a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
It was time for another ‘No Kings’ protest today.
Here in Seattle, we gathered at Cal Anderson Park at noon.
There were a few speeches, and then the crowd made its way along Pine Street, past the Seattle Convention Center and on to Seattle Center.
My two amigos and I made it to the Convention Center, from where we surveyed the long parade of protesters and their signs that kept on coming.
Happy Friday.
Look what was in the fir tree in my backyard today, prey and all.
It is a juvenile Cooper’s hawk* (Astur cooperii).
It’s hard to tell if it’s a squirrel that the bird had caught, but that would be my guess.
*Identified with the help of Google AI, and matching the sound it had made, with its record on audubon.org.
I had to go back to downtown today retrieve my watch that has had its band adjusted, and a new battery.
On the way back to the car I discovered the monorail pillar that has the American flag on: the one at the intersection of Olive Way and Fifth Avenue.
I was downtown this morning and parked by the monorail.
These flag images on the monorail pillars are part of a major public art installation by SeattleFWC26, the local organizing committee, to celebrate Seattle’s role as a host city for the FIFA World Cup 2026.
The project should be completed in early April.
I will definitely have to go back and look for the Stars and Stripes— and for South Africa’s flag as well.
Iran’s flag is already up, and there is a picture of it below.
Of course: it is an open question if the Iranian team will actually come out to the United States and play.
I spotted a a Steller’s jay, a dark-eyed junco (a New World sparrow) and a robin in my back yard yesterday.
Later, there was a Northern flicker (a woodpecker) as well— just too high up in the tree for a good picture.
Below is a graphic from the South African newspaper Die Burger (‘The Citizen’) that shows the recent increase in the price of diesel in major countries around the world.
Looks like Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Russia, are sitting pretty on 0%.
Each other country’s situation is different.
In South Africa gas prices are adjusted only once per month, and then stays at that price for the entire month.
Diesel prices are not as regulated, but have not immediately skyrocketed because of secured inventory, regulated price lags, and the state-controlled fuel levy structure. The current price reflects a significant “under-recovery” (nearly R7 per liter in some projections) and suggests a massive, delayed price jump is imminent for April 2026.
This initial lack of increase is temporary.
I asked Google AI about the impact of a 30% gas price increase:
Q: What impact will an increase of 30% in the price of gas and the price of diesel for the next 6 months have on inflation in the United States?
A: A 30% increase in gas and diesel prices sustained over 6 months would significantly increase headline inflation in the short term while having a more delayed, indirect effect on core inflation.
Summary of Projected Shifts (March 2026 Context)
Current headline inflation (as of early 2026) is approximately 2.4%.
A sustained energy shock of this magnitude could push headline CPI toward 3.5% to 6%, depending on the breadth of the pass-through to other goods.
These beautiful cherry trees with their blossoms are on Capitol Hill’s 13th Avenue.
Mr Blue Jay* was at it this morning, stealing twigs from my Japanese maple for his nest.
*Steller’s jay (Cyanocitta stelleri)
Happy Friday.
Happy vernal equinox and happy autumn equinox (for those in the southern hemisphere), as well.
The rain brought on by the atmospheric river from the Pacific Ocean has finally stopped here in Seattle.
Several rivers and low-lying areas are under flood conditions today, which will continue into the weekend.
From the New York Times, with reporting by Tony Romm, Isabel Kershner, David E. Sanger, Javier C. Hernández and Johnatan Reiss:
Oil prices surged to $119 a barrel on Thursday, an increase of nearly 10 percent, before settling at $108.65.
Ground troops: During a meeting with the Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in the Oval Office on Thursday, Mr. Trump was asked about using ground troops in Iran. He said: “I’m not putting troops anywhere. If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Missile attacks: Strikes on Wednesday and Thursday hit the Ras Laffan energy hub in Qatar, reducing the country’s natural gas export capacity by 17 percent and causing an estimated loss of $20 billion in annual revenue, according to Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, the country’s energy minister and head of QatarEnergy, the state-owned energy company. He said damage from missiles would take three to five years to repair and would affect supply to markets in Europe and Asia.
Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said that the country reserved the right “to take military actions if deemed necessary” to protect itself from Iranian attacks.
Death tolls: Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said last week that at least 1,348 civilians had been killed since the start of the war. On Wednesday, a Washington-based human rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, reported that at least 1,369 civilians had been killed. The number of Lebanese killed rose to more than 1,000, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Thursday. At least 14 people have been killed in Iranian attacks on Israel, officials have said. The American death toll stood at 13.
I spend a lot of time scrolling through the listings of stamps and postcards online.
Here is a postcard with a photo from Tel Aviv, Israel (circa 1942) that I find very interesting.
The sender was a Harold McMaster, on active duty in the British Army.
(The British Army controlled Palestine in 1942 as part of the British Mandate, which lasted from 1920 to 1948.)
It certainly seems that Mrs. McMaster that resided in Vereeniging, South Africa, was his mom, or at least a close family member.
At the time there were lots of South Africans of British descent, and of Jewish descent, residing in South Africa (and there still are, to this day).
I bought this set of stamps in Singapore.
It is a 2024 joint issue of stamps from ten ASEAN* countries. (Different stamps for each country but issued on the same day).
*Not, not Asian— ASEAN: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
It is a regional intergovernmental organization established on August 8, 1967, to promote economic growth, social progress, cultural development, and regional peace. It comprises 11 member countries—Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Timor-Leste.
The theme for the joint issue is not super-exciting: general post office buildings.
Some of the stamps have cool security features, though.
And I was reminded where in the world the Brunei is.
It has been raining a little every day for ten days, and it looks like it will continue for several more.
It was 5:39 p.m. and 54°F (12°C) this afternoon when I walked over to the Safeway grocery store.
The blue sky was filled with both high and low clouds. I boosted the blues in the photo below using the iPhone’s “Vivid Cool” filter, and I really like the result. You can see the outline of the Olympic Mountains, and if you look closely, you can see an airplane in the photo as well.
I didn’t watch the Oscars tonight.
I didn’t know anything about any of the movies that had been nominated.
(It has been years since I have been in a movie theater. I believe it was in 2023 for Barbie— which turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment, after all the ballyhoo that preceded its release.)
These days there is an AI bot to query about what you had missed, though, or to provide you with a quick update!
See?
Happy Pi Day.
White snow flakes started coming down here in the city in the wee hours of the morning, transitioning to a very light snow for most of the daylight hours.
Snow in Seattle during March is uncommon— recorded only a handful of times in the last century.
Temperatures are mild today (38°F/ 3°C), so some of the snow on the ground has melted away already. (About 3 in. of snow on the ground).
I took these pictures shortly after 9 am this morning.
A heat wave in the Cape Town area in the Western Cape in South Africa is driving late-late summer temperatures to record highs.
At Kirstenbosch, the botanical garden in heart of the city, the high reached 42.1 °C (108 °F) on Wednesday, the highest since records began 66 years ago.
Cape Point on the Cape Peninsula also set a record with a temperature of 40°C (104 °F), a first for that location, and verified by the South African Weather Service.
At Alexander Bay in the extreme and arid northwest of the Western Cape province and on the border with Namibia, a reading of 44.8°C (112 °F) was logged.
As Stephen Colbert said tonight on The Colbert Show: Iran does have a nuclear option.
It is to close the Strait of Hormuz.
German stamp album publisher Leuchtturm generally did a great job with their preprinted stamp album for South Africa.
They followed a minimalist, clean layout without the year of issue only, and no descriptions for what the stamps commemorate.
On some pages like the first two below, for example, several versions of the same stamp exist, but there is place for only one. (The stamps were issued on on different types of paper, or with different watermarks, for example.)
So I added a page into my album with the sets that had stamps with multiple versions.
P.S. That monument on the green 4c stamp is in my hometown of Vereeniging. Its inscription says ‘Wounded but invincible’. Sculptor Coert Steynberg is shown working on it (it was unveiled in 1961).
The monument commemorates the Treaty of Vereeniging, a peace treaty, signed on 31 May 1902, that ended the Second Boer War between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State on the one side, and the United Kingdom on the other.
I was very surprised to see that the US stock market indexes ended up well into the green today.
Google’s AI bot says:
“The U.S. stock market staged a remarkable intraday recovery on Monday, March 9, 2026, with major indexes finishing in the green after earlier losses of nearly 2%. This reversal was primarily driven by late-session optimism that the conflict with Iran might be nearing a conclusion.”
On the other hand, Michael Levenson writes in today’s New York Times:
Less than two weeks after U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Iran, Americans are already feeling the effects an ocean away. Gas prices are up. Food prices are likely to increase. And volatility in the stock market could threaten retirement savings.
President Trump initially said the war would last “four to five weeks,” but he has recently sent mixed signals, at times suggesting it could become a prolonged fight. If it does, the fallout for Americans could accumulate, some experts warned. Consumers could cut back on spending and businesses could stop hiring or resort to layoffs, threatening the broader economy.
