*Ø* Blogmanac February 29 | Leap Year Day

Sadie Hawkins Day is actually in November
There is a tradition that women may make a proposal of marriage to men only on February 29; this is a tightening of an older tradition that such proposals may only occur on leap years. In 1288 the Scottish parliament legislated that any woman could propose in Leap Year. The man may, of course, refuse but, by tradition, he should soften the blow by providing a kiss, one pound currency and a pair of gloves (some later sources say a silk gown). This law was adopted in France, Switzerland and Italy and the tradition was carried to America.

In Al Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner, a similar custom called ‘Sadie Hawkins Day’ was commemorated on or around November 9 each year. On Sadie Hawkins Day, in the hillbilly town of Dogpatch, a race was held for spinsters, in pursuit of all the local bachelors who must marry if caught. 'Sadie Hawkin's Day' functions are still held in some places, and by association with the older tradition, sometimes now occur on or around February 29.

I have no idea what the custom is if either the spinster or bachelor should happen to be bissextile.

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 February 28, 1874 | The bizarre Tichborne case

1874 Arthur Orton, the false claimant to the Tichborne fortune, was found guilty of perjury.
 
The Tichborne Case
So ended a celebrated English impersonation case. In March 1853 Roger Charles Tichborne, heir to the ancient Hampshire baronetcy, sailed for South America. On April 20 he departed from there on the Bella for Jamaica. The ship sank, and Tichborne was not heard of again. In October 1865 ‘RC Tichborne’ showed up in Wagga Wagga, Australia, in the person of a man known locally as Tom Castro.

On Christmas Day 1866, Tichborne/Castro landed in England where he claimed the baronetcy. The real Roger's mother, Dowager Lady Henriette Felicité Tichborne, confirmed the impostor as her son, though the rest of the family was not deceived at all. We should note here that antique pictures show that Roger Tichborne was a very slender man, but the claimant was very obese, looking about twice the weight of Roger.

Finally the impostor lost in court, where he was revealed as Arthur Orton, son of a Wapping (England) butcher. Orton found himself sentenced to 14 years' hard labour. The false claimant to the Tichborne fortune had been found guilty of perjury after 260 days, in the longest trial in English history to that time.

The Gilbert and Sullivan opera Trial by Jury is said to have been based on the famous Tichborne Case.

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 | Smith & Wesson chief bites bullet

"BOSTON (Reuters) - Handgun maker Smith & Wesson Holding says it will issue a statement about its chairman following a published report he resigned after a newspaper revealed he was jailed for armed robbery decades ago ..."
Source: Yahoo News

*Ø* Blogmanac | Oh, great!



Pakistan nuclear technology at arms fair: report
"The Pakistani scientist at the centre of a black market in nuclear weapons is said to have displayed sensitive equipment and brochures for atom bomb technology at a Pakistani arms fair ..."
Source

*Ø* Blogmanac | Spy case casts fresh doubt on war legality

Richard Norton-Taylor and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian

"Dramatic new evidence pointing to serious doubts in the government about the legality of the war in Iraq was passed to government lawyers shortly before they abandoned the prosecution of the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun ...

"The leading prosecutor, Mark Ellison, said it would not be 'appropriate' to go into the reasons for dropping the case.

"But the Guardian has learned that a key plank of the defence presented to the prosecutors shortly before they decided to abandon the case was new evidence that the legality of the war had been questioned by the Foreign Office.

"It is contained in a document seen by the Guardian. Sensitive passages are blacked out, but one passage says: 'The defence believes that the advice given by the Foreign Office Legal Adviser expressed serious doubts about the legality (in international law) of committing British troops in the absence of a second [UN] resolution.'

"It is understood that the FO legal team was particularly concerned about the lack of a second UN resolution authorising the use of force and pre-emptive military action."

Read full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Blix, Butler 'bugged' too

"The British or US intelligence services monitored former United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix's mobile phone whenever he was in Iraq, sources have told the ABC.

"A key Australian official at the heart of attempts to locate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Richard Butler, has also told the ABC that he was bugged while carrying out delicate international negotiations with the Iraqis ...

"Mr Butler says that if Mr Annan was bugged, it would be illegal.

"'There is a headquarters agreement with the United Nations that says that those places, those premises, those persons will be inviolable,' he said.

"'It's not true to say that this activity if it occurred was within the law.'"

Source and full text

UN chief wants spying to stop
By John Shovelan in Washington

"United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan says any attempts to spy on his office would be illegal and should cease immediately ...

"UN spokesman Fred Eckhard says he would be 'disappointed' if the claims are true. 'Such activities would undermine the integrity and confidential nature of diplomatic exchanges,' he said.

"Mr Eckhard says the espionage could have undermined the secretary-general's efforts to head off the war in Iraq."

Source and full text

Britain's spying shame

Fury at claims Britain spied on UN
By Andrew Grice, The Independent

"Britain faced deep international embarrassment last night after the former cabinet minister Clare Short claimed that its security services spied on Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, in the run-up to last year's Iraq war.

"A furious Tony Blair condemned Ms Short as 'deeply irresponsible' and accused her of threatening Britain's national security by attacking the security services. Last night she returned to the attack, claiming that the Prime Minister had stopped short of denying her claims because he knew that they were true.

"There was speculation at Westminster last night that the bugging was carried out by American security services but that Mr Blair did not wish to say so for fear of upsetting the Bush administration.

"In New York, British officials made frantic efforts to reassure Mr Annan and his team about the conduct of the security services ...

"There were claims yesterday that Lord Goldsmith QC, the Attorney General, had changed his stance about the legality of war weeks before the conflict."

Full text at the Independent

*Ø* Blogmanac | 9/11 panelist may quit over Bush secrecy

"WASHINGTON - Frustrated by Bush administration restrictions, a former senator said yesterday he might quit the special commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"Ex-Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), now president of New York's New School University, told the Daily News that resigning is 'on my list of possibilities' because the administration continues to block the full panel's access to top intelligence officials and materials ...

"The White House recently allowed only three commissioners and their staff director to read secret CIA briefings on Al Qaeda given to Bush and Clinton before the 2001 attacks ..."
Source: NY Daily News

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Israeli firm awarded oil tender in Iraq
"One of Israel's largest oil marketing firms has won a multi-million dollar tender to supply fuel to US troops in Iraq.

"According to a IsraelNationalNews.com report, the tender awarded to Sonol gasoline company, along with its foreign partner Morgantown International, is valued at $70-80 million ...

"James Akins, a former US ambassador to the region, quoted by The Observer said: 'There would be a fee for transit rights through Jordan, just as there would be fees for Israel from those using what would be the Haifa terminal", according to the paper.

'''After all, this is a new world order now. This is what things look like particularly if we wipe out Syria. It just goes to show that it is all about oil, for the United States and its ally.''"
Source: Al Jazeera

*Ø* Blogmanac February 27, 1934 | Ralph is 70



Infatuation is when you think he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford – but you'll take him anyway.
Judith Viorst

1934 Ralph Nader, American consumer rights campaigner and author

Ralph Nader: hero or villain?
Ralph Nader has his fan club, eg http://www.nader.org … “In 1963, Ralph Nader, then an unknown twenty-nine-year old attorney, abandoned a conventional law practice in Hartford, Connecticut, and hitchhiked to Washington, DC, to begin a long odyssey of professional citizenship …”  

… and his detractors:

“Saint Ralph loves to preach about democracy and ‘citizen power’, but he runs his carefully concealed empire with an iron grip. Of 19 groups associated with Nader, the most powerful and important groups are all directly controlled by Nader or completely under his influence and no one else's. With some groups, Nader is the only contributor; others are controlled by his sister, Laura Nader Milleron, or his cousin. …”

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Festival of the Anthesteria (End of February)
Festival of Flowers

(Held during the full moon following the full moon of the Lênaia, and two moons following the full moon nearest the winter solstice)

Today was the first day of the three-day Anthesteria, a floral festival of ancient Greece dedicated to Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy. The last year’s vintage was tasted amid the celebrations for the god who taught mankind how to make wine. The object of the festival was to celebrate the maturing of the wine stored at the previous vintage, and the beginning of Spring.

Dionysus was commemorated by devotees who sometimes went to the extremes of long dance sessions to the point of exhaustion, sometimes even tearing apart wild beasts in their frenzy. Dionysus, who equates with the Roman Bacchus, took long journeys throughout the world to teach mankind the winemaker’s art. Dionysus is probably the Greek version of the Vedic god Soma, judging by similarities of their function and legends ...


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 | George Bush action doll

Go through to the end and click "Say something stupid".

*Ø* Blogmanac | Another reason we need the UN: the rich countries selling arms to the poor
There are an estimated 639 million small arms and light weapons in circulation killing 300,000 people a year including innocent civilians. Armed groups are fighting with impunity such is the availability and relatively low cost of this killing machine.
Why we need the United Nations

*Ø* Blogmanac | How much thickening can this plot take?

Former Minister Says UK Spied on UN Chief

"LONDON (Reuters) - Former government minister Clare Short said on Thursday that Britain conducted spying operations on United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the run-up to last year's war on Iraq.

"The claim comes a day after Prime Minister Tony Blair's government dropped charges against a translator accused of leaking a top-secret U.S. memo seeking London's help in spying on United Nations members in the run-up to the Iraq war ..."
Source: Yahoo News

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Short: UK spied on Kofi Annan

"Asked whether British agencies had been involved in spying activities against Mr Annan, Ms Short – who quit the cabinet in protest against the war – said: 'I know, I have seen transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations' ..."
Source: The Guardian

Spy case casts fresh doubt on war legality
Special Report: Iraq

*Ø* Blogmanac | Abolition, Menicheism and Bretzel?

Praising the President
By Steve Weissman
t r u t h o u t | Perspective


La Boissière d'Ans, five hours south of Paris. The American flag billows on my monitor, as the fleeting words flash by: "Dow Jones … Cocaine … Noam Chomsky … Botox … Guantanamo." Even here in deepest France, tucked away in the green hills and hollows of historic Dordogne, I cannot escape "les mots de l'Amérique," the American words and names that the prestigious Le Monde thinks its online readers need to know.

Mouse-clicking on Old Glory, I get a fresh screen, with eleven different rubrics grouping more than 400 individual blurbs. Who and what Le Monde includes, or leaves out, and what its writers have to say opens a well-placed, if slightly left-facing, window on the French and on what they see in us.

Movies are big, this being France, where they helped invent the cinema. Clint Eastwood, Julia Roberts, and Michael Moore each get a screen. Woody Allen, a long-time French favorite, shows up under "psys, short for psychiatrists.

Sports has the fewest entries, but what do the French care about baseball, especially this week, when everyone is watching rugby?

The entries reveal a keen interest in American music, media, literature, the economy, cultural symbols, and technology.

They talk about our First Amendment and America's "absolute respect" for different religions. They explain how our separation of church and state differs from the more rigorously secular French, who would never open an official function with a prayer or allow their currency to proclaim "In God We Trust."

For a newspaper -- and country -- so often accused of being anti-American, Le Monde’s lexicon shows a fine sense of engagement. The writers seem fascinated and care enough to try to understand us.

Then I turn to politics, where the first item catches my eye -- "abolition."

Slavery?

No, "capital punishment," which links to "executions," "prisons," and "electric chair." The whole nasty business ranks as one of the biggest complaints the French and other Europeans have against us, every bit as galling to them as Iraq.

I click on George W. Bush -- "a mediocre student at Yale and Harvard," a former owner of a baseball team, a one-time alcoholic, and -- as governor of Texas -- a determined patron of the death penalty.

One link leads to "Crusades," which notes that Mr. Bush and his War on Terror have revived "the reactionary Manicheism of the Cold War." For the ecclesiastically challenged, the Manicheans were a Persian religious sect -- and later Christian heretics -- who saw the world divided into an eternal struggle between good and evil, God and the Devil.

Another links leads to "Bretzel," which is French for pretzel, on which the president choked in January 2002. Pretzels, the writer notes, had their origin in the French Alsace as well as in Germany.

Other links identify, define, and decipher a wider world of differences.

Avancer, s'il vous plez.

*Ø* Blogmanac February 26, 1991 | General McCaffrey's Highway of Death

Unknown to journalists, in the last two days before the cease-fire, American armoured bulldozers were ruthlessly deployed, mostly at night, burying Iraqis alive in their trenches, including the wounded. Six months later New York Newsday disclosed that three brigades of the 1st Mechanised Infantry Division – ‘The Big Red One’ – used snow plows mounted on tanks and combat earth movers to bury thousands of Iraqi soldiers – some alive – in more than 70 miles of trenches.
John Pilger on the Highway of Death; Hidden Agendas

1991 Gulf War: On Baghdad Radio Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein announced the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait in compliance with UN Resolution 660.

The Highway of Death: America's "turkey shoot" war crime
In accordance with UN resolutions, Iraqi troops were commanded by President Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait. America bombarded the retreating soldiers. More than 2,000 vehicles and tens of thousands of charred and dismembered bodies littered the sixty miles of highway.

The clear rapid incineration of the human beings suggests the use of napalm, phosphorus, or other incendiary bombs, anti-personnel weapons outlawed under the 1977 Geneva Protocols ...

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 | Scrimmies

"According to Jo, no one knows if the art of incising living human bones was practised in Australia before she had the first, when her femur was ‘scrimmed’"



Scrimmies
A modern cult revealed
Who are the scrimmies? And why do they practise
this strange art that goes beyond tattoos and piercings
– the bizarre body art of carved, living, human bones


It was an appropriately unsettling entrance to the world of the bonecarvers – lost on my first visit, on June 12.

I must have walked past the door marked with the torn Greenpeace sticker and an incoherent bit of graffiti (something about Mariah Cary).

My informant, Justine, had told me to “knock on the blue door near the Leb shop”. Had she forgotten that in this part of Sydney’s inner suburbs, every other shop is owned by Lebanese?

One of Sydney’s ethnic quarters, definitely. The blue door was actually squeezed hard between a Chinese-owned store and a pizzeria (to give more details would break my promise of anonymity to the scrimmies and Justine).

Considering the neighbourhood is so cosmopolitan, I was surprised that the scrimmies were so Anglo-Aussie, except for the Mexican, Serge.

I twisted the ancient bell knob on the grimy, chipped door and waited. And waited. And turned the knob again.

“Yeah?” came a woman’s voice, that one syllable betraying a broad Australian accent.

I introduced myself and she remembered that Justine had said I would be coming to interview the scrimmies.

‘Hannah’, reluctantly it seemed, led me up the steep, narrow staircase. The air was cold, gloomy. At the head of the stairs was a small landing with threadbare Westminster carpet. On the wall was a framed airline poster of that famous fairytale castle in Europe.

Hannah led me, or, rather, I followed her brisk pace into the book-lined, messy room with its untidy plethora of computer equipment, but I had to introduce myself as she dumped me and headed for a small sink in the corner where she made herself a cup of lemongrass tea.

The ‘scrimmies’ I met in that room, with its two kinds of worn carpet, and a flyspecked paper globe lampshade askew above the centre, had not assembled for the benefit of this pariah of the press. It seems that this apartment/office/clubhouse regularly holds a dozen or more lounging or websurfing scrimmies ...

Source: Scrimmies

*Ø* Blogmanac | GCHQ whistleblower walks free

The Guardian, February 25

"GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun demanded an explanation today after the case against her of disclosing information and breaking the Official Secrets Act collapsed after the prosecution offered no evidence ...

"Ms Gun, of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, had been accused of disclosing a request allegedly from a US national security agency official for help from British intelligence to tap the telephones of UN security council delegates during the period of fraught diplomacy before the [Iraq] war.

"She argued the alleged disclosures exposed serious wrongdoing by the US and could have helped to prevent the deaths of Iraqis and British forces in an 'illegal war'.

"After the prosecution offered no evidence, the judge, the Recorder of London Michael Hyam, recorded a formal verdict of not guilty ...

"For her defence, she had planned to seek the disclosure of the full advice from the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, on the legality of the war against Iraq, which could have been potentially damaging and embarrassing for the government."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Human Rights Groups Shut Out of Military Commissions

Human Rights Watch:

Washington, February 24 -- "The Pentagon has refused to allow three leading human rights groups to attend and observe military commission trials of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

"In a letter sent last week to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Amnesty International, Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) and Human Rights Watch protested their exclusion from the proceedings and urged the U.S. government to rethink its position ...

"'The Defense Department wants to control who can talk to the journalists covering the trials,' said Wendy Patten, U.S. advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. 'The Pentagon has imposed a gag rule on defense lawyers, who can only speak to the press with the military’s permission. Now it wants to shut out experienced trial observers who could provide the public with independent analysis.'”

Full statement
Above the Law: Executive Power after September 11 in the United States

*Ø* Blogmanac | Obidos, Obida

Sorry. This one's really worrying me, too.

Obidos, apparently, is a town in Portugal. I accept that.

But why does "obidos" appear in virtually every Amazon.com product URL I've ever seen? Take, for example, One Crowded Hour, mentioned yesterday in the Haing Ngor post below. The URL for that book is http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0002174960/wilsonsalmana-20?creative=125577&camp=2321&link_code=as1

So what's with obidos?

*Ø* Blogmanac | I must know!

@

OK, this has been bugging me too long.
& is an ampersand
* is an asterisk
~ is a tilde

I know I know I know.

But what the hell is an @?!!

I think the @ has bugged me since I was about 9 years of age when @ started appearing in arithmetic lessons, right out of the blue, like you were expected to know what the fuck it was. When Mr Curtis ('Rabbit') started putting on the blackboard such preposterous formulae as "12 apples @ 3½d =?"

I don't know the answer to that sum but I know what 3½d is, it's threepence halfpenny. I know that because, like billions of people who grew up in the British Commonwealth, I had to learn all that pre-decimal stuff. (Fortunately Australia chucked that nonsense out on February 14, 1966.)

We also had to learn, before metrication, such stupid measurements as "rod, pole or perch" (formerly, a "lug", which apparently means 16.5 yards, "chain" which is 22 yards (the length of a cricket pitch, for gorsake – ten links to a chain, ten chains to a furlong, eight furlongs to a mile) and acre, which, inconveniently, is 4, 840 square yards. A yard itself, at 36 inches, was so much harder to multiply than a metre – simply 100 centimetres – that it's a wonder I enjoyed school so much.

Hang on! I hated school so much. I used to write on the desks "Only .... days left to go in this stinking hole". I used letters about one centimetre high. I mean three-eighths of an inch, or one 1,287th of a ferlinghetti.

I did that for about 11,000 days and never got caught.

By the way, the chain, 22 yards, 66 feet, 66 by 12 inches, Britain's saddest contribution to the world, has an interesting history, one might even say a "manifest destiny". In one of its incarnations, it was one of the basic units of measurement used by surveyors in the marking out of the American territories as the colomies moved westward (ho!).

As a consequence, American states, towns and cities, farms, forests and city blocks, are based on this archaic measurement and you can see it from a plane, squares stretching as far as the eye can see, all based on the chain, a measurement that, like all measurements so far invented, pays no heed to trifles such as bioregion, watercourse, hill or dale. So, too, as already mentioned, is the humble cricket pitch, and, in Australia, the distance between telegraph poles (which is what Australians still call power poles although no one has used a telegraph since Ned Kelly was in short pants, or dingo mating season, 1902, I can't remember which).

I digress, as usual. If you know what an @ is called, whether it's an amperat, an asterhhoid or a jerilderie, I sure would like to know.

Mr Curtis, if you're reading: sorry I called you Rabbit. I really thought you'd be dead by now. I thought you were about 100 back in 4th Class, but maybe you just seemed that way. Don't worry about all the times you caned me. I haven't forgiven you, but I just wanted you not to worry about it.


Measuring America by Andro Linklater

*Ø* Blogmanac | Bush Lies Uncovered

"The question, of course, is whether the individuals involved were fooled by Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress or whether they were willing collaborators in distorting intelligence."

Look back on the Philippines around the turn of the 20th century: they were a coaling station for the navy, and that allowed us to keep a great presence in the Pacific. That's what Iraq is for the next few decades: our coaling station that gives us great presence in the Middle East.
General Jay Garner

Bush Lies Uncovered

"For those still puzzling over why the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq, two key players offered important, but curiously unnoticed, clues this week.

"Statements made by both men confirmed growing suspicions that the Bush administration's drive to war in Iraq had very little, if anything, to do with the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or his alleged ties to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda – the two main reasons the U.S. Congress and public were given for the invasion.

"Separate statements by Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), and U.S. retired Gen Jay Garner, who was in charge of planning and administering post-war reconstruction from January through May 2002, suggest that other, less public motives were behind the war, none of which concerned self-defense, pre-emptive or otherwise ..."
Source: AlterNet

*Ø* Blogmanac | "David Kelly Murdered" says British Lawyer

Kelly "taken out" by assassination team says British National Security Lawyer
Listen to him talking to Alex Jones on US radio yesterday

Submitted By Rowena Thursby
Source Infowars/Propagandamatrix

"Michael Shrimpton, a British National Security Lawyer with numerous contacts in intelligence on both sides of the Atlantic, appeared on the US Alex Jones Radio Show yesterday evening (morning, US time), and asserted that Dr David Kelly, who was found 'dead in the woods' last July, did not commit suicide as claimed in the Hutton Report, but was taken out by a team of assassins brought in from abroad ...

"The official scenario has always been that this top British microbiolgist walked to the wood, took his own life by slashing his left wrist, swallowing a number of pills and lying down to die. But Shrimpton has now gone on record as saying that contacts in British and US intelligence have informed him that Kelly was, in fact, murdered -- most probably by a team of ex-Mukharabat Iraqi assassins brought in from Damascus via Corsica, organised by the French external intelligence agency, the DGSE ...

"The most likely method by which Kelly was murdered, said Shrimpton, was by an intravenous injection of Co-Proxamol together with approximately 30mg of succinyl choline. The last substance is a muscle relaxant which would cause cessation of breathing. No trace would be found by a toxicologist, as succinyl choline breaks down into natural substances which would not arouse suspicion. A slash to the wrist would have disguised any puncture wound.

"Alex Jones asked Shrimpton to characterize his contacts with intelligence and relay the information he had gleaned with regard to Kelly's death. Shrimpton pointed out that it is common to use sister agencies in other countries to carry out operations on home soil."

Source, 'Scoop Media', and full text
For further information, or for free subscription to Kelly Investigation Group mailing list, please contact: RowenaThursby@onetel.net.uk
The Alex Jones Show
Dark Actors at the Scene of David Kelly's Death - Rowena Thursby
Blogspot on dead scientist theme

*Ø* Blogmanac February 25, 1996 | Death of Oscar winner Dr Haing S Ngor

Rejected by Australia because as a refugee he was not only stateless but paperless, Haing went on to better things, but was struck down in his prime

1996 Oscar winner Dr Haing S Ngor (b. March 22, 1950) (The Killing Fields, 1984) was murdered in Los Angeles, USA.

Two days later, three 19-year-old boys, members of a local gang, were arrested and charged with the murder, which apparently was a robbery gone wrong. Haing was shot after refusing to hand over a locket, holding a photo of his late wife. His wife had died in his arms, of hunger and beatings, while they were both in Cambodia (Kampuchea) under the Communist dictatorship headed by Pol Pot.

During his captivity under the Marxists, Haing was frequently subjected to imprisonment and torture. At one time, after having been caught foraging for food for his family, Haing was crucified over a fire and had one of his fingers chopped off.

As a medical student in Phnom Penh during the Indo-China War days, the young Haing had met Australia’s best known war cameraman, Neil Davis (One Crowded Hour). The two became drinking buddies, and Davis told him stories of his home Down Under. Haing wondered if he would ever get to Australia.

Later, as things turned for the worse in Cambodia, he escaped the country and tried to get to Australia, although Davis had by now been killed in a combat zone. Rejected for refugee status by Australian immigration officials in Thailand because he had no identification (such papers would have been a death sentence under the Khmer Rouge, as was the wearing of spectacles, signifying bourgeois origins), Haing moved to the US as a refugee in 1980.

A medical doctor with no acting experience, Haing came to international prominence in 1984 through his Academy Award-winning performance as Cambodian photographer Dith Pran who, like Haing, was a survivor of the ‘killing fields’, Cambodia’s ‘holocaust’. Haing was the first non-professional since Harold Russell in The Best Years of Our Lives, (1946) to win an Oscar. As Haing’s memoirs Survival in the Killing Fields showed, the doctor’s own experiences had been even more horrific than those of the photographer he portrayed in the film. He was, however, a very quiet man as I can attest. I had the pleasure and honour of hosting him in Sydney for a few days, when he told me, quietly and without rancour, about his experiences under the Communists, his friendship with Davis, and his attempt at immigration to my country.

In America Haing established a modestly distinguished acting career, while continuing to work with human rights organisations in Cambodia and elsewhere with a view to improving the conditions in resettlement camps, as well as attempting to bring the perpetrators of the Cambodian massacre to justice, something the world’s ruling elites seem to have decided will never be.

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 | Throttled by history

Haiti's political class has failed it, but the first black republic has also been squeezed dry by a vengeful west
Gary Younge in Port-au-Prince (The Guardian)

"As civil war encroaches, civil society implodes and civil political discourse evaporates, one of the few things all Haitians can agree on is their pride in Toussaint L'Ouverture, who lead the slave rebellion in Haiti that established the world's first black republic ...

"From the outset Haiti inherited the wrath of the colonial powers, which knew what a disastrous example a Haitian success story would be. In the words of Napoleon Bonaparte: 'The freedom of the negroes, if recognised in St Domingue [as Haiti was then known] and legalised by France, would at all times be a rallying point for freedom-seekers of the New World.' He sent 22,000 soldiers (the largest force to have crossed the Atlantic at the time) to recapture the 'Pearl of the Antilles'.

"France, backed by the US, later ordered Haiti to pay 150m francs in gold as reparations to compensate former plantation and slave owners as well as for the costs of the war in return for international recognition. At today's prices that would amount to £10bn. By the end of the 19th century, 80% of Haiti's national budget was going to pay off the loan and its interest, and the country was locked into the role of a debtor nation -- where it remains today ... "

Full story here

*Ø* Blogmanac | U.S. "Public" TV on the Ropes! HELP!

Trouble Ahead for Public Broadcasting

Upcoming Hearings Will Affect Independence and Future Funding of Public Stations

In the next two months, Congress will hold hearings in both the House and Senate that will impact the future of public broadcasting. The current system relies on a blend of support from the government, nonprofit institutions, and individual citizens. The mission of pubic broadcasting is to facilitate the development of, and ensure universal access to, non-commercial high quality programming. Congressional opponents of the current system have threatened to challenge the long standing editorial independence that was one of the core reasons public broadcasting was created. We also anticipate the public broadcasting foes will try to undermine the disbursement of the limited amount of government funds the system receives.

In an era when the FCC has allowed further concentration of media ownership, and with mergers such as Comcast and Disney possibly on the horizon, a strong and independent public broadcasting system is more important than ever. It must be protected from efforts to politicize and privatize it.

Common Cause is launching a campaign to raise awareness about the serious political challenges ahead for public broadcasting and to enable citizens to weigh in with their elected officials on this very important issue. We need your help.

Take Action!

Here’s what’s at stake:

The independence of public TV could be at risk from efforts to allow political interference with the content of programs on National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Stable, long-term funding for public TV could be tampered with, making it more vulnerable to political pressure and influence. Popular shows like Frontline, Nova, and American Experience could be in jeopardy if funding for national programming is reduced or cut off altogether.
The programs you see and hear on public television and radio stations play a critical role in the flow of ideas and information in our democracy. [And don't forget Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers' NOW! -v]


Take Action. Write to Congress and ask your Senator and Representative to support legislation that keeps public broadcasting free of political interference and provides long-term funding.

Forward to a Friend. This issue has not received a lot of attention in the press. We need your help in spreading the word. Forward this message to friends and family and encourage them to get involved!

More information.

*Ø* Blogmanac February 24 | Mmmmmmmm ..... Oops!

Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day)

Tomorrow (Ash Wednesday is February 25 in 2004) begins the 6-week period of fasting in the Christian world, known as Lent, the forty days' fast preceding Easter. Today is known to the French as Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), as it is the day that all foods may be eaten. Pancakes were popular as families ate the last of the eggs and butter that they were allowed before Lent.

The name 'Shrove' comes from the archaic English word 'to shrive', which means to confess or hear confessions of sin, a practice that was customary in the church on this day.

People traditionally ate bacon, meat and black puddings as well as pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. There was dice and card playing, mumming and revelry. Wagons were drawn by horses today, all decorated with hundreds of bells. Today was apprentices' holiday in old England. They also presented their petitions to parliament on this day.

The folklorist Brand says Pancake Day came from the pagan Fornacalia, in commemoration of making bread, before ovens were invented, by the goddess Fornax. The medieval Roman writer, Polydore Virgil, explains how the feasts of Bacchus were celebrated in Rome at the same time of year ...

Pictured: Your almanackist about to enjoy a pancake, Shrove Tuesday, 2004. Of course, he drained the maple syrup all over his desk.

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.

PS George Harrison's birthday: was it February 24 or 25? George himself changed it when he was in his 40s, but did he get it right? Discussed today and tomorrow at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Lotsa heart

I can't help but love this bloke.

Veteran magistrate, Belgium-born Antoine Bloemen tours the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of Western Australia administering justice to those unfortunates who have fallen foul of the law. Bloemen has the biggest jurisdiction in the world. I can't say exactly how big but something like 1,000 km (600 miles) in any direction, so he does it all by plane. When he went back to his home country and told people his beat is bigger than Belgium, his friends fell silent, thinking he was deluded. One man called him a liar to his face. Fact is, it's about as big as Belgium and France combined. Yet Bloemen takes it all in his stride.

It's a fascinating part of the world that I have yet to visit. Historically, it's a land with many tales to tell: tens of thousands of years of Aboriginal settlement, then, later, Afghan and Turkish camel drivers, Japanese pearl divers, South-East Asian fishermen and traders (before Captain Cook "discovered" Oz), Anglo cattle drovers, brave but lonely drovers' wives, and beef millionaires. And lots of people who you don't ask about their past. ("The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter was that his name wasn't Henry Porter" – Bob Dylan, Brownsville Girl)

I've gotta get up there. The closest I've been to the Kimberley is the Nullarbor ('no trees') Plain, a few days' drive to the south, which I drove across when it had the dirt road and even with two drivers you didn't turn the steering wheel for three days. I came back by train on the longest straight stretch of rail in the world. But that's another story.

Miner, paratrooper, stockbroker
The flying magistrate has an inspiring and remarkable personal story, from a boyhood of privation, working in a coalmine under the Nazis, to service as a US paratrooper (he found himself in the USA and, with little English language, thought he was signing up to be a pilot when they put a parachute on his back). A successful career as a stockbroker in Australia didn't satisfy, so he studied law at night, ended up a magistrate, and answered an ad for a job in the Kimberley and Pilbara regions, which constitute a vast, wild and remote bit about the size of Texas, in the north-west of the Australian continent. A big office.

Child thief sentenced to a vacation
He does things differently. He is prepared to enact the law's punishments if necessary, but is just as ready to try a little lateral thinking. He offered to buy one Aboriginal kid a bike if he stopped offending, and this month offered an 11-year-old car thief a holiday to Europe with him and his wife if she behaved herself (unfortunately she was busted again the next day). "I promise you that if you stick to your deal and I stick to mine you will get a good surprise," he had said to the girl. "My wife and I will take you on a long vacation somewhere new." If only she had taken this honest man at his word. On another occasion, Bloemen sentenced an artist to paint 12 pictures. The artist did it, and stayed out of trouble as well as the boob (prison). The Kimberley beak even shelled out for the art supplies.

The conservative West Australian newspaper editorial says he doesn't know what he's doing. I think Antoine Bloemen knows exactly what he's doing. Good luck to him.

Law Report radio program on Bloemen (might take a few days for transcript to be published)

Magistrate gives young offender hope (Audio, RealPlayer)

*Ø* Blogmanac | Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
February 22, The Observer

"Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

"A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

"The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents ...

"The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority."

Full text at Information Clearing House

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Uses and Abuses of Science

New York Times, February 23

"Although the Bush administration is hardly the first to politicize science, no administration in recent memory has so shamelessly distorted scientific findings for policy reasons or suppressed them when they conflict with political goals. This is the nub of an indictment delivered last week by more than 60 prominent scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates. Their statement was accompanied by a report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists, listing cases where the administration has manipulated science on environmental and other issues ...

"On global warming alone, the administration belittled, misrepresented, altered or quashed multiple reports suggesting a clear link between greenhouse gas emissions and the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil. A study detailing the impact of mercury emissions from power plants was sanitized to industry specifications. Another study suggesting that a Congressional clean-air bill would achieve greater pollution reductions than Mr. Bush's own plan, at approximately the same cost, was withheld. It does not take much effort to find a pattern of suppressing inconvenient facts that might force Mr. Bush's friends in the oil, gas and coal industries to spend more on pollution control.

"The report details similar shenanigans involving other agencies, including Agriculture, Interior and even, on reproductive health issues, the Centers for Disease Control. It also criticizes the administration for stacking advisory committees with industry representatives and disbanding panels that provided unwanted advice. Collected in one place, this material gives a portrait of governmentwide insensitivity to scientific standards that, unless corrected, will further undermine the administration's credibility and the morale of its scientists."

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | Everything's fine now

Relax.

No need for readers to support the Almanac by voluntary subscription any more, or to patronise the Cafe Diem Store. Our money worries are over and we can easily now pay the overdues for the ISP and the soon-to-be-cancelled GuestMap.

This came in today's emails:

BARRISTER EGO AMAKA LLB (BENIN)
CONTACT
LONDON OFFICE: +44 77 17490642.
LAGOS OFFICE.
Tel: +234-1 -7763227

#33 TOYIN STREET,
IKEJA-LAGOS
NIGERIA.

NOTIFICATION OF BEQUEST

This is sequel to your non response of our earlier letter to you On behalf of the Trustees and Executors to the Will of late Sir Engr. Willy Bubenik ( ksm), I wish to notify you that you were listed as a beneficiary to the bequest of the sum of US$1,000.000.00 [One Million US Dollars] in the codicil and last testament of the deceased. The late Sir Willy Bubenik until his death was a former Managing Director and pioneer staff of a big construction company here in Nigeria. He was a very dedicated Christian and a great philanthropist during his life time.

Late Sir Willy Bubenik died on 9th February 2002 at the age of 68, He was buried on the 23rd of February. Late Sir Willy Bubenik even though he was an American living and working in here as a foreigner he requested before his death that he be buried here in his words, "I regard here as My home and the people as my people". He said that this token is to support your ministry and help to the less- privelegded. I hereby request that you forward any proof of identities of yours, your current telephone and fax numbers and your forwarding address to enable us file necessary documents at our high court probate division for the release of this bequest of money.

congratulations.
Yours faithfully,

BARRISTER DR EGO AMAKA LLB (BENIN)
QUEENS CHAMBERS (SOLICITORS & ADVOCATES)
LONDON OFFICE: +44 77 17490642

CONTACT LAGOS OFFICE
LAGOS OFFICE.
Tel: +234-1-7763227

*Ø* Blogmanac | Ninety per cent of large marine life wiped out

From the American Association for the Advancement of Science
"Marine biologists Larry Crowder and Andy Read outline the threats to conservation of our marine animals, many on the borders of extinction, and the hope for new technologies in gathering vital data. Let's hope it's not too late, because according to Daniel Pauly, 90% of the biomass of large ocean fish has already disappeared over a very short period."
Source (audio)

"The nesting populations of the critically endangered Pacific leatherbacks have crashed over the last decade as the survival of these mighty leatherbacks is threatened by both local and global impacts."
Creating Hope for the Survival of Pacific Sea Turtles

*Ø* Blogmanac February 23 | Collop Monday

Collop Monday, or Shrove Monday (moveable feast, February 23 in 2004) The day after Hall Sunday and the day before Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day). In olden times, Britishers cut their meat into collops, or steaks for salting or hanging up until Lent was over. It’s still a custom to have eggs and collops, or slices of bacon, today. In Salisbury, England: boys would sing:

Shrove-tide is nigh at hand,
And I am come a shroving;
Pray, dame, something,
An apple or a dumpling,
Or a piece of Truckle cheese
Of your own making,
Or a piece of pancake.

The medieval Roman writer, Polydore Virgil, explains how the feasts of Bacchus were celebrated in Rome at the same time of year. At Eton, on Shrove Monday it was a custom for boys to write verses concerning Bacchus, which were affixed to the college door.

After tomorrow, Shrove Tuesday, follows Lent, the forty days' fast preceding Easter.

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 February 22, c. 1290 BCE | Ramses II ascended the throne of Egypt

1290s BCE Egypt: The coronation of Ramses II, on whose face the sun's rays fall each year in Abu Simbel temple.

Ramses II (the Great) was an Egyptian pharaoh (lived c. 1320 BCE to 1224 BCE, reigned 1290 BCE - 1224 BCE). His name is sometimes spelled Rameses, and was known to the Ancient Greeks as Sesostris.

Festival of Perpendicular SunIllumination the Inner Sanctum of Ramses II, Abu Simbel Temple, Egypt

“Ramses II, in a fit of precision and despotic architectural egotism, carefully angled his temple at Abu Simbel so that the inner sanctum would light up twice a year: once on the anniversary of his rise to the throne, and once on his birthday. The combination of human endeavour and natural phenomena provides what must be one of the most spectacular sights in the world ..."

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 | A nice find


I found a good site, The Badmonk Gallery, that successfully blends well-photoshopped erotic art with a whimsical and understated kind of piquant humour. Well worth a browse.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Hicks, Habib lawyers angered by Latham's retrospective law proposal

Reporter: Hamish Fitzsimmons

"MARK COLVIN: Lawyers for the two Australian citizens being held at Guantanamo Bay are furious at Mark Latham's [Leader of the Opposition] proposal to change laws retrospectively so David Hicks and Mamdou Habib could be tried at home. Both lawyers say that such a move should worry every Australian. One even describes it as a move towards totalitarianism.

"And as for the legality of Mr Latham's proposal, constitutional experts say any retrospective law change would be fraught with danger.

"Hamish Fitzsimmons reports.

"HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: You'd expect the people fighting to have Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks returned to Australia would welcome any means to see that done.

"But Mark Latham's offer of Labor's support to the Government to change the terrorism laws to allow the men to be tried in Australia, has been attacked by the lawyers as unconstitutional.

"Mamdouh Habib's lawyer Stephen Hopper.

"STEPHEN HOPPER: The retrospective application of laws is an abhorrent concept and something that the Western legal system has resisted in the last few hundred years, and the reason being is that someone should know that they're committing a crime or going to commit a crime, because the laws are publicly stated.

"Now if someone's gone and done an activity that wasn't against the law at a certain time and later on a law's brought in to make that activity illegal, I think there's something fundamentally wrong. To convict someone of a crime they must have the mental element that they've committed a crime.

"Now, if they went there thinking they were obeying all Australian laws when they were engaging in some activity, and later on they're told they were breaking the law because it's some law made later on, I think it's a step backwards and a step towards totalitarianism.

"HAMISH FITZSIMMONS: The Federal Government says the men can't be returned to Australia because terrorism legislation here is not retrospective and they could not be charged.

But David Hicks's lawyer, Stephen Kenny is equally critical of the proposal to make laws retrospective ..."
Source: ABC Oz

*Ø* Blogmanac February 21 | And today is ...

Day of Ishtar, Babylonia
Goddess of Love and Battle from the region of Mesopotamia (Greek for 'between the rivers', ie, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), the area now known as Iraq, and from Assyria. Ishtar is the counterpart of the Phoenician Astarte. 
Her name is said the be associated with the word 'Easter', because of her associations, like Easter, with springtime and fertility. The meaning of the name is not known, though it is possible that the underlying stem is the same as that of Assur, which would thus make her the ‘leading one’ or ‘chief’. She was known as Inanna in Sumerian mythology. She is a life-death-rebirth deity, daughter of Anu, the god of the air, mother and consort of the farm god Tammuz, who is similar to the Greek Adonis. She was usually described as an evil, heartless, women who destroyed her mates and lovers ...

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Language Martyrs' Day, Bangladesh
Language Martyrs' Day is a day remembered in Bangladesh for the killings of protesters seeking official recognition for the Bengali language in 1952.

When Bengal was divided in East and West during the partition of India in 1947, West Bengal emerged as a state of India and East Bengal (now an independent country, Bangladesh) became a part of Pakistan and was known as East Pakistan. As a state of Pakistan, Urdu was the language of government in East Bengal, but the population there primarily spoke Bengali. 

In reaction to this, people from East Bengal started asking the government to make Bengali an official language of administration. But the Pakistani government of the time did not agree. Finally, on February 21, 1952, there was a huge protest of all ages of people, irrespective of caste and creed, with students of Dhaka University in the lead. Police ruthlessly fired to disperse the crowd, and many of the protesters were killed. It was not long, however, before Bengali was given right of an official language. Since then, February 21 has been remembered as Language Martyrs' Day in Bangladesh and West Bengal. The same date is observed by UNESCO as International Mother Language Day ...

These are just snippets 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 | GODDESS BLESS AMERICA IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD

CO-BLOGGER'S NOTE: I know. I keep promising to shorten my blog posts; however, this article is so important at this moment, I couldn't justify cutting any of it, even to ask you to click on a link. This is the "must-read" of the month, for sure, and possibly of our lives. Read it a couple of times. Think about it, share it with everyone you know and read it again tomorrow. We've really got some serious thinking to do and some serious work ahead of us. -- Veralynne


Sending a Message to the Democratic Convention

By Stephen Dinan
stephen@radicalspirit.org
http://www.radicalspirit.org


For months, I have been sending out articles addressing the psychology of the Democratic campaign, attempting to shift the beliefs that people have around the electability of Dennis Kucinich. Some of these were provocative. Others were intended to inspire. But all were grounded in a fundamental challenge to the notion that Kucinich was not electable.

Today, I will write from the opposite premise, assuming that most people are right for a moment: Kucinich is not electable this year, even if we love him and what he stands for. Where do we go from there?

Let's assume that you are one of the many people who is nervous about the prospect of a second Bush term. You are now faced with a situation in which the race has narrowed to two candidates who are deemed electable: John Kerry or John Edwards. The first question you need to ask yourself is this: is there a fundamental difference in terms of electability between these two candidates?

Edwards is charming, eloquent, and smart. He's got very upbeat messaging. He has lived on both sides of the tracks and can operate smoothly in both worlds. He is effective at connecting emotionally with voters. Less experience inside the Beltway can be an asset for him as a voice for change.

Kerry has the war hero past and much of the powerful machinery from inside the beltway behind him. He's got some statesman-like gravitas and foreign policy experience, as well as a fairly presidential look. He is wealthy but also seems to connect with the concerns of the working class. He can go toe-to-toe with Bush on military matters and he seems tough in general.

A lot can shift between now and November, so I maintain that there is virtually no way to guess who would be more electable versus George W. Bush right now. Opinion polls shift quickly. Youthful charm versus seasoned experience? North versus South? Rags-to-riches success story or war heroism? It's impossible to tell. The majority of Democrats would vote for either.

Thus, if your main focus is beating Bush, voting for Edwards or Kerry in your primary isn't going to matter much. They both qualify as Anybody But Bush and both represent solidly middle-of-the-road Democratic positions.

However, there is another factor that you need to consider in this race and that is: to what extent is the Democratic party able to keep the progressive wing actively engaged? The real election-killer will be if the progressive wing loses interests, stops rallying, or starts to splinter off with a Nader candidacy. The hints of this are already rumbling around the internet, with talk of Republicrats, media conspiracies, and a single system of power in Washington that we need to fight.

In other words, if your main focus is beating Bush, the game has now shifted. Either of the two leading candidates are fine. The MAIN danger now is if the progressive wing decides that the two-party system is actually a rigged, one-party system and that the game is stacked against candidates who advocate for peace, sustainability, justice and against the Iraq war, NAFTA and corporate domination of politics. If cynicism builds, feeding on the disillusionment of Dean backers, it could cost Democrats the election. [Emphasis added. -v]

So your challenge in voting strategically now is NOT to decide between Kerry and Edwards. The challenge in voting strategically is to keep the progressive wing of the party fully engaged. This is true even if you belong to the Lieberman camp: without the more radical wing of the party, you lose the election.

The real issue now is what is the BEST strategy to keep the progressive camp actively involved in a real and meaningful way for as long as possible in this race. Kerry and Edwards, by virtue of their platforms alone, are not going to do it. Both voted to support the war, for example, which is a deal-killer for those who see the Iraq war as the main evil right now.

I maintain that the only viable strategy to keep the progressive wing of the Democratic party actively excited about this election now is to make sure that the candidacy of Dennis Kucinich becomes a much more powerful force in shaping the remainder of the race. The more powerful his candidacy by the time of the convention, the more progressives will feel they have an authentic, shaping influence on the party platform and an active role in the race. If not, they will splinter away.

Virtually all Greens and progressive Democrats love Dennis' platform but have simply been afraid to rally behind him because of the climate around electability. They have felt a split between their head and their heart. Their heart loves him, their head says, "unelectable" and therefore "dangerous." Heads have largely triumphed in this matter. However, I have good news to all the closet Kucinich-lovers: it's now safe! It's safe to vote your heart, safe to vote your conscience, safe to express your authentic views! The results have been coming in from across the country and we're approaching the point at which it is impossible for Dennis to win the nomination.

You can relax now and rally behind what you really believe in, without running the risk of jeopardizing the race. You can have fun again! In fact, if you don't do this now, you may be contributing to the loss of the progressive wing of the party and, possibly, the loss of the election.

There are some that think a vote for Dean's suspended campaign will still make a difference in terms of keeping the progressive movement engaged. I believe this is faulty logic for a number of reasons.

1.) Dean was never that progressive, especially when you look at his track record. It was precisely the combination of his perceived electability AND his anti-war stance and progressive rhetoric that got people excited. Now that he has been removed from contention, the only question is how effectively can he carry the torch of the progressive movement? The answer is "not very." I do honor him for bringing the war front-and-center and for activating the movement. But now that the movement is giving up on having an actual presidential candidate to represent it, it needs to turn to a candidate who best expresses its values and views. Instead of a president, we are now looking for a torchbearer. Dean was compelling as a potential president but much less interesting just as a torchbearer.

2.) Dean has already had his time in the spotlight. He has triggered important and substantial changes when seen as a legitimate, powerful contender. He will continue to have influence. However, in order for the progressive movement to find a more amplified voice in this election, we need a new and stronger progressive voice on the stage. Dean is no longer newsworthy. It is time to shift to the next wave of change, farther from the mainstream. That means Kucinich.

3.) The media interpretation will be that any votes for Dean are the votes of those who are simply attached to him. The votes won't be perceived as a positive statement but a negative one: folks who refuse to move on. Thus, a vote for Dean would lack any sort of a media punch.

4.) The media loves drama and positive surges. Edwards will be riding a crest of momentum and attention now because of his Wisconsin finish. If we can create that same surge of momentum around Kucinich, the media will be very excited since it will keep people much more engaged in the race (and buying more newspapers and watching more TV). Once Kucinich is in the spotlight, that means that his policies and platform will get that much more attention and thus be that much more influential in shaping the Democratic platform.

A quick note about Sharpton. I really like Sharpton: he's insightful, brave, honest, and very funny. He helps keep the voice of the non-white-male majority on the stage. However, I don't think he's the right person to rally behind as a torchbearer for a number of reasons. First, he doesn't have any actual influence in legislative processes, whereas Kucinich is co-chair of the progressive caucus in the House. Second, he doesn't have as much experience as a politician so his stances are not as well-articulated and grounded in practical politics. Third, Kucinich tends to see our potential future better, leading us towards such things as a Department of Peace, universal health care, and 20% sustainable energy by 2010.

Sharpton's campaign can also keep running by virtue of media coverage alone, even if he doesn't have the influence on the ground. Sharpton doesn't need a ground campaign. He just needs a pulpit to speak the truths he is there to speak. Kucinich, by contrast, actually has a strong grassroots support base. Until January 1st, for example, he had more people donate to his campaign, most in small amounts, than anyone but Dean. In terms of mobilizing the progressive base at a grassroots level, Kucinich's infrastructure is more valuable.


Now that Kucinich's chance of an actual nomination have shrunk to 200 to 1, according to one London betting house, Americans can look at him through the lens of being a torchbearer -- a powerful messenger to the established order. And there is no better torchbearer than Kucinich. He:

1. Led anti-war efforts in the House and has a strong motto of "U.N. in and U.S. out"

2. Challenged the Weapons of Mass Destruction evidence from the beginning

3. Advocates for Universal Health Care

4. Has a 98% voting record for unions

5. Is opposed to NAFTA and WTO and even marched in Seattle

6. Supports gay marriage fully

7. Advocates for 20% renewable energy by 2010

8. Has "no strings attached" by virtue of taking no special interest money

9. Has a proven ability to challenge corporate corruption (and even pay the price for that)

10. Is willing to call Bush a liar and expose contradictions and deceptions, much more so than any candidate besides Sharpton

11. Has a deep appreciation of the spiritual dimension of life, which brings in people who have been alienated from progressive politics.

12. Knows what it is like to grow up in poverty.

13. Is an exceptionally talented speaker who has the capacity to really "wow" people with his insights.

14. Has an uncanny ability to speak to conservatives and win them over to the Democratic party and progressive views. In his home district, for example, which started quite Republican, he has swung momentum strongly to the Democratic party. In this way, he's a very good bridge to Reagan Democrats.

15. Has Nader's respect. Nader has said he would not run if Kucinich were to get the nomination. So long as Kucinich has a strong voice in the process, that may keep Nader out.


In short, Kucinich is the perfect torchbearer for the progressive message to be carried all the way into the convention and to keep it blazing all the way into the election. The more delegates we get him, the more influence he will have in the process. And if we can win California and perhaps a few other states, which I believe is quite possible if the Dean and Kucinich camps join forces, then we will have a significant voting block at the convention to influence the platform.

Finally, even if you are committed heart and soul to Kerry or Edwards, it is to your advantage to bolster the race of Kucinich. Why? He is willing to take on risky subject matter that might provide fodder for Rove to attack with his $200 million war chest. In other words, you can leave some of the risk and heavy lifting to Kucinich when it comes to challenging Bush on his lies. The party as a whole benefits by having this stance publicly witnessed but not necessarily seen as attached to the nominee. In fact, the more a Kerry nomination looks inevitable, the more beneficial a strong Kucinich-led movement will be to the campaign to remove Bush.

So breathe a sigh of relief! No more split loyalties. You can bring your heart and head back together and get passionate for Kucinich, knowing that this can only strengthen the effort to remove Bush from power.


Do me a favor: If you resonate with this article and decide to support the Kucinich campaign financially as a result (which is the only way we're going to win more delegates and have more influence), log your donation through my network fundraising site. This will help me be able to activate a very cool roadshow for the movement as the primaries progress (as well as maybe win me an autographed guitar. ;-))


More information on the campaign

Americans, register to vote and vote!

*Ø* Blogmanac | Hear! Hear!

Move over, God, it's time to make room for a real power
By Peter FitzSimons

"Honestly now, what would you think if before our politicians got down to the nitty-gritty of Parliament every day - steering the great affairs of state and working the machinery to make the country run - they paused to ask an imaginary spirit for some guidance on what kind of decisions they should make?

"I know. I'd think the same.

"Why then, do federal and state parliaments ? in 2004! ? still begin with a Christian prayer session?

"With minor variations, it goes like this: 'Almighty God, we humbly beseech Thee to vouchsafe Thy special blessing upon this Parliament, and that Thou wouldst be pleased to direct and prosper the work of Thy servants to the advancement of Thy glory and to the true welfare of the people of Australia.'

"This is followed shortly afterwards by the Lord's Prayer.

"And it's 2004! Here we are with one of the most central planks of our democratic system being the 'separation of church and state' and yet every parliamentary session begins with a formal doffing of the lid and humble beseeching of the church ..."
Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Would that they were only beseeching the church, which actually exists. Thanks Baz le Tuff for this one. Baz has been a great help to the Blogmanac since I pawned my sense of humour. He sent in this one, too: Modern Drunkard Magazine.

*Ø* Blogmanac | Home sweet home

I moved to Repton (near the mouth of the Bellinger River, NSW, Australia) in December. This photo shows the environs. This is my place and this is the fishpond. The pond has a guardian, an Eastern water dragon (Physignathus lesueurii) named Leonard, rather like the one pictured. Leonard is about 50 cm long, I think, but they do grow bigger and while fishing on the river I've been startled to find several behind my back, one of them looking twice as big as Leonard. I've learned today that the males can grow to about one metre and females about 60 cm. I'm able to hand-feed Leonard, which I only do occasionally, and she comes even as far as up the stairs and to my back door for tucker. I think this superb creature seems as intelligent as a mammal, but it's hard to tell.

Leonard has had at least one baby, which is now about the size of a little garden skink and growing. We have a non-venomous snake by the pond sometimes and I'm hoping that it doesn't eat the Leonardette.

I've set up a webcam for the birdlife here and as soon as the birds start coming to the feeder, I'll post the link. I'd actually like to have Leonardcam but can't just yet afford the extra cord required to get it downstairs. That's a goal, though.

It's 33 degrees (90 Fahrenheit) and damn humid. Good weather for Leonards.

*Ø* Blogmanac February 19, 1847 | The Donner Party rescued

1847 The first rescue party reached the Donner Party.

On April 15, 1846, the families of James F Reed and George and Jacob Donner, 31 people in nine wagons, left Springfield, Illinois. It was the commencement of the Donner Party, the most famous group of American emigrants ever to attempt the cross-country wagon journey to California. Almost ninety wagon train emigrants were unable to cross the Sierra Nevada before winter, and almost one-half starved to death. However, it was noted that some of the survivors seemed to be remarkably well-fed considering their ordeal. In 2003 near the modern city of Truckee, California by Lake Tahoe, near Alder Creek, archaeologists found a campfire pit and solid evidence that cannibalism took place ...

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 | Too easy

----- Original Message ----- From: Alejandra To: almanac@acay.com.au Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 9:06 AM

Subject: Ignorant


To whom it may concern,
I accidentally stumbled on your site and your ignorance is obvious. I didn't even need to read anything. The titles say it all. Calling Mary a goddess, relating Jesus to others people and converting heathen myths to truth is twisting lies to conform to your own pathetic view. Faith is what it is FAITH. If you knew Salvation history you wouldn't write such rubbish. Look at the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. If she were a "goddess" as you say would she be facing down? Look at the position of her hand: in prayer. Praying to who? God. Near her neck the sign of the cross. In her womb the light of the world: Jesus the Christ. She has no divinity on her own. God chose her from the beginning to be true God yet true man. He receives his human body from Mary's Fiat, her yes. She is preserved from any stain of sin in advance because she is destined to be Jesus's mother. And Jesus being God, it would be unthinkable that he would be born from a sinner. She has no divinity, no power unless it is given to her by God. Look at what she says during her apparitions: Pray not to me but to God through me. Jesus gave us his mother at the foot of the cross not as a goddess but as a mother. She is a mother leading us to her son. People like you full of ignorance, you give Catholics a bad name. People think we adore Mary and that is by no means allowed. Ever. Yes, she has a very important role in Salvation history, but she is not, I repeat, not a goddess. We adore 1 God: Our Father (who created us), Son (Jesus who died for us)and the Holy Spirit ( who keeps making us better). Research Catholicism history especially the Cathechism. I challenge you to. It's easy to see things from the surface and come up with unbased ideas, it's not so easy to dig and research. Your theories and parallels are based on your own ignorance. I will pray for you.

[Unsigned]

* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Dear Alejandra,

Thank you for writing. I note that you write: "I didn't even need to read anything." You are very honest to admit it, and a braver person than I, to write such a letter under these circumstances.

If you should happen to read anything on my website, I would be happy to discuss your impressions.

Carpe diem,

Pip Wilson

More letters to the Almanackist

*Ø* Blogmanac | Woman Lived with Sister's Corpse

Dublin (Reuters) - "An elderly Irishwoman shared a room with her sister's corpse for up to a year and sometimes slept with it in the same bed, newspapers reported Tuesday.

"Mary Ellen Lyons never told anyone that her sister Agnes had died, the reports said. Even their brother Michael, who lived in the same remote bungalow in rural western Ireland, did not know. An inquest heard Monday that Agnes probably died in 2002 -- possibly in September -- at the age of 70 ...

"'There is no way that Michael would open the door of a woman's room,' a neighbor told the inquest. 'They wouldn't even watch the television if there was a woman on it. They were from a different era.'"

Full text

*Ø* Blogmanac | BUSH STARTS WEAPONS INQUIRY:

"Who supplied the faulty intelligence I asked for?"

"WASHINGTON D.C., Wednesday: George Bush will set up a Presidential Commission to investigate the decision to go to war against Iraq, and establish who he can blame for it during this year’s election.

"Yesterday, the US admitted it may never have gone to war if it had known those in the intelligence community could not be trusted to ‘find’ illegal weapons.

"'We told David Kay to "find" some weapons," said defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. 'Now I don’t know what "find" means to you, but the fact that he didn’t "find" anything demonstrates a complete lack of initiative. After all, we "found" tons of evidence beforehand, if you know what I mean.'

"White House aides said that as the search for illegal weapons wound down, the real search – to find someone to blame – was only just ramping up. They said an internal inquiry had already been conducted and the person who made Mr Bush’s Magic DecisionBall had been detained, 'But it doesn’t stop there.'

"Insiders denied that the President was using the inquiry to deflect attention away from the lack of success in Iraq. 'No, no. We’re using other things to deflect attention, like terror alerts and immigration laws.'

"Mr Bush lashed out at claims by anti-war protestors they are vindicated by the lack of WMD. 'It’s very easy for them to be wise in hindsight about the fact they were right at the time.'

"But in announcing the inquiry, Bush denied that he came up with the idea following Tony Blair’s total vindication in the Hutton inquiry.

"'This will be a completely different type of whitewash.'

"Meanwhile, the President will also establish an inquiry into who borrowed the money that he requested in his budget that has created a $500 billion annual deficit."
Source: The Chaser

*Ø* Blogmanac February 18 | Spenta Armaiti, ancient Persia (Zoroastrianism)

“ … due reverence for the divine, verecundia, spoken of as daughter of Ormazd and regarded as having her abode upon the earth.” Wikipedia

Festival of women, dedicated to the earth and fertility goddess Spenta Armaiti (Spandarmat; Spandarmad) (picture), the fourth Amesha Spenta created.

Zoroastrianism recognizes various classes of spiritual beings besides the Supreme Being Ahura Mazda (literally: ‘the Wise Lord’ like the Sanskrit ‘Asura Medha’; later transcription: Ohrmazd, Ormazd or Ormus). These beings, or ‘Emanations’, include the Amesha Spentas (Amahraspands), ‘Bounteous Immortals’, each of which personifies an attribute of Ahura Mazda as well as a human virtue. In early Zoroastrianism they were spirits of light and may be considered divine aspects of Ahura Mazda. Later they attained status as independent deities.

These deities are:
“Vohu Manö, good sense, i.e. the good principle, the idea of the good, the principle that works in man inclining him to what is good;
Ashem, afterwards Ashem Vahishtem … the genius of truth and the embodiment of all that is true, good and right, upright law and rule – ideas practically identical for Zoroaster;
Khshathrem, afterwards Khshathrem Vairim (dwouia), the power and kingdom of Ormazd, which have subsisted from the first but not in integral completeness, the evil having crept in like tares among the wheat: the time is yet to come when it shall be fully manifested in all its unclouded majesty;
Armaiti, due reverence for the divine, verecundia, spoken of as daughter of Ormazd and regarded as having her abode upon the earth;
Haurvatat, perfection;
Ameretãt, immortality.

Other ministering angels are Geush Urvan ("the genius and defender of animals"), and Sraosha, the genius of obedience and faithful hearing.”
Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911

The word Spenta, difficult to translate, can be equated to ‘increasing’ or growing (connotation of goodness, holiness, and benevolence); ‘progressive.’ Armaiti is even harder to translate into English. Her name might be seen as meaning ‘divine wisdom’; ‘devotion’; ‘piety’; ‘benevolence’; ‘loving- kindness’; ‘right-mindedness’; ‘peace and love’; ‘tranquillity’; ‘progressive serenity’ (Zoroastrian anthropologist and linguist Dr Ali Akbar Jafarey’s suggestion); universal bountiful peace’, or even ‘service’ ...

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 February 17 | Happy birthday, Bazza, you poncie bastard!

1934 Barry Humphries, Australian comedian and poet, best known for his characters, Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson.

Dame Edna Everage housewife, megastar, investigative journalist, social anthropologist, children's book illustrator, diseuse, chanteuse, swami, monstre sacré, polymath, adviser to British royalty, grief counsellor, spin doctor and icon is arguably the most popular and gifted woman in the world today ...
Source: Dame Edna’s newsletter

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.


Serious name-drop and sincere fawning greetings
[I'm going to do a serious name-drop here. I spent half an hour with Barry Humphries in Sydney once. We discussed poetry and Oscar Wilde (Humphries, a fine poet, is a Wilde freak) and BH excitedly retrieved from his room a photocopy of an original letter that he had just bought at auction in London. It was a typically vitriolic correspondence by The Beast, Aleister Crowley, who didn't like Wilde one bit and said so in the letter. I remember that Crowley's letter referred to Wilde as a "sodomite" – by coincidence, just last night I finished Lawrence Sutin's wonderful biography of The Beast, Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley, and if there was ever a man who shouldn't dare to call another a bugger, it was the detestable fraud, Crowley.

I must add that the brief chat I had with Mr Humphries I count as one of the greatest privileges of my life. I hold no artist from history in higher esteem, given his genius and prolific oeuvre. I had met him once or twice (he will not remember those meetings) and expected him to be fearsome. People often expect him to be so, probably because Dame Edna can be so harsh on latecomers to her shows. He is not harsh at all. A warmer and more friendly man I have never met. As Edna would say, it was spooky!

Many Ozzies agree that Barry Humphries is Australia's greatest living treasure and I wish him a very, very happy birthday (and many more) and hope that I meet him and his delightful wife Lizzie again. I trust my simpering obeisance will be noted by the Great Man.]