*Ø* Blogmanac December 8 | Festival of Neith, ancient Egypt

In Egyptian mythology, Neith was a psychopomp, the beautiful but fierce predynastic goddess of war and weaving, was the goddess of the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the patron goddess of Zau (Sau, Sai, Sais) in the Delta whose temple was at Sais on the Nile.

Ancient tradition held that the city of Sais was founded by the Greeks before the flood, and Greeks were kindly treated when in this city. As the mother of Ra, the Egyptians believed her to be connected with the god of the watery primeval void, Nun. Shrouds worn by the mummified deceased were said to be gifts from Neith. She was often portrayed holding a set of bow and arrows, occasionally a harpoon.

She was linked to with a number of goddesses including Nephthys, Isis, Bast, Wadjet, Nekhbet, Mut, Anouke and Sekhmet. As a cow, she was linked to both Nut and Hathor. She was also linked to Tatet, the goddess who dressed the dead, and was thus linked to preservation of the dead. Her son, other than the sun god Ra, was believed to be Sobek, the crocodile god ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there. There's also plenty on John Lennon, who was killed on this day in 1980.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Bhopal activists hacked?

http://www.bhopal-justice.com/ was a link in my December 3 ezine story (also posted at the Book of Days for Dec. 3) about Bhopal. A reader has informed me that the link sent him to what he referred to as an "adult site". I haven't bothered to closely check out the link I was sent to when I hit http://www.bhopal-justice.com/, but it sure looks like the Bhopal justice people have been hacked by someone or other. Thank you to the reader, whose name I've forgotten unfortunately, who alerted me.

Announcing Corrigenda
From today, I have placed a page at the Scriptorium called Corrigenda where I have alerted readers to the bad links. At Corrigenda I will make notifications of annoying things like that, and any errors that I have found and corrected, or important amendments made, following publication in Wilson's Almanac ezine or anywhere else. Corrigenda also has a Tagboard like the one at the top-right of this page. There, all readers are welcome to make comments and advise of errors and so on. That's for the ezine and the Scriptorium website, of course. If you want to make comments on the Blogmanac, there are plenty of opportunities on this page.

The reason for Corrigenda is that, while I can correct things on this blog, I can't amend anything kept in the Yahoo! Groups archive of the ezine. And, less importantly, search engines only index every few weeks, so there might be things showing on, say, Google, that are weeks old and contain incorrect info. It's a fine point, but I think this is worth doing. I don't want people quoting the Almanac's mistakes. So please drop into Corrigenda, say "g'day" and let me know of any errors or suggestions. You're very welcome to tell me when I'm wrong.

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

The item in Wilson's Almanac ezine, by the way, said this on December 3:

Dec 3, 1984 In Bhopal, India, more than 20,000 people were killed (over time) and hundreds of thousands injured when the Union Carbide factory leaked 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate. The US Government later blocked extradition of Union Carbide officials facing criminal prosecution in India. UC paid about $500 compensation for each victim, while denying responsibility for the accident. Greenpeace and other activists have been arrested trying to clean up the site.

*Ø* Blogmanac December 7, 1985 | Bye bye Graves

1985 Robert Graves (July 24, 1895 - December 7, 1985), English poet, novelist (I, Claudius; IV Claudius; Claudius the God), mythographer, critic and historian, died in Deya, Majorca, Spain. Graves wrote more than 140 works.

In 1946 Graves re-established a home in Deya, Majorca, and he married Beryl Hodge in 1950 and went on to a series of affairs and lesser amours with his 'muses'. In 1948 he published the controversial The White Goddess in which he explored and expounded upon a central theme: that "true poetry" or "pure poetry" has inextricable links with the ancient cult-ritual of the White Goddess and of her Son and deals with goddess worship as the prototypical religion. In 1961 he became Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, a post he held until 1966.

Just two snippets from today in the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days ... and here's another:

Happy birthday, Noam!
Born on this day in 1928: Noam Chomsky, linguist, anarchist, social critic, activist. Critic in the manner of the great IF Stone – and just as ignored and vilified by the establishment.

Chomsky learned a lot about linguistics from his father, William. Among his many accomplishments Chomsky is most famous for his work on generative grammar, which he developed from his interest in modern logic and mathematical foundations ...

*Ø* Blogmanac December 7 | St Columba and the first sighting of Nessie

Columba is the source of the first known reference to the Loch Ness Monster. According to the story, in 565 he came across a group of Picts who were burying a man killed by the monster, and brought the man back to life. In another version, he is said to have saved the man while the man was being attacked, driving away the monster with the sign of the cross ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | If you haven't already, meet Barry Crimmins

From A-Changin' Times (ACT):


Yippee! Some more good news!!! Our friend, Barry Crimmins, whose quips often fill this space [Words and Works at ACT -v], is a writer and commentator for the
new liberal radio network out of Boston. They (or we) couldn't ask for a better guy--the format is "comedy and content" and Barry is the cream of the crop of the genre. I can't wait to hear his words and works on a daily basis. Way to go, Barry!



This message from Barry:


Fellow Rabble,

Did you see W in the bulletproof box at the Pageant of Peace? Some jokes come pre-written.

Two major developments to report:

My upcoming book from Seven Stories Press has a title.

"Never Shake Hands With A War Criminal" should be out in time to help make the case against electing Bush (just this once) next fall.

The other development can be found in the Dean Johnson story from today's Boston Herald. I hope these two items help to explain why I've been less prolific than usual in recent weeks. A big year is headed our way and the required preparations are ongoing and extensive.

With warm wishes from a cold mountaintop,

Barry Crimmins


More from Barry:

W's Proudest Planks

Barry summarizes George W. Bush's strong suits in this essay originally read (available in audio version or text version)on the Christmas Comedy Coup Players 9/4/03 audio assault on WBAI (99.5 FM -- Pacifica in NYC). Judging by Barry's remarks, the Committee to Reappoint the President (CRAP) will have to fix a lot more than the Florida vote to keep their boy in office.


Want more?

More QUIPS

To join the CrimQuips mailing list please click: Crimquips homepage on Riseup

*Ø* Blogmanac December 6 | Will the real Santa Claus please stand up?

Saint Nicholas's Day: The origins and folklore of the Santa Claus myth

Nicholas (Nikolaus) (c. 270 - 345/352) became a Bishop of Myra in Lycia, Asia Minor when quite young. From this fact arose the old European tradition of Boy Bishops, who reigned from December 6 to 28, in a parody of church officials. More of that later.

Among Christians, he is also known as the "Wonderworker". Several acts of kindness and miracles are attributed to him ...

Saint Nikolaus or St Nicholas is celebrated in several Western European countries. His reputation for gift giving comes partly from a story of three young women who were too poor to afford a dowry for their marriages: as each reached a marriagable age, Nicholas surreptitiously threw a bag of gold into the house at night. Some versions of the legend say that the girls' father, trying to discover their benefactor, kept watch on the third occasion, but Nicholas dropped the third bag down the chimney instead. For his helping the poor, St. Nicholas is the patron saint of pawnbrokers; the three gold balls traditionally hung outside a pawnshop are symbolic of the three sacks of gold.


This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | 'Now I've Heard Everything' Dep't

Consumerism's tentacles keep reaching further into the lives of Westerners. Now, clubs exist for 'mall walkers' – people who not only love to walk, they love to do it in shopping centres. Mmmm, now there's a great way to spend an idle hour!

If you feel like taking some exercise and some window shopping simultaneously, this site will guide you, and Tips for Mall Walkers might come in handy. Need therapy? Here's a great link.

*Ø* Blogmanac December 5 | Happy Faunalia

Festival of Faunalia, Roman Empire, celebrated in honor of Faunus, the Roman version of the Greek god Phaunos, or Pan.

The Faunalia was commemorated in rural areas, as a celebration of Nature and animals. The people celebrated this festival with a dance performed in triple measure, as danced by the priests of Salii, the priests of Mars. Faunus was the son of Picus, whom Circe turned into a woodpecker for spurning her love, and grandson of Cronus (Saturn). On his tomb in Crete, according to Robert Graves (The Greek Myths, 1955), was the epitaph, “Here lies the woodpecker who was also Zeus”. Both Pan, the Greek god of the wild woods, and Hermes were also associated with this bird, and all three are rain-making shepherd gods, says Graves. Faunus was worshipped as the god of fields and shepherds, and as a god of prophecy.

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Attention, America!

From DUG:

The IRS Claims New Patriot Act Type Powers
to Punish Political Dissenters

By Robert R. Raymond


In a precendent-setting case, the IRS wielded new power
to punish the political speech of those who "espouse views"
the government considers "inconsistent" with government-
held beliefs.

In a hearing originally closed to the public in a secret tribunal on a military island, but moved to a public location after protests from the press and the public, the IRS wants to wield this power against a former IRS whistleblower, who was forced to resign upon his discovery of fraud in the agency.

After monitoring and taping the whistleblower's appearances on Sixty Minutes, talk radio shows, and political publications where he rebroadcast his findings of IRS fraud, the IRS initiated this inquisition against their former whistleblower. [At right: One very fear-filled fear mongerer. -v]

This new power may find new political targets soon enough.

The IRS, through the small office of "Director of Practice," claims the authority to wield carte blanche authority over all the other powers of government -- the authority to monitor, surveil, and eavesdrop on political dissenters, the authority to pry into the private financial records of banks, businesses, and taxpayers, the authority to conduct secret investigations under a criminal grand jury, and the authority to censure political dissenters by branding on them a badge of infamy and stripping them of governmentally-protected licenses.

In short, under the guise of a "practice" investigation, the IRS claims the right to wield all intrusive and invasive powers of government available.

A "license" to practice before the IRS -- even for people who have never requested such a license or actually practiced before the IRS, but are given one as a matter of law if they are accountants -- "licenses" the IRS to conduct private audits without notice to the taxpayer, confer with criminal prosecutors without disclosure, and bring special
"disbarment" proceedings against disfavored dissenters, even if the alleged "disreputable" conduct has nothing to do with any "practice" before the IRS.

The IRS now claims it can use these so-called "practice" investigations of anyone who Congress licenses to practice before the IRS -- regardless of whether they actually practice before the IRS -- to surveil the public appearances of dissenters, eavesdrop on the political conversations of dissenters, benefit from secret grand jury investigations, hold secret conferences with the criminal investigators, surreptiously tap the private database of taxpayer information, including taxpayers who merely have some financial "connection" to the accused, audit the political dissenter's personal financial records, and use all this information against the dissenter in the "practice" proceeding.

Under the guise of a "practice" investigation, the IRS can ignore all the normal procedural protections against an illicit audit while it conducts such an audit.

Simultaneously, the IRS can ignore all the legal protections afforded a person accused of a crime while conferencing with the people conducting a criminal investigation.

Indeed, the IRS can even ignore the sunshine laws, as the records of such "practice investigation" are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, as are grand jury proceedings.

The IRS claims it can exercise this authority in a secret proceeding without allowing a person the opportunity to cure any alleged mistakes, the opportunity to prepare a defense by knowing the exact facts they are accused of, without any opportunity for discovery, without any opportunity to call witnesses necessary for their defense, without any opportunity to cross examine their accusers, without any opportunity to testify at their own hearing about the merits of their position, without being forced to testify against themselves without such an assertion being held against them, and without even an opportunity for a hearing on the evidence.

This power of this little office with a Napoleonic vision goes even beyond the Patriot Act type authority and stories of FBI monitoring of war protestors.

Too Hoover-ish to be true in modern America?

Just read the case of the IRS against Joe Banister scheduled for a "hearing" -- a hearing where the IRS prohibited Banister from introducing any witnesses or presenting any evidence as to his defenses, and even discussing the sincerity, the truth or the "reasonableness" of his positions -- on December 1 in the city by the bay, in the Tax Court chambers of the federal courthouse in San Francisco.


History is being made.


Robert R. Raymond is the past Independent candidate for the U.S House of Representatives for Wisconsin's 5th District in the 2002 elections.

Please forward to any interested parties.


SOURCE

Joe Banister's web page

Sierra Times Homepage

*Ø* Blogmanac | So funny I forgot to laugh!

From Colleen:

As Lily Tomlin's little girl character used to say,
"And that's the twoofthphbbbttth!!!"


The Grownups Have Left the Building
By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
December 2, 2003

AUSTIN, Texas – Call them – irresponsible ... Call them – unreliable ... Throw in – undependable, too ... Yes, it's undeniably true – the Congress of the United States makes Bart Simpson look like Averell Harriman.

The grownups have left the building. Good grief, what a horror show.

Just when you thought you'd seen the worst of the scams . . . .


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Who Tried To Bribe Rep. Smith?
Stop Protecting Him, Congressman.
By Timothy Noah, Slate

Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., says that sometime late Nov. 21 or early in the morning Nov. 22, somebody on the House floor threatened to redirect campaign funds away from his son Brad, who is running to succeed him, if he didn't support the Medicare prescription bill. This according to the Associated Press. Robert Novak further reports,

On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, [Rep.] Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.

Where are the RICOH laws when we need 'em?


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Colorado Justices Overturn Voter Districts
By the Associated Press

Redistricting case could influence 2004 national elections

In a decision that could have national implications, the Colorado Supreme Court threw out the state's new congressional districts Monday because the GOP-led Legislature redrew the maps in violation of the constitution. The General Assembly is required to redraw the maps only after each census and before the ensuing general election -- not at any other time, the court said in a closely watched decision. A similar court battle is being waged in Texas. [Emphasis added.]

Under the ruling, Colorado's seven congressional districts revert to boundaries drawn up by a Denver judge last year after lawmakers failed to agree.

The same power grab in my state gives Repugs seven seats!

*Ø* Blogmanac December 4 | Feast day of Saint Barbara

St Barbara was a beautiful maiden from Asia Minor; her father Dioscorus imprisoned her in a high tower, where she was tutored by philosophers, orators and poets, and Origen and Valentinian converted her to Christianity. In folklore, her imprisonment has led to her association with towers, then the construction and maintenance of them, then to their military uses.

Dioscorus brought many suitors of his choosing but by then Barbara had lost all interest in marriage. Once, when she refused one of his unfair requests, he grew enraged and she turned a flock of sheep into a plague of locusts.

During many years in the tower, Barbara obtained her food and laundry by way of a basket on a rope. One day, a stranger put a book in the basket from which Barbara learned about the new religion. Barbara so longed to know more about Christianity that she grew ill and her father sent for a doctor but the doctor turned out to be, in fact, a priest, and Barbara was baptised ...

St Barbara’s weather
In Germany on St Barbara’s Day, it is the custom to cut Barbara twigs from fruit or nut trees and to place them in a warm place. Weather prophecies are made depending on the date and extent of the blossoms that come. Every member of the family puts his or her Barbara twig into water so that it will have blossoms on Christmas day. The child whose branch has the most blossoms on Christmas is supposed to be Mary's favourite. The vase or glass containing the St Barbara twigs may be placed on the family altar.

The hoped for date of blooming is Christmas, according to a tenth century legend that said that all the trees blossomed and bore fruit on the day Jesus was born.

St Barbara’s Day, Lebanon
Christmas season is said to begin with the feast day of Barbara, and wheat is today’s symbol. A special dish of kahmie is served. The head of the household will tell the legend of St Barbara as the wheat is being prepared. Blackburn and Holford-Strevens (Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press, 1999) tell us that in southern France, especially in Provence, wheat grains are soaked in water, placed in dishes and allowed to germinate from this day. The wheat is carefully tended, because if it grows quickly, it is an omen that crops will prosper in the coming year. Also on this day, cherry branches are brought into the house and placed in water, prognosticating good luck in the coming year if they bloom by Yule (December’s Winter Solstice).

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Barbara, Babel, barbarians and confusion
In the symbolism of Barbara, we have lightning or fire, and a tower side by side. From the very earliest printed Tarot cards, one card shows a tower struck by lightning, with human beings falling from it. Its title is ‘The Tower’, although early on it was often called ‘Fire’, ‘Lightning’, ‘Thunderbolt’ or ‘The House of the Devil’, or sometimes ‘Hell’.

Psychologist Carl Jung attached importance to the Tarot, regarding its cards as representing archetypes, fundamental types of person or situation embedded in the subconscious of all human beings. The similarity of the Barbara legend and the symbolism of The Tower card (lightning juxtaposed with a tower) is striking and seems to indicate more than fortuitous association. Among numerous interpretations, The Tower stands for catastrophic and irreversible change, and the whole scene, including the falling bodies, suggests confusion and even panic.

Twin Towers
If the tower, fire from the sky, and falling people are indeed strong archetypes in the collective unconscious, little wonder it is that the September 11, 2001 tragedy at the Twin Towers in New York resonated so deeply with people around the world. Many people have wondered why Americans reacted so strongly to that event (far larger numbers of people are dying around the world each day in situations as dramatic and tragic), and it might be that the answer to this puzzle is not simply that Americans value the lives of Americans more than those of other peoples (often seen as ‘barbarians’), and it is possible that we might look further than the cynical uses to which ‘America’s Reichstag Fire’ was put by the US Administration and media. The ‘tower-fire-people falling’ image’s power might go much deeper than this.

The card’s fire or lightning shooting down from the heavens, indicates divine punishment, bringing to mind thoughts of the Tower of Babel and its destruction by God. According to a story in Genesis Chapter 11, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity in order to reach the heavens. To prevent the project from succeeding, God confused their languages so that each spoke a different one and the work could not proceed. After that time, people moved away to different parts of the earth. The myth was used to explain the existence of many different languages and races. Babel has become a potent symbol of overambitious projects destined to end in confusion. The word Babel has several meanings. It is the name of a city, which translates to ‘the gate to god’, and in Hebrew there is a similar sounding word, which means confusion. In English, the word 'babble' is obviously similar.

One notes the similarity of ‘Babel’ to the name ‘Barbara’, she of the tower, and also the possible connection of both to the word ‘barbarian’ ...


This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Governments must tackle the "pain merchants"

Amnesty International
2 December

"Governments' failure to control the expanding trade in and use of security equipment is contributing to the incidence of torture and ill-treatment, reveals Amnesty International in its new report 'The Pain Merchants'.

"The latest research by the human rights organization highlights how a wide range of police and prison services are misusing old technologies and being encouraged to use new ones despite a lack of rigorous testing to establish if they are consistent with international human rights standards:

· Steel batons with spikes have been offered for sale at a police equipment fair in China.

· A metal and plastic projectile fired by a police officer permanently injured a woman in Switzerland in March this year, leaving fragments in her face which cannot be removed for fear of paralysis. This occurred before any other means of control had been attempted.

· More than nine tonnes of leg irons (an implement banned by UN rules for the treatment of prisoners) were exported from the USA to Saudi Arabia during 2002.

· Since the report went to press AI has discovered a South African government tender notice of 31 October 2003 calling for bids for the supply to the Department of Correctional Services of leg irons and belly chains, as well as electronic riot shields.

· The UK government has authorised trials on Britain's streets of the taser gun -- which delivers a 50,000 volt electric shock through two darts fired from a distance, or can also be used up close as a stun gun. In AI's opinion it has yet to publish full medical tests on the taser's effects.

· Sedative chemical incapacitating agents such as the one which killed more than 120 hostages when Russian security forces ended a siege in a Moscow theatre last year should be banned unless it can be proved that people will be protected from any indiscriminate or arbitrary effects.

"'Just because security equipment may be described as 'less than lethal' does not mean it cannot be abused, nor that it cannot injure or kill, said Brian Wood, Amnesty Internationals expert on security equipment. "We are extremely concerned that in many countries devices are being authorised for use on the population without sufficient investigation of their effects on human rights.' ...

Background:
Amnesty International reported torture by police or security forces in 106 countries last year.

There are now at least 856 companies in 47 countries involved in the manufacture or marketing of weapons described as being a "less than lethal" alternative to firearms, many of which easily lend themselves to torture.

Stopping the Pain Merchants, take action!

For more information see "The Pain Merchants: Facts and Figures"

THE PAIN MERCHANTS -
Security equipment and its use in torture and other ill-treatment
The full report online

*Ø* Blogmanac | EU accused of covering up its anti-Semitism report

Irish Times, 3 December

"EU: The World Jewish Congress yesterday made public a disputed anti-Semitism report kept under wraps by the European Union.

"The Congress accused the EU of not facing up to anti-Jewish sentiment among Muslim immigrants in Europe.

"The WJC and Jewish community organisations in the 15-nation EU put the report on their websites even though it has not been released by the EU's European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), which commissioned the study.

"The report was also posted on at least one European news website, that of Danish television station TV2 (http://gfx.tv2.dk/images/Nyhederne/Pdf/report_en.pdf).

"The EUMC has denied accusations in the European press that it had shelved the report because it singled out Muslim immigrants and pro-Palestinian groups as the main culprits.

"'We think the failure of the EU to release it until now was an act of intellectual dishonesty and cowardice,' said Mr Elan Steinberg, executive vice-president of the New York-based WJC. 'To be candid, I think they are not prepared to deal with the sensitive subject of anti-Semitism among Muslims, who constitute Europe's largest minority.'

"The WJC and the affiliated European Jewish Congress said the EUMC report was being published in English on websites including those of the French umbrella group CRIF (www.crif.org), Britain's Board of Deputies of British Jews (www.bod.org.uk) and the Central Council of Jews in Germany (www.zentralratdjuden.de)."

Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | Bits and bobs that caught my eye ...

Rumsfeld Ramble Wins 'Foot in Mouth' Award
[But Arnie is learning fast]

LONDON (Reuters) -- "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's curious statement at a press briefing was named on Monday as the year's most baffling comment by a public figure.

"Rumsfeld, usually renowned for his uncompromising tough talking, was awarded the 'Foot in Mouth' award for a confusing message which probably left his audience in the dark as to its meaning, Britain's Plain English Campaign said.

"'Reports that say something hasn't happened are interesting to me, because as we know, there are known unknowns; there things we know we know,' Rumsfeld told the briefing. 'We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.'

"John Lister, spokesman for the campaign which strives to have public information delivered in clear, straightforward English, said: 'We think we know what he means. But we don't know if we really know.'

"Rumsfeld, whose boss President Bush is often singled out by language critics for his sometimes unusual use of English, took the booby prize ahead of a bizarre effort from actor-turned politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"'I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman,' was the odd statement from the new California Governor.

Source

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New Anti-Drug Weapon: Bras and Thongs

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- "They have tried aerial assaults and stiff jail sentences. Now Colombian officials have a new and unlikely weapon to combat the cocaine trade: push-up bras and thongs.

"Some 900 peasant women in Colombia are set to make racy lingerie and sell it to French supermarket chain Carrefour under a U.N.-backed program aimed at encouraging impoverished farmers and their families to stop growing drug crops.

"'We thought it was a very original idea. These are regions where there are drug crops and people need legal jobs,' said Thierry Rostan of the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Bogota.

"Despite a fierce U.S.-backed campaign to spray drug crops with herbicide and impose longer jail terms, Colombia remains the world's No 1. producer of cocaine. Poor farmers, many of them coffee growers gone broke, have turned to drug crops to make a living.

"The lingerie, which includes bras and lacy panties, will be made at clothing and shoe plants in the southern coffee-rich province of Cauca, which has seen a spike of cocaine crops due to the collapse of world coffee prices."

Source

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Palestinian Baby Born in Bethlehem Draws Crowds

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) -- "A baby born in Bethlehem is drawing crowds by the thousands. Palestinians in the West Bank town revered by Christians as Jesus' birthplace have been thronging to the adjacent Aida refugee camp for a glimpse of the 11-day-old infant many are calling a 'miracle baby.'

"The boy has gained attention for being born with a large birthmark across his cheek that roughly forms in Arabic letters the name of his uncle, Ala, a Hamas militant killed by Israeli troops after he was alleged to have planned a suicide bombing."

Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | Eureka Stockade Day, Australia

1854 The Battle of Eureka Stockade, an uprising of gold miners against the State of Victoria, Australia; six troopers and 34 miners died in the civil revolt by gold miners against the officials supervising the gold-mining regions of Ballarat. Although the revolt failed, it has endured in the collective social consciousness of Australia.

Eureka has been variously described as the birthplace of Australia's democracy, republicanism and multiculturalism. Its heroes include an Italian writer, a freed American slave, a former German soldier and sundry American democrats, Irish rebels and British chartists.

The miners held a series of huge peaceful meetings demanding fairer treatment (their main complaint was about miners’ taxes), but following the murder of a miner, those calls for non-violence were pushed aside. A 27-year-old Irishman, Peter Lawlor, who'd never before addressed a public meeting was thrust into leadership; his first word: “Liberty”. The flag the miners flew, bearing the Southern Cross constellation, is still a national symbol of anti-authoritarianism.


More at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac December 3 | The naughty feast of Bona Dea

Men need not apply

At around December 3, and also around May 4 (though as early as May 1; called the Tarentia), the ancient Romans commemorated the “Good Goddess”: Bona Dea, which is the most popular name by which the goddess Fauna or Fatua (Fate) was known. She is also an aspect of the goddess Artemis Calliste, the Lily of Heaven. Angitia, a deity of the Marsii might have been the same goddess, and the Good Goddess is also identified with Cybele, Maia, Ge, Ops, Terra, Tellus, Semele, Marica and Hecate, and was thus a fertility and earth goddess. Her priestesses grew medicinal herbs and the sick were tended to in the gardens outside her temples. She was associated with the cornucopia, snakes and coins and her image frequently occurred on ancient Roman coins.

It was said that her father, Faunus, (known to the Greeks as Pan), had tried to seduce her but failed, despite having got her drunk on wine and having whipped her with a myrtle branch. Eventually, he father turned himself into a serpent and in that form succeeded in penetrating his daughter. Another legend says that Faunus was her husband and became incensed at Fauna's drunkenness, so he killed her, but then deified her ...

Not a lot is known about the nature of the Bona Dea mysteries. We do know that a sacred serpent appeared alongside the goddess and that her tabernacles were covered in vine leaves. The Roman satirist Juvenal said that the rites were orgiastic. A pig was sacrificed (a sow is the usual sacrifice for deities such as Ceres and Tellus), wine under the name of milk was offered to the goddess, the congregation danced to the sound of harps and flutes. Plutarch wrote that myrtle was excluded from the private use in the cult at home, because it was sacred to Venus and could have overtones of sexual impurity, and Macrobius tells us that myrtle was banned from use in the temple ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Catholics 'should challenge Church'

Irish Examiner, 2 December

"Catholics have been urged to challenge their local priests over controversial Vatican claims that condoms cannot prevent the spread of Aids.

"Nothing less than a grassroots Catholic rebellion is needed to counter the 'misleading and dangerous' claims, according to Liberal Democrat Euro-MP Chris Davies.

"His call came as fellow Euro-MPs tabled a motion in the European Parliament urging EU governments to denounce the claims as unacceptable.

"The cross-party motion, signed by MEPs from Italy, Holland, Greece and the UK, says millions of lives are being put at risk by a declaration from senior Vatican spokesman Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo ...

"The World Health Organisation has already described his views as 'dangerous' in the face of a disease which has killed 20 million people."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac December 2, 1793 | Coleridge becomes Comberbeck

1793 English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772 - July 25, 1834) enlisted in the Light Dragoons, fleeing his creditors.

Coleridge used the alias Silas Tompkyns Comberbeck, to retain his initials. A legend has it that when a drill sergeant asked, “Whose dirty rifle is this” Coleridge asked in return, “Is it very, very dirty?” The sergeant answered that it was. “Then it must be mine,” Coleridge replied. His only real service was in a military hospital, from which possibly he found the imagery for the dead sailors in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Later, after his parents had paid off his commission, at Cambridge University he came into contact with political and theological ideas then considered radical. Motivated by the heady political and intellectual atmosphere of the early years of the French Revolution, he dropped out of Cambridge without a degree and joined the Oxford poet Robert Southey (the two poets later married two sisters, Sarah and Edith Flicker) in a plan, soon abandoned, to found a utopian communist-like society in the wilderness of Pennsylvania, called ‘pantisocracy’, to be established on the banks of the Susquehanna on land bought by the radical Joseph Priestley after his exile from England. Southey later became a conservative and was appointed Poet Laureate.

Coleridge’s life was plagued by opiate addiction.

Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner


This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Global Warming Still a Priority -- Just Not for U.S. Prez

League of Liberals Showcase Nominee Reminds us that Without Our Mother Earth, Nothing Else Matters

Damage -- Highlighting On-Going Problems Faced in the World Today


Category: Humanitarian / Endangered Species / Environmental
Year: 2003
Title: Global Warming Catastrophe - New Evidence
Full Story: Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment

Global warming over the next hundred years could trigger a catastrophe which rivals the worst mass extinction in the planet's entire history, according to new evidence unearthed by scientists at Bristol University.

The researchers have discovered that a mere six degrees of global warming was enough to wipe out up to 95% of the species which were alive on Earth at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago. Up to six degrees of warming is now predicted for the next century by UN scientists from the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if nothing is done about emissions of the greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, which cause global warming.

Related Article: Guardian Unlimited: Shadow of Extinction: Only six degrees separate our world from the cataclysmic end of an ancient era.

*Ø* Blogmanac | The Internet Patriotic to Whom?

Expanded Patriot Act Reach Would Hit The Net, Too
By Charles Farrar

WASHINGTON - A bill approved by Congress last week to extend the reach of the Patriot Act would expand the FBI's business document and transaction power to cyberspace stations like eBay, Internet logs, and Internet service providers, and without requiring a judge's approval.

It's part of the new bill's redefinition of the term "financial institution" and "financial transaction," according to Wired, and allows the FBI to get such records by handing itself a national security letter saying those records are relevant to a terrorism investigation.

"The FBI doesn't need to show probable cause or consult a judge," the magazine said. "What's more, the target institution is issued a gag order and kept from revealing the subpoena's existence to anyone, including the subject of the investigation."

This bill follows a stalled attempt earlier this year by the Justice Department to write and push the so-called "Patriot II" act, but a leak of the draft provoked such an outcry that the department backed away from that proposal, but Wired said the newly passed bill involves one of Patriot II's most controversial aspects.

According to Duke University law professor Chris Schroeder, that shows those who wanted to expand the FBI's powers didn't want to stop despite the hoopla over Patriot II. "They are going to insert these provisions on a stealth basis," Schroeder told Wired. "It's insidious." [Emphasis added. -v]

He has an ally in the Center for Democracy and Technology's executive director, James X. Dempsey. "On its face, it's a cryptic and seemingly innocuous amendment," he told the magazine. "It wasn't until after it passed both houses that we saw it. The FBI andd CIA like to try to graft things like this into intelligence bills."

But don't tell those things to House Intelligence Committee chairman Porter Goss (R-Florida), who calls the new definitions of financial institutions and financial transactions bringing them up to date "with the reality of the financial industry. This provision," Goss said in a House floor speech, "will allow those tracking terrorists and spies to 'follow the money' more effectively and thereby protect the people of the United States more effectively."

Protect them from what -- strip clubs? The current issue of Newsweek, which hit the stands Nov. 24, includes a report saying that a little-enough known Patriot Act portion already redefined "money laundering" to the point where the FBI is suspected of using it to investigate anyone it pleases on pretexts having little to do with terrorism investigations. [Emphasis added. -v]

A recent case nicknamed Operation G-String, in fact, found the FBI using the money laundering provision to investigate whether the owner of a Las Vegas adult club was trying to bribe top city officials. They used it to look at all the financial records of those officials, Newsweek said. And that isn't all, potentially.

"Treasury Department figures show that this year the Feds have used the Patriot Act to conduct searches on 962 suspects, yielding ‘hits’ on 6,397 financial records," the magazine said announcing the Nov. 24 issue. "Of those, two thirds (4,261) were in money-laundering cases with no terror connection. Among the agencies making requests, Newsweek has learned, were the IRS (which investigates tax fraud), the Postal Service (postal fraud) and the Secret Service (counterfeiting). One request came from the Agriculture Department -- a case that apparently involved food stamp fraud." [Emphasis added -v]

Source of reports on mis-use of new laws

Related article: "Are You A Patriot?" by John Kaminski

*Ø* Blogmanac | Coligny nuts take note

Celtic calendar free download

The Coligny Calendar , in the Gaulish language, is an ancient Celtic solar/lunar ritual calendar which was discovered in Coligny France. It dates to a time when the Romans and Celts coexisted, and heavily influenced each other. The Calendar that was found uses roman numerals for instance. However, the actual format of the calendar may be much older.

I've found a good site that not only has lots of information about the Coligny, but also a downloadable program that will give Coligny calendar dates and further data. If you're a calendar nut like me, it's well worth getting (for free). It's only 148kb zipped, and it works very quickly from the shortcut on my desktop. It's a great complement to my wondrous Lunabar, another great freebie that lives in my toolbar.

*Ø* Blogmanac November 30 | Today in the Book of Days

Feast day of St Andrew and beginning of Advent

St Andrew the King
Three weeks and three days before Christmas begins.

Saint Andrew, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ and the brother of Simon (later the apostle Peter), was a Galilean fisherman of Bethsaida, and originally a disciple of John the Baptist. In the Gospel of John (1:35-42), Andrew was the first called of Jesus’ disciples.

According to tradition, Andrew was crucified at Patmos, in Achaia, on an X-shaped cross, the form of which became known as St Andrew's Cross, which is still on the Scottish and British flags. His cross is the same as the cross of Wotan which Norse invaders of Scotland carried. In Scotland it became the national symbol, as Andrew the national patron saint. Waverly Fitzgerald points out, “The cross saltire, is also a sun symbol, which looks similar to a Catherine wheel or the rune of Gefjon, the Giver, which is associated with Freya, the great Scandinavian goddess who is much honored at wintertide.”

Pagan origins
According to Nigel Pennick (The Pagan Book of Days, 1992, 131), Andrew is a version of the divinity Andros, the Man, personification of virility, seen as an aspect of Dionysus. Scotland’s matronal goddess is Skadi, the Scathing One.

St Andrew and the meaning of ‘X’ on a letter
People used to sign with an X if they couldn't sign their name. Then they would kiss the X and promise by St Andrew (whose cross the X resembles) to abide by their oath or contract. Over the years, ‘X’ on a letter came to mean a kiss ...

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

1835 Mark Twain (November 30, 1835-April 21, 1910), anti-war, anti-imperialist American humorist and novelist (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The War Prayer) ...

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

The death of Oscar Wilde
He wrote De Profundis while in prison, exalting revolutionary action and political agitation. This small book was not published in its entirety until 44 years later. Wilde was released, practically a broken man, on May 19, 1897, spending his last years penniless on the Continent, under the name of Sebastian Melmoth in self-inflicted exile from society and artistic circles. He chose his name from Saint Sebastian (feast day January 20)*, who was killed by archers (suggested by the broad arrows on Wilde’s prison uniform), and Melmoth, a family name ...


This is just a snippet. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Great apes face extinction

PARIS (Reuters) - "At least $25 million (14 million pounds) is needed to save great apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees from the threat of extinction, a United Nations official says.

"'The clock is standing at one minute to midnight for the great apes, animals that share more than 96 percent of their DNA with humans,' said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).

"'$25 million is the bare minimum we need, the equivalent to providing a dying man with bread and water,' he said in a statement before a three-day international conference on the great apes starting in Paris [last] Wednesday.

"All great ape species risk extinction, either in the immediate future or at best within 50 years, because of growing forest destruction, poaching, live animal trade and humans encroaching on their habitat, the conference organisers said."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Rockers Unite to Oust Bush

From ROLLINGSTONE.COM

Moby, Henley, Matthews ask fans to "get involved"

"Bruce Springsteen told a crowd of 50,000 New Yorkers on October 4th to 'shout a little louder if you want the president impeached.' Two weeks later, John Mellencamp posted an open letter to America on his Web site, declaring, 'We have been lied to and terrorized by our own government, and it is time to take action.' Meanwhile, Moby, Eddie Vedder and Michael Stipe are organizing a TV-ad campaign that will run anti-Bush commercials during the week of the State of the Union address in January; Dave Matthews is railing against the war in Iraq in interviews; and at press time, at least three multiband rock tours planned to take aim at Bush-administration policies. Green Day, NOFX, Tom Morello, Dixie Chicks, Don Henley, Willie Nelson and Steve Earle have all played (or plan to play) for political candidates or causes. Hip-hop stars have also gotten involved. 'We have a voice and a responsibility to speak out,' says Jay-Z, a member of Russell Simmons' Hip-Hop Summit, which aims to register 4 million voters before the 2004 election. 'People listen to us.'

"Welcome to the increasingly partisan world of popular music -- where President George W. Bush is a marked man. Thirty major artists interviewed for this story cited many concerns: U.S. policy on Iraq, the Patriot Act, the Bush administration's assault on the environment, the economy and the media. But they all agreed that as the 2004 presidential election gets
closer, it is time to mobilize. 'The America we believe in can't survive another four years of George Bush,' says Moby. Adds Lou Reed, 'We must all unite and work for whomever opposes Bush, regardless of whatever differences we may have. Our motto: Anything but Bush.'"

Continue here

*Ø* Blogmanac | More "Food" For Thought

Arrogance is a Disease that often leads to War

Excerpt:

I'll end with a quote that could well describe most liberals. It is from a book called,
"How to be a Gentleman", by John Bridges.

"A gentleman never makes himself the center of attention. His goal is to make life
easier, not just for himself, but for his friends, his acquaintences, and the world
at large."

While a Conservative may succeed in getting to the point where friends and
acquaintences are included within their sphere of concern...they always, always,
fall flat on the last point. It is this point where Liberals go far beyond the current
crop of Conservatives...at least among the more outspoken of them (there are
always exceptions, of course) and shine as the true gentlemen and gentlewomen
of our age, and, at times, all ages.


The Yin and Yang of Conservatism

The 7 States of Sickness
(from "Natural Healing Through Macrobiotics" by Michio Kushi)

1. Fatigue or Tiredness
2. Aches and Pains
3. Blood Diseases
4. Emotional Disorders
5. Organ Diseases
6. Nerve Diseases
7. Arrogance


FURTHER EXPLANATION

1. Fatigue or Tiredness - The major causes are lack of physical exercise plus over-eating
and over-drinking, particularly meat and sugar.

2. Aches and Pains - The nervous system starts to weaken.

3. Blood Diseases - Thought incurable, these can often be cured by proper diet.

4. Emotional Disorders - This category includes problems such as irritability, impatience,
upset, anger, anxiety, worry, fear, and uneasiness. A healthy person is not bothered by
negative emotional states. If we become angry even once a year, we are not completely
healthy. Ideally, we should not become angry even once during an entire lifetime.
(This was written before The Great Dewakening; The Current Unpleasantness. It could
be argued that anger, as a defense mechanism, should be reserved for such times as
these...although I much prefer Gandhean Satyagraha to vehemence and anger. Besides,
there is always the Butterfly Effect to consider, as well as the even more subtle Taoist
notion that one need not lift a finger, or make any ripple in the material world. A vision,
well-wrought, can change minds and worlds effortlessly, internally. I digress....)

5. Organ Diseases - Organs begin to degenerate.

6. Nerve Diseases - Dullness, forgetfulness, social crimes.

7. Arrogance - This occurs when we try to separate ourselves from nature and the
universe, and happens in one of two ways. The first is yang arrogance, and it appears
in the form of a domineering, conquering, or self-insistent personality which tends to
drive others away. This yang arrogance is what George W. Bush, and many on the
flagrant right-conservative site of the dial, have digested...although it occasionally takes
root among those left of center...at which point they become neo-cons, after having
passed through Dennis Miller.

"The yin type of arrogance shows itself in the form of withdrawal or a refusal to listen.
Many of the elderly and and those who consider themselves devout or religious suffer
from this form of arrogance. This type of person is usually not open to the opinions or
suggestions of others."

Kushi continues: " Arrogance is actually the underlying cause of all human sickness and
unhappiness and is at the same time the end point of the first six stages. Ultimately, all
people who suffer from arrogance commit suicide by dying an unnatural death, either
through sickness, war, accident, or other causes. The basic purpose of macrobiotic
healing is to cure arrogance."


So here we have it. The explanation of what is today called "Conservatism"...although the only thing these folks are concerned about conserving is their ego; their arrogance -- whether it be in the form of Bush-style brashness, or the quieter, more obscurantistic hard-headed self-righteousness exhibited by the more reposed.

Arrogance is a killer...of self and others. It incorrectly places the ego where God, the Tao, the spirit, Stewardship, Magnanimity, or whatever name you call it, should be.


What a wildly imaginative but brilliant and sensible way of looking at our world!
Definitely CONTINUE to the SOURCE and enjoy more of this and other unique posts!

*Ø* Blogmanac November 29, 1838 | Myall Creek murderers convicted

1838 The Myall Creek Massacre culprits were found guilty of murder.

On Saturday, June 9, 1838, twelve European stockmen in Australia rounded up approximately 20 Kwiambal Aborigines at Myall Creek (a branch of the Gwydir River), and killed them with knives and guns. The stockmen, who had accused the Aboriginal people of pilfering, were acquitted at a trial on November 15, but, following a public uproar, faced trial again on November 29 and were found guilty. Seven of the twelve murdered were executed under Governor Sir George Gipps’s authority.

Massacre at Myall Creek, from Cafe Diem!, our store

*Ø* Blogmanac November 29 | International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

In 1977, the General Assembly of the United Nations called for the annual observance of November 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (resolution 32/40 B). On that day, in 1947, the Assembly had adopted the resolution on the partition of Palestine (resolution 181 (II)).

On December 3, 2001, the Assembly noted the action taken by Member States to observe the Day, and requested them to continue to give it the widest possible publicity (resolution 56/34).

This is just a snippet. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Queen speaks of same-sex couple rights

"My government will maintain its commitment to increased equality"

"Queen Elizabeth II of England opened Parliament on Wednesday by announcing that MPs will debate the issue of civil partnerships for same-sex couples in the coming session.

"In her annual speech, in which she outlines the key bills from the government, the queen said the bill would help increase social justice across England and Wales.

"'My government will maintain its commitment to increased equality and social justice by bringing forward legislation on the registration of civil partnerships between same-sex couples,' she told the House of Lords' ..."
Source: Planet Out

*Ø* Blogmanac | Good Friday Agreement in trouble

Gerry Moriarty, Irish Times

"Sinn Féin has made huge gains over the SDLP in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, while a strong DUP vote could give the Rev Ian Paisley's party more seats than the UUP.

"The overall result due later today radically alters the political landscape of the North and threatens the future of the Belfast Agreement.

"The DUP outpolled by around 20,000 votes the Ulster Unionists in terms of first preferences, sending a clear anti-agreement message to the British and Irish governments.

"Another day of high electoral drama is in store today as the DUP, Sinn Féin and Mr David Trimble's Ulster Unionists Party battle to win the most Assembly seats. The result was unpredictable last night and will hinge on how preference votes are transferred in several of the constituencies.

"If Sinn Féin emerges with the majority of seats, then the prospects of unionists agreeing to form an Executive with Mr Martin McGuinness as the likely First Minister appear very remote. While there has been speculation that DUP pragmatists might deal with Sinn Féin, the party leader Dr Ian Paisley emphasised yesterday that he would not negotiate with Sinn Féin.

"'Anyone who talks to Sinn Féin will be out of my party,' he said."

Continue here

*Ø* Blogmanac November 28, 1757 | William Blake, New Age guy

Art degraded, Imagination denied
War govern'd the Nations.
William Blake

Poetry fetter'd Fetters the Human Race
Nations are Destroy'd or Flourish in proportion as
Their Poetry, Painting and Music are Destroy'd or Flourish:
The primeval state of Man was Wisdom, Art and Science.
William Blake; Jerusalem
Energy is eternal delight.
William Blake

1757 William Blake, English visionary poet (Songs of Innocence and of Experience) and artist who believed in a spiritual and artistic New Age and produced books in a total celebration of self-publishing, including writing the text, making relief etchings of the text (as mirror image) and the illustrations, printing and hand colouring the pages ...

This is just a snippet. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date.

*Ø* Blogmanac | McDonald's Rapped for 'Simple Fries' Campaign

LONDON (Reuters) - "Fast food corporation McDonald's has been rapped by British advertising watchdogs for a campaign that trumpeted the brilliant simplicity of their recipe for fries -- the humble potato and nothing else. Adverts showed a potato in a fries box alongside the text: 'The story of our fries (end of story).'

"But the public and campaigners objected, saying that often the chips were part-fried in one country, sometimes in beef tallow; flown halfway round the world; soaked in dextrose; often contaminated with gluten and finally drenched in excessive levels of salt ... "

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Ireland - Gardaí breathalyse wheelchair user

"A man in a motorised wheelchair is facing a possible drink-driving charge after his arrest on suspicion that he was over the limit.

"Gardaí spotted the wheelchair-user driving in an erratic fashion in Cork city centre and pulled him over. Most motorised wheelchairs have a top speed of 6mph.

"A garda spokesman confirmed the 'highly unusual' incident happened over the last Bank Holiday weekend. The driver of the wheelchair was arrested and taken to a local garda station where he was breathalysed. A file is now being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions."

Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | Let's Roll! There are antiquities we must destroy!

[It seems the U.S. IS on a crusade--it's destroying non-Christian
relics wherever it goes, ignoring the fact that Christian relics go
along with them. "Another one back to the Stone Age," they cry,
thinking even less of the people who'll die. -v]


Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) Commentary
Editor: John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)
Project Against the Present Danger


The Road to Damascus
By Ian Williams | November 24, 2003

At this time last year, it was difficult to get people to take the threat of war on Iraq seriously. This year, the threat to Syria is much more explicit than that against Saddam Hussein, but too many people dismiss any such thought.

But paranoia pays. We should have noted by now that this administration is motivated in mysterious ways, but does clearly signal its intentions no matter how seemingly irrational they appear to others. The neocons and their friends in the administration may, as the current unplanned Iraqi occupation experience indicates, be out of tune with reality in the rest of the world. But the fact that they achieved their first goal--the invasion and occupation of Iraq--indicates that they know all to well how Washington works. Which should make us worry about their second goal; most of them are on the record supporting Ariel Sharon's suggestion that Syria is next.

The passage of the Syria Accountability Act in the House of Representatives with only 4 votes against it on October 15 could be dismissed as mere pandering by legislators eager to prove how earnestly pro-Israel they are in the run-up to a costly election campaign. But even if Representatives only voted for it out of callow expediency, the Act threatens to mean much more.

The laundry list of reasons to attack is already written!

*Ø* Blogmanac November 27 | Sophia, goddess of wisdom

Sophia is the great lost Goddess who has remained intransigently within orthodox spiritualities. She is veiled, blackened, denigrated and ignored most of the time; or else she is exalted, hymned and pedestalled as an allegorical abstraction of female divinity. She is allowed to be a messenger, a mediator, a helper, a handmaid: she is rarely allowed the privilege of being seen to be in charge, fully self-possessed and creatively operative.
Matthews, Caitlin, SOPHIA: Goddess of Wisdom, Bride of God (1991)

Day of Sophia (according to some sources)

Sophia (pronounced sew-fee'ah in Greek) (pictured here with her three daughters, Faith, Hope and Charity) has been revered as the Wise Bride of Solomon by Jews, and as the Queen of Wisdom and War (Athena) by Greeks. She has been referred to as the Holy Spirit of Wisdom by Christian writers. She is known as Chokmah (HOK-mah) in Hebrew, and Sapientia in Latin. She is sometimes referred to as the Bride of Christ or of God.

To the Gnostic Christians, Sophia had an esoteric meaning, and was the Mother of Creation; her consort and assistant was Jehovah. In the Gnostic creation myth, Sophia sought the unknowable One, being so distant from her. In one account, she saw a distant light which was in fact a mirror image, and thus drifted even farther away from the pleroma, or fulness of God. The Gnostic religion’s sacred texts include Pistis Sophia: The Books of the Saviour.

Her sacred shrine, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, is one of the remarkable buildings of the world. The first church on the site was built by Constantine the Great. The temple itself was so richly and artistically decorated that Justinian I, after rebuilding it, is believed to have said ÍåíßêçêÜ óå Óïëïìþí (Solomon, I have surpassed you!). It was converted to a mosque at the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II in 1453. [Read about this seminal event in history in our article, ‘Celestial wonders and the fall of Constantinople, 1453’]. A Christian church in Sophia, capital of Bulgaria, gave its name to the city.

As Asherah (the Semitic name of the Great Goddess, whose origin differs from Astarte, or Ishtar, or Inanna in Sumerian mythology), who was principally worshipped at the Philistine Pentapolis (coalition of five cities forming a kingdom – namely, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath and Gaza) but also along Canaan and, for some time, Israel, she was even given a place in Solomon’s Temple of Yahweh (Jehovah God), which was built under the direction of skilled Phoenician builders and workmen ...

This is just a snippet. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day

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*Ø* Blogmanac | A reminder for tomorrow

Buy Nothing Day

“Since its launch in the Pacific Northwest [USA] twelve years ago, Buy Nothing Day has grown into a worldwide celebration of consumer awareness and simple living. Observed on the day after US Thanksgiving – America's busiest shopping day of the year – the campaign has sparked debate, radio talk shows, TV news items and newspaper headlines around the world.

“People in more than thirty countries have made a pact with themselves and, as a personal experiment and public statement, stepped out of the consumer stream for 24 hours. The ways in which people have marked the event worldwide have been as diverse as the participants themselves.

“The daredevils of the Ruckus Society, a California-based direct-action group, dropped a boxcar-sized banner ridiculing overconsumption smack in the middle of the Mall of America. Other more down-to-earth-types created and distributed the Gift Exemption Voucher – a polite way of saying, Let's not get each other anything this year, out of principle. In Seattle, helpful Buy Nothing Day celebrants offered a credit-card cut-up service outside a downtown mall.” Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | What a wonderful Bush world



(Tune: 'What a Wonderful World This Will Be' by Sam Cooke)
Don't know much about history
Don't know much foreign policy
Don't remember how I got through school
I'm sure I didn't break the rules
But what's it matter 'cause my granny says
"Boy, if you want to you can be the prez
And what a wonderful world this will be"

Don't know much about the women's vote
Don't know much about the bill I wrote
Don't know much about the foreign vets
I've never voted for 'em yet
But I do know if your dad tries hard
He can get you in the National Guard
And what a wonderful place that can be

Now I never claimed to be an A student
But what's wrong with C's?
And maybe by knowing the names of my cabinet
I can win their love for me...
Don't know much about air pollution
Don't know much about the constitution
Don't know much about th'economy
It never much affected me

But there's one thing that I know for sure
If the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor
What a wonderful world this will be

Don't know much about the national debt
I've never had to pay one yet
If we need to we can sell the States
To the Japanese at discount rates
But I do know if things get bad
Dick and I can always call my dad
And what a wonderful world this will be.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Aids annual death toll hits 3m

26 November, Irish Independent

"The annual worldwide death toll from Aids has reached 3m, the UN agency leading the fight against the virus reported yesterday.

"New figures released by Unaids and the World Health Organisation before World Aids Day on Monday show that the global advance of the condition is continuing unabated, with 5m new infections and 3m deaths this year, up from 2.8m deaths in 2002.

"An estimated 40m people around the world are now living with HIV or Aids, including 2.5m children below 15, and one in five adults in southern Africa is HIV-positive."

Continue here
Donate to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria here

*Ø* Blogmanac | Saddam Dolls Seized!!

"Customs officials in Israel have seized a lorry-load of inciteful material.

"No, it is not a controversial book about Arab-Israeli relations.

"It is 450 Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden dolls.

"And they dance.

"They were seized from an Arab-Israeli businessman in the Northern port of Haifa. He said he wanted to sell them to both Arab and Jews as a 'gimmick'.

"A spokesman for Customs said: 'The law doesn't exactly say that you cannot own a bin Laden doll, but neither he nor Saddam Hussein are exactly good educational role models'."

Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | "Monstrous US justice" -- Law Lord

The Telegraph
26 November

"One of Britain's most senior judges condemned the American courts last night for a 'monstrous failure of justice' by refusing to rule on the claims of Taliban suspects held without trial at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"Lord Steyn, a serving law lord, said the United States was acting illegally by holding the men without trial since their transfer from Afghanistan early last year.

"'By denying the prisoners the right to raise challenges in a court about their alleged status and treatment, the United States government is in breach of the minimum standards of customary international law,' he said.

"Giving the annual F A Mann lecture arranged by the law firm Herbert Smith in London last night, Lord Steyn accused the world's most powerful democracy of 'detaining hundreds of suspected foot soldiers of the Taliban in a legal black hole at the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay, where they await trial on capital charges by military tribunals'.

But these tribunals, or 'commissions', were not independent courts, he said.

"The term 'kangaroo court' springs to mind."

Continue here

*Ø* Blogmanac | The Blocking of Africa

"The Congo, and countries around lake Albert in Africa have become synonymous with butchery, vile deeds, corruption and the curse that valuable resources bring when there is no strong democracy or rule of law. Now, add oil into the mix. It’s too easy to say oil will be merely another story of lawless rebels being exploited in an inevitable spiral of death, dollars and destruction ...

"Oil industry conferences are gushing freely in almost every continent, and African oil is now a regular item. Last month in Capetown, one session actually had as a theme-‘Oil Wars in Africa’. Then there was the Oil and Money Conference in London in Early November. And in the last week there have been another two conferences in Texas.

"America wants to wean itself off reliance on Middle East oil, and make sure there is plenty around elsewhere for the future ..."
Source: Background Briefing

America's SUVs are driving some bad foreign policy decisions [so are Australia's]

*Ø* Blogmanac November 26 | Eid Mubarak! to our Muslim readers

Go grab a big hamburger with the lot! You've earned it

Today in the Book of Days

’Id-al-Fitr
Today (Eid, or 'Id) is one of the most important days in the Islamic calendar, and commences with the first sighting of the first New Moon following Ramadan. When the Ramadan fast ends (the first day of the month of Shawwal) it is celebrated for three days in a holiday called Id-al-Fitr (the Feast of Fast Breaking). Gifts are exchanged; friends and family gather to pray in congregation and for large meals. In some cities fairs are held to celebrate the end of the Fast of Ramadan. This Id is known as Seker Bayram in Turkish, and Hari Raya Puasa in South East Asia. More

Send a free e-card to someone for Eid today because even that nice Mr Bush has done it.


There's much more in today's page of the Book of Days. Like this:

Late November, the Bogong Moth Dreaming, Australia

North-East and Upper Murray River region of Victoria

Late November six aboriginal clans meet at Mungabareena (‘the gathering place’), a reserve on the NSW side of the river just east of Albury.

and

Archaeologist Howard Carter and the Earl of Carnarvon peeked through a hole in the door of Tutankhamun's tomb and became the first modern people to see the treasures.

(Read on at November 26)

*Ø* Blogmanac | Free: Australian wildlife calendars



I have two Australian wildlife calendars that I will airmail next Monday to the 7th and 17th persons who write to me and tell me that they have invited two friends to subscribe to Wilson's Almanac from the subscription box in the right-hand column on this page.

I have an Aussie bird calendar for the 27th person who writes to me. My email addy is in the left-hand column here.

Put CALENDAR in the subject header of your email to me and I will contact the winners for their postal address.

No need to give me your friends' names or anything else. Let's do it on trust.

Have fun!

Seen at
The Armchair Acitivist
Get free graphics and free content for your website

*Ø* Blogmanac November 25 | Feast day of St Catherine of Alexandria



(Sweet butter-bur, Tussilago fragrans is today's plant, dedicated to this saint)

She was a virgin (nun) and martyr of noble birth in Alexandria who defended the Christian faith against ‘heathen’ philosophers (c. 310 CE) commanded by Emperor Maximinus.

When Maximinus began his persecutions, the 18-year-old and very beautiful Catherine went to the emperor and rebuked him for his tyranny as he stood in the middle of a pagan temple. Unable to answer her arguments, he called in fifty philosophers to confront her. After they admitted that they were convinced by her arguments, the furious emperor sentenced them to be burned ...

From the wheel on which she was tortured and killed comes the circular window design in stained glass in medieval ecclesiastical architecture, termed a Catherine-wheel window or wheel window, and also the firework, the Catherine wheel.

There is quite a lot of folklore associated with Catherine and this day, and some info on the Hindu goddess Kali, with whom she has been compared. Check out November 25 in the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days where there is plenty more, on John Lennon, Homeland Insecurity, Celtic Tree Calendar Months, crazy temperance lady Carry A Nation, Australian Aboriginal Legend of the Great Flood and much more.

*Ø* Blogmanac November 24, 1876 | Canberra's bent designer



1876 Walter Burley Griffin, anthroposophist architect who designed Canberra, Australia’s national capital.

Rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s two largest cities, has always been so great, in the early 20th Century it was decided that a capital city should be founded somewhere between the two, despite the huge distances involved and the complete lack of any other reason for founding a city in the ‘middle of nowhere’. The city thus founded is 248 km from Sydney and 483 km from Melbourne.

As it was being established in the middle of sheep country (appropriately), the new capital city of Australia was named ‘Canberra’. Names flippantly suggested for the artificial city included Kangaremu, Australific, Meladneyperbane (combined names of capital cities Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane). The final choice was kept a secret and announced by Lady Denman, wife of the Governor-General, when foundation stones were laid on Capital Hill, at noon on March 12, 1913. The name probably means "meeting place" in an Aboriginal language.

The city of Canberra was designed by this American anthroposophist, who placed esoteric symbols in the unusual layout of the city’s roads, public spaces and suburbs. Similar occult symbology is to be found in other examples of his work such as a large incinerator built at the Sydney suburb of Sydney.

It is widely alleged that the best thing ever to come out of Canberra is the Federal Highway.

*Ø* Blogmanac November 24, 1963 | Patsy Day?

It isn't right to put me in line with these teenagers ... You know what you are doing, and you are trying to railroad me ... I want my lawyer ... You are doing me an injustice by putting me out there dressed different than these other men ... I am out there, the only one with a bruise on his head ... I don t believe the lineup is fair, and I desire to put on a jacket similar to those worn by some of the other individuals in the lineup ... All of you have a shirt on, and I have a T-shirt on. I want a shirt or something ... This T-shirt is unfair.
Lee Harvey Oswald at a police lineup for Helen Markham, witness to the Tippit murder

At noon, on a street in Dallas, the president of the United States is assassinated. He is hardly dead when the official version is broadcast. In that version, which will be the definitive one, Lee Harvey Oswald alone has killed John Kennedy.
The weapon does not coincide with the bullet, nor the bullet with the holes. The accused does not coincide with the accusation: Oswald is an exceptionally bad shot of mediocre physique, but according to the official version, his acts were those of a champion marksman and Olympic sprinter. He has fired an old rifle with impossible speed and his magic bullet, turning and twisting acrobatically to penetrate Kennedy and John Connally, the governor of Texas, remains miraculously intact.
Oswald strenuously denies it. But no one knows, no one will ever know what he has to say. Two days later he collapses before the television cameras, the whole world witness to the spectacle, his mouth shut by Jack Ruby, a two-bit gangster and minor trafficker in women and drugs. Ruby says he has avenged Kennedy out of patriotism and pity for the poor widow.
Galeano, Eduardo, Memory of Fire: III ‘Century of the Wind’. Part Three of a Trilogy, translated by Cedric Belfrage, Pantheon Books, 1988, p. 183

Lee Harvey Oswald's murder on this day in 1963 is one of many items in the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days entry for November 24

*Ø* Blogmanac | Keep Your Eye on the Prize!


The Whole World (except America) is Watching

While all eyes of the legitimate news sources in the world were trained on the protests against Bush in England (which were quite something, by the way!) and Dubya's antics among the royals, when they weren't covering the deepening of the military actions in Iraq and Turkey and the mounting loss of life, Americans were treated to a blow by blow, minute by minute coverage of Michael Jackson's latest run-in with authorities instead of the latest news about the illegtimacy of the touch-screen voting machines AND the illegitimacy of the Iraq massacre and occupation(thanks, DUG)--to say nothing of the expansion of the Patriot Act is moving through Congress.

We watched Michael's stunned reaction to the arrest warrant--it just "happened" to be served after two days of searching his ranch which began ON THE DAY (There are NO accidents!) that his latest CD was released.

The flight back to California and the black Bronco drive were high theatre, as were the handcuffs--whose idea were those, I wonder? He obviously was not a flight risk, since he was turning himself in! Nor was he a danger to the law enforcement agents whose numbers and poundage could have squashed him like a fly.

Is there anyone who still doubts the White House control of the media and the small-minded audiences it satisfies? Does anyone doubt that there are no "free speech zones" within eyesight of the President and the cameras of the media in this, the land of the free and the home of the brave? Isn't it obvious now that mainstream media are prevented from airing any footage they might catch of the gigantic demonstrations being held here against the "leader of the free world?"

It's so depressing and frustrating that I'm tempted to say that America deserves the horror that's taking place here for simply acting as gossip hounds while its priorities go haywire.

WAKE UP, AMERICA! Even Michael Jackson would tell you that. And I'm sure even Laci Peterson would cry out from the grave that her husband's trial is not of national importance and that we should switch to Democracy Now! or our local Pacifica Station. What would our troops say if they knew how little we heard about what was really going on over there and how little their lives meant in this administration's grand scheme?

*Ø* Blogmanac | Winding the Iraq Deathwatch

League of Liberals New Weblog Showcase Nominee

Iraq = Death

It's becoming more and more clear that America's neo-conservative regime was so blinded by its dual lust for oil and expanded empire that, not only did they fabricate lies to justify the invasion of Iraq but they also didn't bother to plan for the occupation. Now, just like Afghanistan they have what they want, energy resources and a pliant puppet regime. The rest of the country descending into chaos? That's just fine. Soon enough the war will be "won", that is, when the American people stop paying attention and we've moved on to invade Iran or Syria.

Anarchy Xero: Anarchy Xero explains it all

*Ø* Blogmanac November 23 | St Clement and the god Wayland

Feast day of St Clement (Pope Clement I, or Clement of Rome)
St Clement, the fourth pope of the Roman Catholic Church, the first of the successors of the Apostle St Peter about whom anything definite is known, and the first of the ‘Apostolic Fathers’, is the patron saint of tanners, as, by tradition, he was one himself. His symbol is an anchor, as he was thrown into the sea tied to an anchor. He is also patron of boatmen, marble workers, mariners, sailors, sick children, stonecutters and watermen.

He is mentioned by St Paul in Philippians, iv, 3. After Clement, or Old Clem as he was known to English blacksmiths, was martyred, two of his disciples prayed to find his remains: the sea retreated for 3 miles, and they could walk to where an angel-built chapel was, with St Clement's remains in a chest of stone, by the anchor. Every year the sea did so, on St Clement's day and remained dry for seven days.

Children in pre-Reformation England went in procession on this day, and at night, adults went out to beg a drink. Hence this day was marked with a pot on old ‘clog almanacs'.

St Clement is also patron of blacksmiths. The November 22 Almanac looked at St Clement’s Eve activities amongst that trade. At the annual blacksmiths’ feast held at Burwash, Sussex, St Clement was said to stand protectively above the tavern door.

Old Clem and Wayland the Smith
St Clement’s day marks the first day of Winter in the Julian (OS) calendar. According to Pennick (Pennick, Nigel, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992, p. 129), as patron of blacksmiths and metalworkers, Clement is an aspect of the Saxon and Norse godling Wayland the Smith, Völundr, the smith of the gods, who was the son of the giant sailor Wate and of a mermaid. Swords made by Wayland are regular properties of medieval romance. King Rhydderich gave one to Merlin – King Arthur’s famous sword Excalibur. Rimenhild made a similar gift to Child Horn.

In the Dietrich cycle of sagas, Völundr’s brother Egill was compelled to prove his skill as an archer by shooting an apple off the head of his three-year-old son; he is thus the prototype of William Tell.

The earliest known record of the Wayland legend is the representation in carved ivory on a casket made by Northumbrian craftsmen not later than the beginning of the 8th century. English local tradition has it that Wayland Smith’s forge is in a cave close to the famous White Horse of Uffington, Berkshire, UK. If a horse that needs to be shod, or any broken tool were left with sixpence at the entrance of the cave the repairs would quickly be done.

Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
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*Ø* Blogmanac | "Harry Grable" from the Beatles


If you're an old Beatles fan (or even a new one), and have Kazaa, you'll dig the download I just found. At only 15 megs, the compilation of early-1960s Beatles Xmas message records (released only to fan clubs) is heaps of fun and surprisingly long. I just typed in Beatles Xmas. Takes me back, as I heard some of them way back then. Aaahh.

Happy Grimble, everydobby peegle!

*Ø* Blogmanac | Fabulous creatures

Although my server is playing up this weekend (hence as I write, some of the pix on the Blogmanac aren't showing, I'm sorry), I am still able to work online with everything except the Scriptorium.

I'm constantly amazed by the Internet, as I am constantly dismayed by Western culture. I was searching Yahoo! Groups' Fabulous Creatures category, hoping to find a good list I could join to trawl for more information about creatures of fable such as basilisks (pictured), unicorns and sphinxes, when I found that this category's top-ranking Yahoo! Group is

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/long_legs_small_waist_big_breasts/, the FabulousBody:MoniqueDesireeTaitague group, described as:

Monique Desiree Taitague Body Appreciation Forum:Sexiest Creation in the World!! God's Gift to the World Monique Desiree Taitague.No plastic surgery!!! 36DD breasts and 18 inch waistline.The Sweetheart from Vallejo,California.

::sigh::

Perhaps she is a succubus.

That group has got 8,616 members since November 2, 2002. Wilson's Almanac at Yahoo! Groups has got about 2,550 if you include bouncers, since January 1, 2001. Maybe I should get more large breasts into the Almy, or lose the dragons. Let me know.

I note that there are 552 groups for this fabulous creature, Ms Taitague.

Worst of all, that group didn't have a picture to show so I am completely in the dark. Damn and double damn!

Still and all, out of 1,285 e-lists in our category, the Almy is the fourth largest. We must be doing something right.

*Ø* Blogmanac | And the mark of the Beast is . . . .

Implantable Spy Chip Gets Green Light from U.S.
By Tim McDonald
NewsFactor Network

The company said the VeriChip could be combined
with a global positioning system and used for
security purposes by potential kidnap victims.
[Do I hear a collective "Yeah, right!"? -v]

Originally used to protect pets, the Verichip can be programmed to contain medical information and can be used to track political dissidents--or whomever might be a "person of interest" to the Bush Administration.

For More Orwellian horror, read on.

Thanks, Dave!

*Ø* Blogmanac November 22 | St Clement folklore

Eve of St Clement (Pope Clement I, or Clement of Rome)

Today is the Eve of St Clement's day, November 23. Clement is the patron of blacksmiths. On this eve in England the tradesmen gathered and one of the senior apprentices was chosen as ‘Old Clem'. He would be dressed in a greatcoat, his head covered in a wig, and his face masked with a long white beard.

Old Clem sat in a large wooden chair, with a crown and anchor made of wood on top, and four transparencies around it representing ‘the blacksmiths' arms’, ‘anchor smiths at work’, ‘Britannia with her anchor’ and ‘Mt Etna’. Clem also had a wooden anvil. The other smiths would bear sledge hammers, battle axes, tomahawks, and so on, and they formed a procession around town, ending with what in Australia we call a pub crawl.

One of the smiths called for attention to St Clem's speech with:

Gentlemen all, attention give,
And wish St Clem, long, long to live.

St Clem then recited a speech describing himself as the first founder of brass, iron and steel. They all sang the song :

Come all you Vulcans stout and strong,
Unto St Clem we do belong.
I know this house is well prepared
With plenty of money and good strong beer,
And we must drink before we part,
All for to cheer each merry heart.
Come all you Vulcans, strong and stout,
Unto St Clem I pray turn out;
For now St Clem's going round the town,
His coach and six goes merrily round.
Huzza-a-a!

*Ø* Blogmanac | Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences


You’ve seen it before, but let’s give it another run around the block

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.

Both wives lost a child while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.

Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.

Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.

Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Lincoln was shot at the theater named 'Kennedy.' Kennedy was shot in a car called 'Lincoln.' Booth ran from the theater and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe.

Are the ‘Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences’ real? No, says Snopes

*Ø* Blogmanac November 21, 1953 | Fifty years ago today



1953 Whodunnit? The Piltdown Man was revealed as fake.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Exciting news from the Wilson's Almanac freezine

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days

Very soon, I'll be making big changes to
the illustrated Wilson's Almanac free daily ezine.

Progressive *Ø* Green *Ø* Spiritual *Ø* Historical *Ø* Fun

The Almy is about to change. I will still send out the ezine every day of the year, and more than 2,550 daily readers worldwide will still get what they get today: many reasons and many ways to celebrate each day. That's congruent with the Almanac philosophy that "every day is a red-letter day", and our motto, "Carpe diem!" – Seize the day!

The difference will be that the ezine will contain headlines of the pick of the day's stories, with a link to a webpage at our exciting new project, the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days.

There will be much more info on that day's page than I could ever fit into an ezine, so Almaniacs will get a much better deal. The ezine will be lighter and faster to download, so there's another reason to take this path. The third big gain for our readers will be that the online resource will be permanent, which is better than the fleeting nature of an ezine.

The big benefit to your almanackist will be that it takes only as much time to make a webpage as it does to make an illustrated ezine, and I'll have the resource last online rather than vaporize each day. I'll do half as much work for twice the outcome, so I can work on two books I'm writing. One book is Almanac-style material, and the other is more philosophical and activism-oriented.

What will Wilson's Almanac Book of Days come to look like?
At the Book of Days, over time, there will be 366 pages – maybe the biggest database of On This Day material of this kind. If you want to get an idea what it will be like, it'll be exactly like this page already at the Scriptorium, only different, crossed with this and a touch of this, and a little bit like this. It'll definitely have a touch of this with a dash of this, stirred with a dash of this, seasoned with a touch of this ... and of course, you can always expect the Almy to have a flavour of this , this and this.

Women will be pleased that, like the old Almanac, there will still be plenty of things like this.

Like my favourite Daily Bleed, the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days will have a wealth of progressive data, with an emphasis on peace and activism. We will also have the emphasis on how each day is celebrated by the world's peoples – just like in the current Almy. And each year, it will keep getting bigger and better. I have a database of more than 2 million words complied over more than a quarter of a century, and I'll love sharing it each day.

Get ready for our unique Wilson's Almanac Book of Days: folklore, celebrations, peace, environment, activism, ideas, alternatives, Nature-oriented spirituality, historical oddities and much, much more. If you are not already a subscriber, why not take out a sub in our right-hand column of the Blogmanac, and I promise you'll get a cornucopia of info and entertainment each day for free.

Many thanks to Blogmanac team member Nora Ui Dhuibhir of Ireland who has made this possible. Because I'm a compulsive and incorrigible scrivener who keeps churning out pages, my wilsonsalmanac.com site is crammed to overflowing and the ISP is screaming for $400 back payments (help welcome!). Nora, always a practical supporter of our project, has made available 50 megabytes of her bluefudge domain available for hosting images. Thanks, pardner!

*Ø* Blogmanac | Quick off the mark at Betty Bowers




Wish I'd thought of it.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Bush and Blair at it again

From Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq
[permanently linked in our right-hand column]

"11/19/03: They've been bombing houses in Tikrit and other areas! Unbelievable … I'm so angry it makes me want to break something!!!! What the hell is going on?! What do the Americans think Tikrit is?! Some sort of city of monsters or beasts? The people there are simple people. Most of them make a living off of their land and their livestock- the rest are teachers, professors and merchants- they have lives and families… Tikrit is nothing more than a bunch of low buildings and a palace that was as inaccessible to the Tikritis as it was to everyone else!

"People in Al Awja suffered as much as anyone, if not more- they weren't all related to Saddam and even those who were, suffered under his direct relatives. Granted, his bodyguards and others close to him were from Tikrit, but they aren't currently in Tikrit- the majority have struck up deals with the CPA and are bargaining for their safety and the safety of their families with information. The people currently in Tikrit are just ordinary people whose homes and children are as precious to them as American homes and children are precious to Americans! This is contemptible and everyone thinks so- Sunnis and Shi'a alike are shaking their heads incredulously."

Courtesy Blogmanac team member Jeannine; article found at InformationClearinghouse.info who do a great job keeping us up to date.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Perle admits invasion of Iraq illegal

"International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.

"In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: 'I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing.'

"President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq – also the British government's publicly stated view – or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law ..."
Source: The Guardian

Uri Geller, interviewed about Michael Jackson, on A Current Affair [Australia] last night:

"I have only three words to say to Michael (Jackson):

"Grow up!"

[Thanx, Baz le Tuff]

*Ø* Blogmanac | How rich or poor are you?

http://www.globalrichlist.com has the answers in a clever bit of scripting that shows just how rich we are.

I live just a few bucks above the official Australian poverty line, but this website lets me know how lucky I am:

"You are in the top 13.9% richest people in the world.

"There are 5,165,485,122 people poorer than you."

Food for thought: there is poverty, and there is abject poverty. Have a go.

*Ø* Blogmanac | ACT Health Minister backs synthetic heroin trial

"The ACT [Australian Capital Territory] Health Minister will today urge other states and territories to back a national prescription trial of a synthetic form of heroin, known as hydromorphone.

"Simon Corbell will call on his state and territory counterparts at a ministerial drug council meeting to back the trial as an alternative treatment for heroin addicts ..."
Source



Let's hope people listen to Mr Corbell, although it makes much more sense to use heroin rather than hydromorphone.

Currently in Australia, and most countries, I believe, the best medical treatment available for people dependent on Bayer Pharmaceuticals' great product, heroin, is methadone. "Liquid handcuffs", as it's known here (aka 'done', rhymes with phone) is a terrible solution which leaves addicts at the mercy of the state as it is far harder to withdraw from than smack.

It's past time that Australians viewed addiction as a medical problem, not a character flaw. Prescription heroin could clear our prisons of 80-90% of inmates, and maybe people in our cities could go back to not locking their cars and houses – as it was 25 years ago before George Bush Senior's CIA, the Mafia and US-backed Middle Eastern warlords started flooding the world with junk. [As is well documented by people such as Alfred McCoy in his seminal work, (The Politics of Heroin), warlords trade heroin to pay to Western armaments salesmen.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Habib's wife confronts Howard on radio

"The wife of one of the Australian men being held at Guantanmo Bay in Cuba has used talkback radio to confront Prime Minister John Howard this morning.

"Maha Habib rang Southern Cross Radio in Melbourne to ask Mr Howard what he was doing to support her husband Mamdouh, who has been held by the United States without charge for more than two years ..."
Source

I heard a tape of the interview. Howard said that Habib had been captured as an enemy combatant. When Mrs Habib asked the PM if he knew that her husband had been taken by the Americans before the war even began, "Honest John" Howard started prevaricating and the radio jock quickly cut her off.

*Ø* Blogmanac | How many were at the British demo?

Bush protest in London biggest in years

"Massive demonstrations have taken place in and around Trafalgar Square in London. Indymedia reporters on the scene estimate 250,000 - 300,000 people were in attendance for the toppling of a George Bush statue at 17:22 GMT. Estimates of today's attendance range from the Metropolitan Police's official estimate of 70,000 to the Stop the War Coalition estimate of 300,000. Today's event looks to be the biggest weekday demonstration of recent years." Source

Some funny placards

Hundreds of Thousands of Protesters Decry Bush Visit in Week of Resistance
Cardiff City Centre Closed in Anti Bush Protest
Bush burns as North East prepares a hot reception for him in Sedgefield - photos
Bush statue toppling, flag burning in Swindon - good photo

Touring Buckingham Palace's collection of jewelled Faberge eggs, US first lady Laura Bush told reporters she had barely noticed the opposition to her husband's state visit to Britain.

Amnesty International protestors demonstrating near Downing Street, London,
over conditions for the so-called "enemy combatants" at the U.S. military
detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, during Tony Blair's meeting with George W.
Bush on Thursday

The detainees at Guantanamo are in legal limbo, as the U.S. government has refused to afford them individual hearings to determine their status, as required by the Third Geneva Convention - N

*Ø* Blogmanac | Thousands march against Bush

By Janet McBride and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - "Around 100,000 protesters have marched through London and torn down a mock statue of visiting U.S. president George W. Bush, many of them convinced his policies were to blame for anti-British bombs in Turkey.

"Demonstrators of all ages beat drums and blew whistles along a three-mile route that took them past parliament and the end of Downing Street, where crowds paused to jeer towards Prime Minister Tony Blair's office.

"When they reached Trafalgar Square, protesters felled a six-metre (20-foot) papier mache statue of Bush in a parody of the toppling of a statue of Saddam Hussein when U.S. and British troops swept into Baghdad. In its top pocket was a puppet with a grinning Blair face."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac November 20, 1752| The death of Chatterton

Boy genius poet and forger

Thomas Chatterton, the English poet, was born on November 20, 1752 and produced all his work by the age of only 17, when he committed suicide in 1770 ...

It was only after Chatterton's death that the controversy over his work began. Poems supposed to have been written at Bristol by Thomas Rowley and others, in the Fifteenth Century (1777) was edited by Thomas Tyrwhitt, a Chaucerian scholar who believed them to be genuine medieval works. However, the appendix to the following year's edition recognises that they were probably Chatterton's own work ...

The boy poet/forger was not without his supporters. Shelley commemorated Chatterton’s genius in Adonais, and Wordsworth in Resolution and Independence. Coleridge wrote A Monody on the Death of Chatterton, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti lauded him in Five English Poets. John Keats inscribed Endymion “to the memory of Thomas Chatterton”. Alfred de Vigny's drama of Chatterton invented a fictitious account of the poet

Excerpted from a new article I posted recently at the Scriptorium

*Ø* Blogmanac November | Bush not welcome


"Several hundred demonstrators gathered at the front gates of Buckingham Palace yesterday to jeer US President George W Bush on the first full day of his state visit to Britain.

"The crowd was seen waving anti-Bush banners, flags and an effigy of Bush in a Texan cowboy hat.

"Bush is staying at the palace as the guest of Queen Elizabeth.

"Last night he tucked into chicken and cabbage to the sound of bagpipes and Broadway musicals at a lavish state dinner in his honour, hosted by the queen."
Source

UK Indymedia | See the Poster That Almost Caused an Arrest

*Ø* Blogmanac November 20, 1908 | Happy birthday, Alistair Cooke

95 and still going strong; world record for broadcasting

1908 Alistair Cooke, English-born journalist and broadcaster. His Letter from America has been broadcast on BBC (British Broadcasting Commission) Radio every week since March 24, 1946, making it the longest-running speech broadcast program in the world. The 95-year-old Cooke’s Letter is still running at the time of writing, and is enjoyed most weeks by your almanackist as well as millions of others for its clarity, intelligence and good writing, if not always for the opinions expressed.

According to a CBS media release, on October 4, 1953, Omnibus, an American TV show hosted by Cooke, made its CBS debut. It won three Emmy awards throughout its CBS run in its category.

The show must go on
In his November 9, 2003 broadcast, Cooke revealed that in 57 years of Letter from America he has recorded the program 16 times while in hospital, but only ever missed one edition due to ill health. As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on October 20, 2003:

“Veteran 94-year-old British-born presenter Alistair Cooke was unable to broadcast his Letter from America show this week after suffering a fall, the BBC said yesterday.”

Ever the trouper, Cooke’s only reference to his injuries in his next broadcast (October 27), lay his opening sentence: “Where were we when I was so smashingly interrupted?”

Veteran BBC broadcaster Cooke falls and misses show

Shop Alistair Cooke

Classic Letter: The death of Senator Kennedy, 1968
More on Cooke
Listen: 90th birthday tribute, November 20, 1998
Alistair Cooke: A Biography

*Ø* Blogmanac | Are you mad as hell and won’t take it any more?

Are you sick of TV and radio that is owned by mega-military corporations, just as NBC is owned by General Electric? Are you desperate to stay informed of world events from a non-commercial and global perspective? Do you want news and opinion that takes all the world’s nations into account, not just your own, and doesn’t have to give you infotainment according to trans-national corporations’ PR spin?

It seems impossible to achieve, but honestly, we have the link for you right here. Wilson’s Almanac strongly recommends the world’s most prestigious broadcaster, the ‘Beeb’, or BBC, as probably the best single online and radio/TV resource for trustworthy information, entertainment and opinion. It is, of course, Britain based, but no other country can boast such a global audience nor such a range of international (nor highly qualified) correspondents. It has unmatched global news, TV, radio, current affairs, science, Nature programs, society and culture and many other features in more than 40 languages. BBC World Service is indispensable to those who wish to keep abreast of world events and cultures. Another good way to stay up to date each day with the BBC plus an amazing 1,744 radio and TV stations free online, from dozens of countries, is Wilson’s Almanac's global media portal. There is a permalink to the portal in our left-hand column.

Today’s Pip’s Trip Tip: bookmark our portal for the BBC plus the whole world from the convenience of your computer, then promptly give your TV to the local charity store. Combine these with Indymedia’s 123 worldwide sites, and you’ll have the sharpest consciousness on your block.

*Ø* Blogmanac | A Right Royal Fiasco!

[The Mirror is thoroughly enjoying its security scoop! LOL - N]

By Ryan Parry, The Mirror
November 19

"For the past eight weeks, I have enjoyed unfettered access throughout Buckingham Palace as one of the Royal Family’s key aides. Had I been a terrorist intent on assassinating the Queen or President George Bush, I could have done so with absolute ease.

"Indeed, this morning I would have been serving breakfast to key members of his government, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and US Secretary of State Colin Powell ...

[This is the bedroom George Bush and his wife slept in last night. But five days ago, as Britain and the US geared up for the biggest security operation at the Palace since World War Two, I was able to take this photograph.]

"It began last August when I applied for a job as a royal footman advertised on a recruitment page of the Buckingham Palace official website.

"I composed a CV –- leaving out details of my journalistic career –- with one real reference and one fake ...

Read the stories here and here

*Ø* Blogmanac | Charlie

1600 Charles I (November 19, 1600 - January 30, 1649) King of Scotland, England, and Ireland (March 27, 1625 - January 30, 1649), most notable for being the only British monarch to be overthrown and beheaded. He was the son and successor of James VI and I.







Young people today!

Patching and painting
As the illustration shows, ‘patching’ and painting of women’s faces was popular during the reign of Charles I, as it was in Louis XV’s France.

*Ø* Blogmanac November 19, 1875 | Happy birthday, Hiram Bingham!

Hiram Bingham (November 19, 1875 - 1956), American archaeologist and statesman; born in Honolulu. At Yale University (1907-28), he led expeditions that discovered the Inca cities of Viitcos and Machu Picchu. He was governor of Connecticut (1925) and US senator (1925-33)

“Machu Picchu (which means "manly peak") was most likely a royal estate and religious retreat. It was built between 1460 and 1470 AD by Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, an Incan ruler. The city has an altitude of 8,000 feet, and is high above the Urubamba River canyon cloud forest, so it likely did not have any administrative, military or commercial use. After Pachacuti’s death, Machu Picchu became the property of his allus, or kinship group, which was responsible for it’s [sic] maintenance, administration, and any new construction.”
Source

Bingham, Hiram, Lost City of the Incas



Andes music: midi files
Greed, gold and God Part 2: The Battle of Cajamarca
Another remarkable Hiram Bingham

*Ø* Blogmanac | Apolitical Blues -- Rock and Roll as Cultural Studies

Love this Little Feat song.................
gets to feeling that way at times........J-9


Apolitical Blues
By Lowell George of Little Feat

Well my telephone was ringing
And they told me it was Chairman Mao
Well my telephone was ringing
And they told me it was Chairman Mao
You can tell him anything
'Cause I just don't wanna talk to him now

I've got the apolitical blues
And that's the meanest blues of all
Apolitical blues
And that's the meanest blues of all
I don't care if it's John Wayne
I just don't wanna talk to him now


“What Is Rock Music, Anyway?”

The approach I propose for an answer to the question raised in the title is informed less by what is commonly termed
"American Studies" than by what I would describe as "Cultural Studies with a focus on the United States." This differentiation is not merely a splitting of hairs. What is labeled "American Studies" is by and large the product of a specific development in the 1940s and 1950s, of World War II and the Cold War that soon followed, when the chief makers of U.S. policy deemed it imperative that the United States be established as the positive force in global politics, the polar opponent of the totalitarian forces of fascism and communism. The United States, and what it stood for, were to be set up as a counterweight not just in political-ideological terms. To establish a proper positive model, cultural work was also needed. This, at least, was what many people thought in Washington, and for that purpose, two government agencies, USIS and USIA, promoted especially a new field of study which was named by sleight of hand and somewhat too grandly "American Studies"—as if, indeed, the United States encompassed all of the Americas.

So as not to be mistaken as a left-over cold warrior—a threat that has gained renewed validity by George W. Bush's appointments—I propose to do "Cultural Studies with a focus on the United States." This is not merely a stale joke. Traditional American Studies have much to do with the promotion of U.S. ideology—usually wrapped in the study of American culture, or rather such elements of American culture as the chief U.S. ideologists regarded as worthy of promotion. Popular culture therefore received only limited attention—hardly any, to be true—from traditional American Studies. Cultural studies, conversely, is not only open to the study of popular culture but actually seeks to do away with traditionalist distinctions between high culture and low, conceptualizations which embrace art as worthy of study while denigrating popular culture. Cultural Studies takes up precisely those issues which traditional approaches have neglected intentionally. Rock music falls squarely into the lot of cultural expressions American Studies has traditionally neglected. And certainly, of all forms of cultural expression that emerged in the Western World after World War II, rock music is the one that has had the greatest mass appeal. Thus, rock music all but imposes itself as a crucial field for Cultural Studies.


Lawrence Grossberg, a cultural theorist has worked to analyze the history of pop culture, its effects on contemporary society, and how cultural agents now rely more on pop culture to initiate change, bypassing the political legislature.


"Hegemonic leadership has to operate where people live their lives. It has to take account of and even allow itself to be modified by its engagement with the fragmentary and contradictory terrain of common sense and popular culture. This is where the social imaginary is defined and changed; where people construct personal identities, identifications, priorities and possibilities..,"

Green Grass, Running Water and An Act of Violence
Grossberg

[From Easy Riders
American Culture on the Road
An Internet Anthology]

Lindis Percy, an anti-war protestor, standing on top of the gates of Buckingham Palace with an upside-down U.S. flag with the inscription "Elizabeth Windsor and Co. we don't want him here".

The woman dodged tight security on Monday to scale the wrought iron gates on the eve of George W. Bush's arrival in the UK.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Marchers get their way as Britain prepares for Bush

Jamie Wilson and Hugh Muir
November 18, The Guardian

"Anti-war protesters claimed victory last night after the Metropolitan police backed down and agreed to allow a march up Whitehall and past Downing Street to demonstrate against George Bush's visit to the UK. The police had initially refused to allow the march -- which the Stop the War Coalition hopes will be attended by more than 100,000 protesters -- along the route because of fears about security ...

"Though Tony Blair has been keen to justify the state visit, there has been fresh criticism from politicians. London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, said: 'I think that Bush is the greatest threat to life on this planet that we've most probably ever seen. The policies he is initiating will doom us to extinction.'"

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Please take a moment to sign

I got this in my in-tray:

"Please join us in our e-mail campaign appealing for sanity and compassion with regards to Sassan Mashayekhi. Sassan Mashayekhi has been in an Australian detention centre for more than half a decade. Enough is enough, it's time that the government stop punishing this man.

"Please use the following link to participate in our latest e-mail campaign:

http://www.hopecaravan.com/ecampaign/sassan.asp

"Sincere regards,

HOPE Caravan
www.hopecaravan.com"

[Emphasis mine]

Even if you don't live in Godzone, please fill in the form. Overseas pressure will help a lot. Refugees are being treated like criminals -- even worse -- in Oz. help one, helps all. Thanx.

*Ø* Blogmanac November 18 | Day of Ardvi Sura, Mother of the Stars, ancient Persia

Approximately today was a festival in honour of the Persian and Armenian goddess Ardvi Sura (‘undefiled, immaculate, or mighty, blameless’), one of the names of Anahita, known as the Mother of the Stars, goddess of heavenly waters; Iranian version of Astarte. In the Christian tradition she is a cognate of Mary, Stella Maris.

The element sura of the name of Ardvi Sura Anahita might be connected with Old Indian surya 'the sun'. She is also connected with snakes and bulls.

An ancient hymn to Ardvi Sura says:


Source

She was apparently hungry for the sacrifice of animals, as it is written:

To her did Haoshyangha, the Paradhata, offer up a sacrifice on the enclosure of the Hara, with a hundred male horses, I will praise the water Ardvi Sura Anahita, the efficacious against the Daevas, devoted to Ahura's lore, and to be worshipped with sacrifice within the corporeal world, furthering all living things (?) and holy, helping on the increase and improvement of our herds and settlements, holy, and increasing our wealth, holy, and helping on the progress of the Province, holy (as she is)? . (Ardvi Sura Anahita) who purifies the seed of all male beings, who sanctifies the wombs of all women to the birth, who makes all women fortunate in labour, who brings all women a regular and timely flow of milk. a thousand oxen and ten thousand lambs.
Aban Yasht, verse 21 Source

*Ø* Blogmanac November 18, 1307| William Tell and the apple

On this day, William Tell (Wilhelm Tell) shot the apple off his son's head

The legend as told by Sabine Baring-Gould in Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (London, 1866) (Source): In the year 1307, Gessler, Vogt (local governor) of the Emperor Albert I of Hapsburg (c. 1250-1308), German king, and duke of Austria, eldest son of King Rudolph I of Habsburg, set a hat on a pole as symbol of imperial power, and ordered everyone who passed by to salute it. A mountaineer of the name of Wilhelm Tell boldly passed by the symbol of authority without saluting. By Gessler's command he was at once seized and brought before him. As Tell was known to be an expert archer, he was ordered by way of punishment to shoot an apple off the head of his own son.

Finding no way out of it, Tell submitted to Gessler's authority. The apple was placed on the child's head, Tell bent his bow, the arrow sped, and apple and arrow fell to the ground together. But the Vogt noticed that Tell, before shooting, had stuck another arrow into his belt, and he enquired the reason. “It was for you,” replied the sturdy archer. “Had I shot my child, know that it would not have missed your heart.”


The William Tell tale is known in other forms in other, earlier cultures.
Read more at the new page on William Tell at the Scriptorium.

The page will perhaps bring a smile to the lips of those who remember the Lone Ranger, when they hear the full William Tell Overture. :)

*Ø* Blogmanac | Michael Moore's Mission in the UK

Michael Moore Barnstorms through the UK
in a Tour that Preempts Bush's Visit

Michael Moore is playing to stadium-sized crowds in the UK as Bush gets ready to descend on the country with his Hitler-like security demands. Moore has a message for Brits: Stop Bush from using the UK as one big photo op stage.
"That can happen only in one way, and that's a very large physical presence in the streets of London, letting the American people know the people of Great Britain do not support this war and do not support George Bush. It has to be done in a graphic way, in a physical way; it can't just be said. It has to be done with the images that will be sent back to America because the American media will be there with Bush."

Go, Michael! And go, Brits -- take it to the streets!

Go, Readers! Go!

Thanks, Bill!

*Ø* Blogmanac | End of the sea voyage for Noah



2347 BCE In former times, Noah was said to have left the ark on this day. Muslim tradition says June 19, which year I don’t know.


God decides to kill everyone
“13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.”
From Genesis 6

The animals were not all in pairs
“1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.”
From Genesis 7

Close-up view of the Mt Ararat anomaly some believe to be Noah's Ark

As I write, it looks like someone has hacked the Blogroll facility, the one we use in our left-hand column. All the links point to just one tonight. With luck, the good people at Blogroll will sort it out and it'll be fixed by the time you read this.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Could Red Jellyfish Help Save the World's Rainforests?

from GRIST Magasine

[For readers in the US only! - N]

"If you're talking about the gelatinous sea creature, the answer is no. But if you're talking about the eco-friendly Internet service provider, well, then, sure. We at Grist aren't generally in the business of making product endorsements, but Red Jellyfish is doing good work so we thought we'd pass on the word. For each person who subscribes to the company's home Internet service, Red Jellyfish protects 6,000 square feet of rainforest a year through the Nature Conservancy. If you're looking for an Internet service provider you can feel good about,try them out: The first month's free and they'll throw in a complimentary Red Jellyfish tote bag (made of organic cotton, of course) -- only if you click on the link below":

Get the scoop on Red Jellyfish Internet service

*Ø* Blogmanac November 18, 1797 | Sojourner Truth

I have plowed and planted, and gathered into barns ... and aren't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen them most all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother's grief, none but Jesus heard. And aren't I a woman?

1797 Sojourner Truth (self-given name of Isabella Baumfree, aka Isabella Van Wagener) (1797? - 1883), whose “Aren't I a Woman?” speech electrified an 1851 Ohio, USA women's rights convention; one of 13 children born to slave parents. At six-feet-tall, an imposing figure, she spoke only Dutch till she was sold from her family around the age of eleven.

Baumfree settled in New York City, earning a living as a domestic worker for several religious communes, including the ‘Kingdom of Matthias’ which became embroiled in a scandal of adultery and murder. When, in 1843, she was inspired by some kind of spiritual peak experience, Isabella Baumfree changed her name to Sojourner Truth, walked throughout Long Island and Connecticut, and preached “God's truth and plan for salvation”.

Eventually arriving in Northampton, MA, Sojourner joined the intentional community the Northampton Association for Education and Industry, where she met and worked with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison (founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society), Frederick Douglass and Olive Gilbert. (The latter helped edit her memoirs which were published in 1850 as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave.)

Truth eventually added abolitionism and women's suffrage to her oratory; in her later life she became a noted speaker for both the abolitionist movement and the women's rights movement.

Narrative of Sojourner Truth; a Bondswoman of Olden Time,
Emancipated by the New York Legislature
in the Early Part of the Present Century;
with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence,
Drawn from Her "Book of Life".

The Narrative of Sojourner Truth at Amazon.com

Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email

*Ø* Blogmanac | High Risks in Afghanistan

November 17, New York Times

"While the failure of American policy in Iraq in recent months has been painfully visible and at the forefront of public debate, the Bush administration's failures in Afghanistan have been as serious, and the risks are also great. It was Afghanistan, not Iraq, that was the spawning ground for the Sept. 11 attacks. And now, less than two years after President Bush celebrated his first military victory, Afghanistan is in danger of reverting to a deadly combination of rule by warlords and the Taliban, the allies and protectors of Osama bin Laden.

"A revived Taliban army, flush with new recruits from Pakistan, is staging a frightening comeback. Major cities remain in the hands of the corrupt and brutal warlords. Much of the countryside is too dangerous for aid workers. The postwar pro-American government led by Hamid Karzai rules Kabul and little else. Opium poppies are once again a major export crop. And Osama bin Laden remains at large."

CONTINUE

*Ø* Blogmanac | America: The World's Free Elections Monitor

Woodie Guthrie had a sticker on his guitar that said "This Machine Kills Fascists".
I wonder if Diebold voting machines have a sign inside them somewhere which says
"This Machine Elects Republicans".


If we read it in a book, we'd toss the book aside as being too implausible. But we're watching unbelievable crimes being committed before our very eyes every single day. One very minor one (in the "big picture" scheme of things) involves the death in May in a plane crash (of all things!) of Diebold chief operating officer Wesley Vance. A lot's happened to Diebold since May after the takeover of operations of Diebold "until a successor is named" by the deeply religious and extreme partisan Republican Walden O'Dell.

Is there anything we can do to stop the Republican fix of elections? Can we awaken the fight in American progressives yet? Here's a hint: it involves stickers and ATM machines. Intriguing, n'est'ce pas?

See what xymphora has to say about it.

*Ø* Blogmanac | 'Shoot-to-kill' demand by US

Martin Bright, home affairs editor
Sunday November 16
The Observer

"Home Secretary David Blunkett has refused to grant diplomatic immunity to armed American special agents and snipers travelling to Britain as part of President Bush's entourage this week.

"In the case of the accidental shooting of a protester, the Americans in Bush's protection squad will face justice in a British court as would any other visitor, the Home Office has confirmed.

"The issue of immunity is one of a series of extraordinary US demands turned down by Ministers and Downing Street during preparations for the Bush visit.

"These included the closure of the Tube network, the use of US air force planes and helicopters and the shipping in of battlefield weaponry to use against rioters ...

"The Americans had also wanted to travel with a piece of military hardware called a 'mini-gun', which usually forms part of the mobile armoury in the presidential cavalcade. It is fired from a tank and can kill dozens of people. One manufacturer's description reads: 'Due to the small calibre of the round, the mini-gun can be used practically anywhere. This is especially helpful during peacekeeping deployments.' "

Full text HERE

And Then...: Late Night With Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist

*Ø* Blogmanac | Important petition for our USA readers

Stop "Drive-Thru Mastectomy"

Please take the time to read this and sign the petition. It will mean a lot to many women. Thanks.

Subject: FW: Mastectomy Legislation

MASTECTOMY LEGISLATION Important info for all women. Please forward this to everyone in your address book. This is a time when our voices and choices should be heard. It takes about 30 seconds to vote on this issue...and send it on to others you know who will do the same. There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum
48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the "drive-through mastectomy" where women are forced to go home hours after surgery against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached. Lifetime Television has put this bill on their web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on. PLEASE!!!! Sign the petition by clicking on the web site below and help women with breast cancer get the care they need and deserve!! There is no cost or monetary pledge involved. You need not give more than your name and zip code number. http://www.lifetimetv.com/reallife/bc/pledges/bc_mast_pledge.html

PLEASE PASS THIS ON.

[Thanks, Almaniac Mary Ann Sabo who so often sends excellent things to the Blogmanac.]

Check this out!

Already in less than a month, our Tell J-9 You've Read It! page might have helped save two lives!!

A woman in Kentucky, USA, and one in the United Kingdom ... now getting treatment for a rare cancer, IBC.

Please tell J-9 you've read it! And please place a link on your blog or site, and email lotsa peeples!

*Ø* Blogmanac | Recent search terms that found us
14 Oct, Tue, 22:31:28 Google: contact list of pip oil dealers in kuwait
23 Oct, Thu, 06:41:52 Yahoo: Allah's gonna bring the shit. No Joke, those Jesus kids are fucked.
15 Nov, Sat, 10:00:18 Google: Dr Wilson's MouthWash
16 Nov, Sun, 04:17:20 Yahoo: what is wallace's vision of nature in sunday morning
16 Nov, Sun, 06:21:52 Google: intellectual sierra leoneans in the united states
16 Nov, Sun, 09:24:04 Google: pip asylum australia

*Ø* Blogmanac November 16, 1946 | Whoaaaa!!!

1946 Terence McKenna, theoretician of consciousness, (November 16, 1946 - April 3, 2000) was the originator of the timewave zero theory, which claims time to be a fractal wave of increasing novelty, which ends in 2012.

More on McKenna and 2012 (and links) at the Scriptorium
McKenna audio

“Terence McKenna was one of the great explorers of consciousness, and of the wild Earth. His relationship both with the psyche and anima mundi (world soul) was unique. He was a man of fabulous intellect, with the capacity to articulate in a rational manner the behaviors and experiences of the non-rational mind. Famous for his explorations of the inner world of psychedelics—primarily those arising naturally in the flora of Earth—he was also a fearless traveler into the regions of the world where shamanic use of various psychotropic drugs is ethical and employed with reverence toward the gods who provided them." More

See the McKenna entry at Wikipedia

*Ø* Blogmanac November 16-19 | Belize goes wild

Carib Settlement Days (Nov 16-19), Belize

This annual fest is celebrated in the southern districts of Belize. For three days before Settlement Day (November 19) there is street and house-to-house dancing all day long, vibrating to the sound of leather drums. The re-enactment of the first Carib settlement in Belize in 1823 is an exciting potpourri of costumes, music and dancing.

Belize, once a part of the Mayan Empire, is an independent state, northeastern Central America, bounded on the north and northwest by Mexico, on the east by the Caribbean Sea, and on the south and west by Guatemala. Until 1973 Belize was known as British Honduras; it became independent in 1981 and is a member of Britain’s Commonwealth of Nations. The total area of the nation is 22,965 sq km (8867 sq mi).

*Ø* Blogmanac | Greed, gold and God

The Battle of Cajamarca, Part 2

November 16, 1532

Full story http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/cajamarca_battle.html


Atahualpa ambushed
... Invited by the Spaniard to attend a feast in his honour, the Inca chief accepted. The next day, he arrived at the appointed meeting place with several thousand unarmed retainers; Pizarro, prompted by the example of Hernán Cortés and Moctezuma in Mexico, had prepared an ambush.

The next day at around noon, Atahualpa appeared in the town centre, carried on a litter, or palanquin, borne by 80 Incan noblemen in rich blue livery, and with a retinue of 2,000 Indians sweeping the road before him. An eyewitness wrote “Then came a number of men with armour, large metal plates, and crowns of gold and silver which they bore, that it was a marvel to observe how the sun glinted on it."

Atahualpa was also surrounded by his warriors, many thousands of them.

It has been reported that Atahualpa asked Friar Vicente on what authority he acted, and the friar told him it derived from the book he was holding. The Incan emperor then commanded: "Give me the book so that it can speak to me." Atahualpa, holding the book next to his ear, tried to listen to its pages. Finally he asked: "Why doesn't the book say anything to me?" and defiantly and disdainfully threw it to the ground. On the friar's command (rather than Pizarro's), the Spanish soldiers emerged from the porticoes around the square and fired into the crowds of unarmed warriors and citizens.

Seven thousand slain
Just several hours of bloody battle ensued, with the conquistadors having the technological advantage. By evening, Pizarro and his men had killed 7,000 Indians yet lost not one of their own merry men. Later, Pizarro said to Atahualpa through an interpreter: “When you have seen the errors in which you live, you will understand the good that we have done you by coming to your land … Our Lord permitted that your pride should be brought low and that no Indian should be able to offend a Christian.”

During the melee, Pizarro had personally grabbed Atahualpa from his litter, calling out the Spanish war cry (“Santiago!”, or “St James!”) as he did so, and took Atahualpa prisoner. Soon, Atahualpa recognised that a huge ransom was his only chance of freedom, so he promised a huge hoard of gold to the Spaniards, which the Incan king’s subjects duly paid.

The ransom, the largest ever made, was staggering – when melted down, it consisted of sufficient gold to fill a room 22 feet long by 17 feet wide to a height of more than 8 feet! After the full amount had been delivered, Pizarro reneged on his promise and on August 29, 1533, the conquistador ordered Atahualpa burned to death. However, when Atahualpa was brought to the stake, Father de Valverde offered him the choice of being burned alive or being killed by the more merciful garrot if he would convert to Christianity. Although throughout his captivity Atahualpa had resisted conversion, he agreed to it and so died that day by strangulation ...

Read on at the Scriptorium

*Ø* Blogmanac November 16, 1813 | The Lourdes of USA

1813 Father Sebastian Alvarez, a priest in New Mexico, wrote a letter to the Episcopal See of Durango, Colorado, USA, expressing his feelings about the people coming from afar seeking cures for their diseases and the spreading of the fame of their cures.

New Mexico is home of the historic Chimayo Shrine, which commemorates an event during Holy Week on the night of Good Friday, circa 1810, when a Chimayo friar, Don Bernardo Abeyta, who was a member in good standing of the Hermandad de Nuestro Padre Jesus el Nazareno (Penitentes), was performing the customary penances of the Society around the hills of El Potrero. There he saw a light bursting from a hillside near the Santa Cruz River. He dug and found a crucifix, quickly dubbed the miraculous crucifix of Our Lord of Esquipulas.

A local priest, Fr Sebastian Alvarez, took the crucifix to Santa Cruz, but it disappeared three times and was later found back sitting in the hole the friar had dug, leading believers to understand that El Senor de Esquipulas wanted to remain in Chimayo. Consequently, a small chapel was built on the site, following which miraculous healings started occurring. These were so frequent that the chapel was replaced by the larger, current adobe Chimayo Shrine in 1816. El Santuario was a privately owned chapel until the year l929, when several benefactors bought it and turned it over to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

El Santuario de Chimayo is now known locally as the ‘Lourdes of America’. The crucifix still resides on the chapel altar, although its curative powers have been overshadowed by El Posito, the ‘sacred sand pit’ from which it sprang, now behind the main altar. More than 300,000 pilgrims visit Chimayo’s strange shrine each year.

(Note: On June 15, 1963, the face of cult leader JR ‘Bob’ Dobbs appeared on a tortilla of a humble Mexican woman in Plano, TX, USA.)


Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Talks Fail on Damaging Fumigant

By James Macharia

NAIROBI (Reuters) - "Environmental negotiations seen by U.S. fruit growers as critical to future profitability failed on Friday to reach consensus on a U.S. request to increase use of a fumigant known to destroy the ozone layer, delegates said ...

"Methyl bromide, which kills soil pests before crops are planted, is due to be phased out by all developed nations by January 1, 2005, under a global pact to protect the atmosphere ...

"The protocol -- seen by experts as the most successful global environmental treaty -- requires signatory states to phase out the use of some 95 chemicals that damage the ozone layer, a stratum of the atmosphere that protects the earth from ultraviolet radiation, which can cause skin cancer.

"The United States, the European Union and Japan have cut down the use of methyl bromide to 30 percent of existing stocks, but now the United States wants to be allowed to increase its use to 38.2 percent in 2005.

"A U.S. government delegation and farm groups say although they have made significant cutbacks in its use, they need more time to find effective substitute fumigants for crops such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, strawberries and sweet potatoes.

"Ozone experts and the European Union delegates opposed the request because it could reverse the gains achieved so far."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac November 15, 1532 | Pizarro and Atahualpa: The Prelude



1532 Pizarro and his 168 soldiers entered Cajamarca. The next day would see what is perhaps history’s most stunning battle.

Greed, gold and God: The Battle of Cajamarca

A satisfactory afternoon's work
for Spanish imperialism

When you have seen the errors in which you live, you will understand the good that we have done you by coming to your land … Our Lord permitted that your pride should be brought low and that no Indian should be able to offend a Christian.
Pizarro to Atahualpa

November 15-16, 1532

New World: Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro (1471 - June 26, 1541) seized Incan emperor Atahualpa (c. 1502 - August 29, 1533) after victory at Cajamarca, Peru. Pizarro had 168 men and Atahualpa had 80,000 battle-hardened soldiers who had recently defeated an indigenous enemy. However, the Spaniards had iron swords, guns, horses and armour, which the Incas did not. The result: one of history's most incredible battles, and it was all over in an afternoon.

Atahualpa (or Atahuallpa; Atabalipa) (ah'-ta-oo-al'-pa), was the13th and final emperor of the Incan Empire. He had been victorious in a devastating civil war with his half brother. He was a younger son of the Incan ruler Huayna Capac and an Ecuadorian princess of the Quito; although not the legitimate heir, he seems to have been the favourite. When Huayna Capac died (c. 1527), the kingdom was divided between Atahualpa, who ruled the northern part of the empire from Quito, and Huáscar, the legitimate heir, who ruled from Cuzco, the traditional Inca capital.

Into Atahualpa's heartland
Contemporary chroniclers depicted Atahualpa as brave, ambitious, and very popular with the army. He was soon embroiled in a civil war with his elder half-brother for control of the empire. The war ravaged Inca cities, wreaked havoc on the economy, and decimated the population. Early in 1532, near Cuzco, while Pizarro was making his way to Atahualpa's heartland, the army of the Incan lord had defeated Huáscar's army in what was probably the greatest of any Incan military engagement. Atahualpa treacherously captured his half-brother and his family and later had them executed, while Atahualpa was himself a prisoner – of Pizarro. (As Huáscar had been something of an ally to the Spanish, his half-brother's actions were later cited as a cause of the treatment Pizarro meted out to Atahualpa.)

In November, while the newly victorious Atahualpa and his battle-hardened army of 80,000 were relaxing with the hot springs in the village of Cajamarca, before their planned triumphal entry into Cuzco, Francisco Pizarro entered the city with a force of 168. Atahualpa got wind of the incursion.


On November 15, as the Spanish band moved close to Cajamarca, they tortured a few natives and discovered that Atahualpa was waiting for them at Cajamarca. Bravely, “Governor” Pizarro’s “army” moved towards the Incan town, and saw a beautiful town filled with so many tents that they were filled with fear. Hernando Pizarro, the leader’s brother, estimated the number of Incan soldiers at 40,000, but an eyewitness wrote that he gave this estimate in order to calm his comrades: there were in fact more than 80,000. Meanwhile, Most of Pizarro’s men were hidden around the main courtyard of Cajamarca.

Atahualpa ambushed
Invited by the Spaniard to attend a feast in his honor, the Inca chief accepted. The next day, he arrived at the appointed meeting place with several thousand unarmed retainers; Pizarro, prompted by the example of Hernán Cortés and Montezuma in Mexico, had prepared an ambush.

The next day at around noon, Atahualpa appeared in the town centre, carried on a palanquin borne by 80 Incan noblemen in rich blue livery, and with a retinue of 2,000 Indians sweeping the road before him. An eyewitness wrote “Then came a number of men with armour, large metal plates, and crowns of gold and silver which they bore, that it was a marvel to observe how the sun glinted on it." Atahualpa was also surrounded by his warriors, many thousands of them ...

This story continues at >http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/cajamarca_battle.html and I will be adding to it here tomorrow as well. Read how 168 men defeated 80,000 in an afternoon.


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*Ø* Blogmanac | Kangaroos found hopping wild near Paris

"VERSAILLES, France, Nov 11 (AFP) - It may not be the scorching Australian outback, but fair dinkum, around 50 kangaroos who escaped a French animal park 30 years ago are happily living wild in a forest west of Paris.

"The grey marsupials broke free from the Emance nature reserve in the Yvelines department and are now bounding around woods bordering a dozen villages in the neighbouring Eure-et-Loir department, Le Parisien daily reported."
Source: Expatica

*Ø* Blogmanac | US media could learn from al-Jazeera

By Jon Faine

"Al-Jazeera, the Arab-language cable TV news service, has just celebrated its seventh birthday. I was there to witness it.

"I had met three al-Jazeera staff at an international media conference in Dublin, where they had debated the international coverage of the Iraq war with 200 war reporters from around the world.

"The al-Jazeera version of the war -- with one exception -- was vastly preferred to that presented by the US media.

"Assistant Secretary Brian Whitman, of the US Department of Defence, was greeted with total disbelief by the veterans, who scorned his pronouncements. The al-Jazeera staff were given a hostile reception by the colleagues of several dead journalists, whose corpses had been shown graphically on the Arab service. But otherwise, their coverage was regarded as accurate and balanced.

"The debate about the war went all day. Gathering socially afterwards, I wangled an invitation to visit their studio in Doha, in the tiny sheikdom of Qatar in the Gulf ...

"Abused by many Western governments -- and commentators -- as being a mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden, al-Jazeera is also decried in some Muslim countries as being nothing but a front for the CIA. As Omar Bec Merhebi, head of news gathering, said: 'We must be doing something right if everyone is abusing us.'"

Continue here
(Jon Faine presents the morning program on ABC Melbourne 774.)

*Ø* Blogmanac | Too much



Escher's 'Relativity' done digitally
Escher's 'Relativity' in Lego

Thanx, Baz le Tuff!

*Ø* Blogmanac November 15, 1777 | The forming of a great constitution


1777 The Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continental Congress.

Was the USA founded on Christianity?

Many assert that it was,
but it seems not to be so

Someone wrote to me once that the USA is specifically a Christian nation, and I often hear it said that the American 'founding fathers’ intended America to be Christian or theistic. This, I assume, is why at the late date of 1954, after a campaign by the Catholic Knights of Columbus, Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan sponsored a bill to amend the Pledge of Allegiance (an American text sometimes recited in school) to include the words "under God". On June 8, 1954, Congress adopted this change.

I believe there is ample evidence that it is not the case that America is a 'Christian nation'. In fact, the very first treaty signed by the USA confirms this view in no uncertain terms. Since the current US administration is so populated with fundamentalist Christians whose views are apparently influencing domestic and foreign policy, I thought it would be an idea to assemble some quotes on the subject.

I've placed these quotes, by American founding fathers, here at the Scriptorium

*Ø* Blogmanac | By George!

You couldn't make him up, and you don't have to. Like him or loathe him, George Bush is for real -- and heading soon for a capital city near you. Rupert Cornwell introduces our celebration of the remarkable career of Britain's favourite US President
from Independent.co.uk

"...But even if Bush, whose contact with the news is so assiduously filtered by his courtiers, gains little idea of the turmoil around him, his countrymen back home assuredly will. The treacherous French and spineless Germans are one thing. But in Iraq -- as in most other things, the average American assumes -- the British are our friends. Imagine the shock, then, when they see surging crowds, burning flags and (unless police step into ban it) a giant effigy of the Great Leader being toppled, à la Saddam, in Trafalgar Square.

"It is not only Bush the Chicken-hawk warmonger and promoter-in-chief of the great illusion about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction who they will be denouncing. It is also Bush the ignorant, self-righteous Christian warrior, Bush the smirking executioner and Bush the believer in one law for America and another for everyone else. And, of course, Bush the 'Toxic Texan', an image made flesh by the 'ghost ships' bearing down on Hartlepool, whose US-produced contaminants will find a last resting place on Britain's unpolluted isle ...

"Indeed, today's Washington has a whiff of Soviet ways; suffocating internal discipline, resentment of even reasoned, moderate opposition, and a refusal to admit even the tiniest error. For imperialists, read 'evildoers'. With their condescending 'we know best' attitude, Messrs Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest offer as close an impersonation of the Politburo as you will find. As was said of the pre-glasnost Kremlin then, so with the White House now: you know nothing, but understand everything."

FULL ARTICLE

*Ø* Blogmanac | Ahhhh, the truth will out . . . eventually.

The Memory Hole has added the following page:

9/11 Transcripts and Police Reports

Exclusive: Withheld by the authorities, released because of a lawsuit, and insanely expensive to purchase, these are the 9/11 documents that the Port Authority fought to keep under wraps. Previously unavailable online.

Also, 20 new stories have been added to the Newswire.

*Ø* Blogmanac | 'When shaking hands with the President ...'

By Andrew Marlatt and Tony Roche

From: The White House

To: Her Majesty's Lord Chancellor of Protocol

Sir: The President and Mrs. Bush are excited by their upcoming state visit to the United Kingdom and their audience with Queen Elizabeth II. However, if we may speak humbly, it is inevitable, when meeting the ruler of an Empire, that apprehensions arise concerning proper etiquette, i.e., how to present oneself, what to say, when to bow, etc. Therefore, as we do not wish an unintentional breach of protocol to dampen our special relationship, we hope the following notes will assist Her Majesty and all Britons in their efforts to behave appropriately in the presence of the President.

ADDRESS
- As the elective head of state, President Bush should initially be addressed as "Mr. President," and subsequently as "Sir." Please note that his official title -- "President of the United States of America and Sovereign Pro Tempore of Afghanistan, Iraq, and (Your Country Here)" -- is for internal use only.

- It is never appropriate to refer to the President in familiar terms, such as, "Dubya," "George," "41," or, if one is Prince Charles, "Sweetie." Prime Minister Blair, however, shall be permitted to employ his pet name for the President: "Daddy."

- The wife of the President is called the First Lady, and should initially be addressed as "Mrs. Bush" and thereafter as "Ma'am." It will not be appropriate to utilize endearments such as "Laura," "Lubya," or "Mrs. World Domination."

ARRIVAL
- When the President enters a room, it is customary for all in attendance to stand and applaud. As is done in America, women should "hoot," while men continuously "whoop." However, as he does not wish to infringe on local custom or discomfit the Royal Family, the President will not be offended if Her Majesty chooses to hoot from a seated position.

- Tradition dictates that in America, the President is "first among equals," and therefore, the President would consider bowing and curtsying to be ostentatious and inappropriate. For Americans.

- When shaking hands with the President, one's free hand should be used to flash the "thumbs-up" sign as a show of support, and also to signal that one carries no weaponry.

CONVERSATION- If one is concerned that a particular topic is unsuitable or indecorous, err on the side of caution. Acceptable subjects include: the weather, pledges of more British troops, exporting Democracy, pledges of more British troops, and jokes about the French, (but please, not in French).

- Subjects one should avoid include: questions that end in " ... and you call that victory?," and questions that begin with, "Hey, did you guys ever find ... ?"

- The President is celebrated for a colloquial conversational style that includes the bestowing of nicknames and the appearance of a certain unfamiliarity with our shared language. However, we expect the British people to recognize and embrace any perceived linguistic differences, and to take no offence when the President slaps Her Majesty on the back and refers to her as "La Wench del Windsor." (The President enjoys Spanish.)

SEATING
- A note to Palace staff: Unlike his predecessor, President Bush will not be bringing his wife and "a date," so there shall be no need for an extra chair.

STATE LUNCHEONS AND DINNERS
- The President should be seated first. During the meal, one should follow his lead, e.g., elbows off the table, napkin across lap, barbecue sauce on appetizer, entrée, then dessert.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS BEFORE PARLIAMENT
- It is a tradition in your British Parliament for Members to interrupt the speaker in order to display support or disapproval. This is considered impolite in American politics, but the President recognizes and respects the traditions of other cultures and will, therefore, meet you halfway, i.e., you will be allowed to show support.

PROTESTING
- President Bush comes from a society that values free speech, and he will not be made uncomfortable if your government allows its citizens to express dissatisfaction with America or its policies, or in any other way gives the President cause to believe Great Britain wishes to have its name added to the list of terrorist nations.

GIFTS
- As is customary on such occasions, your government will wish to present to the President gifts reflective of British culture. We suggest:

- Tea

- Woollens

- Glassware

- Rumours involving Prince Charles and Howard Dean

- Scotland

[Thanx Colleen Spence and pagans4peace]

*Ø* Blogmanac | London cancels police leave to handle Bush protesters

"LONDON — Police are bracing for what could be the largest demonstration ever organized against a foreign head of state when President Bush arrives for a state visit on Tuesday.

"Central London streets will be closed for Mr. Bush's motorcades and leave has been canceled for London police, who are expected to spend millions of dollars on security for the visit.

"The highlight will come Thursday when as many as 60,000 people gather in Trafalgar Square to pull down a homemade statute of President Bush in a parody of the April 9 destruction of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad ..."
Source: Washington Times

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

"You have probably seen the photos of the statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled, and TV footage of jubilant Iraqis rolling the bronze head around, bringing back memories of so many previous popular uprisings – 1989, 1956, 1953...

"If there is one thing this war has taught us all, it's that we can't believe what we're told. For Donald Rumsfeld these were 'breathtaking'. For the British Army they were 'historic'. For BBC Radio they were 'amazing'.

A wide angle shot in which you can see the whole of Fardus Square (conveniently located just opposite the Palestine Hotel where the international media are based), and the presence of at most around 200 people – most of them US troops (note the tanks and armored vehicles) and assembled journalists."
The pulling down of Saddam's statue was a staged media event [the Baghdad square was not full of cheering Iraqis, and it was surrounded by US tanks keeping Baghdad citizens away]
See the Video of the Pulling down of the Statue

*Ø* Blogmanac November 14, 1646 | Gottfried Leibniz , genius and polymath



1646 Gottfried Leibniz (July 1, 1646 - November 14, 1716), German philosopher, scientist, mathematician, diplomat, librarian, and lawyer.

One of the main intellectual shapers of his day, Gottfried was the son of a professor of jurisprudence at the University of Leipzig, a precocious child who loved learning. At the age of seven, Leibniz entered the Nicolai School in Leipzig. His talents found him patrons, early in life, among the princes of Europe.

He wanted to join a group of alchemists who were searching for the philosopher's stone: in order to do so, he wrote to the society, and his letter was filled with as many long and difficult words as he could think of, though he didn't know their meaning. Still, the phoney letter impressed the ‘scientists’, who did not wish to appear ignorant, and he got the position.
Full story at the Wilson's Almanac free daily ezine archives

*Ø* Blogmanac November 14, 1889 | Today's item

1889 Journalist ‘Nellie Bly’ (Elizabeth Jane Cochran) set sail from New York in an attempt to beat the fictional record of Phileas Fogg of Jules Verne’s best-selling book, Around the World in 80 Days – to go around the world in less than 80 days. Nellie's trip took 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds. Born May 5, 1864, to Judge Michael Cochran and Mary Jane Kennedy Cochran, part of the large Cochran family of Apollo, Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Cochrane revolutionised journalism for women.

In September 1887, Bly talked her way into the office of John Cockerill, managing editor of Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Cockerill hired the unknown journalist and gave Bly her first assignment – to be committed to the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island. Impersonating an insane woman, Nellie Bly came back from the asylum ten days later with stories of cruel beatings, ice cold baths and forced, rancid meals. This adventurous and daring stunt propelled Bly into the limelight of New York journalism, and, at only 23, Nellie Bly had become a pioneer of a proud tradition that was well known in the West until the early 21st Century: investigative journalism.

On November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly began her world-wide journey on the Hamburg-American Company liner Augusta Victoria from the Hoboken Pier at precisley 9:40:30 a.m.

In 1895 Nellie Bly married a millionaire, Robert Seaman, 50 years older than herself, and retired. She lost most of his money after he died and in 1919 tried unsuccessfully to make a comeback.

Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
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*Ø* Blogmanac November 14, 1998 | Saddam Hussein offers compliance

Did Iraq really expel the UNSCOM weapons inspectors in 1998? Bush said so in his State of the Union. Cheney also told the world this falsehood.
The Almanac says it's an often-repeated error, or lie, one of 31 Myths of the 'War on Terrorism' and Iraq.

Here's what really happened.

On November 14, 1998, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, after having ceased to comply with UN weapons inspectors on October 31, sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan offering to facilitate the inspections. On December 16, Australian Richard Butler, head of the UN weapons inspection team (UNSCOM), withdrew the team from Iraq, to protect his staff from the air strikes that the US and UK governments were threatening.

Within hours, Operation Desert Fox began: the US and UK began pre-emptively bombing Iraq – hundreds of cruise missiles raining down on the country, marking the start of strikes to punish the Baghdad government. An avalanche of US and British propaganda was published by a mostly unsuspecting world media, justifying the aggression and ignoring the destruction of Baghdad’s utilities and the deaths of many innocent civilians and service people. On ABC's This Week (September 27, 2003), Colin Powell publicly lied that the Clinton administration “conducted a four-day bombing campaign in late 1998 based on the intelligence that he [Butler] had. That resulted in the weapons inspectors being thrown out.”

Funeral services were held for 68 people who Iraqi officials say were killed in the raids. But Iraq's Ambassador to the UN, Nizar Hamdoon, said: “I'm told that the casualties are in the thousands in terms of numbers of people who were killed or wounded.”

US bombs food storage, schools, college, maternity centres
Several weeks after the strikes, the UN children's fund, UNICEF, made a first preliminary assessment of damage to civilian facilities. They reported the destruction of a rice warehouse in Tikrit in northern Iraq, damage to ten schools in the southern port city of Basra, and an agricultural college in Kirkuk in northern Iraq received a direct hit.

They said that in Baghdad medical and maternity centres, a water supply system and parts of the health and social affairs ministries were damaged.

Since Butler’s forced withdrawal in the face of US-UK threats, many Western media and politicians have usually pretended to the public that Iraq “expelled” the team.

The events surrounding the withdrawal are recounted in Butler's book, Saddam Defiant: (2000):

“I received a telephone call from US Ambassador Peter Burleigh inviting me for a private conversation at the US mission ... Burleigh informed me that on instructions from Washington it would be ‘prudent to take measures to ensure the safety and security of UNSCOM staff presently in Iraq.’ I told him that I would act on his advice and remove my staff from Iraq.”

Oft-repeated error of fact
The ‘mistake’ (that UNSCOM was ejected by Hussein in 1998) has been made not only by pro-war people such as George W Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address (‘the axis of evil’ speech), Dick Cheney, Alexander Rose, the Canadian right-wing Washington correspondent of the National Post, and the editorial writers of the Sunday Times. It has also been made by those who have shown concern for the humanitarian situation in Iraq, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, UK Liberal Democrats foreign affairs spokesperson Menzies Campbell, and the usually trustworthy Guardian Middle East editor Brian Whitaker. The BBC often makes the same incorrect assertion, although it usually acknowledges its error when it is pointed out to them.

Butler was pro-peace for Iraq
Richard Butler became a fierce critic of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, strongly criticising Australian Prime Minister Howard and marching with more than a quarter of a million others in the Sydney pro-peace march on February 16, 2003. On the morning of the peace march, he told ABC interviewer Terry Lane:

“I believe that there is a very real prospect now that the United States of America will attack Iraq without the approval of the UN Security Council. That is contrary to international law, it should not happen, and I believe the consequences of such an action could be possibly catastrophic. I also finally believe that war is almost certain not to be the solution to any of the problems that are posed by Saddam Hussein, and they are real problems. The smaller reason, not so small for we Australians, is, I don't know how to put this as simply as possible ... Let me just say that I'm sick to death of the lies that we're being told about this by the Prime Minister of Australia. I heard him again this morning on a national television interview, and it was shocking, it was astonishing to hear him duck and weave, including by the way, say that in answer to a question about the possible deaths of Iraqi women and children, that something broadly like, 'Well, you know, that was unfortunate but it was their fault that Saddam Hussein was their president, and that's how it goes'. Astonishing, and I'm really deeply distressed by his position …

“International law is important here, and we mustn't commit the terrible mistake and folly in our pursuit of a criminal, by ourselves breaking the law. Because then it brings the whole system into disrepute and that is what I fear we face if the Americans go it alone here. We will trash 50 years of post World War II international law and replace it with the rule that might is right, and that's what we've been trying to get away from.” Source

Myths of the ‘War on Terrorism’ and Iraq

Iraq crisis timeline
Chronology from UNSCOM website

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*Ø* Blogmanac | CIA Report Suggests Iraqis Are Losing Faith in US Efforts

"WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 — A bleak top-secret report by the Central Intelligence Agency suggests that the situation in Iraq is approaching a crucial turning point, with ordinary Iraqis losing faith in American-led occupation forces and in the United States-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.

"The report, sent to Washington on Monday by the C.I.A.'s Baghdad station chief, suggests that the situation is creating a more fertile environment for the anti-American insurgency. Officials said the report was adding to the sense of urgency behind the administration's reappraisal of its policies in Iraq ..."
Source

[I'm sure readers will have heard or read this news already but I thought it important enough to post.]

*Ø* Blogmanac November 14 | Hey Georgie! Flashback!


1969

*Ø* Blogmanac November 12-23| If you missed the Perseids in August, don't miss the Leonids!

Leonids meteor showers (Nov 12-23 annually)
“The Leonids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle. The meteor stream is viewable every year around November 17 and is thought to be comprised of particles ejected by the comet as it passes by the Sun. When the Earth moves through the meteor stream, the meteor shower is visible. The Leonids get their name from usually making their appearance in or near the constellation Leo.

"The Leonids are famous because their meteor showers, or storms, can be among the most spectacular. They seem to follow a 33 year cycle, associated with the 33 year orbit of Tempel-Tuttle. Storms in peak years can feature thousands of meteors per hour; notable events were observed in 1698, 1799, 1833, 1866, 1966, and 2001.”

http://www-space.arc.nasa.gov/~leonid/meteor.html
http://www.leonidstorm.com/
Estimate the best viewing times for your part of the world

Source: Wikipedia

Leonids in Native American history and folklore
“During the last 15 to 20 years, archeoastronomy has uncovered much concerning the astronomical beliefs of native Americans. Unfortunately, the methods of keeping records of astronomical events were not as straight forward as those of the Chinese and Europeans, as there are no books lying around. Instead, the methods of record keeping included rock and cave drawings, stick notching, beadwork, pictures on animal skins and jars, and story telling‹most of which are not dateable.

“One of the few dateable events among the various records of native Americans was the 1833 appearance of the Leonid meteor shower. Historically recognized as one of the greatest meteor storms on record, it made a lasting impression among the peoples of North America.

“The most obvious accounts of the Leonid storm appear among the various bands of the Sioux of the North American plains. The Sioux kept records called ‘winter counts,’ which were a chronological, pictographic account of each year painted on animal skin. In 1984, Von Del Chamberlain (Smithsonian Institution) listed the astronomical references for 50 Sioux winter counts, of which 45 plainly referred to an intense meteor shower during 1833/1834. In addition, he listed 19 winter counts kept by other plains Indian tribes, of which 14 obviously referred to the Leonid storm ...
Much more at source


If you can't see nuthin' ... join the International Dark-Sky Association and help lobby governments to pass some laws to help save the human spirit!

*Ø* Blogmanac November 13 | The bull running at Stamford, UK

Until 1839, the November 13 bull running was a colourful tradition of the town of Stamford, Lincoln, England. The butchers of the town would purchase a wild bull for the purpose, and the shops would all be closed. In a kind of opposite ceremony to the famous bull running of Pamplona, Spain, the hapless creature was turned out of the alderman's house, whereupon the villagers ran after him with their bull-clubs.

According to ancient tradition, the sport went back to 1209, the time when William, Earl of Warren, in the time of King John, saw two bulls fighting for one cow. A butcher of the town, who owned one of the bulls, accidentally set one of his mastiffs upon his own bull which forced it into the town and all the dogs ran after it.

This caused such a commotion in the town that the earl gave the butchers in perpetuity the meadows in which the bulls were found fighting, as long as the butchers each year on this day put a mad bull into the town to be chased. A man in a barrel with both ends removed was rolled up to the animal to taunt it, and the bull would usually toss it.

‘Bridging the bull’
The bull was driven to the local bridge by the locals, who for the day were known as ‘bullards’. Where the populace press in upon him and tumbled him into the water. At night the animal was slaughtered and his carcass sold cheaply to the poor.

Even before the rights of children were fully protected in the English-speaking world, there were laws for the protection of animals. In 1833 the SPCA started its campaign against the spectacle and in 1836 prosecuted several people for "conspiring to disturb the peace by riotously assembling to run and torment a bull". In 1838 the Home Secretary determined to stop the custom, and sent in a large number of dragoons to stop it. A riot ensued, with injuries on both sides.

In 1839 a stronger force was sent to Stamford. The cost of the police and military was placed on the shoulders of the citizens, so the next year they discontinued the ancient tradition. For years afterwards, the townspeople would cry out “Bull! Bull!” whenever they packed out the local theatre, and would not cease until their old Bullards' Song was played.

Excerpt
Come all you bonny boys,
Who love to bait the bonny bull,
Who take delight in noise,
And you shall have your bellyful.
From The Bullards' Song, sung on the day of the running of the bull, Stamford, England, until 1839

The bull running was on or around St Martin’s Day, and might have pagan Horned God associations.

Last person alive (1928) to remember the bull running
The British bulldog, bred for this pursuit

[This article was posted on Thursday Nov 13 at pr3ecisely the moment that Blogger went down for maintenance; hence its lateness by one day. -- PW]

Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
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*Ø* Blogmanac November 13, 1002 | Ethnic cleansing, English style

1002 Ethnic cleansing: On St Brice's Day, the Anglo-Saxon people rose up and massacred their Danish overlords. This act of carnage so outraged the Vikings that it led to a full scale invasion by them the following year. John of Wallingford suggests that the Vikings had to be killed because they combed their hair daily, bathed every Saturday and regularly changed their clothes – helping to undermine the virtue of married women and even seduce the daughters of nobles to be their mistresses.

For it is fully agreed that to all dwelling in this country it will be well known that, since a decree was sent out by me with the counsel of my leading men and magnates, to the effect that all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination, and thus this decree was to be put into effect even as far as death, those Danes who dwelt in the afore-mentioned town, striving to escape death, entered this sanctuary of Christ, having broken by force the doors and bolts, and resolved to make refuge and defence for themselves therein against the people of the town and the suburbs; but when all the people in pursuit strove, forced by necessity, to drive them out, and could not, they set fire to the planks and burnt, as it seems, this church with its ornaments and its books. Afterwards, with God's aid, it was renewed by me.
From a royal charter

It is widely held that Hocktide games in England commemorated the Anglo-Saxon's inhumane slaughter on that cruel day. Hocktide is the Monday and Tuesday following the second Sunday after Easter.

>Read the whole article at the Scriptorium

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*Ø* Blogmanac | RESIST BUSH

"George Bush will be coming to the UK for a state visit 19th - 21st November 2003.

"Resist Bush is an umbrella group of activists to help individuals and groups make sure his UK visit is a truly memorable one -- not just for George, but for his host Tony Blair.

Wednesday 19th November - Resist Bush Tea Party

"Mass protest and civil disobedience, 3pm, Buckingham Palace.

"Resist Bush is calling for a day of open mass non-violent civil disobedience for the first day of Bush's visit. This will be a space where all groups and indivuals can come to protest together in large numbers. Please get the word out to as many people as possible.

"Resist Bush is also co-ordinating a mass sit-down protest as part of the Tea Party on the 19th. This will be open to everyone to join. We stress that this action is a call for NON-VIOLENT action i.e. 'action which does not harm or degrade any human being'. Please see the flyer for more details.

"Resist Bush is an initiative of the GROW network ( Grass Roots Opposition to War).

"Other major events have been planned on the 18th, 20th and 21st November. For more information see our calendar of events.

"Our intention is that anyone, regardless of their affiliations, will be able to email us details of protests they are planning. Then we can publish appropriate information on the site ...

"To subscribe to the Resist Bush Yahoo newsgroup email: resistbush-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk "

Source and full text

See also this report in the Telegraph, and this "wax off your bush" story at the Mirror.

[Thanks J-9!]

*Ø* Blogmanac | The World's Loudest Belcher

[Don't you think this has got a trifle out of hand? - N]

LONDON (Reuters) - "A burp from the loudest belcher in the world echoed round Britain's Tate Modern Gallery as the Guinness World Records book celebrated the release of its 100 millionth copy. The book, which lists world records from the smallest dog to the highest paid TV guest star, has its own entry in the latest edition as the best-selling copyright book of all time.

"'Everybody has a dream to be the best at something in the world and the public has an incredible imagination,' the book's editor Claire Folkard said at a reception in London. 'That's what has kept us going.'

"One guest who satiated her desire to be entered into the book as a record holder was Elaine Davidson who had 1,903 piercings, studs and rings over her tattooed body."

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*Ø* Blogmanac | United States: Stop Handing Over Detainees to Torturers

Statement from Human Rights Watch



"President George W. Bush should end the transfer of detainees to countries that routinely engage in torture, such as Syria, if he is to fulfill his pledge to champion democracy and human rights in the Middle East and honor the United States' international legal obligations, Human Rights Watch said today.

"In a November 6 speech to the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, President Bush condemned the government of Syria, along with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, for leaving its people "a legacy of torture, oppression, misery, and ruin."

"According to the U.S. State Department's annual human rights reports, Syria torture methods include beatings, administering electric shocks, pulling out of fingernails, forcing objects into the rectum, and bending detainees into the frame of a wheel and whipping their exposed body parts.

"Yet last year, the United States reportedly transferred Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, to Syria after having detained him in New York as he was en route from Tunisia to Montreal. On November 4 in Ottawa, Arar publicly asserted that, while held in Syrian prisons for 10 months, he was repeatedly tortured by being whipped with a thick electric cable and threatened with electric shocks.

"Since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has reportedly facilitated or participated directly in the transfer of numerous persons without extradition proceedings, a practice known as "irregular rendition," to countries in the Middle East known to practice torture routinely."

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*Ø* Blogmanac | Coffee Break



Zombie Machines Fueling New Cyber Crime Wave

By Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) - "The rapid growth of broadband home computer connections may be inadvertently fueling what police suspect could be the start of a new crime wave -- cyber-blackmail.

"As more homes connect to faster delivery systems, their computers are becoming vulnerable to hackers and virus writers who can turn them into "zombie" machines, ready to carry out any malevolent command."

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Woman Sues Over Condom in Her Clam Chowder

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Waiter, there is something worse than a fly in my soup.

"A California woman who found a condom in her bowl of clam chowder has sued the upscale restaurant that served it to her -- saying she has suffered depression and anxiety from the shocking discovery."

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Ministers Fall to Own Road Safety Push

PARIS (Reuters) - "Two French ministers being whisked to the unveiling of new radar speed traps outside Paris were caught over the speed limit as their cars raced to the event, French car magazine Auto Plus says.

"It said Monday its reporters used hand-held radars to record Transport Minister Gilles de Robien's car whizzing out of the French capital at 62 mph on a road with a 43 mph limit."

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*Ø* Blogmanac | Half of US now think Iraq war a waste

[Click the pic if you're nostalgic for those heady days when only 100s of millions of people around the world wanted to off the Shrub -- soon it will be a majority]

"Half of Americans, 49 percent, say the war was not worth it, compared to 48 percent who say it was, according to a survey conducted this month by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

That's a change from results in October, when 52 percent of Americans polled nationwide said the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, while 43 percent said it was not ..."
Source: SF Gate

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Dreamers and Idiots
Bush and Blair did everything necessary to prevent the outbreak of peace

By George Monbiot [Read this guy often! - PW]

"The Guardian. 11th November 2003) Those who would take us to war must first shut down the public imagination. They must convince us that there is no other means of preventing invasion, or conquering terrorism, or even defending human rights. When information is scarce, imagination is easy to control. As intelligence gathering and diplomacy are conducted in secret, we seldom discover - until it is too late - how plausible the alternatives may be.

"So those of us who called for peace before the wars with Iraq and Afghanistan were mocked as effeminate dreamers ...

"But a further, and even graver, set of lies is only now beginning to come to light. Even if all the claims Bush and Blair made about their enemies and their motives had been true, and all their objectives had been legal and just, there may still have been no need to go to war. For, as we discovered last week, Saddam Hussein proposed to give Bush and Blair almost everything they wanted before a shot had been fired. Our governments appear both to have withheld this information from the public and to have lied to us about the possibilities for diplomacy ..."
Source: The Guardian via InformationClearinghouse.info

*Ø* Blogmanac November 12 | Festival of Jupiter, ancient Rome

A three-day festival honouring the one Roman deity given the title of God – Jupiter, or Jove to the Romans and Zeus to the Greeks. Jupiter was the god of the sky and thunder, a friendly, mostly happy god, not vengeful or destructive like Jehovah. Worship of Zeus originated among the Minoans, where he was known as the Earthshaker.

Jupiter overthew his Father Saturn (in Greek, Cronus; his mother was Rhea), then drew lots with his brothers Poseidon and Hades to determine who would be the supreme ruler of the gods. Jupiter won this draw and became the ruler of Olympus and the patron of the ancient Roman state.

His weapon is a thunderbolt which he hurls at those who incur his displeasure. Jupiter is married to Hera but, is known for his many affairs. Jupiter had an affair with Juturna but the secret was betrayed by a nymph named Lara, whom Jupiter struck with muteness as punishment. Despite his philandering, he is also known to punish those that lie or break oaths.

This famous statue of Zeus (Jupiter) was created by the famous Greek sculptor Phidius during the 5th century BCE; it was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. According to a contemporary source, it was about 12 metres tall, with the deity carved from ivory and seated on a magnificent throne made of cedarwood and inlaid with ivory, gold, ebony and precious stones. In Zeus’s right hand there was a small statue of Nike, the goddess of victory, and in his left hand a shining sceptre upon which perched an eagle. It stood for more than eight centuries in the temple of Zeus at Olympia in Greece, until the Roman emperor Theodosius I proclaimed Christianity the state religion, and ordered all statues and likenesses of the pagan gods torn down.


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*Ø* Blogmanac November 12 | The rising of the Nile

St Michael’s day for the Nile, Egypt
The Christians of Egypt placed their life-giving river, the Nile, under the archangel St Michael’s protection. They adopted the feast as kept by the Greeks and kept it on November 12. On the twelfth of each month they celebrate a special commemoration of St Michael, but on June 12, when the river starts to rise, they keep as a holiday of obligation the feast of St Michael “for the rising of the Nile”: euche eis ten symmetron anabasin ton potamion hydaton.

*Ø* Blogmanac November 12, 1815 | Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American feminist, born on November 12, 1815

I live ...
For the cause that lacks assistance,
For the wrong that needs resistance,
For the future in the distance
And the good that I can do.
Poem quoted on the title page of the diary of Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 - October 26, 1902), US social reformer and feminist co-founder, with Lucretia Mott, of the women's rights movement; first president of the National Woman's Suffrage Association.

*Ø* Blogmanac November 12, 1493 | Happy birthday, Paracelsus

1493 (Sources vary as to date) Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Paracelsus (1493 - 1541), Switzerland, physician and one of history’s greatest alchemists. He called himself para-Celsus because he surpassed even first-century Roman physician Aulus Cornelius Celsus. He broke with tradition by teaching in German rather than Latin, burned Avicenna's Canon to mark his break with academic colleagues at Basel, and lambasted the Greek physician Galen (131 - 201 CE) at every opportunity.

He believed that “magic is a teacher of medicine preferable to all the written books”. He also believed that epileptics were ill, not possessed. Paracelsus was the first to use tincture of opium in medicine, and he correctly associated head injury with paralysis, and miners’ lung with the occupation. He claimed to have discovered the philosopher’s stone and that he was immortal.

On September 24, 1541 Paracelsus made his will, but there was no mention of gold or silver, the alchemists’ holy grail. His only legacy was a 125 grams (approx. 4 oz Troy/Apoth.) silver chalice. Paracelsus died in 1541, possibly from a fall (he was a heavy drinker).

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*Ø* Blogmanac | Iraq war toll up to 55,000: report

"A new report estimates as many as 55,000 people have died in the Iraq war and in the months after major hostilities ended ..."
Source: ABC

*Ø* Blogmanac | Australia lashed over boat people

"The UN refugee agency has accused Australia of violating its obligation to refugees by turning away 14 asylum-seekers before they could be assessed.

"The group of Turkish Kurds is now in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, after Australia's navy towed their fishing-boat away from its coast last week.

"'Denial of access... is a breach of... obligations under international law,' said a UN spokesman in Geneva.

"He also urged Indonesia not to deport the Kurds, who say they are refugees ...

"Australia's policies towards asylum-seekers who arrive illegally have become among the toughest in the developed world ..."
Source: BBC News

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We claimed asylum in Australia: Turkish Kurds
"DAVID HARDAKER: The 14 Turkish Kurds who appeared last week on Melville Island now seem likely to have their immediate future determined by Indonesian authorities.

"But on their arrival in Indonesia the men have contradicted Australian Government claims that they at no stage made a claim for asylum in Australia.

"The 14 men have told the ABC that they made it clear to Australian authorities on Melville Island last week that they were refugees and wanted to stay ..."
Source: ABC (Australia)

*Ø* Blogmanac | Hustler boss claims nude pics of Pte. Lynch

"NEW YORK — Pornographer Larry Flynt claims he bought nude photos of former prisoner of war Pte. 1st Class Jessica Lynch last month to publish in Hustler magazine, but changed his mind because she is a 'good kid ... and a victim of the Bush administration.'

"The photos, which Flynt's publicist says show the undressed army supply clerk posing with male soldiers, were sold to Flynt last month, according to a statement from Flynt that was read to The Associated Press today by his publicist ..."
Source: Toronto Star

*Ø* Blogmanac November 11, 1887| the Haymarket Martyrs

If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labor movement, then hang us. Here you will tread upon a spark, but here, and there, and behind you, and in front of you, and everywhere, the flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out. The ground is on fire upon which you stand.
August Spies, one of the Haymarket Martyrs, four innocent men, who were executed in Chicago, USA on November 11, 1887; to the judge


1887 Chicago, USA: The Haymarket Martyrs – August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel – were hanged for “inciting” the Haymarket riot, at which they were not present. A fifth, 23-year-old Louis Lingg, had killed himself in his cell the previous evening. The evidence against them was their anarchist ideas and literature. They were found guilty in a trial which Governor John Peter Altgeld subsequently held to be unfair.

Another defendant, Oscar Neebe, received a reduced sentence of 15 years in prison, presumably because even the State Attorney admitted he had been at home during the bombing. Neebe protested to the judge that his sentence wasn't fair.

“Your honor, I am sorry I am not to be hung with the rest of the men,” Neebe said at sentencing.