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Saturday/ the cold open leaves me cold 🙄

Singapore must brace itself for more shocks to come, said Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in a recorded video on Friday (Apr 4), warning that the global calm and stability that once existed “will not return anytime soon”.
– Summary of a video posted on YouTube* by Mediacorp, a Singaporean public broadcast service.

*Look up “PM Lawrence Wong on implications of US tariffs for Singapore | Full video” on YouTube.  It’s just 5 minutes— but it’s also a 5-bell fire alarm.

So ..  I really did not find tonight’s Saturday Night Live cold open skit with James Austin Johnson as Trump unveiling his tariffs, funny.

Maybe the US stock market indexes need to sink another 5% on Monday, and then 5% more on Tuesday. 

Will enough Republican senators and Republican House members then stand up and do something?

President Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) addresses his tariffs and their impact on the stock market during a speech.
[Still from tonight’s Saturday Night Live cold open]
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Friday/ where will this end? 😱

It was hard for me all morning, not to mull over all the turmoil in the US financial markets, and to wonder how this man-made descent into insanity will end.

What the f***? Apple will suddenly start building iPhone factories in the United States— so that Americans will gleefully pay $3,500 for an iPhone?

A good March US jobs report (+ 228,000 jobs, unemployment 4.2%) was eclipsed by ..
.. Dow Jones down another 5.5%, S&P 500 down another 6%,  Nasdaq down another 6% today.

At this rate, it has to be 100% certain that there will be a recession in the United States later this year (and sooner than anyone had thought).

Headlines from CNBC online, the Wall Street cheerleader TV channel here in the US.
In case it’s not easy to tell, let me tell you: these are all very bad headlines.
Tesla (TSLA) is down another 10.5% for the day. ‘Unprecedented brand damage’ (by Elon Musk) writes JPMorgan Chase & Co analyst Ryan Brinkman in his downgrade of the stock.
Bigger picture, I would say America is suffering (another) round of ‘unprecedented brand damage’ around the world.
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Thursday/ the disaster in the markets 😵‍💫

So .. Dow Jones down 4%, S&P 500 down 5%,  Nasdaq down 6% today.

One would think there was another 9/11 or October 7 terrorist attack somewhere in the world, or a new and frightful pandemic breaking out.
But no, it’s just the President of the United States— foisting his kindergartner-level understanding of tariffs and international trade, on America’s financial markets, and the world at large.

What substantive harm has tiny, land-locked and impoverished Lesotho ever done to the United States? Its modest economy is going to be decimated (hit with 50% tariffs, see below).

For China, 34% on top of 20% a previously implemented for a total 54%.
31% for South Africa. 50% for Lesotho (the dark dot inside South Africa).
From Aljazeera.com:
The Trump administration has imposed a steep 50 percent tariff on Lesotho, a small, impoverished African nation of two million people – the highest tariff levied on any country. The measure delivers a severe blow to Lesotho’s economy, which relies heavily on exports for its modest $2bn gross domestic product (GDP). United States President Donald Trump, who mocked Lesotho last month as a country “nobody has ever heard of”, announced it as part of a sweeping set of “reciprocal tariffs” laid out on Thursday. Trump’s new tariffs were calculated based on the US trade deficit with each country, divided by the total value of imports from that nation. As a result, smaller economies with limited imports from the US – such as Lesotho and Madagascar – were hit hardest. Lesotho’s trade surplus with the US is largely driven by diamond and textile exports, including Levi’s jeans. In 2024, its exports to the US totalled $237m, accounting for more than 10 percent of its GDP, according to Oxford Economics.
Outside, away from the TV coverage, radio, and social media, there were blue skies, pinkish tree blossoms, and sunshine today 🌞 (a high of 55 °F/ 13°C here in the city).
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Wednesday/ tennis in Marrakech 🎾

The clay court season (April to June) in men’s tennis has started with ATP 250 tournaments (smaller tournaments) this week in Houston, Texas, in Bucharest, Romania, and in Marrakech, Morocco.

Here is Nuno Borges (28, 🇵🇹) being interviewed after beating the Belgian Raphaël Collignon (23, 🇧🇪) in a closely fought match on the red clay in Marrakech. It ended in a third set tie-break in which Borges iced out Collignon 7-0, though.

Afterwards the announcer addressed the remaining spectators in French.
A bit of history [from Wikipedia]: The French conquest of Morocco began with the French Republic occupying the city of Oujda on 29 March 1907. The French launched campaigns against the Sultanate of Morocco which culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Fes and establishment of the French Protectorate in Morocco on 30 March 1912.

There is a 1977 song by Mike Batt, The Ride to Agadir, from the album Schizophonia, about the Rif War— an armed conflict fought from 1921 to 1926 between Spain (joined by France in 1924) and the Berber (Amazigh) tribes of the mountainous Rif region of northern Morocco.
I must have played The Ride to Agadir a hundred times or more, while driving in my car in the late 80s and early 90s.

Lyrics: The Ride to Agadir

We rode in the morning
Casablanca to the west
On the Atlas mountain foothills leading down to Marrakesh
For Mohammed and Morocco
We had taken up our guns
For the ashes of our fathers and the children of our sons
For the ashes of our fathers and the children of our sons

In the dry winds of summer
We were sharpening the blades
We were riding to act upon the promise we had made
With the fist and the dagger
With the rifle and the lance
We will suffer no intrusion from the infidels of France
We will suffer no intrusion from the infidels of France

We could wait no more
In the burning sands on the ride to Agadir
Like the dogs of war
For the future of this land on the ride to Agadir

Though they were waiting
And they were fifty to our ten
They were easily outnumbered by a smaller force of men
As the darkness was falling
They were soon to realize
We were going to relieve them of their godforsaken lives
We were going to relieve them of their godforsaken lives

We could wait no more
In the burning sands on the ride to Agadir
Like the dogs of war
For the future of this land on the ride to Agadir

We rode in the morning
Casablanca to the west
On the Atlas mountain foothills leading down to Marrakesh
For Mohammed and Morocco
We had taken up our guns
For the ashes of our fathers and the children of our sons
For the ashes of our fathers and the children of our sons

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Tuesday/ what an ugly picture 😵

I went to the Seattle Public Library today, which is where I found the latest issue of The Economist— the one below, with the Cybertruck bashing a bald eagle.

About Musk, the editorial inside asks ‘Is he remaking America’s government, or breaking it?’
Towards the end, the editorial concludes ‘There are three possible outcomes.
First, just as rivals laughed at Tesla and SpaceX in their early days, DOGE* will come good in time.
Second, that Mr Musk will break the government.
The third, likeliest scenario is that DOGE become snarled up in court; many good civil servants are fired or quit; fewer talented people see government as a good career; and America is left with a stronger president and a weaker Congress.’

*Dept. of Government Efficiency.

Cybertruck = Musk
Bald eagle= US government
.. and Trump and Musk are inside the Cybertruck, right? 
P.S. Tesla’s 2025 Q1 delivery numbers are due out tomorrow.
Most analysts’ estimates are between 315,000-369,000, which would be well below Q1 2024’s 386,810.
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Monday/ railway parcel stamps 🚂

Railway parcel stamps were used in South Africa for many decades: in the four colonies before they became the Union of South Africa in 1910, and all the way through to the early 1980s. (By the mid-1980s, commercial courier services had stepped into the parcel delivery market).

These stamps were used to record the cost of the conveyance of a letter or parcel by rail.  They are only documented in specialized stamp catalogues and information about them is hard to find online.  I thought I should see what the AI chatbot from Chat GPT could help me with.

The results were interesting, and shows that one should not just accept results presented by Chat GPT as fact. 

Let’s start with a scan of a railway parcel stamp that I submitted to Chat GPT, and go from there.

Impressive, all of the information provided by the AI chat bot, just by looking at the scan of the stamp. So far so good.
So now! I thought: let’s explicitly ask about the abbreviations overprinted onto the stamps— abbreviations for the railway station name*, at which the package was accepted and paid for.  
Chat GPT does come up with the railway station names (above) for the abbreviations that I had submitted, but there is a problem ..
*This was a test for Chat GPT, or for confirming what knew for most of the abbreviations already. It took a lot of legwork to arrive at the railway station names for the abbreviations. For example, one can look at railway station maps and name lists, or look at the cancellation marks on the stamp (which could be extremely faint, and offer only tantalizing clues as to the railway station name since only a few letters or parts of letters would be visible on the stamp).
Here I am chiding the Chat GPT bot, and providing the information that I had arrived at.  The chatbot is eating a little humble pie, apologizing for presenting the first run of results with such confidence and not indicating that some of the first results were pure speculation on its part.

 

I also attempted to have Chat GPT read and list all the station names from this high-resolution scan of a 1900s hand-drawn map of railway lines and station names, but it could not do it. (Said the text was too small and not legible).
Part of another map of the railway station infrastructure in South Africa (in the 1920s).
Even modern maps and diagrams of the South African railway network are hard to come by, but I did find schematics like these. The problem is that many of the smaller railway stations from the 1970s and 1980s had been closed down, and do not even appear on these newer maps.
This is a railway parcel stamp with the abbreviation BO that took me several hours to decipher. 
The key is the upside down cancellation in purple ink, offering clues to the railway station name at the very edges of the stamp. I am sure the letters stand for BRANDFORT,  a railway station for a tiny little town in the Free State. The train station is no longer in use.
Here is my collection of South African railway parcel stamps, so far.

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Sunday/ a printing plate flaw 🖨️

Can you spot the Cape gannet (sea bird) that looks a little different from the other seven, in the block of stamps below?
There was a flaw in the printing plate for this sheet of 5c stamps from 1974.
On one of the stamps, some of the gray and blue ink is missing.

From the Second Definitive Issue set of stamps (Birds, Fish and Flowers) for the Republic of South Africa
Issued Nov. 11, 1974
Design: Ernst de Jong |Perf. 12½ |Engraving & Photolitho. |Phosphorized paper |No wmk
SA Color Catalogue #363 |5c |Multicolored |Cape gannet (Morus capensis)
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Saturday/ †Johann de Lange (1959-2025)

De Lange, circa 2021

 

I learned today that South African Afrikaans poet, short story writer, and critic Johann de Lange had passed away on Thursday.

I made an attempt below to translate a poem from his debut collection of poetry that appeared in 1982.  It was titled ‘Akwarelle van die Dors’ (‘Watercolors of the Thirst’) and he was awarded the Ingrid Jonker prize in 1983, the first of many prizes awarded for his writing.

Aardlief
Eendag word ek wel weer joune, oerbeminde:
word my hande en my oë jòù hande en jòù oë,
gee ek die handvol geleende stof aan jou terug,
ou selfsugtig, word ek joune van kop tot tone.
– Johann de Lange, uit sy debuutbundel ‘Akwarelle van Die Dors’ (1982)

Earthly love
Surely one day, will I become yours again, primal beloved:
will my hands and my eyes become your hands and your eyes,
return the handful of borrowed dust to you,
old selfish one, becoming yours from head to toe.
– A rough translation into English

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Friday/ the earthquake in Myanmar 🪨

After the 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Friday, the internet was filled with videos, images and social media posts documenting the damage in Thailand.

But across the border in Myanmar, where the devastating quake was centered, there has been a far murkier picture about the scale of the diaster.

Information from Myanmar has been harder to come by in part because of the country’s history of internet censorship. In recent years, the military has repeatedly shut off the internet and cut access to social media, digitally isolating the country from the rest of the world.
– Adam Satariano and Paul Mozur reporting for the New York Times

Central Myanmar, the scene of a powerful earthquake on Friday, lies near the eastern end of one of the world’s most active zones of seismic activity: the Alpide Belt, which extends from the Mediterranean Sea eastward through Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, then along the Himalayas to Myanmar and finally Indonesia.

The epicenter of the quake on Friday was near Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city with more than a million people. While much of Myanmar is susceptible to earthquakes, Mandalay and the surrounding towns sit right on top of one of four places in the country that are particularly prone to unusually powerful quakes, according to the United Nations Human Settlements Program. The other three places are in much less populated parts of the country.
– Keith Bradsher reporting for the New York Times

 

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Wednesday/ stormy, but no hail 🌩️

The storm arrived on cue at 7 pm with some lightning and thunder, and with heavy winds and rain, but no hail.
Power outages for now seem to be limited to one or two areas, and some flight delays at Sea-Tac airport were reported.

It is 9.15 pm as I write this, and I think the worst of the storm activity is over.

Storm clouds pass through the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle just before 7 p.m., ahead of an expected storm Wednesday, March 26, 2025.
[Photo by Bettina Hansen / The Seattle Times]
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Tuesday/ a stormy outlook ⛈️ 🌪️

It was a lovely day, just the way the weather prognosticators said it would be,  with a high of 71°F (22°C).
I put on my shorts and walked down to the QFC grocery store on Broadway with my lily-white winter legs exposed to the bright sunlight.

There is a thunderstorm brewing off the coast, though, with some dire warnings in the forecast for Wednesday (see below).
(Lucky for us that we still have a National Weather Service— or is it about to be shut down with all the other government agencies?)

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Monday/ a lot of gray ⛅

Enduring sightings of the sun, since spring had started here in Seattle, are still hard to come by, but we had 57°F (14 °C) today. The high might bump up to 67°F (19°C) tomorrow.

Late afternoon, I walked all the way down to the edge of South Lake Union, and back up to Capitol Hill.

Construction on the 45-story apartment towers at 1200 Stewart Street is still crawling to completion. It looks as if the glass windows and doors have been installed all the way to the top now, but the balconies on those upper floors still need rails and who know what goes on, on the inside.
After I have crossed Interstate 5 on the Denny Way overpass, I always turn around to look for the Space Needle.
There it is, hiding behind the Onni South Lake Union apartment towers (completed May 2022) at 1120 Denny Way.
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Sunday/ more revenue stamps 🪙

Here are the three sets of South African revenue stamps that followed on to the two sets that I had posted about earlier in March.

The last of South Africa’s revenue stamps were issued in 2008.
The use of revenue stamps on contracts and other legal documents was discontinued in March of 2009.

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Friday/ at Westlake station 🚉

Happy Friday.

Here are a few (very ordinary) pictures of Westlake station in downtown Seattle.

I was waiting for the northbound train bound for Capitol Hill.
The southbound train bound for the airport and Angle Lake arrived first.
Then just a few minutes later, another single southbound train car arrived.
It stopped, but it seemed that passengers were not allowed to board.
Then as that car departed, my northbound train was just arriving.

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Wednesday/ uncertain times 😱

The central bank’s decision to hold interest rates at 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent extends a pause that has been in place since January, following a series of cuts in late 2024 that lowered borrowing costs by a percentage point.

When — and to some extent whether — the Fed ultimately follows through with cutting rates again this year remains dependent on Mr. Trump’s economic plans, including the sweeping tariffs he has threatened or imposed. ​ Wednesday’s meeting marked the central bank’s most direct acknowledgment to date that the president’s policies are set to have a real impact on the economy.

–Colby Smith reporting from Washington for the New York Times

So you’re going to pay more for your new home mortgage, you car loan, your student loan, your credit card loan, the eggs, the bread, the milk, whatever you buy at the grocery store. Oh! — and a lot more for just about everything else you buy. The United States has entered into a trade war with Canada, Mexico and China (see below what bankrate.com says).

A recession is coming, this year or next.
Has to, with all this going on, right? I hope I’m wrong.

Bankrate.com on Mar. 4:
Tariffs are a tax imposed on goods that the U.S. imports from other nations.
President Donald Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, initially announced in February but delayed for a month, took effect Tuesday, along with an additional 10 percent tariff on goods from China. (In February, a 10 percent tariff went into effect on all imports from China.)
Economists, supply chain analysts and tax experts interviewed by Bankrate said that consumers often end up bearing the burden of tariffs, as companies pass along higher production costs to consumers.

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Tuesday/ Tesla spotting 🍊

Here’s a tangerine Tesla Model 3 from the Whole Foods parking lot. I love the giraffe in the space helmet.
100% ELECTRIC, ZERO EMISSIONS, says the lettering on the back of the car.

This is a 2024/ 2025 Tesla Model 3— an upgrade to the original Model 3, and which has been available for a little over a year now.
There is a new Model Y as well, codename ‘Juniper’, for which deliveries are imminent (available March 2025, says Tesla’s website).
Cybertrucks are still a very rare sight here on the streets as well.