The stamp that bombed
QUESTION Did the US Postal Service issue a stamp for the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima?
FOR the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings on August 6 and 9, 1995, the US Postal Service did plan to issue a stamp depicting a mushroom cloud with the caption: ‘Atomic bombs hasten war’s end, August 1945.’
It claimed that this depicted an important historical event without offering a judgment.
Japan’s foreign minister protested, as did the mayor of Nagasaki, Hiyoshi Motoshima, who said: ‘It is truly terrible that they could be so heartless.’
The Japanese embassy in Washington went directly to the Clinton White House.
Postmaster General Marvin Runyon felt the proposed stamp would commemorate a crucial event in the war and said that veterans, who made up a large part of the postal workforce, were supportive of it.
The stamp was not issued after the White House intervened. It was replaced with one depicting president Harry Truman announcing Japan’s surrender.
The story didn’t end there. Vietnam vet Gerry Newhouse and graphic artist Ron Kaplan printed their own Cinderella issue, which was not a legal stamp, but was put on envelopes as a decoration.
It featured a B-29 flying away from the mushroom cloud with the caption ‘August 1945’. At the bottom of the stamp was the words: ‘Atomic bombs end WWII.’
Hundreds of thousands ended up being sold.
Mike Fields, Ipswich, Suffolk.
QUESTION What is the lowest accessible physical point in the Irish landscape?
THE lowest accessible point in Ireland is the North Slob, on the estuary of the River Slaney at Wexford, which is three metres below sea level. It’s the lowest point not only in Ireland, but in these islands.
The North Slob was created in the mid-19th century by building dykes, or sea walls, on the northern side of the Slaney estuary, creating a Dutch-style polder. Previously, Wexford harbour had been made up of thousands of acres of mudflats and sandy islands. Building the dykes created two enormous slob lands.
Eventually, part of the slob land was given over to the nature reserve that’s home to an astonishing variety of birds. The Wexford Wildfowl Reserve is jointly owned by Birdwatch Ireland and the National Parks and Wildlife Service and it was officially opened in February, 1974.
The first geese had come to the slob lands in 1898, greylags from Iceland, which were the most common winter geese in Ireland then. White-fronted geese started appearing on the slob in 1910 and their numbers built up so much that by the mid-1930s, they has replaced the greylags. Currently, about 10,000 white-fronted geese winter here, about a third of the world population of this species.
To date, over 260 species of birdlife have been spotted here, including Bewick’s swans, ducks, lapwings, pot-bellied Brent geese and waders. The area covered by the reserve has undergoing expansion. The original 22 hectares was expanded by a further 109 hectares in 1990, then an additional 20 hectares was added in 2003. The whole of the North Slob is part of the Wexford Harbour special protection area, which covers the vast area of 2, 734 hectares.
In the reserve itself, birdwatchers can use an observation tower and a hide to watch all the various species of birds, while the new visitor centre has audio-visual displays and exhibits of the most commonly occurring birds. The reserve is open all year round and there’s no charge for admission.
Just recently, in June, 2018, a group of seven parents and one teacher from Herbertstown National School in Co. Limerick, set off on a unique expedition from the North Slob. In order to raise funds for two charities – Cliona’s Foundation and children’s hospital in Crumlin – as well as school facilities, the group went from the North Slob in Wexford to the highest point in Ireland, Carrauntoohil whose peak is 1,041 metres above sea level.
In the Netherlands, polders that are below sea level, with the waters kept out by lengthy dykes, are commonplace, but the North Slob in Wexford is the only such polder in Ireland, and as such is the lowest place in the country.
Seán O’Sullivan, Co. Wicklow.
QUESTION Which countries have the shortest and longest working weeks?
IN HIS 2019 conference speech, the British Labour Party’s then shadow chancellor John McDonnell claimed British workers worked an average 42.5 hours a week, putting them above the European average which stands at 41.2. He caused a furore when he said he wished to cut the working week to just 32 hours.
McDonnell had taken his data from a Eurostat report that suggested Austrian workers also worked 42.5 hours while people in Greece and Iceland worked more than 44 hours a week. It was pointed out that these statistics were not consistent.
Eurostat received its data from individual countries regardless of methodology. Some, like Britain, used hours reported by workers through a survey, a method that has a tendency to over-report, while others, such as Germany, used more rigorous methods.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development rebuffed the Eurostat data and applied a standardised measure to produce relevant figures for its 37 member countries.
These showed developing countries have the longest working week. Top of the list were Colombia at 47.71 hours; Turkey, 46.98 hours; and Mexico, 45.13 hours.
Ireland’s average was 35.3 hours per week while Poland was the longest working European country with 39.75 hours. Britain came in at 36.55, just below the OECD average of 36.82 hours a week. The Netherlands at just 29.30 hours had the shortest working week in the world.
A National Sample Survey Office (India) report estimated Indians work 53 to 54 hours a week, more than any other country.
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