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*
"The Beginning... So this is the beginning for me, I guess. I never thought I'd start my own weblog... All I could think, every time I wanted to start one was "but who will read it?" I guess I've got nothing to lose... but I'm warning you- expect a lot of complaining and ranting. I looked for a 'rantlog' but this is the best Google came up with.
"A little bit about myself: I'm female, Iraqi and 24. I survived the war. That's all you need to know. It's all that matters these days anyway."
... I discovered it at the blog of an old Aussie colleague of mine (I stumbled upon his blog by chance tonight), Allan Moult (gday, cobber!). It's a great blog, as well. Say gday to both of 'em for me, will ya?
*Ø* Blogmanac | America Two Years after 9/11: 25 Things We Now Know
By Bernard Weiner
"Last year, close to the time of the first anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks, I wrote 'Twenty Things We've Learned One Year After 9/11.' Now we're approaching the second anniversary, and it's time for an update.
"Things we could only speculate about a year ago have taken place – to name just three: an invasion and occupation of Iraq (based on misleading intelligence and outright lies), an administration that may have committed the treasonous act of deliberately revealing the identity of a CIA agent, and shocking revelations about the computer-screen voting system now being put into place around the country for the 2004 election.
"The abbreviated list below can be used both as a reminder to all of us why we're fighting this good, oppositional battle, and as a place to start from when organizing and talking to others about why you will be voting for someone other than George W. Bush in the presidential vote next year.
"Here are the topics and here's what we've learned, all factually validated by – or strongly suggested in – journalistic reports ..."
Our vernal signs, the RAM begins, Then comes the BULL, in May the TWINS;- The CRAB in June, next LEO shines, And VIRGO ends the northern signs.
The BALANCE brings autumnal fruits, The SCORPION stings, the ARCHER shoots;- December's GOAT brings wintry blast, AQUARIUS rain, the FISH come last. E Cobham Brewer: The Dictionary of Phrase & Fable (1894)
"There’s a global mass extinction occurring, the world is losing up to a quarter of all its frogs, toads and salamanders. Here in Australia 8 species of frog have gone extinct in the last 20 years. The mystery of our disappearing amphibia has been baffling scientists for years. But a team of Australian scientists lead by Dr Gerry Marantelli has been desperately trying to piece together what’s been causing the extinction. They’ve uncovered a bizarre chain of events ..."
*Ø* Blogmanac | Bush blames nation's wildlife for east coast blackout
"War on Endangered Species" to be fought in the mountains of ANWR
"Gail Norton, the controversial head of the Department of the Interior, is leading a crack team of Navy SEALs with animal experts Jack Hanna and Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, into Alaska to track down a rogue band of animals that the Bush administration is blaming for the recent power outage.
"'Operation Furry Fury' will target those responsible for the terrorist act, which officials suspect was perpetrated by endangered species from the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) in Alaska. The electrical outage caused by the attack was the worst blackout in US history shutting down power to seven northeastern States and Canada. Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States has no choice but to invade the federally protected land in Alaska to stop the terrorists from striking again ..."
*Ø* Blogmanac August 23, 1993 | Roll over Shakespeare
The Western Daily Press reported that actor Gareth Gilchrist, who was flying home from Edinburgh, Scotland to play Caithness in a production of Macbeth, had a stage-prop flick-knife with him that was picked up by the airport metal detector. He was arrested by police officer Heather McBeth, who was reported to have quipped, “Is this a dagger I see before me?”
In America, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-born anarchist labor militants, were executed by electric chair for their murder of a factory paymaster and guard. Their guilt in the crimes has been hotly contested ever since.
“Judge Webster Thayer, during the Sacco-Vanzetti episode, was heard to boast while playing golf, ‘Did you see what I did to those anarchistic bastards?’ and the grim little person named Rosa Baron ... who was head of my particular group during the Sacco-Vanzetti demonstrations in Boston snapped at me when I expressed the wish that we might save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti: ‘Alive – what for? They are no earthly good to us alive.’” Katherine Anne Porter, The Never-Ending Wrong
*Ø* Blogmanac August 23, 1305 | Execution of William Wallace
1305 Sir William Wallace (born c. 1270), the Scottish nationalist, was hanged, drawn and quartered at The Elms, in Smithfield, London. His story was loosely told in the movie Braveheart.
He was hung in a noose, and afterwards let down half-living; next his genitals were cut off and his bowels torn out and burned in a fire; then and not till then his head was cut off and his trunk cut into four pieces. Matthew of Westminster
Terrorism Wallace's head was stuck on a spike on London Bridge, his right leg taken to Berwick, and his left to Perth; his left arm was taken to Stirling and his right arm hung above the bridge at Newcastle-upon-Tyne over the sewer. Sir John de Segrave earned10 shillings for conveying Wallace's dismembered body in accordance with King Edward's wishes, "for terror and rebuke to all who pass by and behold them".
“There is a local tradition that when the flesh had fallen away, the monks from Cambuskenneth Abbey went at dead of night to collect what remained of the left arm. This they buried in the Abbey ground, the hand outstretched and pointing toward Abbey Craig, the site of Wallace's superb victory." Source
Burning Bartle At West Witton, England, people make a straw dummy called Bartle, and carry him through the town in a procession. They then burn him on a bonfire on the Saturday nearest the 24th in a custom the meaning and origins of which are lost to time. The original Bartle might have been a local thief who was burned at the stake. More
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
1680 The death of Colonel Blood (1618-1680), who tried to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London in 1671. His story was loosely told in a movie, too. You get that.
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
1900 Malvina Reynolds, American folk, protest singer; she was refused her diploma by Lowell High School because her parents were opposed to US participation in World War I. Her songs were recorded by Joan Baez, Judy Collins, The Seekers, Pete Seeger, and the Limeliters, among others.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Dr. Kelly: "I'll be found dead in the woods"
From the Guardian, 22 August
The weapons specialist, Dr David Kelly, said six months ago that he would "probably be found dead in the woods" if the American and British invasion of Iraq went ahead, Lord Hutton's inquiry was told yesterday.
His chilling prediction of his own death during a conversation with the British diplomat David Broucher in Geneva in February, throws new light on his state of mind about the row over Britain's role in the Iraq war.
In a startling string of revelations yesterday, Lord Hutton's inquiry was told that Dr Kelly:
-- confirmed there had been a "robust" debate between Downing Street and the intelligence services about the September dossier on weapons of mass destruction
-- expressed scepticism about British claims that Iraq's weapons capability could be deployed quickly
-- had been in direct contact with senior Iraqi scientists and officials he knew, promising them the war could be avoided
-- feared he had "betrayed" these contacts and that the invasion had left him in a "morally ambiguous" position.
Now that Saddam has gone, drugs, alcohol, pornography and prostitution are back on the streets of Baghdad. Paul McGeough reports.
"It’s 10am, and the crowd is pouring into the seedy Al Najah cinema on Baghdad’s Al Rasheed Street. They come for sex on a loop and there is standing room only for the fleshy scenes from a dozen B-grade movies spliced into a single program, which they watch for about 70 cents.
"In Sadoun Street, the midday temperature is 50 degrees Celsius and the pavement prostitutes tout for business from the shade of a beach umbrella. Further along, in Fidros Square — where US troops stage-managed the demolition of a statue of Saddam Hussein on April 9 — as many as 30 addled teenagers are sniffing glue and paint-thinners from rag-wrapped Pepsi cans.
"Drug dealers in the treacherous Bab al Sharqi markets, just off central Tahrir Square, are doing a brisk trade in a big range of looted prescription drugs.
"But the biggest demand is for medications that are addictive and mind altering. Each trader has a special, only half-hidden box for what he calls 'feelgood' capsules and tablets."
*Ø* Blogmanac | That Baghdad truck driver was one tough mutha
I've been thinking, and you know that's always a dangerous thing.
A few years ago, when George Bush the First was President of the USA, I worked for Sydney Children's Hospital as its media officer. I’m embarrassed to use the term 'public relations manager' so I won't.
My boss at the time, the Clinical Director, was a great guy, an American who was a member of the same club as the Prez. When my boss found out that Daddy George was coming to Sydney, he asked me to invite him to visit the hospital. This I did.
To my unending delight, we duly received a reply that the First Lady (quaint term for a politician's wife!), Barbara Bush, would be happy to visit. Not the First Gentleman, unfortunately. I pretty much expected that at least one of them would. No one ever refuses an invitation to visit a children’s hospital – not footballers, not actors, not politicians – as long as the hospital’s PR officer can absolutely assure them that the poor sick kiddies will benefit by seeing them, and a wide range of media will be present.
If you’re sober on the bus, you’re not on the bus The schedule was set down for about 9 a.m. on New Year's morning (not my doing, no way Jose), and preparations commenced for Such a Wonderful Thing. This was in about September or October.
The morning of January 1st saw me, dressed in a suit and carrying a black briefcase, on a 5.00 a.m. bus headed from my suburb, along the still-dark streets and across town, to the hospital. There I would try to manage the media that would certainly show up to see lots of sick kids pretend to talk to Mrs Bush, and vice versa. All but the actually dying children had been rehearsed for months, and we knew that by now they could fake sincerity like professionals. So could the doctors and nurses and clerical staff. I was pretty sure Mrs Bush could as well, because she had more practice at it than all of us put together. Hell, we were just a pack of dumb Aussies. However, we would do our best to look as sophisticated as Americans.
I was on the first bus of the year. I was scrubbed, my shoes were polished, and my hair wet and combed. Apart from the morose driver, I was the only one awake on the bus, which was half full of homeward-bound drunken teenagers, not to mention their vomit, piss, chips packets and rolling bottles. Significantly, I was the one who looked a tad out of place. It was, after all, still New Year's Eve, more or less. And boy, didn't I have a Barbara Bush resentment, even way back then – years before I knew about her sons – for making me go to bed at about 9.30 p.m. while Sydney partied as Sydney can. Awwww, Mum!!
Secret Service drongos However, my early blooming Bush resentments are not the point of this ramble. The point I’m battling to make is that for about eight or ten weeks before Barbara Bush arrived, we had carloads of American Secret Service guys coming day after day to the hospital to make sure no deranged Australian from ‘Down Under’ would kill the First Lady from ‘Up On Top’. I'm struggling here for an American term to describe these gentlemen, so I'll use an Australian one: they were a bloody mob of drongos. Each brick-built one of them. They fairly scintillated with neanderthality. Glowed with dumb.
This is fair dinkum: get this – these bulky men really wore trench coats, in the heat of an Aussie summer! So they would look like real agents, I suppose. And they really did wear sunglasses indoors and talk into little bitty microphones in their lapels. It's as though Ed Wood was in charge of the Secret Service Wardrobe Department. Fortunately, I don't think any of them noticed the hospital staff snickering behind our hands the whole time, nor heard what was being said about these try-hard Maxwell Smarts. I doubt they would have got it anyway. They had terminal cool where God intended people to have self-consciousness.
Their conversation was incredible. Two of them told me they had seen a brawl in a pub down at Darling Harbour the night before, and were really impressed with Australian manhood for that. They thought it was great. Apparently the Secret Service, the duty of which is to protect the President, isn't drawn from the deep end of the American gene pool. One certainly hopes not.
The Big McSearch For a couple of hilarious months, the goon squad scrambled over the hospital. We had meetings – us, the goons, the President’s wife’s media managers’ media managers’ appointments secretaries, all the officials. The SS guys (is that what I should call them, now that the White House has a problem with being openly fascist?) searched the whole hospital week after week: they searched the lobby (foyer), they searched the elevators (lifts), they searched the bathrooms (toilets).
They tried to search the nurses, all of whom told them that they regretted that they had to wash their hair on Saturday night, and I think the SS guys probably thought that hand-snickering was the Down Under variant of flirtation.
The American taxpayer must have forked out squillions to protect a rather nice old lady from rampaging Australians. We dumb Aussies were impressed. Even in those days, we dumb Aussies were impressed with any American with a gun. This was a time in which you could stride up to the Prime Minister of Australia, poke a finger in his sunken chest and call him a deadshit, and his unshaven bodyguard not only would be 20 metres down the road chatting up a sheila, if he did happen to hear what you said to the PM he would shout “Yeahhh!!”.
The point being? My point? I know, I know, I’d better get to it quickly. My point’s this: the Americans can protect anything. They invented security. Security is America’s middle name.
You gonna tell me that a quarter of a million Yank soldiers in Iraq – armed to the teeth and backed up by trillions of US war dollars – can’t stop a little truckload of explosives from blowing up the UN Headquarters in Baghdad? They can’t block off the streets for 100 metres around, say, the UN HQ, the US Embassy, a couple of hospitals and the new Baghdad Starbucks?
I see ... I see.
That driver must have been one Sylvester Stallone bloke, for a towelhead.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Richard Butler, Andrew Wilkie give evidence to Iraq inquiry
The USA and the UK have their inquiries into the lies told by their governments in order to excuse their "blood for oil" pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. Australia also has a scandal currently being exposed.
Background The prominent Australian diplomat, Richard Butler, was chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq in 1998. The media often say that Hussein expelled the UN wepons team, but that is not so – the team withdrew, and the US started bombing a day or so after.
Butler marched in the February 15 peace rally in Sydney, and that morning, in an interview on ABC radio, said "... I’m sick to death of the lies that we’re being told about this by the Prime Minister of Australia. I heard him again this morning on a national television interview, and it was shocking ..."
Andrew Wilkie, a senior Australian intelligence officer, bravely resigned from the Office of National Assessments in protest at the Government's reasons for sending Australian troops to Iraq. He told ABC radio: "Iraq does not pose a security threat to any other country at this point in time. Its military is very weak, it's a fraction of the size of the military at the time of the invasion of Kuwait. Its weapons of mass destruction program is very disjointed and contained by the regime that's been in place since the last Gulf War. And there is no hard intelligence linking the Iraqi regime to al-Qaeda in any substantial or worrisome way."
Butler, who has just been appointed Governor of Tasmania, and Wilkie, are now being quizzed at a Parliamentary Inquiry. Here's today's report from Canberra:
"We begin with the first day of the Federal Parliamentary inquiry into the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, which started in Canberra today.
"Two key players have been giving evidence: the Governor designate of Tasmania and former chief UN weapons inspector, Richard Butler; and former senior intelligence officer Andrew Wilkie, who quit the Office of National Assessments in protest at the Government's reasons for sending Australian troops to Iraq.
"This morning, Mr Wilkie has been giving a scathing assessment of the Federal Government's behaviour over Iraq and accused the Government of fabricating material for its case against the regime of Saddam Hussein.
"He says he doesn't back away from his allegation that the Government lied over Iraq, claiming the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister have a lot to answer for ..."
I've been saving hard and really deserve a treat, so today I went to buy some jam. Some strawberry jam. For a jam sango.
As I always say, if you've got it, spend it.
The supermarket didn't have any strawberry jam. They had 'Strawberry Spreadable Fruit', in several brands. They also had apricot spreadable fruit, raspberry spreadable fruit and blackberry spreadable fruit. But nary a jar of jam to be found.
Something's going on here. Australians have capitulated to American cultural imperialism in all but two things: firstly, we drink real beer with as much alcohol content as bourbon, and, secondly, we call jam 'jam'. None of this jelly stuff.
But spreadable fruit? What cultural hegemon now invades our shores? If it's not the Seppos, maybe it's the Poms, or the Indonesians maybe.
The only spreadable fruits I ever knew lived down near Oxford Street. Maybe it's them. They always had lots of friends in marketing.
If I find out the name of the spotty-faced advertising whizz-kid with the BMW and personal orthodontist that did this to jam, I'm gonna kidnap him, tie him to a chair and make him watch the Crocodile Man.
He'll be wishing I had a TV, is all I can say, by the time I get through doing my Crocodile Man impressions.
*Ø* Blogmanac August 22, 1999 | Deadlier spin than the Pentagon
Samuel Strickson, 39, of Nebraska, tried to stuff more clothes into his top-loading machine by stomping on them. He kicked the on button, trapped his feet, and died during the spin cycle. (Mail on Sunday, August 22, 1999)
*Ø* Blogmanac August 22, 1751 | Milkless Butterfield; Ruthless Tring
One of the last women to be executed in England for witchcraft was drowned at Tring. Ruth Osborne, a woman in her 70s, had asked for some milk of a Mr Butterfield; when he refused her she wished his cattle would be taken by the Devil. As a result the townspeople took her and "ducked" her in the local pond. The authorities hanged Thomas Colley for the crime at the place of her drowning. The locals would not attend his execution, believing he had done the right thing in killing the old witch.
*Ø* Blogmanac August 22, 1608 | UFOs seen over Genoa
At 8 pm on August 5, 1608, citizens of Nice, France, saw three luminous objects race across the sky at the Baie des Anges. The oval objects then hovered about a metre over the water, whereupon humanoid creatures emerged, dressed in red with silver scales. They had huge heads and two luminous eyes.
The creatures left the craft and later re-entered, and the three objects then flew away. They reappeared on August 22 in Genoa, Italy and were treated to 800 cannon shots from the citizens there. On August 25 a single craft showed at Martigues, near Marseilles; two beings emerged and appeared to duel in the air. The following week there were heavy falls of red rain.
*Ø* Blogmanac August 22, 1608 | Basua Makin, early feminist
Basua Makin, said to be one of the first Western feminists, born at Sussex, England. The following is the sum total of all that your almanackist has been able to discover about Ms Makin.
“One of the first Western feminists, Makin will learn Latin, Greek, French, Hebrew and Italian by age 9. After tutoring the daughters of King Charles the First, she will open a school for girls. At first Makin will apologize for teaching subjects ordinarily reserved for boys, insisting that a well-educated woman would better understand her ordained inferiority. As she grows older, however, Makin will drop the apologies and call for an inclusive academic program for girls. In 1675, Makin will publish the book Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen In Religion, Manners, Arts, and Tongues – With an Answer to the Objections Against this Way of Education.” Source
Given the date of her birth, maybe she had something to do with Genoa (above).
*Ø* Blogmanac August 22, 1195 | St Anthony (or Antony) of Padua
Consider every day that you are then for the first time – as it were – beginning; and always act with the same fervour as on the first day you began.Saint Anthony of Padua
St Anthony of Padua has become the patron saint of careless people, especially those who have lost an animal, a child, or a valuable article.
He was a patron of animals, like his friend, St Francis of Assisi, and it is said that at Rimini, he once preached to attentive fish when his sermon failed to enthral the congregation. There are many miracles associated with his life. On one famous occasion, bilocation occurred: he was actually in two places at once. Or, so it is said.
In Rome, horses and mules and their trappings are blessed on his feast day (June 13 – Roman Catholic feast days are often commemorated on the anniversary of the saints’ deaths, rarely on their birthdays).
A folk saying recorded in New Mexico, USA is that on St Anthony's Day, as well as on St Joseph's Day (March 19), one must give strangers food, since the strangers may be the saints themselves.
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| George Bush action figure out in October
Great to see toymakers with a sense of humour.
"An Action Man-style action figure in the likeness of George W Bush is set to hit the market in October ...
"The 12 inch figure is dressed to recreate Bush's landing on the USS Abraham on May 1st, 2003, when he stepped out of a fighter jet in full aviator flight equipment to announce the end of major combat operations in Iraq."
*Ø* Blogmanac August 21 | The festival of the Consualia, ancient Rome
Onto our horses and into our chariots today! Today commemorates Consus, the god of harvests, sign of a good harvest later in month. Consus was also god of secret deliberations, or, according to Livy (i.9), Neptunus Equestris was the god so honoured, while Plutarch (Quaest. Rom. 45), and others say that Neptunus Equestris and Consus were only different names for one and the same deity. (Plutarch, it might be noted, says that the Consualia took place on the 18th (Life of Romulus, 15.5) and not the 21st.)
The commemoration was solemnised every year in the Circus Maximus at Rome, where there was a symbolical ceremony of uncovering an altar that had been dedicated to the god and buried in the earth. This ritual came about because Romulus (who was suckled by a wolf, and founded Rome, with his twin brother, Remus) was said to have discovered an altar in the earth on that very spot.
Today the Romans held horse and chariot races, and libations were poured into the flames that consumed the sacrifices. During the period of the festivities, horses and mules were adorned with garlands of flowers and their owners were forbidden to work them.
According to legend, it was at the first celebration of the Consualian Games that the Sabine maidens were carried off. The legend says that the Romans raped (ie, abducted) the Sabine women to populate the new-built town, but modern studies have found many relationships between the two peoples, especially regarding religion and mythology.
Romans fought many wars with the inland Sabines; Horatius is supposed to have defeated them in the 5th century BCE, and Marcus Curius Dentatus conquered them in 290 BCE. The Samnites were possibly a branch of the Sabines. In 268, the Sabines became Roman citizens. Many Sabine deities and cults became established in Rome, and many parts of the city (like the Quirinale) were once Sabine centers.
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
Click to see a reconstruction model of the Circus Maximus
"What UN member would ever contemplate sending peace-keeping troops to Iraq now? The men who are attacking America's occupation army are ruthless, but they are not stupid. They know that President George Bush is getting desperate, that he will do anything – that he may even go to the dreaded Security Council for help – to reduce US military losses in Iraq. But yesterday's attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad has slammed shut the door to that escape route.
"Within hours of the explosion, we were being told that this was an attack on a 'soft target', a blow against the UN itself. True, it was a 'soft' target, although the machine-gun nest on the roof of the UN building might have suggested that even the international body was militarising itself. True, too, it was a shattering assault on the UN as an institution. But in reality, yesterday's attack was against the United States.
"For it proves that no foreign organisation--no NGO, no humanitarian organisation, no investor, no businessman – can expect to be safe under America's occupation rule. Paul Bremer, the US pro-consul, was meant to be an 'anti-terrorism' expert. Yet since he arrived in Iraq, he has seen more 'terrorism' than he can have dreamt of in his worst nightmares – and has been able to do nothing about it."
De Mello knew sovereignty, not security, is the issue "His shocking death makes it safe to report his regrets that the Americans did not understand Iraqi feelings properly - though he probably told them himself in private. He saw the US rocket attacks on the house where Saddam Hussein's sons were hiding as 'overkill' because it would have been better to put them on trial. He initially described Paul Bremer, the US head of the coalititon provisional authority, as a 'true neo-con who does not care about getting international legitimacy' for what the US did. Later he felt Bremer had begun to change."
*Ø* Blogmanac August 21, 1879 | Heaven on Knock's door
A number of residents of Knock, in County Mayo, Ireland claimed to have seen a group of religious statues come to life at the local Roman Catholic church.
Residents of the village of Cnoc Mhuire, Margaret Beirne, Mary Beirne, Mary McLoughlin claimed to have seen in braod daylight the Virgin Mary, St Joseph and St John the Evangelist (dressed as a bishop) appear at the south gable of Knock Parish Church. To the left of St John was an altar, a lamb and a cross surrounded by angels. The vision lasted for about two hours, and another thirteen people gave testimony that they saw bright lights around the church. From this miraculous occurrence, the township of Knock has grown to the status of an internationally recognised Marian shrine, visited by one and a half million pilgrims each year and even visited by Pope John Paul II in 1979.
*Ø* Blogmanac August 20 | Feast day of St Bernard of Clairvaux
St Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153) The Abbot of Clairvaux, nicknamed the ‘mellifluous doctor’ and ‘honeytongued teacher’, was renowned for his wisdom and abilities. He is remembered for helping the Cistercian Order to grow.
Bernard was born at Fontaines-les-Dijon, Burgundy, France, in 1090 or 1091, according to which dubious source you prefer. He had a great leadership ability, and gathered around himself 30 companions, including his brothers in the Cistercian monastery of Citeaux. Mothers hid their sons, and wives their husbands, in case they would follow him.
Urged invasion of Palestine One of the most significant men of the middle ages, he might be looked upon favourably today by Jews, for he opposed their persecution, but certainly not by Muslims, for he assisted the military efforts by which Christian Europeans invaded and oppressed Muslims in and around Palestine for centuries – the Crusades. (The Crusades are still described, in the opening sentence of the online Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on the subject, as “expeditions undertaken, in fulfilment of a solemn vow, to deliver the Holy Places from Mohammedan tyranny.”)
He was severe with his appetites; he only ate to save himself from fainting; to escape the worldly talk of visitors, he even filled his ears with flax; he selected for himself the most menial work in the monastery. He said that he learned most of religion from Nature.
On December 24, 1144, the capture of the strong frontier fortress of Edessa by Zengi of Mosul inflicted a serious blow on Christian power in the Middle East, where European imperialists had established in Palestine in 1099 the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1145, Pope Eugenius III commissioned him to preach in favour of the Second Crusade. Although he was not young, he preached through France and Germany, raising so many volunteers that in some districts, only one man was left for seven women. He opposed the massacre of European Jews, saying that conversion was far preferable, and in this he was far ahead of his time. He cured the blind, lame, and did many other miracles. Or, so it is said.
Representation Cistercian having a vision of Mary; Cistercian with a beehive; Cistercian with a chained demon; Cistercian with a mitre on the ground beside him; Cistercian with a swarm of bees nearby; Cistercian with a white dog; Cistercian writing and watching Mary; beehive; bees; book; instruments of the Passion; pen; white dog” Source
I'm deeply shocked and saddened to hear that the top UN envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello was among many United Nations peace workers killed in an explosion at the UN headquarters in Baghdad yesterday.
Just three months ago, he'd bravely taken leave from his post as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to become chief UN envoy in Iraq. Mr de Mello had had a long record of commitment to human rights, and worked tirelessly for justice for people in trouble, all around the world. If there was a dangerous hot-spot, de Mello was there.
Brazilian-born de Mello was a very impressive man, quiet and gently spoken, obviously committed to the disadvantaged. He was a remarkable scholar, with four degrees to his name, including two doctorates from the Sorbonne in Paris. He was known as one of the most impressive of all UN directors, and many thought him likely to become Secretary-general sometime in the future.
I had coffee with him once in Sydney when he was Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and Oceania, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He was charming, but it was his sincerity and not just his good looks that charmed men and women alike. It is said that he was adored by his staff. In more recent years, he worked in Kosovo, Cambodia and East Timor, running United Nations efforts in those trouble spots.
People sometimes forget that United Nations staff are flesh and blood human beings who often take enormous risks on behalf of their fellow creatures. Sergio Vieira de Mello was a nice bloke, and one hugely dedicated individual, and it brings home to me how brave even some bigshots in the UN are.
I was AWOL for a couple of days, I'm sorry, but feeling fit as a Mallee bull now and back on active duty.
Yesterday I wasn't around to send a birthday greeting to Mr Willie, so here 'tis. If George Carlin says that Colon Bowell is "openly white", well, here's a Democrat USA president who will be remembered for being openly Republican.
This is how the White House’s official website puts things: “In 1998, as a result of issues surrounding personal indiscretions with a young woman White House intern, Clinton was the second U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. He was tried in the Senate and found not guilty of the charges brought against him. He apologized to the nation for his actions and continued to have unprecedented popular approval ratings for his job as president.” Source
Clinton’s lamentable record
“He has signed a bill providing for federal funds to be distributed to ‘faith-based’ charitable organizations.
“He has expanded the number of federal crimes for which the death penalty can be given to a total of sixty.
“He has signed a bill outlawing gay marriages and has taken out ads on Christian radio stations touting his opposition to any form of legal same-sex couplings.
“In a short span of time, he has been able to kick ten million people off welfare – that's ten million out of fourteen million total recipients.
“He has promised states ‘bonus funds’ if they can reduce their welfare numbers further, and made it easier to get these funds by not requiring the states to help the ex-welfare recipients find jobs.
“He has introduced a plan that would bar any assistance to teenage parents if they drop out of school or leave their parents' home.
“Though he is careful not to draw attention to it, he supports many of the old provisions of Newt Gingrich's ‘Contract With America,’ including lowering the capital gains tax.
“In spite of calls from Republican governors like George Ryan of Illinois to support a moratorium on capital punishment, he rejected all efforts to slow down the number of executions even after it was revealed that there are dozens of people on death row who are innocent.
“He has released funds for local communities to hire over a hundred thousand new police officers and supports laws that that put people behind bars for life after committing three crimes--even if those crimes were shoplifting or not paying for a pizza.
“There are now more people in America without health insurance than when he took office, even though he campaigned on the idea of universal health care. And universal health care has now been removed from the Democrats platform.
“He has signed orders prohibiting any form of health care to poor people who are in the United States illegally.
“He supports a ban on late-term abortions and promised to sign the first bill to cross his desk that includes an exemption only if the mother is in jeopardy.
“He has signed an order prohibiting any U.S. funds going to any country to be used in helping women secure an abortion.
“He signed a one-year gag order that prohibits using any federal funds in foreign countries where birth control agencies mention abortion as an option to pregnant women.
“He refused to sign the international Land Mine Ban Treaty already signed by 137 nations – but not by Iraq, Libya, North Korea, or the United States.
“He has scuttled the Kyoto Protocol by insisting that ‘sinks’ (e.g., farmlands and forests) be counted toward the U.S. percentage of emissions reductions, thus making a mockery of the whole treaty (which was written primarily to reduce the carbon dioxide pollution from cars and factories.)
“He has accelerated drilling for gas and oil on federal lands at a pace that matches, and in some areas exceeds, the production level during the Reagan administration.
“He has approved the sale of one California oil field in the largest privatization deal in American history, and he opened the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (something even Reagan wasn't able to do).
“And he became the first President since Richard Nixon not to force the auto manufacturers to improve their mileage per gallon – which would have saved millions of barrels of oil each day.”
Source: Moore, Michael, Stupid White Men, Chapter 10, ‘Democrats, DOA’
Scientists trying to find out more about the rare Arctic char in the lakes of Killarney have hooked a "monster". A hydro-acoustic study of Muckross Lake, one of the deepest lakes in Ireland, has thrown up a baffling image of a deep lurking "thing" the size of a small house in the south-eastern part of the lake.
It is the first time the lake -- which is known also as the Middle Lake -- has been properly surveyed, and the study is being carried out by the Irish Char Conservation Group (ICCG) with international scientists. Instead of the normal small signals indicating individual fish, monitoring personnel got something much larger in around 10 metres of water, last April ...
... Christened "Muckie" by the study group, parallels are already being drawn with the Scottish Lough Ness Monster.
"United States of America: The threat of a bad example" News Release from Amnesty International, 18 August
"The very core of American history, law and culture condemns the ideas of punishment before trial, denial of due process and secret government by fiat... Who is an enemy combatant? Today, it can be anyone the president wants. And that is terrifying." A former judge on the Superior Court of New Jersey.
The US has displayed a troubling tendency to seek unchallengeable executive power for itself in the context of its "war on terror". It has created a parallel justice system in which the executive has the power to detain, interrogate, charge or try suspects under the "laws of war", Amnesty International said as it published a new report today.
"All too often where the US leads others follow - increasingly by using the language of "war", governments have disregarded human rights obligations; by using the term "terror" they have endeavoured to avoid international human rights law; and by using the phrase "war on terror", they have challenged the very framework of human rights and international humanitarian law."
Read further, and/or take action:
Continue reading the report here Guantánamo Bay: Urge the USA to guarantee fair trials for all. Take action here Tell the US and UK: oil revenues must be used to secure rights of all Iraqis. Take action here All Amnesty documents on USA here
The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church. The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims has described it as 'explosive'.
The 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII was sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a policy of 'strictest' secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and threatens those who speak out with excommunication.
*Ø* Blogmanac August 17 - August 25 incl. | Odin’s Ordeal
In Norse mythology (Ásatrú), Odin (or Othin), Nordic (Icelandic) and Germanic, is the supreme god, and god of war and death, but also the god of poetry and wisdom. He was the patron of a fanatical warrior cult, the Berserks. He is thought to be a syncretisation of the Germanic War gods Wodan and Tiwaz. His role, like many of the Norse pantheon, is complex: he is both god of wisdom and war, roles not necessarily conceived of as being mutually sympathetic in contemporary society. His name has roots in the Old Norse word óðr, meaning ‘inspiration, madness, anger’.
Odin was head of the Aesir sky gods and the main god of battle victory, as well as god of the dead. He was worshipped in the Viking period (c 700 AD) through to Christianisation (c 1100 AD) and beyond, the centre of his cult being Uppsala, Sweden.
The Roman historian Tacitus refers to Odin as Mercury for the reason that, like Mercury, Odin was regarded as Psychopompos, ‘the leader of souls’. We know him from Snorri Sturluson’s Prose, or Younger, Edda, and the Historica Danica(by Saxo – the book that gave us Amleth, who Shakespeare turned into Hamlet), and other codices and inscriptions. He ruled over the Valkyries, warrior spirits, and lived in the Hall of Valhalla, which he populated with the spirits of slain heroes, who will defend the realm against the Frost Giants on the judgement day (Ragnarok).
Like Buddha and Jesus Odin’s symbol is the raven, his weapon, a spear carved with runes or treaties. Odin is also symbolised by a knotted device, the valknut. He wanders the earth disguised as a traveller, and once pierced himself with his own spear, and hung on the world tree, Yggdrasil, in his pursuit of knowledge through communication with the dead. The nine days on which he hung on Yggdrasil are known as Odin’s ordeal (nine being a number deeply significant in Norse magical practice – there were, for example, nine realms of existence), thereby learning nine magical songs and eighteen magical runes. His ordeal of hanging on the tree until his enlightenment reminds one of the stories of both the Buddha and Jesus. Incidentally, one of Odin's alternative names is Ygg, and Yggdrasil therefore means "Ygg's (Odin's)horse". Another of Odin's names is Hangatyr, the god of the hanged.
There was a festival in Uppsala at this time in which men and animals were sacrificed and hung in trees; followers of Odin were also burnt on funeral pyres.
The final day of the nine days of his ordeal is the Festival of the Discovery of the Runes, when Odin fell screaming from the tree, having gained the knowledge he sought.
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
"There’s a global mass extinction occurring, the world is losing up to a quarter of all its frogs, toads and salamanders. Here in Australia 8 species of frog have gone extinct in the last 20 years. The mystery of our disappearing amphibia has been baffling scientists for years. But a team of Australian scientists lead by Dr Gerry Marantelli has been desperately trying to piece together what’s been causing the extinction. They’ve uncovered a bizarre chain of events ..."
The Western Daily Press reported that actor Gareth Gilchrist, who was flying home from Edinburgh, Scotland to play Caithness in a production of Macbeth, had a stage-prop flick-knife with him that was picked up by the airport metal detector. He was arrested by police officer Heather McBeth, who was reported to have quipped, “Is this a dagger I see before me?”
The weapons specialist, Dr David Kelly, said six months ago that he would "probably be found dead in the woods" if the American and British invasion of Iraq went ahead, Lord Hutton's inquiry was told yesterday.
The morning of January 1st saw me, dressed in a suit and carrying a black briefcase, on a 5.00 a.m. bus headed from my suburb, along the still-dark streets and across town, to the hospital. There I would try to manage the media that would certainly show up to see lots of sick kids pretend to talk to Mrs Bush, and vice versa. All but the actually dying children had been rehearsed for months, and we knew that by now they could fake sincerity like professionals. So could the doctors and nurses and clerical staff. I was pretty sure Mrs Bush could as well, because she had more practice at it than all of us put together. Hell, we were just a pack of dumb Aussies. However, we would do our best to look as sophisticated as Americans. 
At 8 pm on August 5, 
"An Action Man-style action figure in the likeness of George W Bush is set to hit the market in October ...
Today the Romans held horse and chariot races, and libations were poured into the flames that consumed the sacrifices. During the period of the festivities, horses and mules were adorned with garlands of flowers and their owners were forbidden to work them. 
"Within hours of the explosion, we were being told that this was an attack on a 'soft target', a blow against the UN itself. True, it was a 'soft' target, although the machine-gun nest on the roof of the UN building might have suggested that even the international body was militarising itself. True, too, it was a shattering assault on the UN as an institution. But in reality, yesterday's attack was against the United States.
A number of residents of Knock, in County Mayo, 
“Patronage 
I'm deeply shocked and saddened to hear that the top UN envoy to Iraq, 
This is how the 
Scientists trying to find out more about the rare Arctic char in the lakes of Killarney have hooked a "monster". A hydro-acoustic study of Muckross Lake, one of the deepest lakes in Ireland, has thrown up a baffling image of a deep lurking "thing" the size of a small house in the south-eastern part of the lake.
Odin’s symbol is the raven, his weapon, a spear carved with runes or treaties. Odin is also symbolised by a knotted device, the valknut. He wanders the earth disguised as a traveller, and once pierced himself with his own spear, and hung on the world tree, 