Founding of The Bulletin

1880 Australia: The first issue of The Bulletin was published. The magazine was founded by two journalists, JF Archibald (pictured) and John Haynes. The Bulletin 's literary editor, AG Stephens, had a great deal of influence on the 'Bulletin school' ('Bully' writer Henry Lawson, one of Stephens's 'finds', thought him an insufferable snob). A very influential editor was WH Traill.

Among the many well-known contributors were the writers Banjo Paterson, George Black, Edwin Brady, Bernard O'Dowd, Joseph Furphy (Tom Collins), Miles Franklin, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Mary Gilmore, George Gordon McCrae, Roderic Quinn and Vance and Nettie Palmer, the cartoonists Livingston Hopkins ('Hop), William Macleod and David Low, and the artist and novelist Norman Lindsay. The magazine operated in Reiby Lane, off Pitt Street, Sydney.

Categories: australia, history, henry-lawson, australian-poetry, australian-literature, poetry, literature, bush-poetry

Vale Dr Fred Schwarz, 1913 - 2009

Today I mourn the death of my uncle, Doctor Fred Schwarz, born in 1913, who was quite likely the smartest man I ever knew, and never was there a kinder person.

Categories: communism, activism, activist, australia, biography

Rabbie Burrrrrns Day

The tune to this wonderful song of humanity is at January 25 in the Book of Days, in midi format.

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that;
The coward slave – we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that.
Our toils obscure an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man's a Man for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that:
The man o' independent mind
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's abon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities an' a' that;
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.
Robert Burns, Scottish poet, born on January 25, 1759; 'A Man's A Man For A' That'

Glossary

Paolo Nutini sings this song on YouTube

Tagged: scotland, calendar-customs, poetry

Happy birthday, Granny D -- 99 today!

1910 Granny D (formerly Granny Haddock), born Ethel Doris Haddock, American politician and progressive political activist from the state of New Hampshire.

Haddock famously walked across the continental United States in 1999 to advocate campaign finance reform and in 2004 ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic challenger to incumbent Republican Judd Gregg for the US Senate. She is noted for her colourful character and advanced age.

Granny D, still campaigning, turns 97 today. Granny D in the news

Meet other late achievers, and late starters, in the Wilson's Almanac page, 'Are You a Late Bloomer?'

Categories: progressive, activism, biography, peace, activist, usa

Deadliest earthquake ever

1556 Shaanxi Earthquake, China (sources differ as to date): The deadliest earthquake in history killed 830,000 people. More than 97 counties in the provinces of Shaanxi (Shensi), Shanxi (Shansi), Henan, Gansu, Hebei, Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu and Anhui were affected.

Aftershocks continued several times a month for about six months. It is also among the deadliest natural disasters in history, only outstripped by floods of China's Yellow River (Huang He) ...

Categories: china, earthquake, disaster

Folklore of St Vincent's Day

Weather magic charm

Remember on St Vincent's Day
If that the sun his beams display,
Be sure to mark his transient beam
Which through the window sheds a gleam;
For 'tis a token bright and clear,
Of prosperous weather all the year.
Traditional English proverb

(Early Witlow grass, Draba verna, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint)

A deacon of Saragossa, or Zaragoza, Spain, as it in now more correctly called, Vincent was martyred circa 304 during the Emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians.

Imprisoned in Valencia for his faith, and tortured on a gridiron – a story perhaps adapted from the martyrdom of another son of Huesca in Aragon, Spain, St Lawrence -- Vincent, like many early martyrs in the early hagiographic literature, succeeded in converting his jailer. Though he was finally offered release if he would consign Scripture to the fire, Vincent refused.

Vincent is also the patron of bakers, roof-makers, sailors, schoolgirls, tile-makers, roofers, Portugal, vine dressers (because he protects from frost), vinegar makers, vintners, wine growers, wine makers. For no other apparent reason, he is also a patron saint of alcoholics.

Vincent represents a Christianization of the ancient Greek sun god Apollo, whose rites were performed at this time of year to bring warmth back to the frozen land. Consequently, St Vincent and his feast day are associated with fire, just as we noted on January 20 and 21 for the Eve and Night of St Agnes.

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

Categories: saint, calendar-customs, folklore, superstition, christianity, religion, deity

Bubblers for Bellingen Shire

A letter to the Bellingen Courier Sun:

Dear Editor,

Bubblers for Bello Shire

Please may we have water bubblers on every main street in Bellingen Shire? Surely the rather small expense of installation would be offset by the benefits to residents, tourism, and the pride in our towns.

Until about 30 or so years ago, on most main streets in Australia's cities and towns there were many bubblers of free drinking water every hundred metres or so. For those whose hair has not yet started to grey, to help translate Australian lingo into Americanese, I suppose I must also give the US term: 'drinking fountains'.

Because bubblers were all over cities like Sydney, one could stop for a moment and enjoy a free drink of cool water on any street. Sadly, inexplicably, the bubblers were all removed and now there is a generation of younger ones who actually pay extortionate prices for bottled water in supermarkets! Water that is no better than tap water which is virtually free to any municipality.

Very strangely, Australians consume 550 million litres every year of ordinary water sold in plastic bottles at a higher price than petrol. This is despite the fact that studies have shown that bacteria contamination in bottled water exceeds the pollution in tap water in most Western towns and cities. Approximately 70 per cent of plastic drink bottles end up in landfill, take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade, and, according to some overseas studies, comprise up to 38 per cent of the total volume of street litter.

Bottles that do not get recycled or landfilled pose a serious threat to the wildlife of our precious oceans, according to the founder of the Beach-combers and Oceanographers International Association.

The only reason I ever heard for the removal of good-old Aussie bubblers was that they were unhygienic -- I rather think this was a merchants' excuse than a genuine reason. Moreover, I note that Sydney Airport has bubblers today and I doubt that such an esteemed institution would risk a lawsuit by installing unhygienic drinking devices.

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottled_water, "The global bottled water market grew by 7 per cent in 2006 to reach a value of $60.9 billion" and "created more than 2.5 million tons of CO2 in 2006". Bottled water is a clever ruse perpetrated by major TNCs (transnational corporations) such as The Coca-Cola Company, labelling their products with clever and inviting names. More than 90 per cent of the cost of bottled water is in the bottle, lid, label and marketing, with phony names that suggest Tibet, mountain springs or some health spa, when the product invariably comes straight from municipal reservoirs.

I would urge our shire's merchants to do the right thing and stop perpetuating this lucrative hoax, and in a spirit of public duty remove bottled water from their shelves. Likewise, I would urge local residents to boycott this fraudulent product and strongly explain their reasons to the shopkeepers whenever they shop. But the consumers must be educated. To do so, they might well go to the Internet and Google 'bottled water' and read about this well-documented scam.

I would urge readers interested in the topic of the folly of bottled water to visit the websites http://www.bottledwaterblues.com/ and, for a healthy laugh at human folly, http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPAjUvvnIc.

A recent Sunday Herald Sun taste test revealed that 68 per cent of people preferred the taste of tap water over bottled water, while 20 per cent could not tell the difference. Bottled water production generates an estimated 600 times more CO2 than tap water. The Victorian Government estimates that Australian production of bottled water consumes 314,000 barrels of oil a year. "About 76,000 tonnes of plastic bottle waste went to landfill or ended in our environment as rubbish in recent years," Clean Up Australia Day chairman, Ian Kiernan was reported as saying, in the Herald Sun.

Back to the topic at hand. It seems that every candidate in our recent local elections, regardless of their politicial stripes, included in their promotional literature two essential and elect-worthy subjects, namely, the word 'sustainability' (a buzzword lately appropriated by big business and politicians, from the once-derided vocabulary of the 'alternative movement), and a promise to replace the filthy toilets in Church Street.

Would it be too much to ask that Council will also instal water bubblers in our main streets, and that our residents committedly and repeatedly request, or even demand, Council to do so? Could local organisations and service clubs please put this issue on their agenda and commit to becoming active? We love Bellingen Shire, but it can very awfully hot, as we all know. Please may we have free water bubblers on our main streets? Bellingen Shire is a progressive shire. Maybe we could start a worldwide trend! Perhaps our council's tourism gurus could call us "The Free Water Capital of the World"! That should bring in a few bucks.

Yours faithfully,

Pip Wilson

Categories: bellingen, water, hoax, fraud, corporations

Saint Sebastian's Day

Sebastian, the patron saint of archers, was an officer in the Roman army and a favourite of the Emperor Diocletian. He was martyred in 288, by being bound to a tree, shot at with arrows then beaten to death. He is thus also the patron saint of pin makers.

When Irish playwright Oscar Wilde went to live in exile in France after his humiliating prison term in England, he adopted the alias Sebastian Melmonth. The surname Melmonth was a family name; Sebastian he took from the saint in a rather pungent reflection on the prison uniform covered in arrows that was used by Britain in those days.

Categories: saint

Greetings, Barack Obama and our American cousins

It looks like a great Obama Day for the USA. I'm sure a lot of Americans are overjoyed at the moment, and the world rejoices. Regardless of Obama's sometimes reactionary politics, he will be no Dubya.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg0wiOHc9tI

Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen.

Woody Guthrie's immortal song, although he was not mentioned and Springsteen sounds like he thinks Pete Seeger wrote it.

At least they didn't leave out two of the last two verses, as US pop culture usually does (for obvious reasons).

As I was walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me

From California to the New York island
From the redwood forest, to the gulfstream waters
This land was made for you and me

I roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
While all around me a voice was sounding
Ohhh, it said, "This land was made for you and me."

And the sun came shining, as we were strolling
And the wheat fields waving, and the dust clouds rolling
As the fog was lifting, a voice was chanting
It said, "This land was made for you and me."

Chorus
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York island
From the redwood forest, to the gulfstream waters
This land was made for you and me

Was a great high wall there that tried to stop me
And a great big sign that said private property
On the other side, it didn’t say nothing
That side was made for you and me

In the city square, in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office, I saw my people
As they stood there hungry, I kept asking,
"Was this land made for you and me?"

Categories: usa, obama, bush, folk-music, politics

Edgar Allan Poe's prescient cosmology

Birthday boy Edgar Allan Poe wrote in Eureka, A Prose Poem (1848):

That the Universe of Stars might endure throughout an aera at all commensurate with the grandeur of its component material portions and with the high majesty of its spiritual purposes, it was necessary that the original atomic diffusion be made to so inconceivable an extent as to be only not infinite. It was required, in a word, that the stars should be gathered into visibility from invisible nebulosity -proceed from visibility to consolidation- and so grow grey in giving birth and death to unspeakably numerous and complex variations of vitalic development: – it was required that the stars should do all this – should have time thoroughly to accomplish all these Divine purposes- during the period in which all things were effecting their return into Unity with a velocity accumulating in the inverse proportion of the squares of the distances at which lay the inevitable End.

Here is what modern astrophysicist John Barrow writes in his book The World within the World (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1988, p354); note the similarity:

This state of expansion means that the size of the Universe is inextricably entwined with its age. The reason that the Visible Universe is more than 13 billion light-years in size today is that it is more than 13 billion years old. A Universe that contained just one galaxy like our own Milky Way, with its 100 billion stars, each perhaps surrounded by planetary systems, might seem a reasonable economy if one were in the universal construction business. But such a universe, with more than a 100 billion fewer galaxies than our own, could have expanded for little more than a few months. It could have produced neither stars nor biological elements. It could contain no astronomers.

Categories: biography, astronomy, science, literature, history, american-literature

Skepchick: Critical thinking at its finest

Skepchick is a group of women (and one deserving guy) who write about science, skepticism, and pseudoscience. With intelligence, curiosity, and occasional snark, the group tackles diverse topics from astronomy to astrology, psychics to psychology."
Skepchick

The site is well known not only for busting popular myths, fads and fallacies, but also for its sexy calendars of nude and near-nude skeptical women and men.

Watch a YouTube video interview with Rebecca Watson, founder of Skepchick.org.

(I like the site and its founder, but it's odd that she chose this name for it and produces such a calendar. It seems that if a man accidentally uses the terms 'chick', 'girl' or 'lady' instead of 'woman' -- or dares to look at a picture of a naked woman -- he cops a sock in the eye, loses his job, or is hauled before the courts. Still, I hope you enjoy the site regardless of these unfair anomalies of feminist gender politics. I like Skepchick. It's great to see Reason coming out of the closet at last.)

Categories: skepticism, pseudoscience, hoax, fraud, science, quackery, paranormal

Young Oscar Wilde visits old Walt Whitman

1882 On a successful speaking tour of America, the young Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde, newly famous at home and abroad, visited 62-year-old Walt Whitman.

Wilde had gained much notice in newspapers across England, the USA and Canada with articles about his talent and flamboyant ways, adding to his international popularity. Now, the gifted and ambitious 27-year-old had ventured on a North American tour with 125 lectures booked in more than 100 locations, speaking on such topics as 'The English Renaissance,' 'The Decorative Arts' and 'The House Beautiful'.

Despite some hostility from some more puritanical parts of America, Wilde had been not only been well received in New York, he was actually lionised in that cosmopolitan city. While in Philadelphia, his second stop on the lecture tour, the Irish playwright and poet had mentioned that he did "so hope to meet Mr Whitman. Perhaps he is not widely read in England, but England never appreciates a poet until he is dead. There is something so Greek and sane about his poetry, it is so universal, so comprehensive. It has all the pantheism of Goethe and Schiller."

Although initially Whitman declined an invitation for a meeting, perhaps he read Wilde's encomium in the press and a card soon arrived at Wilde's hotel: "Walt Whitman will be in from 2 till 3½ this afternoon and will be most happy to see Mr. Wilde and Mr. Stoddart" (referring also to Wilde's friend, JM Stoddart.

"I come as a poet to call upon a poet"
The dandy Wilde found the roughly attired Whitman at the American poet's simple abode in nearby Camden, New Jersey where he lived with his brother and sister-in-law. "I come as a poet to call upon a poet," announced Oscar Wilde, who then explained to Whitman how, as a boy, his mother had read Leaves of Grass aloud to him. This pleased the aging poet, and the two geniuses, so different in many ways, consumed a bottle of Walt's sister-in-law's elderberry wine.

That done, they adjourned to Whitman's den "to be on thee and thou terms" as Whitman expressed it. They discussed aesthetics for an hour – Whitman explaining that he tried to make his verse "look all neat and pretty on the pages, like the epitaph on a square tombstone". However, the aging man would not go as far as Wilde in the extolling literary beauty for its own sake.

"Why, Oscar," he remonstrated, "it always seems to me that the fellow who makes a dead set at beauty by itself is in a bad way."

The two got on very well, however, and Oscar's famed barbs were well sheathed throughout what to him was an important and honoured encounter ...

Wilde and Whitman meet, sort of (a poem by your almanackist)

Categories: poetry, literature, english-literature, american-history, american-literature, history, biography

Here Be Dragons - an introduction to critical thinking

"Here Be Dragons is a free 40 minute video introduction to critical thinking. It is suitable for general audiences and is licensed for free distribution and public display.

"Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.

"Here Be Dragons is written and presented by Brian Dunning, host and producer of the Skeptoid podcast and author of Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena, and Executive Producer of The Skeptologists."

View Here Be Dragons here and also at YouTube

Skeptoid, the podcast
See also Skeptoid.com, a free weekly podcast "dedicated to furthering knowledge by blasting away the widespread pseudosciences that infect popular culture.

"Each weekly episode focuses on a single phenomenon — an urban legend, a paranormal claim, alternative therapy, or something just plain stupid — that you've heard of, and that you probably believe in. Skeptoid attempts to expose the folly of belief in non-evidence based phenomena, and more importantly, explains the factual scientific reality."

(Skeptoid podcast is just one item in the radio on the free Wilson's Almanac toolbar, and also regularly feeds into the Almanac's Podcasts page.)

See also Wilson's Blogmanac on the quackery of homeopathy, April 10, 2008, with videos by Richard Dawkins and James Randi.

Categories: video, skepticism, pseudoscience, hoax, fraud, science, quackery, homeopathy

Ben Franklin and his remarkable achievements

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin

1706 Benjamin Franklin (d. April 17, 1790), American journalist, publisher, author, philanthropist, public servant, scientist, diplomat, and inventor who was also one of the leaders of the American Revolution, known also for his many quotations and his experiments with electricity. He corresponded with members of the Lunar Society and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1775, Franklin became the first US Postmaster General.

Franklin was born on January 6, 1706, which was then Epiphany, but in 1752, when he was 46, England and her colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar and also changed to New Style, which dropped 11 days. Thus we remember this American 'Renaissance man' on January 17.

Long before there was Wilson's Almanac, there was Poor Richard's Almanac, by Ben Franklin, the first American bestselling book, which gave the young Franklin financial security to begin his life's work doing … absolutely everything.

The prodigious accomplishments of the boy who left school aged ten include: the foundation of the Society to Abolish Slavery and the American Philosophical Society, the first US hospital and its first lending library, its first police and fire departments and the first American fire insurance company. He invented the lightning rod, a platform rocking chair, the step ladder that folds down into a chair, the Franklin stove (still popular today) and bifocals. He created the first efficient postal service in the USA, and an academy that became the University of Pennsylvania.

He was America's first newspaper cartoonist; the US Ambassador to England and France (helping to cement the alliance so valuable to the American Revolution); a musician, philanthropist, cartographer, linguist and printer. He sat on the committee that drafted the US Declaration of Independence. He founded a popular publication, the Pennsylvania Gazette, later to become The Saturday Evening Post. He invented swim fins, and a tool to get books off of high shelves; he headed the Pennsylvania delegation to the Albany Congress; he established two major fields of physical science, electricity and meteorology. Old Ben wrote a scientific essay that for the first time described the existence of the Gulf Stream.

He also wrote essays on how to select a mistress (pick an older woman) – he was something of a ladies' man and a member of England's infamous and licentious Hellfire Club – and how to avoid flatulence (drink perfume); in 1737 he drew up the first formal list of American slang terms for drunkenness (coming up with an impressive 228).

On top of all that, he was also said to have been a likeable man ...

Categories: usa, history, biography, invention, literature, almanac, science, politics

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Categories: almanac, internet-resource

Bush: I personally authorized torture

"In an interview that aired [on January 11] on Fox News Sunday, Bush admitted that he personally authorized the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."

Read on at AlterNet and see the video.

Categories: bush, usa, torture, waterboarding, guantanamo, human-rights, war-on-terror, war-crime, civil-rights, impeach, impeach-bush

1749 The Bottle Hoax of London

On this day in London, one of the worst theatre riots ('The Battle of Bottle-noddles') in history occurred. An unknown person advertised that he would this evening, at the Haymarket Theatre, 'play on a common walking cane the music of every instrument now used, to surprising perfection' and 'get into a tavern quart bottle, without equivocation, and while there, sing several songs, and suffer any spectator to handle the bottle; that if any spectator should come masked, he would, if requested, declare who they were; and that in a private room he would produce the representation of any person dead, with which the person requesting it should converse some minutes, as if alive.'

Spectators did, indeed, show up, in great numbers, including the Duke of Cumberland, and paid up to 7 shillings and sixpence. When no performer showed up, a joker in the audience called out that if they paid double, someone would get into a pint bottle. Then pandemonium broke out, with the audience pulling down the theatre sets and the good Duke waving his sword. Someone grabbed it from him and ran with it, saying "Fools should not have such chopping sticks!" (Later, much fun was had by an advertiser in the paper called Old England, who put in a Lost and Found ad for the sword, lost 'from the fat sides of a certain great general in his hasty retreat from the Battle of Bottle-noddles'.) The hoaxer never got any money: his whole reward was the sight of the Haymarket Theatre being dismantled and burned in a pile.

The Bottle Hoax of Haymarket Theatre, otherwise known as the Battle of Bottle-noddles, was hugely famous in its day; Herman Melville makes mention of the event in Moby Dick.

Categories: hoax, london, theatre, drama

Credit card thief charged as sex offender

"Mr. Soucia was a thief: more precisely he stole a credit card. And, as a result, he was prosecuted 'under the "Sex Offender Management and Treatment Act".' How’s that!!

"What gave the low-life prosecutor, aptly named James Conboy, the excuse was that the young man used the stolen credit to hire some strippers. In the logical world of Mr. Conboy: 'If you commit a burglary and your goal is because of your own sexual gratification, it’s a sexually motivated felony.' ...

"... the young thief will have to register as a dangerous sex offender. And how will the offender's registry, or what vigilantes call 'the hit list', describe Mr. Soucia? When he is released from prison his picture, along with his home address, will be published on a sex offender's web site. He will be listed as having been convicted of a 'sexually motivated felony'. That sounds really bad. No doubt the morons who troll the lists will see this as proof that Soucia was out raping children at the local church nursery. Instead, he broke in a house and stole a credit card ..."
Source and a lid dip to blogger Fignatz

Categories: law, usa, crime, law, legal

Brit porn filter censors 13 years of net history

Demon blacklist muzzles Wayback Machine

"Britain's child porn blacklist has led at least one ISP to muzzle the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine - an 85 billion page web history dating back to 1996.

"According to multiple customers of Demon Internet - now owned by Brit telecom Thus - the London-based ISP is blocking access to all sites stored in the archive. When they query the Wayback Machine, hoping to retrieve archived pages, customers are met with generic "not found" error pages. But judging from their urls, these pages are generated by a web filter based on the blacklist compiled by the Internet Watch Foundation, a government-backed organization charged with policing online pornography ..."
Source

Categories: internet, censorship, erotica, pornography, authoritarianism, uk

Two Google searches 'produce same CO2 as boiling a kettle'

"Making two internet searches through Google produces about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle, it has been estimated."
Source

Categories: google, energy, environment, science, internet, climate-change, global-warming, sustainability

Bounty mutineers arrived at Pitcairn

1790 The Bounty mutineers arrived at Pitcairn Island which had been misplaced on the Royal Navy's charts. On January 23, 1790, they burned the ship in what is now Bounty Bay.

When the American sailing ship Topaz, commanded by Mayhew Folger, discovered the island in 1808, only John Adams, ten women and some children were still alive. Murder accounted for most of the deaths, though suicide, accident, and disease played parts. Fletcher Christian, the chief mutineer, was one of the murder victims.

See also Pitcairn rape trial of 2004 for more recent developments on the famous island.

Categories: history, uk

Dear Minister, I've had it up to HERE with bureaucratic nonsense

I received this by email from a friend, and it's said to be an actual letter sent to the former Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Hon. Alexander Downer and the then Immigration Minister, The Hon. Amanda Vanstone.

It is said that the government tried desperately to disappear the letter, but got nowhere because every legal person who read it nearly wet themselves laughing! Please excuse the language, but we suspect the author was upset. I can relate to it because of recent government forms that I've seen that must be filled in -- some by me, some by my loved ones. I spent 7 hours trying to find my birth certificate for a government department that already had a copy of it, Xeroxed only 18 months ago! These nongs are driving us all crazy and it's about time the bureaucracy was cut down to size. This bloke's letter helps:

Dear Minister,

I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this.

How is it that K-Mart has my address and telephone number, and knows that I bought a Television Set and Golf Clubs from them back in 1997, and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date?

For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand?

My birth date you have in my Medicare information, and it is on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 40 years. It is on my driver's licence, on the last eight passports I've ever had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the planes over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that I've filled out every 5 years since 1966.

Also, would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Audrey, my Father's name is Jack, and I'd be absolutely fucking astounded if that ever changed between now and when I drop dead!!!... SHIT! I apologize, Mr. Minister. But I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of all this bullshit! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my fucking address!! What the hell is going on with your mob? Have you got a gang of mindless Neanderthal arseholes workin' there!

And another thing, look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I can't even grow a beard for God's sakes. I just want to go to New Zealand and see my new granddaughter. (Yes, my son interbred with a Kiwi girl). And would someone please tell me, why would you give a shit whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a sheep or a horse, believe you me, I'd sure as hell not want to tell anyone!

Well, I have to go now, 'cause I have to go to the other end of the city, and get another fucking copy of my birth certificate, and to part with another $80 for the privilege of accessing MY OWN INFORMATION!

Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot, to assist in the issuance of a new passport on the same day?? Nooooo... that'd be too fucking easy and makes far too much sense. You Would much prefer to have us running all over the place like chickens with our fucking heads cut off, and then having to find some high society wanker to confirm that it's really me in the goddamn photo! You know the photo...the one where we're not allowed to smile?! ... you fucking morons.

Signed
An Irate Australian Citizen

P.S Remember what I said above about the picture, and getting someone in high-society to confirm that it's me? Well, my family has been in this country since before 1850! In 1856, one of my forefathers took up arms with Peter Lalor. (You do remember the Eureka Stockade!!) I have also served in both the CMF and regular Army something over 30 years (I went to Vietnam in 1967), and still have high security clearances. I'm also a personal friend of the president of the RSL. and Lt General Peter Cosgrove sends me a Christmas card each year.

However, your rules require that I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am; You know ... someone like my doctor; WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN FUCKING PAKISTAN!!! ... a country where they either assassinate or hang their ex-Prime Ministers, and are suspended from the Commonwealth for not having the 'right sort of government.'

You are all fucking idiots.

This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm

Categories: bureaucracy, government, authoritarianism, australia, humour, humor, politics

The Human Be-In

1967 Timothy Leary, Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Dick Gregory, Richard Alpert (later called Baba Ram Dass), Gary Snyder and others attended the first 'Human Be-In' in a park in San Francisco, USA, one of the big events of the 'Summer of Love'.
Among the performers were The Grateful Dead and The Jefferson Airplane (later called Starship). Estimates of numbers in attendance range wildly from 20,000 to 300,000 (estimate in Ringolevio by Emmett Grogan). Leary, in his first San Francisco appearance, uttered the sound bite of the decade: "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out".

Categories: hippie, 1960s, entheogen, psychedelia, rock-music

The Limits to Growth vindicated 36 years later

In 1972, when I was 19, the book The Limits to Growth was a hippie bible. Of course, all the straight people said we were mad doomsayers.

This article says that Australian research has shown that the book was basically correct and its general projections are coming true.

Dr Graham Turner of CSIRO "said projections relating to population, food and industrial production, pollution and consumption of non-renewable natural resources between 1970 and 2000 were broadly accurate.

"'Unless (The Limits of Growth) is invalidated by other scientific research, the data comparison presented here lends support to the conclusion that the global system is on an unsustainable trajectory,' he said."

See Dr Turner's 'A Comparison of "The Limits to Growth" with Thirty Years of Reality' (PDF file)

Categories: hippie, 1970s, climate-change, sustainability, population, environment, science, australia

Plough Monday

Plough Monday: First Monday after Epiphany

Like St Distaff's Day, Plough Monday in England of old represented a return to work after the Christmas holidays. Before the Protestant Reformation, ploughmen (or, plough bullockers) kept lights burning in front of certain images in the church, and there was also a procession, with the men gathering money for the support of these plough-lights as they were called. A plough light was a lamp in the church that was never allowed to go out .

After the Reformation, the procession continued, with the men collecting money to spend on grog instead. A plough known as the Fool Plough was decorated with ribbons among other things, and dragged from house to house by 30 or 40 men dressed in clean smock-frocks, hats and shirts (outside their coats) decorated with ribbons and wheat. The Fool Plough was preceded by one ploughman in front dressed – over-dressed, in fact, and wearing a bullock’s tail – as an old woman known as Bessy, and carrying the money box. There was also a fool, or jester, in fantastic costume. In some parts of the country, morris dancers entertained the throng, and in the corn growing areas of eastern England, Plough Plays were versions of mumming plays. Sometimes there was a reproduction of an ancient sword dance that might have Scandinavian, Germanic or Roman origins. One of the ‘mummers’ wore a fox-skin hood, the meaning of which has been lost in the passing centuries ...

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.

A note about the dating of items in Wilson’s Almanac

Categories: british-folklore, calendar-customs, folklore

A breakfast never to be forgotten

I was honoured recently to have an excellent artist, Hog Fish, at my place and we had a wonderful Summer Solstice breakfast with him and his delightful partner, Frankie. Also 8 Ball Aitken and Bird Jensen. That's Fish at right (with two of his brass figurines), and 8 Ball at left. Bird, 8 Ball's partner, promoter and manager, largely created the great breakfast but is not in this shot (she was camera shy, which is cool because I am too and most people are).

Thanks, Bird! That's me and my gorgeous Misty in the centre. I prefer great breakfasts to great lunches and dinners (just ask Baz le Tuff), and this one was a beaut. Pardon my inhumility, but it was a special solstice for me.

A few days later, when I was away from home, Fish left a wonderful painting at my door. It is entitled, 'Just After Meeting Pip Wilson'. That's it here: my crummy photography doesn't come anywhere near doing justice to this huge psychedelic/abstract painting with bits of iridescence and gold. It's a masterwork for which I'm extremely touched and grateful. I'm hanging it as the centrepiece of my living room. Click the photo to embiggen.


Fish's art may be seen in this gallery of several pages, so check it out and please support this remarkably gifted and generous man. Fish comes from the underground Zap Comix scene of the late 1960s and 1970s and his work includes painting Janis Joplin's Porsche in psychedelic design, as well as collaboration with such great geniuses as Robert Crumb, Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso and the other Zap artists, all heroes of mine since about 1970. He worked on the design of the Batmobile for the movie, and the Grinch movie sets.

Thank you, Fish and all breakfastees! You made my day, my week, and my year. And to Frankie -- thank you for being such a wonderful and interesting guest. Greetings, 8 Ball and Bird -- what a great breakfast we had for the solstice. It's wonderful to make new friends of such quality and good-heartedness.

Categories: comix, art, bellingen

Please vote for a USA Department of Peace NOW

Dear Friends

Hi. This is yoko ono.

I fully support the idea of voting for a DEPARTMENT OF PEACE. Please read the following instructions and VOTE!

VOTE for a Department of Peace NOW.

Make sure the BLUE VOTE BUTTON next to the title has turned to a RED VOTED BUTTON in order for your vote to be counted.

Vote HERE

VOTE to appoint a Secretary of Peace in a Department of Peace and Non-Violence

Our planet, our media, our social interactions, our homes all suffer from the epidemic of inter-personal violence and warfare that plagues America. With the establishment of a Department of Peace and Non-Violence, with a respected Secretary of Peace in the President’s Cabinet, and a program to reduce violence in cities, nations, and even in our homes, we will all benefit from the growth of a culture of peace. While this is a new layer of the Federal Government, it is a positive force for change, for handling the rage and violence that has cost our country billions in emergency rooms, police protection, broken homes and marriages. This is not an attempt to circumvent or replace the Department of Defense nor to co-opt the Department of State. This is a new entity, in the President's Cabinet, a Department dedicated to training peace-keepers, educating our children, and suggesting non-violent alternatives to hostility, and war. We are asking for a motive and a method to counteract violence, with positive potentials for resolution of conflict, by individuals trained to work with local, state and national approaches, building a United States that no longer glorifies warfare and deadly force, but brings to the table a sincere desire for peace, and a methodology to achieve it.
Stephen Zendt (I am a Senior Citizen, work in Financial Services), Walnut Creek, CA, USA

Ideas for Change in America
Ideas for Change in America is a nationwide competition to identify the best ideas for change in America. The top 10 ideas will be presented to the Obama administration just before inauguration day and form the basis of a nationwide advocacy campaign to turn each idea into actual policy.

Links
National Website: www.ThePeaceAlliance.org
MySpace: www.MySpace.com/DepartmentofPeaceFlorida
Videos: www.Youtube.com/DOPFloridaCampaign
Read the Federal Bill to establish a Department of Peace and Nonviolence in Congress [pdf]

www.IMAGINEPEACE.com

Categories: john-lennon, yoko-ono, war, peace, politics, usa, action, activism

8 Ball Aitken rocked the pub last night at Sawtell

8 Ball Aitken rocked us at Sawtell Hotel last night, as did Bird Jensen, his partenr in crime-music.

Give him your vote at http://www.youtube.com/user/8ballaitken

Manager email: bird@phoenixmovement.com

GPO Box 1933, Brisbane, QLD, 4001, AUSTRALIA

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=597411805&ref=ts

http://www.8ballaitken.com

http://www.myspace.com/8ballaitken

http://www.sonicbids.com/8ballaitken

http://www.youtube.com/user/8ballaitken

Categories: music, rock, music, c&w, roots-music

Categories: music, rock-music, c&w, blues, country-rock, australia

Auld New Year, Scotland

Burning the Clavie, Burghead, Morayshire, Scotland

The people of the north-eastern Scottish fishing port of Burghead enact the ritual Burning of the Clavie (tar barrel) on January 11, preferring their Hogmanay (Scottish New Year's Eve celebration) according to the Old Style calendar that was in use in Scotland until 1660.

So, on the evening of Auld New Year at 6 o'clock, the tar barrel (clavie) is set alight and paraded around town. The clavie is the bottom part of a wooden barrel, mounted on a pole and filled with tar-soaked wood, and must be lit with a piece of burning peat from a local household fire.

The barrel is pounded onto an eight-foot pole called 'the spoke' (using a round stone, never a hammer), the same nail being ritually used every year – perhaps there's a link between clavie and clavus, the Latin for 'nail', though it might come from the Gaelic word for basket, cliabh. Then the clavie is hoisted onto the shoulders of a local villager and the procession begins.

The clavie crew of nine or ten local men (led by the 'Clavie King') must make sure that the clavie isn't dropped, or else bad luck will come to Burghead in the coming year. Eventually, after the crew has stopped at a number of traditional stations along the route, it reaches its destination at an ancient mound called Doorie where it's set on a specially prepared base. It is allowed to burn for some time, before being ritualistically broken up with a hatchet. Flaming embers are then snatched up by onlookers. Traditionally these used to be kindling for a special New Year Fire in the home, but are now kept for luck and even sent to relatives or friends who have moved away from the district.

Opinions differ as to the roots of the ancient festival of the Burning of the Clavie – it might be Pictish, Celtic, Viking or Roman in origin, but it is certainly pre-Christian ...

Categories: british-folklore, pagan, calendar-customs, bonfire, scotland, new-year, pagan

Actions for peace and justice Washington DC area, January 2009

http://afterdowningstreet.org/january

1/1-31 Georgetown: The Peace Mural, the unbelieveable 2,000 paintings exhibition of art on war, peace, and torture that the Vietnamese-American artist Huong has on display in a 10,000 square foot galllery on M Street in Georgetown: http://www.peacemural.org

1/1-31 Busboys and Poets at 14th and V Northwest and 5th and K Northwest: place to hang out and eat and drink and groove:
http://www.busboysandpoets.com

Here's Congress's Schedule:
http://www.majorityleader.gov/docUploads/2009-FINAL-CALENDAR120508.pdf

1/6-31 Ask Congress members to sign onto Rep. Nadler's resolution (H Res 9) against Bush pardoning crimes he authorized, and Rep. Lee's (number coming soon) rejecting the Iraq Withdrawal Agreement as unConstitutionally created without ratification by Congress:
http://democrats.com/nadler-pardon-resolution

1/4 and following: Protest-Vigil to demand President-Elect Obama speak out against the massacre of innocent Palestinians AND call for an immediate cease-fire. At 5:30 p.m. every evening starting Sunday, January 4 until further notice. Meet at 16th and H Streets NW - across from the Hay-Adams Hotel (alternate meeting place 16th and I (eye) NW). CODEPINK activists and anyone protesting the illegal and brutal Israeli assault on Gaza. Stop the Violence! Stop the Killing! Cease-Fire Now! For more info call 202-423-3654, 202-412-6700, 415-235-6517.

1/8 Madam's Organ: Peace Center Happy Hour.
http://www.washingtonpeacecenter.net/civic/node/1176

1/9 Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing on Rep. Hilda L. Solis as labor secretary at 9:30 a.m. [Yes, please.]

1/9 Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing on Arne Duncan as education secretary at 10 a.m. [No, thank you.]

1/9 GAZA ACTION at noon: Rally at Lafayette Square and march to Upper Senate Park. Contact: National Association of Muslim Women, namaw01@gmail.com

1/9 At Institute for Policy Studies from 1 to 2 p.m. IPS Book Event: Aaron Glantz's 'The War comes Home', 1112 16th St. NW, Ste. 600, Washington, DC. Aaron Glantz, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is an independent journalist whose work has appeared in The Nation and The Progressive and on Democracy Now!. His new book, The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle against America's Veterans is the first to systematically document the U.S. government's neglect of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Aaron Glantz, who reported extensively from Iraq during the first three years of this war and has been reporting on the plight of veterans ever since, levels a devastating indictment against the Bush administration for its bald neglect of soldiers and its disingenuous reneging on their benefits. Meet the author at IPS and learn about the U.S. government's neglect of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

1/9 Warmonger's Wake at DC Peace Mural at 7:30 p.m.
http://www.peacemural.org/events/warmongers-wake

1/10 Annapolis: Polar Bear Plunge.
http://www.washingtonpeacecenter.net/civic/node/1193

1/10 Richmond: Virginia People's Assembly:
http://www.defendersfje.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/rd-vpa.pdf

1/10 Peacebuilders Reception (National Peace Foundation) at the DC Peace Mural from 7 to 9 p.m.
http://www.peacemural.org/events/peacebuilders-reception

1/10 White House at 1 p.m.: Let Gaza Live!
http://answer.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ANS_homepage

1/10 Participants in tomorrow's prisoners march are encouraged to attend a final planning meeting and training from 4 to 6 p.m. After dinner, there will be a public program on Guantanamo from 7 to 9 p.m. Location: St. Stephens and the Incarnation Church, 1525 Newton Street NW, at 16th Street.

1/11 Supreme Court: prisoners of Guantanamo march at 10 a.m.
http://www.witnesstorture.org

1/11 Organizing Meeting for DC Chapter of the U.S. NONVIOLENT PEACEFORCE at 11 a.m.
http://www.peacemural.org/events/organizing-meeting-for-dc

1/11 White House and around the country: Demonstrate on anniversary of Guantanamo prison camp beginning operations. Meet at 12:45 p.m. in DuPont Circle. Demand an end to unlawful detentions, rendition, torture, and murder. Promote the prosecution of those responsible, and oppose unconstitutional presidential pardons of crimes authorized by the president. Join with Witness Against Torture, and World Can't Wait. March from DuPont Circle to White House. Over 60 people will begin a liquid-only fast that will continue through Inauguration Day. Please join us:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/38777

1/11 At Busboys and Poets at 14th and V Northwest from 4 to 6 p.m.: Hear author Aaron Glantz read from his book "The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle against America's Veterans," the first book to systematically document the U.S. government's neglect of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

1/11 At 7 p.m. at Huong Peace Art Mural, 3336 M Street, NW. Presentations by Hector Aristizabal, Torture Survivor, Theatre Director and Actor, Family Therapist.

1/13 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee confirmation hearing on Dr. Steven Chu as energy secretary at 10 a.m.

1/14 From 5 to 7 p.m. in Rayburn House Office Building B-340, Reception to Celebrate Launching of American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation and Honor the Progressive Caucus.

1/14 Richmond: Rally to Bail Out the People, not the Bankers!
http://www.defendersfje.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/rd-vpa.pdf

1/15 Senate Judiciary Committee at 9:30 a.m.: Confirmation hearing for Attorney General nominee Eric Holder, who should be asked: Is the water torture torture? Are beatings, shocks, sleep deprivation, hanging by wrists, dogs, temperature extremes, sexual humiliation, and murder tortue? Is it a violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture to fail to prosecute war crimes? Will you create an independent prosecutor to prosecute the top officials responsible for these crimes?

1/15 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee confirmation hearing on Sen. Ken Salazar as interior secretary at 9:30 a.m.

1/15 Everywhere: national Healthcare Not Warfare call-in day in support of H.R. 676, led by PDA:
http://pdamerica.org

1/16-21 Dupont Circle: Performances, speeches, merchandise, literature, and gathering point.

1/17-18 U. of D.C.: Progressive Democrats of America Annual Grassroots Leadership Conference. Register now to join progressive congress members, strategists, and activists for a conference that's all about what we need to do and how we can get it done:
https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/donate.asp?formid=meet&c=487065

1/17 Newseum at 1 p.m. The first edition of the newspaper tabloid "War Crimes Times" is being published and over 2,000 free copies will be "hawked" inside the building as visitors wander around. The newspaper contains 12 pages packed with real news articles written by Michael Ratner of Center for Constitutional Rights, Professor Lawrence Velvel, and many others. This action will be very exciting and requires about 30 to 40 people who will be willing to pay the $20.00 admission fee to get into the Newseum that day, and hawk newspapers, wearing ARREST BUSH sweatshirts. There will also be something else occurring during the day. For more information and if you would like to participate please contact tkauff@hvc.rr.com For sweatshirts and T-shirts:
http://www.wavelengthclothing.com/impeach_bush.html

1/17 Friends Meeting of Washington: Film: "MLK Jr, A Historical Perspective."
http://www.washingtonpeacecenter.net/civic/wpc_film_mlk

1/18 War Crimes of the Bush Administration: Discussion with Ann Wright, David Swanson, Ray McGovern, Jesselyn Raddack at 6 p.m. at the Peace Mural Gallery in Georgetown:
http://www.peacemural.org

1/18 Everywhere in D.C. Distribution of prosecute the war criminals flyers and posters. Contact jamillaelshafei@gmail.com

1/18 Anti-Torture Candlelight Vigil: KEY BRIDGE (Virginia Side) 4:30 to 6 p.m. -
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/38782

1/19 SHOE BUSH! BOOT HIM OUT! People will converge at DuPont Circle at 11 a.m. for a rally. Speakers include author David Swanson, www.afterdowningstreet.org , Debra Sweet of the organization World Can't Wait, http://www.worldcantwait.org, and Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against the War, http://ivaw.org. People will march to the White House and in the spirit of journalist Mutadhar Al-Zaidi, will hurl shoes at the White House:
http://shoebush.org

Shoe Bush Flyer to print and distribute (PDF):
http://afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/shoebush.pdf

1/19 Bethesda: Annual MLK Day protest at war profiteering Lockheed Martin:
http://www.peaceactionmc.org/warprofitball.html

1/19 Everywhere: National Day of Community Service.

1/19 Union Station at 3 p.m. FREEZE action. Please wear black if possible, and join us. World Can't Wait will be placing on the floor "shoe sole prints" with the slogan Prosecute the War Criminals on them. What to wear:
http://www.wavelengthclothing.com/impeach_bush.html

1/19 White House in the evening: Prosecute the war criminals action with World Can't Wait:
http://www.worldcantwait.org

1/19 DANCE-OBAMA: The Pulse of Peace is now the name for a NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL event: one we plan to broadcast online, if not in real time, soon after. The Democracy Cell Project is partnering with the Peace Mural Organization, the American Dance Therapy Association, and the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. The event is a participatory celebration of movement and music; one that we are hoping will take place all across the country (one is forming in NYC, for example). In Washington DC, the event will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. (and possibly, weather permitting, into the streets and beyond) at the Peace Mural Gallery in Georgetown: 3336 M St. NW. Food and drinks will be served. There will be a DJ playing energizing inspiring celebratory music, African drummers, and a movement choir: a participatory devised and improvised series of SIMPLE movements that result in empowerment and what Barbara Ehrenreich calls "collective joy". TICKETS are donations-based: $15.00 advanced donations can be made at the Democracy Cell Project. Please specify that you are donating to the Inaugural event:
http://www.democracycellproject.net

1/19 All Souls Church: MLK Birthday Observance at 5:30 p.m.:
http://www.olivebranchinterfaith.org/story/program-and-speakers

1/19 Busboys and Poets at 14th and V Northwest, PDA gathering 10 p.m. to midnight: a Martin Luther King Day Pre-Inaugural Tribute. Gather and share intimate conversation with PDA Board Members and friends including Rep. Raul Grijalva, Rep. Jim McGovern, Tom Hayden, Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans, John Nichols, Donna Smith and Thom Hartmann. With music by Dan Reed. $300 each, $500 per couple; Join our host committee for $1,000--receive 3 tickets. Tickets are available in limited quantities:
https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/donate.asp?formid=meet&c=4891667

1/19 Busboys and Poets open 24 hours for food, open mikes, and readings.

1/19 Clarendon Ballroom 7 p.m. to midnight Bloggers Ball: Netroots Nation YES WE CAN Party, tickets $90 here:
http://www.netrootsnation.org/yeswecanparty

1/19 Huffington Post Ball at the Newseum.

1/19-20 DON'T MISS THIS ONE: Pennsylvania Ave: Join us with your Arrest Bush & Cheney sweatshirt on the sidewalk in front of the FBI building where we have a permit for thousands and will have signs, food, blankets, and busses for a 24-hour vigil leading up to the inaugural parade. We'll put the ARREST BUSH message front and center on the parade route: http://www.arrestbush2009.com

Sweatshirts and T-shirts: http://www.wavelengthclothing.com/impeach_bush.html

1/19-20 Be prepared to react to Bush pardoning crimes that he himself authorized. This will be unprecedented and unConstitutional: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/37947

1/20 McPherson Square: rally for peace and justice sponsored by the Washington Peace Center and Peace Action:
http://inaugurationaction.blogspot.com

1/20 Protest of Rick Warren at the Martin Luther King Church from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

1/20 Peace demonstration organized by World Can't Wait.

1/20 Smithsonian National Postal Museum: Inaugural Peace Ball: http://www.peaceball.org
[An alternative to the Inaugural War Ball: (CNN) — President-elect Barack Obama is set to host the Commander-in-Chief's inaugural ball, an event that honors the country's active duty and reserve military. It's a tradition that started in 2005 by President Bush, according to the Presidential Inaugural Committee. Invited guests will include Purple Heart recipients, families of fallen heroes, and spouses of deployed military, the committee said. The ball is set to be held at the National Building Museum on January 20.]

1/20 Neighborhood Inaugural Ball at the Washington Convention Center.

1/21 At 10:00 a.m., House Armed Services Committee, hearing on World at Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, with former Sen. Bob Graham (FL), former Rep. Jim Talent (MO), and Graham Allison, Harvard University. 2118 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington. Video and audio webcast on the committee website.

1/21 Bring the Guard Home: It's the Law. Press Conference at National Press Club Zenger Room at 1:30 p.m., and Launch Party at Busboys and Poets at 14th and V Northwest at 6 p.m.:
http://guardhomelaunch.com

1/21 Day of Action for Immigrant Rights, Moritorium on Raids and Deportations, Just and Humane Immigration Reform, Health Care for All, and Worker Justice, Organizaed by the National Capital Immigrant Coalition:
http://www.ncicmetro.org

1/21 James Yee, former Army Chaplin who served as Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo, will tell his story at 7 p.m. at George Washington University, exact location TBA. While ministering to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Captain Yee advised camp commanders on detainee religious practices and objected to the cruel and degrading abuses to which the prisoners were subjected. Chaplain Yee's gripping account of his Guantanamo experience and struggle for justice is entitled For God And Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire. This event is co-sponsored by Witness Against Torture and GWU Muslim Law Students Association.

1/25 Text messaging for peace at DC Peace Mural from 3 to 8 p.m.:
http://www.peacemural.org/events/text-the-world-heal-the-world

1/25 Vigil at Walter Reed Hospital:
http://www.codepink4peace.org/calendar.php?id=2205

1/26 The Case of Guantanamo vs. The Constitution at 7 p.m. at Huong Peace Art Mural, 3336 M Street, NW, Washington, DC. An Evening with Center for Constitutional Rights Lawyers. What Can I Do to Shut Down Guantanamo? This evening's event will feature an overview the campaign to shut down Guantanamo as well as speakers from the Center for Constitutional Rights who will address the matter of legal representation of Guantanamo detainees. Participants will learn about the moral and practical consequences of torture and the call to shutdown Guantanamo and other prisons working outside the Geneva Conventions.

1/27 "Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq" an afternoon with Matthew Alexander. Noon to 1:30 p.m. at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies, Lower Level, 3600 N. St. NW, Washington, DC 20007. Matthew Alexander led an interrogations team assigned to a Special Operations task force in Iraq in 2006. Writing under a pseudonym for security reasons, Alexander is the author of "How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq."

1/28 Book Party for Witness Against Torture Book at 7 p.m. at Church of the Savior Festival Center, 1640 Columbia Road NW, Washington DC 20009. As Witness Against Torture enters what it hopes will be Guantanamo's final chapter, the 100 Days Campaign ( www.100DaysCampaign.org ), the grassroots movement shares the story of its work. This book tell the story of Witness Against Torture, charting the efforts of thousands of American citizens who have squarely and thoughtfully confronted the question: what does it mean to be a conscientious American? The book also presents the writings of the detainees and their lawyers, the pleas for an end to cruelty and for the restoration of habeas corpus, and it chronicles the actions required when those pleas fell on deaf ears in the nation's corridors of power: the marches, street theater, civil disobedience, and jailings as WAT brought the campaign directly to the White House, the Supreme Court, the Congress, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and to parks and street corners across the country. The book also comes with a DVD of six short films detailing various actions which WAT has carried out. Matthew Daloisio, one of the main WAT leaders and the author of the book, would speak about the book, the campaign past and present.

1/28 War, Memory and Representation: The Visual Arts, War and Peace at 7 p.m. at the Institute for Policy Studies.


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To add to or correct this calendar, send an Email to david@davidswanson.org


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And into February...

2/2 An Evening with Howard Zinn: The People's Historian at 6:30 p.m. at Busboys and Poets, 14th and V Streets, NW. Howard Zinn, historian, peace activist and author of must-read A People's History of the United States and many other books, needs no introduction in most circles. When Witness Against Torture marched to Guantanamo in 2005, he said "Those who protest against the horrible practices at Guantanamo represent the best in our country, and want to say to the world that our government and its policies in Guantanamo violate the principles this nation is supposed to represent. It is therefore the responsibility of all of us as citizens, both of the nation and the world, to speak out for human rights."

2/4 Guantanamo's Cost to Our Humanity, an evening with Bush Dissident Ann Wright. Location and time TBA. Ann Wright is a retired 29-year US Army Reserve colonel and a 16-year US diplomat who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war in Iraq. A prolific writer and indefatigable resister, Colonel Wright is the author of Dissent, Voices of Conscience: Government Insiders Speak Out Against the War in Iraq. In January 2007, Wright was part of an international delegation of former Guantanamo prisoners, families of current prisoners, US lawyers and human-rights activists marched on the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to demand that the prison there be closed. The march is a part of Witness Against Torture's International Day to Shut Down Guantanamo.

Source: http://www.democrats.com/

Categories: usa, politics, action, activism, bush, obama