The new 2023 USPS stamps are proof America’s already great
Plus: The most chaotic Pride flag you’ve ever seen is open source
Hello, in this issue we’ll look at…
The new 2023 USPS stamps are proof America’s already great
The RNC is suing Google over its spam filter
The most chaotic Pride flag you’ve ever seen is open source
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The new 2023 USPS stamps are proof America’s already great
The U.S. Postal Service announced more than 80 new stamps on Monday that are coming to an envelope near you in 2023, and they’re pure Americana.
A slew of late, great Americans are being honored with stamps, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, authors Toni Morrison and Ernest J. Gaines, and Standing Bear, a Ponca chief who helped secure Native Americans rights after a judge ruled in his case that Native Americans were people under U.S. law.
Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein is getting five stamps showing his work “Standing Explosion (Red)” (1965), “Modern Painting I” (1966), “Still Life with Crystal Bowl” (1972), “Still Life with Goldfish” (1972), and “Portrait of a Woman” (1979).
There’s a stamp celebrating women’s soccer in the U.S. by Noah MacMillan and a school bus stamp by Steve Wolf sets a 21st century yellow school bus in front of an old-school school house. The Railroad Stations collection shows train depots from across the country designed by Los Angeles-based creative agency Down the Street Designs.
For a set of Endangered Species stamps, National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore contributed 20 photos of endangered animals, including a desert bighorn sheep and Florida panther. Sartore has photographed more than 13,000 species for his Photo Ark project to “document species before they disappear — and to get people to care while there’s still time,” according to his website. The stamps mark the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act.
The Great Smoky Mountains are getting their own stamp, by Dan Cosgrove. Located in North Carolina and Tennessee, it’s one of the most visited national parks in the U.S., with 14.1 million visitors in 2021.
Don’t worry, it’s not all social studies class, though. There will also be stamps with winter woodland creatures, sailboats, snow globes, foxes, ice cream, flowers, and balloons too. Next year’s Love stamps — which will be in their 50th year (!!) — are by artist Chris Buzelli and show a kitten and puppy with hearts. ❤️
You can view all the new stamps here. The USPS said it’s a partial list and more new stamps will be announced in the coming weeks and months.
“These miniature works of art highlight our unique American culture and offer a broad selection for those looking to collect stamps or send their mail around the nation or the world,” USPS Stamp Services Director William Gicker said in a statement.
The RNC is suing Google over its spam filter
The Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit Friday against Google, claiming the email provider sent millions of its emails into users’ spam folders.
In the suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in California, the party accused Google of “throttling its email messages because of the RNC’s political affiliation and views.” The RNC wrote that its emails would be sent to spam at the end of each month, which is when it historically raises the most money.
“Google continues to suppress the RNC’s emails, and now Google has fallen silent, refusing to discuss the issue further,” the RNC wrote. “The only reasonable inference is that Google is intentionally sending critical RNC emails to the spam folder because it’s the RNC sending them. Google’s discrimination has already caused the RNC to lose valuable revenue in California and the rest of the country, and Google’s conduct will continue to cost the RNC further revenue in the coming weeks as the 2022 midterm election looms, and beyond.”
Google has denied the accusation.
“As we have repeatedly said, we simply don't filter emails based on political affiliation. Gmail’s spam filters reflect users’ actions,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement.
The company uses artificial-intelligence filters informed by factors like IP addresses and users marking an email as spam, according to Gmail Security & Trust group product manager Neil Kumaran.
Last month, Google launched a pilot program to allow some political email to sidestep its filters. Have you seen more political emails in your inbox lately? If you’re in Google’s pilot program, what are you seeing??
The most chaotic Pride flag you’ve ever seen is open source
October is LGBTQ+ History Month — not to mention Pride in America’s hottest cities, like Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Phoenix — and to celebrate, queer employees at Microsoft updated their custom 40-in-one Pride flag and made it open source.