Graeme Dunstan, dedicated peace and environment activist

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug4.html 1942 Graeme Dunstan, prominent Australian organizer of festivals and celebrations, and activist for environmental, political and peace issues. He is an an alumnus of Duntroon Military College and a graduate of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where he was President of the Students' Union and co-editor of its newspaper, Tharunka.

In 1966, while President of the UNSW Labor Club, he was active in organizing anti-Vietnam War protests. As organizer of the LBJ Welcome Committee he stopped US President Lyndon Johnson's motorcade in Liverpool Street, Sydney, by lying in front of the president's car, upon which NSW Premier Robert Askin famously said "run over the bastards".

In 1973 with Johnny Allen as director of the Aquarius Foundation of the Australian Union of Students and Dunstan, as director of the Foundation's biennial Aquarius Festival, together they produced the Aquarius Festival which took place in Nimbin, New South Wales.

Dunstan was the first community arts officer (1981 - '85) employed by the City of Campbelltown and in that role set up the Friends of the Campbelltown Art Gallery which lobbied successfully to found the Campbelltown Regional Art Gallery.

In 1985-89 he was a Festivals Consultant to the Victorian Tourism Commission and in that role he was one of the initiators the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Ltd serving as its founding Secretary In 1987.

As a freelance event organizer, Dunstan founded the Lismore Lantern Festival in 1992-3 and produced other innovative celebrations including the Byron Bay NYE (1995), Bondi Beach Christmas and NYE celebration 1996, Nimbin 'Let It Grow' Mardi Grass (1998 - '99), the Sunshine Coast Schoolies Week (1997), the annual Eureka Dawn Walk (1998-) and the annual Independence from America Day Parade in Byron Bay (1998-).

He is presently captain of http://www.Peacebus.com which is both a website and a campaign vehicle from which he organizes Cyanide Watch and other actions of witness for peace, justice and a sustaining Earth ...

Pictured: Graeme at my place shortly before I was his honoured lieutenant at the Ghostdance at APEC http://wilsonsalmanac.blogspot.com/search?q=ghostdance

Categories: activist, australia, peace

'Mad Shelley'

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug4.html 1792 Percy Bysshe Shelley ('Mad Shelley'; d. 1822), English poet. Percy Shelley started life in a favoured position in British society, as his father was a baronet. At Sion House Academy the lad was a hell raiser, and he was expelled from Oxford for a booklet he wrote urging "the necessity of atheism", whereupon his father cut off his money. Shelley then lived on secret remittances from his sisters.

The young poet had such an active imagination that, although he detested falsehood, he could not give the same account of an event to two people.

After eloping to Scotland with Harriet Westbrook he became interested in the ideas of the radical/anarchist philosopher William Godwin. He began to visit Godwin's house and fell in love with Mary Godwin (later called Mary Shelley), the sixteen-year-old daughter of Godwin by his first wife, the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, who had written A Vindication of the Rights of Women and had died eight days after Mary's birth in 1797. (Mary wrote Frankenstein while with her husband, Lord Byron and others in Switzerland.)

Shelley drowned in a squall (July 8, 1822) while on a boat with his friend Captain Williams on the Bay of Spezzia, Italy. Byron, Leigh Hunt and Trelawny burned his body as required by quarantine law ...

Categories: uk, english-poetry, poetry, history, biography

Loch-mo-Naire pilgrimage, and the serpent

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug4.html We discussed in the Book of Days on August 1 how Lughnasadh (Lammastide) was for Celtic people and others in Europe a time for visiting healing wells and springs. Today we look at an ancient healing waters custom from Scotland that was practised annually on August 4, leading one to postulate (do you like that? "leading one to postulate") that it was a Lammas commemoration. Its rites contain actions that remind one not only of Celtic practices, but also the Christian sacrament of baptism.

Loch-mo-Naire, a lake in Strathnavon, Sutherlandshire, famous for its supposed miraculous healing qualities, was a site of pilgrimage for the lame, sick, impotent, and mentally ill. At midnight, these faithful unfortunates would gather on the shore of the loch to drink from its sanative waters, strip naked, and walk backwards into the loch. After immersing themselves three times, they would throw offerings of silver coins into the depths.

An old tradition informs us how the loch obtained its wondrous qualities and its name. Long, long ago, an old woman had somehow come to own some bright crystals, which, when placed in water, had miraculous powers of rendering the liquid an infallible cure for all "the ills to which flesh is heir". As the fame of these wonder-working pebbles soon spread far and wide, it soon attracted the greed of a member of the neighbouring Gordon clan, who made up his mind to secure the miraculous crystals for the Gordons' exclusive use.

To this end, Gordon feigned sickness, but the moment he presented himself to the crone, she divined his intention and fled. Escape, however, was impossible, because she was old and her pursuer had youth and swiftness on his side ...



Categories: folklore, calendar-customs, scotland, dragon, legend

GetUp launches TV ad as Abbott delays paid parental leave

http://bit.ly/blhwzh "After parodying Julia Gillard's climate policy in a TV ad earlier this month, GetUp, an independent Australian advocacy organisation, has turned its attention to Tony Abbott in a new commercial featuring the Coalition leader's statements about abortion, the cervical cancer vaccine and the role of women in society.

"'Tony Abbott said that politicians are going to be judged on everything they say.' Australian women are judging his comments and they're justifiably concerned about the stance he would take on issues like abortion and women's health were he Prime Minister,' said GetUp National Director Simon Sheikh.

"'From counselling against the vaccination for cervical cancer as Health Minister, to calling abortion a matter of a woman's "convenience", Tony Abbott has consistently taken stands that show a lack of respect for issues that affect Australian women and matter to them most.'

"'Tony Abbott's paid parental leave policy was the one issue that Australians supported, and even that is now being delayed and weakened in the interests of big business,' Mr Sheikh said.

"New poll results released today by GetUp indicate that Mr Abbott's stance on women's health issues are influencing the views of Australian women. An Auspoll survey found that his opposition to safe non-surgical abortion medication and to the over-the-counter availability of emergency contraception has a negative impact on the opinions of one in two female voters ..."



Categories: women, australia, media, conservative, action, activism

Bello Bards in another triumph

I have it on good authority (as yet to be confirmed), that not only did Bello Bards http://bellobards.blogspot.com/ poet, Elizabeth Routledge, win the cup of the prestigious Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup http://www.nimbinpoetry.com, but also my mate, Craig Nelson, won the People's Choice Award. Our little village of Bellingen has many poets of esteem and talent, and our contingent said "Look out, Nimbin, the Bello Bards are coming this year!" Well done to all who performed, and congratulations to those Bellingen poets whose talents were acclaimed and rewarded.



Categories: bellingen, poetry

Australian Prime Minister was an occultist

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug3.html 1856 Alfred Deakin (d. October 7, 1919), Australian lawyer, occultist, journalist and politician, a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later second Prime Minister of Australia; he held that post three times between 1903 and 1910.

He was active in the Australian Natives Association and was also a lifelong spiritualist, with associations with the Theosophical Society. In 1900 Deakin travelled to London to oversee the passage of the federation bill through the Imperial Parliament, and took part in the negotiations with Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, which nearly derailed the whole process. In 1901 he was elected to the first federal Parliament as MP for Ballarat, and became Attorney-General in the ministry headed by Edmund Barton. Nicknamed 'Affable Alfred' by those of his contemporaries who liked him, he is regarded as a founding father by the modern Liberal Party.

Deakin was a devout believer in the occult, believing that he was channelling John Bunyan as he wrote A New Pilgrim's Progress. He married Elizabeth Martha Anne Browne (Pattie Browne), daughter of Hugh Junor Browne, a prominent and wealthy spiritualist on April 3, 1882 ...



Categories: australia, history, biography, occult, theosophy

Irish rebel, Aussie convict, US war hero

Thomas Francis Meagher http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug3.html 1823 It has well been said that one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. This is the story of an Irishman, Thomas Meagher, who was almost hanged and his body chopped into four pieces by the British government, for his 'terrorist' leanings, and who went on to become Governor of Montana, USA. His fellow 'terrorists' also had remarkable careers – but more of them in just a minute.

This day saw the birth of Thomas Francis Meagher, Irish nationalist, and later transported convict, escapee, American Civil War general, and Governor of Montana.

In the 1840s, at the time of the great Irish famine, a party of radical Irish nationalists called the 'Young Irelanders' wrote articles in The Nation and The United Irishman newspapers arguing that the Irish people, if they had an Irish Parliament, could better deal with An Gorta Mor ('the great hunger'), than could British parliamentarians sitting in London so removed from the Irish peasants dying by the hundreds of thousands.

One of the Young Irelanders who came to prominence, at a young age, was Thomas Meagher. Educated in Jesuit colleges, allowing him to receive a better education than most Catholics at the time, Meagher left college in 1843 with a reputation as a great patriot and orator. He took his fervour and oratorical ability to the Loyal National Repeal Association, the nationalist party of 'the Great Liberator', the elderly Daniel O'Connell. However, Meagher was of an impetuous nature and O'Connell's devotion to non-violence could not keep Meagher in O'Connell's ranks. The Young Irelanders had no such reservations about the use of force, and in 1848 Meagher, aged only 23, gave a firebrand speech that earned him the nickname 'Meagher of the Sword'.

Abhor the sword – stigmatize the sword? No, my lord, for at its blow, a giant nation was started across the waters of the Atlantic, … the crippled colony sprang into the attitude of a proud Republic – prosperous, limitless, and invincible!

It must have taken tremendous political, and physical courage for a youth to stand before hundreds of O'Connell's supporters and so defy the great man. Young Meagher's eloquence drew great attention to his cause, and many Irish were stirred by his words.

On April 15, 1848, Meagher presented the tricolor national flag of Ireland to the public for the first time at a meeting of the Young Irelander Party. Earlier that year – the year of revolutions in Europe, he had travelled to Paris with a YI delegation. Inspired by the tricolor French flag, he came up with similar design for the Irish flag, with orange, white and green stripes. The colours symbolized the uniting of the two traditions, Protestant orange, and Catholic green, in one new nation. In 1916, Meagher's flag was revived by the Irish Volunteers, who were Irish soldiers in the American Civil War, and later adopted by Sinn Fein. Today, it is the flag of the Republic of Ireland, though Meagher's version had the orange stripe closest to the staff, while the modern version has the green stripe in that position ...



Categories: ireland, australia, history, biography

Congratulations, Liz Routledge

http://bellobards.blogspot.com/ Congratulations to Bello Bard, Elizabeth Routledge, for bringing home to Bellingen the Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup! We, the Bello Bards, are a small troupe of poets who take poetry seriously, and work hard at doing it well. Liz's feat is well worth commending. She has talent in writing and in presentation. I dips me lid to her.



Categories: poetry, australia, bellingen, nimbin

Department store faces $37 million misconduct suit

Boy, what was wrong with me? I could be rich now. It never occurred to me to sue for
$37, let alone $37 MILLION http://bit.ly/9NNwxK, when a repulsive woman in my office often sexually harassed me.

Hacker shows how he can intercept cell phone calls with $1,500 device (video)

http://tinyurl.com/2f6xu7e "A security researcher showed in a live demo today how he can intercept cell phone calls on 80 percent of the world’s phones with just about $1,500 worth of equipment.

"Chris Paget, who also showed yesterday how he can hack into radio frequency identification tags (RFID) from a distance, created a fake cell phone tower, or Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) base station. GSM is the protocol for 80 percent of the world's phones and is used by T-Mobile and AT&T in the U.S. The demo was not, Paget said, a malicious attack in any way.

"Military and intelligence agencies can intercept cell phone calls with their wiretapping technology. But Paget simply wanted to show how vulnerable the cell phone network is and how hackers could intercept calls for a small amount of money. He used a couple of large antennae (pictured with Paget) and a laptop with some other equipment."



Categories: technology, phone, hacking, military

Wild Bill Hickok and the Dead Man's Hand

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug2.html 1876 USA: Wild Bill Hickok (James Hickok; James Butler Hickok), US Marshal and fastest gun in the west, was shot in the back by Jack McCall while playing poker in the Deadwood Saloon, Deadwood, South Dakota. McCall was later tried and hanged on March 1, 1877.

On July 21, 1865, in the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Hickok shot Dave Tutt dead in what is regarded as the first true western showdown.

The Dead Man's Hand
The hand that Hickok held at the time he was shot was a pair of eights and a pair of aces. In poker, the hand later became known as the 'dead man's hand' ...



Categories: crime, usa, history, biography

The day we took a stand about rumours of war

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug2.html 2002 Wilson's Almanac ezine No 650 posted the following notice to members (and the ezine's fast-rising membership started to plummet):

"The government of my country, Australia, and several others apparently, are planning an invasion of Iraq.

"A decade ago a coalition of nations did the same thing, and a suborned media had most of us believing that very few human beings were being killed.

"Today we know that perhaps 200,000 Iraqis were killed and God knows how many live with broken and burned bodies.

"Mr Howard, Mr Bush: we don't need your stinking war.

"War is obsolete. We expect our 'leaders' to spend more money on searching for other solutions."

Categories: iraq, war, bush, howard, usa, war-on-terror

Elisha Gray missed phone patent by two hours

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug2.html 1835 Elisha Gray (d. January 21, 1901), American electrician who invented the telephone in his laboratory in Highland Park, Illinois, independently of and at around the same time as Alexander Graham Bell.

Gray was a charter member of the Highland Park Presbyterian Church and gave the first public demonstration of his invention in its sanctuary in 1874. On February 14, 1876, he submitted an announcement to the patent office, but it turned out to be just two hours after Bell did.

Although Bell did not have a working prototype, and the device described in his patent did not work, after two years of litigation he was awarded rights to the invention, and thus is usually credited as the inventor ...



Categories: invention, biography, history, technology

Was King William Rufus a pagan sacrifice?

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug2.html 1100 England’s King William Rufus (William II of England; b. c. 1056) was killed when shot through the chest by an arrow while hunting.

Was William a pagan sacrifice?
The Celts celebrate the main part of the festival of Lughnasadh from sunset on August 1 until sunset on August 2. On August 2, 1100 English King William Rufus was killed when shot through the chest by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest. Rufus ('the Red') was a son of William the Conqueror, and his elder brother, Richard, had also died in the New Forest. Rumours probably abounded that Richard and Rufus were victims of heathen ill will, for William the Conqueror had expelled the dwellers of the New Forest ...



Categories: calendar-customs, pagan, england, monarchy

Absolute proof of the power of prayer

Russia's heatwave http://bit.ly/bPc1TF has had the highest temperatures ever recorded in that country and hundreds have died (in drownings and forest fires) in conditions in which Australians and half the world's population are familiar. The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church has asked his countrymen to pray for rain. I predict that it will rain, and wager $1,000 on it, such is my faith in the power of prayer.

Categories: superstition, religion, christianity, russia

George Taylor, world aviation pioneer, Henry Lawson's mate

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug1.html 1872 George Taylor (George Augustine Taylor; d. January 20, 1928), Australian architect, engineer, editor of The Builder and a pioneer of commercial aviation, who flew a glider in the first heavier-than-aircraft flight on the continent of Australia. This he did, with his wife Florence Taylor, Australia's first female architect, on the same day, at Narrabeen, a northern beach suburb of Sydney, on December 5, 1909. (Harry Houdini flew the first machine-powered flight in Australia four months later on March 18, 1910.)

The glider they flew in was based on the box-kite constructions invented by world aviation pioneer Lawrence Hargrave, another New South Welshman ...

Taylor was a drinking mate of the writer Henry Lawson (1867 - 1922). They were both members of a drinking fraternity called the 'Dawn and Dusk Club', centred around the Bulletin group of artists and writers ...

Categories: australia, aviation, henry-lawson, history, biography

August origins and folklore

August is the eighth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. August begins (astrologically) with the sun in the sign of Leo and ends in the sign of Virgo. Astronomically speaking, the sun begins in the constellation of Cancer and ends in the constellation of Leo.

August was named in honour of Augustus Caesar (Octavian). The month reputedly has 31 days because Augustus wanted as many days as Julius Caesar's July. Augustus placed the month where it is because that is when Cleopatra died. Before Augustus renamed August in 8 BCE, it was called Sextilis in Latin, since it was the sixth month in the Roman calendar which started in March.

In Brazil, folk superstition associates bad luck to August, with the proverb 'Agosto, o mês do desgosto' ('August, the month of misfortune') being often heard. This may come from the sinister memories of the St Bartholomew's day (August 24), which is particularly dreaded in the North-east of the country ...

The Anglo-Saxons called it "Arnmonat, (more rightly barn-moneth,) intending thereby the then filling of their barnes with corne" (Verstegan). Arn is the Saxon word for 'harvest'. According to some they also called it 'Woedmonath', as they also called June ...

The eighth was August, being rich array'd
In garment all of gold downe to the ground
Yet rode he not, but led a lovely mayd
Forth by the lily hand, the which was crown'd
With ears of corne, and full her hand was found.
That was the righteous Virgin, which of old
Liv'd here on earth, and plenty made abound;
But after wrong was lov'd, and justice solde,
She left th'unrighteous world, and was to heav'n extolled.
Edmund Spenser (c. 1552 - January 13, 1599), English poet; 'Faerie Queen, The Cantos of Mutabilitie'



Categories: month, calendar, calendar-customs, lammas, season, folklore

Lughnasadh, or Lammas a Cross-Quarter Day of the year

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug1.html Lá Lúnasa, the traditional first day of autumn in Ireland.

The modern date for Lughnasadh, as for the other great Celtic festivals, Imbolc, Beltane and Samhain, is only an approximation made necessary by a solar calendar. In Ireland, the festival began in mid-July, and lasted till mid-August, but its main focus was August 1. In the (Ásatrú) (Asatru) tradition, that day is sacred to the Norse deities Odin and Frigg; celebrants used to ascend the spiral path of the Lammas hill, on way to Lammas festivities ...



Categories: lammas, celtic, calendar-customs

Middle Head protest, 1980

I hope the photographer doesn't mind me using this photo. In 1980 my co-editor and I put it on the the cover of 'Maggie's Farm' magazine. It exemplified the months-long battle of Middle Head, a small, pristine beach on the Mid-North Coast of NSW. Hundreds of environmentalists dug in, formed a large camp, and tried to stop Middle Head Beach from having its frontal dune forest bulldozed, in search of rutile (titanium oxide). The 'greens' created kitchens, laundries, even a school. The cops and the workers opposed 'the hippies', week after week. Eventually the ancient forest was stripped bare by big bulldozers. About six months later, the TNC (transnational corporation), Mineral Deposits (a subsidiary of Utah (Australia), closely linked to Utah International and General Electric (the USA military contractor), said there was insufficient titanium there -- closed the operation and fired the same workers who had so opposed us. It was a lost battle which many of us who sat in front of bulldozers will never forget. In 2005 we gathered there for a 25th anniversary reunion.

Gumbainjiri people tradionally believe that the world was created at Middle Head. In a letter to the NSW Premier months earlier, the Aboriginal Elders had stated "We, the people of the Gumbainjiri Tribal Elders Council, are not happy with the mining at Middle Head Beach. This area is part of the sacred tribal lands, and for the Gumbainjiri and Dunghatti tribes, it is our birthplace. It is vitally important that this entire section of beach be preserved with the headland for us to retain our cultural heritage." 

See also http://bit.ly/an5GVV and http://sandybeachalmanac.blogspot.com/2005/03/1980-massacree.html

This is a must-read: http://www.iancohen.org.au/uploaded/ic_552008192730729.pdf



Categories: action, activism, military, transnational, corporation, TNC, environment, beach, forest, australia