Word from Colonel Muammar Al Gadhafi: 'FORMING PARTIES SPLITS SOCIETIES' - see a Libyan stamp about that, issued in 1984!!! Also, 2 FDCs from Libya. Read from BBC: 'Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi appears on state TV'.

Read from BBC: 'Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi appears on state TV'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12533069#

In 1949, George Orwell wrote 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'.
In 1984, this stamp was issued by Libya:

Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi might not be completely wrong about that...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaddafi

There could be "democratic" societies that are deeply split, nonetheless.

There could be autocratic societies that are united, for a while, especially if the dictator is "enlightened", truly serving the interest of the nation, as needed.

Not possible, you think?

Read about Cincinnatus, Dictator of the Roman Empire, not corrupted by power:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnatus

This image was copied from wikipedia:en. The original description was:

English: Statue of Cincinnatus, Cincinnati, OH, 2004, by Rick Dikeman

"With one hand he returns the fasces, symbol of power as appointed dictator of Rome. His other hand holds the plow, as he resumes the life of a citizen and farmer."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cincinnatus_statue.jpg

Read from sfgate.com:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/n/a/2011/02/21/international/i093040S97.DTL&object=/n/p/2011/02/21/7002c0f9-8164-474f-8483-aba8dcc602b3.jpg

One of two Libyan air force jets is guarded by Maltese soldiers in Malta's International airport, Monday, Feb. 21, 2011. Their pilots asked for political asylum amid a bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters in Libya, a military source said.

Photo: Lino Arrigo Azzopardi / AP

The two Dassault F1 Mirage air-superiority fighter jets look similar to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mirage_F1_Qatar.jpg

The pilots defected, rather than delivering air-to-ground superiority upon the protesters, with weaponry like this:

"Armament

• Guns: 2× 30 mm (1.18 in) DEFA 553 cannons with 150 rounds per gun
• Hardpoints: 1 centreline pylon, four underwing and two wingtip pylons with a capacity of 6,300 kg (13,900 lb) (practical maximum load 4,000 kg (8,800 lb)) and provisions to carry combinations of:
  • Rockets: 8× Matra rocket pods with 18× SNEB 68 mm rockets each
  • Bombs: various
  • [DORIN'S NOTE: does the fearless leader believe that the protesters will say: Viva variety?]
  • Other: reconnaissance pods or Drop tanks
• Missiles: 2× AIM-9 Sidewinders OR Matra R550 Magics on wingtip pylons, 2× Super 530Fs underwing, 1× AM-39 Exocets anti-ship missile, 2× AS-30L laser guided missiles"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Mirage_F1

Descending into chaos...civil war: GENOCIDE ensues.

Eventually, after many protesters will die and enough military will defect, the new military junta (it's possible, is it not?) will deal with the loyalists of The Colonel.
Already, some protesters have special plans for
the (unfortunate?) members of the Amazonian Guard:


"The Amazonian Guard is an elite group of 30-40 (reports differ) virginal women who are tasked with protecting the eccentric Muammar al-Gaddafi.

Their training, as one may expect after some thought, includes both martial arts and firearms.

They have been seen following the fellow around for a few decades. Conspiracies to rape the virgin female guard upon capture of Gaddafi have been rumored during clashes and violence in Tripoli. ^{[1] [2] [3]"}

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazonian_Guard}

===========

A woman's life in Libya: a balancing act?

This 1977 FDC is about World Telecommunications Day.

But today's news is GENOCIDE.

Could space-lasers be used against the protesters? Hm...

The boxer above is mistakenly depicted.

Why?

Because he's bare-chested.

So?

It's supposed to be an amateur boxer, in the Olympic tournament.

An A-shirt is mandatory.

Only the professional boxers are bare-chested.

Anyway:

as Gaddafi's son warned, next there could be a massacre. 

He said hundreds of thousands could die.

Libya is a rich country, but 30% of people are unemployed, 66% of those employed live on a few dollars a day...

Meanwhile, dictators around the world amass riches for themselves, at the expense of "the worms", as  Elena Ceaușescu could have said.

Happy Presidents [yes, plural - see my previous blogpost] - Day! A philatelic item/souvenir with a circumstantial concordance, about George Washington. Plus other things (see them). Happy Blue Monday meme!

What! Did I claim that this is a FIP CfM-compliant maximum card?

No.

So, don't worry about it, in case you do! :)

=============

Happy Blue Monday! (meme)

Please visit:  http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/

Happy Sunday Stamps meme! Tomorrow, USA celebrates Presidents Day. From my oldie but goldie stamp collection: USA presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. Nice stamps from USA and just as nice [if not nicer - OMG! :) ] from Togo and some countries 'rated R': Romania, Rwanda and Ras Al Khaima!

" Nonetheless, while Washington's Birthday was originally established to honor George Washington, the term Presidents Day was informally coined in a deliberate attempt to use the holiday to honor multiple presidents, and is virtually always used that way today.^[3] Though President's Day is sometimes seen in print^[12] — even sometimes on government Web sites,^[13] this style is not endorsed by any major dictionary or usage authority."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's_day


From my oldie, but goldie stamp collection: 
USA presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. 
Nice stamps from USA and just as nice [if not nicer - OMG! :) ] from Togo and some countries 'rated R': Romania, Rwanda and Ras Al Khaima!

Thank you, Viridian, for bringing into spotlight, next Sunday Feb 27, the personalized stamps such as from Zazzle.  I'll be happy to share some cool images, tips and tricks about how YOU, from anywhere in the world, can design free of charge, your own zazzle stamps and many other personalized/ customized items.

You can always see examples and comments by visiting http://dorinco.webs.com and especially this blog: http://dorincard.blogspot.com, then search by label/tag: customized postage, personalized stamps, personalised stamps, P-stamps.

:)

==========

Happy Sunday Stamps!

Please visit http://viridianpostcard.blogspot.com/

Read from popherald.com: 'Brancusi, Constantin’s 135th birthday à la Google Doodle style'. Also, cool images with his modernist sculpture artwork on maximum cards, stamps and postcards from Romania and France.

Please read: http://www.popherald.com/brancusi-constantin-google-doodle/5019

You, and me, and everybody else on "God's Green Earth" could make our own interpretations and comments upon the artwork of the "father of the modern[ist?] sculpture", Constantin Brâncuşi (Romanian pronunciation: [konstanˈtin brɨnˈkuʃʲ].
It would be interesting and inciting, in the variety of the different and even contradictory opinions of ours.

Let's read what Constantin Brâncuşi himself said:
"Brâncuşi on his own work

(French) "Il y a des imbéciles qui définissent mon œuvre comme abstraite, pourtant ce qu'ils qualifient d'abstrait est ce qu'il y a de plus réaliste, ce qui est réel n'est pas l'apparence mais l'idée, l'essence des choses." [15]		"There are idiots who define my work as abstract; yet what they call abstract is what is most realistic. What is real is not the appearance, but the idea, the essence of things." [DORIN'S underlining]
(French) "Ne cherchez pas de mystères; je vous apporte la joie pure."[citation needed]		"Don’t look for mysteries; I bring you pure joy."
(Romanian) "Am șlefuit materia pentru a afla linia continuă. Și când am constatat că n‑o pot afla, m‑am oprit; parcă cineva nevăzut mi‑a dat peste mâini." [16]		"I ground matter to find the continuous line. And when I realized I could not find it, I stopped, as if an unseen someone had slapped my hands."
(Romanian) "Muncește ca un sclav, poruncește ca un rege, creează ca un zeu."[citation needed]		"Work like a slave; command like a king; create like a god."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brancusi

Most "net surfers" might not have the interest and the patience ("the stomach"...or "the brain"? Aw, come on! People lack time and interest, most of the time - not the grey matter) to read an ENTIRE article, such as from wikipedia.org, on ANY subject whatsoever. Elementary, dear "Whatso"...
What I am trying to do is to provide such oh-so-busy readers with at least a meaningful fragment from such an article - again, on ANY subject.  In this case, about Constantin Brâncuşi.


"Constantin Brâncuşi (Romanian pronunciation: [konstanˈtin brɨnˈkuʃʲ]; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His abstract style emphasizes clean geometrical lines that balance forms inherent in his materials with the symbolic allusions of representational art. Famous Brâncuşi works include the Sleeping Muse (1908), The Kiss (1908), Prometheus (1911), Mademoiselle Pogany (1913), The Newborn (1915), Bird in Space (1919) and The Column of the Infinite (Coloana infinitului), popularly known as The Endless Column (1938). Brâncuşi is considered a pioneer of modernism."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brancusi

Now, if you want to read more, at wikipedia.org or any other source, please do so.
Otherwise, the above quotes are what I am submitting to your attention, just in case you want to read at least that, as a nutshell, as the crux of the matter, as the essence of this artist.

Romania-France joint-issue stamps about Constantin Brancusi; notice that the maximum card above has a Romanian stamp and First Day of Issue pictorial postmark.

The maxicard below has a French stamp and corresponding postmark.

I saw this in a visit to Washington, D.C.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gallery_of_Art_Washington

No, this is not Pisa - the photo from the postcard was not verticalized properly in manufacturing.

Now, the same  The Column of the Infinite (Coloana infinitului), photographed in even more vivid colors by the company Kruger (then- West Germany):

The problem with the wonderfully-colored Kruger postcards is that they obviously used a highly-acidic, quickly-deteriorating paper for postcard backing - just look how it appears now, after some 30 years:

That should teach YOU a lesson, you people who EXPECT and DEMAND that ALL your stamps, postcards, labels and any other paper memorabilia MUST resist for a long time.

Be happy if your LIFE resists for a long time, and don't expect the acidic paper items to do the same.

A smart thing to do is to scan or photograph whatever paper item is worth the effort, and immortalize it, until the next TUNGUSKA-level global cataclysm. :)

In the above image, you see a series of 3 stamps, and 2 more stamps (obliterated/ postmarked/ circulated) from another series, which series I apparently don't have anymore (I had the complete series when I was living in Romania; I have also visited the Targu-Jiu statuary complex that you see in the blue stamps above).

See that series here, in a cool website whose webmaster is my fellow stamp collector/ philatelist, the Romanian-Swiss Victor Manta:

http://www.artonstamps.org/Countries/Romania/Brancusi/romanian3.htm

See that 40 bani stamp above, "The Kiss" sculpture, on a pink background?

I have intentionally posted it here, at the end, for MEME purposes.

Let's say that this is my entry for today at Happy Pink Saturday meme! :)

I apologize if anybody considers that my...entry is too long, but, hey! It's Brancusi! :)

========================================

Happy Pink Saturday!

^{Please visit "Pretty in pink"/ "Show us your pink" [objects, that is :)] meme here:}

^{http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/}

BBC: First Valentine: Lasting legacy of 500-year-old love. Also, "Hellelil and Hildebrand: The meeting on the turret stair", my maximum card idea, my entry for Happy Blue Monday! (meme). Happy Valentine's (Voluntyne's) Day

Read from BBC (but please read also this blogpost, while you are at it): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12419712
"In 1477 Margery wrote a letter to her John pleading with him not to give her up, despite her parents' refusal to increase her dowry.

Addressing her "ryght welebeloued Voluntyne" (right well-beloved Valentine), she promised to

 be a good wife, adding: "Yf that ye loffe me as Itryste verely that ye do 

ye will not leffe me" (If you love me, I trust.. you will not leave

 me)."

==========

I would like to create a maximum  card/ maxicard/ dorincard with this Irish postcard, showing the Meeting on the Turret Stairs, 1864 (also known as Hellelil and Hildebrand), a famous painting by Sir Frederic William Burton RHA (8 April 1816 – 16 March 1900). 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_William_Burton

To me, this great painting is a whole book/drama condensed in one image.

I could write quite a few observations about body language and the meaning of this image, as a whole, and in specific detail.

But soakin' [so can] you. Please comment, will you?

Everybody would have his own interpretation of this, more or less original, more or less credible.

Well, after you think about it, read this:

http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/people/meeting_of_turret_stairs.htm

I should research if there is already a stamp (Ireland/ any other country?) with it, then create a maximum card, if possible.

:)

Here's an interesting postmark of a knight in shining armor (don't worry about the stamp -  I did not have a matching one available):

=============

Happy Blue Monday! (meme)

Please visit:  http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/

What is that accordion song played like once an hour on canned music stations like HOT 99.5 FM (USA)? It's "Stereo Love", the longest charting song in the history of European top Hot 100, accumulating 52 weeks. Sung by Edward Maya ( Ilie Eduard Marian, Romania) and Vika Jigulina (Victoria Corneva, Russia/Romania)

The mastermind, Edward Maya: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Maya
Featuring Vika Jigulina: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vika_Jigulina

The basic refrain of the song was inspired, and eventually settled from the copyright standpoint, from "Bayatılar"  "an Azerbaijani 1989 composition by Eldar Mansurov." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayat%C4%B1lar

I like very much Edward Maya & Co, but "truth be told":
I would have emailed and snail-mailed a Registered Mail letter with Signature Confirmation to the Azerbaijan Composers Union about my unsuccessful attempts to contact Mr.Mansurov, the Azeri composer, about the copyright for the song. 
Even post it online, in a dated blog, or something.


If no answer, THEN and ONLY THEN I would have gone ahead with releasing "Stereo Love", in the idea that eventually the matter will be solved properly.
But at least I have written and dated proof that I have exhausted all the chances I could think of to contact Mr.Mansurov in due time.


Same thing for whoever the CIMPOI (Romanian bagpipes) virtuoso from Romania (Ion Laceanu? Dumitru Zamfira?) is the inspiration for "Desert Rain", which I also like very much.

Warning! Watch "Stereo Love" once, and it will become like an itch on your brain - you'll want to hear it again...and again...and again...:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Z3YrHJ1sU

While we are at it, why don't you "beat your American music station/channel to the punch" and watch/listen the new videoclip "Desert Rain" - get a haunting taste of the CIMPOI, The Romanian bagpipes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY49R8nz01Q

You agree, right, that some songs are not just songs - they are a symbol of good times, when you were (maybe) in a dance club or something, and the whole crowd, including you, were dancing, clapping, feeling good and worry-free, at least for some precious few moments...

Placeholder: I have to dig up from somewhere in the house some stamps and postcard with ACCORDION, as if you can't just google or wikipedia yourself and see what's all the fuss...:)

This image shows just one of the many types of accordions, and not necessarily the one used for this song.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PianoAccordeon.jpg

Read more about accordions here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accordion

UPDATE 13 FEB 2011: my postcard showing a group of accordion enthusiasts from the Netherlands.

I have a superb, fabulous, magnificent collection of accordions on stamps - but it consists of...only these two stamps:

(Part 2) Edward Maya feat. Vika Jigulina - Desert Rain ( Official Video ). Also, Sunday Stamps! (meme) - I feature a philatelic stamp with a CIMPOI (Romanian bagpipes), whose haunting sounds will thrill you in this videoclip!

Please explore: http://www.edwardmaya.com

See the other videoclips on YouTube.com about Edward Maya , Vika Jigulina, and other versions featuring Mia Martina or Alicia.[more to come - at least one from every country in the world, I wish! :) ]

See again the worldwide sensation videoclip "Stereo Love"!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy2nBvtkgyE&hd=1

Y'all You all have heard the sounds of Scottish bagpipes before.

But I bet you have never heard the sounds of Romanian bagpipes!

If you listen (loudly!) to this videoclip music and you DON'T just love the CIMPOI, then...what the hell is wrong with you? oh, well! :D :D :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimpoi

I have already posted this separately, on Facebook:

To properly enjoy the "progressive house" music of Edward Maya, you better turn up (way up) the volume of your speakers! 

Feel the rhythm, the good vibrations, the haunting melodic line, the exquisite mastery of the Romanian bagpipes (not Scottish) inspired from the virtuoso Ion Laceanu.

[UPDATE: Somebody said that the CIMPOI (Romanian bagpipes) segment from Desert Rain song is inspired from Dumitru Zamfira, also a cimpoi master like Ion Laceanu.] 

But the best musical instrument in the world is a great human voice! 

Nonetheless, welcome to discover the Romanian bagpipes!

The stamp that I bring today to the spotlight of Sunday Stamps meme features a CIMPOI [English pronounciation: chim-poy], which is an old, traditional musical instrument - Romanian Bagpipes.
I placed that stamp at the top of this image; for your viewing pleasure, I scanned it in hi-res 300 dpi, so click on it, then click again to zoom in:

One of the greatest merits of stamp collecting/ philately is that it triggers your appetite for learning, researching and enriching your general culture.

What the heck means ROMINA, on the stamps? - you might ask as you sit there, in your neck-of-the-woods. :) :)

"Communist Romania, previously the Kingdom of Romania, was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc. The dominant role of the Romanian Communist Party was enshrined in its successive constitutions between the proclamation of the republic in late 1947 and the Romanian Revolution, resulting in the death of Nicolae Ceauşescu on 25 December 1989. Officially, the country was called the Romanian People's Republic (Romanian: Republica Populară Romînă; RPR) from 1947 to 1965, and the Socialist Republic of Romania (Republica Socialistă România; RSR) from 1965 to 1989. Today, Romania is a unitary parliamentary republic and a member of the European Union."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republica_Popular%C4%83_Rom%C3%AEn%C4%83

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Happy Sunday Stamps!

Please visit http://viridianpostcard.blogspot.com/