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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 | Forced fatherhood a la Aussie This is a big issue and all-too-common experience for men in Australia, whether the exploiters be lesbians or just women wanting a baby. Men are required to pay the woman 18 per cent of their gross pay -- equivalent to about 32 per cent of their take-home pay -- for 18 years. It will happen whether the male wanted a child or not, and regardless of any of the circumstances of the sexual intercourse, including what the woman told him at the time, even if she claimed to be infertile, post-menopausal or on contraception. I know from experience.
"A VICTORIAN man who donated his sperm in the 'usual and customary manner' - by having sex with a lesbian - has been found liable to pay child support.
"Despite the man and the lesbian couple agreeing the sperm donor would have no legal rights or financial responsibilities to the child, the Family Court found the man was responsible because the baby was conceived through sex.
"Had the father, known only as ND, supplied his sperm through artificial means, or had his child been adopted, he would not be liable for the financial rearing of the child.
"The judgment, which upheld an earlier Melbourne magistrate's decision that ND be assessed to pay maintenance, was yesterday labelled 'outrageous' by men's groups."
Don't you hate that? You've finished a round with your mates, you're on the way back to the '19th hole' for a quick one before the missus starts phoning the clubhouse, and suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you notice some dead saint in one of the hazards.
Saint Veronica derives from a late-medieval legend. She was supposedly a woman of Jerusalem; when Christ passed carrying the cross, she wiped his face of sweat and blood with her veil. His image stayed on the cloth, which became Vera-Icon (Latin: true image). She thus became St Veronica. The cloth is a relic at St Peter's, Rome.
In bullfighting the most classic movement with the cape is called Veronica, as the cape is swung slowly before the face of the beast, like Veronica's wiping of Christ's face.
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He is a singular character – a young man with much of wild original nature remaining in him; and so far as he is sophisticated, it is in a way and method of his own. He is ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and somewhat rustic, although courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior. But his ugliness is of an honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes him much better than beauty. Nathaniel Hawthorne, American writer, on Thoreau
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify. Henry David Thoreau
If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. Henry David Thoreau
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it. Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived for," from Walden; or, Life in the Woods
“Walden published in 1854, details two years and two months lived in the second growth forest around the shores of beautiful Walden Pond, not far from his friends and family in Concord. Thoreau embarked on the two-year experiment in simple living on July 4, 1845 ...
“In 1927, at the age of 32, Buckminster Fuller stood on the shores of Lake Michigan, prepared to throw himself into the freezing waters. His first child had died. He was bankrupt, discredited and jobless, and he had a wife and new-born daughter. On the verge of suicide, it suddenly struck him that his life belonged, not to himself, but to the universe. He chose at that moment to embark on what he called “an experiment to discover what the little, penniless, unknown individual might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity.” Over the next fifty-four years, he proved, time and again, that his most controversial ideas were practical and workable.
“During the course of his remarkable experiment he:
•was awarded 25 U.S. patents •authored 28 books •received 47 honorary doctorates in the arts, science, engineering and the humanities •received dozens of major architectural and design awards including, among many others, the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects and the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects •created work which found itself into the permanent collections of museums around the world •circled the globe 57 times, reaching millions through his public lectures and interviews.
More news on J-9 Some readers will know that the surgery that our Blogmanac team member, J-9, underwent today was very serious. I'm happy to report that I've spoken to her and, although she's in more pain than she was prepared for, she is alive, joking and taking a fantastic atitude into a bright future.
Keep smiling, J-9! Lots of people care for you and are sending good wishes.
News on J-9 Our Blogmanac team member Jeannine (J-9) Wilson is in surgery as I write. We all wish her brightest blessings for this important operation.
The theme of this year’s World Population Day, “One billion adolescents: the right to health, information and services”, highlights the need to support young people in their efforts to lead safe, rewarding lives and contribute to the well-being of their families and communities. Throughout the world, millions of girls and boys are deprived of an education, harming their individual prospects and those of society at large … From Message of the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan July 11, 2003
More than 1.3 billion people living in absolute poverty have a right to better lives. The challenge is to improve living standards without destroying the environment. Environmental destruction, along with natural disasters had created 25 million environmental refugees by 1998. Immediate problems include increasing population pressure, food shortages, water scarcity, desertification, deforestation, extinction of plants and animals, global warming, reduced fish catches and health risks from pollution.
July 11, 1995 The killing days at Srebrenica began. In Europe’s most horrific case of genocide and gendercide since WWII, at least 7,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred almost under the watchful eyes of United Nations troops. Perhaps if it wasn’t for the tenacity and courage of journalist David Rohde of the Christian Science Monitor, the story would not have got out to the world.
"The Australian Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) admits it knew of doubts about intelligence reports concerning Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
"The DIO is the third government organisation to admit it knew claims that Iraq was trying to source weapons-grade uranium from Africa were possibly false before Prime Minister John Howard mentioned the allegations in a speech to Parliament ..." Source (links to more items concerning the Australian government's lies)
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Pentagon says Lynch not shot .... durrr "A US military draft report into the rescue of Private Jessica Lynch in Iraq has confirmed the young American soldier was neither shot nor stabbed during her capture.
"Nineteen-year-old Jessica Lynch ... was hailed a hero after her rescue, with reports she had fought back even though she had suffered broken arms, a broken leg and multiple gunshot wounds.
"The Pentagon did not confirm the information but did not dispel it." Source
Way back on May 18, we at the Blogmanac blogged this story and this one on how they pitched the Private Ryan ... err ... Lynch ... bullshit. The Pentagon sure is quick to start invading and slow to stop evading. Don't they read the Blogmanac?
*Ø* Blogmanac July 11, 1881 | Prince George meets the Flying Dutchman
A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the mast, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief … on arriving there, no vestige nor any sign whatever of any material ship was to be seen either near or right away to the horizon, the night being clear and the sea calm. Thirteen persons altogether saw her.Words used by England’s future King George V to describe the phantom ship Flying Dutchman, which he claimed to have seen on July 11, 1881
She is distinguished from earthly vessels by bearing a press of sail when other vessels are unable, from stress of weather, to show an inch of canvas. Sir Walter Scott, on the phantom ship Flying Dutchman
Sixteen-year-old Prince George, the future King George V (June 3, 1865 - January 20, 1936) of the United Kingdom, as a young midshipman on HMS Bacchante, wrote in his journal that he had seen that day the phantom ship, the Flying Dutchmanoff the port bow.
With George was the heir to the throne, his elder brother, the mentally deficient Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward (Eddie) who later mysteriously died before becoming king, much to the relief of the British Royal Family. Eddie, who was later a modern and unlikely suspect in the Jack the Ripper case, also recorded in his journal the sighting of the Dutchman which was seen by thirteen witnesses including the lookout on the Bacchante’s forecastle (who fell and died within seven hours, it is said), and the officer of the watch.
The ghost ship was also sighted by people on board HMS Cleopatra and HMS Tourmaline in the squadron, which was commanded by Prince Louis of Battenberg, great uncle of the present Prince Philip. Prince George , with the help of his tutor, Reverend John Neale Dalton, published his account as The Cruise Of HMS Bacchante, 1879-1882, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1886).
According to which source one trusts, the spectral event occurred either between Melbourne and Sydney, Australia or near the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
What is the Flying Dutchman? “Several hundred years ago, in the year 1729 to be exactly, there lived a Dutch sea captain of fearsome temperament. With his ship he sailed through the stormiest seas, and fared the hardest routes. One day however, despite all his efforts, a storm prevented him from rounding the steep cliffs of a headland. He swore to the Devil that he would never give in to Nature, and that he would sail on until he rounded the headland, even if it took him till Judgment Day. The Devil took the Captain at his word and dammed him, that he must stay as captain of his ship, now a ghostship, sailing the seas, until Judgment Day should come. The Devil left him just one small hope. Only through the love of a woman could he be released.” Source
*Ø* Blogmanac | Retraction From www.truthout.org: Capitol Hill Blue Retracts Story "Yesterday, truthout's lead story carried an article by Capitol Hill Blue that quoted a 'CIA insider.' This insider, a Terrance J. Wilkinson, was reportedly present at two briefings when Bush was informed of and then dismissed, evidence that his Iraq WMD claims were false. Capitol Hill Blue has run a retraction of that story. According to Doug Thompson, author of the original story, Terrance J. Wilkinson does not exist and Thompson has been getting scammed for over 20 years. Something about this story is decidedly strange but in light of Thompson's retraction, we would be remiss not to run it." [And so would I - Nora] Read here
The fact remains that the National Security Council said on Tuesday that President Bush's claim in his State of the Union address - that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger - was based on forged documentation. The White House statement fanned a smouldering controversy over whether the U.S. and British governments manipulated intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to make the case for war against Iraq. Source
The Times - Although billed as an attempt to extend the hand of friendship to a neglected continent, President Bush’s five nation African safari is widely being seen as an effort to ensure US access to Africa’s burgeoning pot of black gold. Sub-Saharan Africa is enjoying an unprecedented oil exploration and production boom that is expected to transform the region from a modest producer to a key supplier over the next decade.
As head of a task force on future oil supplies, Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, predicted two years ago that the region would become the fastest-growing source of energy for America. But the scale of the region’s untapped resources has taken everyone by surprise.
The US already imports about 15 per cent of its annual oil requirements from the Gulf of Guinea. This is expected to exceed 25 per cent by 2015, significantly reducing America’s dependence on the volatile Middle East.
*Ø* Blogmanac | If Shrub kills Hicks, why not kill all Germans?
More on Hicks and Habib As reported here on July 4 (below), two Australian citizens have been held for 20 months without trial in the USA's Guantanamo camp. Currently, it is quite a widely debated issue in Australia, and not a few of the pundits are in favour of the US doing to Hicks (Habib's name rarely comes up, presumably because he's a sand nigger) anything it wants.
Commonly, media gurus refer to "9-11" when mentioning Hicks. It's a red herring. Hicks was caught on the battlefield of Afghanistan while defending that country from US invasion. Perhaps one day the USA will charge him with something; such a scenario seems likely now. It also is apparent that he will be tried by a military court and face a death penalty, a barbaric practice still used mainly by some Communist, Muslim and American states, discarded long ago by civilized nations, even for the most heinous criminals.
Some of the dumber of the Aussie pundits are saying Hicks supported the Taliban and thus deserves to die. They keep referring to the Taliban as having refused to hand over Osama bin Laden. How long will this myth last? For the record, the Taliban did offer to hand over bin Laden, but not to America, knowing that the USA has a madman in power. They offered him up to the World Court, but America refused to accept this perfectly reasonable offer. Instead, they want control of 'enemies' just as they want control over everything else in the world, and they'd like to subject bin Laden to the torture to which they are subjecting 600-plus Muslims in Guantanamo as I write.
Australia's government stands condemned for allowing Big Brother USA to put an Australian citizen through this traumatic set of circumstances. Those who assert that David Hicks "deserves whatever the Yanks throw at him" must fall silent when asked why it is that America has not threatened to execute soldiers who fought against them in Vietnam, Korea, World War II and any theatre of war one can name. Why single out captives from Muslim nations? War is war. Are we now to accept, among America's many other crimes against human rights, that captured soldiers are to be shot?
Australians would do well to remember that Texas, under the governorship of that dumb, slimy killer, George W Bush, had the world's highest rate of murdering prisoners, apart from Communist China. Let's keep the pressure on our own slime, John Howard et al, and make sure that no Aussies get electrocuted or shot by the Bush regime!
On the other hand, if they murder David, let's start demanding that Aussies, Poms and Yanks trawl the world for every hun, nip, gook, towelhead and dago who ever shouldered a rifle against the "Good Guys" in all wars, and that we arrest and execute all of them. They could be buried in the kind of mass grave that George's daddy had thousands of Iraqis bulldozed into (some still alive) on the Highway to Hell in 1991.
And if Shrub's cabal kills Habib, let's not mention it. He's a Muslim, after all.
*Ø* Blogmanac July 10 | Lady Godiva Day, Coventry, England
Who was the naked lady on the horse? Lady Godiva – Godgyfu as her name was originally – really did exist and was a Saxon noblewoman and patron of the arts, married to Leofric, Duke of Mercia in England. The couple moved to Coventry, Warwickshire, from Shrewsbury, Shropshire (where Leofric had earned his fortune and title from the mutton trade). It is known that Leofric began spending large amounts of taxpayers’ money, as politicians are wont to do, on grandiose public works, while the people of Coventry, as people are wont to do, lived in poverty.
The legend says that Godiva, generous and strong?willed, was outraged at a poll or tax that Leofric was planning to levy on the people of Coventry, and she persistently asked him to lift the imposition, or at least use the money for the provision of works of art that the peasants might enjoy. Leofric laughed so much that he injured his left wrist slightly as he fell off his stool in the hall of the village burghers. However, the nouveau-riche gentleman offered her a deal: if his wife would ride naked on horseback through the town, then he would agree to waive the tax.
“The ancient Greeks, he pointed out, and those coarser Romans as well, viewed the nude human body as one of the highest expressions of the perfection of Nature. Nudity was not seen as erotic in any sense, but as purity, and a celebration of the wonderful form of a sensuous being displayed in all its marvelous glory for the betterment and appreciation of those enlightened enough to consider this aesthetic. To present a well formed nude body as an object of great beauty, even art, would be to offer a lesson of inestimable value to the simple peasants of Coventry, whose experiences and perceptions had never been enlightened to appreciate such perfection.
“If Lady Godiva truly believed in the crusade she was promoting, then she should lead it herself, and offer to the citizens of Coventry an example of the glorious beauty to be understood by careful consideration of a perfect nude human body.” Source
The earliest record of the Godiva legend, written a century after the supposed event, states:
"Ascend," he said, "thy horse naked and pass thus through the city from one end to the other in sight of the people and on thy return thou shalt obtain thy request." Upon which she returned: "And should I be willing to do this, wilt thou give me leave?" "I will," he responded. Then the Countess Godiva, beloved of God, ascended her horse, naked, loosing her long hair which clothed her entire body except her snow white legs, and having performed the journey, seen by none, returned with joy to her husband who, regarding it as a miracle, thereupon granted Coventry a Charter, confirming it with his seal. From the Flores Historiarum by Roger of Wendover (died 1236), translated from the Latin by Matthew of Westminster, c.1300-1320
This medieval scribe is renowned for his exaggeration and politically biased embellishment; Wendover is more a collector of stories and legends than a genuine historian.
So it was that the good townsfolk of Coventry, in their gratitude shielded their eyes when the lady rode through town. The sole exception – the voyeur known to us as Peeping Tom, was struck blind for his rudeness.
In the Forenoone all householders were Commanded to keep in their Families shutting their doores & Windows close whilest the Duchess performed this good deed, which done she rode naked through the midst of the Towne, without any other Coverture save only her hair. But about the midst of the Citty her horse neighed, whereat one desirous to see the strange Case lett downe a Window, & looked out, for which fact, or for that the horse did neigh, as the cause thereof. Though all the Towne were Franchised, yet horses were not toll-free to this day. From the account of Humphrey Wanley (1672-1726)
Note that the first record of Peeping Tom, above, was made fully 600 years after the event and, like Godiva’s great amount of hair that flowed down and covered her nakedness, was probably added by puritanical churchmen.
The legend is garbled However, a fact that has almost been lost in the millennium since Godiva lived is that the good lady herself possessed the village of Coventry outright and she needn’t have begged Leofric to suspend or repeal any tax imposed upon it. Godiva controlled the collection of these herself. As Octavia Randolph points out:
“The reason for this persistent misrepresentation is simple, but profound in its implications to the unfolding of the tale. Because Anglo-Saxon woman – indeed all women in England – had by the time of even the earliest extant retelling lost the extensive property (and other personal and legal) rights they had enjoyed prior to the disaster of 1066, chroniclers wrote from the perspective of Norman law and mores.” Source
Coventry has long hosted an annual fair. Her procession at Southam, near Coventry, formerly included images of the goddesses >Holda (white) and Hela (black), and Godiva herself might be an ancient representation of the Celtic horse goddess, Epona. As the centuries rolled by, as part of the festivities, a nude woman would reenact Godiva's ride. From at least 1678 onward, the reenactment – supposedly held on the anniversary of the original ride – was a Coventry staple and continued annually with little interruption until the mid-19th Century, originally as part of Coventry's Great Whitesun Fair. Actresses in a kind of body stocking (‘fleshings’) played the parts of Godiva and her handmaids. In 1854, however, a truly nude woman on a horse crashed the pageant, creating much consternation amongst the Victorian burghers, who suspended the pageant for eight years. The Annual Godiva Procession, Coventry continues, however, and is a tourist drawcard for the industrial city of Coventry.
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
*Ø* Blogmanac | Getting a pop-up? No Charlton Heston here Over the last couple of days, when I've opened the Blogmanac I've also been getting a pop-up ad for pro-gun lobby organisations.
I don't know what's causing this anomaly. In case readers think the Blogmanac team has finally gone completely troppo, here's an editorial by your almanackist, from the Almanac ezine of October 26, 2002:
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Disarmament: Tasmania is known internationally for just a couple of things. The southernmost State of the Commonwealth of Australia, of course, is home to the Tasmanian devil, a tough little marsupial popularised by Warner Brothers cartoons.
Then there's Martin Bryant, the world's best spree killer. On April 28, 1996, Bryant, with his trusty gun, roamed through the tourist village of Port Arthur, Tasmania, killing 35 innocent people and wounding another 18. It's a world record we Australians don't want to own.
Like the British and Japanese, as well as citizens of many other nations, we Ozzies pride ourselves on not having a deranged gun culture like our poor cousins across the Big Pond, who it seems cannot even make a movie without having a shooter in it somewhere. Yet we shouldn't be so self-congratulatory; we're almost as bad. There are something like two million firearms in Australia, out of a population of 20 million people. We should have so many computers.
Last week in Melbourne, a student allegedly opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding others.
Let's put on our thinking caps for a moment. Apart from madness, or badness, what do these two events have in common?
I grew up on the very edge of the sprawling metropolis of Sydney, where it was not quite bush, and not quite outer suburb. There was bush all around us, and a farm across the road, but it was only a mile to a railway station and there were plenty of houses even if it was a half-hour walk to a shop. It was a blessing to have a childhood in a semi-rural area. I ate blackberries on the hoof and sat by Holy waterfall and drank from its stream -- until about 1966 when housing encroached on Paradise and my mates got a bad dose of the back-door trots from drinking the water.
In many ways my parents gave me great freedom and, like many of my mates, I rambled the streets and the bush most days, when we weren't watching Superman at 4.30. Much of the time that I rambled, I was carrying a .22 Gecado air rifle. We all did, all the boys, from about the age of 11.
No one thought anything of it. Dad taught me very well how to handle a gun safely, something that some of my friends obviously didn't know how to do. Mother certainly wouldn't look up from shelling the peas and ask, "Pip, why are you leaving the house carrying a ... a weapon?" Why should she? I didn't ask her why she was shelling peas. I always had a weapon in my hand, except when eating Coco-Pops in front of Superman at 4.30.
Neighbours would say "g'day, Pip" or smile and wave at the kid walking past their suburban houses, rifle in hand. Then they would go back to shelling peas or digging onionweed out of the petunia beds. That's how it was.
Naturally, having started to shoot at an early age, I was, and probably still am, a good shot, and I loved every moment of shooting. No, not every moment. A few times I would shoot a bird, and I felt awful and it wasn't something I did too often. Today, of course, the thought of shooting a Crimson rosella or a Rainbow lorikeet disgusts and appals me even more than it did way back when. But I was a kid, and that's what kids did in the 1960s, where I lived.
As I say, I loved shooting, and I could easily love it today, because it's in my blood. As a youth I could always get top scores at the shooting galleries at Luna Park and the Royal Easter Show. Unless, of course, they had prizes on offer, in which case the barrels were bent like pretzels. As I grew, I sometimes shot with a real twenty-two, with real bullets, the killing kind. Man, I loved it!
I love the look of a gun -- the blue sheen of gunmetal, the pride in my skill as the projectile cuts neatly through the tiny target I have set up at great distance. The smell of the discharged bullet or lead slug is as sweet to me as freshly shelled peas, or Sunday lamb roasts with mint sauce.
So, what about today, you might ask. Do I like shooting?
No. I love shooting!
Do I own a gun today, or ever go shooting?
What, are you nuts??!! I'm a man, not a boy!!
Abolish the bastards!!! Eradicate them from the face of the longsuffering earth!!!
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
The top of the 'Spire' finally sparkled into life for the first time last weekend. The top nine metres of the 120-metre Spire on Dublin's O'Connell Street began to shimmer. As dusk fell the 11,844 tiny holes around the top glistened and the permanent aviation light at its pinnacle shone with them for the first time.
To mark the event, a time capsule has been buried under the Spire, where it is hoped it will remain for at least the next two centuries. The capsule contains a number of items which may inform 23rd century Dubliners about life in the 21st century. Source
The completed Spire finally replaces Admiral Lord Nelson's Pillar, which had dominated the street since 1808. The 100 ft. high column was blown up -- fortunately without injury to anyone -- in 1966 on the 50th anniversary of the "Easter Rising".
*Ø* Blogmanac | Grasping concepts So, after weeks of denial, the White House finally admitted President Bush lied in his January State of the Union Address when he claimed Iraq had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa. The acknowledgment came as a British parliamentary commission questioned the reliability of British intelligence about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
"The report had already been discredited," said Terrance J. Wilkinson, a CIA advisor present at two White House briefings. "This point was clearly made when the President was in the room during at least two of the briefings."
Bush's response was anger, Wilkinson said. "He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could. He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country." Wilkinson retired two months later but says he wrote "numerous memos" questioning the wisdom of using "intelligence information that we knew to be from dubious sources." Source
Meanwhile, in Hinesville, Georgia:
"I thought they [the Iraqis] would be more enthusiastic. I mean, who wouldn't want to live like Americans, to live in democracy, to send your children to school? I'm surprised at how naive the Iraqis are," Mrs Sanchez said. "Who wouldn't want to have freedom? It's hard for me to understand that they don't grasp the concept."
The failure to find weapons of mass destruction counts for considerably less:
"I knew they wouldn't find any. We fooled around and gave them too much stinking time to hide them," said Scott Mortensen, who runs a coffee shop which has become a meeting place for army wives. Source
*Ø* Blogmanac July 9, 1856 | Tesla: almost-forgotten genius
Nikola Tesla, the Croatian-born American electrical engineer, inventor of the alternating current (AC) motor, was born on this day. He was a great genius whose luck was not as great as his abilities, and for many years his name was almost completely lost to public knowledge.
The unit of magnetic flux in the metric system is the ‘tesla’, as another unit is the ‘faraday’. His Tesla Coil supplies the high voltage for the computer monitor you are looking at. The electricity for your computer comes from a Tesla design AC generator, is sent through a Tesla transformer, and gets to your house through 3-phase Tesla power. The electric power of Niagara was harnessed through his inventions.
During Tesla's lifetime, the US Patent Office recorded 111 utility patents, one reissued patent, two utility patent corrections and one utility patent disclaimer. US patent number 613,809 described the first device anywhere for wireless remote control. “You do not see there a wireless torpedo,” he angrily corrected a newspaper reporter, “you see there the first of a race of robots, mechanical men which will do the laborious work of the human race.”
"When wireless is fully applied the earth will be converted into a huge brain, capable of response in every one of its parts," Tesla told Morgan
Tesla’s plan for an international wireless communications system was funded for a time by the squillionaire, JP Morgan, but Morgan prematurely lost faith in the inventor and pulled the plug on the money bin – perhaps one of the worst financial decisions of the 20th century. Tesla had to abandon his ambitious project forever. The newspapers called it, "Tesla's million-dollar folly." Humiliated and defeated, Tesla suffered a nervous breakdown.
By 1890 Nikola Tesla was generating fields that would light up, without any wires, phosphorescent tubes across his laboratory. Yet for all this, his name was forgotten for decades, until recently when at long last the public has come to know of one of history’s great geniuses.
The brilliant inventor who had been so far ahead of his time died penniless on January 7, 1943 in New York City at the age of 87. Nikola Tesla was living in the dilapidated Hotel New Yorker in a room that he shared with a flock of pigeons, which he considered his only friends.
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
*Ø* Blogmanac | More about the Mystery Monster! Everyone is excited about the mysterious "blob" washed up on a Chilean beach
Some scientists say descriptions of the Chilean find, announced by the Centro de Conservacion Cetacea in Santiago, are strikingly similar to a specimen that washed up on a St. Augustine beach in 1896 and may be a giant octopus. Other scientists say it's probably just part of a dead whale. They say the existence of a giant octopus has never been scientifically proven. Source
"The best bet is that the grey goo is the remains of a giant squid," reported the Mail. "But some experts think the 40ft splodge of decaying flesh may be an entirely new species. Or, the paper suggests, "the last BBC reporter who crossed Alastair Campbell".
*Ø* Blogmanac | Up to 17,000 unexploded bombs left in Iraq
Anything between 2,000 and 17,000 unexploded British bomblets may remain on the ground in Iraq, posing a daily threat to civilian lives, according to estimates by a British MP. The Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb's figures are based on the likely failure rates of the "sub-munitions" inside the cluster bombs used during the invasion.
Landmine Action, one of the main campaigners against the use of these weapons, believes that the US and UK forces delivered about 300,000 bomblets in the war.
Cluster bombs are highly effective against troop concentrations, but a significant proportion of the bomblets fail to explode on impact. They remain on the battlefield, in some cases in urban areas, where they can easily be picked up and detonated by children.
UN agencies say hundreds of Iraqi children have been killed or injured after collecting unexploded shells and bomblets.
*Ø* Blogmanac July 8, 1822 | The death of Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley (born August 4, 1792) drowned on this day, aged only 29. The great English poet was the eldest son of a Member of Parliament and grandson of a baronet. He was sent to Eton for his education, where he was mocked and bullied as ‘Mad Shelley’, and later to Oxford University from which he was ‘sent down’ – expelled – for circulating a pamphlet entitled The Necessity of Atheism. After eloping to Scotland with Harriet Westbrook he became interested in the ideas of the radical philosopher William Godwin. He began to visit Godwin's house and fell in love with Mary Godwin, 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.
Smitten by Godwin’s daughter, his marriage with Harriet in tatters, Shelley eloped to France with Mary Godwin and her 15-year-old stepsister Jane 'Claire' Clairmont. The sisters maintained a ménage à trois with the poet in various parts of Europe for the next eight years. In the summer of 1816 Claire urged that they should go to Lake Geneva (to be with the man of her obsession, Lord Byron, with whom she had previously had a one-night stand and to whom she later bore a child). It was at Lake Geneva that, as a result of a bet to see who could write the best Gothic novel, the brilliant young Mary Godwin wrote Frankenstein.
In the Autumn of 1816, Harriet drowned herself in the Serpentine in London. Two years later, Shelley, pursued by creditors, suffering from ill-health, and understandably a social outcast in England, took his lovers to Italy, “the Paradise of Exiles” as he called it, where they could live more cheaply. In Italy he wrote prolifically much of the best poetry of his career. It was in Italy, however, that he met his demise.
Shelley had often forecast his death by drowning, yet he never learned to swim, nor to navigate. While living at San Terenzo on the Bay of Lerici, he sailed in his small schooner Ariel to Leghorn to welcome his friend, the English poet Leigh Hunt.
Off the coast of Viareggio, Ariel sank and Shelley drowned, together with his friend Edward Williams, and a young sailor boy, Charles Vivian. His fish-eaten body washed up days later and, in the presence of Hunt and fellow poet, Lord Byron, Shelley was cremated on the beach. Strangely, his heart would not burn and Mary carried it with her in a silken shroud for the rest of her life.
The months leading up to his drowning had been an intense and difficult time for Shelley and his circle. In 1821 they had received news of the death of their friend John Keats, the poet for whom Shelley wrote Adonais. At Terenzo, Mary Shelley had suffered a dangerous miscarriage. Allegra, the daughter of Byron and the highly strung Claire had suddenly died. Even before Shelley’s death, the famous literary circle was unravelling.
There was a rumour at the time that Ariel had been rammed by fishing boat, whose crew believed that the rich Lord Byron was on board with gold; years later a fisherman confessed to this but no proof exists today. Another story told of a boat pulling close and offering them help, but a voice, allegedly Shelley's, was heard to cry ‘No!’. Another account, probably fanciful, has it that local sailors shouted to Williams to lower the sails but a tall man, presumably Shelley, stopped him from doing so.
Thus it has been suggested that Percy Bysshe Shelley might have committed suicide, for we know from his letters that he was depressed at the time. He was poor and his relationships were complex. The great Keats had died aged only 25. Shelley was also feeling overshadowed by the genius of Byron, writing “'I have lived too long near Lord Byron and the sun has extinguished the glow-worm”. Although we shall never know the truth of the young genius’s death, he has left a legacy of some of the finest poems in the English language.
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Predator Kills Bald Eagle At National Zoo National Bird Dies On Independence Day
WASHINGTON -- A bald eagle, the living symbol of the United States, died at the National Zoo on the Fourth of July, apparently after being attacked by a large cat.
Zoo officials suspect that a bobcat got into the eagle's enclosure and took advantage of the fact that he couldn't fly. Officials speculate the eagle was injured in a fierce rainstorm earlier in the week.
The male eagle died the same day that the zoo celebrated a new exhibit designed especially for bald eagles hurt in the wild. The dead eagle was housed separately from the zoo's two new eagles that were donated by the American Eagle Foundation based at singer Dolly Parton's Dollywood theme park.
Park officials said the bobcats live in nearby Rock Creek Park.
The bald eagle died Friday after suffering severe puncture wounds to its abdomen and back.
The eagle was caged alone near the Bird House and could not fly. A zookeeper found the male Thursday suffering from puncture wounds to his abdomen. Zoo officials said they believed another animal burrowed under the wire mesh enclosure.
The eagle didn't live with two younger bald eagles that star in an exhibit that recently opened at the zoo.
The eagle's death is the latest in a series of animal deaths at the park. A congressionally requested panel is expected to begin studying the deaths and animal care at the zoo.
Source [Thanks to Lisa for this sadly ironic item. -v]
*Ø* Blogmanac | Megalithic Sites are Astronomy and Geodetics
Megaliths ("giant standing stones", menhirs) and related constructions such as cairns, dolmens, tumuli and barrows (ancient earthworks) were built by ancient man for purposes of Astronomy and Geodetics.
Stated simply, stars were used to measure the Earth and vice versa. This human achievement dates to the Neolithic Period (Stone Age), long before such technology was thought possible by modern scholars.
As discovered by Andis Kaulins, Neolithic megalithic sites are astronomy in a cohesive broadly based geodetic survey system. Megalithic sites marked geographic land borders as triangulated by astronomy, e.g. in Scotland, England and Wales, and Ireland, much as the kudurri (border stones) of Mesopotamia. In modern times, triangulation cornerstones have been put underground. In ancient days, these stones were erected on the surface - and there most of them have remained to this day.
Having some computer probs, folks and I've been offline over one day. I'm clearing the decks on my hard disks to get some space and I'll be back ASAP. Meanwhile, stop Bush.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Boys do better at boys' schools: research July 6: "One of the great educational theories of the past 30 years is being turned on its head. It seems boys perform better academically, and become more sensitive men, if they attend all-male schools.
"Findings to be presented at a major conference on boys' education, beginning in Sydney today, show that boys educated without the company of girls have greater self-esteem.
"They are also more likely to pursue subjects such as art, drama and music, to get involved in debating and school leadership and enjoy reading."
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