Little Delicate Things: Stamps and Souls

Stamps like good wives are delicate things we often take for granted. (Shame on us.) Apparently so is regional stability in the Black Sea. (Shame on them.) While I don't mean to make light of marital or diplomatic relations, territorial conflicts, past and present, have the potential to reshape the world and the world of stamp collecting. Winners may emerge as new countries such as (Georgia & Kosovo) while losers (Rhodesia & South West Africa) might wind up having a new name and identity like Zimbabwe and Namibia.

Any international stamp collector worth their salt delves into the history, culture, politics, religion and geography out of sheer curiosity. Who are these people? Where did this place come from? What does this or that mean? Questions and answers make for broader knowledge yet also complete the collector as a genuine citizen of the world. Name another hobby that fits a such a wide bill of qualities and I will test it to the ends of the earth. This is the Hobby of Kings.

Sometimes we take Freedom for granted. It is being challenged and chastised by radicals and regimes who seek to rule by murder and myth. Lives are touched and changed forever by social movements bent on taking, preserving or destroying tracts of geography imprinted on those little delicate things we call stamps. As much as we love and cherish stamps we also pray democratic countries are not extinguished by dragons once thought slayed.