Ecovillages & cohousing setting a new trend in sustainable living

http://bit.ly/cRYh0W "I took a few days off last week to travel up to Maine to visit old friends, smell the ocean, eat fresh seafood and even fresher blueberries. Along the way, I was introduced to Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage, a work in progress with the intention of becoming 'a model environmentally sustainable, affordable, multi-generational cohousing community.' The site, upon which construction is yet to begin, 'is easily accessible to Belfast, includes land reserved for agricultural use and open space, and is an innovative housing option for rural Maine.'

"Cohousing is a rapidly growing trend, showing up in both rural and urban areas. According to cohousing.org, 'Cohousing is a type of collaborative housing in which residents actively participate in the design and operation of their own neighborhoods. Cohousing residents are consciously committed to living as a community. The physical design encourages both social contact and individual space. Private homes contain all the features of conventional homes, but residents also have access to extensive common facilities such as open space, courtyards, a playground and a common house.' ..."

Categories: sustainability, community, shelter, environment

Wal-Mart's plan to use smart RFID tags sparks privacy concerns

Wal-Mart's plan to use smart RFID tags sparks privacy concerns: "Wal-Mart is trying to keep better track of its inventory by adding smart tags, or RFID (radio frequency identification) tags, to individual items in its stores. But privacy experts and consumers are worried that store merchandise won't be the only thing it tracks.

Starting next month the tags, which the retailing giant previously used on pallets carrying products, will be embedded in the items you buy at the store. Equipped with a handheld reader, store workers will be able to quickly check the stock of an item on a shelf by scanning the tag. In addition to managing inventory,"

Brainstem, spinal cord images hidden in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel fresco — Science Blog

Brainstem, spinal cord images hidden in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel fresco — Science Blog: "Michelangelo, the 16th century master painter and accomplished anatomist, appears to have hidden an image of the brainstem and spinal cord in a depiction of God in the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers reports. These findings by a neurosurgeon and a medical illustrator, published in the May Neurosurgery, may explain long controversial and unusual features of one of the frescoes’ figures."

How do we know this was Juliet's birthday?

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul31.html 1578 Birth of Juliet Capulet, ill-fated lover of Romeo Montague in Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet.

"Come Lammas eve at night shall she be fourteen. That shall she, marry; I remember it well. 'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years, an’ she was weaned."

Shakespeare’s characters spoke as if they were English people living in his own times; London had an earthquake in 1580. She would have been two when weaned. Tomorrow, August 1, is the ancient Celtic pagan festival of Lammas, and today is Lammas Eve. These clues can make us confident that we may wish Juliet a happy birthday today.



Categories: shakespeare, lammas, history, fiction

The hell that was Passchendaele

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul31.html 1917 The Third Battle of Ypres started in Flanders. After a 10-day preliminary bombardment, with 3,000 guns firing 4.25 million shells, the British offensive started at Ypres, France at 3.50 am, and Passchendaele commenced. Passchendaele was one of the major battles of World War I.

In just three months of hell, Passchendaele cost over half a million lives – the Germans lost about 250,000, and the British about the same. The small, new nation of Australia, with a population of fewer than five million, lost 36,500 men. Ninety thousand British or Australian bodies were never even identified, and 42,000 were never recovered. Eventually, on November 12, the Canadians took the village of Passchendaele, or what was left of it, and the battle was finally over.

Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig (nicknamed the 'Butcher of the Somme') did not even visit the Western Front and ignored reports of the appalling conditions there.

When his Chief of Staff, Sir Lancelot Kiggell, visited near the end of the campaign he reportedly broke down and said: "Good God, did we really send men to fight in that?"

Australia had the only volunteer army on the Western Front -- all the others were conscripted forces ...



Categories: wwI, uk, germany, australia, history, war, military, canada

Feast day of Loki and Sigyn, Asatru (Norse tradition)

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul31.html Norse trickster god Loki (Loke) and his consort Sigyn are honoured today. Loki Laufeyiarson, in Norse mythology, is a deity of mischief ...



Categories: asatru, deity, mythology, viking

Chocolate sticks

Chocolate sticks!
Chocolate sticks!
I love my chocolate biscuit sticks.

Nice and tasty
all for me
I eat them all
GO! ONE! TWO! THREE!
Crisp and yummy
Chocolate sticks
I gobble them quickly
FOUR! FIVE! SIX!
They go so fast
They taste so fine
I bite them, chew them
SEVEN! EIGHT! NINE!

I eat them now, I ate them then
I eat far more than nine or ten.
I’m just a little kid of six
But I can eat those chocolate sticks
As if my age were ninety-one
I’ll eat those bickies by the ton!
Chocolate sticks!
Chocolate sticks!
I love my chocolate biscuit sticks!

http://bellobards.blogspot.com/2010/07/chocolate-sticks.html

© Copyright Pip Wilson, 2010

Murder of German inquisitor Konrad von Marburg

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul30.html 1233 The murder of German inquisitor Konrad von Marburg (English: Conrad of Marburg), and his assistant Gerhard Lutelholb, on the road from Mainz to Marburg, Germany. The knights might have been in the service of Heinrich II, Count of Sayn, whom Conrad had accused of participating in satanic orgies.

Konrad had held considerable sadistic power over St Elisabeth of Hungary, to whom he acted as religious advisor and confessor.

Hof Kapelle near Marburg, the place of this assassination, was locally long believed to be haunted and is allegedly today on certain days the site of black rites ...

Categories: germany, satanism, saint, history, biography, crime, sadism, black-magic

Smedley Butler, US general and peace activist

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism."

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul30.html 1881 General Smedley Butler (d. June 21, 1940), peace activist best remembered for his book War is a Racket, one of the first works exposing the military-industrial complex.

Butler was a Major General in the US Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated marine in US history. He was twice awarded the Medal of Honor ...



Categories: usa, biography, war, peace, military, activism, progressive

Henry Ford, anti-Semite

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul30.html 1863 Henry Ford (d. 1947), American car manufacturer and pioneer of the assembly-line; notorious anti-Semite.

Ford devoted much of his semi-retirement from Ford Motor to the publication of a newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, which he purchased in 1919. The paper ran for around eight years, during which it introduced to the United States a work (not written by Ford himself) called Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which has since been discredited by virtually all historians as a forgery. The American Jewish Historical Society describes his ideas during this period as "anti-immigrant, anti-labor, anti-liquor and anti-Semitic" ...

In July, 1938, Ford accepted from Adolf Hitler's Nazi government the Grand Cross of the German Eagle ...

Categories: usa, biography, history, anti-semitism

Bello Bards head for the Performance Poetry World Cup

http://bellobards.blogspot.com/ A troupe of Bello Bards are off to Nimbin this weekend for the Performance Poetry World Cup.

Looks like Brian, Craig, Fiona and Liz will be performing with welcome support from Ian, Leo, Marti, Ruth, Sally and Rosie.

Contestants have eight minutes to strut their stuff through heats, semis and, hopefully in all cases, the final.




So, barrack for the Bello Bards this weekend.

Craig Nelson

Categories: poetry, bellingen, australia

Penn and Teller: Bullshit! Feng Shui

http://tinyurl.com/23zf9r8 Apart from homeopathy and exorcism, I don't think I can recall a more evil money-grabbing snake-oil than feng shui. If you have that common tendency towards gullibility and fantasy, please don't let fraudsters steal your money. Send it to me, because I will cure all your ills, with 10 per cent discount for people on welfare.

Categories: hoax, fraud, pseudoscience

School bans plastic water bottles

http://bit.ly/bIZ678"Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College in Sydney's north has banned the sale of plastic water bottles. The canteen will no longer stock plastic water bottles and the school also spent $7,500 installing water bubblers for the students to use instead.

"The initiative will be launched today by sailor activist David de Rothschild who this week completed a voyage across the Pacific Ocean on the Plastiki, a boat made from recycled bottles.

"Year 12 student Claudia Saunders says she hopes the ban will do more than reduce the school's consumption of plastic bottles.

"'It's also about promoting it to Monte girls and getting the awareness out there how unnecessary these bottles are and the damage they can cause to the environment, both in their production and then in their disposal,' she said ..."

See also the Penn and Teller 'Bullshit' program on bottled water http://bit.ly/aFaH1p



Categories: australia, water, environment, pollution, action, activism

Bellingen house

Bellingen house
Originally uploaded by Pip_Wilson.

I love this house, in the lane near my place.

I'm a member of the Rainbow Region Flickr group for North-eastern New South Wales. Say g'day at http://facebook.com/pip.wilson -- you are very welcome.

Worst earthquake of the 20th Century

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul28.html 1976 Tangshan Earthquake, China: At 3:42 am, an earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 magnitude on the Richter scale flattened Tangshan, China, killing 242,419 and injuring 164,851.

The official death toll figures from the Communist Chinese government, notorious for attempting to conceal disasters, are often disputed; estimates of about one million dead have been made by others. (The US Geological Survey says on its website that 655,000 people may have died.) The government refused foreign aid and was criticized for having ignored scientists' warnings of the need to prepare for an earthquake. The political repercussions of the disaster and its aftermath contributed to the end of the Cultural Revolution in China ...

Image above: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Categories: china, earthquake, disaster, disinfo, disinformation

Albert Namatjira, Aussie artist caught between two worlds

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul28.html Albert Namatjira (d. August 8, 1959), Australian artist. Born on this day in 1902 at the Ntaria (Hermannsburg) mission in Australia's Northern Territory, Elea (baptized Albert in 1905) Namatjira became the first Australian Aboriginal artist to gain national and international fame. His life, however, was marred by racism, misfortune and depression.

His life, however, was marred by racism, misfortune and depression. Albert Namatjira was born to Christian parents whose background had been as tribal people in the northern deserts. He attended the school at Hermannsburg, a mission about 225 km (140 miles) from the remote outback town of Alice Springs, and at 13 was taken into the bush for manhood initiation ceremonies in his Arrernte (Aranda) tribe.

Work as a camel driver took him to parts of Australia's red centre that he might not otherwise have visited, places that appeared in his work. He had learned to draw in school, and, from the late 1920s, Namatjira had contact with white Australian artists who came to 'The Centre' in search of magnificent scenery afforded by that part of the world. In 1936, one visiting artist, Rex Batterbee, taught the keen student how to paint in the European style.

Namatjira's first public showing was two years later, in Melbourne, and proved to be a great success as his superb watercolours drew the attention of art lovers. Over succeeding years his fame grew for his haunting landscapes of land and gumtrees, and with it came financial rewards. In 1954, he met Britain's Queen Elizabeth on her Australian tour. The Queen purchased several of his paintings, including 'Ghost Gums in the Macdonnell Ranges'.

Married (to a woman of another tribe, which attracted great displeasure amongst his people) and with seven children, Namatjira tried to lease a cattle station (ranch), but paternalistic laws in the Northern Territory at the time disallowed this. Though his name was known in virtually every home in his ancestral land, the Aboriginal celebrity's attempts to gain permission to build a house in Alice Springs also met with a firm wall of forbidding racism.

Albert Namatjira descended into depression and alcoholism, eventually finding himself jailed for two months for providing alcohol to family members. Despite his fame and success, his life had become a litany of injury, hospitalization, imprisonment and despair, and he died in 1959, aged just 57, a broken man ...



Categories: australia, art, indigenous

Olavsoeka Eve, St Olav or Olaf's holiday, Torshavn, Faroe Islands

Held at Tórshavn, Faroe Islands, the smallest capital in the world.

Ólavsøka, or Olsok, on July 29 is the national holiday of the Faroe Islands, and today is its eve, featuring a cavalcade and boat races. Tomorrow is the day that the Faroese Parliament (Løgting) opens its session.

The literal meaning is 'St Olaf's Wake' or vigilia sancti Olavi in Latin, from St Olav's death at Stiklestad in 1030. But the Løgting is certainly older than that. Like several other Faroese holidays, the celebration begins the evening before. So Ólavsøka always starts on July 28, and this afternoon there will traditionally be a cavalcade and boat races ...



Categories: calendar-customs, saint

Manifesto of the Anarchists

Issued by 'The 66', a group of anarchists, during their trial in Lyon, France, January 9, 1883: What is anarchy and what are the anarchists?

Anarchists are citizens who, in a century where freedom of opinion is preached everywhere, have believed it to be their right and duty to appeal for unlimited liberty.

Throughout the world there are a few thousand of us, maybe a few million, for we have no merit other than saying out loud what the crowd is thinking. We are a few million workers who claim absolute liberty, nothing but liberty, every liberty.

We want liberty; we claim for every human being the right to do whatever he pleases and the means by which to do it. A person has the right to satisfy all his needs completely, with no limit other than natural impossibilities and the needs of his neighbours, which must be respected equally with his.

We want freedom, and we believe its existence incompatible with the existence of any power whatsoever, no matter what its origin and form, no matter whether it be elected or imposed, monarchist or republican, inspired by divine right, popular right, holy oil, or universal suffrage.

History teaches us that every government is like every other government and that all are worth the same. The best are the worst. In some there is more cynicism, in others more hypocrisy, but at bottom there are always the same procedures, always the same intolerance. There is no government, including even the ones that appear the most liberal, which does not have in the dust of its legislative arsenals some good little law about the [First] International to use against inconvenient opposition.

Evil, in the eyes of anarchists, does not dwell in one form of government more than any other. Evil lies in the idea of government itself. The principle of authority is evil.

Our ideal for human relations is to substitute free contract, perpetually open to revision or cancellation, in place of administrative and legal guardianship and imposed discipline.

Anarchists propose teaching people to do without government as they are already learning to do without God.

Anarchists will also teach people to get along without private ownership. Indeed, the worst tyrant is not the one who locks you up; it is the one who starves you. The worst tyrant is not the one who takes you by the collar; it is the one who takes you by the belly.

No liberty without equality! There is no liberty in a society where capital is monopolized in the hands of an increasingly smaller minority, in a society where nothing is divided equally, not even public education, which is paid for by everyone’s money.

We believe that capital is the common patrimony of mankind because it is the fruit of the collaboration between past and present generations, and that it ought to be put at the disposal of everyone so that no one is excluded and no one can hoard one part of it to the detriment of others.

In a word, what we want is equality. We want actual equality as the corollary of liberty, indeed as its essential preliminary condition.

From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs.

That is what we want; that is what our energies are devoted to. It is what shall be, because no limitation can prevail against claims that are both legitimate and necessary. That is why the government wishes to discredit us.

Scoundrels that we are, we claim bread for all, knowledge for all, work for all, independence and justice for all.

Categories: anarchism

Can geoengineering solve climate change?

http://bit.ly/bFG38n Can geoengineering solve climate change? - 27/07/2010: "The multilateral approach to climate change attempted at Copenhagen and Kyoto have so far not managed to substantially reduce our carbon emissions and therefore slow climate change.

"According to some scientists the tipping point has already been reached making climate change inevitable and a more radical option needs to considered such as geoengineering.

"Artificially cooling the planet by making the clouds more reflective or increasing plankton in the oceans are all scientifically viable, but are we ready to take responsibility for the earth's climate.

"Jeff Goodell looks at geoengineering as a possible solution in his book, 'How to Cool the Planet: geoengineering and the audacious quest to fix Earth's climate', which is published by Scribe.

"In this report: Jeff Goodell author of 'How to Cool the Planet' ..."

News of climate change continually udating at http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/news.html


Categories: global-warming, environment, climate-change

Poem: 'For a grieving family'

http://tinyurl.com/2g899oe

Categories: poetry, children, australia, death

Birth of Confucius, 551 BCE

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul27.html 551 BCE Kǒng Fūzǐ (Confucius or Kongfuzi, literal meaning: 'Teacher/Master Kong'; d. August 27, 479 BCE, traditional dates) Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced East Asian life and thought.

Today is one traditional date of birth of the Chinese sage. Another is September 28 (qv) ...



Categories: religion, asia, china

Aussie terrorism 1890s style

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul27.html 1893 Australia: Next door to William McNamara's first bookshop at 238 Castlereagh St, Sydney, Larry Petrie (Larry De Petrie; Laurence Petrie; pictured) ran a Labour Bureau to help unemployed men find work. After telling Ernie Lane he was off to blow up a non-union ship, the American anarchist booked a passage on the SS Aramac.

On board at midnight on Thursday, July 27 near the entrance to Moreton Bay, Queensland, about seven nautical miles south of Point Lookout, there was a tremendous explosion in the forecabin.

"The funny thing was" said Petrie some years later, "that the moment the bomb went off my first and only thought was to save people's lives."

Luckily, no one was killed, but two women nearby were slightly injured as a bolt of flame rose through the roof of the cabin. Petrie's presence on deck immediately afterwards, especially since the companionway was blocked with debris, aroused suspicion, his 'fake' name did also, and he was arrested as soon as the ship berthed and charged with attempted murder, but the case never went to court. The reason for this appears to be that Petrie's barrister, Marshall Lyle, a radical himself who was engaged by Arthur Rae, Ernest Lane and others to defend the American, uncovered an attempt by the police to persuade a witness to perjure himself and claim that Petrie bought explosives from him. The Attorney-General seemed to be more concerned about how it would look if all that came out, than if a crazy anarchist like Petrie was on the loose, so Petrie was released after months of half-starvation and half-torture in prison.

Some of the significance of this explosion can be seen from the uses to which it was put. The Sydney Morning Herald editorialized on August 4, 1893 that:

"… The Aramac explosion makes the eighth trouble on board ship within almost as many days. The Burrumbeet and the Sydney dynamite incidents … then came an extra-ordinary accident between the Ellingamite and the Guiding Star, the latter vessel foundering … Next the wreck … of the steamer Hilda … and the blow up of the barque Argo in Sydney Harbour are occurrences the origin of which continue to be regarded by many persons with grave misgivings; and latterly the sinking of the steamer Franklin at Townsville, and the accident to the Corea. Such a chapter of maritime disasters is probably unparalleled in Australian shipping history within the same short period."

Petrie and Knights of Labor
Scottish-born Larry Petrie (1859 - March, 1901) was a good-looking man with a big moustache who worked as a casual labourer. A co-founder of the Melbourne Anarchist Club in 1886 and the Social Democratic League in 1889. He also tried to get a Six-Hours Movement going to demand a six-hour working day, and formed a small branch of the American organisation, Knights of Labor, a Freemason-like radical sect which had been brought to Australia by WW Lyght. Henry Lawson joined, as did William Lane, George Black, WHT McNamara and others. An anarchist by temperament and persuasion, although he didn't use the term of himself, Petrie became Australian Workers' Union (AWU) Secretary-Organiser in Sydney.

At some time before the Aramac incident, Petrie lost his arm. Verity Burgmann (In Our Time: Socialism and the Rise of Labor, 1885 - 1905, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1985, p. 30) says it was so badly broken in a confrontation with a non-unionist in a shearing shed at Wagga Wagga, NSW, that it had to be amputated. Another version has it that Petrie was injured while shunting metal trucks for W Loud of Albert Park, Melbourne, and very nearly had his mangled leg amputated as well.

"(He) used to sing in a good, baritone voice 'The Marseillaise' to gather a good crowd around him … Raising his only arm when he sang 'to arms, my citizens' was always good for a laugh ... "

One day in March, 1901, while he was working as a general watchman at the railway station at Villarrica, Paraguay following his extreme disillusionment with William Lane and his New Australia disaster, Petrie jumped onto the line to push a child out of the path of an oncoming train and was himself killed. His body was claimed by another refugee from New Australia, Rose Cadogan (Rose Summerfield).

Petrie's bombing attempt at Sydney's main docks
In her old age, poet Dame Mary Gilmore told the National Times, May 6 - 11, 1974 of an earlier unsuccessful attempt of Petrie's to blow up Circular Quay, the main dock area of Sydney. No date is given, but it's probably 1892.

Petrie had left a bomb in a drain at the Quay, and some of his associates decided to remove it. While Mary Cameron (as she was before marrying William Gilmore) watched out for police, with great trepidation the diminutive Member of NSW Parliament Arthur Rae (1860 - 1943) crawled up the drain and removed the bomb, having volunteered to do so because at 5 feet tall he was the smallest person in the clandestine operation. Rae was Vice President of the AWU and one of the founders of the Australian Labor Party. In 1891 he was one of the first 36 Labor members elected to Parliament; he was later a Senator in the Australian Parliament (1910 - '14, 1918 - '35). Alongside Artie Rae and Mary at this extraordinary occurrence was Chris Watson (1867 - 1941), third Prime Minister of Australia and the first Labor PM (1904) ...



Categories: henry-lawson, terrorism, australia, labor-history, radical-history, sydney

The legend of the Seven Sleepers

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul27.html A fantastic legend: Feast day of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus: Saints Maximian, Malchus, Martinian, Dionysius, John, Serapion, and Constantine. Their feast day is July 27 in the Roman Catholic church and August 2/4 and October 22/23 in the Greek Orthodox church. Prototypes of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle.

These Christian saints were Ephesians (ie, from Ephesus in Asia Minor, or modern Turkey), walled up by Roman Emperor Decius (249 - 251) in a cave for their faith, in 250 CE. They were found by masons in 479, and were only asleep, and thought that they had been asleep only one night, instead of 229 years.
Rubbing from his eyes the sleep of more than two centuries, Malchus made his way into town to buy bread for the others, and was amazed to see crosses on buildings, for when he fell asleep Decius's Roman gods were all that could be worshipped. The bakers were amazed at the coins he offered, and thought that the young man had found treasure.

When Malchus saw them talking together, he was afraid that they might take him before the emperor, and asked to be let go, saying they could keep the strange money – and the bread. The bakers said if he would share the treasure they wouldn't tell anyone, but Malchus was so afraid he couldn't speak. The bakers tied a cord around his neck and dragged him through the city, where all the citizens abused him, saying that he had found a treasure and was keeping it secret. 

The outraged townsfolk (no doubt brandishing torches) brought him before St Martin and Antipater. Malchus reaffirmed that it was his money and he'd got it from members of his family, but, of course, his interrogators had not heard of these relatives, and asked how he could have money hundreds of years old.

The bishop Martin took Malchus up to the cave of which the youth spoke, and was amazed by the sight, six more young men yawning over their Froot Loops*, "theyr visages lyke unto roses flouryng", as a medieval chronicler wrote.

It wasn't long before the emperor came from Constantinople and saw the young saints, whose "vysages shone like to the sonne". He commanded that there be built sepulchres of gold and silver for them, but they came to him that night and asked that their bodies be allowed to lie on the earth, which he did for them … and there they died like the rest of us will. Or, so it is said.

This Christianized version of an older legend was already current in the 6th Century ...



Read on at the Seven Sleepers page in the Scriptorium

Categories: christian, saint, legend, folklore

Kabul War Diary

http://tinyurl.com/38zkfb7 Kabul War Diary: "Sunday, July 26 5pm EST. WikiLeaks today released over 75,000 secret US military reports covering the war in Afghanistan.

"The Afghan War Diary an extraordinary secret compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The reports describe the majority of lethal military actions involving the United States military. They include the number of persons internally stated to be killed, wounded, or detained during each action, together with the precise geographical location of each event, and the military units involved and major weapon systems used ..."

Categories: usa, war, afghanistan, war-on-terror, disinfo, disinformation

In defence of vaccination and medical science

Polio was a feared and fairly common disease when I was a boy, but now vaccination has taken it off the agenda. Two vaccines have eradicated polio from most countries in the world, and reduced the worldwide incidence from an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 to 1,652 cases in 2007. See http://tinyurl.com/27hqcpphttp://tinyurl.com/26eg8hj.  and

As for HIV/AIDS and "big biz", there was a disinformation campaign by the former USSR, falsely blaming the USA government for creating and spreading the disease: see http://tinyurl.com/24l9mox

No researcher who has a genuine cure for serious diseases, such as cancer, will hide remarkable scientific results, because they stand to make millions if they publish their findings, and nothing to gain if they hide them. Sinister agenda? Sure, some exist. But let's discriminate between genuine ones and mere paranoid fantasies.

Categories: health, science, disinfo, disinformation

The Westall '66 UFO

http://bit.ly/bOkcGv The bandwagon effect and how it sucks in ... suckers (in this case, a silly UFO 'sighting'):

The Westall '66 UFO

Thanx to Brian Dunning from http://skeptoid.com/, which I hope you will regularly read, listen to online and by podcast, and financially support.

Categories: ufo, australia, paranormal, skepticism

Three types of alternative people

A progressive hippie eats potatoes & has one rusty, unregistered car up on blocks on rented property. A middle-of-the-road hippie eats potatoes & has two rusty, unregistered cars on owned property. A New Age hippie eats pesto & has sold 50 acres of swamp for $200,000 to real estate developers for a shopping mall.

Categories: hippie, counter-culture, new-age

Sandy Beach sunrise

Sandy Beach sunrise
Originally uploaded by Pip_Wilson.

From near The Ponderosa, my former cabin at Sandy Beach, NSW, Australia. Fly to this location (requires Google Earth) or see where I lived at Sandy Beach on Google Maps.

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

Mikhael the Poet

Mikhael the Poet
Originally uploaded by Pip_Wilson.

We first met in Bellingen a while ago and we discovered we are both poets. I recited a poem to him, but his repertoire is much greater than mine. He says he has written thousands of poems and can recite hundreds of them. I met him again in Grafton at the 2008 Jacaranda Festival. A warm, gentle, kind and very likable bloke. And we both like Champion Ruby so he's AOK by me. A few minutes before, he said, some coppers gave him one hour to leave town or they would bash him up "for fun", and some of the people around just laughed. But Mikhael wasn't bitter. Just preparing to leave town. I guess he's used to it.

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

Quong Tart, the Chinese Scottish Aussie

1871 Australia: Mei Quong Tart (Mei Guangda; 1850 - July, 1903) became a naturalized British citizen at Braidwood, New South Wales.

At this time he was employed by the government as an official interpreter amongst the Chinese gold miners of Braidwood, Araluen and Majors Creek, and as a sometime gold miner. Born in China (Longtengli near Duanfen in southern Taishan, Guangdong province), Tart was to become a prominent and popular Sydney merchant, importer and philanthropist.

Like many Chinese people of his day, his uncle was lured to Australia by the chance of finding gold (the Gold Rush began in 1851 and continued for some decades in various forms), and nine-year-old Quong came with him. However, he made his fortune in businesses such as tea shops, and became a prominent member of Sydney society. He was well loved by his staff as he was well ahead of his times for worker benefits, giving holiday and sick leave with pay, as well as time off for shopping and family commitments.

Some of his tea rooms were used as meeting places for the suffragette activities of Louisa Lawson's Dawn Club -- tea rooms at 137 King St and 777 George St, one at the Queen Victoria Markets (called the Queen Victoria Building, or QVB, from 1898), and possibly in the George St markets (aka Paddy's Markets, near Chinatown). One of Louisa's meeting places was 43 Royal Arcade (possibly another Quong Tart establishment).

When Quong Tart came aboard a steamer from China to Australia, he learned English from Scottish crew members in the boiler room of the ship. After arrival in Australia, young Quong worked for his guardians, the well-to-do Scottish Alice Simpson family in country NSW, so he became known for his Scottish accent, the wearing of kilts and his fondness for singing songs of Robbie Burns at public functions ...



Categories: australia, china, history, biography

Facebook attains 500 million members

That means that one person in 13, men woman and children, on the entire Planet Earth, is on FB. G'day, everybody!

Categories: facebook, internet, social-networking, internet-resource

Festival of Sleipnir (Asatru commemoration)

Sleipnir is the shamanic horse that can be used to travel to various consciousness levels.

The Ásatrú (Norse religion) festival commemorates Odin's eight-legged steed, which takes the rider between the three worlds, from the upper one of the gods, Asgard, through that of our present existence, Midgard, into the ghostly underworld, Utgard.

Sleipnir's name means 'smooth' or 'gliding', hence the English word, 'slippery'. Loki the trickster, in the guise of a mare, gave birth to Sleipnir by the magical stallion, Svadilfari.

Ásatrú is an Icelandic/Old Norse term consisting of two parts: Ása (Genitive of Æsir) referring to the gods and goddesses. The faith is also referred to as Norse or Germanic Heathenry ...

Categories: asatru, mythology, viking

Father Gill and his UFO close encounter

1959 In perhaps the best documented and most celebrated UFO experience of all time, Australian missionary Father William Booth Gill and the entire staff and clients of an Anglican Mission at Boianai, in the former Australian colony of Papua-Niugini (Papua-New Guinea), saw an aerial disc-shaped object and exchanged waves with four passengers on board. The 'close encounters' carried over into the next two days.

For some time, a spate of alleged UFO sightings had been reported by numerous people around the mission, and Gill’s colleague Rev. Norman EG Cruttwell had been keeping records and interviewing witnesses, while Father Gill himself had been dubious. Even a sighting by his assistant, Stephen Gill Moi, who claimed to have seen an "inverted saucer" above the mission at 1 am on June 21, had left Gill sceptical, but the priest's doubt was not to last ...

This new sighting, with Gill present (though why the missionary's testimony should carry more weight than those of the other witnesses is rather telling) began at around 6.45 pm on June 26 and lasted several hours, with Gill later estimating that length of the craft was similar to five full moons lined up end to end. The priest and at least 38 of his fellow-villagers saw four human-like figures moving about on the top of the object, occasionally disappearing below, and reappearing soon after. Later, Father Gill wrote:

"As we watched it 'men' came out from the object and appeared on what seemed to be a deck on top of the huge disc. There were four figures in all, but only occasionally were all on view at once." ...



Categories: anomaly, ufo, australia

Uncovered: Britain's secret rendition programme

http://bit.ly/bFIzUs Uncovered: Britain's secret rendition programme - Home News, UK - The Independent: "Until now, this country has been guilty only by association in the illegal transfer of prisoners. But the covert rendition of a Moroccan man by MI5 agents suggests that the practice was central to Britain's 'war on terror' ..."

Community noticeboards

Letter submitted today to the Editor, Bellingen Shire Courier-Sun: Sir, This is a call to the council and merchants of Bellingen. Call me 'late for dinner', or call me 'Pip' (a sobriquet given to me by nurses in 1953, and has stuck, like it or not). But please don't call me 'old fashioned' when I lament Bellingen's loss of community noticeboards. At least three or four have disappeared in the past 40 months.

Noticeboards are a strong indication of a community's vitality (and increase the vitality), and we had plenty of them, but bit by bit we let them go. A visit to the wastelands of outer western suburbs of Sydney readily shows that there are virtually no community noticeboards. The residents live in places of alienation, and the more the noticeboards go, the more alienated the populace becomes.

It's true that so many of Bello's noticeboards have been removed because vandals set them alight. But are we to allow the hoons and firebugs to rule over us, or shall we use our wits to outwit them? Surely this, like all other hooligan activity in Bello, is not beyond the intelligence of local residents to overcome, or have we all given up and are happy to live in a diminishing wasteland? Let's see an uprising of noticeboards, and the firebugs prosecuted and ordered to make amends to the rest of us who want community.

Likewise, North Bellingen has now lost its post box because of vandal firebugs. (Drunken children, I suspect, but can't verify.) It's a 1.2-km return walk to town from Dowle Street just to post a letter. Is it too hard for Australia Post to gather together a few lonely, bureaucratized brain cells to invent a fire-proof post box in order to service the northside? Is it too hard for Bellingen merchants to get fire-proof noticeboards gracing our beloved community again?

Yours sincerely,
Pip Wilson, Bellingen



Categories: bellingen, community

No-dig garden in fallow for winter

No-dig garden in fallow for winter
Originally uploaded by Pip_Wilson.

http://bit.ly/a88vrK We're not planting a 2010 winter crop in the no-dig garden. We've put down flattened cardboard boxes and covered them with deep mulch, mainly lawnmower clippings which include grass and leaves. (Thanx, Joe, the local lawnmowing bloke.) After the frosts, about 6 weeks from now, spring planting will commence.

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

The day Bob Dylan was booed off stage

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul25.html 1965 Crowds booed Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival when they played 'Maggie's Farm' backed by electric guitars (Paul Butterfield's band).

Dylan was dressed like a rocker with a black leather jacket, and it was all too much for the traditionally-minded folkies. Some in the audience yelled "Sellout!" and Pete Seeger later said he was "ready to chop the microphone cord". The day is now recognised as a major turning point in the world of both Folk and Rock, and the birth of Folk-Rock.

Dylan left the stage as a result of the booing, but was persuaded by Joan Baez to return to the stage. He sang two songs, 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue', clearly a farewell to the 'traditional folkies' who had booed him offstage, and 'Mister Tambourine Man', which was to become a hit for The Byrds, and left Newport, not to return until 2002, when he was welcomed back with open arms ...

Categories: dylan, folk-music, music, rock-music

How US told Hussein he may invade Kuwait

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul25.html 1990 April Glaspie, the American ambassador to Iraq during the administration of President George HW Bush, gave Saddam Hussein America's go-ahead to invade Kuwait, and Hussein smiled.

The exchange was reported in the New York Times of September 23, 1990.

US Ambassador Glaspie: I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (Pause) As you know, I lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (Pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your threat s against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship – not confrontation – regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait’s borders?

Saddam Hussein: As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only this one more brief chance. (Pause) When we (the Iraqis) meet (with the Kuwaitis) and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death.

Glaspie: What solutions would be acceptable?

Hussein: If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab – our strategic goal in our war with Iran – we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But, if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (i.e., in Saddam's view, including Kuwait ) then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (Pause) What is the United States' opinion on this?

Glaspie: We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. (Saddam smiles.)



Categories: usa, saddam-hussein, iraq, war-on-terror

The Pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul25.html At Galicia, Spain, probably the world's greatest pilgrimage

The city of Santiago de Compostela became the seat of St James the Great (whose feast day this is), from the legend of his body having been miraculously translated there.

When his relics were being conveyed from Jerusalem, where he died, to Spain, in a ship of marble, the horse of a Portuguese knight plunged into the sea with its rider. When rescued, the knight's clothes were found to be covered with scallop shells.

It might be that the use of the scallop device derives from the pilgrims' using shells as primitive cups and spoons, or it might derive from the earlier Roman festival of the sea god and goddess, Neptune and Salacia (July 23, qv). Pilgrims to the shrine wore, and often still wear, a scallop shell on cloak or hat ...

The pilgrimage to Compostela became almost as popular and important in medieval Europe as that to Jerusalem. Because of this, seventeen English peers and eight baronets have scallop shells in their arms as heraldic charges. Note that it is not only in Europe that scallops and pilgrimages go together. In 19th-Century Japan, too, certain pilgrims adorned themselves with scallop shells.

The pilgrimage, known as the Camino (Camino de Santiago or Way of St James), is as popular today as it was in the Middle Ages. Tens of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world, not all of them Roman Catholic, make the journey on foot. The pilgrimage, probably the most famous on the planet, goes for about 900 kilometres, from France to Spain, and takes about a month ...



Categories: saint, calendar-customs, spain, pilgrimage

Hermits of the world, disunite!

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul24.html 1216 Death in Kyoto, Japan, of Kamo no Chōmei (b. 1155), Japanese author, poet (waka) and essayist, critic of Japanese vernacular poetry and major figure of Japanese poetics. Born Kamo no Nagaakira born into a family of Shinto priests in Kyoto, he began his career as a poet at the imperial court poet. In the closing years of his life, having seen Kyoto devastated by earthquake and fire, he attempted a reclusive lifestyle, writing, among other works, Hojoki, a description of his life in a hut, rather in the manner of Henry David Thoreau's Walden.

"Now the moon of my life has reached its last phase and my remaining years draw near to their close. When I soon approach the Three Ways of the Hereafter what shall I have to regret? The law of Buddha teaches that we should shun all clinging to the world of phenomena, so that the affection I have for this thatched hut is in some sort a sin, and my attachment to this solitary life may be a hindrance to enlightenment. Thus I have been babbling, it may be, of useless pleasures, and spending my precious hours in vain.

"In the still hours of the dawn I think of these things, and to myself I put these questions: Thus to forsake the world and dwell in the woods, has it been to discipline my mind and practise the law of Buddha or not? Have I put on the form of a recluse while yet my heart has remained impure? … Is this poverty of mine but the retribution for the offences of a past existence, and do the desires of an impure heart still arise to hinder my enlightenment? And in my heart there is no answer. The most I can do is to murmur two or three times a perchance unavailing invocation to Buddha."
Kamo no Chōmei, Japanese poet, died on July 24, 1216

Categories: japan, poet, philosophy

Feast day of St Christina of Bolsena

Any reader who has incurred the wrath of a father will relate to this saint, as will anyone who has been thrown into a furnace for five days, had their tongue cut out and been rescued by angels.


Christina lived in the 3rd century, probably at Rome and was martyred c.250. Her father, Urban (Urbanus), a devout pagan, had a number of golden idols. Oddly defying the Fifth Commandment, eleven-year-old Christina broke them, then distributed the pieces among the poor. Infuriated by this pre-adolescent petulance, father became the persecutor of his own daughter, having her beaten with sticks and thrown into a dungeon -- reasonable enough so far, I hear you say ...



Categories: christianity, saint, calendar-customs

Alexandre Dumas, the Elder

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jul24.html 1802 Alexandre Dumas pere (Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie; d. December 5, 1870), French novelist and dramatist (The Three Musketeers; The Count of Monte Cristo; The Man in the Iron Mask; The Black Tulip). His stories have been translated into almost a hundred languages, and have inspired more than 200 motion pictures.


As Dumas employed a large contingent of ghost writers for his formula novels, it has been said, "nobody has read everything of Dumas, not even Dumas himself" ...

Categories: france, biography, literature