Week #2017.14 on SébPhilatélie

Tuesday 4 April: non philatelic important economic reading before voting.
I'm fed up with the on going French presidential campaign... Let's read comics!

Cover of the 2nd edition in French of Economix, published 2014 (amazon.fr).

Its original version was published in 2013 in the United States. Economix is a comic book in which Michael Goodwin tries to explain the history of economics, illustrated by Dan Burr.

A fine exercice of thinking and understanding our world and how politicians can disrupt as much as help make things better.

Goodwin's and Burr's task continues on EconomixComix.com... thank to the current leadership of the Republican Party in the U.S. When could we hope to read a British Brexit version or a French Napoleonian Right Wing one, please?

Wednesday 5 April: all the mail received from Citizens of the World.
This past week, the French public radio show La Fabrique de l'histoire (The Workshop of History) on France Culture proposed four installments on aspects of globalisation, understood in all its dimensions: economic, trades, but also cultural.

Garry Davis dictating the content of a letter he received in Paris, January 1949 (Actualités cinématographiques, 20 January 1949, via the 'Institut national de l'audiovisuel).

On Wednesday, two researchers explained how the World Federalist Movement got momentum by disrupting a session of the United Nations General Assembly in Paris in November 1948. And how much mail its spokeperson, Garry Davis, from people who wished to become "Citizens of the World", meaning wishing the establishment of an actual World State to avoid the conflicts nation-states created in the past decades.

One of the documents played is from a January 1949 newsreel for the movie theaters. In the Paris hotel where his offices were, Garry Davis is seen among the stamped envelopes of supporters for his World Citizenship idea. Stamps and envelopes everywhere, even on a panel to list the different countries of origin.

Friday 7 April: War weapons, a growing stamp topic?
When news are too strong for the philatelist to put them aside... An article on stamps and postal history on militarised chemical agents.

Iran issued a shocking stamp to mark the 10 years of effectivity of the Chemical Weapons Convention  (via a trade website in the United States).

Only states who were victims or whose allies were affected by the use of these horrible weapons had issued stamps to warn their people and the world: the Kingdom of Yemen (North) during the civil war when allegedly Egypt - allied to the republicans - used gas against Yemeni civilians, Iran in support of the Iraqi Kurds after Saddam Hussein's forces gas bombed the village of Halabja.

Even if the United Nations Postal Administration issued six stamps (two per office) in 1991 when the convention was signed, banning and ordering the destruction of these weapons, what postal administration will issue a stamp for the chemical victims of the complex Syrian civil war?

Through the excellent website by a late collector of Australia, Maurice Mishkel, postal history items exist as proof that all countries and powers are concerned since World War One. When a "Chemical Warfare School" publicly received mail in 1946...

Saturday 8 April: Machins will rule the world forever!

Thank to Ian and John Billings of Norvic Philatelics (blog, site and shop), my article tries to summarize how many new Machin stamps were and are to be issued in the first semester of 2017.

The first minisheet marking the 50 years of the Machin stamps, to be issued in June. The different picture recalls the steps of Arnold Machin's artistic thinking (Royal Mail Philatelic Bulletin via Norvic Philatelics).

Good luck for your wallet, Machin lovers.