a waste! But it was the best we had for a long time. Those early lightbulbs were expensive to produce. The filaments burned for a very short time. 
    Thomas Edison looked for an improvement. It is said he tested “no fewer than 6,000 vegetable growths, and ransacked the world for the most suitable filament material” (Franklin Institute) as he looked for a much longer-lasting bulb that was much less expensive to produce. When asked about his many, many tries to find a better material for his filament, he’s quoted saying, “I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” (Smithsonian Magazine )
    Edison made a carbonized filament of uncoated cotton thread that could last for 14.5 hours. But he and is team continued to experiment with filament fibers. He settled on one made from bamboo that gave his lamp a lifetime of up to 1,200 hours. He received a patent for his bulb that used carbon-coated bamboo filament on January 27, 1880. He continued to use the bamboo filament for 10 years. 
    In 1904, European scientists invented the tungsten filament. Tungsten is a metallic element with an extremely high melting point. Tungsten filament bulbs burned brighter and lasted longer than carbon filaments. Placing an inert gas like nitrogen in a lamp doubled its efficiency to 10%. The vast majority of energy was still being lost as heat. By the 1950s, researchers began to focus their own energy on finding a more efficient solution. 
    The march of progress included neon lights, florescent lights, and CFLs (compressed florescent lights). At first, CFLs were expensive and bulky. Now you can buy a four-pack for less than $2.00. They last about 10 times longer and use about 75 percent less energy than incandescents.
    Enter LED, a light emitting diode. They don’t get hot, which is proof of their efficiency. Their energy is converted to photons, not heat. They last up to 30 times longer than an incandescent bulb. They can be made with epoxy lenses instead of glass, so they’re much less likely to break. (The discussion of epoxy requires a blog post of its own!)
    And now new rules put LEDs in the forefront of energy conservation.
    Joe Biden’s Energy Department will require manufacturers to sell energy-efficient light bulbs. Incandescents will not be available after July 2023. Besides saving money on family utility bills ($100/year), businesses, schools, and factories will save billions of dollars. The Department’s rules are projected to cut planet-warming carbon emissions by over 7,000,000 metric tons per year.
    Even though merchants will be allowed to sell incandescent bulbs until July 2023, why in this wonderful world would anyone want one?
                       -—stay curious! (and look on the bright side)