Celtic tree month of Gort (Ivy) commences

Folklore of ivy

Ivy symbolizes healing, protection, love, fidelity, cooperation and exorcism, and is the tree of resurrection. Its elemental association is water, and planetary association, Saturn. In folklore, ivy is protective of milk. Wreaths made of ivy, woodbine and rowan were placed over the lintels of cow shelters for this purpose. In Britain, the last farmer to harvest his crops was given a sheaf bound with ivy; this sheaf was called the Ivy Girl, Harvest Bride or Harvest May.

The Green Lady of Caerphilly Castle in Wales is a fairy, one of the Green Ladies (Dames Vertes) who takes on the appearance of ivy when she is not walking through the ruined castles she haunts.

In Trieste, Italy, an ivy branch hanging near a house by the roadside indicates that the dwelling is an osmizze, or wayside tavern or inn. ... Similarly, English taverns used to show over their doors the sign of an ivy bush, to indicate the excellence of the beverages sold within: hence the saying 'Good wine needs no bush'.

A man will have prophetic dreams that show his wife-to-be, by taking ten ivy leaves that were picked on October 31 (Samhain/Halloween) and placing them under his pillow. Another old tradition was to give ivy and holly to newlyweds as good-luck charms. While picking the ivy, the female says, "Ivy, ivy, I love you, In my bosom I put you, The first young man who speaks to me, My future husband he shall be".

In some parts of Athitos (Aphitos; Aphytos), Greece, on the Mediterranean, the St John's Eve custom of jumping through bonfires is sometimes called Klidonas (ivy) because the revellers do so wearing ivy crowns ...

Categories: calendar-customs

Feast of St Michael and All Angels (Michaelmas)

Today is a Christian feast derived from the old pagan Autumn Equinox feasts. This Christian saint, Prince of All Angels, is a dragon-slaying archangel who was the leader of the army of God during the Lucifer uprising, casting Satan out of Paradise. He is one of only two angels named in the Bible, the other being Gabriel, who shares his feast day.

Michael is associated with the planet Mercury. Muslims, Christians and Jews all express devotion to him, and there are writings about him in all three religions. Considered the guardian angel of Israel, Michael's name means in Hebrew, 'Who is like God?'.

His name was the war-cry of the good angels in the battle fought in heaven against the enemy and his followers. Only four times is his name to be found in Christian Scripture ...

Categories: saint, calendar-customs, christianity

I, Too, am America -- Langston Hughes

1924 In a letter to his friend Alain Locke, African-American poet, novelist, playwright Langston Hughes (1902 - '67) wrote, "I've done a couple of new poems. I have no more paper, so I'm sending you one on the back of this letter."

The poem, 'I, Too', which refers to Walt Whitman's famous extolling of America, was published two years later and is among his most famous.

'I, Too'
By Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed –
I, too, am America.

Categories: america, literature, poetry, racism

Some cool psychedelic art sites

From new e-mate George Douvris's fantastic blog, this evening I meandered to:

http://www.venosa.com/home.html
http://www.mousestudios.com/
http://www.alexgrey.com/ (Check out the magnficent painting of the late Albert Hofmann, also at these sites)
http://www.sacredmirrors.org/flash/sm_full.html (wait for full loads)

Categories: psychedelic, art

Mabon, Neopagan festival

Mabon is one of the eight solar holidays or sabbats of Neopaganism. It is celebrated on the autumn equinox, in the Northern Hemisphere circa September 22 - 24 and in the Southern Hemisphere around March 20.

Also sometimes called Harvest Home or Feast of the Ingathering (which is more commonly a Christian version; see September 24), this holiday is a ritual of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth and a recognition of the need to share them to secure the blessings of the Goddess and God during the winter months.

Among the sabbats, it is the second of the three harvest festivals, preceded by Lammas and followed by Samhain ...

Categories: pagan, paganism, neopaganism, calendar-customs

Trial of Plastic People of the Universe

1976 Members of the avant-garde Czech rock band, Plastic People of the Universe, went on trial in Prague. The trial had a number of important long-term repercussions in Czech history.

Among these was the interest it generated in a young Czech playwright (and Frank Zappa and Lou Reed/Velvet Underground fan) named Vaclav Havel. The trial went on to spawn a protest movement and a 'Velvet Revolution' that eventually brought down the Communist government, and Havel went on to be the new democratic republic's first head of state ...

Categories: communism, law, legal, activism, czechoslovakia, counterculture, progressive, music, rock-music, radical

RFID 'Smart Cards' in a surveillance society

"If incorporating personal details into an RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip implanted into a passport or driver’s license may sound like a 'smart' alternative to endless lines at the airport and intrusive questioning by securocrats, think again.

"Since the late 1990s, corporate grifters have touted the 'benefits' of the devilish transmitters as a 'convenient' and 'cheap' way to tag individual commodities, one that would “revolutionize” inventory management and theft prevention. Indeed, everything from paper towels to shoes, pets to underwear have been 'tagged' with the chips. 'Savings' would be 'passed on' to the consumer. Call it the Wal-Martization of everyday life.

"RFID tags are small computer chips connected to miniature antennae that can be fixed to or implanted within physical objects, including human beings. The RFID chip itself contains an Electronic Product Code that can be 'read' when a RFID reader emits a radio signal. The chips are divided into two categories, passive or active. A 'passive' tag doesn’t contain a battery and its 'read' range is variable, from less than an inch to twenty or thirty feet. An 'active' tag on the other hand, is self-powered and has a much longer range. The data from an 'active' tag can be sent directly to a computer system involved in inventory control–or surveillance.

"But as Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) state in a joint position paper, 'RFID has the potential to jeopardize consumer privacy, reduce or eliminate purchasing anonymity, and threaten civil liberties.'"
Source

Visit www.spychips.com/ for much more

Get Google Alerts by email on 'RFID suurveillance'

Categories: rfid, surveillance, liberty

At 22, Canadian citizen has spent a third of his life in Guantanamo

"Yesterday was the birthday of Guantanamo's child soldier and sole Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr, who has been held in isolation since he was 15."
AlterNet

Categories: guantanamo, canada, usa, afghanistan, authoritarianism, human-rights, civil-rights, law, legal, liberty

The deceptive brain behind neocon takeover of America

1899 Leo Strauss (d. October 18, 1973), 'Godfather of the new American Right'; German-born American political philosopher who specialized in the study of classical philosophy. He spent most of his career as a Political Science Professor at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of devoted students including fellow neocons Allan Bloom and Paul Wolfowitz, and non-Straussian Susan Sontag).

Since his death, he has come to be regarded as an intellectual source of neoconservatism in the United States. Shadia Drury, in Leo Strauss and the American Right (1999), argued that Strauss inculcated an elitist strain in American political leaders that is linked to imperialist militarism and Christian fundamentalism.

The New Machiavelli: Leo Strauss and the Politics of Fear
Prof. Strauss and the neocon takeover
Strauss' Philosophy of Deception
Strauss & American Right
Strauss & the Rhetoric of the War on Terror

Categories: neocon, philosophy, biography, usa

Cloud computing

"Google's Chrome, and others, offer easier, smoother, faster servers into their gated internet gardens, where all things are known. It's the Petabyte Age, and there be beasties. Reporter Stan Correy."
Listen, and read the transcript, at Background Briefing

See also Cloud computing puts your health data at risk

Categories: computer, google, internet, surveillance, corporations

Funeral of Ahmed Shah Massoud

2001 Thousands gathered to pay their last respects at the funeral of Ahmed Shah Massoud ('The Lion of Panjshir') in his ancestral village of Jangalak in the Panjshir Valley.

Massoud, the legendary guerrilla leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, is widely believed to have been assassinated by Al Qaeda on September 9, as part of that terrorist organization's strategy that led to its September 11 attack on the USA.

Read on at the Ahmed Shah Massoud page in the Wilson's Almanac Scriptorium.

Categories: 9-11, afghanistan, war, assassination

Is this Jesus Christ's birthday?

Perhaps (in the Southern Hemisphere) we should deck the halls with boughs of spring flowers, because an English astronomer suggested that Jesus might have been born on September 15, 7 BCE.

Dr David Hughes, of Sheffield University, argued that September 15 is the real Christmas for the following reasons:

In the Gospel of St Luke we read that Joseph took Mary to Bethlehem because "... there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, every one in his own city" (Luke 2:1,2). Such a decree occurred about 8 BCE.

King Herod (Herod the Great) was so infuriated that a rival had been born (the 'King of the Jews') that he ordered the massacre of all baby boys in Israel, but Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt. They stayed there for two years until Herod's death, said to have closely followed a lunar eclipse. Lunar eclipses occurred in 4 BCE and 1 BCE.

The distinctive astronomical phenomenon that happened between 8 BCE and 1 BCE, that could be equated with the Star of Bethlehem, is the conjunction of the giant planet Jupiter with Saturn in the constellation of Pisces (considered the Zodiacal sign of the Jews). This began on May 27, 7 BCE and continued for some months – long enough for the three wise men (astrologers) to follow the phenomenon cross country. On September 15, the Magi (three wise men) would have seen a striking phenomenon, the conjoined rising of this celestial light on the eastern horizon, at sunset ...

Categories: christianity, religion, folklore, calendar-customs

Margaret Sanger

1879 Margaret Sanger (d. September 6, 1966), author (The Pivot of Civilization) and founder of Planned Parenthood and the birth-control movement in general. She was also the lover of English socialist/activist and science fiction author HG Wells (1866 - 1946).

Having anarchist tendencies, Sanger also participated in the Paterson Silk Strike of 1913 which she wrote about in Hippolyte Havel's Revolutionary Almanac. She contributed articles to Havel's Revolt, Emma Goldman's Mother Earth, and Alexander Berkman's The Blast and Modern School magazine ...

Categories: anarchism, progressive, feminism

Saint Patrick's Battalion

1847 Mexico: Some 40 of the 800 or so Irishmen of the Battalion of San Patricio (Batallón de San Patricio or St Patrick's Battalion, led by Captain Jon Riley of County Galway) were executed – soldiers who fought next to the Mexicans against the US invading force. Most of them were of Irish extraction or recent immigrants from other Roman Catholic countries.

Even to this day, an Irish person in Mexico will be told about the famous 'Irish Martyrs' who defected from the US Army and gave their lives trying to save Mexico from US aggression from 1846 - '48. The San Patricios first emerged during the Battle of Monterrey where they served with great distinction, and are sometimes credited with defeating two separate American assaults into the heart of the city ...

Categories: ireland, usa, war, mexico, history

Timothy Leary does the bunk from jail

1970 American psychonaut, Dr Timothy Leary, escaped from prison with the help of his wife Rosemary, and Weatherman, a radical offshoot organization of the Students For Democratic Society (SDS).

Targeted by the Richard Nixon administration as a dangerous subversive, the former Harvard professor had been imprisoned in February of that year for possessing a single marijuana joint (he was convicted of possession under the Marijuana Tax Act and sentenced to a preposterous 30 years in jail). Curiously, when he entered prison, he had been required to submit to the Leary psychological evaluation test which he himself had designed while working in academia.

Leary made his way to Algeria where he met up with exiled American Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver and was given asylum in the Black Panther 'embassy'. The pro-violence Maoist Panthers thought he was the crazy one, so the welcome wore out fairly quickly. He sought asylum in Switzerland, but was recaptured by US DEA agents in Afghanistan in 1973, extradited back to America, and sent back to prison ...

Categories: leary, entheogens, law, legal, hip

Chilean coup of 1973

1973: President Salvador Allende's democratically elected Marxist government in Chile was toppled by a coup led by CIA-backed General Augusto Pinochet. Allende lost his life in the events, while Pinochet notoriously went on to a career of mass murder and torture, causing many thousands of Chileans to flee the country ...

Categories: chile, history, cia

Pre-9-11 warnings for some officials

2001 On the eve of the September 11 terrorism acts in the USA, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown (pictured) was given a low-level warning against travelling by plane, and a number of top Pentagon officials suddenly cancelled flights booked for the next day. Others were also warned.

As Newsweek reported on September 13: "On Sept. 10, NEWSWEEK has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns." ...

Categories: 9-11, usa

International Literacy Day

This special day was established by the United Nations to encourage universal literacy with assistance and materials.

First observed on September 8, 1967, the aim of International Literacy Day is to focus attention on the need to promote worldwide literacy.

It is estimated that 875 million of the world's adults do not know how to read or write, and that more than 110 million children lack access to education.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is the founder of International Literacy Day, and is responsible for appointing a jury to award international literacy prizes ...

Categories: un, calendar-customs

1838 Grace Darling's daring deed

Grace Darling, (b. 1815), was a lighthouse-keeper's daughter on Longstone Island, off the coast of England.

On September 7, 1838, a stormy day, the Forfarshire, a 300-ton steamer, was on her way from Hull to Dundee when she smashed into the rocks at about 4am. The seas were so great that the local boatman, and lighthouse keeper Darling, refused to take vessels out to the wreck. Grace, aged 22, coaxed her father into going with her to row the mile to rescue the survivors, of whom they saved nine, including a mother who they found nursing the corpses of two infants.

Grace Darling, because of her bravery and no doubt because of her attractive name, became instantly famous in Britain, and may be described as the first media heroine. More than 700 pounds was raised for her by public subscription. She received many offers of marriage, but she was content to remain with her parents at the lighthouse, where she died of tuberculosis at the early age of 27 ...

Categories: uk, history, nautical

A pirate of exquisite mind

1651 William Dampier (d. 1715) was christened in St Michael's Church, East Coker, in South Somerset, England (his date of birth is unknown).

He was an explorer, sea captain, and scientific observer, and known as a buccaneer – although he used the word himself, some dispute this.

Dampier Archipelago off Western Australia is named after him.

He was a crewmember of the pirate ship, the Cygnet, which was beached on the northwest coast of Australia (somewhere near King Sound in Western Australia).

A pirate of 'exquisite mind': Dampier influences
Dampier is little known outside Britain and Australia (and, sadly, almost forgotten in those countries), but he had an unusual degree of influence on figures better known than he:

His observations and analysis of natural history helped Charles Darwin's and Alexander von Humboldt's development of their theories. He made innovations in navigational technology that were studied by Captain James Cook and Admiral Horatio Nelson. His reports on breadfruit led to Captain William Bligh's ill-fated voyage on The Bounty ...

According to Diana Preston and Michael Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: The Life of William Dampier, among the many words and expressions William Dampier introduced into the English language: avocado; barbecue; breadfruit; caress (verb); cashew; chopsticks; excursion (trip); kumquat; Nor'wester (wind); posse; rambling; sea-breeze; sea-lion; serrated; settlement; snapper; soy sauce; stilts (house supports); subsistence (farming); sub-species (pre-Charles Darwin); swampy; thunder-cloud; to make snug (as a phrase) and tortilla ...

Categories: uk, nautical, history, biography, english

BRAND BELLINGEN actors take bow

BRAND BELLINGEN actors take bow
Originally uploaded by Pip_Wilson.

More info about the satirical musical play at www.wilsonsalmanac.com/brandbello.html

I'm a member of the Rainbow Region flickr group for North-eastern New South Wales.

Categories: bellingen, australia

Vid of dancing girls at BRAND BELLINGEN

Vid of dancing girls at BRAND BELLINGEN
Originally uploaded by Pip_Wilson

My daughter got some girls together to dance when our lead singer was unable to come on the night. This is called 'Bellingen Song', lyrics by yours truly and music by Josee Hennequin. More info about the satirical musical play at www.wilsonsalmanac.com/brandbello.html

I'm a member of the Rainbow Region flickr group for North-eastern New South Wales.

Dick York, actor and philanthropist

1928 Dick York (d. February 20, 1992), American actor (TV series: Bewitched). Iatrogenic addiction to painkilling drugs, due to a back injury caused on the set of one of his early movies, and bad investments, put an end to his prosperity and he and his wife were reduced to cleaning apartments for a living. In his later years, although ill with a terminal lung disease, he dedicated his life to helping the homeless poor and was very successful in his efforts.

Dick York, Dick York: a tale of sitcom hell

Categories: addiction, humor, humour, television, biography

Democracy Now! producer Nicole Salazar and host Amy Goodman arrested

Footage shot by Democracy Now! producer Nicole Salazar during her arrest on Monday, September 1st 2008 while covering the anti-Republican National Convention protests in the streets of St Paul, Minnesota. Show host Amy Goodman and producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous were also arrested, detained, and charged with conspiracy to riot.

Categories: activism, legal, authoritarianism, usa, youtube, video, civil-rights, protest

Mythbusters Gagged: Credit Card Companies Kill Episode Exposing RFID Security Flaws

This is our 6,000th post on Wilson's Blogmanac. Thanks to Baz le Tuff for tipping me off about this story about RFID, the consumer microchip that knows who you are:

"Credit card companies successfully nixed a Mythbusters segment exposing RFID's security flaws, according to Arbiter of Truth and Mythbusters co-host, Adam Savage."
Source

More

RFID chips can now be printed on fabric and corrugated cardboard.

In March last year I subbed the following story as News Editor for ProPrint magazine:

RFID market’s boom times ahead
Sales of technologies based on RFID (Radio Frequency Identification, the automatic identification method) are showing strong growth, with new markets emerging that simply did not exist before. The IDTechEx report Active RFID predicts that sales of active RFID systems, including tags and labels, will grow from $550 million in 2006 to $6.78 billion in 2016.

In a field formerly dominated by big corporations – for example, Japan’s Toppan, which recently printed the RFID tags for an innovative and high-tech cosmetics promotion at Tokyo’s Mitsukoshi department store – the growing market offers attractive niche opportunities to label-printing companies of small-to-medium size. Ink-jet printing of RFID devices is also an application much under discussion globally.

However, big companies have not lost their foothold in the market. America’s Metalcraft, for example, a leader in the industry, is currently buying state-of-the-art RFID converting equipment designed to convert inlays into durable, reusable RFID tags through a high-speed production process. The labels will be subsurface printed using a digital printing process, which will allow custom colours and high-fidelity printing of detailed logos. In the UK, by 2008, well-known department store Marks & Spencer plans to tag 350 million items of apparel annually.

Australian firm ERG, which has more than $US100 million in sales of RFID card systems, has attracted two big orders, including mass transit ticketing solutions, netting the company $US40 million. ERG will install SVC (Stored Value Cards) systems for shops and vending machines in places such as the Philippines.

Categories: rfid, liberty, surveillance, legal

The Fathers' Day Massacre

1984 Australia: 'The Fathers' Day Massacre' - two rival motorcycle gangs, the Comancheros and the Bandidos, engaged in a gunfight at Milperra, a western suburb of Sydney, in which seven people were killed and more than 20 wounded.

The shooting began in the car park of Milperra's hotel, the Viking Tavern, where the club members had organized a party to celebrate Fathers' Day. Before long, the bikies were attacking each other with guns, knives and baseball bats. A young girl selling raffle tickets outside the pub was among those killed.

In August, 1983, the Bandidos formed when a rift occurred in the Comancheros MC; a similar split had occurred in Texas, also followed by a bloody shootout. The court case following the massacre was at the time one of the largest in Australian history. Forty-three people were charged with seven counts of murder ...

Categories: australia, crime