Surf almanac with menu above. Click here to consult your free I Ching and Tarot while waiting (opens in a new window).
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 | Willie Nelson on the road for Kucinich
"I am endorsing Dennis Kucinich for President because he stands up for heartland Americans who are too often overlooked and unheard. He has done that his whole political career. Big corporations are well-represented in Washington, but Dennis Kucinich is a rare Congressman of conscience and bravery who fights for the unrepresented, much like the late Senator Paul Wellstone. Dennis champions individual privacy, safe food laws and family farmers. A Kucinich Administration will put the interests of America's family farmers, consumers and environment above the greed of industrial agribusiness.
"I normally do not get too heavily involved in politics, but this is more about getting involved with America than with politics. I encourage people to learn more about Dennis Kucinich at his website and I will be doing all I can to raise his profile with voters. I plan to do concerts to benefit the campaign."
*Ø* Blogmanac | More bounce than Ronnie Raygun's hair
Mary Carey for Governor of California? Beats the hell out of Ronald Reagan 7:^) -- her name might not be alliterative, but it does rhyme. Somehow, I can't see her making it to the White House, though. She looks too smart for that.
*Ø* Blogmanac | The Ad Subtractors, Making a Difference
"The successes of Ruskin's five-year-old group, Commercial Alert, may represent the tip of a broad backlash against corporate incursions into health care, education, culture and government. Some believe such activism, known variously as ad-busting, culture-jamming, anti-corporatism and mental environmentalism, is the beginning of the next major social movement in America ...
"Alcohol ads on NBC are dead because of Commercial Alert.
"AOL Time Warner's plan to put ads on 'CNN Student News,' a program aired in 18,000 schools across the country, is dead."
*Ø* Blogmanac August 9 | International Day of the World’s Indigenous People
In 1994, the General Assembly decided that the International Day of the World's Indigenous People shall be observed on 9 August every year during the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People.
Indigenous people are called ‘first peoples’, tribal peoples, aboriginals and autochthons. They have a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories. They consider themselves distinct from other sectors of society now prevailing in those territories. There are at least 5,000 indigenous groups made up of 300 million people, that live in more than 70 countries on five continents.
Sculptor finds foundry where statue of Athena was forged
This is not news, but a fascinating find nonetheless. Following Friday's discussion of the Parthenon (below) check out this important recent discovery of the likely bronze foundry at the Acropolis, only 150 metres from the Parthenon itself. British sculptor, Nigel Konstam, made the find, and was unable to get archaeologists to come and have a look, such are the political and financial considerations in the antiquities scene of Greece -- not the least because Britain refuses to hand back the Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles, stolen from the exterior of the majestic Parthenon in Athens and now in the British Museum.
It is likely that the foundry on the Acropolis is the one in which the great sculptor Phidias (c. 490 BC - c. 430 BC) forged the mighty 15-metre statue of Athena (pictured)that resided for centuries in her temple (the Parthenon), but is now sadly lost.
Here's a question: Was the statue of Athena one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? The answer is found here.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Flash mobs in every city? Since the story we ran on Tuesday (below) about flash mobs, the interest is high. From New York and Boston and all across the USA, to London other cities in England, Scotland and Ireland, to Europe, even in Asia, people are getting into the flash mob game. Where will it end? Is it just a passing craze? More than likely.
If you participate in a flash mob, be it in Paris, Melbourne, San Francisco or Timbuktu ... we'd love to hear about it. Send us an email, or better still, use the comments links. Tell us what you think, too, about the phenomenon.
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
'Flash mob' phenomenon to hit Dublin this weekend "'Flash mobs' have been springing up in cities on both continents this summer and one is planned for Dublin this weekend.
"The phenomenon involves organised gangs of people gathering quickly in the same place, engaging in some bizarre act and then dispersing within a couple of minutes.
"In Rome, hundreds of people recently turned up a music store, demanded non-existent CDs, broke into spontaneous applause and then disappeared.
"A crowd of 200 people also gathered at a London furniture store recently and started praising the sofas." Source
"How well do you know Madonna? Do you consider Tiger Woods a buddy? What about former South African President Nelson Mandela? According to the "small world" theory, you should be just six handshakes away from each of them. But can anyone in the world really reach anyone else through a chain of just six friends?
"Yes, say researchers from Columbia University in New York, who have published the first results of their 'Small World Research Project.'
"They identified 18 target people in 13 different countries, then asked participants to get a message through to the target by sending e-mails to friends and acquaintances.
"On average, researchers say, people can reach their targets in five to seven steps."
Can National Geographic be putting us on? Sure, I believe in six degrees of separation (hey, back in the '80s we used to say five -- wha' happened?), however, this story above isn't about any six people, but six people rich enough to have not only computers, but Internet connections. Just for once, can the top five per cent of the planet please stop looking through this lens?
Surely a better bit of research would show whether someone sipping cafe latte in a Manhattan Starbucks is six or 26 degrees separated from a tribeswoman in Papua-Niugini or Malawi. That would be significant information that could be used not only by the idle priviliged but by human beings. National Geographic: please? Like, who cares about the subjects of this blind experiment, apart from big business? What's happening in the real world? You do much better with that one, or at least, you used to.
1593 Izaak Walton, English author of The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation, a combination of fishing manual and meditations. It become one of the most reprinted books in the history of British letters and today is considered a classic of the language. Walton drew upon Nicholas Breton's (c. 1545-1626) fishing idyll Wits Trenchmour (1597).
‘The Patron Saint of Anglers’Though he wrote of the country pursuits, Izaak Walton was a Londoner who worked as a linen-draper, and he went fishing for recreation. He retired at 50 and had another forty years of leisured life.
Walton was a convert to the preaching of the great poet John Donne. He had two children by a second marriage who looked after him in his old age. His famous book was published 1653, the same year Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector. Because he wrote of keeping bait alive as long as possible on a hook, Byron charged him with cruelty.
1874 Charles Hay Fort, American chronicler of anomalies and the paranormal
The doyen of the study of strange phenomena, Fort (the adjective from his name, Fortean, is applied to bizarre occurrences) had many views about blood falls which he discussed at length. He wrote the following passage about red rains:
Or that our whole solar system is a living thing: that showers of blood upon this earth are its internal hemorrhages – Or vast living things in the sky, as there are vast living things in the oceans – Or some one especial thing: an especial time; an especial place. A thing the size of the Brooklyn Bridge. It's alive in outer space – something the size of Central Park kills it – It drips.
“He collected accounts of frogs and other strange objects raining from the sky, UFOs, ghosts, spontaneous human combustion, the stigmata, psychic abilities, etc. He published four collections of weird tales and anomalies during his lifetime: Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931), and Wild Talents (1932).” Source
“Fort grew progressively blind. On 3rd of May 1932, he was admitted to hospital suffering from 'unspecified weakness'. He died within a few hours, apparently of leukemia. He took notes almost to the end - the last one said simply: 'Difficulty shaving. Gaunt places in face.' After Fort died, Anna lost her interest in living and survived him by only five years.” Source
1899 Pamela Lyndon (PL) Travers (August 9, 1899 - April 23, 1996), Australian author. Born Helen Lyndon Goff in Maryborough, Queensland (though she tended to hide the fact), Travers was the author of Mary Poppins and devotee of Armenian mystic GI Gurdjieff, writing books on the mystic author and on mysticism generally.
In London she became a friend (and perhaps lover) of the poet George William Russell, who introduced her to his close friends, WB Yeats and TS Eliot. (Yeats and Russell had met at the Dublin Theosophical Society and conducted experiments into the occult, and held séances.) Russell also introduced her to writer and editor, Alfred Orage, who in turn introduced her to Gurdjieff.
Like her most famous character, Mary Poppins, the motto of Travers appears to be ‘never explain’, and perhaps this derives from the Gurdjieffian philosophy. Travers’s life is difficult to research as she was very private and would rarely if ever discuss her life. One thing that is known is that her father was a banker, like Mr Banks, the father figure in the Mary Poppins books.
After her death at the age of 96, at the peak of the Mary Poppins film’s popularity, a fund was started in the USA to erect a statue to PL Travers in New York’s Central Park, but the fund failed due to lack of support.
“ … she was a stargazer as a little girl, because her father was a stargazer and they used to lie in the garden in Allora, which is a little town near Toowoomba, and look at the stars, and he would tell her the meaning of all the stars, their real names, the constellations’ names and so on.” Source
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
Welcome to the 39 people who signed up today for the new, illustrated Blogmanaczine by free daily email, and oldtimers. New Blogmanac readers can also enjoy the zine simply by going to the subscription box in the right-hand column of this page.
The Blogmanaczine is a daily posting of all the day's messages on this blog. It's handled automatically by Bloglet.com, and the Blogmanac team's hands never touch it. On the whole, I'm very happy with bloglet's service and happy that we already rank 146 out of 5,127 blog zines on their list.
There can be some minor glitches, caused by Blogger.com rather than by Bloglet, so please don't be too upset if sometimes a post gets repeated in your ezine. There's nothing can be done about it, I'm sorry. It usually happens when one of us here goes in to edit a post ... you know, when we see a typo or something. When we republish, Bloglet thinks it's a double post. There's no spell check here and we work at speed -- so please bear with this idiosyncracy of the technology.
I hope that not only will the new Blogmanaczine be a real treat for you, but that you'll keep coming back to this blog for the many other features in the columns that don't show in the ezine. Enjoy! (And if you've got a better name for the new zine, let me know.)
"DUBLIN, Ireland (Reuters) -- Mobile phone users worldwide will soon be able to dial-a-dolphin if a scheme to record their underwater conversations proves a success.
"Scientists at a dolphin sanctuary off the west coast of Ireland have teamed up with British mobile telecoms giant Vodaphone to transmit the clicking and whistling sounds of bottlenose dolphins." Read on
James Taylor wants everyone in the world to take a picture at the same time. By James Taylor, NautOne.com [No, not THAT James Taylor, but an interesting cyberhead. -v]
The concept of time is loose. It continues to shift and mutate, driving itself further into obscurity. The overseers of the atomic clocks that hold GMT/UTC add extra seconds and days to keep scientific time in synch with the decay of the planet's time. The several standards of time currently can be as much as 30 seconds apart and continue to drift away from each other with every passing second. All of this disorganization, in the strict field of science that controls our governments, our commerce, our daily lives. The everyman operates even further from truth, running on his own set time, with each quartz and spring-driven clock releasing energy at slightly different frequencies. How can so much faith be placed into such a slipshod system? These mere missing moments could be the difference between life and death! OMG, WHO'S IN CHARGE OF THIS MADHOUSE?!
Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, but it's still a bit disconcerting to know that time is so fragile. So, I propose a project involving people, their cameras, and various time zones they live in. I want these adventurers around the world to synchronize on Greenwich Mean Time and upon 17:17:17 GMT on August 17th, they will all simultaneously SNAP a photograph of their own design, be it a scenic vista, someone they love, abstract light formations, or just whatever they may be doing at the moment. By coordinating these photos together, we will create a single moment in time that we can prove exists. We have the photos! We were there! All of these photos will be collected soon after and displayed here for all to see, spanning the absence/presence of the sun, varying weather climates, and regional cultures. We currently have participants in locales ranging from Brazil to Switzerland to the United States to Great Britain to Hong Kong to Canada and a couple places in-between. But we'll need more! We'll need you! So, if you are interested in such an epic project, email me and get ready to take your picture for August 17th. Digital, film, pinhole, any camera will do. Don't have a camera? Go purchase a disposable camera! Any means necessary, buddy.
Now that you've decided to join our rosters, we need you to spread the word even farther. Call your mom! Inform your professor and/or boss! Write your local government official! Or maybe post a little link in your blog, that'd be nice too. I'll be sending reminders to the participants, just to keep you on task. Unannounced entries will also be accepted, as long as they meet the stated criteria. Final photos should be emailed to me with your name, your GMT time zone, location, and a brief description. If you are unable to scan your photo, please snailmail it to: James Taylor, 10703 Sierra Oaks, Austin, TX, 78759, USA and I'll scan it for you. I'll do my best to mail it back if you desire to keep it. I'd like to turn this into a monthly event if this goes well enough the first time around, what do you guys think about that?
"... How do you persuade an outraged public that the war is progressing when there are few signs of it?
"The answer, in a word, is "spin". Not spin as people usually think of it, like a press release or advertisement hyping the virtues of some product or government initiative, but spin as it has grown up in America over the past couple of decades, where giant firms and government combine to mould reality. To cite just one pertinent example, the Iraqi National Congress, which was marketed as the alternative government to Saddam Hussein's, was substantially the creation of the Rendon group, a PR organisation connected to the CIA and contracted to the Pentagon ...
"Rumsfeld was forced to admit a couple of weeks back, when he told Congress: "The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass murder. We acted because [after September 11] we saw the existing evidence in a new light ..."
"You have to admire Rumsfeld's form. Even when he sounds like he's confessing, he's still spinning. The fact is the Bush foreign policy hawks had not seen anything in a "new light". They had wanted to make war on Iraq for more than a decade before the World Trade Centre attack. September 11 provided the pretext, and the post-Afghanistan hiatus added PR urgency." Source
This article from the August 2 Sydney Morning Herald reviews Weapons of Mass Deception -- our Current Pick book ... check out the Amazon.com link in the left-hand column (20% discount)
*Ø* Blogmanac | Why I want you to look me in the face
Instead of people looking away, gasping, or shuddering, Vicky Lucas wants them to know that her face is integral to who she is. And, as she explains here, she likes who she is.
"I realised that the reason why I was so unhappy was not because of my face, but the way some people would react to it. I decided that it wasn't my face that I wanted to change, but social attitudes."
I began to sing of Pallas Athena, the glorious goddess, owl-eyed, inventive, unbending of heart, pure virgin, savior of cities, courageous, tritogeneia. From his awful head wise Zeus himself bore her arrayed in warlike arms of flashing gold, and awe seized all the gods as they gazed. But Athena sprang quickly from the immortal head and stood before Zeus who holds the aegis, shaking a sharp spear: great Olympus began to reel horribly at the might of the owl-eyed goddess, and earth round about cried fearfully, and the sea was moved and tossed with dark waves, while foam burst forth suddenly: the bright son of Hyperion stopped his swift-footed horses a long while, until the maiden Pallas Athena had stripped the heavenly armor from her immortal shoulders. And wise Zeus was glad. Homeric Hymn #28
Panathenaea, ancient Athens
Greece’s two greatest festivals were the Greater Panathenaea and the Lesser. Both were held beginning probably on the 17th of the month of Hecatombaeon; the Lesser every year and the Greater every four years in the third year of the Olympiad.
The greater one was more solemn, and on that occasion (not on the Lesser) the peplus (a crocus-coloured garment woven with images of Enceladus and the giants conquered by the goddess) of the goddess was carried on the mast of a ship to her temple in Athens (the Parthenon, on the hill known as the Acropolis), in a great procession. Maidens from the noblest families of Athens carried baskets with offerings.
Sacrifices of bulls were offered at the Panathenaea festivals. Athenians held foot, horse and chariot races, gymnastic and musical contests, recitations from Homer, philosophy, cock fights, and other entertainments. The prizes in contests were jars filled with oil from the ancient, scarred olive tree of Athena on the Acropolis.
Theft by Britain of the Parthenon Marbles The British government holds, and refuses to return, a sacred marble frieze stolen from the Parthenon. Read more on the misnamed 'Elgin Marbles'
Museums: 'No secret talks' over Marbles "Aug 4 2003: The British Museum yesterday categorically rejected a claim that it was to give back the Parthenon marbles for next year's Olympic Games in Athens." Source
*Ø* Blogmanac | Declaration to all spammers Dear sir or madam
If I wanted a mortgage I would go to a bank in Australia, not a hotmail account of someone who can't spell; I am very poor and cannot afford to see your webcam girls, although I must say Carol does sound delightful; I detest golf and do not know what a 'wedge' is; I have never had a need for viagra, viagara, vlagra, vlagara nor v_i_a_g_r_a and (please note) I feel confident I never will; My name is Mr Wilson, or at least Pip or Philip, not almanac. If my name was Almanac I would spell it with a capital initial letter. Please note that no one named almanac lives here; Messages with subject headers like 'tivhe disrqpt rrrox lhtpxd83739157' make you sound like an alien so I am unlikely to do business with the sender; Subject headers like 'I found that file', 'Our lunch appointment' and 'Walter, why didn't you call' make you sound like a liar, so it's quite impossible that I will do business with the sender; Subject headers like 'I'm your secret admirer' make you sound like you're either too underage or too ugly to come up to me in person. Do not assume that I am that desperate; I regret that I can't help you remove $22 billion from Nigeria, but I've referred your letter to my cousin, the Nigerian Interpol bureau chief. He might have a lazy $20,000, but I don't; My wife will not 'thank me' if I buy your product -- if you are referring to any of my ex-wives, I doubt that they give a rat's arse any more; No, I am not desperate to lose weight. Why should I be? I probably could do with a few extra pounds -- I attach a photo; My 'manhood' as you so quaintly refer to it, is quite big enough already.
*Ø* Blogmanac August 8, 1914 | Aussie kids rush to glory
1914 In the midst of a huge government propaganda campaign, a flood of enlistment began for recruits to fight for Britain’s Empire with the Australian Imperial Force in World War I. From Australia’s adult male population of only 2.7 million, a staggering figure of 416,809 Australians joined the the AIF, with major theatres of war being France and the Middle East. Back home, women regularly gave white feathers, signifying cowardice, to boys and men to shame them into travelling 18,000 kilometres to kill strangers, and to be killed.
The country became deeply divided as the senseless war dragged on and the Commonwealth Government tried to introduce conscription for overseas service. By 1918 the AIF had suffered a casualty rate of more than 64 per cent (one in five of all who served, died), leaving few Australian families untouched by the loss or injury of a loved one. Australia’s young male population was decimated by World War One, a huge setback economically and socially, with a huge demographic lack of fit young males for years. Men as young as 15 sailed across the world to die in the trenches of Europe for a Britain they had only heard about but never seen. For many years after the war, amputees were a common sight; thousands of veterans suffered from ‘shellshock’ – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, filling ‘mental asylums’.
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 August 8, 1963 | The Great Train Robbery
I should keep quiet if I were you, mate, There are some right bastards here. Ronnie Biggs to train driver Jack Mills, during the Great Train Robbery
1963 History's most famous heist, the Great Train Robbery took place in England. A 16-member gang stole 2,631,784 pounds – worth over 26 million pounds ($AU75.5 million) today – in used bank notes which were on their way back to the Bank of England for burning.
Two London gangs combined for the stick-up. Best known of the robbers, the fun-loving Ronald Biggs, was a member of neither, but was chosen because he knew the train driver. For his minor role in the robbery, Biggs was given a 30-year sentence, considered by many to be out of proportion to his crime. He gained fame by escaping from prison and remaining free for 28 years under the noses of Scotland Yard. Biggs lived secretly in Australia, then publicly in Brazil, made a movie with the Sex Pistols, and became an even bigger celebrity, making a living by being available for barbecues for a fee.
Old and infirm, Ronnie Biggs in 2001 made a celebrated voluntary return to Britain, and despite having lived a reformed life for 38 years, was arrested at London’s airport and remains in prison. One can only presume Biggs decided that English prison was preferable to Brazilian hospital. One might also conclude that British justice has an elephantine memory not only for people who break the law, but also for those who embarrass it.
My father is not a murderer, a terrorist, a paedophile or a rapist. He was once a small time thief, who, on the day of his 33rd birthday, made the costliest mistake of his life. He is now an extremely frail 72-year-old man and has been punished enough. Open letter from Michael Biggs
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 | South Africa to ban HIV drug for pregnant women
NewScientist.com news service
"The South African government is to ban pregnant women with HIV from using a WHO-backed drug that prevents the virus being passed to their babies. They claim its efficacy is unproven, but HIV campaigners and doctors vehemently deny this, describing the action as 'disturbing and disgusting'. Source
"Aids kills some 6,000 people each day in Africa - more than wars, famines and floods. Millions of children are orphans, many more live with HIV or Aids." With HIV/AIDS infection rates of 30 per cent in some countries, a whole continent is reeling under the effects of this epidemic. What sort of adults will millions of orphans become, if they live, and what will they say to the rich world that steadfastly ignores their plight? Listen to the documentary on the epidemic that will affect your life and mine if it hasn't already.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Militarism Greater Threat Than Terrorism
SOMETHIN'S HAPPENIN' HERE . . . AND THERE . . . AND EVERYWHERE -- Beware and share!
"It is enough that a lie is believed for three days -- it has then served its purpose."
-- Marie de Medici, 1573-1642, queen consort and queen regent of France
Militarism is a Greater Threat Than Terrorism By Farhang Jahanpour PhD, University of Cambridge
Selected excerpt:
War is the greatest scourge of our time and the greatest violation of human rights. [Emphasis added. -v] In many ways, the twentieth century was the worst century in human history in terms of people who were killed as the result of local, regional and international wars, most of them fought in the name of good causes, such as freedom, democracy, socialism, etc. It was the age of mass killing on an unprecedented scale. It was the century of technological barbarism and mechanised butchery. It is estimated that more than 170 million people were slaughtered in various wars during that century. While many people were hoping that the end of the Cold War would produce peace dividends and would usher in a period of calm and security, the world seems to be faced with a series of unending wars.
A great American peace activist and Catholic priest, Phil Berrigan, who died on 6th December 2002, spent 11 of his 79 years in prison for his protests against war. In reviewing Sr. Rosalie Bertell's book, Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War, Berrigan ended with these words:
"The military as an instrument of mass killing is a waste institution - humans, energy, oil, metals, scientific and technical skills, money - it consumes all and restores nothing to the resources of the planet. Any faithful or sane scrutiny would conclude that it must be dismantled. It kills, threatens and wastes - it is the BIG LIE institutionalised. Its veneer and untouchability gives new meaning to the demonic. Is anybody out there listening?"
We find some of these felons to be very civil men, and say, that if they could have had any reasonable subsistence by friends, or otherwise, they should never have taken such necessitous courses for support of their wives and families. they argue it with much confidence that property is the original cause of any sin between party and party after civil transactions. And that since the Tyrant is taken off, and their government altered in nomine, so it really to redound to the good of the people in specie. The Leveller newspaper (England), The Moderate, on August 7, 1649, when some poor men were executed for stealing cattle, asserting that such crimes originate in private property Source
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
When my mother died, I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry "'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!" So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep. William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper; England outlawed child apprenticeships in this trade on August 7, 1840
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Doyo, or Dog Days, Japan, August 7-8 The Japanese call these the Dog Days, the most dangerous time of the year because of the heat which brings with it vermin and illness. The best way to stay healthy during this time is to eat lots of eels, whose slippery coolness is the proper antidote.
In Europe, too, ‘Dog Days’ is the name given to the hot summer period when, apparently, the heat can make people mad. The Romans began this practice and set the Dog Days from July 3 till August 11.
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
I was not happy until, “I outgrew my early religious faith, and felt free to think and act from my own convictions”. Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis
1813 Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis (died August 28, 1876) American feminist and social reformer, friend of the poet Walt Whitman; organized and led the first National Woman's Rights Convention, in Worcester, Massachusetts, October 1850
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
I have written my life in small sketches, a little today, a little yesterday, as I thought of it, as I remembered all the things from childhood on through the years, good ones and unpleasant ones. That's how they come, and that is how we have to take them. I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I feel satisfied with it. I was happy and contented, I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered and life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.
1876 Mata Hari (Margaretha Gertruide MacLeod, née Zelle), Dutch-born exotic dancer who, by sleeping with top military and governmental personnel, spied for both sides in World War I, finally being executed in Paris by the Allies in 1917.
She told her judge that she had received money for sex, not for secrets. “Harlot, yes, but traitress, never!” she said. Rumor has it that during the execution, the squad members had to be blindfolded so as not to succumb to her charms. Another rumor claims she blew a kiss to her killers before the firing began. She told the firing squad to aim for her face, not her heart.
If you haven't seen it yet, it's well worth visiting and bookmarking. It reveals many of the lies told the American people by its government over 9-11. Especially useful to people interested in freedom is the essay on what Bush was doing on 9-11, and the seven different stories told by him and his close associates.
I have added a permalink to this site in the left-hand column of the Blogmanac so it's easy to find -- it's too big a site to read in one sitting.
*Ø* Blogmanac | US officials confirm dropping firebombs on Iraqi troops
"Results are 'remarkably similar' to using napalm"
"American jets killed Iraqi troops with firebombs – similar to the controversial napalm used in the Vietnam War – in March and April as Marines battled toward Baghdad.
"Marine Corps fighter pilots and commanders who have returned from the war zone have confirmed dropping dozens of incendiary bombs near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris River. The explosions created massive fireballs." Source
Egypt: This day was the Festival of Thoth, god of Wisdom and Writing. In a prayer to Thoth the Egyptians would say: Suffer me to relate thy feats in whatever land I may be, Then the multitude of men shall say, ‘How great are the things that Thoth has done.’
Transfiguration of Jesus Christ Christian celebration of the dazzling appearance of Jesus to the Disciples on Mt Tabor.
First Wednesday in August, Isle of Skye Highland Games, Portree, Scotland “Inaugurated in 1877, the Isle of Skye Highland gathering has taken place each year since, except during the two World Wars. The Lump provides a natural amphitheatre for the activities, and the nearby Gathering Hall is the venue for the piping competition that runs alongside the games." Source
Today is the celebration of Tan Hill in the Celtic traditions. Tan (also called Teinne) is equivalent to the spirit of fire that has been dedicated for sacred uses.
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
1637 Ben Jonson, 65, British comic genius and satirist, died in London. Like some other great poets and writers – including Dryden, Tennyson, Browning, Masefield, Johnson, Dickens, Sheridan, Kipling and Hardy – he was honoured by being buried in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner with the epitaph: “O rare Ben Jonson”.
Poets’ Corner was not originally designated as the burial place of writers, playwrights and poets; the first poet to be buried here, Geoffrey Chaucer, was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey because he had been Clerk of Works to the palace of Westminster, not because he had written The Canterbury Tales.
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
1890 New York, USA: At Auburn Prison, William Kemmler became the first person to be executed in the electric chair. Officials closed the switch for 17 seconds, after which Kemmler appeared to be dead, but his body started to twitch. Believing him to be still alive, they administered another charge, but took a full two minutes to reattach him to the chair. The next jolt lasted 70 seconds, during which the corpse started to burn. The gruesome details of Kemmler's execution sparked (no pun intended) moral debate over capital punishment, except, of course, in Texass.
1945 Although Japan was near defeat, the military and armaments corporations must have their way, as there are very serious mortgages and upmarket restaurants at stake. At 8:15 EDT, the United States B-29 Super Fortress called the Enola Gay dropped a ten-foot long atomic bomb tastelessly code-named Little Boy on Hiroshima, Japan, killing an estimated 140,000 men, women and children -- innocent civilians. A second A-bomb was dropped in Nagaski three days later.
Visit my friend’s site Gallery Bouglaf -- follies of the apocalyptic imagination
Hiroshima Peace Festival, or Hiroshima Day Today is a day for reflection on the anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on this date in 1945. In Japan, and around the world, Hiroshima Day is observed with prayers for world. In Hiroshima, one of the main remembrance services is held at Peace Memorial Park.
You know, it just kinda hit me tonight. My maternal great-grandfather was born in 1819. Yes, my Mum's grandpa was born just after Napoleon died. Talk about six degrees of separation! Only a few generations back to the early industrial era, to the time of Nelson's navy, when men were keelhauled, and traitors were hanged, drawn and quartered. The word 'Australia' was three years old. People in Sydneytown (almost all of them convicts), looked like this.
I'm 50 years young, and it's not as though my Mum had me when she was ancient or anything; in fact, she was pretty young, just 27 years of age. She's still young. To think of Mum, very active and brown-haired still, having a Grandpa who was born in 1819 is ... kinda weird.
Check out some things that happened in the year my Mum's grandpa was born:
Births George Eliot, novelist. Queen Victoria. Herman Melville, American novelist, author of Moby Dick. Julia Ward Howe, writer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Walt Whitman, American poet.
Events Simon Bolivar proclaimed the Republic of Colombia. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded Singapore. Thomas Blanchard patented the lathe. The United States House of Representatives passed the Missouri Compromise. Spain signed the Adams-Onis Treaty with the United States ceding eastern Florida. The paddle-wheel steamship Savannah became the first steamship to successfully cross the Atlantic. The Peterloo massacre took place in Manchester, UK Alabama was admitted as the 22nd US state.
Published The Bride of Lammermoor - Sir Walter Scott Odes - John Keats The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon - Washington Irving
This isn't some kind of record, I know that. I've heard of cases on record in which four generations can span much more, maybe three centuries instead of nearly two -- but I can't remember where, and it's not the easiest thing to google. Maybe you know of some, or maybe even your own family can beat this.
I'm not trying to claim a gold medal or anything -- I'd really much rather hear who's earned a gold medal more. Drop me a line, OK? It's sort of fascinating.
By Adriel Hampton Of The San Francisco Examiner Staff
Congressman Dennis Kucinich supports legalizing gay marriage, repealing the death penalty and the Patriot Act, withdrawing from the World Trade Organization and scrapping the North American Free Trade Agreement, implementing national ranked choice voting and publicly financed political campaigns, ending the occupation of Iraq, creating universal single-payer health care, forming a Department of Peace, cutting the Pentagon budget by 15 percent, legalizing medical marijuana and upholding legalized abortion.
Those positions may not land the Ohio Democrat his party's presidential nomination, but they have a number of third-party and independent progressives solidly behind his candidacy.
Thursday in San Francisco, three of California's most prominent Green Party members voiced support for Kucinich, though stopping short of formal endorsements because of the party divide.
"If Kucinich is the Democratic nominee, I am sure the Democrats and the Greens will work collaboratively to oust George Bush in next year's election," said Matt Gonzalez, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, who introduced the candidate at a breakfast for his supporters.
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and Code Pink Women for Peace and U.S. Senate candidate for the Greens in 2000, told The Examiner that Kucinich is "as green as you can get."
"He's so genuine, you wonder how this guy ever got to Congress," Benjamin said.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Number 10 admits slur on Dr. Kelly Downing Street was forced to admit last night that a senior official had tried to discredit the Iraq weapons expert David Kelly by describing him as a 'Walter Mitty' fantasist. The embarrassing climbdown came after No 10 had spent the day denying that the British Prime Minister had authorised any attempt to undermine the credibility of the scientist, whose funeral takes place tomorrow.
The Government already faces accusations that the leaking of his name by the Ministry of Defence contributed to his death.
The Independent said yesterday that a senior official at No 10 had compared Dr Kelly to James Thurber's fictional Mitty, a character with delusions of grandeur. The source claimed that Dr Kelly had told Andrew Gilligan, the Radio 4 Today programme reporter, more than he knew then failed to admit to the MoD the full extent of his contacts with journalists.
Opposition MPs and colleagues of Dr Kelly, who is believed to have committed suicide after being caught up in a war of words between the Government and the BBC, reacted angrily to the smear. Richard Butler, who headed the United Nations weapons inspection team when Dr Kelly was part of it, told the programme: "This man was wedded to the truth and had a deep experience in Iraq."
The smear coincided with continuing confusion at the MoD over how to explain the removal by the Metropolitan Police of a document relating to Dr Kelly that officials had planned to destroy. Despite a spate of denials over the weekend, MoD officials admitted privately that the document was "a media plan" on how to handle stories about Dr Kelly.
*Ø* Blogmanac August 5, 1758 | Dr Johnson: All those years ago
Among the inferior professors of medical knowledge, is a race of wretches, whose lives are only varied by varieties of cruelty; whose favourite amusement is to nail dogs to tables and open them alive; to try how long life may be continued in various degrees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration of the vital parts; to examine whether burning irons are felt more acutely by the bone or tendon; and whether the more lasting agonies are produced by poison forced into the mouth, or injected into the veins. Dr Samuel Johnson: Idler No 17 (August 5, 1758)
*Ø* Blogmanac August 5, 1934 | Happy birthday, Wendell Berry
As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn't go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection. Wendell Berry, American author, 'the Prophet of Rural America' Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
*Ø* Blogmanac August 5, 973 | Happy birthday, Murasaki Shikibu
973* Murasaki Shikibu, Japanese author, noted for her diary. Her first name refers to her father's office as a Japanese governor; her personal name is not recorded, it being considered impolite to write the names of women of high rank. After her husband died, Murasaki joined the retinue of Empress Akiko, and wrote The Tale of Genji, the world's first surviving long novel. Her book is called the finest work of Japanese literature. Nothing is known of Murasaki's life after leaving the court of the empress.
The tales of Prince Genji, known as ‘the Shining Prince’, became popular immediately on its release. It was meant to be read aloud, and the earliest Genji manuscript was lost. Luckily, early 12th-Century scrolls of the tale survived, and through the ages, the novel has been translated into many languages.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Report warns PNG nearing "state collapse" [This wonderful place, one of the world's largest islands and home to one-sixth of the world's languages, is yet another imminent 'failed state' as a result of neo-colonialism.]
"A group of Papua New Guinean academics has warned the country is close to becoming a failed state, echoing the institutional collapse that led Australia to intervene in the neighbouring Solomon Islands.
"The scholars warned the country 'is very near to experiencing state collapse' if present trends continue.
"A book by two political scientists and three lawyers, due to be published later this year, draws parallels with the experience of African nations and raises concerns about the "hideous consequences of irrational decision-making, despotic leadership, privatisation of state institutions and the 'politics of the belly'." Source
[The Spirit of Yippie -- or is the Spirit of Yuppie? -- lives.]
"LONDON, England -- The craze for "flash mobs," where jokers gather en masse at a moment's notice, perform an inane activity and then disperse quickly, is spreading across Europe.
"Arranged via Web sites and e-mails, flash mob members voluntarily and simultaneously converge to the venue mentioned in a general e-mail and then collect detailed instructions for the event. They partake in a silly and harmless activity and then disperse at a given time ...
"The concept has spread quickly, across the United States to Europe, Australia and Singapore.
"The first European mob took place in Rome on July 24, when 300 people entered a music and bookshop asking for non-existent titles.
"The latest flash mob incident took occurred at 6.01 p.m. on August 1, in Berlin, where about 40 people in the middle of a busy street took out their cell phones and shouted, "yes, yes!" and then applauded, according to The New York Times.
The next Flash mobs have been planned in London on August 7, Amsterdam on August 8, Dublin, Sheffield, Zurich and Vienna." Source
Flash mobs at stock markets and military installations, now that sounds even more fun. Plenty on Flash mobs if you google it. And this one advertises on the google page but as far as I can tell, it's definitely a yuppie thing -- networking for suits. You tell me.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Car Crash Reveals Racist Church New Orleans, La. (Reuters) - A car crash in a town near New Orleans revealed that a building thought to be a home improvement business was actually a white supremacist church, police said on Friday.
The vehicle smashed into the brick storefront in Chalmette, Louisiana, after colliding with two other cars and came to rest amid stacks of racist books and pamphlets, including Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf," they said. A sign proclaimed the building the "Southern Home Improvement Center," said Lt. Mike Sanders of the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Department, but investigators found out it was the New Christian Crusade Church and headquarters of the Christian Defense League.
Both organizations were the projects of building owner James Warner, a founder of the American Nazi Party and associate of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Republican gubernatorial candidate David Duke, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate groups.
*Ø* Blogmanac | MI6 chief's plan to quit not linked to Iraq, insists No 10
Downing Street, MI6 and the Foreign Office closed ranks yesterday to deny categorically that Sir Richard Dearlove, Britain's top spymaster, is retiring early in the wake of the row over intelligence claims about Iraq's banned weapons programme.
But opposition MPs at Westminster leapt on weekend reports that Sir Richard's widely reported "unhappiness" about the use made of agents' reports has prompted him to let it be known he will quit next summer. That is six months before his 60th birthday, after a five-year stint as head of MI6.
Sir Richard got an extension, which he will now not complete. But friends say his timing is more likely to be tied to the hope that he may head a Cambridge college than to claims that he "is miffed with No 10 - that is wildly implausible", said one high official.
MPs say he could have stayed on if he and No 10 were still on good terms, citing the kind of shadowy intelligence sources that have persistently claimed that No 10 did indeed "sex up" MI6 product to swing voters behind Tony Blair's war in Iraq.
Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, called Sir Richard "a distinguished public servant [who] is taking the honourable way out".
*Ø* Blogmanac | Eisteddfod thrives as 18,000 visit festival
More than 18,000 people visited the Welsh National Eisteddfod field at Meifod, near Welshpool, on opening day on Saturday. Following a massive financial loss of more than £300,000 over the past two years, organisers were delighted with the turn-out. Attendance was well above expectation and 4,000 up on last year's event at Tyddewi. Source
The National Eisteddfod is a Welsh-language festival which lasts for eight days at the beginning of August every year. Normally, it attracts a total of over 170,000 visitors and some 8,000 competitors and costs approximately $4m. It is, in fact, the largest popular festival of competitive music-making (including composition) and poetry and prose-writing in Europe. For thousands of Welsh people it is also a compelling and convivial gathering of the clans, many people regarding it as their annual holiday.
Actor Ioan Gruffudd returned to his homeland to join one of Wales' most elite cultural groups at the festival. The 29-year-old star of "Hornblower" and "Great Expectations" was made a member of the Gorsedd of Bards, the 'guardians' of Welsh language and culture.
Invitations to join the Gorsedd - which literally means "high seat" - are given to figures who have made a distinguished contribution to Welsh language and culture. The Welsh-speaking Hollywood celebrity, once voted the world's third most eligible bachelor, wore traditional white robes for the ceremony. He received the honour in an early morning open-air service at the Gorsedd Circle at Meifod.
Other members of the Gorsedd include the new Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams, who joined last year when he was Archbishop of Wales.
"Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said in a rare interview with American television Sunday that the United States made Osama bin Laden a saint and prophet, and that the fugitive al Qaeda leader "has become a symbol for defending the Islamic world."
"The comments came during an interview with George Stephanopoulos recorded Wednesday for broadcast on ABC's "This Week."
"America is not doing that intentionally or on purpose," Gadhafi said through an interpreter. "America actually is fighting him, but fighting bin Laden led us to this reality.'" Source
*Ø* Blogmanac | How to rig an Internet poll This site shows how it's done, and why polls might be good for quoting when you're in a corner with some diehard pro-Bush or Blair voter, but they ain't worth as much as a Florida election.
*Ø* Blogmanac August 4 | Loch-mo-Naire pilgrimage We discussed over the past few days how Lughnsasadh (Lammastide) was for Celtic people and others in Europe a time for visiting healing wells and springs. Today we look at an ancient healing waters custom from Scotland that was practised annually on August 4, leading one to postulate that it was a Lammas commemoration. Its rites contain actions that remind one not only of Celtic practices, but also the Christian sacrament of baptism.
Loch-mo-Naire, a lake in Strathnavon, Sutherlandshire, famous for its supposed miraculous healing qualities, was a site of pilgrimage for the lame, sick, impotent, and mentally ill. At midnight, these faithful unfortunates would gather on the shore of the loch to drink from its sanative waters, strip naked, and walk backwards into the loch. After immersing themselves three times, they would throw offerings of silver coins into the depths.
I've added more about this pilgrimage to the Lammas page at the Almanac's Scriptorium.
1541Hernando de Soto’s army arrived at Quigate, a town of sun-worshippers, west of the Mississippi in present-day Louisiana, USA.
One of the advanced party horsemen reported,
On the fourth of August, he [de Soto] reached the town [El Dorado, well ahead of the army] where the chief was living. On the way [while camped at Carmi, the provincial boundary, with the advanced horsemen], the latter sent him blankets and skins, but not daring to remain in the town, went away. The town was the largest that had been seen in Florida. The governor and his men [in the advanced party] were lodged [by the Indians] in half of it; and a few days afterward[(when the army arrived, having camped at Omaha the night before] seeing that the Indians were going about deceitfully [on the Full Moon], he ordered the other half (today's Harrisburg, the largest half of the town) burned ...
... soon after on that night a spy of the Indians was captured by those who were on watch. The governor asked him whether he would take them to the place where the [real] chief was [or be fed to the dogs] ... After a march of a day and a half he found the chief in a dense wood and a soldier, not knowing the chief, gave him a cutlass stroke on the head. The chief cried out not to kill him saying that he was the chief. He was taken captive and with him 140 of his people.Source
De Soto had obtained from Emperor Charles V, king of Spain, an appointment as governor of the vast unexplored interior of southeastern North America, called ‘Florida’, following its ‘discovery’ by Ponce de Leon some 20 years before, with orders to subdue and to rule it. Searching for gold and jewels and the fabled ‘man of gold’, de Soto paid for his conquest of Florida out of his own pocket. Accompanied by 600 Spanish and Portuguese cavaliers, on May 30, 1539, they began a four-year journey of wandering in southeast America searching for treasures, and in particular, El Dorado, ‘the gilded one’, a king whose lands were so rich in gold that he himself was covered with the precious metal. The Native Americans misled de Soto and his men deeper into the wilderness for promises of treasures.
The native Americans exposed the gold ceremonial pieces to the sun, then gave them to a priest who would place them in lagoons (representing the womb of the earth) and other sacred places, usually close to large rocks representing the spirit of their ancestors who turned into stone since the coming of the sun and the creation of light. there, the gifts were fertilized and spread through the rivers that were born from them.
This is how the famous legend of El Dorado started, as described by Juan Rodríguez Freyle:
In that pond of Guatavita they made a rattan palm raft and decorated it as much as possible. They undressed the cacique (chief) and covered him and sprinkle him with gold powder, in such a way that all his body was completely covered with the metal; they put him in the raft, standing and carrying on his feet a bunch of gold and emeralds to offer to his God. The raft left with the sound of trumpets and horns, and half way of the lagoon, one could hear the signal for silence… The golden Indian with his gifts of gold and emeralds carrying them to the middle of the lagoon… and once the ceremony was over, the party started with dances and songs. The name El Dorado was taken from this ceremony.
*Ø* Blogmanac August 4, 1997 | World's oldest living person Jeanne Calment of France, died at age 122. She lived through France's Third and Fourth Republics, and into its Fifth. She met Vincent Van Gogh in 1888 when he came to her uncle's shop to buy paints, and later remembered him as “dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable.” Mme Calment was 14 when the Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889. She gave up smoking in 1995, and her doctor said her abstinence was due to pride rather than health – she was too blind to light a cigarette herself, and hated asking others to do it for her.
The big news today is not American deaths in Iraq, but that there were none, as the US Administration gets its nation increasingly bogged down in the Middle East.
U.S Goes Two Days With No Combat Deaths
Monday August 4, 2003 12:49 AM
"BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - For a second straight day, the U.S. military reported no fatal attacks Sunday on American soldiers in Iraq. In a series of raids, troops detained two dozen people they said were participating in the violent resistance to the U.S. occupation, including a 'targeted leader.''" Source
*Ø* Blogmanac | Cool desktop ticker I've installed the desktop ticker from EasyByte.com on Esmeralda, my computer, and I must say, I'm impressed.
It's easy and quick to instal, I don't seem to be getting any ads, and you right-click on the ticker itself to customize the news feeds you want. You can also customize (in Options) the colours and fonts you want. It looks great with Jr 'Bob' Dobbs fonts from SubGenius's fonts page, and Blood of Dracula looks pretty good too. More mature people could always go for Verdana.
"On Aug. 27, 2003, Mars will be less than 34.65 million miles (55.76 million kilometers) away -- closer to our planet than it’s been in nearly 60,000 years. The view will be stupendous.
"The Roman God of War looms ever nearer, brighter, and more imposing during July as it approaches its historic rendezvous with Earth.
"Mars is now easy to find. The planet usually appears red or orangish, though sometimes -- depending conditions in Earth's atmosphere -- it can look yellowish.
"Whatever, it is the unmistakable beacon of the pre-dawn southern sky and is now visible before midnight, too, for observers with a clear view of the horizon. Try looking after 10 p.m., or start earlier and watch Mars rise in the southeast." Read up on the Mars event
*Ø* Blogmanac | I invent a word without synonyms! Already flushed with pride that the only Google references to the word 'scungeous' are on my web pages (autographs later, please. Move along, nothing happening here), I'm almost revoltingly self-congratulatory now that I find I have invented a word without any similarity whatever to any other.
I refer to the word 'thread' (write it down, it might be useful one day), which draws a blank in the online thesauri of ERIC (the huge educational library), Merriam-Webster, and HyperDictionary. (Let me know here if any other online thesauri confirm my suspicions, that this word, 'thread' has sprung from my mind sui generis, and might be worthy of patenting. I could use the bread.)
*Ø* Blogmanac | Thomas Meagher and the Young Irelanders
Terrorists perhaps, freedom fighters, maybe, remarkable, without doubt
It has well been said that one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. This is the story of an Irishman, Thomas Meagher, who was almost hanged and his body chopped into four pieces by the British government, for his terrorist leanings, and who went on to become Governor of Montana, USA. His fellow terrorists also had remarkable careers – but more of them in just a minute.
This is a story that history has almost forgotten.
August 3, 1823, saw the birth of Thomas Francis Meagher, Irish nationalist, and later transported convict, escapee, American Civil War general, and Governor of Montana.
In the 1840s, at the time of the great Irish famine, a party of radical Irish nationalists called the ‘Young Irelanders’ wrote articles in The Nation and The United Irishman newspapers arguing that the Irish people, if they had an Irish Parliament, could better deal with An Gorta Mor (‘the great hunger’), than could British parliamentarians sitting in London so removed from the Irish peasants dying by the hundreds of thousands.
One of the Young Irelanders who came to prominence, at a young age, was Thomas Meagher. Educated in Jesuit colleges, allowing him to receive a better education than most Catholics at the time, Meagher left college in 1843 with a reputation as a great patriot and orator. He took his fervour and oratorical ability to the Loyal National Repeal Association, the nationalist party of ‘the Great Liberator’, the elderly Daniel O'Connell. However, Meagher was of an impetuous nature and O’Connell’s devotion to non-violence could not keep Meagher in O’Connell’s ranks. The Young Irelanders had no such reservations about the use of force, and in 1848 Meagher, aged only 23, gave a firebrand speech that earned him the nickname ‘Meagher of the Sword’.
Read on, about how Meagher and the Young Irelanders went on to become convicts in Britain's most brutal penal colony, then later had careers as army generals, governors and men of other high rank in Australia, Ireland and the USA. It's all at the Scriptorium
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
Pages
of Days
Almanac
President
"I am endorsing Dennis Kucinich for President because he stands up for heartland Americans who are too often overlooked and unheard. He has done that his whole political career. Big corporations are well-represented in Washington, but Dennis Kucinich is a rare Congressman of conscience and bravery who fights for the unrepresented, much like the late Senator Paul Wellstone. Dennis champions individual privacy, safe food laws and family farmers. A Kucinich Administration will put the interests of America's family farmers, consumers and environment above the greed of industrial agribusiness. 
In 1994, the General Assembly decided that the International Day of the World's Indigenous People shall be observed on 9 August every year during the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People.
Sculptor finds foundry where statue of Athena was forged
"How well do you know Madonna? Do you consider Tiger Woods a buddy? What about former South African President Nelson Mandela? 
1593 
1899 Pamela Lyndon (PL) Travers (
"DUBLIN, Ireland (Reuters) -- Mobile phone users worldwide will soon be able to dial-a-dolphin if a scheme to record their underwater conversations proves a success. 
Instead of people looking away, gasping, or shuddering, Vicky Lucas wants them to know that her face is integral to who she is. And, as she explains here, she likes who she is. 
I began to sing of Pallas Athena, the glorious goddess, owl-eyed, inventive, unbending of heart, pure virgin, savior of cities, courageous, tritogeneia. From his awful head wise Zeus himself bore her arrayed in warlike arms of flashing gold, and awe seized all the gods as they gazed. But Athena sprang quickly from the immortal head and stood before Zeus who holds the aegis, shaking a sharp spear: great Olympus began to reel horribly at the might of the owl-eyed goddess, and earth round about cried fearfully, and the sea was moved and tossed with dark waves, while foam burst forth suddenly: the bright son of Hyperion stopped his swift-footed horses a long while, until the maiden Pallas Athena had stripped the heavenly armor from her immortal shoulders. And wise Zeus was glad.
1914 In the midst of a huge government propaganda campaign, a flood of enlistment began for recruits to fight for Britain’s Empire with the 
NewScientist.com news service 
With HIV/AIDS infection rates of 30 per cent in some countries, a whole continent is reeling under the effects of this epidemic. What sort of adults will millions of orphans become, if they live, and what will they say to the rich world that steadfastly ignores their plight? 
When my mother died, I was very young,
"Results are 'remarkably similar' to using napalm"
Hiroshima Peace Festival, or Hiroshima Day
You know, it just kinda hit me tonight. My maternal great-grandfather was born in 1819. Yes, my Mum's grandpa was born just after Napoleon died. Talk about six degrees of separation! Only a few generations back to the early industrial era, to the time of Nelson's navy, when men were keelhauled, and traitors were hanged, drawn and quartered. The word 'Australia' was three years old. People in Sydneytown (almost all of them convicts), looked like this.
Among the inferior professors of medical knowledge, is a race of wretches, whose lives are only varied by varieties of cruelty; whose favourite amusement is to nail dogs to tables and open them alive; to try how long life may be continued in various degrees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration of the vital parts; to examine whether burning irons are felt more acutely by the bone or tendon; and whether the more lasting agonies are produced by poison forced into the mouth, or injected into the veins.
"A group of Papua New Guinean academics has warned the country is close to becoming a failed state, echoing the institutional collapse that led Australia to intervene in the neighbouring Solomon Islands.
[The Spirit of Yippie -- or is the Spirit of Yuppie? -- lives.]
Downing Street, MI6 and the Foreign Office closed ranks yesterday to deny categorically that Sir Richard Dearlove, Britain's top spymaster, is retiring early in the wake of the row over intelligence claims about Iraq's banned weapons programme. 
More than 18,000 people visited the Welsh National Eisteddfod field at Meifod, near Welshpool, on opening day on Saturday. Following a massive financial loss of more than £300,000 over the past two years, organisers were delighted with the turn-out. Attendance was well above expectation and 4,000 up on last year's event at Tyddewi.
Actor Ioan Gruffudd returned to his homeland to join one of Wales' most elite cultural groups at the festival. The 29-year-old star of "Hornblower" and "Great Expectations" was made a member of the Gorsedd of Bards, the 'guardians' of Welsh language and culture.
"Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said in a rare interview with American television Sunday that the United States made Osama bin Laden a saint and prophet, and that the fugitive al Qaeda leader "has become a symbol for defending the Islamic world." 
On the fourth of August, he [de Soto] reached the town [El Dorado, well ahead of the army] where the chief was living. On the way [while camped at Carmi, the provincial boundary, with the advanced horsemen], the latter sent him blankets and skins, but not daring to remain in the town, went away. The town was the largest that had been seen in Florida. The governor and his men [in the advanced party] were lodged [by the Indians] in half of it; and a few days afterward[(when the army arrived, having camped at Omaha the night before] seeing that the Indians were going about deceitfully [on the Full Moon], he ordered the other half (today's Harrisburg, the largest half of the town) burned ...
"On Aug. 27, 2003, Mars will be less than 34.65 million miles (55.76 million kilometers) away -- closer to our planet than it’s been in nearly 60,000 years. The view will be stupendous. 
