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Blogmanac team
Jeannine Wilson (USA)
Veralynne Pepper (USA)
Pip Wilson (Australia)
Carpe diem!
Seize the day with more than 150 articles at Wilson's articles department
This blog is dedicated to the 353 victims of the SIEVX disaster,
and casualties of poverty and authority all around the planet
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Saturday, November 08, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | Jessica Lynch: 'I'm No Hero'
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Army private Jessica Lynch, the badly injured U.S. prisoner of war who was rescued from a hospital during the Iraq war, said in her first interview that she is not the Rambo-style hero she has been portrayed as by American media and the military.
[It wasn't a war, it was an invasion and massacre, and Iraqi medical staff had already tried to give her back but were shot at - N]
"Lynch, 20, told ABC network reporter Diane Sawyer in an interview to be aired on 'Primetime' next Tuesday, the same day as her authorized biography is published, that she never fired a shot when ambushed.
"'My weapon did jam and I did not shoot, not a round, nothing. I don't look at myself as a hero. My heroes are Lori (Private Lori Piestewa, who died in the ambush of Lynch's convoy), the soldiers that are over there, the soldiers that were in the car beside me, the ones that came and rescued me,' she said.
"Lynch is still recovering from injuries to her spine, and cannot walk without crutches. She has no feeling in her left foot and has other medical problems.
"Lynch, who became a symbol of U.S. heroism during the early stages of the war on Iraq, insisted, 'I am just a survivor.'
"In an advance, partial copy of the ABC interview, Lynch said she was hurt that other people had 'made up stories' about her fiercely fighting her Iraqi captors.
"'I'm not about to take credit for something that I didn't do ... It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about. Only I would have been able to know that because the other four people on my vehicle aren't here to tell that story.'"
Source/Full text
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*Ø* Blogmanac November 8, 1519 | Moctezuma's fall
Tenochtitlán and the arrival of Cortés
How the Venice of the New World fell to just 400 Spanish invaders
Gazing on such wonderful sights, we did not know what to say, nor whether what appeared before us was real, for on one side, on the land, there were great cities, and in the lake, so many more ... and in front of us stood the great City of Mexico, and we – we did not even number four hundred soldiers!
Diaz, one of Cortés’s men
It was the year that Italy saw the death, on May 2nd, of Leonardo da Vinci, followed shortly by his countrywoman Lucrezia Borgia on June 24th. In Rome, Germany’s Martin Luther was gazing on new works by Michaelangelo and Raphael adorning the Pope’s palace, while answering charges that he had called the pontiff “fallible”. Meanwhile, off the coast of Italy, Mediterranean traders sailed in fear of the notorious North African pirate, Aruj al-Din Barbarossa.
At the time, in England, the ink was scarcely dry on Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), while elsewhere in Europe, King Charles of Spain was being elected Emperor Charles II of the Holy Roman Empire. Meanwhile, across the big pond, the new Governor of Panama was no doubt explaining to his superiors in Spain why in January he had beheaded Vaco Nunez de Balboa, the explorer and conquistador.
To the east, Persia’s great empire now rivalled that of the Ottomans, and in Switzerland, Protestant reformer Ulrich Zwingli was busy banning the sale of Roman Catholic indulgences. On September 20, Portugal’s intrepid navigator, Ferdinand Magellan embarked to circumnavigate the globe, while over in Venice, Italy, rich citizens enjoying the full flush of the Renaissance were revelling in the works of the likes of Bellini and Giorgione, and the city was glory of Europe.
 Tenochtitlán, Mexico’s great city of the world
Across the Atlantic Ocean, the great Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, sited where Mexico City stands today, was the Venice of the New World, criss-crossed as it was with canals, with many aqueducts and markets, and a grand lake featuring floating gardens. According to early Spanish accounts, it was unlike the European cities they knew, but more like the ones they had seen in romantic books, as it was not crowded and dirty. The population of the lake city was some 90,000 people at a time when London’s numbered about 40,000 and only 65,000 people lived in Paris. Tenochtitlán’s craftsmen, such as its fine goldsmiths, were a match for those in Europe, and the grandeur of the city’s pyramids rivalled that of the Egyptian wonders ...
Omens of the arrival of Cortés
The expedition of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived at Tenochtitlán after nine months of fighting indigenous people and trudging across rough country, on up to the high Mexican plateau. So determined was their leader to find treasure that he had ordered his men to burn their boats in the harbour, ominously fulfilling a ten-year-old Aztec prophecy that a fire in the night sky would be a portent of doom. However, there are some reports that a spectacular heavenly light shone for a year before the arrival of the conquistadors ...
 Read on at the new article at the Scriptorium on Moctezuma's fall: Tenochtitlán and the arrival of Cortés.
My ISP has been down for 24 hours, so i had a break from the Almanac ezine today, but I managed to get this article up, because I didn't need to go online to make the page, and because I find the subject so fascinating. It's the first in a series of articles I'm putting together about European imperialism, which I'm calling Greed, gold and God. I hope you enjoy these true tales. On November 16, I'll put something here about how Pizarro and 168 men defeated 80,000 Inca warriors one lazy afternoon in 1532.
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Navy tows asylum seeker boat out to sea
 "An Australian navy ship is towing an asylum seeker boat out to sea, away from Australia.
"The boat is being towed away from Melville Island, north of Darwin.
"The Immigration Department says the boat is carrying 14 people, who claim to be Kurds from Turkey.
"Defence Minister Robert Hill says the asylum seeker boat has been fixed and this afternoon is being towed further out to sea by HMAS Geelong."
Source: ABC
Ministers tight-lipped on boat
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
More on Aussie govt's racist oppression of people fleeing persecution
Going Overboard in the Abuse of Human Rights Law
Vanstone chops off more of Australia to avoid refugees
"One of Amanda Vanstone's first acts as new immigration minister has been to rush through parliament the excise of a large part of Australia to avoid the claims of a boatload of refugees who arrived on Melville Island on Tuesday night. (This excise is in response to the arrival of only 14 refugees and 4 crew).
"They have also placed an exclusion order on the area so that the media cannot film or approach the area. Over 3000 islands have to date been cut from the Australian migration zone as the Federal government continues to shirk it's responsibilities to the human rights of refugees."
Source: Indymedia Brisbane (with a good cartoon)
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Detainees riot at Port Hedland
"A riot at the Port Hedland Detention Centre in Western Australia overnight has caused extensive damage to facilities.
"The Immigration Department says the disturbance was started by a group of male detainees in the dining hall of the facility.
"Sources at the centre say many detainees are frustrated at the length of time they have been in detention and this has led to several disturbances in recent weeks.
"Earlier this week, two detainees attempted to harm themselves by slashing their bodies with razors."
Source: Indymedia Sydney
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Asylum seekers in limbo as excision remains
"Moves to overturn regulations excising thousands of islands from Australia's migration zone failed today in the Senate as the fate of 14 asylum seekers hangs in limbo.
"The government on Tuesday retrospectively gazetted regulations excising thousands of islands from the migration zone to prevent a boatload of asylum seekers applying for refugee status."
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
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Asylum seekers refused refugee status on Christmas Island
"A group of 53 asylum seekers has been refused refugee status after being detained at the Christmas Island detention centre since July.
"The fishing boat was intercepted off Western Australia's north-west coast near Port Hedland, and was the first to be seized in Australian waters since 2001."
Source: ABC News
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Ministers tight-lipped on boat
"The Federal Government remained tight-lipped today about with whom it was negotiating to accept 14 asylum seekers whose boat reached an Australian island this week.
"Moves to overturn regulations excising thousands of islands from Australia's migration zone failed in the Senate as the fate of 14 suspected Turkish Kurds and four Indonesian crew remained in limbo.
"Defence Minister Robert Hill said the patrol boat HMAS Geelong was towing the fishing boat, which landed on Melville Island on Tuesday, away from the Australian coast today.
"But he refused to say where HMAS Geelong might be headed.
"'I think it will ultimately go somewhere, but I think you should wait for that,' Senator Hill said."
Source: News.com.au
Read about Australia's shame: The SIEVX Disaster
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Dr Strangelove goes live
Secret Israeli missile test is mistakenly shown on TV
Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
The Guardian
"Reality television has finally caught up with the Israeli military. But the country's generals had no idea that their every move was being watched, their secret missile codes broadcast to their enemies or their conversations potentially overheard from Libya to Iran.
"For two days this week, Israel's communications satellite accidentally beamed a live feed from the control room of a highly classified test missile firing, meaning that they could be viewed by anyone in the Middle East with the simplest satellite dish.
"Four of Israel's most senior generals and their foreign guests were shown in the control room discussing the relative merits of weapons systems and who they might be used against. Officials were seen punching in launch codes, and the latest missile control equipment and maps were on full display to anyone viewing."
Full text
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Blogroll Us Friday, November 07, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | US 'snubbed last-minute effort to avoid war'
The Guardian
"Just days before the invasion of Iraq US representatives rebuffed a last-ditch attempt to avert the war by officials claiming to represent a frantic Iraqi regime, according to reports.
"Richard Perle, an influential adviser to the Pentagon, received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman indicating that Saddam wanted to make a deal, ABC News and the New York Times reported last night.
"The chief of the Iraqi intelligence service and other Iraqi officials had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction and offered to let American troops and experts do an independent search, the New York Times said."
Continue here
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Help Mexican Garment Workers Unionize
Source: Centro de Apoyo al Trabajador (CAT)
November 5
"800 workers are calling for justice and have organized an independent union SUITTAR (Sindicato Unico Independiente de Trabajadores de la empresa Tarrant Mexico) at the Tarrant México - Ajalpan factory located in the State of Puebla, Mexico. The factory has responded to the organizing attempt by firing workers and blacklisting them to surrounding factories. They opened in 1999 and have employed up to 1400 workers who assemble and sew denim clothing for such international brands as LEVI'S, TOMMY HILFIGER, EXPRESS, LIMITED, MOSSIMO, AMERICAN EAGLE, CALVIN KLEIN, GAP, DKNY, WAL-MART, VENEZIA, AMERICAN EAGLE, WET SEAL, POLO/RALPH LAUREN, SONOMA JEANS, AND KMART.
"These workers need solidarity and support from individuals and organizations.
"The majority of the workforce is women, the average wage at the factory is 400 and 700 pesos a week, or between $40 and $70 USD a week. Workdays are 10 hour days, workers endure constant verbal and sexual harrassment, are forced to reach unreachable quotas and suffer salary reductions for failure to make these quotas."
Click here to read the Workers Fundraising Appeal
Click here to read the most recent Miami Herald article
Source
Meanwhile:
Minnie Driver taking a job in Cambodian sweatshop
Associated Press
 LONDON -- "Oscar nominee Minnie Driver plans to spend time in a Cambodian sweatshop for a project she hopes will draw attention to the plight of exploited workers in poor countries, a newspaper reports. 'I will be working alongside other young women for as long as it takes for me to raise awareness of the fair trade issue,' Driver told The Evening Standard at the London premiere of the movie Seabiscuit.
"The newspaper reported that Driver said she and a photographer friend hoped to make a documentary or perhaps write a book about the experience. She said she hoped her effort would help improve pay and working conditions for those in poor nations.
"'We in Britain and the Western world fuel the problem every time we buy clothes from any one of the major manufacturers which make goods in the third world using cheap labor,' Driver said."
Source
Original
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Blogroll Us Thursday, November 06, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac November 6, 1796 | Nay to Catherine's horse story
 1796 Ekaterina (or Yekaterina) II (April 21, 1729 - November 6, 1796), also known as Catherine the Great, the German-born Empress of Russia, died without having regained consciousness following a stroke that she suffered on November 5, 1796 while sitting on a commode at her St Petersburg palace.
A distant cousin of Queen Victoria, Catherine the Great reigned as empress of Russia from June 28, 1762 to her death.
Catherine is still famous for her sexual appetites and many lovers. She even had a secret room constructed, filled with paintings and sculptures depicting many sexual acts, rape, pedophilia and bestiality in realistic and graphic detail. Even the furniture incorporated depictions of giant sexual organs. However, there is no historical base for the often-told story that she was crushed to death when attendants lost their grip on ropes supporting a horse that was being lowered on her for sexual purposes.
Some have suggested that Polish emigrés might have invented the story in order to discredit her and the Russians in general, because Poland fared badly at the hands of Russian armies during her long and authoritarian reign.
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Butt out: Premier warns military man
"New South Wales Premier Bob Carr warned an Australian army officer serving in Baghdad not to get involved in political issues, after he criticised Mr Carr's decision to present a peace prize to a Palestinian activist.
"Colonel Mike Kelly, an adviser with coalition forces in Iraq, wrote to the Premier accusing him of legitimising terrorism through his determination to present the Sydney Peace Prize to Palestinian MP Hanan Ashrawi.
"Mr Carr said Colonel Kelly's remarks contravened the Australian tradition that 'the military doesn't intervene in Australian politics'."
Source
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 Sydney Peace Prize winner says will and courage needed in Mid-East peace process
"Sydney peace prize winner Dr Hanan Ashrawi has delivered the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize Lecture. In a speech entitled: 'Peace in the Middle East: A Global Challenge and a Human Imperative', Dr Ashrawi says the two-state solution is still possible, though becoming increasingly more difficult. She also says the need for third party intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only a factor of balance, but an indispensable force for breaking the lethal cycle of violence and revenge, while providing a context for legality, arbitration, and guarantees.
"Edited transcript of the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize lecture delivered by Dr Hanan Ashrawi at the University of Sydney on November 5, 2003 ..."
Source
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Openly Episcopal man joins Village People
Controversy threatens to tear disco band asunder
 "For the first time in their three decades of existence, the disco band The Village People have inducted an openly Episcopal man, igniting a controversy that threatens to tear the fabled group asunder.
"Holding a press conference in New York City today, The Construction Worker, a prominent member of The Village People since its inception in the 1970’s, urged 'tolerance and understanding' for its latest member, The Episcopal Guy, who joined the group over the weekend.
"'From the start, The Village People have been all about inclusiveness,' The Construction Worker said. 'And introducing The Episcopal Guy as our latest member is part of that tradition' ..."
From SatireSearch.com
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Flying in the face of privacy
5 November, Irish Times
"An intending traveller to the US could be branded a security threat without right of appeal under new plans, writes Ian Kilroy in Boston
"In Steven Spielberg's science fiction film Minority Report suspects are arrested before they commit a crime. A "pre-crime" police unit apprehends them based on the predictions of clairvoyants who can apparently see crimes to be committed in the future. People who have yet to do their wrongs are taken away. The authorities assume the information they act on is flawless.
"It turns out to be anything but.
"Today, something like this sci-fi scenario is becoming reality. Based on who you might turn out to be, the US wants a lot of your personal details before you arrive. The EU, among others, isn't too happy with the proposal.
"The Department of Homeland Security says it needs to introduce the passenger screening system for everyone travelling to or within the US. [My emphasis - N]
"The idea is to delve into private, commercial and government records to compile profiles of every US-bound traveller, instantly colour-code them as green, yellow or red security threats and draw up a no-fly list of everybody who is considered potentially dangerous."
Continue at Vee's blog "A-Changin' Times (ACT)"
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*Ø* Blogmanac | "Ghost fleet" row heads to court
BBC News, 5 November
 "Environmental campaigners are taking legal action over a fleet of rusting US navy vessels heading to the UK for wrecking.
"Friends of the Earth will ask the High Court in London to quash a modification to a waste management licence allowing the work to go ahead.
"Three Hartlepool residents are also applying to the court on Wednesday, for an immediate injunction to stop the ships arriving ...
"On Tuesday there was confusion about whether the so-called 'ghost fleet' -- contaminated with chemicals including asbestos and heavy diesel -- would be allowed into the UK."
Continue HERE
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Are we ready for a global political party?
The case for a global political party
By William Bowles
 "Are you fed up with the existing political status quo? Can’t tell the difference between one party and another? Do you want to find one that more closely reflects your philosophy or are you even thinking about starting up your own political party? Or perhaps it'll be the 'local' section of a global one?
"I’ve been involved with the left for pretty well my entire life and, like many others of my ilk, I’ve been cut adrift from my socialist roots over the past decade or so. Okay, I can and have, gotten involved in specific ‘causes’, like liberation movements and my work with information technology and social change over the past twenty years. But since returning to the UK after such a long absence and looking at the complete lack of organised political activism outside the traditional left parties (or what remains of them), I’ve long been considering the possibility of a new progressive formation and the form it would take.
"The question is however, are we doomed to duplicate the mistakes of the past? Does the new political and economic reality demand a new kind of political party of the left, and if so, what form will it or should it, take?"
CONTINUE
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Blogroll Us Wednesday, November 05, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac November 5, 1952 | Happy birthday, Vandana Shiva!
Physicist, philosopher, ecofeminist, environmental activist, writer
 Vandana Shiva was born in the northern Indian city of Dehra Dun, nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas. Her grandfather went on hunger strike to get a girls' college built in the countryside, and her mother made it to inspector of schools. Her love of nature has its roots in her childhood. She often rode through the forests of the Himalayas with her father, a forest official.
In 1978 she completed her Ph.D. in the philosophy of science. After that she did research at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore until 1982. In that year, she created the Research Foundation For Science, Technology and Ecology, which works on biodiversity conservation and protecting people's rights from threats to their livelihoods and environment by centralised systems of monoculture in forestry, agriculture and fisheries.
More recently, she has initiated an international movement of women working of food, agriculture, patents and biotechnology called, Diverse Women for Diversity.
At Cafe Diem! Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature & Knowledge by Vandana Shiva
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*Ø* Blogmanac November 5, 1605 | Gunpowder, treason and plot
Britain's Burning Man
Please to remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
We know no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Holla boys! holla boys! huzza-a-a!
A stick and a stake, for King George’s sake,
A stick and a stump, for Guy Fawkes’s rump!
Holla boys! holla boys! huzza-a-a!
Traditional English rhyme on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605
 1605 The Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes (“the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions”) and collaborators attempted to blow up the English Houses of Parliament.
“During the period from 1563, successive legislation, starting with the (second) Act of Supremacy, required an oath from all subjects that the monarch was Supreme Governor of the Church and any refusal was punishable by death. Catholics continued their religion in secret and the great houses were equipped with secret rooms where Mass would still be celebrated by priests smuggled in from the Continent and using false names. This had been tolerated in the early part of Elizabeth's reign. But it was not to last.” Source
Yorkshire-born Guy Fawkes (April 13, 1570 - January 31, 1606), was one of a number of Catholics who plotted to blow up England’s parliament, along with King James I. By upbringing a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism and in 1593, had served as a mercenary in Spain’s army in the Netherlands. He was at the capture of Calais in 1595, where, apparently, he distinguished himself greatly. He was perhaps selected for his skill in siege-craft when the plot was hatched to tunnel under Parliament. Probably he was suited to the conspiracy, too, because, as a Yorkshireman and having been abroad for some time, he was unknown in London.
The Gunpowder Plot was concocted in May of 1604 with Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, John Wright and Robert Wintour. Working for more than a year, in March 1605 the conspirators rented a vault under the House of Lords, which they filled with 36 barrels of gunpowder which they hid under some firewood, and then waited. Fawkes was to have lit the fuse to the barrels of gunpowder (he declared he would have fired the powder when Knyvett discovered it, had he been present; in fact, he was outside the house at the time), but one of the conspirators, Tresham, warned his Catholic relative, Lord Monteagle, of the plot (in order to save Catholic lives) and the Catholic uprising that was to have ensued.
Fawkes was interrogated under torture. However, torture was forbidden except by the express instruction of the monarch or the Privy Council, so King James stated in a letter of the day after the incident: ‘The gentler tortours are to be first used unto him, et sic per gradus ad mia tenditur [and thus by increase to the worst], and so God speed your goode worke’. On November 7, Fawkes confessed all and revealed the names of his co-conspirators. His signature is noticeably shaky, indicating the pains of torture he endured.
A trial in name only followed, but the sentences had already been predetermined. On January 31, 1606, Fawkes, Wintour, and a number of others implicated in the conspiracy were taken to Old Palace Yard in Westminster, where they were hanged, drawn and quartered.
Wikipedia recounts: “According to historian Antonia Fraser, the gunpowder was taken to the Tower of London and would have been reissued if in good condition, or otherwise sold for recycling. However a sample of the gunpowder may have survived – in March 2002 workers at the British Library, investigating archives of John Evelyn, found a box containing various samples of gunpowder and several notes: ‘Gunpowder 1605 in a paper inscribed by John Evelyn. Powder with which that villain Faux would have blown up the parliament.’ and ‘Gunpowder. Large package is supposed to be Guy Fawkes' gunpowder.’ and ‘But there was none left! WEH 1952.’
Guy Fawkes appears in the 2002 List of "100 Great Britons" (sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public), alongside such luminaries as David Beckham, Aleister Crowley, Winston Churchill and Johnny Rotten.
It is an annual ceremony for Yeomen of the Guard to search the cellars prior to the opening of Britain’s Parliament, as it is for English people to burn bonfires upon which are placed effigies of Fawkes, called ‘guys’. Because these fantastically dressed effigies have long been called ‘guys’, the word came to mean any strange-looking person (hence WS Gilbert in the Mikado has a “little list” for possible extermination “The woman who … dresses like a guy”) and later came to be applied in a derogatory sense to any man. However, some American lexicographers derive ‘guy’ from a Spanish word.
Was Guy framed?
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* Ø * Ø * Ø *
 Guy Fawkes Night, Britain
Guy Fawkes Night (often referred to as bonfire night) is celebrated with bonfires and fireworks on November 5th, or the closest Friday or Saturday night. Until the nineteenth century there was a special Church of England service for this commemoration in the Book of Common Prayer. Guy Fawkes Day became a public holiday in 1606 when it was proclaimed by an Act of Parliament.
In commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot on this day in 1605, when Guy Fawkes and his comrades tried to blow up James I and the whole English Parliament, English people still burn a guy in effigy. Traditionally the guy’s cap was made of paper and knotted with ribbon-like paper strips. The dummy carried matches in one hand and a dark lantern in the other. Children would go around the streets asking for money, saying “Please to remember the guy!”
In 1850 in Britain there was a strong wave of anti-Catholic sentiment, and the guy was often in the likeness of the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. In 1857 the popular guy was Nana Sahib who had brought military injuries to the British in the East.
At Lincoln’s Field, England, the huge Guy Fawkes Night bonfire used to be made of 200 cartloads of fuel and was topped by 30 guys, or effigies of Guy Fawkes.
The bone-fire
Guy Fawkes Night in Britain has for centuries been a bonfire night. Anciently, a bonfire was actually a bone-fire, burning animal bones amongst the wood. Before that, in pagan ceremonies human beings were burned in sacrifice.
One old name for Guy Fawkes Night was Gunpowder Treason. In London on Gunpowder Treason, butchers used to thrash each other with sinews from slaughtered bulls.
A Halloween/Samhain custom
Guy Fawkes Night, coming as it does nearly on the ancient pagan cross-quarter day of Samhain (half way between the northern Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice), otherwise known as Halloween, continues the old custom of burning in effigy the evil spirits of the old year.
At Lewes, Sussex, the British tradition of Guy Fawkes Night is celebrated with greater enthusiasm than practically anywhere else. This is because long ago Bloody Mary, the Catholic monarch, executed seventeen citizens of that town. Guy Fawkes Night is, unfortunately, a hangover from the days of intense hatred between Catholics and Protestants. At Lewes, mock Catholic clergy enact mock death sentences.
Bonfire Society Webring
Guy Fawkes Carnival, Bridgewater, Somerset, UK
Lewes Bonfire Night, Lewes, Sussex, UK
Turning the Devil's Stone, Shebbear, near Holsworthy, Devon, UK
Burning barrels, Ottery St Mary, UK
More on the burning barrels of Ottery
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Letter shows Hicks's condition deteriorating, father says
American torture of Aussie starting to break him?
 "Australia: The father of a man detained by the US military at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba says a letter from his son received yesterday indicates that his condition has deteriorated mentally and physically.
"The letter is dated September 1 and was received by his family yesterday.
"Detainee David Hicks writes of being isolated from other prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and seeing only military police.
"His father Terry Hicks says it also describes how food is his main concern and that his weight is fluctuating between 59 and 72 kilograms.
"'But he was always well-built; he looked after himself pretty well,' Mr Hicks said.
"For him to talk about weight loss like that then yes, something is definitely wrong."
"The family's lawyer Stephen Kenny says medical advice bears out Terry Hicks concerns.
"'It's an indicator that all else is not well and I've spoken to a psychiatrist today about weight loss as a result of stress and he indicates that clearly could be a factor,' Mr Kenny said.
"Terry Hicks says the letter suggests his son is also struggling to keep a grip on what is happening outside his prison.
"'To me just reading that letter is I think, his mental stability is now starting to weaken... they don't tell him what time it is or what month it is, so he wouldn't have a clue,' he said.
"Australian Federal Police and ASIO staff are expected to travel to Cuba in the near future to speak to David Hicks and the other Australian captive Mamdouh Habib."
Source
[Hicks and Habib are being held without trial by Shrub's goons but the complicit and compliant Australian government is doing nothing while the men are being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment and held in tiny cells. Hicks's letter this week says "my main worry now is food". Readers: please tell your countrymen and women about The Campaign for Justice for Hicks and Habib, and sign the petition. More info www.fairgofordavid.org.]
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Risen from the Grave
 So-called modernisers in the Tory Party like Michael Portillo who, in his own words is "white, middle-aged, from the south-east of England, [and] middle class" are nevertheless prepared to climb on board Dracula's coffin in a last ditch attempt to rescue the Tories from political oblivion. (Where's the wooden stake when you need one?)
FULL TEXT
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Randy ram gets the secret world overexcited
The Times, 4 November
 "Staff at the top secret GCHQ monitoring base were baffled. They had nothing like it before. Was the high frequency transmission a covert signal from a spy? Or something more sinister? Now the origin of the signal which puzzled British Intelligence can be revealed: an over-excited ram was rubbing himself against a radio mast. The intelligence community’s finest moment has been revealed in the Daily Observer, a spoof newspaper for staff at GCHQ in Cheltenham, which employs 4,500 people ...
"A GCHQ spokesman, Bob McNally, said: 'It was part of the ritual that the ram went through after it had made a conquest. I believe the ram was notching up a mark on the pylon, so to speak.'
"The tabloid paper is a rare glimpse of humour in the normally po-faced world of secret intelligence. GCHQ monitors communciations from around the world, from e-mails to mobile telephone calls [isn't that nice??? - N] but this was their first message from a randy ram."
Full text
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Blogroll Us Tuesday, November 04, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac November 5, 2000 | Japanese archaeologist's fraud
Devil undermines Japan's Palaeolithic research
 2000 Japanese archaeologist and Vice Chairman of the private Tohoku Palaeolithic Cultural Research Institute, Shin’ichi Fujimura, apologised for faking sensational archaeological discoveries. He had been caught on the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper’s video cameras as he buried planted eight stoneware pieces shortly after 6 a.m. on October 22.
Formerly known as ‘God’s hand’ or the ‘divine digger’ for his luck in finding important artefacts, Fujimura began making his earliest discoveries as an amateur archaeologist in the 1970s. The self-taught scientist had earned his reputation with a series of finds including a remarkable discovery in 1981 of stoneware dating back 40,000 years. He is said to have been involved in research centred around 186 sites. Although in a brief press interview on December 18, 2001 Fujimura would deny rumours that more dig finds he was involved in were also fakes, he later admitted to having falsely planted items at another 41 sites, including pieces he once labelled as the world's oldest connected stone tool. The two parts had been excavated separately at two different sites about 30 km apart. Fujimura had claimed that both were 100,000 years old.
“The devil made me do it”
Rumours of problems in Japan's Early and Middle Palaeolithic research had been circulating for a long time and Mainichi Shimbun put together an investigation team to look into all of these rumours. Confronted with the damning evidence the disgraced archaeologist admitted that he buried the items because he was “desperate [to find stone tools] ... voices in my head told me that I had to do something”. Asked why he had perpetrated such a deceit, Fujimura answered tearfully, “The devil made me do it”.
The fraudster, his grand career now in tatters, broke down in tears as he faced the media at a news conference at the Miyagi Prefectural Government headquarters in Sendai. “I personally planted them and no one else took part. Please don’t discredit the whole dig, because there were some authentic finds,” Fujimura said. “My actions were a disgrace ... I’m really sorry for my family and friends.”
The fraud had yielded unintended consequences. Since the unearthing of Fujimura’s so-called Stone Age tools was announced Tsukidate in 1993, the town had been in the epicentre of a Japanese archaeology boom. Flintstone-like characters became town mascots, and Tsukidate adopted as a motto: “Come and see the skies that were admired by the original man”. Soon tourists were flocking by the thousands to admire the region’s archaeological sites, and ‘original man’ noodle shops sprang up in town. A road was renamed The Original Man Way, and an Original Man Marathon quickly became a popular annual event drawing runners from all over Japan.
 Fujimura publicly confessed that he had buried 61 out of 65 items that were unearthed from the Kami-Takamori dig at Tsukidate, Miyagi Prefecture. He had also fabricated caches at the Soshin-Fudozaka site in Hokkaido. On at least one occasion, he had even taken reporters straight from a news conference to a site and ‘discovered’ artefacts on cue. Despite this, and the fact that any trained archaeologist could have seen that the soil around the caches had been disturbed, the deception was well received in Japanese academic circles for two decades.
The dig at Kami-Takamori, thanks largely to Fujimura, had become famous worldwide as the oldest Early Palaeolithic site in Japan, with the ages of eight or more cultural layers ranging from 500,000 to 700,000 years. Even more significant amongst scientists was the fact that several finds of stone artefacts indicated levels of symbolic cognition in Homo erectus much earlier than anything suspected from African and European evidence.
Rewriting the textbooks
If it had been true, the Kami-Takamori ‘finds’ could have rewritten the textbooks on human evolution. However, some archaeologists, such as Oda Shizuo and Charles T Keally, had, since at least 1985, published skeptical papers on the direction in which Japanese Palaeolithic archaeology was travelling.
Most scholars today accept that human beings lived in northern China at least by 700,000 years ago. We know Japan was connected to the continent by land bridges at least twice during the past 700,000 years, and that large terrestrial mammals migrated into the islands over those land bridges. However, Fujimura’s fraud has raised questions of whether humans beings really were in Japan before 35,000 years ago.
Fujimura’s fraudulent discoveries perhaps had been accepted by the Japanese academic elites, as well as the public, because they confirmed a popular notion – the great antiquity of the Japanese people. Even the Mainichi English edition reportage, which used the word ‘fraud’ on November 7, had attenuated this to the more comfortable term ‘fabrication’ the next day. Many scholars have also begun to question not only the closed academic environment, but also the Japanese educational standards that allowed such a hoax to take root and thrive.
Dirty digger comes clean on more faked sites
Meet a 'Stone Age' Man So Original, He's a Hoax
Undermined archaeologist kills himself
More scientific hoaxes
Strange Hoaxes That Endure
Akashi Man, Nipponantropus akashiensis, another Japanese fraud
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*Ø* Blogmanac November 4 | To do today
Collect faggots of wood for Guy Fawkes Day bonfire, England
It’s also a day to make gingerbread and ‘Plot Toffee’.
A stick and a stake For King George's sake
Will you please to give us a faggot
If you won't give one, we’ll steal two
The better for we and the worse for you.
Warwickshire rhyme
To make Gingerbread: Take Claret-wine, and put in sugar, and set it to the fire; then take wheat bread finely grated and sifted, and Liquorice, Anniseeds, Ginger and Cinnamon beaten very small into powder. Mix your bread and your spice together, put them into the wine, and boil it, and stir it until it be very thick. Then mould it and print it at your pleasure, and let it stand in a place neither too moist nor too warm.
Markham, The English Housewife, 1683
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*Ø* Blogmanac November 4, 1956 | USSR crushes people power, Hungary
 1956 The Hungarian Revolution was crushed by Soviet troops in Budapest. Two hundred thousand troops attacked the anti-Stalinist uprising in this second invasion of Hungary and a new pro-Russian government was installed. Civilians set up barricades along all the major roads leading to Budapest. Soldiers and Hungarian National Guard troops participated in the resistance. Only Communist Party functionaries and security police fought along with the Russians in the name of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’.
The rebellion had begun in October, when thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding a democratic political system and freedom from Soviet oppression. From October,
“Russian tanks, entering Budapest to aid the threatened Government, met furious resistance. Armed only with light weapons and molotov cocktails, thousands fought back. After three days thirty tanks were destroyed and Russian tank crews began siding with the rebels.
“Workers' councils were formed in factories, steel mills, power stations, coal mines and railway depots throughout Hungary. Peasants spontaneously formed their own councils, redistributed land, and supplied the towns with food. From the first day liberated radio stations broadcast the news across the country.” Source
Red Army tanks had pulled out of Hungary, as demanded by the workers' councils. It seemed as if the people had won. However, on this day the tanks returned. Having regrouped beyond the borders, 15 Russian divisions, now with 6,000 tanks, fell upon the Hungarian people. All major cities were pounded by artillery fire. In Budapest, the workers’ districts bore the brunt of the assault. The people fought back as best they could, but the entire city was shelled continuously for four days and soon lay in ruins. Probably 30,000 people were killed and tens of thousands wounded, and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country. Tanks dragged round bodies through the streets of Budapest as a warning to others who were still protesting.
After ten days of ferocious fighting, the people finally capitulated. Prime Minister Imre Nagy (who on October 27 had announced Hungary's removal from the Warsaw Pact) was captured shortly afterwards and executed on June 16, 1958, after a secret trial. He was buried along with others in a distant corner of the Municipal Cemetery to which access was not allowed until 1989. Next to his grave stands a memorial bell inscribed in Latin, Hungarian, German and English. The Latin reads: "Vivos voco Mortuo plango Fulgura frango," which is quaintly translated as: I call the living persons, I mourn for the died persons, I chase the lightnings.
After World War II, Hungary had been virtually handed over to Josef Stalin by Franklin D Roosevelt, who apparently failed fully to recognize Soviet Communism’s appalling history and potential. Winston Churchill by the end of the war had realized that Stalin was not all he claimed to be, while Roosevelt did not. Roosevelt's miscalculation allowed Stalin to gain control over the Eastern European nations and reduce them to cruelly oppressed Soviet satellites, with the loss of millions of lives.
 Betrayed by the West
The events of November 1956 were echoed decades later in 1992, when the people of Iraq, especially the Kurds, were actively encouraged by President George Bush to rebel against Saddam Hussein, but were not given the expected support when they did so, leading to many massacres when American forces stood by as Hussein’s helicopter gunships crushed the rebellion.
In Hungary in ’56, Voice of America radio broadcasts and speeches by US President Dwight D Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ("To all those suffering under communist slavery, let us say you can count on us.") were suggesting that the United States supported the “liberation” of “captive peoples” in communist nations, and Hungarian pro-democracy revolutionists clearly believed they would be supported. However, as in Iraq in ’92, when the tanks bore down on the rebels the United States did nothing beyond issuing public statements of sympathy for their plight. The ‘Free World’ did no more than cheer the freedom fighters on. Devastated, the rebels soon realized that the promises of Radio Free Europe and VoA were empty and that Hungary was left alone in her confrontation with the mighty Soviet Union.
The sight of the Hungarian massacres helped weaken Communist parties worldwide, but perhaps nothing greater than this example of the crushing of Hungarian spirit, and a sense of betrayal by so called champions of liberty, contributed to the captive nations of Europe remaining captive for another generation.
“Even though Hungary did not gain her independence, the lives of those who died for freedom were not wasted. For their plight showed the world that communism is not what it claims to be. Because of Hungary, the Soviet Union showed its true character to the world: a monster who holds its satellites not by friendship but by brute force. Communists in other countries could no longer claim ‘communism is the friend of man’.” Source
Time Magazine gave the ‘Man of the Year’ honours on its cover to the Unknown Hungarian Freedom Fighter. In reference to the Hungarian Freedom Fighter, Time said: “This man was seen to have shaken history's greatest despotism to its foundations”.
See Peter Fryer, The Hungarian Tragedy; Andy Anderson, Hungary '56; and The Hungarian Workers' Revolution by the Syndicalist Workers' Federation.
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*Ø* Blogmanac November 4, 1796 | USA is not one nation under God
Treaty between USA and Libya signed
 “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
So reads Article 11 of the Treaty with Tripoli (Libya), made during the presidency of George Washington and signed on this day in 1796.
The Tripoli Treaty is frequently cited to indicate that the USA was not founded on Christianity.
“The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense founded on the Christian religion …”
The Founding Fathers were not Christians
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Heart attack man now in seventh heaven
Seven marathons on 7 continents in 7 days
Taking it 'one day at a time' works for 59-year-old British adventurer
 "FOUR months after a heart attack and double-bypass operation, explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes yesterday completed the near-impossible feat of running seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.
"Sir Ranulph, 59, and his running partner, Dr Michael Stroud, 49, left behind the lonely struggle of their previous six efforts when they joined about 34,000 participants in the New York marathon, on a course that took them round the city’s five boroughs.
"The run made North America the seventh continent - after South America, Antarctica, Australia, Asia, Europe, and Africa - in which the two men have completed a punishing marathon in the space of a week.
"Wearing shirt number 33122, Sir Ranulph completed the run of 26 miles and 385 yards in five hours and 25 minutes, finishing in Manhattan’s Central Park ...
"'We took it bit by bit. If we thought when we were running, that we would have another marathon the next day we couldn’t have done it.' ..."
Source: The Scotsman
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Five Israelis were seen filming as jet liners ploughed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 ...
 "Were they part of a massive spy ring which shadowed the 9/11 hijackers and knew that al-Qaeda planned a devastating terrorist attack on the USA? Neil Mackay investigates
"THERE was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes.
"Who do you think they were? Palestinians? Saudis? Iraqis, even? Al-Qaeda, surely? Wrong on all counts. They were Israelis – and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA.
"Their discovery and arrest that morning is a matter of indisputable fact. To those who have investigated just what the Israelis were up to that day, the case raises one dreadful possibility: that Israeli intelligence had been shadowing the al-Qaeda hijackers as they moved from the Middle East through Europe and into America where they trained as pilots and prepared to suicide-bomb the symbolic heart of the United States. And the motive? To bind America in blood and mutual suffering to the Israeli cause ..."
Source: Sunday Herald
via Information Clearinghouse, which, like your Almanac, is owned and paid for by one person and requests your continuing generous support.
Support the Almanac
Israel Is Spying In And On The U.S.?
Published: 12/12/01 FOX News. 4 Part Series
These items have since been removed from the FOX News website.
But now you can watch the show online thanks to Information Clearinghouse
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Blair waged war illegally, say leading lawyers
"Tony Blair is facing a formal complaint to the international war-crimes tribunal by a panel of senior international legal experts for unlawfully waging war in Iraq.
"The panel of eight law professors, including experts from Oxford University and the London School of Economics, is studying evidence that alleges Britain has broken international treaties on war and human rights in Iraq.
The allegations centre on Iraqi civilian deaths caused by British cluster bombs, the targeting of power stations and the use of toxic depleted uranium shells against tanks ..."
Source: The Independent
Thanks to my mate Philo at Global Media Lightning Headlines for this. Highly recommended emailed headlines.
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*Ø* Blogmanac November 3 | St Hubert and the Sacred Stag
 Feast day of St Hubert of Liege (Belgium)
Patron saint of hunters
(Born c. 656; died at Fura (the modern Tervueren), Brabant, 30 May, 727 or 728.)
St Hubert of Liege, who is believed to have been the son of Bertrand, Duke of Guienne in Belgium, is the patron saint of hunters, metal-workers and mathematicians.
He spent so much of his time and energies hunting, thereby neglecting his religious duties, that one day in the woods, a stag bearing a crucifix threatened him with eternal damnation if he did not mend his ways.
On a Good Friday morning, when the religious were crowding the churches, Hubert instead went out hunting. As he pursued a magnificent stag, the animal turned and, according to the legend, he was astounded to see a crucifix between its antlers. Hubert heard a voice saying: “Hubert, unless thou turnest to the Lord, and leadest an holy life, thou shalt quickly go down into hell”. Hubert dismounted, prostrated himself and said, “Lord, what wouldst Thou have me do?” He received the answer, “Go and seek Lambert, and he will instruct you.”
More about St Hubert and the stag at The Horned God and Western Saints
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*Ø* Blogmanac November 3 | And today is ...
 The Isia, ancient Egypt (Oct 28-Nov 3); seventh and final day, known in one form to the Romans as the Hilaria
The cult of Osiris became a mixture of the primitive rites of savage community and some of the highest ideals of an advanced form of religion.
Margaret A Murray
The Rebirth of Osiris via the milk of Isis, representing resurrection;
The Time of the Receding Waters of the Nile
According to one legend, Isis, mother and consort of God, Lady of Heaven (Heq) collected the dismembered parts of her husband's body and united the fragments by magic powers. On this last day of the Isia, after an enactment of the story of the death of Osiris at the hands of his brother Set, the people followed the mourning cortege of Isis, to her temple.
It was a public occasion, marked in the Roman calendar with the name Hilaria – “Osiris has been found”, the crowd shouted for joy. At the end of the festival, when the above words had been shouted, the priests would fashion a small image in the shape of the crescent moon. Images of Osiris were made of paste and grain; these were watered until the barley sprouted and then floated down the Nile with candles as part of the planting ceremonies. The crowd departed from the temple and made its way down to the sea on the final night. The Hilaria was given over to unrestrained rejoicing, because the god, now risen to immortality, would assess all who had become divine by drinking the milk of Isis.
Osiris would sometimes appear as the Tet pillar, symbol of strength and stability in life and renewed power after death, and he was then called Osiris Tet.
“Herodotus tells us that the grave of Osiris was at Sais in Lower Egypt, and that there was a lake there upon which the sufferings of the god were displayed as a mystery by night. This commemoration of the divine passion was held once a year: the people mourned and beat their breasts at it to testify their sorrow for the death of the god; and an image of a cow, made of gilt wood with a golden sun between its horns, was carried out of the chamber in which it stood the rest of the year. The cow no doubt represented Isis herself, for cows were sacred to her, and she was regularly depicted with the horns of a cow on her head, or even as a woman with the head of a cow.” Source
The legend and cult of Osiris indicate belief in the Incarnate God and the ritual custom of killing of the king (cf Lammas at the Scriptorium). In the resurrection of Osiris the Egyptians saw the promise of everlasting life for themselves beyond the grave. They believed that every man would live eternally in the other world if only his surviving friends did for his body what the gods had done for the body of Osiris.
A great feature of the festival was the nocturnal illumination: throughout the whole of Egypt, people fastened rows of oil lamps to the outside of their houses, and the lamps burned all night long. This universal illumination of the houses on one night of the year suggests that the festival might have been a commemoration not merely of the dead Osiris but of the dead in general, like the night of All Souls’, discussed in yesterday’s Almanac.
em xena ba-a sauti
Let not be shut in my soul;
sauti xaibita un uat
let not be fettered my shadow
en ba-d en xaibit-a maa-f neter aa
for my soul and for my shadow, may it see the great god.
Chapter XCII of the Egyptian Book of the Dead
“… the khaibit or shadow of the man, which the Egyptians regarded as a part of the human economy. It may be compared with the {Greek skia'} and umbra of the Greeks and Romans. It was supposed to have an entirely independent existence and to be able to separate itself from the body; it was free to move wherever it pleased, and, like the ka and ba, it partook of the funeral offerings in the tomb, which it visited at will.” Source
Note: Frazer (Golden Bough), following Plutarch, fixes the dates of the Isia at 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th of November.
Osiris and other ancient gods and saviours similar to Jesus
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Feast Day of St Winifred (Winefride)
The patron of North Wales, a virgin martyr, was the daughter of a Welsh chieftain who was instructed by St Bueno, her uncle. When Prince Caradoc made unwanted advances to her; she fled, but he cut off her head. Miraculously, St Bueno breathed life into her again. She died a second time about 660.
The miraculous healing spring of Holywell (Flintshire, UK) flowed from where her head had come to rest; pilgrims in former days travelled to bathe in its charmed waters.
A history published in 1485 claimed that the waters from this saint’s well could heal both man and beast:
... sprang up a welle of spryngyng water largely enduring unto this day, which heleth al langours and seknesses as well in men as in bestes ...
At the Scriptorium: Sacred wells, springs and grottoes
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Microsoft Made Advances Toward Google
 NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Microsoft Corp., seeking a foothold in the Internet search business, approached Google within the last two months to discuss a partnership or even a merger, The New York Times said on Friday.
"Microsoft may still be interested in pursuing the Web search company at a later date, the report said, citing an executive briefed on the discussion, though its recent advances gained little traction."
Full text
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Israel and US labelled biggest threats to World peace
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - "Over half of Europeans think that Israel now presents the biggest threat to world peace according to a controversial poll requested by the European Commission.
"According to the same survey, Europeans believe the United States contributes the most to world instability along with Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and North Korea."
Full text
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Lemming myth takes fall
"Scientists have solved one of the world's great mysteries. The reason lemmings suicidally hurl themselves over cliffs is that ... they don't.
"The myth arose because of sudden, severe falls in the population of the hamster-like rodent. Scientists have long been puzzled by the four-year cycle of boom and bust.
"But now researchers have pinned the blame on a quartet of Arctic predators: the arctic fox, the snowy owl, the stoat and the long-tailed skua.
"'It's been an unsolved question for 80 years,' Olivier Gilg, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, said.
Dr Gilg and his colleagues studied the collared lemming in Greenland's high Arctic tundra for 15 years and published their research in the journal Science this week.
"They found that when the lemming population increased, so did foxes, owls and skuas. The stoats took a year to catch up, because of slower reproduction.
"By the time they did, the number of predators feasting on the lemmings drove their numbers down. Then the foxes, skuas and owls moved on to other prey, but the stoats ate only lemmings and died away, starting the cycle again.
"Dr Gilg said the myth of mass suicide lay with an unlikely villain - Walt Disney. The 1958 Disney documentary White Wilderness is said to have faked footage of lemmings hurling themselves over the nearest cliff. 'If a Disney documentary presented it as lemming suicide, then it must have been true,' Dr Gilg said."
Source: The Australian
Thanx, Mister Peg for this one.
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Claim: During the filming of the 1958 Disney nature documentary White Wilderness, the film crew induced lemmings into jumping off a cliff and into the sea in order to document their supposedly suicidal behavior.
Status: True.
 " ... Disney's White Wilderness was filmed in Alberta, Canada, which is not a native habitat for lemmings and has no outlet to the sea. Lemmings were imported for use in the film, purchased from Inuit children by the filmmakers. The Arctic rodents were placed on a snow-covered turntable and filmed from various angles to produce a "migration" sequence; afterwards, the helpless creatures were transported to a cliff overlooking a river and herded into the water."
Source: Urban Legends Reference Pages
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*Ø* Blogmanac | Big cats not a tall tale
 Sydney, NSW, Australia: "A State Government inquiry has found it is 'more likely than not' a colony of "big cats" is roaming Sydney's outskirts and beyond.
"The revelations are the result of a fresh four-month investigation into the 'black panther phenomenon" which for years has plagued residents across Sydney's west, north-west, Richmond, the Blue Mountains and Lithgow ...
"Although big cat sightings across NSW date back more than 100 years, speculation intensified in May 2001 when a successful Freedom of Information request revealed the NSW Government had been maintaining a secret file on the creature ..."
Source
Baz le Tuff sent this to me, with the apt comment: "Interesting, but why has the NSW Government had been maintaining a secret file on the creature. Jesus! If they deemed this important enough to keep secret, what else are they hiding?"
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*Ø* Blogmanac November 2, 1648 | Cossacks’ Uprising
 In the Cossacks’ Uprising, 12,000 Jews were massacred by Chmielnicki's hordes in Narol, the Ukraine. Under the leadership of Bogdan Zinovi Chmielnicki (pictured) (c. 1595 - August 6, 1657), Cossacks (Russ. Kazak; plural, Kazaki, from the Turkish quzzaq, ‘adventurer, free-booter’) from what is now the eastern Ukraine cruelly killed Jews and Catholics alike in raids.
Chmielnicki was born in Chigirin, in the Ukraine, and educated by Jesuits. However, unlike many of their other pupils, Chmielnicki did not embrace Roman Catholicism, but early in life became a champion of the Greek Orthodox faith, to which most of the Cossacks and the Little-Russian peasants belonged. He was a relatively poor but very ambitious Polish nobleman who in his action was, to a great extent, motivated by revenge for an outrage suffered at the hands of a dignitary of the Polish Crown, who abducted his wife and burned his manor.
Telling his people that the Poles had sold them as slaves “into the hands of the accursed Jews”, Chmielnicki incited the Cossacks who took these words as their battle-cry. During 1648-1649 they went on a rampage with cruelties as the world had seldom witnessed, massacring at least a hundred thousand Jews.
“The total number of [Jewish] victims will never be known for sure, since the killing machine wasn't efficient enough yet in those days to compile statistics – but estimates range between 100,000 and 670,000 dead.” Source
The Polish troops, especially those under Jeremiah Wishnevetzki, subdued the Cossacks here and there, but they were unable to put down the rebellion. Two historic enemies of Poland joined Chmielnicki: the Crimean Tartars and the Turks. Those Jews who fell into Turkish hands were ‘only’ carried away on ships to be sold as slaves in Constantinople and Salonika, where the Sephardic communities later came to their rescue and redeemed them from captivity.
However, those Jews who fell into the clutches of the Cossacks themselves were doomed. The Cossacks massacred Jews with grisly tortures that read like a manual for Adolph Hitler. Astonishingly, there are modern historical accounts that view Chmielnicki as a Ukrainian national hero.
In August, 1649, after a series of battles unfavourable to the Poles, a treaty of peace was concluded at Zborowo, between John Casimir and Chmielnicki, with a clause forbidding the Jews to live in the Ukraine.
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*Ø* Blogmanac November 2 | All Souls' Day
 All Souls' Day (or the Solemnity of All Souls;
or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed)
Soul, soul, for a souling cake,
I pray, good missus, a souling cake.
Apple or pear, a plum or a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry.
All Souls’ Day ‘soul-caking’ song, England
Celebrated much more in former days, on All Souls’ Day (the day following All Saints or All Hallows’ Day) people pray for the souls of the dead, particularly those believed to be in Purgatory.
It is celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church which has set it aside for a service for the repose of the deceased. Roman Catholic doctrine holds that after death, human spirits might spend time in a punishing place called Purgatory, which the Catholic Encyclopedia defines thus: “Purgatory (Lat., ‘purgare’, to make clean, to purify) in accordance with Catholic teaching is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are, not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions … since our prayers and our sacrifices can help those who are still waiting in purgatory, the saints have not hesitated to warn us that we have a real duty toward those who are still in purgatorial expiation.” Apparently, purgatorial punishment can be for seemingly minor sins: a long time after his death, Saint Severin, Archbishop of Cologne, appeared to a friend and told him that he had been in purgatory for having postponed until evening a prayer that he should have said in the morning.
In England it used to be observed by the ringing of the soul bell, the eating of soul cakes (flat, round, spicy cakes), and the blessing of beans.
(A bell, the ‘passing bell’ was also rung when a person was in extremis, to scare away evil spirits. [Similarly, the ancient Athenians used to beat on kettles at the moment of one's death, to frighten away the Furies.] )
The English would distribute soul cakes to the poor who went a-souling at the church door. The poor would say:
Soul, soul, for soul cake,
Pray you, good mistress, a soul cake.
Papers called Soul-papers were given away with these cakes. They contained requests for prayers for the souls of the departed.
Before 998, All Souls was marked with celebrations from the festival of Woden (Odin) as god of the dead, “parading the Hodening wild horse and other guising including mummers’ plays enacting the mysteries of life, death and rebirth.” (Pennick, Nigel, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992) Hodening is a custom which used to be found in Wales, and locally in Kent, Lancashire, and other English counties, at various dates during the Christmas and new Year seasons, and seems to be a survival of the hobby-horse tradition once common during the Christmas season in the British Isles.
In Naples, Italy, charnel houses were opened up, lit with torches and decked with flowers. The skeletons were dressed in robes, and families visited loved ones.
Soul Cakes
Ingredients:
Two sticks butter
3 and 3/4 cups sifted flour
1 cup fine white sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg or mace
1 teaspoon each, cinnamon, ginger, allspice
2 eggs
2 teaspoons malt vinegar (or cider vinegar)
Oven:
350 degrees; bake 20-25 minutes
Method: Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender (or a large fork). Blend in the sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and spice and mix to a stiff dough with the beaten eggs and vinegar. Knead thoroughly and roll out, 1/4 inch thick. Cut into 3-inch rounds and set on greased baking sheets. Prick cakes with a fork and bake. Sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar.
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