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The Blogmanac: "On This Day" ... and much more
Think universally. Act terrestrially.
For in a hard-working society, it is rare and even subversive to celebrate too much, to revel and keep on reveling: to stop whatever you're doing and rave, pray, throw things, go into trances, jump over bonfires, drape yourself in flowers, stay up all night, and scoop the froth from the sea.
Anneli Rufus*
*Ø* Blogmanac | Tiny IDs can track almost anything "Computer chips the size of grains of sand have become the latest trend among manufacturers seeking to track everything from automobiles to underwear to razor blades."
I don't normally like to refer to the Washingtoon Times, which is owned by the Moonies ... but this story is interesting.
" ... some privacy advocates, who fear the Big Brother technology attached to clothing will follow customers out of the store and be used to track people through the items they purchase."
*Ø* Blogmanac | Shelf of books for poor villages Years ago an appropriate technology (AT) organisation called TRANET, run by Bill Ellis and Margaret Ellis from Rangely, ME, USA, used to raise money for a "shelf of books". They would send a stack of 100 books free of charge to poor villages in poor countries, and they were on things like permaculture and AT.
Bill's moved onto other work with Creating Learning Communities and tells me the TRANET work is kind of on the back burner. But it was a brilliant project, one I'd like to see cranked up again. It's long been a dream of mine to help this happen and maybe through sponsorships, the Almanac will be a catalyst. I figure that by planting this seed here something might happen.
*Ø* Blogmanac | New site gathers weather knowledge of Aussie indigenous people
Good to see that the Australian Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology has initiated a project to gather weather lore of Australian Aboriginal people. While probably driven by economic motives, the project will nonetheless enrich our understanding of this island continent, and it's also an almanackist's delight. The database is unfortunately very small as yet, so I wish the researchers well and look forward to watching it grow. I've placed a more or less permanent link in the links column at left for those interested in weather lore, Australia, indigenous peoples and so on.
Click thumbnail for climatic map of Australia
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“Australia’s climate is diverse. Monsoon tropics, desert, savanna, alpine and temperate regions can all be found in various locations. The sheer diversity of ecological zones negates the concept of a rigid European seasonal calendar for the entire continent. The Aboriginal people of Australia inhabited distinct regions that were usually concordant with geographical and ecological regions. An intimate knowledge of the environment was paramount for survival and the resulting meteorological view of the Aboriginal people is one of great diversity, where the nomenclature of the seasons is often dependant on localised events or resources.
The ability to link events in the natural world to a cycle that permitted the prediction of seasonal events was a key factor in their success. These natural barometers were not uniform across the land but instead used the reaction of plants and animals to gauge what was happening in the environment.
The presences of march flies, for example, was an indication to the Gadgerong people that crocodile eggs could be found, to look for native honey, and it was approaching the late dry season.
As a result of all this, seasonal cycles as described by the various Aboriginal peoples differ substantially according to location.
This produces a far more intricate and subtle overview of Australia’s climate than the 4-season European climate description of Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring, applied as it is across most areas of the continent.” Source
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Flying foxes move from the inland bush to the rivers during the dry season and nest in the pandanus palm trees. When this happens the onset of rains is imminent. (Yarralin area of the Northern Territory)
In the dry season, the migratory return of the brolga means that the river catfish will again become active, which in turn means that the river will soon fill with the return of the rains. (Yarralin area of the Northern Territory)
White breasted wood swallows are only found together with mudlarks for two short periods each year. These occasions signal the beginnings of the wet and dry seasons. (Northeast Arnhem Land area)
The flowering of the rough barked gum and the bunch spear grass is a sign that the winds will soon blow from the southeast and the Dry Season will arrive. (Kakadu area)
The appearance of the plover is associated with the onset of rain over many areas of central Australia. (Southwest Simpson Desert area)
*Ø* Blogmanac | June 13-15 | Lesser Quinquatrus of Minerva, ancient Rome, kalends of June
Second day: Day of Meditation on the Salvation of all Beings Known as the Quinquatrus Minusculae or Quinquatrus Minores, this minor festival was celebrated on the Ides of June. The tibicines went through the city in procession to the temple of Jupiter’s daughter, Minerva, goddess of thoughts, wisdom and war. The tibicines (singular form tibicen) or Tibia players were one of the oldest professional music organizations in Rome and the musicians of the state religion. They played a flute, or bone pipe, an instrument with three to four holes made from bone that eventually evolved into a double pipe of silver, ivory, or boxwood. The tibicines celebrated their own annual festival on the day of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.
*Ø* Blogmanac | June 14 1964 | "You're either on the bus or you're not on the bus" (Kesey)
American author (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) Ken Kesey (Sep 7, 1935-Nov 10, 2001) and his band of Merry Pranksters, including Ken Babbs and Neal Cassady at the wheel, left Perry Lane in Furthur, their psychedelic 1939 International Harvester school bus, and began their legendary cross-country bus trip to the 1964 World's Fair in New York.
There they attended a publication party for Kesey's new novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, checked out the World's Fair, and paid a visit to Timothy Leary and his associates at the Millbrook estate of William Hitchcock.
They arrived in New York City in mid-July 1964 and were introduced to Jack Kerouac at a fateful party. Details of the trip came to be chronicled by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
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Some quotes by Kesey The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer-- they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.
Take what you can use and let the rest go by.
People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense.
Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.
You can't really be strong until you see a funny side to things.
You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
When you don’t know where you’re going, you have to stick together just in case someone gets there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Nude comic scares shark to death? "Was shark killed by nude comic?" asks the Daily Mail. There is no doubt about it in the minds of the staff of the Brighton Sea Life Centre, who blame the sudden death of their 12-year-old smooth hound shark on Guy Venables.
Mr. Venables apparently removed his clothes and jumped into the tank in an effort to promote his show at a local nightclub. Two days later, the shark suffered an unexpected haemorrhage. An autopsy is being carried out to try to ascertain whether the shock of encountering Mr. Venables unclothed was the cause.
"I do feel remorse about the whole thing," Mr Venables, who has visited the aquarium again to apologise to staff, told the Mail. "It is sad that something has died, and we will have to wait and see what happens next."
"In some way I am quite flattered in that I have managed to scare a shark to death," he added.
The Telegraph rather spoils things by pointing out that the creature, which belonged to a sub-species that would never have passed an audition for Jaws, was only three feet long.
Coincidences ... Anyone interested? I had a cool coincidence happen to me a few weeks ago and I looked for a website where they can be blogged, or a message board-style thing. I found one, but it wasn't really much good. I thought maybe of starting one up. What do people think?
Maybe there is a good site already doing this ... I don't want to reinvent the wheel (been there, done that and it sunk before I got the fuse fully painted), so maybe leave a message here if you know of one. Or if you want to give me any feedback. Ta.
"When [William] Burroughs was in Tangiers, he knew a Captain Clark who ran a ferry over to Spain. One day, Clark told Burroughs that he had been doing the route for 23 years without an accident. That day, the ferry sank . . .that evening, while Burroughs was thinking about the incident, a radio bulletin announced the crash of Flight 23 on the New York-Miami route. The pilot was another Captain Clark! " Read on at Disinfo
But once on a Friday ('tis ever they say), A day when misfortune is aptest to fall. Saxe: Good Dog of Bretté, stanza 3
Sir Winston Churchill might have said, “Friday is my lucky day. I was born, christened, married, and knighted on that day; and all my best accidents have befallen me on a Friday”, Scots might prefer Friday for marriage, and Scandinavians might tend to see Friday as lucky, but in the traditions of most European countries, Friday is the unlucky day. When Friday falls on the 13th of the month, as is well known, the day is said to be especially unlucky and articles like these appear all over the Net and in the media, particularly if not much news is about.
The number 13 has long been considered by superstitious Westerners to be unlucky. Even today, many towns and suburbs don’t have 13 as a street number, or 13th Street, and most hotels do not have rooms with 13 on the door. Many tall buildings do not have a 13th storey, with the elevator going straight from Floor 12 to 14.
There are numerous origins given for the persistent superstition that in the West, Friday the 13th is an unlucky day. The most likely of these is that Jesus Christ was killed on a Friday, and that Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed him, was the thirteenth person of Jesus and the 12 apostles.
Just as tridecaphobia (Hyper Dictionary prefers triskaidekaphobia) is purportedly the official name for the morbid fear of the number 13, so various other fanciful terms are given by different commentators for the phobia associated with Friday the 13th, including paraskevidekatriaphobia and friggatriskaidekaphobia, though one suspects these were invented by journalists on slow news days. In Australia, where people are not too bright and will bet on two flies crawling up a wall, the New South Wales State Lotteries report that Friday the 13th is always one of their biggest days, with turnover about 50 per cent up. Eric W Weisstein, by the way, shows that Friday is slightly more likely than any of the days of the week to fall on a Friday. Frigg's day In ancient Rome Friday was known as dies Veneris, the day dedicated to Venus, hence the French vendredi. In the northern nations, the sixth day of the week was named (perhaps in imitation of the Roman custom) for the goddess Frigg, or Freya, mother of Balder; in Old English it was called Frig-daeg.
Friday begins the Sabbath for both Muslims Jews, and Muslims say that Adam was created on a Friday and it was on Friday that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and on a Friday they died. According to Biblical lore, Noah’s Great Flood began on a Friday and the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on the sixth day of the week. We have already mentioned Judas and the crucifixion of Christ; this has a parallel in the old ‘pagan’ religion of the North: twelve gods were invited to a banquet at Valhalla. Loki, the trickster deity, was excluded, but he came anyway and the guests now numbered 13. Loki killed the god Balder at the banquet by tricking Balder's blind twin brother Hod into throwing a mistletoe fig (dart) at the god.
The doomed Apollo 13 space mission brought the unlucky number to the forefront of the media. Apollo 13 was launched at 1313 hours (USA Central Time), from pad 39 (3 X 13) and was aborted on April 13, 1970. It is worth noting that there are 13 moons and 13 menstrual cycles in a year.
Although the Friday 13 superstition is older than the 14th century, there exists a theory that it derives from Friday, October 13, 1307, when France’s King Philip IV (le Bel, or ‘the good-looking’) had all the Knights Templar in France arrested, accused of heresy and tortured into making confessions. It is unlikely, but interesting in its way.
Be that as it may, my favourite story associated with unlucky Friday (whether the 13th or not), is repeated widely around the Net, but seemingly without substantiation. One website puts it thus, and I leave it with you to ponder:
“Sailors were particularly superstitious … often refusing to ship out to sea on a Friday. According to legend, in the 18th century, the British Navy commissioned a ship called the H.M.S. Friday in order to quell the superstition. The navy selected the crew on a Friday, launched the ship on a Friday and even selected a man named James Friday as the ship's captain. Then, one Friday morning, the ship set off on its maiden voyage – and disappeared forever.”
If I find out if there’s any truth in it, I’ll tell you next Friday the 13th when I, like the rest of the 'experts', trot out the stock article.
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
*Ø* Blogmanac | US Bullyboy "Diplomacy" -- plays aid card to fix war crimes exemption The US is turning up the heat on the countries of the Balkans and eastern Europe to secure war crimes immunity deals for Americans and exemptions from the year-old international criminal court.
In an exercise in brute diplomacy which is causing more acute friction with the European Union following the rows over Iraq, the US administration is threatening to cut off tens of millions of dollars in aid to the countries of the Balkans unless they reach bilateral agreements with the US on the ICC by the end of this month.
The American campaign, which is having mixed results, is creating bitterness and cynicism in the countries being intimidated, particularly in the successor states of former Yugoslavia which perpetrated and suffered the worst war crimes seen in Europe since the Nazis. They are all under intense international pressure, not least from the Americans, to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia in the Hague.
"Blatant hypocrisy," said Human Rights Watch in New York of the US policy towards former Yugoslavia.
Washington is vehemently opposed to the permanent international criminal court, arguing that US soldiers, officials and citizens will be targeted for political reasons -- an argument dismissed by the court's supporters, who point out that safeguards have been built into the rules governing the court's operations.
Under President Bill Clinton, Washington signed the treaty establishing the court. But the US did not ratify the treaty and Mr Bush rescinded Mr Clinton's signature.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Guantanamo Bay, Australia ? Secret police given extraordinary powers "Proposed amendments to the federal government's security legislation did nothing to address its fundamental flaw, the Australian Greens said today ... "Greens Leader Bob Brown said the Greens would continue to oppose the legislation [which] allows totally innocent people .... to be picked up off the street, detained for a week, questioned in blocks of up to eight hours by ASIO acting as a new police force without necessarily having their lawyer there."
*Ø* Blogmanac | June 12 | Blix goes ballistic at the bastards from the Bush camp "Hans Blix, the UN chief weapons inspector, has lashed out at the "bastards" who have tried to undermine him throughout the three years he has held his high-profile post.
"In an extraordinary departure from the diplomatic language with which he has come to be associated, Dr Blix assailed his critics in both Washington and Iraq."
*Ø* Blogmanac | Australia to send Christian refugee and others to death in Iran? Australia's government goes from appalling to criminal in its treatment of refugees and I'm one of a growing number of Aussies who is determined to spread the word to people of goodwill in other countries. I am in a fortunate situation in that I don't work for the government, the media or any non-governmental organisation (NGO), so I am free to call a spade a spade and say what many others would like to say: the Howard government of Australia is out of control on human rights and many people are suffering under its horrendous policies. We need the voices of people overseas to help put an end to the racist Howard government, so I hope you will inform your media and politicians, and send the article linked below to all your friends.
Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, is as bad as Howard. His own daughter, Kirsty, left the country and a good job because she is so ashamed of his racist policies and the huge number of asylum seekers kept in our notorious concentration camps in the hot desert.
Now the mob in power are using terror tactics against asylum seekers who will certainly be sent back to Iran and other places to face possible torture and execution. Ruddock and his henchman have deliberately kept the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) out of the plot.
*Ø* Blogmanac | June 12, 1956 | Billy Dickson robbed the Centerville Trust In 1965 Professor John McAleer of Massachusetts, USA received a letter from Billy Dickson, a convict, in response to an article the professor had written in the Boston Globe. The professor replied and a correspondence and friendship developed that lasted eight years; 1,200 letters passed between scholar and jailbird.
It was not till three months of correspondence had passed between the two unlikely penpals that the professor asked Dickson the reason for his imprisonment. It turned out that on June 12, 1956 Dickson had robbed the Centerville Trust and taken a woman hostage. This rang a bell in McAleer’s mind, as he recalled that his sister-in-law had been abducted on that date, and naturally enough had been traumatised by the event. The professor's penfriend was the villain who had caused his family so much grief.
After Dickson was stabbed to death in prison, McAleer helped to edit a Korean War novel, Unit Pride, that Dickson had written.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Hanged Man Cleared of Murder London (Reuters) - A British man who was hanged for murder had his conviction quashed Tuesday, 53 years too late.
George Kelly was executed in 1950 for the murder of cinema manager Leonard Thomas during a robbery in Liverpool the previous year. Kelly's family claimed vital material was not disclosed to his defense lawyers during the trial. This included a statement to police by a prosecution witness who said another man had confessed to the crime.
Tuesday, three of Britain's top judges ruled Kelly's conviction was "unsafe." Kelly was 27 at the time of his hanging. Britain abolished the death penalty 15 years later in 1965.
Amnesty International against the Death Penalty: click here
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This month, U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) plans to introduce the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 2003. This legislation, which is a companion bill to Senate legislation introduced by Senator Feingold (D-WI), will put an immediate halt to executions and forbid the imposition of the death penalty as a sentence for violations of federal law.
The USA has increased its rate of executions and the number of crimes punishable by death. Thirty-eight states currently have the death penalty on their statute books. More than 350 people have been executed in the USA since 1990. More than 3,300 others are on death row.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Human "Dollies" closer The Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, where scientists cloned Dolly the sheep, has been given the first UK research licence of its kind permitting a technique that creates embryonic stem cells from human eggs. Scientists there have been given the go-ahead to artificially stimulate donated human eggs from IVF treatment in a process known as parthenogenesis. The licence will allow the creation of stem cells for use in testing the effectiveness of new medicines and the study of congenital illnesses, such as Parkinson's disease and heart disease.
Although the licence granted by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) today does in no way permit human cloning, it could pave the way for improved techniques, making the creation of a human clone possible.
*Ø* Blogmanac | June 11 | Mother Shipton’s Day The Wednesday following Whitsunday* (Pentecost), for reasons unknown to your almanackist, is said by some to go by this name. Mother Shipton, whose real name was the rather un-English-sounding Ursula Sontheil, was a celebrated soothsayer in Cambridge, England and the wife of Toby Shipton, a carpenter. To some, she is also the patron saint of women working in laundries. Ursula was born in a cave at Knaresborough, Yorkshire (where Guy Fawkes once lived) in 1488, in the reign of Henry VII just fifteen years before Nostradamus, in an era in which prophetic utterances were widely sought – and just as readily condemned.
According to Yorkshire legend (and that is probably the true origin of her ‘life’), Ursula Sontheil’s birth was the result of a liaison between her mother and Satan. Perhaps as would be expected from such a union, she was a stunning but not attractive child, at least according to one antique biographer:
Very morose and big boned, her head very long, with very great goggling, but sharp and fiery Eyes, her Nose of an incredible and unproportionate length, having in it many crooks and turnings, adorned with many strange Pimples of diverse colours, as Red, Blew, [sic] and mixt, which like Vapours of Brimstone gave such a lustre of the Night, that one of them confessed several times in my hearing, that her nurse needed no other light to assist her in the performance of her duty.
She is generally supposed to have sold her soul to the Devil for the power of foretelling future events. Although during her lifetime she was looked upon as a witch, she escaped the common fate of 16th-century witches, and died peacefully in her bed at the age of 73, near Clifton in Yorkshire. A headstone is said to have been erected to her memory in the church-yard of that place, with the following epitaph:
Here lies she who never lied; Whose skill often has been tried: Her prophecies shall still survive, And ever keep her name alive.
Despite Mother Shipton’s popularity in some quarters, the prophecies of the Knaresborough seer were most likely forgeries of the 17th and 19th centuries, and certainly some proved completely erroneous. One prophecy that can go in the ‘whoops!’ file proclaimed:
The world to an end shall come In eighteen hundred and eighty one.
Not all her prophecies were duds, however, and some proved uncannily accurate (if they were not fabricated). Take, for example: Carriages without horses shall go. And accidents fill the world with woe. Around the world thoughts shall fly In the twinkling of an eye ... Under water men shall walk, Shall ride, shall sleep, shall talk; In the air men shall be seen In white, in black, and in green. Iron in the water shall float As easy as a wooden boat.
It is said she predicted the Great Fire of London in 1666, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and, like some others in history with a knack for seeing their own demise, she even foretold her own death which occurred in 1561.
Old and young, rich and poor, especially young women, visited the old ‘witch’ to know the future. Among the seekers was the Abbot of Beverley, to whom she foretold the suppression of the monasteries by Henry VIII and his marriage with Anne Boleyn; she told him of the burning of heretics that came to pass in Smithfield, and the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. She also foretold the accession of James I, adding that, with him,
From the cold north, Every evil should come forth.
On a subsequent visit from the cleric she issued another prophecy:
The time shall come when seas of blood Shall mingle with a greater flood. Great noise there shall be heard – Great shouts and cries, And seas shall thunder louder than the skies; Then shall three lions fight with three, And bring Joy to a people, honour to a king. That fiery year as soon as o’er, Peace shall then be as before; Plenty shall everywhere be found, And men with swords shall plough the ground.
She predicted that Cardinal Wolsey would see York, yet never go there. This in fact happened in 1530 when Wolsey was travelling to that city. Just when he climbed to the top of a tower and saw York in the distance, he received a message from King Henry VIII commanding his to return to London. The cardinal died on the way home, and thus Mother Shipton's prophecy was fulfilled.
It must be borne in mind that we know of no edition of Mother Shipton’s prophecies dated before 1641, many decades after the deaths of both the prophetess and the churchman, and the most important editions of her work were published when she’d been 133 years in the ground. These were edited in 1684 by Richard Head, from whom we get the first biographical information about her.
Her clairvoyant verses about future technology, and about the failed global apocalypse predicted for 1881, first appeared in print three centuries after her death, in the 1862 edition. Shipton-fanciers will not be delighted to learn that some claim that Charles Hindley, the editor of that edition, later admitted that he was the author of those prognostications.
Mother Shipton probably shares with the Oracle of Delphi the title of the most famous prophetess of all time. In England her fame as a seer is only exceeded by that of Merlin, King Arthur’s magician, and every year more than 100,000 people visit her cave at Knaresborough.
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
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The Ember Days The ‘Ember Days’ were instituted by Pope Calixtus in the 3rd Century, for the purpose of imploring God's blessing on the fruitfulness of the earth, and for the ordination of clergy. The name is derived from the Saxon emb-ren or imb-ryne, meaning a course or circuit, from the ember days’ occurrence at the four quarters of the year, namely: the first Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following, respectively, the first Sunday in Lent (Quadragesima Sunday), Whitsunday*, September 14 (Holyrood Day), and St Lucy's Day.
Another possible explanation for the days’ unusual name might be that it derives from the practice of putting ashes on the head. Associated, too, with the Ember Days, is the custom of breaking of a fast with bread baked in embers, or ember-bread. The weeks in which they fall are called ember weeks.
*Whitsunday (this year, June 8) The Christian feast of Whitsunday (Pentecost) was originally called White Sunday – one of the great seasons for baptism when the candidates wore white garments, hence the name. The period around Whitsunday is known as Whitsuntide, the suffix -tide being Old English for ‘time’. Whitsunday is the seventh Sunday after Easter, to commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Tax on Fatty Foods Suggestion London - Hamburgers, soft drinks and cakes could be hit with a "fat-tax" in a bid to combat Britain's growing levels of obesity, doctors said Monday.
The British Medical Association is proposing a 17.5 percent VAT on high-fat foods like biscuits and processed meats to solve obesity-related problems, which cost the NHS roughly 500 million pounds ($825 million) a year. Source
In keeping with Pip's article on www.wilsonsalmanac.com, which you'll find here entitled "Are you a late starter?", I had to post this story from San Francisco: A 97-year-old great-grandmother who quit school in the fourth grade to help her sharecropper parents pick cotton will receive a high school diploma after going back to school to study computers. She started taking computer classes at Richmond High in Contra Costa County in Northern California in January and is set to receive an honorary high school diploma next week.
"In my mind I keep developing good ideas. I don't want to let my mind go down, you know what I mean?" she said. "I tell my grandkids, keep your mind elevated." Source
*Ø* Blogmanac | Nigeria declares war on email scams Nigeria's president has launched an ambitious campaign to root out the fraudsters responsible for saddling it with the reputation of being the most corrupt country in the world.
Declaring "total war" on '419' scams - a notorious advance-fee fraud in which millions of euro have been extorted from gullible foreigners - Mr Obasanjo pledged "no hiding place for these criminals who tarnish Nigeria's image."
The '419' letters, named after article 419 of Nigeria's criminal code, which makes soliciting for advance fees a criminal offence, are sent out by fax or email by Nigerian criminal syndicates posing as legitimate businessmen seeking the assistance of foreigners to transfer a large sum of money into their account in exchange for a hefty commission. The letter's recipient is then asked to make an advance payment, either as a sign of good faith or to help bribe a government official, and the businessman is never heard of again.
Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service estimates the fraud netted around Stg£150m last year in Britain alone (that's nearly $246 million US.) Source
Young Catalan nationalists are indignant at the latest addition to McDonald's menu. The "El Cataluna" burger is, says Jovent Nord Catala, an example of the banalisation of Catalan culture. The spelling is Spanish and the fast food chain has branded the sauce as "Costa del Sol". The accompanying TV ad campaign shows Sevillians in traditional dress.
"This exotic campaign orchestrated by McDonald's in Paris shows how powerful the reductive instinct is," says Jovent Nord Catala's press release, "and how much it relies on cliches about folklore and the past." No one could be contacted at McDonalds' Paris offices on Friday, AFP reports. Source
Last March, McDonald's introduced a new sandwich for its Arab customers via its Saudi franchise owner. The "McArabia" sandwich consists of flatbread, two pieces of grilled chicken, lettuce, onions, tomatoes and seasonings.
The US Federal Trade Commission has charged Illinois-based marketers of a purported pain-relief product called the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet (Q-Ray Bracelet) with making false and unsubstantiated claims. According to the FTC, a recent study conducted by the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, shows that the Q-Ray Bracelet is no more effective than a placebo bracelet at relieving muscular and joint pain.
The Q-Ray Bracelet is a C-shaped metal bracelet that the defendants claim is "ionized" through a secret process that gives it pain-relieving abilities. The defendants promote their product through a (US) nationally televised 30-minute infomercial and on the Internet at www.qray.com, www.q-ray.com, and www.bio-ray.com, and it ranges in price from $49.95 to $249.95.
*Ø* Blogmanac | June 10 1580| The death of Luis de Camões Luís Vaz de Camões (or Camoens) (1524 or 1525-1580) is widely considered Portugal’s national bard. The Lisbon-born poet studied to be a priest, but did not take orders; later he embarked on a military career, losing an eye at Ceuta. Camões was shipwrecked while returning to Goa in India after spending time in Macao. The shipwreck was a tragedy for him and the world, as he lost everything but his major poem, Os Luciados (The Lusiads, or Lusitanians - the Portuguese, 1572). The beautiful poetry is added to by a robust, realistic narrative that covers the voyage of Vasco da Gama and also much of Portuguese history.
Camões mixed Christian and pagan symbolism and themes in his epic poem, a dangerous thing to do in 16th-century Portugal. However, the ecclesiastical authorities, represented by a Dominican priest named Ferreira, examined the manuscript and gave permission for the poem’s publication, finding nothing contrary to the faith or morality in it; the mythology was regarded as poetic licence. The king even gave the poet a pension for his troubles, though not a large one.
Camões returned to Portugal living in poverty and obscurity. Lusiads was published and very successful, but Camões died poor in a public hospital. The day of his death is celebrated as the National Day of Portugal each year.
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(My ISP is still having POP server problems, so I've had no emails for 3 days. The Almanac ezines and Almost Prophetic Quotes will return as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience.)
*Ø* Blogmanac | The First E-mail Of Saint Paul To The Romans
From: paul0426@tarsus.com (Paul, A Servant Of Jesus Christ) To: allusers@rome.org CC: s_peter@jol.com (Judaea Online) Attachments: none Subject: general teaching Also posted to Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.heresy
Even using my off-line mail reader (Papyrus 6.2) the on-line and disk space charges on my local dial-up Internet provider are outlandish, so I'll have to keep this short. :) IMHO, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness of men. }:> U, therefore, have no excuse to pass judgment. God will judge all. BTW, Jews have no right to boast simply because of our ancestry. Circumcision :( is meaningful only if it is inward -- otherwise, BFD. Similarly, IBM owners have no right to boast simply because of the customer support they receive. In Him we are neither IBM nor Gateway, Tandy nor Compaq. None of us is righteous. As King David wrote:
KD> There is no one righteous, not even one; KD> There is no one who understands, no one who seeks KD> God, no one who has not illegally copied his KD> favorite game program for a friend.
But Abraham believed God, and so God credited it to him as *virtual* righteousness. But does this mean we should sin all we want? No way! We must live through the spirit. The law kills O-|-< but the spirit gives life. Offer yourselves as living sacrifices to God. Submit to the authority of your sysop and your Usenet newsgroup moderator. Pay for shareware if you decide to keep using it. And don't flame somebody for making a spelling error or failing to read the FAQ list. Nothing is unclean to God, but if something is going to cause your fellow Christian to sin, delete it from your hard drive. Watch out for those R- and X-rated .GIF files. I'm hoping to visit Rome later this year; save me a space on the couch. CUL8er. :)
XXX Papyrus 6.2 XXX Unregistered Test Drive Version XXX {RAH}
*Ø* Blogmanac | Nude Throngs Photographer Hits Record
Barcelona (Reuters) - Spencer Tunick, famous for his photographs of huge groups of naked people, beat his own record Sunday when some 7,000 people posed nude for him in the Spanish city of Barcelona. From about 4 a.m. Sunday thousands of volunteers gathered in central Barcelona to strip off and be photographed lying down and kneeling in rows.
The Barcelona photos beat Tunick's last record of 4,500 snapped in Australia and while some 7,000 posed, more than twice that number initially signed up, the project manager said. The New York-based artist has shot naked throngs around the world but his work has got him into trouble in the United States where he has been arrested several times. Source
*Ø* Blogmanac | Poland - historic vote to join EU By a sweeping margin of almost four to one, Polish voters said yes to joining the EU in what was hailed as the country's most important decision in a generation. It clears the way for the EU's biggest expansion next May.
"We've just witnessed a historic moment. I'm deeply moved," President Alexander Kwasniewski said, amid scenes of relief and celebration in Warsaw last night. "A big, proud, and ambitious nation is moving into the European Union."
For Poland, a country that lays fair claim to the saddest history in Europe, it is difficult to overstate the meaning of yesterday's verdict.
By far the biggest of the new members, Poland will rank among the big powers in the expanded union of 25, enjoying similar voting rights to Spain.
*Ø* Blogmanac | "Women triumph and men are left screaming in agony" Dublin, Ireland -- The painting shows a woman in the throes of labour, but her face is calm, her eyes are shining and she has a secret smile playing about her lips. Look further down the canvas and it's clear that it is not a baby she is giving birth to but a man. And as he exits her body, it is the man who is the one in pain, his face that is contorted with the agony of birth.
This painting, along with 39 others like it, is artist Brian Bourke's new exhibition, which is currently on show at Dublin's Taylor Galleries.
Reminiscent of the pagan Sheela-na-Gig carvings, the pieces are a touch disturbing and more than a little fascinating. The artist himself claimed they are all about life and the tensions between the two sexes. "They depict the peculiar relationships between men and women and how ruinous it can be," explained Brian. "In the end, women triumph and men are left screaming in agony. That's why the women appear serene and iconic, while the men are struggling and desperately trying to break free," he said.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Blair threatened with 'smoking gun' over Iraq Intelligence officers are holding a "smoking gun" which proves that they were subjected to a series of demands by Tony Blair's staff in the run-up to the Iraq war. The officers are furious about the accusation levelled by the Leader of the Commons, John Reid, that "rogue elements" are at work in the security services. They fear they are being lined up to take the blame for faulty intelligence used to justify the Iraq war.
The intelligence services were so concerned about demands made by Downing Street for evidence to use against Iraq that extensive files have been built up detailing communications with Mr Blair's staff.
Stung by Dr Reid's accusations about misinformation over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, intelligence officials have given veiled warnings about what may emerge in the two official inquiries into the affair.
*Ø* Blogmanac | June 9 | Columba and the lucky monk Today is the Feast day of Saint Columba (or Colmcille), abbot and apostle of the Picts (Barberry, Barberis vulgaris, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint)
We know that animal sacrifice was practised in Britain at least until 1778. While scholars argue about the practice of human sacrifice in pagan Britain, some say it was customary, when starting construction on a new major building, to sacrifice a person, preferably a virgin, and place the body beneath the foundation stone. The gods were appeased by this act, as they thought mere mortals presumptuous to design and create prominent buildings. Furthermore, the spirit of the sacrificed person, because they had been honoured by being chosen as the lucky one to die, was thought to reside in the building, protecting all who went in inside.
Even after Christianity came to Britain and Ireland, the practice continued for quite some time. It is said that when St Columba (he who drove away the Loch Ness Monster) came to Iona off the Scottish west coast and began building monasteries there and on neighbouring islands, the walls of one of them kept falling down. Saying that this was because the customary sacrifice hadn’t been made, Columba’s superstitious monks demanded that a human being be buried beneath the foundation stone. Persuaded, the saint allowed the horrible practice to be performed, and a monk named Oron was chosen by lot to be the lucky one. After he was buried under the stone, the problems in construction ended.
It's interesting to note that there is a Hebridean island named Oronsay, and on it are the ruins of an ancient priory reputedly founded by St Columba. Perhaps the name of the sacrificed monk is commemorated in the name of the island.
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
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St Columba is associated with the story of how the robin got its red breast by pulling out the thorns piercing the crucified Christ’s forehead.
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St Columba's Day: the luckiest day of the year in Highland Scotland, especially when it falls on a Thursday.
Day of Colum Cille the beloved Day to put the loom to use Day to put sheep to pasture Day to put coracle on the sea Day to bear, day to die Day to make prayer efficacious Day of my beloved, the Thursday. Carmina Gadelica
St Columba's herb is the St John's Wort which flowers around now in the Northern Hemisphere; if found accidentally and kept beneath the armpit (where the saint is said to have worn it) this will ward off all kinds of evil. Say this charm when you pick it:
Arm-pit package of Columba the kindly Unsought by me, unlocked for I shall not be carried away in my sleep Neither shall I be pierced with iron Better the reward of its virtues Than a herd of white cattle.
Hypericum, or St John's Wort, is one of the few medicinal herbs to receive full validation of efficacy by Western Science. It is effective in cases of depression and anxiety.
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1838 Myall Creek Massacre, Australia Bad day at Myall Creek On Saturday, June 9, 1838, twelve European stockmen rounded up approximately 20 Kwiambal aborigines at Myall Creek (a branch of the Gwydir River in New South Wales), and killed them with knives and guns. The stockmen, who had accused the aboriginal people of pilfering, were acquitted at a trial on November 15, but faced trial again on November 29 and were found guilty. Seven of the twelve murdered were executed under Governor Sir George Gipps’s authority.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Viking treasure: The Cuerdale Hoard [Following yesterday's piece on Viking raids on Britain, I thought perhaps you might find this yarn from 1840 interesting]
At Cuerdale, near Preston, Lancashire, England, the local people had an ancient tradition that there was a treasure somewhere in that vicinity. It had been said from time immemorial that if you stood on the south bank of the River Ribble at Walton le Dale, looking up river towards Ribchester, you would be within sight of England’s richest treasure. For centuries people had searched for the fabled treasure, often using divining methods such as forked willow or hazel sticks and silver chains.
Then, on this very wet May 15th in 1840, workmen walking home from repairing the embankment on the south side of the river marvellously noticed a wooden box exposed by a slump of the rain-sodden earth. The box contained a leaden casket, which in turn held a massive hoard (nearly 40 kilograms, or 88 pounds) of something highly prized by Vikings because they had virtually no mineral deposits of their own – silver.
The landowner's bailiff made certain that almost the entire hoard was secured, and the labourers, who must have been very honest, were each allowed to retain one coin. At an inquest on August 15 of that year it was declared ‘treasure trove’, the property of Queen Victoria in right of her Duchy of Lancaster, which handed it over to the British Museum for examination before it was distributed to more than 170 lucky recipients. Fortunately, most of the Cuerdale find was allocated to the British Museum where it remains.
The hoard was dated to around 905 and contained coins from as far afield as Afghanistan. The Cuerdale Hoard included 8,500 pieces of silver, including 350 ingots, weighing 36 kilograms, as well as silver neck rings from Russia and from France, a very fine gilded Carolingian buckle. Some of the coins were of Arab and Byzantine origin. Much of the other material is typically Irish or Hiberno-Viking in form and decoration.
In an article in the Numismatic Gazette (December 1966), numismatist M Banks put forward the suggestion that the hoard was not even buried by Vikings, although it was Viking treasure, or much of it was. Banks suggested that the Cuerdale Hoard might have been a gift to English churches suffering persecution in the areas, known as the Danelaw, occupied by pagan Vikings. Since so many of the coins were apparently minted across the Channel, said Banks, they were probably a contribution from the Frankish Christians to their English brothers. Many such mysteries surround the Cuerdale trove.
Other Viking hoards have been found in the British Isles, such as the Halton Moor Hoard dating from the 11th century, but this was the largest trove of Viking silver found outside Russia. The coins found with the Cuerdale Hoard reveal that it must have been buried in the years between 905 and 910, shortly after the expulsion of the Vikings from Dublin in 902.
Silver formed the basis of currency in Viking times and was often buried in times of unrest, perhaps giving us the reason for this treasure’s presence for almost nine centuries on the south bank of the River Ribble. However, the Cuerdale Hoard and other treasures of its kind might have been buried for religious reasons (though the presence of coins bearing crosses would militate against this argument), or as a strange form of ostentation. In the 13th-century Egil's Saga, the hero Egil Skallagrimsson does just that, hiding his hoard to provide a lasting talking point for other people. This kind of ostentatious destruction of wealth is paralleled in other cultures, even in the modern West – perhaps you’ve even noticed.
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
(Oh, yeah, belated happy birthday to the British Museum ... 250 years old on June 7. More)
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Museum's broken treasure not just any old shit Yep, that's the headline used by The Guardian newspaper ina piece on a fossilized Viking turd (coprolite)in a British museum that recently came to grief. Read about it here.
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By the way, my emails are still down, now two and a half days. There will be no ezines sent on June 9 and until my ISP get's its coprolites together.
*Ø* Blogmanac | June 8 | Lindisfarne Day: Vikings and vanquished
When I was with you, the closeness of your love would give me great joy. In contrast, now that I am away from you, the distress of your suffering fills me daily with deep grief, when heathens desecrated God's sanctuaries, and poured the blood of saints within the compass of the altar, destroyed the house of our hope, trampled the bodies of saints in God's temple like animal dung in the street … Letter from Alcuin (Flaccus Alcuinus), Anglo-Saxon theologian and a founder of Western calligraphy, to Higbald, Bishop of Lindisfarne
June 8 is celebrated by Odinists (worshippers of Odin, Norse god). Odin is the supreme deity of the old religion of Norway, eldest of all the gods in the Nordic pantheon and leader of the race of gods known as the Aesir, they who live in Asgard. Odin is called All-father for he is father of all the gods.
It is the day in 793 that Vikings raided Lindisfarne, the holy island off the coast of Northumberland. The Vikings hacked the monks to death or dragged them into the sea where they drowned them. The chapels and monastery were looted of the riches they contained, much of which had been derived from the payment by the common folk for their indulgences – monetary payments to safeguard them from the torments of hell. The treasure included gold, silver, jewellery, ivory coffins and much beside. It was not the first violent encounter between Vikings and the people of the British Isles – in 789 the crews of three Viking vessels landed at the present site of Portland, near Weymouth, England. There they were approached by a party of men led by Beaduheard, the shire reeve (from which title we derive the word ‘sheriff’) of the King of Wessex, who demanded that they accompany him to Dorchester, some nine miles away; an altercation ensued and the visitors slew Councillor Beaduheard.
Vikings at Portland: invasion, or stopping in for a beer? In Britain, naturally enough, this incident is generally portrayed as the first Viking raid – a friendly councillor rushing to the quay to welcome what he thought was a Nordic package tour, and getting slewn … err … slain … for his troubles by a pack of horn-helmeted barbarians. However, it might well have been simply a case of Scandinavian sailors coming to port for purely honourable commercial purposes, being met by a pompous and xenophobic bureaucrat who handled the situation badly, from which a fight followed and things got out of hand [see Eelia’s Page, Chapter One). It might perhaps be thought of as a dockside brawl rather than an invasion from the north, whereas the Lindisfarne expedition some four years later was a raid, albeit more criminal than military.
Be that as it may, no fewer than four medieval scribes saw the 789 Portland incident as sufficiently significant to record it in their chronicles. Interestingly, one source, the important Anglo-Saxon chronicle, in recording the affair of 789, reveals the Britishers’ uncertainty about whence the raiders came, calling them both Norwegians and Danes:
In this year Beorhtric took to wife Eadburh, daughter of king Offa. And in his days came first three ships of Norwegians from Höthaland and then the reeve rode thither and tride [sic] to compel them to go to the royal manor, for he did not know what they were: and then they slew him. These were the first ships of the Danes to come to England.
Who knows, maybe in death Beaduheard gained immortality, all for being a jumped-up clerk with a tin badge and a somewhat capacious mouth.
If it rains today ... Today, by the way, is also an English weather marker day with an ancient prognostication:
If on the eighth of June it rain, It foretells a wet harvest, men sain.
A similar formula existed in old France today, the Feast Day of St Médard:
Quand il pleut a la Saint-Médard Il pleut quarante jours plus tard; S'il pleut le jour de Saint Gervais et de Saint Protais [June 19], Il pleut quarante jours aprés.
It is quite likely the English invented their jingle following the French. The British tradition concerning forecasts of rain is much more commonly centred around St Swithin’s Day, July 15.
If today’s prognostication fails to help you decide whether to carry an umbrella, the laughing call of the European Green Woodpecker (Picus, or Genius, viridis) – alias the yaffle bird – is a sure sign of a shower. This is a bird of many names, for it is also known, just in English, as: eccle, hewhole, highhoe, laughing bird, popinjay, rain bird, yaffil, yaffler, yaffingale, yappingale, yackel, and woodhack.
*Ø* Blogmanac | June 8, 1967 | Israel attacks USS Liberty: 205 casualties 1967 In a little-known incident of aggression, Israeli aircraft and boats attacked the USS Liberty during Israel's ‘Six Day War’. The action included rocket fire, machine-gunning, napalm bombing and torpedoing for more than two hours. Israeli fighter jets machine gunned life-rafts as American crewmen put them in the water. All told, 34 Americans were killed and 171 wounded, or more than two-thirds of the Liberty’s 295 crew. A ship was forbidden to go to Liberty's assistance. The incident was downplayed by the government, and the media reported that the incident lasted only five minutes and consisted of a single torpedo attack. Some claim it was no accident – these claimants include Israeli officers and US administration members involved, such as Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Tom Moorer, NSA Chief General Marshall Carter, his deputy Tordella, White House Press Secretary George Christian, and others.
More than 800 holes were caused in the American vessel during the bombardment. “They tried to kill all the witnesses,” Phil Tourney, president of the Liberty Veterans Association, said recently. “They didn't want any one of us left alive.”
*Ø* Blogmanac | No Almanacs for June 7 and 8 My ISP's email server has been down for nearly 48 hours so there are no Almanac ezines until their problem is fixed, I'm sorry.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Not in the jury's name! The Governor of Tennessee must stop an execution scheduled for 18 June in his state because he cannot rely on the jury's original sentencing decision, Amnesty International said, releasing a report on the case of Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman.
"Having learned of exculpatory and mitigating evidence kept from them at trial 16 years ago, eight of the original trial jurors have said that they no longer have confidence in their sentencing verdict", Amnesty International said. "Governor Phil Bredesen cannot have confidence in it either."
Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman was sentenced to death after a three-day trial in 1987. He was represented by a trial lawyer who has admitted that he was unprepared to defend his client, and faced a prosecutor whose zeal for a death sentence led him into professionally questionable conduct. A federal judge has described the case as a "miscarriage of justice". A Tennessee Supreme Court judge has pointed out that "none of the judges who have reviewed this case has seriously disputed that Abdur'Rahman's trial counsel was woefully incompetent and demonstrably ineffective."
The defence lawyer, for example, failed to present any evidence of his client's history of appalling childhood abuse and mental illness. For his part, the prosecutor "engaged in a pattern of deception" that also kept crucial information from the jury, according to six former prosecutors in an appeal last year to the US Supreme Court.
Due to procedural technicalities, no court has reviewed the full range of prosecutorial misconduct claims. Meanwhile, the only judge to have heard the testimony from the wide range of witnesses and evidence not presented by the defence lawyer, concluded that Abdur'Rahman had been "seriously prejudiced by utterly ineffective assistance of counsel". This federal judge said that his review of all the evidence "compels" the conclusion that the death sentence "cannot stand".
"Due to a combination of technical legalities and harsh legal precedents, the death sentence does still stand," Amnesty International continued. "The power of executive clemency exists precisely to compensate for the rigidity of the judiciary. Governor Bredesen should use that power to commute this death sentence in the interest of justice and the reputation of the State Tennessee and the USA."
*Ø* Blogmanac | EU extradition deal with US European Union justice ministers agreed on Friday to sign a landmark extradition deal with the United States after nearly a year of negotiations and criticism from human rights campaigners.
The extradition pact goes hand-in-hand with another accord that will allow US and EU police officers to set up joint investigation teams, share evidence and "cut red tape" in requesting help and information in crime and terrorism cases. The agreements will be signed at an EU-US summit in Washington on June 25.
Diplomats said EU states would retain the right to deny extradition in cases where the death penalty could be applied or enforced. They can also choose to refuse extradition of their own nationals if the United States cannot guarantee defendants a fair trial in a civilian court.
But some European lawmakers and civil rights groups have said the deal is too vague on the death penalty and that guarantees of fair trials were ambiguous. The United States has said it will try foreign terrorism suspects by secret military tribunals.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Cybermates to replace real people? The prospect of a world without romance, in which relationships between people who love each other give way to liaisons with computer-generated cyberdates, has been advanced by Britain's best-known female scientist. Susan Greenfield, who separated from her husband last month after 12 years of marriage, suggested that advances in technology would one day enable anyone, of whatever age or sexual orientation, to become a parent in a bland society of individuals who would get on better with a computer than another person.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Festival of Science, the Oxford neuroscientist described the fate of human individuality and relationships in a future where direct modifications can be made to the brain.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Olympics chief attacks Irish Sars ban The head of the Global Special Olympics Movement has called Ireland's ban on athletes from Sars-affected countries a shocking low point in the games' 35-year history.
Timothy P Shriver, a nephew of former US President John F Kennedy, said he was appalled the exclusion applied solely to Special Olympics athletes, and not to the wider population travelling from those areas.
He said it added further indignity to the daily burden of exclusion, rejection or grudging acceptance experienced by the 170m people with mental disabilities world-wide.
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