Crops of the Americas

This might be the silliest thing I've ever seen. I'm zoning out here at my desk and have just noticed that the postage stamps I bought recently are titled, "Crops of the Americas." Each stamp has a different...uh crop. (What's a different word for "crop?") There is a stamp dedicated to the sunflower and sunflower seeds. Another stamp has three varieties of corn. There is the pepper stamp--only green and red made the cut. And a squash stamp-or what looks like squash to me-and then finally a stamp densely landscaped with legumes.

My question: Why?

Seriously, why is there a stamp dedicated to crops grown in the Americas? This territory called the Americas--doesn't that cover practically half of earth's land mass? (I'm not counting Antarctica because in my limited knowledge of it there is little to no land to crop.) So now I have to guess which area of the Americas squash is cropped? I really don't know, do you? I could guess Brazil but it's probably some remote island off the coast of Greenland for all I know. I live in Illinois and I've seen corn grown here but what about that black version on the stamp? Where is black corn grown? Mexico? No, not Mexico. Mexico is where some of those 50 different legumes are cropped, right?

Stamps are interesting to me and by interesting I mean practical and boring. I simply use them to mail bills and belated birthday cards. Now I'm realizing there is a whole community of folks out there who probably lobbied for the crops of Americas to be on stamps. Those people are still celebrating this victory. And then there's another community that is collecting these rare finds ("My God, have you seen how remarkable the legumes stamp turned out? I must add it to my food-inspired stamp album!") Wikipedia states that stamp collecting is an important source of revenue for small countries. Really?! Since when? If this is true then can we have a book of stamps created with all these countries displayed? Let's really make stamps educational. I'd like to see some simple algebra and french verbs conjugated as well. Or what about helpful tips like, "Add distilled white vinegar to your load of whites and laundry will come out clean and odor free!" Now that could really be helpful to someone I bet.

I have to go call the U.S. Postal Service now before one of my blog readers steals my "educational stamps" idea...