*Ø* Blogmanac | To Nora, Blogmanac team member in Ireland
And to all, bright blessings from Australia
And to all, bright blessings from Australia
Wilson's Blogmanac
"Now that we have total control of your economy, we would like to show our appreciation by presenting you with this beautiful ballot box." -- Archibald Sarantoff
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 31 | Happy New Year!
All about New Year customs and folklore
All over the world, people love to make a noise on the last midnight of the year. Church bells ring out in England (fitted with muffles until midnight, then allowed their full voice), and in Thailand the temple bells peal at midnight as people call out Kwam Suk Pee Mai (Happy New Year!).
An old Icelandic custom has it that if the pantry window is left open on New Year’s Eve, the pantry drift (a frost which is fine-grained and sweet to the taste), will come in and, when gathered and saved in a pot marked with a cross, will bring prosperity to the home. Icelanders used to believe that elves moved house on this night, and could be coerced into giving treasure to those who intercepted them at crossroads.
The People of Nigeria allowed their Ndok ceremony, held biennially in December, to merge with Western New Year customs, as Ndok was a rite of renewal. Only the men engage in Ndok, which sees, as everywhere on New Year’s Eve, much noisy, rowdy behaviour and, as in Iceland, people meeting at crossroads which are believed to be places of assembly for spirits.
In Russia, Grandfather Frost (D’yed Moroz), who looks suspiciously like Santa Claus, and his assistant the Snow Maiden (Snegourka), will pay a New Year’s visit to children, bringing with them gifts. In Greece, however, children will have left out sweets, cakes and drink for St Basil, another Santa-like character, for it is his feast day. They’ll even put a log in the fireplace so he can step easily down the chimney. In Armenia on December 31, goodies are lowered down the chimney on a rope.
New Year’s revelling, however, has been most shaped by the otherwise generally sensible Scots, who really know how to kick up their heels to say “good riddance!” to the Old year and “welcome!” to the new. The singing of Auld Lang Syne, is, of course as Scotch as whisky, and was recorded from the oral tradition by the Scottish national poet, Robbie Burns. Now, all over the world, people mouth the words like football players pretending the national anthem before a game. Despite its difficult words, it is one of the world’s best known songs.
The Scots call this season the “daft days” or Hogmanay, a word which might derive from practically anything if you listen to the experts, such as the Greek for 'holy month' and the French for 'man is born'. While some New Year’s customs go back to ancient Europe and even the Middle East – we know, for example, that 4,000 years ago the Babylonians made New Year’s resolutions – the Scots put their stamp on it, for they always thought it was a bigger deal than Christmas. They have yet to convince the rest of the world, however, to indulge in the Hogmanay sport of “first-footing”, in which it is thought to be good luck if the first person over one’s threshold in the New Year comes in the front door, is male, without eye trouble, not splay- or flat-footed, fair haired, carrying a lump of coal and a bottle of Scotch, and leaves by the back door. (In 1966, 19-year-old first-footer Alex Cleghorn was walking on Govan Rd, Glasgow with his two brothers, when suddenly he disappeared and was not seen again. Daft days indeed!) On the Greek island of Carpathos it is a white dog they have to rush inside at the stroke of midnight.
Australians, with their keen sense of culture and modernity, tend not to bother with the lumps of coal, white dogs, elves and crossroads, tending instead to get blithering drunk (like the wassailers of old England, the door-to-door drinkers whose name came from the cry Wass hael!, which approximates to Cheers!) and to pretend to have an ab-fab time ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Have a great night, everyone, and bright blessings for 2004. Thanks for coming through 2003, and a big thankyou and hugs to the rest of the Blogmanac team!! Lots of work and commitment.
All about New Year customs and folklore
All over the world, people love to make a noise on the last midnight of the year. Church bells ring out in England (fitted with muffles until midnight, then allowed their full voice), and in Thailand the temple bells peal at midnight as people call out Kwam Suk Pee Mai (Happy New Year!). An old Icelandic custom has it that if the pantry window is left open on New Year’s Eve, the pantry drift (a frost which is fine-grained and sweet to the taste), will come in and, when gathered and saved in a pot marked with a cross, will bring prosperity to the home. Icelanders used to believe that elves moved house on this night, and could be coerced into giving treasure to those who intercepted them at crossroads.
The People of Nigeria allowed their Ndok ceremony, held biennially in December, to merge with Western New Year customs, as Ndok was a rite of renewal. Only the men engage in Ndok, which sees, as everywhere on New Year’s Eve, much noisy, rowdy behaviour and, as in Iceland, people meeting at crossroads which are believed to be places of assembly for spirits.
In Russia, Grandfather Frost (D’yed Moroz), who looks suspiciously like Santa Claus, and his assistant the Snow Maiden (Snegourka), will pay a New Year’s visit to children, bringing with them gifts. In Greece, however, children will have left out sweets, cakes and drink for St Basil, another Santa-like character, for it is his feast day. They’ll even put a log in the fireplace so he can step easily down the chimney. In Armenia on December 31, goodies are lowered down the chimney on a rope.
New Year’s revelling, however, has been most shaped by the otherwise generally sensible Scots, who really know how to kick up their heels to say “good riddance!” to the Old year and “welcome!” to the new. The singing of Auld Lang Syne, is, of course as Scotch as whisky, and was recorded from the oral tradition by the Scottish national poet, Robbie Burns. Now, all over the world, people mouth the words like football players pretending the national anthem before a game. Despite its difficult words, it is one of the world’s best known songs.
The Scots call this season the “daft days” or Hogmanay, a word which might derive from practically anything if you listen to the experts, such as the Greek for 'holy month' and the French for 'man is born'. While some New Year’s customs go back to ancient Europe and even the Middle East – we know, for example, that 4,000 years ago the Babylonians made New Year’s resolutions – the Scots put their stamp on it, for they always thought it was a bigger deal than Christmas. They have yet to convince the rest of the world, however, to indulge in the Hogmanay sport of “first-footing”, in which it is thought to be good luck if the first person over one’s threshold in the New Year comes in the front door, is male, without eye trouble, not splay- or flat-footed, fair haired, carrying a lump of coal and a bottle of Scotch, and leaves by the back door. (In 1966, 19-year-old first-footer Alex Cleghorn was walking on Govan Rd, Glasgow with his two brothers, when suddenly he disappeared and was not seen again. Daft days indeed!) On the Greek island of Carpathos it is a white dog they have to rush inside at the stroke of midnight.
Australians, with their keen sense of culture and modernity, tend not to bother with the lumps of coal, white dogs, elves and crossroads, tending instead to get blithering drunk (like the wassailers of old England, the door-to-door drinkers whose name came from the cry Wass hael!, which approximates to Cheers!) and to pretend to have an ab-fab time ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Have a great night, everyone, and bright blessings for 2004. Thanks for coming through 2003, and a big thankyou and hugs to the rest of the Blogmanac team!! Lots of work and commitment.
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 30, 1916 | Live hard, die hard
1916 Grigory Rasputin (January 10, 1869 - December 16, 1916 (OS)), mystic and favourite of the wife of Russia's last tsar, was murdered by a group of conservatives who wished to rid the Russian court of his malignant influence. He was served poisoned wine and cakes of which he partook, beaten, castrated, had his penis flung across the room and was subsequently shot several times and thrown into a frozen river before he expired ... (Read on)
Rasputin's roger, or a sea cucumber?
The name Rasputin in Russian does not mean ‘licentious’, as is often claimed. However there is very similar Russian adjective, ‘rasputnii’ which does in fact mean ‘licentious’, and for whatever reasons, Rasputin’s name will always be associated with sexual libertinism. The folklore of his genitalia, which is probably no more than folklore, is one reason for this.
According to Rasputin’s daughter, Maria, her father’s penis was 13 inches long when erect. So perhaps his profound influence at the Russian imperial court was more than spiritual. How Ms Rasputin came to have this information is not known, though some say she acquired that very organ as a keepsake after his death.
It has been alleged that Grigori frequented St Petersburg’s bathhouses and was seen entering, with both aristocrats and prostitutes, these places of sex, magic and superstition, where he performed rituals in which he attempted to exorcise the demons of lechery by literally beating them out of women. Afterwards he would have intercourse with them. We all know the value of “kiss and make up”.
One society woman, Olga Lokhtina, was so affected by the charismatic peasant that she thought he was Christ and she the Virgin Mary; she even left her rich husband and children for him. On one occasion, it is said, Rasputin was observed violently beating her while she held on to his schlong, shouting, “I am your ewe, and you are Christ.”
It is widely believed that on the night of Rasputin’s murder (December 16 by the Julian calendar that was still used in Russia at the time, but December 30 according to the Gregorian calendar), the great member was severed from his body and flung across the scene of the crime: the dining room in the basement of the palace of Prince Felix Yussupov, one of his murderers. Stories differ as to whether the emasculation of the Tsarina’s favourite took place before or after his death.
His maid was said to have found Rasputin’s thing while cleaning up the apartment, after the murder. Then, in Paris during the 1920s, a cult of Russian émigré women worshipped an object that they believed to be the organ in question. Or, so it is said. Some say that the relic adored by these cult followers was kept in a wooden casket, but bits were broken off and given to disciples. The story goes that Marie Rasputin, on discovering the wee-wee cult, expressed her disapproval in strong terms and took possession of whatever it was they were worshipping.
After a middling career as a circus performer in Europe, South America and the US, the ‘mad monk’s’ daughter died in California in 1977, aged 78 (she is buried in Rosedale Memorial Park, Los Angeles), having failed in her ambition of changing, by means of a book she had written, the popular view of her father as a stereotypical weirdo – no small task even for a good writer. (Actually, we should note here that he was not actually a monk, but a starets, or religious pilgrim.)
The legend goes further, that antique dealer Michael Augustine, of Davenport, a small ocean-side community north of Santa Cruz, California, came into possession of Rasputin’s roger. In 1994 at a storage locker sale he'd bought as a job lot, he found the effects of a certain Dr Roberta Ripple, deceased, former president of the Santa Monica Writers Club. Dr Ripple’s possessions included three type-written manuscripts by Marie Rasputin – a hagiography of her father, My Father Rasputin, (ghosted by Roberta Ripple) a novel (My Boots Are Narrow), and a short article entitled ‘Wreck of An Empire’.
But there was more – in its own velvet pouch, a black, wizened object (eeeyewww!) was found resembling the uncircumcised helmet (glans) of a penis. An accompanying note identified it as Rasputin's john thomas and stated that Marie Rasputin had been given it by Rasputin's maid and former lover, who claimed she'd been present at his dismemberment.
A manuscript by Marie – and the wizened object – were sold to a person or persons unknown at Bonham's London auction house (“Auctioneers & Valuers Since 1793”) on March 10, 1994, for the scarcely princely sum of £350. The missing member was last seen, held aloft, at a press conference at the auction house ... (Read on)
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click December 30 when you're there.
1916 Grigory Rasputin (January 10, 1869 - December 16, 1916 (OS)), mystic and favourite of the wife of Russia's last tsar, was murdered by a group of conservatives who wished to rid the Russian court of his malignant influence. He was served poisoned wine and cakes of which he partook, beaten, castrated, had his penis flung across the room and was subsequently shot several times and thrown into a frozen river before he expired ... (Read on)The mystery of the ‘mad monk’s’ bishop
Rasputin's roger, or a sea cucumber?
The name Rasputin in Russian does not mean ‘licentious’, as is often claimed. However there is very similar Russian adjective, ‘rasputnii’ which does in fact mean ‘licentious’, and for whatever reasons, Rasputin’s name will always be associated with sexual libertinism. The folklore of his genitalia, which is probably no more than folklore, is one reason for this.According to Rasputin’s daughter, Maria, her father’s penis was 13 inches long when erect. So perhaps his profound influence at the Russian imperial court was more than spiritual. How Ms Rasputin came to have this information is not known, though some say she acquired that very organ as a keepsake after his death.
It has been alleged that Grigori frequented St Petersburg’s bathhouses and was seen entering, with both aristocrats and prostitutes, these places of sex, magic and superstition, where he performed rituals in which he attempted to exorcise the demons of lechery by literally beating them out of women. Afterwards he would have intercourse with them. We all know the value of “kiss and make up”.
One society woman, Olga Lokhtina, was so affected by the charismatic peasant that she thought he was Christ and she the Virgin Mary; she even left her rich husband and children for him. On one occasion, it is said, Rasputin was observed violently beating her while she held on to his schlong, shouting, “I am your ewe, and you are Christ.”
It is widely believed that on the night of Rasputin’s murder (December 16 by the Julian calendar that was still used in Russia at the time, but December 30 according to the Gregorian calendar), the great member was severed from his body and flung across the scene of the crime: the dining room in the basement of the palace of Prince Felix Yussupov, one of his murderers. Stories differ as to whether the emasculation of the Tsarina’s favourite took place before or after his death.
His maid was said to have found Rasputin’s thing while cleaning up the apartment, after the murder. Then, in Paris during the 1920s, a cult of Russian émigré women worshipped an object that they believed to be the organ in question. Or, so it is said. Some say that the relic adored by these cult followers was kept in a wooden casket, but bits were broken off and given to disciples. The story goes that Marie Rasputin, on discovering the wee-wee cult, expressed her disapproval in strong terms and took possession of whatever it was they were worshipping.
After a middling career as a circus performer in Europe, South America and the US, the ‘mad monk’s’ daughter died in California in 1977, aged 78 (she is buried in Rosedale Memorial Park, Los Angeles), having failed in her ambition of changing, by means of a book she had written, the popular view of her father as a stereotypical weirdo – no small task even for a good writer. (Actually, we should note here that he was not actually a monk, but a starets, or religious pilgrim.)
The legend goes further, that antique dealer Michael Augustine, of Davenport, a small ocean-side community north of Santa Cruz, California, came into possession of Rasputin’s roger. In 1994 at a storage locker sale he'd bought as a job lot, he found the effects of a certain Dr Roberta Ripple, deceased, former president of the Santa Monica Writers Club. Dr Ripple’s possessions included three type-written manuscripts by Marie Rasputin – a hagiography of her father, My Father Rasputin, (ghosted by Roberta Ripple) a novel (My Boots Are Narrow), and a short article entitled ‘Wreck of An Empire’.
But there was more – in its own velvet pouch, a black, wizened object (eeeyewww!) was found resembling the uncircumcised helmet (glans) of a penis. An accompanying note identified it as Rasputin's john thomas and stated that Marie Rasputin had been given it by Rasputin's maid and former lover, who claimed she'd been present at his dismemberment.
A manuscript by Marie – and the wizened object – were sold to a person or persons unknown at Bonham's London auction house (“Auctioneers & Valuers Since 1793”) on March 10, 1994, for the scarcely princely sum of £350. The missing member was last seen, held aloft, at a press conference at the auction house ... (Read on)
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click December 30 when you're there.
By any measure of comparison, my December 30 was better than that experienced by billions of people in the world.
However, may I mention the two hours it took me to put together the second-hand water-bed I got for Christmas (used to be Baz le Tuff's), and the three hours I've spent since then cleaning up the flood caused by my trying to rush-start an 18-hour-late Almanac and then losing track of the time while toilet-reading about the Chase family haunted vaults in Barbados?
My mind only went to Barbados for about fifteen minutes but as God found during the first week, you can wet a lot of stuff in a quarter of an hour.
Back to the Almanac. I should have started the next one already LOL
Thank you.
However, may I mention the two hours it took me to put together the second-hand water-bed I got for Christmas (used to be Baz le Tuff's), and the three hours I've spent since then cleaning up the flood caused by my trying to rush-start an 18-hour-late Almanac and then losing track of the time while toilet-reading about the Chase family haunted vaults in Barbados?
My mind only went to Barbados for about fifteen minutes but as God found during the first week, you can wet a lot of stuff in a quarter of an hour.
Back to the Almanac. I should have started the next one already LOL
Thank you.
*Ø* Blogmanac | New push to help quake survivors
"Relief teams in southern Iran are concentrating on caring for those made homeless by last week's earthquake, as hopes fade of finding more survivors.
The bodies of 28,000 victims have been recovered - but more are thought to be buried under the rubble, many of them in the ancient mud-brick city of Bam.
"With some rescuers pulling out, aid workers are now highlighting the plight of exposed survivors.
"The six Gulf Cooperation Council states have promised $400m for reconstruction.
"Aid workers say they are concentrating on providing shelter, food and heaters to the tens of thousands of survivors facing long, cold nights in the open.
"A United Nations official warned that even a common cold could prove fatal to them ..."
Source BBC
We can stay informed and donate to help the tens of thousands of bereaved survivors at UNICEF.
Iran Appeal at Islamic Aid
"Relief teams in southern Iran are concentrating on caring for those made homeless by last week's earthquake, as hopes fade of finding more survivors. The bodies of 28,000 victims have been recovered - but more are thought to be buried under the rubble, many of them in the ancient mud-brick city of Bam.
"With some rescuers pulling out, aid workers are now highlighting the plight of exposed survivors.
"The six Gulf Cooperation Council states have promised $400m for reconstruction.
"Aid workers say they are concentrating on providing shelter, food and heaters to the tens of thousands of survivors facing long, cold nights in the open.
"A United Nations official warned that even a common cold could prove fatal to them ..."
Source BBC
We can stay informed and donate to help the tens of thousands of bereaved survivors at UNICEF.
Iran Appeal at Islamic Aid
*Ø* Blogmanac | Welcome to the new America
Coffee, Tea or Handcuffs?
An Australian journalist gets a taste of Department of Homeland Security hospitality
by Steven Mikulan
"Sue Smethurst enjoys traveling. 'It’s one of the things about my job that I absolutely love,' says the 30-year-old Australian, who works as an associate editor for the women’s magazine New Idea. She doesn’t even mind flying. 'It’s one of the great pleasures of the world to be able to turn off your cell phone and be where no one can annoy you.'
"But when her Qantas flight from Melbourne, Australia, touched down at LAX around 8 a.m. on Friday, November 14, Smethurst found herself nightmarishly annoyed — by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Smethurst was supposed to continue to New York and on Monday interview singer Olivia Newton-John. Smethurst had honeymooned in Manhattan last year and was looking forward to a long, free weekend 'having a good walk through Central Park, getting a decent bowl of chicken soup and going Christmas shopping — all those gorgeous New York things.' Better still, her six-hour layover in L.A. would allow her to have lunch with her American literary agent.
“'I had a room booked at the Airport Hilton, where I was going to leave my bags, shower and get a cup of coffee.'
"But first she had to clear LAX’s immigration check-in, which she reached after 20 minutes in line. An officer from the DHS’s newly minted Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureau studied the traveler’s declaration form Smethurst had filled out on the plane.
“'Oh, you’re a journalist,' he noted. 'What are you here for?'
“'I’m interviewing Olivia Newton-John,' Smethurst replied.
“'That’s nice,' the official said, impressed. 'What’s the article about?'
“'Breast cancer.'
"When Smethurst tells me this, she pauses and adds, 'I thought that last question was a little odd, but figured everything’s different now in America and it was fine.' What she didn’t know was that her assignment and travel plans, along with the chicken soup and stroll through Central Park, had been terminated the moment she confirmed she was a journalist. Fourteen hours later, she was escorted by three armed guards onto the 11 p.m. Qantas flight home.
“'I want to say right off that I adore America and love Americans,' Smethurst says. Still, she remains perplexed and emotionally bruised by what followed in Terminal Four. The CBP agent who read Smethurst’s traveler’s questionnaire took her to a secondary inspection area 30 feet away and told her to wait, then left for half an hour. He returned with additional uniformed staff who, professionally and pleasantly enough, asked more questions.
"What sort of stories did she write? What kind of magazine was New Idea? Where was it published? What was its circulation? Does it print politically sensitive articles? When would her interview appear? Who would be reading it?
“'I laughed,' Smethurst recalls, 'because we’re a cross between Good Housekeeping and People magazine. The most political thing we’d likely print was Laura Bush’s horoscope.'
"The polite interrogation continued. Who was her father? His occupation? Her mother’s maiden name and occupation? What were their dates of birth, where did they live?
"The agents gravely nodded at Smethurst’s replies and left once more, promising to return. When they came back half an hour later, one of the officers offered Smethurst a cup of airport coffee.
“'I thought at that stage something was quite wrong,' Smethurst says, 'so I asked the man with the coffee if there was some problem.'
“'I will tell you when there’s a problem,' he abruptly snapped, according to Smethurst. Then he pointed to a nearby sign:
"Your Silence Is Appreciated ...
Read on at LA Weekly
Thanks Lynn Perry for sending me this.
Coffee, Tea or Handcuffs?An Australian journalist gets a taste of Department of Homeland Security hospitality
by Steven Mikulan
"Sue Smethurst enjoys traveling. 'It’s one of the things about my job that I absolutely love,' says the 30-year-old Australian, who works as an associate editor for the women’s magazine New Idea. She doesn’t even mind flying. 'It’s one of the great pleasures of the world to be able to turn off your cell phone and be where no one can annoy you.'
"But when her Qantas flight from Melbourne, Australia, touched down at LAX around 8 a.m. on Friday, November 14, Smethurst found herself nightmarishly annoyed — by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Smethurst was supposed to continue to New York and on Monday interview singer Olivia Newton-John. Smethurst had honeymooned in Manhattan last year and was looking forward to a long, free weekend 'having a good walk through Central Park, getting a decent bowl of chicken soup and going Christmas shopping — all those gorgeous New York things.' Better still, her six-hour layover in L.A. would allow her to have lunch with her American literary agent.
“'I had a room booked at the Airport Hilton, where I was going to leave my bags, shower and get a cup of coffee.'
"But first she had to clear LAX’s immigration check-in, which she reached after 20 minutes in line. An officer from the DHS’s newly minted Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureau studied the traveler’s declaration form Smethurst had filled out on the plane.
“'Oh, you’re a journalist,' he noted. 'What are you here for?'
“'I’m interviewing Olivia Newton-John,' Smethurst replied.
“'That’s nice,' the official said, impressed. 'What’s the article about?'
“'Breast cancer.'
"When Smethurst tells me this, she pauses and adds, 'I thought that last question was a little odd, but figured everything’s different now in America and it was fine.' What she didn’t know was that her assignment and travel plans, along with the chicken soup and stroll through Central Park, had been terminated the moment she confirmed she was a journalist. Fourteen hours later, she was escorted by three armed guards onto the 11 p.m. Qantas flight home.
“'I want to say right off that I adore America and love Americans,' Smethurst says. Still, she remains perplexed and emotionally bruised by what followed in Terminal Four. The CBP agent who read Smethurst’s traveler’s questionnaire took her to a secondary inspection area 30 feet away and told her to wait, then left for half an hour. He returned with additional uniformed staff who, professionally and pleasantly enough, asked more questions.
"What sort of stories did she write? What kind of magazine was New Idea? Where was it published? What was its circulation? Does it print politically sensitive articles? When would her interview appear? Who would be reading it?
“'I laughed,' Smethurst recalls, 'because we’re a cross between Good Housekeeping and People magazine. The most political thing we’d likely print was Laura Bush’s horoscope.'
"The polite interrogation continued. Who was her father? His occupation? Her mother’s maiden name and occupation? What were their dates of birth, where did they live?
"The agents gravely nodded at Smethurst’s replies and left once more, promising to return. When they came back half an hour later, one of the officers offered Smethurst a cup of airport coffee.
“'I thought at that stage something was quite wrong,' Smethurst says, 'so I asked the man with the coffee if there was some problem.'
“'I will tell you when there’s a problem,' he abruptly snapped, according to Smethurst. Then he pointed to a nearby sign:
"Your Silence Is Appreciated ...
Read on at LA Weekly
Thanks Lynn Perry for sending me this.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Oh, why can't we see! That...
Love Sees No Color
Love sees no color, no race, no religion
We are the same as the rays from the sun
Love sees no color, no race, no religion
Only through love can we live as one.
When I look into your eyes I see hope, and future
Realizing what we have inside.
Hearts of love, hearts of light, hearts of new beginnings
Eager to find the answers we are seeking
Why does it take one man to end it all?
Oh, why can't we see!
Why does it take much more to stop the fall?
When on only takes love to be free.
Let’s light a candle for the joining of our union
One for the fate of all mankind
One for love, one for thanks, all that we are given
Celebrating life and love we are finding.
The words to the song “Love Sees No Color” came one night to singer/songwriter Nassiri, a gentle, soft-spoken man who has truly been enlightened.
The song title alone expresses a simple, yet powerful, recipe for peace. It’s a message that Nassiri is advocating with his accompanying music video filmed in the natural setting of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area with kids representing different nationalities from all over the world.
Believing that it is children who can lead the movement for world peace, armed with meaningful words and uplifting music, Nassiri has embarked on a self-funded mission. Proceeds from the song and video eloquently sharing his hope for the future are being submitted as a donation to UNICEF to aid children who are victims of war and poverty.
The words to the chorus hold a mesmerizing message that should be emblazoned on the walls of the United Nations.
Love sees no color, no race, no religion
We are the same as the rays from the sun
Love sees no color, no race, no religion
Only through love can we live as one
Nassiri, the song’s author, is one of the chosen few in life who is actually following his destiny. His music career began only five years ago, after decades of success in the retail and wholesale clothing industry. He started living his dream of musically spreading love and understanding after studying global religions and the timeless wisdom of history’s great teachers. The result of his intense pursuit has been inner peace and a universal consciousness that he now shares through his philosophical lyrical prose.
Read further for origins and future
Love Sees No Color
Love sees no color, no race, no religion
We are the same as the rays from the sun
Love sees no color, no race, no religion
Only through love can we live as one.
When I look into your eyes I see hope, and future
Realizing what we have inside.
Hearts of love, hearts of light, hearts of new beginnings
Eager to find the answers we are seeking
Why does it take one man to end it all?
Oh, why can't we see!
Why does it take much more to stop the fall?
When on only takes love to be free.
Let’s light a candle for the joining of our union
One for the fate of all mankind
One for love, one for thanks, all that we are given
Celebrating life and love we are finding.
The words to the song “Love Sees No Color” came one night to singer/songwriter Nassiri, a gentle, soft-spoken man who has truly been enlightened.
The song title alone expresses a simple, yet powerful, recipe for peace. It’s a message that Nassiri is advocating with his accompanying music video filmed in the natural setting of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area with kids representing different nationalities from all over the world. Believing that it is children who can lead the movement for world peace, armed with meaningful words and uplifting music, Nassiri has embarked on a self-funded mission. Proceeds from the song and video eloquently sharing his hope for the future are being submitted as a donation to UNICEF to aid children who are victims of war and poverty.
The words to the chorus hold a mesmerizing message that should be emblazoned on the walls of the United Nations.
We are the same as the rays from the sun
Love sees no color, no race, no religion
Only through love can we live as one
Nassiri, the song’s author, is one of the chosen few in life who is actually following his destiny. His music career began only five years ago, after decades of success in the retail and wholesale clothing industry. He started living his dream of musically spreading love and understanding after studying global religions and the timeless wisdom of history’s great teachers. The result of his intense pursuit has been inner peace and a universal consciousness that he now shares through his philosophical lyrical prose.
Read further for origins and future
*Ø* Blogmanac | A "Fireside Chat" of Sorts
William Rivers Pitt is one of the brightest stars in our progressive league of voices standing up to the powers that be with facts and figures and knowledge they can't dispute. His writing and editing for truthout.org is a mainstay of the movement to inform and motivate Americans to save our country. His dynamism in live appearances can be enjoyed on CSPAN from time to time and now a taste of his impact can be felt in nightly audio presentations online.
'Truthout.org Overview' Evening Audio with William Rivers Pitt
"We hope you will join us every night for this webcast as we examine, in depth and right here, the news of the day.
"We do truthout for three reasons: Far too often, the mainstream television news media act as little more than commercial advertisers for their parent companies. This is not journalism, and we desperately need journalism in this day and age. We also do truthout because the mainstream print media, while retaining great credibility, requires an enormous amount of time to sift through properly. Our editors, who read between 10 and 30 newspapers a day, do that for you.
"Finally, the English philosopher John Locke said,
'It is one thing to show a man that he is in error,
and another to put him in possession of truth.'
"Tonight, tomorrow, and for as long as we are able, truthout.org will be in the business of putting you in possession of the truth.
"The truthout overview will be available Monday through Friday each evening. We look forward to you joining us in this endeavor."
BOOKMARK!
William Rivers Pitt is one of the brightest stars in our progressive league of voices standing up to the powers that be with facts and figures and knowledge they can't dispute. His writing and editing for truthout.org is a mainstay of the movement to inform and motivate Americans to save our country. His dynamism in live appearances can be enjoyed on CSPAN from time to time and now a taste of his impact can be felt in nightly audio presentations online.
'Truthout.org Overview' Evening Audio with William Rivers Pitt
"We hope you will join us every night for this webcast as we examine, in depth and right here, the news of the day. "We do truthout for three reasons: Far too often, the mainstream television news media act as little more than commercial advertisers for their parent companies. This is not journalism, and we desperately need journalism in this day and age. We also do truthout because the mainstream print media, while retaining great credibility, requires an enormous amount of time to sift through properly. Our editors, who read between 10 and 30 newspapers a day, do that for you.
"Finally, the English philosopher John Locke said,
'It is one thing to show a man that he is in error,
and another to put him in possession of truth.'
"Tonight, tomorrow, and for as long as we are able, truthout.org will be in the business of putting you in possession of the truth.
"The truthout overview will be available Monday through Friday each evening. We look forward to you joining us in this endeavor."
BOOKMARK!
*Ø* Blogmanac | NOW IT IS REVEALED
Revealed: how MI6 sold the Iraq war
By Nicholas Rufford
12/28/03: (The Times) THE Secret Intelligence Service has run an operation to gain public support for sanctions and the use of military force in Iraq. The government yesterday confirmed that MI6 had organised Operation Mass Appeal, a campaign to plant stories in the media about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
The revelation will create embarrassing questions for Tony Blair in the run-up to the publication of the report by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the government weapons expert.
A senior official admitted that MI6 had been at the heart of a campaign launched in the late 1990s to spread information about Saddam’s development of nerve agents and other weapons, but denied that it had planted misinformation. “There were things about Saddam’s regime and his weapons that the public needed to know,” said the official.
The admission followed claims by Scott Ritter, who led 14 inspection missions in Iraq, that MI6 had recruited him in 1997 to help with the propaganda effort. He described meetings where the senior officer and at least two other MI6 staff had discussed ways to manipulate intelligence material.
“The aim was to convince the public that Iraq was a far greater threat than it actually was,” Ritter said last week.
He said there was evidence that MI6 continued to use similar propaganda tactics up to the invasion of Iraq earlier this year. “Stories ran in the media about secret underground facilities in Iraq and ongoing programmes (to produce weapons of mass destruction),” said Ritter. “They were sourced to western intelligence and all of them were garbage.”
Kelly, himself a former United Nations weapons inspector and colleague of Ritter, might also have been used by MI6 to pass information to the media. “Kelly was a known and government-approved conduit with the media,” said Ritter.
Hutton’s report is expected to deliver a verdict next month on whether intelligence was misused in order to promote the case for going to war. Hutton heard evidence that Kelly was authorised by the Foreign Office to speak to journalists on Iraq. Kelly was in close touch with the “Rockingham cell”, a group of weapons experts that received MI6 intelligence.
Blair justified his backing for sanctions and for the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that intelligence reports showed Saddam was working to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The use of MI6 as a “back channel” for promoting the government’s policies on Iraq was never discovered during the Hutton inquiry and is likely to cause considerable disquiet among MPs.
Full Text
Related Stories
In case you missed it: Blair's secret weapon: Investigation: A covert project, set up by the UK government, 'cherry-picked' intelligence to fit the hidden agenda of justifying war with Iraq
In case you missed it: Scott Ritter Proved Right! MI6 ran 'dubious' Iraq campaign: "I was approached by MI6 to provide that data, I met with the Mass Appeal operatives both in New York and London on several occasions. This data was provided and this data did find its way into the international media.
Bremer 'rejects' Blair WMD claims: The US official running Iraq appears to have contradicted Tony Blair's claim Saddam Hussein had laboratories for developing weapons of mass destruction.
[This is the information that needs to get to people who won't hear it by mainstream media. This is the information that will give more credence to those who voted "NO!" on the Iraq war for Republican voters in the presidential election. Please help everyone learn about this. We know the mainstream and the White House won't tattle on themselves! -v]
Revealed: how MI6 sold the Iraq war
By Nicholas Rufford
12/28/03: (The Times) THE Secret Intelligence Service has run an operation to gain public support for sanctions and the use of military force in Iraq. The government yesterday confirmed that MI6 had organised Operation Mass Appeal, a campaign to plant stories in the media about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
The revelation will create embarrassing questions for Tony Blair in the run-up to the publication of the report by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the government weapons expert.
A senior official admitted that MI6 had been at the heart of a campaign launched in the late 1990s to spread information about Saddam’s development of nerve agents and other weapons, but denied that it had planted misinformation. “There were things about Saddam’s regime and his weapons that the public needed to know,” said the official.
The admission followed claims by Scott Ritter, who led 14 inspection missions in Iraq, that MI6 had recruited him in 1997 to help with the propaganda effort. He described meetings where the senior officer and at least two other MI6 staff had discussed ways to manipulate intelligence material.
“The aim was to convince the public that Iraq was a far greater threat than it actually was,” Ritter said last week.
He said there was evidence that MI6 continued to use similar propaganda tactics up to the invasion of Iraq earlier this year. “Stories ran in the media about secret underground facilities in Iraq and ongoing programmes (to produce weapons of mass destruction),” said Ritter. “They were sourced to western intelligence and all of them were garbage.”
Kelly, himself a former United Nations weapons inspector and colleague of Ritter, might also have been used by MI6 to pass information to the media. “Kelly was a known and government-approved conduit with the media,” said Ritter.
Hutton’s report is expected to deliver a verdict next month on whether intelligence was misused in order to promote the case for going to war. Hutton heard evidence that Kelly was authorised by the Foreign Office to speak to journalists on Iraq. Kelly was in close touch with the “Rockingham cell”, a group of weapons experts that received MI6 intelligence.
Blair justified his backing for sanctions and for the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that intelligence reports showed Saddam was working to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The use of MI6 as a “back channel” for promoting the government’s policies on Iraq was never discovered during the Hutton inquiry and is likely to cause considerable disquiet among MPs.
Full Text
Related Stories
In case you missed it: Blair's secret weapon: Investigation: A covert project, set up by the UK government, 'cherry-picked' intelligence to fit the hidden agenda of justifying war with Iraq
In case you missed it: Scott Ritter Proved Right! MI6 ran 'dubious' Iraq campaign: "I was approached by MI6 to provide that data, I met with the Mass Appeal operatives both in New York and London on several occasions. This data was provided and this data did find its way into the international media.
Bremer 'rejects' Blair WMD claims: The US official running Iraq appears to have contradicted Tony Blair's claim Saddam Hussein had laboratories for developing weapons of mass destruction.
[This is the information that needs to get to people who won't hear it by mainstream media. This is the information that will give more credence to those who voted "NO!" on the Iraq war for Republican voters in the presidential election. Please help everyone learn about this. We know the mainstream and the White House won't tattle on themselves! -v]
*Ø* Blogmanac | FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH -- Actions to Take to Make a Difference
WE DON'T GET MAD! WE GET ORGANIZED!
Dear Veralynne of ACT (A-Changin' Times),
The Republicans are determined to end this year with a bang. In a flurry of last minute behind-the-scenes legislation they have successfully kept Democratic Members out of crucial negotiations. While the Republicans dismantle Medicare, continue funding corporate boondoggles with defense funds, and break down the walls of civil rights and civil liberties, no dissenting voices are allowed to be heard.
This isn’t just politics as usual. What they have done is unprecedented: they are making sure progressive voices go unheard. They are making lawmaking a “Republicans-only” operation.
Does this sound like democracy to you? It sure doesn’t to me.
I hope you will join me, and make 2004 a new year for politics— and a year for renewal of democracy in America, by supporting America Coming Together (ACT).
Getting mad simply isn’t enough. To win back the White House and elect progressive candidates all across the country, we must do a better job of identifying and mobilizing supporters. That’s why some of the leading progressive organizers in America have come together to advance a bold and far-reaching Action Plan to turn out millions of progressive voters.
Together, we will reach out to millions of Americans— I mean really reach out— face-to-face, door-to-door, neighbor-to-neighbor contacts that will give you and your neighbors the opportunity to be heard on the issues that matter to you the most. And that’s what America Coming Together (ACT) is all about: getting people back into the polling places and back into our government.
And when those voters march to the polls, they will defeat George W. Bush and his extremist allies from the school boards to the House and Senate.
Let me be clear, we are in for the fight of our lives, and it won’t be cheap. Our Action Plan will cost $94 million to carry out. We’ve already raised $45 million and, to keep our efforts on track, we must raise $5 million more by December 31st.
I hope that I can count on you to help us meet that goal with a gift of $50, $75, $100 or the most generous gift that you can afford. Please take the first step in getting America back on the right track by supporting America Coming Together.
The rewards of victory will be well worth the time, effort, and money we invest.
The Republican operatives aren’t waiting to start the campaign, and we can’t either. We urgently need your support now to keep our efforts on track, so please help us meet our December 31st goal.
Sincerely,
Ellen Malcolm
President,
America Coming Together
Please help us reach our goal by sharing this message with your friends and family.
===0===0===0===
From Leo:
"Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something
fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded
in the human spirit." -- Abbie Hoffman
WE DON'T GET MAD! WE GET ORGANIZED!
Dear Veralynne of ACT (A-Changin' Times),
The Republicans are determined to end this year with a bang. In a flurry of last minute behind-the-scenes legislation they have successfully kept Democratic Members out of crucial negotiations. While the Republicans dismantle Medicare, continue funding corporate boondoggles with defense funds, and break down the walls of civil rights and civil liberties, no dissenting voices are allowed to be heard.
This isn’t just politics as usual. What they have done is unprecedented: they are making sure progressive voices go unheard. They are making lawmaking a “Republicans-only” operation.
Does this sound like democracy to you? It sure doesn’t to me.
I hope you will join me, and make 2004 a new year for politics— and a year for renewal of democracy in America, by supporting America Coming Together (ACT).
Getting mad simply isn’t enough. To win back the White House and elect progressive candidates all across the country, we must do a better job of identifying and mobilizing supporters. That’s why some of the leading progressive organizers in America have come together to advance a bold and far-reaching Action Plan to turn out millions of progressive voters.
Together, we will reach out to millions of Americans— I mean really reach out— face-to-face, door-to-door, neighbor-to-neighbor contacts that will give you and your neighbors the opportunity to be heard on the issues that matter to you the most. And that’s what America Coming Together (ACT) is all about: getting people back into the polling places and back into our government.
And when those voters march to the polls, they will defeat George W. Bush and his extremist allies from the school boards to the House and Senate.
Let me be clear, we are in for the fight of our lives, and it won’t be cheap. Our Action Plan will cost $94 million to carry out. We’ve already raised $45 million and, to keep our efforts on track, we must raise $5 million more by December 31st.
I hope that I can count on you to help us meet that goal with a gift of $50, $75, $100 or the most generous gift that you can afford. Please take the first step in getting America back on the right track by supporting America Coming Together.
The rewards of victory will be well worth the time, effort, and money we invest.
The Republican operatives aren’t waiting to start the campaign, and we can’t either. We urgently need your support now to keep our efforts on track, so please help us meet our December 31st goal.
Sincerely,
Ellen Malcolm
President,
America Coming Together
Please help us reach our goal by sharing this message with your friends and family.
===0===0===0===
From Leo:
"Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something
fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded
in the human spirit." -- Abbie Hoffman
Monday, December 29, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | The New Republicans
NY Times editorial turns up the heat on the GOP
"The Republican Party has been in charge of the national agenda for almost three years now — Democratic majorities in Congress don't crimp George W. Bush's style the way they did for his father or Ronald Reagan when they were in office. We have thus had an unobstructed view of what the 21st-century version of the party looks like. It's very clear this is not the father's G.O.P ...
"Late-20th-century Republicanism was an uneasy alliance of social conservatives — who were comfortable with government intervention in citizens' lives when it came to morality issues — and libertarians who wanted as little interference as possible. That balancing act ended on 9/11. Since then, the Justice Department has enlarged the intrusive powers of government by, among other things, authorizing "sneak and peek" searches of private homes and suspending traditional civil liberties for certain defendants ...
"The administration is determined to deliver on corporate America's goal of cutting overtime pay for white-collar workers. At the same time, it has been tepid in asserting greater federal vigilance over the developing scandal of workplace safety.
"Republicans have always enjoyed their reputation as the champions of business. The difference now is that they no longer couple their business-friendly attitudes with tight-fistedness. Discretionary spending has jumped 27 percent in the last two years; budget hawks complain Congressional pork is up more than 40 percent. Some of that money has gone to buy the allegiance of wavering party members in the closely divided House and Senate, but much of it is directly tied to the demands of big business. Agriculture subsidies to corporate farms have swollen to new heights, while energy policy has been reduced to a miserable grab bag of special benefits for the oil, gas and coal companies ...
"This, it appears, is what compassionate conservatism really means. The conservative part is a stern and sometimes intrusive government to regulate the citizenry, but with a hands-off attitude toward business. The compassionate end involves some large federal programs combined with unending sympathy for the demands of special interests. If only it all added up.
New York Times Editorial, December 28, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | Bush's man rejects Blair weapon claim
Luke Harding, The Observer
December 28
"Tony Blair was at the centre of an embarrassing row last night after the most senior US official in Baghdad bluntly rejected the Prime Minister's assertion that secret weapons laboratories had been discovered in Iraq.
"In a Christmas message to British troops, Blair claimed there was 'massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories'. The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) had unearthed compelling evidence that showed Saddam Hussein had attempted to 'conceal weapons', the Prime Minister said. But in an interview yesterday, Paul Bremer, the Bush administration's top official in Baghdad, flatly dismissed the claim as untrue -- without realising its source was Blair.
"It was, he suggested, a 'red herring', probably put about by someone opposed to military action in Iraq who wanted to undermine the coalition.
"'I don't know where those words come from but that is not what [ISG chief] David Kay has said,' he told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme. 'It sounds like a bit of a red herring to me.'"
Full text
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Short calls on Blair to resign
BBC:
"Clare Short has called on Tony Blair to resign because she says he deceived the British people over the Iraq war. She accused the prime minister of risking his own legacy because of an obsession with 'his place in history'. She predicted he would not lead Labour into the next election and urged him to resign for the honour of Britain.
"Ms Short was international development secretary before the Iraq war but left the cabinet afterwards in protest ...
"Her criticisms were echoed by Labour left-winger Diane Abbott, who told the same programme Mr Blair has risked backbench rebellions by making loyal MPs feel like 'pillocks' over the Iraq war."
Full text
Luke Harding, The Observer
December 28
"Tony Blair was at the centre of an embarrassing row last night after the most senior US official in Baghdad bluntly rejected the Prime Minister's assertion that secret weapons laboratories had been discovered in Iraq.
"In a Christmas message to British troops, Blair claimed there was 'massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories'. The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) had unearthed compelling evidence that showed Saddam Hussein had attempted to 'conceal weapons', the Prime Minister said. But in an interview yesterday, Paul Bremer, the Bush administration's top official in Baghdad, flatly dismissed the claim as untrue -- without realising its source was Blair.
"It was, he suggested, a 'red herring', probably put about by someone opposed to military action in Iraq who wanted to undermine the coalition.
"'I don't know where those words come from but that is not what [ISG chief] David Kay has said,' he told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme. 'It sounds like a bit of a red herring to me.'"
Full text
Short calls on Blair to resign
BBC:
"Clare Short has called on Tony Blair to resign because she says he deceived the British people over the Iraq war. She accused the prime minister of risking his own legacy because of an obsession with 'his place in history'. She predicted he would not lead Labour into the next election and urged him to resign for the honour of Britain.
"Ms Short was international development secretary before the Iraq war but left the cabinet afterwards in protest ...
"Her criticisms were echoed by Labour left-winger Diane Abbott, who told the same programme Mr Blair has risked backbench rebellions by making loyal MPs feel like 'pillocks' over the Iraq war."
Full text
Sunday, December 28, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 28, 1879 | Unluckiest day of the year (Childermas)
1879 The Tay Rail Bridge disaster, Dundee, Scotland during a fierce gale. A section of the bridge collapsed, wrecking a train which was running over its single track. 75 passengers on the 7.15 Edinburgh to Dundee train were killed, including the son-in-law of the bridge’s designer, Thomas Bouch. Engineers quickly determined that the metal used in the bridge's design was of poor quality, and modern structural analysis of the bridge also shows its design was not sufficient to resist the strong winds commonplace in the Tay estuary.
The Victorian poet William Topaz McGonagall (1825 - September 29, 1902) – whose work has been distinguished as, "The worst poetry ever written, in any language, at any time" – commemorated this event in his poem 'The Tay Bridge Disaster'.
It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.
William Topaz McGonagall, often claimed to be the world’s ‘best bad poet’, 'The Tay Bridge Disaster' (1879)
Read also about Childermas (Feast day of the Holy Innocents killed by King Herod) – and the slaughter of the innocents in 2003.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today – said to be the unluckiest day of the year – in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
1879 The Tay Rail Bridge disaster, Dundee, Scotland during a fierce gale. A section of the bridge collapsed, wrecking a train which was running over its single track. 75 passengers on the 7.15 Edinburgh to Dundee train were killed, including the son-in-law of the bridge’s designer, Thomas Bouch. Engineers quickly determined that the metal used in the bridge's design was of poor quality, and modern structural analysis of the bridge also shows its design was not sufficient to resist the strong winds commonplace in the Tay estuary. The Victorian poet William Topaz McGonagall (1825 - September 29, 1902) – whose work has been distinguished as, "The worst poetry ever written, in any language, at any time" – commemorated this event in his poem 'The Tay Bridge Disaster'.
It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.
William Topaz McGonagall, often claimed to be the world’s ‘best bad poet’, 'The Tay Bridge Disaster' (1879)
Read also about Childermas (Feast day of the Holy Innocents killed by King Herod) – and the slaughter of the innocents in 2003.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today – said to be the unluckiest day of the year – in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac December 28 | Oops yesterday
Funny, ain't it. I mean, that's life. "At great expense to the management" I managed to get the Almanac ezine out every day, plus the Book of Days, and post something about the day here, all through the Silly Season as well as my own moving house. Sleep was a luxury.
Then, yesterday, when I had all the time in the world, and although I did the ezine and the December 27 page at the BoD, I didn't post a gollygosh thing here about the folklore and history of December 27. Strange. I think I went into collapse mode after all the madness of the last fortnight.
Anyway, about yesterday's folklore:
My true love sent to me
Two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree.
I've been getting the bizarrest Chrissie prezzies.
Also on December 27, a bit of 18-Rabbit news:
631 CE A Naranjo captive in a Caracol (in the Cayo District of the nation of Belize) war underwent some grisly sacrificial rite under the auspices of a Calakmul (Campeche, Mexico) lord, resulting in the capture of Waxaklahun U-Bah-Chan, or 18-Rabbit (pictured), the Mayan snake divinity of Naranjo (ancient city of the Maya civilization in the Peten department of Guatemala, about 10 km west of the border with Belize).
There's plenty of interesting stuff at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, for December 27. I hope you enjoy.
Funny, ain't it. I mean, that's life. "At great expense to the management" I managed to get the Almanac ezine out every day, plus the Book of Days, and post something about the day here, all through the Silly Season as well as my own moving house. Sleep was a luxury.
Then, yesterday, when I had all the time in the world, and although I did the ezine and the December 27 page at the BoD, I didn't post a gollygosh thing here about the folklore and history of December 27. Strange. I think I went into collapse mode after all the madness of the last fortnight.
Anyway, about yesterday's folklore:
My true love sent to me
Two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree.
I've been getting the bizarrest Chrissie prezzies.
Also on December 27, a bit of 18-Rabbit news:
631 CE A Naranjo captive in a Caracol (in the Cayo District of the nation of Belize) war underwent some grisly sacrificial rite under the auspices of a Calakmul (Campeche, Mexico) lord, resulting in the capture of Waxaklahun U-Bah-Chan, or 18-Rabbit (pictured), the Mayan snake divinity of Naranjo (ancient city of the Maya civilization in the Peten department of Guatemala, about 10 km west of the border with Belize). There's plenty of interesting stuff at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, for December 27. I hope you enjoy.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Balloonists set new solar target
By Carolyn Fry
"Record-breaking aviators Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard hope to harness the Sun's power to fly round the world. The pair gained worldwide recognition in 1999 when they became the first to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon.
"Now they plan to repeat the journey in a solar-powered aeroplane which will have to use batteries to fly at night. A feasibility study has confirmed the viability of the Solar Impulse project and experts are now preparing to design the craft for launch some time in 2006 ...
"It will not carry any fossil fuels on board and so will offer completely pollution-free transport. 'The great thing about this project is that it allows us to be a force for good from the beginning,' says Jones."
Read the whole story at BBC News
By Carolyn Fry
"Record-breaking aviators Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard hope to harness the Sun's power to fly round the world. The pair gained worldwide recognition in 1999 when they became the first to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon."Now they plan to repeat the journey in a solar-powered aeroplane which will have to use batteries to fly at night. A feasibility study has confirmed the viability of the Solar Impulse project and experts are now preparing to design the craft for launch some time in 2006 ...
"It will not carry any fossil fuels on board and so will offer completely pollution-free transport. 'The great thing about this project is that it allows us to be a force for good from the beginning,' says Jones."
Read the whole story at BBC News
Saturday, December 27, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | STOP! DON'T SCROLL ON BY!
About.com's 2003 Political Dot-Comedy Award Nominees Announced
[Madeleine Kane, a true comic talent and a good friend of ours, deserves your vote! Below, her note. -v]
"I'm very pleased to report that I'm a nominee in two categories in this year's About.com Political Dot-Comedy Awards competition. My MadKane.com political humor as a whole is nominated in the Best Parodies (Overall Achievement) category and my Dubya's Dayly Diary is a nominee in the Best Bush Humor category. So if you have time, I'd really appreciate your voting for me in one or both categories here. Thanks!
"And even if you're not in a voting mood, I'll bet you enjoy visiting the terrific nominees in categories including Best Web Cartoons, Best Satirical News, Most Entertaining Left-Wing News & Commentary, Most Entertaining Right-Wing News & Commentary, Best Print Comic Strip, and Best Late-Night TV Comedy. You may even find some new (to you) humor sites to help you survive 2004.
"FYI very few blogs are nominated. This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow) in the comic strip category is a notable exception."
[P.S. Vote early and vote often! -v]
About.com's 2003 Political Dot-Comedy Award Nominees Announced
[Madeleine Kane, a true comic talent and a good friend of ours, deserves your vote! Below, her note. -v]
"I'm very pleased to report that I'm a nominee in two categories in this year's About.com Political Dot-Comedy Awards competition. My MadKane.com political humor as a whole is nominated in the Best Parodies (Overall Achievement) category and my Dubya's Dayly Diary is a nominee in the Best Bush Humor category. So if you have time, I'd really appreciate your voting for me in one or both categories here. Thanks!
"And even if you're not in a voting mood, I'll bet you enjoy visiting the terrific nominees in categories including Best Web Cartoons, Best Satirical News, Most Entertaining Left-Wing News & Commentary, Most Entertaining Right-Wing News & Commentary, Best Print Comic Strip, and Best Late-Night TV Comedy. You may even find some new (to you) humor sites to help you survive 2004.
"FYI very few blogs are nominated. This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow) in the comic strip category is a notable exception."
[P.S. Vote early and vote often! -v]
*Ø* Blogmanac | Mad Cow Linked To Al-Qowda
Ridge Raises Alert Level to 'Well Done'
"Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge revealed today that the U.S. had 'credible evidence' linking the recent mad cow disease scare in Washington State to a little known terror group called al-Qowda.
"'Little is known about al-Qowda, but we do know this: they hate America, and they really hate America's cows,' Mr. Ridge said at a press briefing this afternoon.
"While details about al-Qowda's leadership remain sketchy at best, Mr. Ridge said that the leader of the terror group may have had what he termed 'a bad experience with an American steak sandwich, possibly at Arby's.'
"In light of increased chatter from sources linked to al-Qowda, Ridge announced that the Homeland Security Department was raising the nation's beef-alert level from pink, or 'rare,' to brown, or 'well done.'
"Moments after Mr. Ridge's speech, over twenty thousand suspicious hamburgers were detained by the CIA and held for questioning.
"In an effort to clarify the heightened beef-alert level, Mr. Ridge said that Americans should 'go about their business and consume all the beef they normally do,' but that they should be 'careful not to enjoy it.'
"In other news, Mr. Ridge announced that the Borowitz Report has been nominated for
two 2003 Political Dot-Comedy awards."
Source: The Borowitz Report
"Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge revealed today that the U.S. had 'credible evidence' linking the recent mad cow disease scare in Washington State to a little known terror group called al-Qowda."'Little is known about al-Qowda, but we do know this: they hate America, and they really hate America's cows,' Mr. Ridge said at a press briefing this afternoon.
"While details about al-Qowda's leadership remain sketchy at best, Mr. Ridge said that the leader of the terror group may have had what he termed 'a bad experience with an American steak sandwich, possibly at Arby's.'
"In light of increased chatter from sources linked to al-Qowda, Ridge announced that the Homeland Security Department was raising the nation's beef-alert level from pink, or 'rare,' to brown, or 'well done.'
"Moments after Mr. Ridge's speech, over twenty thousand suspicious hamburgers were detained by the CIA and held for questioning.
"In an effort to clarify the heightened beef-alert level, Mr. Ridge said that Americans should 'go about their business and consume all the beef they normally do,' but that they should be 'careful not to enjoy it.'
"In other news, Mr. Ridge announced that the Borowitz Report has been nominated for
two 2003 Political Dot-Comedy awards."
Source: The Borowitz Report
Friday, December 26, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 26 | And a partridge in a pear tree
The first day of Christmas: the 12 Days of Christmas begin, through to Jan 6
The first day of Christmas: the 12 Days of Christmas begin, through to Jan 6
*Ø* Blogmanac | Non-military uses for NASA
"NASA -- A new window to the universe has opened with today's release of the first dazzling images from NASA's newly named Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility ..."
Source
"NASA -- A new window to the universe has opened with today's release of the first dazzling images from NASA's newly named Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility ..."
Source
*Ø* Blogmanac | Stuff
Some interesting holiday reading for me has been Twilight of the Neocons:
" ... the signs that the neocons are on the losing end of the battle have become fairly evident in recent weeks:
"The administration has welcomed Libya back into the community of "civilized" nations, on terms that can only help solidify Col. Ghadafi's dictatorial regime. The deal is about as textbook a case of realpolitik as you will find outside the archives of the Kissinger NSC.
"Jim Baker has returned to the diplomatic circuit, with the speculation being that his assignment is to liquidate not only Iraq's debt but also the neocon illusion of remaking the Middle East into the Community of Israel-Recognizing Nations.
"The rumor mill also has uber-neocon Paul Wolfowitz departing the Pentagon in February. Can Doug Feith -- the other half of the necon Laural & Hardy act, be far behind?
"Bush rolled out the red carpet -- with a 19-gun salute no less -- for Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao, then explicitly warned Taiwan not to ditch its allegiance to the increasingly fictional notion of "one China." So doing, he completely ignored the howls of protest from neocon punditry that he was selling Taiwanese democracy down the river.
"The public sniping at the administration by said punditry has become distinctly more direct, with both Newt Gringrich and Bill Kristol harshly criticizing the White House -- if not yet the president who lives and sometimes even works there ..."
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Also Judges: Pentagon cannot force military to take anthrax shots and Anthrax Vaccine Questioned: Defense Department’s Vaccine Untested for Long-Term Safety.
All this and more I found at a blog that's new to me: Sisyphus Shrugged. It not only has a playful and ironic name I wish I'd thought of, it's a lively and thought-provoking blog, or appears so on my first visit.
Some interesting holiday reading for me has been Twilight of the Neocons:
" ... the signs that the neocons are on the losing end of the battle have become fairly evident in recent weeks:
"The administration has welcomed Libya back into the community of "civilized" nations, on terms that can only help solidify Col. Ghadafi's dictatorial regime. The deal is about as textbook a case of realpolitik as you will find outside the archives of the Kissinger NSC.
"Jim Baker has returned to the diplomatic circuit, with the speculation being that his assignment is to liquidate not only Iraq's debt but also the neocon illusion of remaking the Middle East into the Community of Israel-Recognizing Nations.
"The rumor mill also has uber-neocon Paul Wolfowitz departing the Pentagon in February. Can Doug Feith -- the other half of the necon Laural & Hardy act, be far behind?
"Bush rolled out the red carpet -- with a 19-gun salute no less -- for Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao, then explicitly warned Taiwan not to ditch its allegiance to the increasingly fictional notion of "one China." So doing, he completely ignored the howls of protest from neocon punditry that he was selling Taiwanese democracy down the river.
"The public sniping at the administration by said punditry has become distinctly more direct, with both Newt Gringrich and Bill Kristol harshly criticizing the White House -- if not yet the president who lives and sometimes even works there ..."
Also Judges: Pentagon cannot force military to take anthrax shots and Anthrax Vaccine Questioned: Defense Department’s Vaccine Untested for Long-Term Safety.
All this and more I found at a blog that's new to me: Sisyphus Shrugged. It not only has a playful and ironic name I wish I'd thought of, it's a lively and thought-provoking blog, or appears so on my first visit.
*Ø* Blogmanac December 25, 1914 | Silent Night, Holy Night
One of the most heart-warming true Christmas tales I've heard
1914 Just after midnight on Christmas morning, the majority of German troops engaged in WWI ceased firing guns and artillery, and commenced to sing Christmas carols. Crossing the No man's land, they traded gifts with the enemy forces that faced them. An estimated two-thirds of the British/German front line held local ceasefires. And the top military brass were not happy about it at all, making sure it never happened again.
At certain points along the Eastern and Western fronts, the soldiers of Russia, France, and Britain even heard brass bands joining the Germans in their joyous singing. The British responded in places with carols of their own. Those German soldiers who understood and could speak English called across greetings to 'Tommy' (the popular name for the British private); similar greetings were shouted over to "Fritz".
At the first light of dawn, many of the German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approach the Allied lines across no man's land, calling out "Merry Christmas" in their enemies' native tongues. At first the Allied soldiers suspected it to be a trick, but soon climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the German soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs; the Christmas Truce lasted a few days.
Meanwhile, Scots and Huns were fraternizing in the most genuine possible manner. Every sort of souvenir was exchanged, addresses given and received, photos of families shown etc. One of our fellow offered a German a cigarette; the German said, "Virginian?" Our fellow said, "Aye, straight-cut." The German said, "No thanks, I only smoke Turkish!"
Captain Sir Edward Hulse, Bart., 2nd Scots Guards
The Germans, whose nation had originated the tradition of bringing Christmas trees into their houses and decorating them (introduced into England by Queen Victoria's Consort, Prince Albert) brought Christmas trees into their trenches and dugouts in various places, and had decorated some parts of their parapet.
We got into conversation with the Germans who were anxious to arrange an Armistice during Xmas. A scout named F. Murker went out and met a German Patrol and was given a glass of whisky and some cigars, and a message was sent back saying that if we didn't fire at them they would not fire at us.Edward Hulse, a 25-year old lieutenant in the Scots Guards, writing in his battalion's war history
The truce was fully publicised from the moment news of it reached home. Throughout January 1915 numerous local and national newspapers in Britain printed letter after letter from soldiers who took part; in addition they ran eye-catching headlines ("Extraordinary Unofficial Armistice", "British, Indians and Germans shake hands"), and even printed photographs of the Britons and Germans in No Man's Land. Germany also gave the event press publicity, though on a smaller scale and for a shorter period of time.
Reaction to the Christmas Truce from various sources came in numerous forms. The Allied governments and military high command reacted with indignation ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Thanks Baz le Tuff for putting me onto this story at breakfast yesterday.
One of the most heart-warming true Christmas tales I've heard1914 Just after midnight on Christmas morning, the majority of German troops engaged in WWI ceased firing guns and artillery, and commenced to sing Christmas carols. Crossing the No man's land, they traded gifts with the enemy forces that faced them. An estimated two-thirds of the British/German front line held local ceasefires. And the top military brass were not happy about it at all, making sure it never happened again.
At certain points along the Eastern and Western fronts, the soldiers of Russia, France, and Britain even heard brass bands joining the Germans in their joyous singing. The British responded in places with carols of their own. Those German soldiers who understood and could speak English called across greetings to 'Tommy' (the popular name for the British private); similar greetings were shouted over to "Fritz".
At the first light of dawn, many of the German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approach the Allied lines across no man's land, calling out "Merry Christmas" in their enemies' native tongues. At first the Allied soldiers suspected it to be a trick, but soon climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the German soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs; the Christmas Truce lasted a few days.
Meanwhile, Scots and Huns were fraternizing in the most genuine possible manner. Every sort of souvenir was exchanged, addresses given and received, photos of families shown etc. One of our fellow offered a German a cigarette; the German said, "Virginian?" Our fellow said, "Aye, straight-cut." The German said, "No thanks, I only smoke Turkish!"
Captain Sir Edward Hulse, Bart., 2nd Scots Guards
The Germans, whose nation had originated the tradition of bringing Christmas trees into their houses and decorating them (introduced into England by Queen Victoria's Consort, Prince Albert) brought Christmas trees into their trenches and dugouts in various places, and had decorated some parts of their parapet.
We got into conversation with the Germans who were anxious to arrange an Armistice during Xmas. A scout named F. Murker went out and met a German Patrol and was given a glass of whisky and some cigars, and a message was sent back saying that if we didn't fire at them they would not fire at us.Edward Hulse, a 25-year old lieutenant in the Scots Guards, writing in his battalion's war history
The truce was fully publicised from the moment news of it reached home. Throughout January 1915 numerous local and national newspapers in Britain printed letter after letter from soldiers who took part; in addition they ran eye-catching headlines ("Extraordinary Unofficial Armistice", "British, Indians and Germans shake hands"), and even printed photographs of the Britons and Germans in No Man's Land. Germany also gave the event press publicity, though on a smaller scale and for a shorter period of time.
Reaction to the Christmas Truce from various sources came in numerous forms. The Allied governments and military high command reacted with indignation ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Thanks Baz le Tuff for putting me onto this story at breakfast yesterday.
Thursday, December 25, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | And on Earth Peace, Good Will Toward All Men!
From Lisa:
WELCOME TO AMERIKA
A picture is worth a thousand words, folks...
MERRY F***ING CHRISTMAS TO US!
For those who are unfamiliar with military equipment, that is a surface-to-air missile launcher...
...with the Washington Monument in the background.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have heavy artillery on the National Mall. Just like the Soviets in Red Square, and the Chinese in Tiananmen Square, our alleged citizen gathering place is now a de facto military installation. What swell company to be in. NOT!
I could be wrong, but I haven't heard of such measures being taken at arguably higher-profile tourist attractions around the world, such as the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the ancient ruins in Greece, etc.
Does anyone REALLY think there is going to be an air attack on the Mall?! If these weapons are legitimately needed for protection, why aren't they stationed at the real targets — the White House and the Capitol, for example?
Would it clash with the White House Christmas decorations? or take up too much room on the Capitol steps?
Or does the choice of placement send a message to the dissenters who have in the past used, and would in the future use, the Mall to exercise their right (for now, anyway) of free speech?
HMM.....
On a related note: no wonder the feds oppose DC statehood... it would invoke posse comitatus!
SOURCE
From Lisa:
WELCOME TO AMERIKA
A picture is worth a thousand words, folks...
MERRY F***ING CHRISTMAS TO US!
For those who are unfamiliar with military equipment, that is a surface-to-air missile launcher...
...with the Washington Monument in the background.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have heavy artillery on the National Mall. Just like the Soviets in Red Square, and the Chinese in Tiananmen Square, our alleged citizen gathering place is now a de facto military installation. What swell company to be in. NOT!
I could be wrong, but I haven't heard of such measures being taken at arguably higher-profile tourist attractions around the world, such as the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the ancient ruins in Greece, etc.
Does anyone REALLY think there is going to be an air attack on the Mall?! If these weapons are legitimately needed for protection, why aren't they stationed at the real targets — the White House and the Capitol, for example?
Would it clash with the White House Christmas decorations? or take up too much room on the Capitol steps?
Or does the choice of placement send a message to the dissenters who have in the past used, and would in the future use, the Mall to exercise their right (for now, anyway) of free speech?
HMM.....
On a related note: no wonder the feds oppose DC statehood... it would invoke posse comitatus!
SOURCE
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | 'Ghost' caught on palace camera
Security guards spotted a figure in period dress
"Security film at Hampton Court Palace has captured a ghostly image.
"CCTV cameras picked up the vision at the 16th Century Surrey palace, which has a reputation for being haunted.
"Security guards spotted that fire doors kept opening in an exhibition area, and on one occasion checked the footage and saw a figure in period dress.
"'I thought someone was having a laugh but our costumed guides don't own a costume like that. It is actually quite unnerving,' said warder James Faukes.
"'It was incredibly spooky because the face just didn't look human,' he said.
"State apartment warder Ian Franklin added: 'Someone who appears to be in a full cloak walks forward, brings one door in, another door in and then closes it behind them ...'
Source: BBC
Security guards spotted a figure in period dress "Security film at Hampton Court Palace has captured a ghostly image.
"CCTV cameras picked up the vision at the 16th Century Surrey palace, which has a reputation for being haunted.
"Security guards spotted that fire doors kept opening in an exhibition area, and on one occasion checked the footage and saw a figure in period dress.
"'I thought someone was having a laugh but our costumed guides don't own a costume like that. It is actually quite unnerving,' said warder James Faukes.
"'It was incredibly spooky because the face just didn't look human,' he said.
"State apartment warder Ian Franklin added: 'Someone who appears to be in a full cloak walks forward, brings one door in, another door in and then closes it behind them ...'
Source: BBC
*Ø* Blogmanac | Don't let Australia send refugees back to torture and death
Howard: Where is your Christian Christmas spirit?
The Australian Government, led by arch-conservative John "Little Johnny" Howard, has notoriously waged a campaign against refugees for some years. The "Liberal" Party's grimy political landscape is littered with such monstrosities as the SIEVX disaster in which 353 asylum seekers drowned at sea (while Howard's mob did nothing to aid them), and the shipping of many desperate boat people asylum seekers to the tiny bankrupt Pacific island, Nauru, which Howard is paying millions to so as to keep these coloured problems away from Australia's mostly uncaring citizens.
In a stroke of breathtaking hypocrisy, while the Oz government travel advisories tell Ozzies that Afghanistan is too dangerous to travel to, that same regime is saying that Afghanistan is safe enough (for tinted people) to return to. And Australia is fully geared up to send refugees back home to the possible torture and execution from which they have fled.
Meanwhile, some 40 imprisoned men, women and children in the Nauruan hell-holes have quite understandably gone on a hunger strike. Blogmanac readers might remember a few months again when asylum seekers at Woomera, a concentration camp deep within the hot desert of mainland Australia, sewed their lips shut in a s8imilar hunger-strike protest. At the time, Howard's mob, and much of the media, represented this obvious act of deperation as "manipulation". The same is happening again.
I confess a personal interest in such matters. For 12 years I filled out application forms for Aghan women and their children at risk of persecution in Afghanistan. Women living in Pakistan and Iran in dreadful conditions, who were unable to return to their beloved Afghanistan, earlier because of the Communists, and later because of the Taliban. I know firsthand the treatment that men, women and children can receive at the hands of warlords and religious/political bastards in that benighted country. To ship back to Afghanistan any person who is in fear of their life is a crime against humanity, and the Blogmanac urges its readers to stay aware of the subject. Stay tuned as we will not be letting this issue go, as Howard would wish.
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
"The Head of Medical Services on Nauru, Doctor Kieran Keke, says so far the Australian Government has ignored his pleas for more assistance, and he warns that if the hunger strike escalates there's a risk someone will die."
Source
Nauru hunger striker 'could die'
December 24, 2003
"A DOCTOR treating hunger strikers on Nauru has warned an asylum seeker could die because of mounting pressure on the island's hospital.
"Hospital medical services head Dr Kieran Keke accused the Australian government of being reluctant to provide the medical support needed as the number of hunger strikers in immigration detention on Nauru swelled to 40 ..."
Source
UN Association demands action on Nauru refugees
Amnesty International (Australia) on refugees
Rural Australians for Refugees
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Shame Little Johnny at church on Xmas Day
"For anyone who isn't dealing with Christmas family stuff tomorrow, may like to support the hunger strikers on Nauru with a little protest.
"John Howard worships at St Giles Anglican Church at Greenwich in Sydney.
"A silent protest with banners such as "No room at the inn again or 'Christian Charity?', 'Do unto others' would hopefully make him a little uncomfortable.
"Anyone up for the challenge?"
Source: Sydney Indymedia
Howard: Where is your Christian Christmas spirit?
The Australian Government, led by arch-conservative John "Little Johnny" Howard, has notoriously waged a campaign against refugees for some years. The "Liberal" Party's grimy political landscape is littered with such monstrosities as the SIEVX disaster in which 353 asylum seekers drowned at sea (while Howard's mob did nothing to aid them), and the shipping of many desperate boat people asylum seekers to the tiny bankrupt Pacific island, Nauru, which Howard is paying millions to so as to keep these coloured problems away from Australia's mostly uncaring citizens.
In a stroke of breathtaking hypocrisy, while the Oz government travel advisories tell Ozzies that Afghanistan is too dangerous to travel to, that same regime is saying that Afghanistan is safe enough (for tinted people) to return to. And Australia is fully geared up to send refugees back home to the possible torture and execution from which they have fled.
Meanwhile, some 40 imprisoned men, women and children in the Nauruan hell-holes have quite understandably gone on a hunger strike. Blogmanac readers might remember a few months again when asylum seekers at Woomera, a concentration camp deep within the hot desert of mainland Australia, sewed their lips shut in a s8imilar hunger-strike protest. At the time, Howard's mob, and much of the media, represented this obvious act of deperation as "manipulation". The same is happening again.
I confess a personal interest in such matters. For 12 years I filled out application forms for Aghan women and their children at risk of persecution in Afghanistan. Women living in Pakistan and Iran in dreadful conditions, who were unable to return to their beloved Afghanistan, earlier because of the Communists, and later because of the Taliban. I know firsthand the treatment that men, women and children can receive at the hands of warlords and religious/political bastards in that benighted country. To ship back to Afghanistan any person who is in fear of their life is a crime against humanity, and the Blogmanac urges its readers to stay aware of the subject. Stay tuned as we will not be letting this issue go, as Howard would wish.
"The Head of Medical Services on Nauru, Doctor Kieran Keke, says so far the Australian Government has ignored his pleas for more assistance, and he warns that if the hunger strike escalates there's a risk someone will die."
Source
Nauru hunger striker 'could die'
December 24, 2003
"A DOCTOR treating hunger strikers on Nauru has warned an asylum seeker could die because of mounting pressure on the island's hospital.
"Hospital medical services head Dr Kieran Keke accused the Australian government of being reluctant to provide the medical support needed as the number of hunger strikers in immigration detention on Nauru swelled to 40 ..."
Source
UN Association demands action on Nauru refugees
Amnesty International (Australia) on refugees
Rural Australians for Refugees
Shame Little Johnny at church on Xmas Day"For anyone who isn't dealing with Christmas family stuff tomorrow, may like to support the hunger strikers on Nauru with a little protest.
"John Howard worships at St Giles Anglican Church at Greenwich in Sydney.
"A silent protest with banners such as "No room at the inn again or 'Christian Charity?', 'Do unto others' would hopefully make him a little uncomfortable.
"Anyone up for the challenge?"
Source: Sydney Indymedia
*Ø* Blogmanac | Clinton was a Halliburton man too
"In a deal cut in June 2000 under President Clinton, the New York Post reports, Halliburton won 11 Navy contracts worth $110 million to build jails at Guantanamo Bay, a base in Kuwait, a ferry terminal on Vieques, an air station in Spain, a breakwater in the Azores and facilities slammed by a typhoon on Guam.
"Though the company is known for its strong backing of Republican candidates, Halliburton contributed over $140,000 to Democrats from 1992-2000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics."
Source
"In a deal cut in June 2000 under President Clinton, the New York Post reports, Halliburton won 11 Navy contracts worth $110 million to build jails at Guantanamo Bay, a base in Kuwait, a ferry terminal on Vieques, an air station in Spain, a breakwater in the Azores and facilities slammed by a typhoon on Guam.
"Though the company is known for its strong backing of Republican candidates, Halliburton contributed over $140,000 to Democrats from 1992-2000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics."
Source
*Ø* Blogmanac | Lenny Bruce Pardoned 37 Years After Death
"Lenny Bruce, the potty-mouthed wit who turned stand-up comedy into social commentary, was posthumously pardoned yesterday by Gov. George E. Pataki, 39 years after being convicted of obscenity for using bad words in a Greenwich Village nightclub act.
"The governor said the posthumous pardon — the first in the state's history — was 'a declaration of New York's commitment to upholding the First Amendment.' ...
"Being dead, Mr. Bruce is not expected to reap any immediate benefit from the pardon ..."
Source
Over the course of four years, Lenny bruce was arrested nine times and prosecuted six times for obscenity violations.
The Trials of Lenny Bruce pardon campaign
"Lenny Bruce, the potty-mouthed wit who turned stand-up comedy into social commentary, was posthumously pardoned yesterday by Gov. George E. Pataki, 39 years after being convicted of obscenity for using bad words in a Greenwich Village nightclub act."The governor said the posthumous pardon — the first in the state's history — was 'a declaration of New York's commitment to upholding the First Amendment.' ...
"Being dead, Mr. Bruce is not expected to reap any immediate benefit from the pardon ..."
Source
Over the course of four years, Lenny bruce was arrested nine times and prosecuted six times for obscenity violations.
The Trials of Lenny Bruce pardon campaign
*Ø* Blogmanac | The P.U. - Litzer Prizes for 2003
Norman Solomon, AlterNet
"The P.U.- litzer Prizes were established more than a decade ago to give recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year.
"As usual, I have conferred with Jeff Cohen, founder of the media watch group FAIR, to sift through the large volume of entries. In view of the many deserving competitors, we regret that only a few can win a P.U.- litzer."
Read the 12th annual P.U.- litzer Prizes, for the foulest media performances of 2003
Norman Solomon is co-author of "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You."
Norman Solomon, AlterNet
"The P.U.- litzer Prizes were established more than a decade ago to give recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year.
"As usual, I have conferred with Jeff Cohen, founder of the media watch group FAIR, to sift through the large volume of entries. In view of the many deserving competitors, we regret that only a few can win a P.U.- litzer."
Read the 12th annual P.U.- litzer Prizes, for the foulest media performances of 2003
Norman Solomon is co-author of "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You."
*Ø* Blogmanac | Yep, Right on Time!
From iddybud's blog:
Howard Dean was absoutely preposterous and well out of the mainstream when he said the nation "hasn't been made any safer" since we've caught Saddam Hussein...
Oh, by the way, there's a slim chance that you might be blown to smithereens
later this week...
Oh, but don't let that stop you from getting on the plane to visit Grandma...
Buh-bye! Don't worry!
Have a good time!
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
WELL, IF THIS JUST DON'T BEAT ALL!
Australia won't match US terrorist alert
By Tom Allard and agencies (Australia)
December 23, 2003
Australia will not increase its terrorism alert level, the Federal Government said yesterday. The assurance came despite a US warning that fresh intelligence indicated attacks were being planned on its territory that could rival or surpass those of September 11, 2001.
The warning from the US Homeland Secretary, Tom Ridge -- and the accompanying lifting of the US terrorism alert to "orange", the second highest level -- comes in the wake of fresh alerts in much of Europe and Indonesia.
While the Department of Foreign Affairs has advised Australians travelling to the US and other countries to be alert to terrorist attacks, the same caution does not apply to holidaymakers in Australia.
"The reports that we've had from America indicate the threat relates to American cities and not to any other country apart from America," the Justice Minister, Chris Ellison, said.
"We've had no specific information which would cause an increase in our threat level. It remains at medium and we believe the measures we have taken are appropriate."
US federal officials said on Sunday fresh intelligence reports suggested al-Qaeda was planning multiple catastrophic terrorist attacks in the US.
Previously, Bush Administration officials said they would only lift the terrorism alert to code orange in the most unusual circumstances.
The new intelligence indicates al-Qaeda operatives are taking advantage of lower security on commercial or cargo flights from overseas to US airports, officials said.
They said they had no specific information on where or when an attack might be planned.
Senator Ellison said much of the concern arose from a tape *apparently* recorded by a senior al-Qaeda figure. It was being analysed by the CIA, he said. [Emphasis added. -v]
Raising the alert level to orange leads to stronger security procedures across the US to protect government buildings, critical infrastructure such as nuclear plants and railways, harbours and shopping malls.
Police were out in force at airports across the US on Sunday.
Australian news source
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Daschle Letter to Ashcroft: Classified Leaks Continue
Monday 22 December 2003
The Honorable John Ashcroft
Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Mr. Attorney General:
On September 29, 2003, we wrote to you and to the President requesting the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the unauthorized disclosure of the identity of an undercover CIA officer. You rejected this request, stating that the Department of Justice would initiate a criminal investigation of this matter instead. However, based on what we have seen to date, it is far from clear that the Administration and your department are truly committed to taking the steps necessary to apprehend the person or persons responsible for this grave national security breach.
More than five months have passed since the first press report disclosed the name of the CIA officer and more than two months since your investigation was initiated. The press reports that you are receiving detailed briefings on the status of this case from the Justice Department employees conducting the investigation. Given your refusal to name a special prosecutor and the fact that you are a political appointee of the President, receiving briefings on an investigation of officials of this Administration creates, at a minimum, the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Read full text of letter
From iddybud's blog:
Howard Dean was absoutely preposterous and well out of the mainstream when he said the nation "hasn't been made any safer" since we've caught Saddam Hussein...
Oh, by the way, there's a slim chance that you might be blown to smithereens
later this week...
Oh, but don't let that stop you from getting on the plane to visit Grandma...
Buh-bye! Don't worry!
Have a good time!
Australia won't match US terrorist alert
By Tom Allard and agencies (Australia)
December 23, 2003
Australia will not increase its terrorism alert level, the Federal Government said yesterday. The assurance came despite a US warning that fresh intelligence indicated attacks were being planned on its territory that could rival or surpass those of September 11, 2001.
The warning from the US Homeland Secretary, Tom Ridge -- and the accompanying lifting of the US terrorism alert to "orange", the second highest level -- comes in the wake of fresh alerts in much of Europe and Indonesia.
While the Department of Foreign Affairs has advised Australians travelling to the US and other countries to be alert to terrorist attacks, the same caution does not apply to holidaymakers in Australia.
"The reports that we've had from America indicate the threat relates to American cities and not to any other country apart from America," the Justice Minister, Chris Ellison, said.
"We've had no specific information which would cause an increase in our threat level. It remains at medium and we believe the measures we have taken are appropriate."
US federal officials said on Sunday fresh intelligence reports suggested al-Qaeda was planning multiple catastrophic terrorist attacks in the US.
Previously, Bush Administration officials said they would only lift the terrorism alert to code orange in the most unusual circumstances.
The new intelligence indicates al-Qaeda operatives are taking advantage of lower security on commercial or cargo flights from overseas to US airports, officials said.
They said they had no specific information on where or when an attack might be planned.
Senator Ellison said much of the concern arose from a tape *apparently* recorded by a senior al-Qaeda figure. It was being analysed by the CIA, he said. [Emphasis added. -v]
Raising the alert level to orange leads to stronger security procedures across the US to protect government buildings, critical infrastructure such as nuclear plants and railways, harbours and shopping malls.
Police were out in force at airports across the US on Sunday.
Australian news source
Daschle Letter to Ashcroft: Classified Leaks Continue
Monday 22 December 2003
The Honorable John Ashcroft
Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Mr. Attorney General:
On September 29, 2003, we wrote to you and to the President requesting the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the unauthorized disclosure of the identity of an undercover CIA officer. You rejected this request, stating that the Department of Justice would initiate a criminal investigation of this matter instead. However, based on what we have seen to date, it is far from clear that the Administration and your department are truly committed to taking the steps necessary to apprehend the person or persons responsible for this grave national security breach.
More than five months have passed since the first press report disclosed the name of the CIA officer and more than two months since your investigation was initiated. The press reports that you are receiving detailed briefings on the status of this case from the Justice Department employees conducting the investigation. Given your refusal to name a special prosecutor and the fact that you are a political appointee of the President, receiving briefings on an investigation of officials of this Administration creates, at a minimum, the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Read full text of letter
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 23 | The Secret of the Unhewn Stone
December 23 is the only blank day of the Celtic tree calendar, and the only day in the year not ruled by a tree and its corresponding Ogham letter. Its name denotes the quality of potential in all things.
The unhewn stone has significance outside the Celtic neopagan tradition. The Freemasons refer in their secret rites to the unhewn stone, the stone that has not been cut by iron. The Biblical Hebrew patriarch and predecessor of Solomon, Enoch, is an important Masonic character ...
The Stone of Scone: A famous rough-hewn stone
A famous rough-hewn stone from the British Isles is the Stone of Destiny, also known as the Stone of Scone, and the Coronation Stone. It is a block of sandstone historically kept at the now-ruined abbey in Scone, near Perth, Scotland. It is also known as Jacob's Pillow and as the Tanist Stone.
In Celtic mythology, the Lia Fail was a magical stone brought to Ireland by the Tuatha de Danaan. When the rightful King of Ireland put his feet on it, the stone was said to roar in joy. This is believed to be the origin of the Stone of Destiny ...
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Read all about the sacred holiday of Festivus, invented by George Costanza's father, many Christmases ago (and listen to the audio) ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
December 23 is the only blank day of the Celtic tree calendar, and the only day in the year not ruled by a tree and its corresponding Ogham letter. Its name denotes the quality of potential in all things.
The unhewn stone has significance outside the Celtic neopagan tradition. The Freemasons refer in their secret rites to the unhewn stone, the stone that has not been cut by iron. The Biblical Hebrew patriarch and predecessor of Solomon, Enoch, is an important Masonic character ...
The Stone of Scone: A famous rough-hewn stone A famous rough-hewn stone from the British Isles is the Stone of Destiny, also known as the Stone of Scone, and the Coronation Stone. It is a block of sandstone historically kept at the now-ruined abbey in Scone, near Perth, Scotland. It is also known as Jacob's Pillow and as the Tanist Stone.
In Celtic mythology, the Lia Fail was a magical stone brought to Ireland by the Tuatha de Danaan. When the rightful King of Ireland put his feet on it, the stone was said to roar in joy. This is believed to be the origin of the Stone of Destiny ...
Festivus, the holiday for the rest-of-us
Read all about the sacred holiday of Festivus, invented by George Costanza's father, many Christmases ago (and listen to the audio) ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Little Johnny's little policies wreak havoc
Howard's Failed Health Policies Increase HIV- AIDS
"After World AIDS Day on December 1st unfortunately all Australia has to report is that the Howard regime's lack of understanding of the issues, and economic bungling, have lead to increasing levels of HIV-AIDS and hepatitis C.
"This outcome has been achieved by an ideological destruction of the successful Harm Minimisation Strategies being replaced with the failing Zero Tolerance debacle as part of the Howard Regime's War on Drugs.
"Now Australia is reaping a harvest of increased disease from the destructive misplacement of funds towards law enforcement, at the expense of medical help for syringe using drug addicts, and a lack of community awareness of HIV-AIDS.
"It is years since the Federal Government has run a campaign fighting the threat of AIDS to the Australian population and Commercial Television is sidelined with shows about how to increase a tear-away housing price bubble by buying more real estate at inflated prices.
"Time is well and truly up for a concerted attempt by the Howard Regime to take off its blinkers and see the destruction that its failing health policies are perpetrating on this country.
"It would appear that the good reputation Australia once had in reducing HIV-AIDS has been squandered by the Howard Regime and it is about time that it got its act together on this issue."
Source: Sydney Inymedia
Howard's Failed Health Policies Increase HIV- AIDS"After World AIDS Day on December 1st unfortunately all Australia has to report is that the Howard regime's lack of understanding of the issues, and economic bungling, have lead to increasing levels of HIV-AIDS and hepatitis C.
"This outcome has been achieved by an ideological destruction of the successful Harm Minimisation Strategies being replaced with the failing Zero Tolerance debacle as part of the Howard Regime's War on Drugs.
"Now Australia is reaping a harvest of increased disease from the destructive misplacement of funds towards law enforcement, at the expense of medical help for syringe using drug addicts, and a lack of community awareness of HIV-AIDS.
"It is years since the Federal Government has run a campaign fighting the threat of AIDS to the Australian population and Commercial Television is sidelined with shows about how to increase a tear-away housing price bubble by buying more real estate at inflated prices.
"Time is well and truly up for a concerted attempt by the Howard Regime to take off its blinkers and see the destruction that its failing health policies are perpetrating on this country.
"It would appear that the good reputation Australia once had in reducing HIV-AIDS has been squandered by the Howard Regime and it is about time that it got its act together on this issue."
Source: Sydney Inymedia
Take a break in Neverland (requires Flash)
*Ø* Blogmanac December 22, 1550 | Burial of Richard Plantagenet, alleged son of Richard III
Richard Plantagenet was a poor working man, but perhaps he was the son of a king.
In about 1545, Sir Thomas Moyle began to have built on his estate, a mansion later named Eastwell House. Sir Thomas was surprised to observe that one of the bricklayers, whenever he had a break, would have his nose firmly planted in a particular book. No matter how the nobleman tried to discover the title of the book that held the tradesman's interest, he could not. Soon, he discovered that the book was written in Latin.
When he asked the bricklayer how he came to be able to read in a classical language, Sir Thomas Moyle was told this tale by the man ...
Read on
Richard Plantagenet was a poor working man, but perhaps he was the son of a king.
In about 1545, Sir Thomas Moyle began to have built on his estate, a mansion later named Eastwell House. Sir Thomas was surprised to observe that one of the bricklayers, whenever he had a break, would have his nose firmly planted in a particular book. No matter how the nobleman tried to discover the title of the book that held the tradesman's interest, he could not. Soon, he discovered that the book was written in Latin.
When he asked the bricklayer how he came to be able to read in a classical language, Sir Thomas Moyle was told this tale by the man ...
Read on
Monday, December 22, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 22 | Happy solstice, happy Yule, to all our readers!
Yule 2003
Yule is one of the eight solar holidays or sabbats of Neopaganism. It is celebrated on the winter solstice, in the Northern Hemisphere circa December 21 and in the Southern Hemisphere circa June 21. The name is of Germanic origin; it is also called Midwinter.
The holiday is, with Beltane and Samhain, one of the most popular among Neopagans. In some traditions, it commemorates the death of the Holly King (symbolizing the old year and the shortened sun) at the hands of his son and successor, the Oak King (the new year and the new sun that begins to grow). In other traditions, it is seen as the birthday of the new sun god.
A traditional ritual is a vigil from dusk to dawn, the longest night of the year, to make sure that the sun will rise again.
Yule is a revival of a Germanic festival that was Christianized as Christmas; indeed, many traditional trappings of Christmas, such as the Yule Log, holly, and the Christmas tree are derived from pre-Christian Yule celebrations. In the Scandinavian countries, Jul is the word for Christmas.
Among the sabbats, Yule is preceded by Samhain and followed by Imbolc ..
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Yule 2003
Yule is one of the eight solar holidays or sabbats of Neopaganism. It is celebrated on the winter solstice, in the Northern Hemisphere circa December 21 and in the Southern Hemisphere circa June 21. The name is of Germanic origin; it is also called Midwinter.
The holiday is, with Beltane and Samhain, one of the most popular among Neopagans. In some traditions, it commemorates the death of the Holly King (symbolizing the old year and the shortened sun) at the hands of his son and successor, the Oak King (the new year and the new sun that begins to grow). In other traditions, it is seen as the birthday of the new sun god.
A traditional ritual is a vigil from dusk to dawn, the longest night of the year, to make sure that the sun will rise again.
Yule is a revival of a Germanic festival that was Christianized as Christmas; indeed, many traditional trappings of Christmas, such as the Yule Log, holly, and the Christmas tree are derived from pre-Christian Yule celebrations. In the Scandinavian countries, Jul is the word for Christmas.
Among the sabbats, Yule is preceded by Samhain and followed by Imbolc ..
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Actions to Take to Make a Difference
Remind us: Why Did the U.S. Government Invade and Destabilize Iraq?
The action is threefold but simple. The action is imperative.
The action is embedded within this flash animation.
Please watch, act, and pass it on.
Thank you.
And thank you, InformationClearinghouse.info.
Remind us: Why Did the U.S. Government Invade and Destabilize Iraq?
The action is threefold but simple. The action is imperative.
The action is embedded within this flash animation.
Please watch, act, and pass it on.
Thank you.
And thank you, InformationClearinghouse.info.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Early Inspiration
["Early inspiration" has two meanings here. This article is intended to inspire us early in the presidential campaign and the subject of the article is responsible for much of my own early political inspiration. I can vouch for the validity of the biographical and personality information herein. -v]
A Story to Light the World
by Stephen Dinan
RadicalSpirit.org
Imagine for a moment that you are the writer of a story, a story designed to inspire the hearts and minds of the world. It is to be an epic story with all the necessary ingredients: humble beginnings, a fall from grace, hopelessness, unsuspected twists, and triumph over impossible odds. The point of this story is to show that we are bigger than we think we are. We are not bound by class or appearance or money. We are limited only by our willingness to become an instrument for something larger. A mission. A calling. A destiny.
Let's say this story is addressed to a nation that has become a prisoner of its own successes and is beginning to exhibit all the signs of aging empire: corruption, belligerence, rule by an elite, cronyism, manipulation of the public trust, and self-indulgence. This country has forgotten its principles, its ideals, its very reason for existence. It's lost touch with its mission. Instead of an oasis of idealism, its government and leadership have become a secretive citadel of greed. Its citizens no longer carry the torch of truth. They carry the credit card of the consumer.
Continue for the full, wonderful story
["Early inspiration" has two meanings here. This article is intended to inspire us early in the presidential campaign and the subject of the article is responsible for much of my own early political inspiration. I can vouch for the validity of the biographical and personality information herein. -v]
A Story to Light the World
by Stephen Dinan
RadicalSpirit.org
Imagine for a moment that you are the writer of a story, a story designed to inspire the hearts and minds of the world. It is to be an epic story with all the necessary ingredients: humble beginnings, a fall from grace, hopelessness, unsuspected twists, and triumph over impossible odds. The point of this story is to show that we are bigger than we think we are. We are not bound by class or appearance or money. We are limited only by our willingness to become an instrument for something larger. A mission. A calling. A destiny.
Let's say this story is addressed to a nation that has become a prisoner of its own successes and is beginning to exhibit all the signs of aging empire: corruption, belligerence, rule by an elite, cronyism, manipulation of the public trust, and self-indulgence. This country has forgotten its principles, its ideals, its very reason for existence. It's lost touch with its mission. Instead of an oasis of idealism, its government and leadership have become a secretive citadel of greed. Its citizens no longer carry the torch of truth. They carry the credit card of the consumer.
Continue for the full, wonderful story
Sunday, December 21, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | Hussein Was Held by Kurds Before U.S. Capture, AFP Reports
"Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. troops only after being held prisoner by Kurdish forces, who had had drugged and abandoned him, Agence France-Presse reported, citing a Sunday Express newspaper report ..."
Source
Good photo op, though.
"Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. troops only after being held prisoner by Kurdish forces, who had had drugged and abandoned him, Agence France-Presse reported, citing a Sunday Express newspaper report ..."
Source
Good photo op, though.
*Ø* Blogmanac December 21, 2012 | End of time?
2012 Timewave Zero? The Mayan calendar ends today.
More at this page in the Scriptorium.
Terence McKenna (November 16, 1946 - April 3, 2000), theoretician of consciousness, was the originator of the timewave zero theory, which claims time to be a fractal wave of increasing novelty, which ends in 2012 ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there. (There are lots of links.)
2012 Timewave Zero? The Mayan calendar ends today. More at this page in the Scriptorium.
Terence McKenna (November 16, 1946 - April 3, 2000), theoretician of consciousness, was the originator of the timewave zero theory, which claims time to be a fractal wave of increasing novelty, which ends in 2012 ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there. (There are lots of links.)
Saturday, December 20, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 20 | Modresnach
Modresnach – The Mothers’ Night
This is a Germanic/Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon annual commemoration, an Odinist Midwinter festival held approximately on this date, many echoes of which can still be found in our Christmas traditions. It was believed that dreams on this night foretold events of the year to come. Traditionally, pine or other evergreen trees are decorated tonight to represent the tree of life. The decorated evergreen tree symbolises the Tree of Life, or Yggdrasil (World Tree). In Norse Mythology, Yggdrasil was a gigantic ash tree, thought to hold all of the different worlds: such as Asgard, Midgard, Utgard and Hel. Like Jesus on the Cross (often called ‘the Tree’ in the Christian tradition), Odin suffered on Yggdrasil.
The star at the top of the Modresnach tree represents the pole star of the Star God or Goddess ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Read about the origins and folklore of the festive season at the Wilson's Almanac Christmas page.
[Christmas tree fingerprint art here]
Modresnach – The Mothers’ Night This is a Germanic/Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon annual commemoration, an Odinist Midwinter festival held approximately on this date, many echoes of which can still be found in our Christmas traditions. It was believed that dreams on this night foretold events of the year to come. Traditionally, pine or other evergreen trees are decorated tonight to represent the tree of life. The decorated evergreen tree symbolises the Tree of Life, or Yggdrasil (World Tree). In Norse Mythology, Yggdrasil was a gigantic ash tree, thought to hold all of the different worlds: such as Asgard, Midgard, Utgard and Hel. Like Jesus on the Cross (often called ‘the Tree’ in the Christian tradition), Odin suffered on Yggdrasil.
The star at the top of the Modresnach tree represents the pole star of the Star God or Goddess ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Read about the origins and folklore of the festive season at the Wilson's Almanac Christmas page.
[Christmas tree fingerprint art here]
*Ø* Blogmanac December 20, 1192 | Capture of the Lionheart
1192 Richard I of England (Lionheart) was captured in Vienna by Duke Leopold – whom he had publicly insulted in the course of his crusade – and was handed over as a prisoner to the Emperor Henry VI.
Richard I (September 8, 1157 - April 6, 1199) was King of England from 1189 to 1199. He was often referred to as Richard the Lionheart, Coeur de Lion and Oc et No by the French, and Melek-Ric by the Saracens (his name in Arabic used to frighten children: "King Rick will get you if you don't watch out!").
Blondel, a legend
Richard’s imprisonment gave rise to the legend of Blondel. Blondel (de Nesle, late 12th century) was a French poet and musician, a trouvère (later troubadour). He is most well known for the legend, first seen in the Récits d'un ménestrel de Reims (1260s), that after Richard I of England was captured and held for ransom in 1192 Blondel searched for him in Germany and Austria. The story relates that Blondel went from castle to castle singing a particular song (possibly "L'amours dont sui espris"), the imprisoned Ricahrd would reply with the second verse after Blondel sung the first – thus identifying were Richard was imprisoned and then Blondel would (depending on the source) either aid the king's escape or report his position back to England.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
1192 Richard I of England (Lionheart) was captured in Vienna by Duke Leopold – whom he had publicly insulted in the course of his crusade – and was handed over as a prisoner to the Emperor Henry VI.
Richard I (September 8, 1157 - April 6, 1199) was King of England from 1189 to 1199. He was often referred to as Richard the Lionheart, Coeur de Lion and Oc et No by the French, and Melek-Ric by the Saracens (his name in Arabic used to frighten children: "King Rick will get you if you don't watch out!").
Blondel, a legendRichard’s imprisonment gave rise to the legend of Blondel. Blondel (de Nesle, late 12th century) was a French poet and musician, a trouvère (later troubadour). He is most well known for the legend, first seen in the Récits d'un ménestrel de Reims (1260s), that after Richard I of England was captured and held for ransom in 1192 Blondel searched for him in Germany and Austria. The story relates that Blondel went from castle to castle singing a particular song (possibly "L'amours dont sui espris"), the imprisoned Ricahrd would reply with the second verse after Blondel sung the first – thus identifying were Richard was imprisoned and then Blondel would (depending on the source) either aid the king's escape or report his position back to England.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Friday, December 19, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 19, 1940 | Phil Ochs, troubled troubador
1940 Phil Ochs (December 19, 1940 - April 9, 1976), American protest singer of the early 1960s, perhaps best known for his songs ‘Power and Glory’, ‘There But for Fortune’, ‘Changes’, ‘When I'm Gone’, and ‘I Ain't Marching Anymore’. Ochs was a passionate vocalist who wrote poignant lyrics about war, civil rights, labor struggles and other topics.
Intensely disappointed by his lack of commercial success, however, and haunted by other personal demons – namely alcoholism, writer's block and depression – Phil Ochs hanged himself in 1976. His songs have been covered by Joan Baez, Billy Bragg, Ani DiFranco, John Wesley Harding and They Might Be Giants among many others ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
1940 Phil Ochs (December 19, 1940 - April 9, 1976), American protest singer of the early 1960s, perhaps best known for his songs ‘Power and Glory’, ‘There But for Fortune’, ‘Changes’, ‘When I'm Gone’, and ‘I Ain't Marching Anymore’. Ochs was a passionate vocalist who wrote poignant lyrics about war, civil rights, labor struggles and other topics. Intensely disappointed by his lack of commercial success, however, and haunted by other personal demons – namely alcoholism, writer's block and depression – Phil Ochs hanged himself in 1976. His songs have been covered by Joan Baez, Billy Bragg, Ani DiFranco, John Wesley Harding and They Might Be Giants among many others ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Are the polls wrong about Kucinich?
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
There's a meme floating around "out there" that 'no one can beat Bush because none of the candidates contrasts him enough on the major issues.' Every right-wing talking head parrots this "party line" from the mainstream media. The mainstream media and the pundits are knocking themselves out to prevent the people from learning that there IS a candidate who contrasts Bush on the major issues. Which candidate evokes a "Who is THAT?" from most people when they hear his name? See how well the propaganda machine works? All we are saying is give this man's platform a chance. Whoever you're favoring, compare their record and their plan to Dennis'.
ARE THE POLLS WRONG ABOUT KUCINICH?
That's the headline of an article at Utne.com that shows that the www.kucinich.us website is the second most read presidential campaign site, and which presents other reasons to believe Kucinich's low ranking in some polls is misleading. Here's the article.
WHAT ARE PRIMARIES FOR?
The Democratic caucuses and primaries are the time to support the candidate who has the best chance of defeating George W. Bush. Clearly, that candidate is Dennis Kucinich. The primaries are not the time for supporting the candidate who you think has the best chance of winning the primaries. That's exactly as useful as staying home. Why is Dennis the one to beat Bush?
1. Dennis' platform fits his record. He opposes the "PATRIOT Act" now, and is the only candidate who voted against it. He opposes the war now, and is the only candidate who voted against it or who opposed it from the start. And he is the only one who will bring our troops home in 90 days.
2. Dennis cannot be attacked for planning to cut services or raise taxes because he is the one candidate with the guts to cut the bloated Pentagon budget and end the occupation of Iraq. He makes proposals and explains how he will pay for them. And his tax plan is laid out in detail.
3. Dennis and most Americans want single-payer universal health coverage. President Bush and most other candidates want to keep the HMOs and private insurance companies in charge.
4. Dennis is the only candidate with a plan to end NAFTA and withdraw from the WTO, replacing these corporate trade agreements with fair bilateral trade based on workers' rights, human rights, and the environment. The other candidates side with the current President in wanting to maintain NAFTA and the WTO.
5. Dennis has a history of attracting swing voters and "Reagan Democrats" in winning elections against better-funded Republican opponents, it is Dennis Kucinich. He has repeatedly defeated entrenched incumbents. He beat a Republican incumbent for mayor in 1977, for state senator in 1994 (overcoming the national right-wing tide) and for Congress in 1996.
6. Dennis' Congressional district includes the suburb of Parma, Ohio, described as "one of the original homes of the Reagan Democrats." An Ohio daily calls it a "conservative Democratic district," which he carried by 74% in 2002. Being a success there may be a better predictor of national success than holding statewide office in a liberal stronghold like Vermont or Massachusetts.
7. Dennis, unlike some other candidates, opposes the death penalty, will end the war on drugs, supports the Kyoto treaty, will take us to 20 percent renewable energy by 2010, and will back no justice who will not uphold Roe v. Wade.
8. Dennis attracts third party voters and Ralph Nader supporters.
9. Ohio has 20 electoral votes. It is the state that is key to national victory; only two candidates in the 20th century have won the presidency without carrying Ohio.
Dennis sets the media straight. Continue reading . . .
Brilliant Column in Des Moines Register
Post your comments on Kucinich Site
Come to Iowa and New Hampshire
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
There's a meme floating around "out there" that 'no one can beat Bush because none of the candidates contrasts him enough on the major issues.' Every right-wing talking head parrots this "party line" from the mainstream media. The mainstream media and the pundits are knocking themselves out to prevent the people from learning that there IS a candidate who contrasts Bush on the major issues. Which candidate evokes a "Who is THAT?" from most people when they hear his name? See how well the propaganda machine works? All we are saying is give this man's platform a chance. Whoever you're favoring, compare their record and their plan to Dennis'. ARE THE POLLS WRONG ABOUT KUCINICH?
That's the headline of an article at Utne.com that shows that the www.kucinich.us website is the second most read presidential campaign site, and which presents other reasons to believe Kucinich's low ranking in some polls is misleading. Here's the article.
WHAT ARE PRIMARIES FOR?
The Democratic caucuses and primaries are the time to support the candidate who has the best chance of defeating George W. Bush. Clearly, that candidate is Dennis Kucinich. The primaries are not the time for supporting the candidate who you think has the best chance of winning the primaries. That's exactly as useful as staying home. Why is Dennis the one to beat Bush?
1. Dennis' platform fits his record. He opposes the "PATRIOT Act" now, and is the only candidate who voted against it. He opposes the war now, and is the only candidate who voted against it or who opposed it from the start. And he is the only one who will bring our troops home in 90 days.
2. Dennis cannot be attacked for planning to cut services or raise taxes because he is the one candidate with the guts to cut the bloated Pentagon budget and end the occupation of Iraq. He makes proposals and explains how he will pay for them. And his tax plan is laid out in detail.
3. Dennis and most Americans want single-payer universal health coverage. President Bush and most other candidates want to keep the HMOs and private insurance companies in charge.
4. Dennis is the only candidate with a plan to end NAFTA and withdraw from the WTO, replacing these corporate trade agreements with fair bilateral trade based on workers' rights, human rights, and the environment. The other candidates side with the current President in wanting to maintain NAFTA and the WTO.
5. Dennis has a history of attracting swing voters and "Reagan Democrats" in winning elections against better-funded Republican opponents, it is Dennis Kucinich. He has repeatedly defeated entrenched incumbents. He beat a Republican incumbent for mayor in 1977, for state senator in 1994 (overcoming the national right-wing tide) and for Congress in 1996.
6. Dennis' Congressional district includes the suburb of Parma, Ohio, described as "one of the original homes of the Reagan Democrats." An Ohio daily calls it a "conservative Democratic district," which he carried by 74% in 2002. Being a success there may be a better predictor of national success than holding statewide office in a liberal stronghold like Vermont or Massachusetts.
7. Dennis, unlike some other candidates, opposes the death penalty, will end the war on drugs, supports the Kyoto treaty, will take us to 20 percent renewable energy by 2010, and will back no justice who will not uphold Roe v. Wade.
8. Dennis attracts third party voters and Ralph Nader supporters.
9. Ohio has 20 electoral votes. It is the state that is key to national victory; only two candidates in the 20th century have won the presidency without carrying Ohio.
Dennis sets the media straight. Continue reading . . .
Brilliant Column in Des Moines Register
Post your comments on Kucinich Site
Come to Iowa and New Hampshire
*Ø* Blogmanac | BREAKING NEWS
9/11 Chair Says White House Could Have Stopped Attacks
It has been two years and three months since America absorbed the horrific attacks of September 11. A fight has been waged since then to determine the facts behind that terrible day: How did it happen? Why was it not stopped? The Bush administration has fought the official investigations into these attacks every step of the way, going so far as to nominate master secret-keeper Henry Kissinger to chair the investigation. They failed in this nomination, and wound up with former New Jersey Governor and fellow Republican Thomas Kean. Today, Kean has fired an incredible broad-side across the bow of the White House, stating bluntly that the attacks of September 11 could have and should have been stopped, and that blame for this failure rests squarely on the shoulders of the Bush administration.
-- William Rivers Pitt
Go to article
9/11 Chair Says White House Could Have Stopped Attacks
It has been two years and three months since America absorbed the horrific attacks of September 11. A fight has been waged since then to determine the facts behind that terrible day: How did it happen? Why was it not stopped? The Bush administration has fought the official investigations into these attacks every step of the way, going so far as to nominate master secret-keeper Henry Kissinger to chair the investigation. They failed in this nomination, and wound up with former New Jersey Governor and fellow Republican Thomas Kean. Today, Kean has fired an incredible broad-side across the bow of the White House, stating bluntly that the attacks of September 11 could have and should have been stopped, and that blame for this failure rests squarely on the shoulders of the Bush administration.
-- William Rivers Pitt
Go to article
*Ø* Blogmanac December 17 - 23 | Saturnalia & the origins of Xmas
Four major Roman festivals were held in December, including Saturnalia which celebrated the returning Sun-god.
Saturnalia (from the god Saturn) was the name the Romans gave to their holiday marking the Winter Solstice. Saturn was a Roman cognate of the Greek god Chronos (Time). He devoured all his children except Jupiter (air), Neptune (water), and Pluto (the underworld, or grave). These time cannot consume. He carries a sickle, like the Grim Reaper. The reign of Saturn was celebrated by the poets as a 'golden age'. According to the old alchemists and astrologers Saturn typified lead, and was a very evil planet to be born under. He was the god of seedtime and harvest and his symbol was a scythe, and he was finally banished from his throne by his son Jupiter."
Saturnalia was celebrated for seven days beginning on December 17. It honoured the corn-god Saturn and his consort, Ops, the goddess of plenty. Normal activities were suspended during this time period. Slaves and masters were temporarily on and equal footing, and the theme was goodwill to all. (The Roman masters were civilised enough to not kill their slaves afterwards, as seems to be the custom with such holidays in more primitive cultures.)
During this wild week, public business was suspended, the law courts and schools were closed and no criminals were punished, no wars were fought nor any business conducted. People spent much time gambling and feasting, and roles were reversed with masters waiting on their servants. Slaves wore their masters robes, and the patricians, wearing fantastic costumes, roamed the streets with their slaves ...
This is just a snippet from the December 17 page (I'm running late, sorry – see immediately below) of the Book of Days. There are also ideas on how to celebrate your own Saturnalia. Let your kids be parents for a day; they can discipline you, but they'll also have to feed you. Enjoy!
More folklore and origins of Christmas
Four major Roman festivals were held in December, including Saturnalia which celebrated the returning Sun-god. Saturnalia (from the god Saturn) was the name the Romans gave to their holiday marking the Winter Solstice. Saturn was a Roman cognate of the Greek god Chronos (Time). He devoured all his children except Jupiter (air), Neptune (water), and Pluto (the underworld, or grave). These time cannot consume. He carries a sickle, like the Grim Reaper. The reign of Saturn was celebrated by the poets as a 'golden age'. According to the old alchemists and astrologers Saturn typified lead, and was a very evil planet to be born under. He was the god of seedtime and harvest and his symbol was a scythe, and he was finally banished from his throne by his son Jupiter."
Saturnalia was celebrated for seven days beginning on December 17. It honoured the corn-god Saturn and his consort, Ops, the goddess of plenty. Normal activities were suspended during this time period. Slaves and masters were temporarily on and equal footing, and the theme was goodwill to all. (The Roman masters were civilised enough to not kill their slaves afterwards, as seems to be the custom with such holidays in more primitive cultures.)
During this wild week, public business was suspended, the law courts and schools were closed and no criminals were punished, no wars were fought nor any business conducted. People spent much time gambling and feasting, and roles were reversed with masters waiting on their servants. Slaves wore their masters robes, and the patricians, wearing fantastic costumes, roamed the streets with their slaves ...
This is just a snippet from the December 17 page (I'm running late, sorry – see immediately below) of the Book of Days. There are also ideas on how to celebrate your own Saturnalia. Let your kids be parents for a day; they can discipline you, but they'll also have to feed you. Enjoy!
More folklore and origins of Christmas
Thursday, December 18, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | Me back, me beard
That was a close shave
It seems like I've been gone for weeks and I have to relearn how to use the computer. Over the past few days I've been moving house, and then there was a couple of days waiting for the telephone company to bloody well show up. And in between, a day in which I thought my modem had packed it in, but it was just a faulty plug.
But I'm back by the skin of my face. Terribly disorganised, but I've opened and even unpacked lots of boxes. I've found a few basics, like Esmeralda, my computer, and one Bic razor. I'd like to say that after four days without shaving I had a beard like Saddam Hussein, but that would be a lie. Jeezuz, that guy can grow a beard. All that hair in nine months? I know a lot of people will be sad if he gets shot before they extract some of his hormones for research.
I'm way behind in my work, and also pretty tired from moving to beautiful downtown Repton, NSW, Australia. Lots of stuff to carry in heat and humidity. Please bear with me for a couple of days while I try to catch up. Thanks, folks. And thank you, Blogmanac team members, for holding the fort so well during my wanderings.
That was a close shaveIt seems like I've been gone for weeks and I have to relearn how to use the computer. Over the past few days I've been moving house, and then there was a couple of days waiting for the telephone company to bloody well show up. And in between, a day in which I thought my modem had packed it in, but it was just a faulty plug.
But I'm back by the skin of my face. Terribly disorganised, but I've opened and even unpacked lots of boxes. I've found a few basics, like Esmeralda, my computer, and one Bic razor. I'd like to say that after four days without shaving I had a beard like Saddam Hussein, but that would be a lie. Jeezuz, that guy can grow a beard. All that hair in nine months? I know a lot of people will be sad if he gets shot before they extract some of his hormones for research.
I'm way behind in my work, and also pretty tired from moving to beautiful downtown Repton, NSW, Australia. Lots of stuff to carry in heat and humidity. Please bear with me for a couple of days while I try to catch up. Thanks, folks. And thank you, Blogmanac team members, for holding the fort so well during my wanderings.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Something to Think About
I've been listening to the mainstream talking heads blather on since Sunday about the victory Dubya has accomplished by unearthing Saddam--literally. They've pinned all sorts of heavy effects on this event, from ending the resistance in Iraq to giving the democratic candidates for the presidency nothing to compete against Bush with, to improving the economy and suddenly making us feel safer on America's shores! Sickening!
First of all, I'm not comfortable with the timing and method of revealing the finding of Saddam to the world. Something in my gut tells me they've had him for a while and chose this moment to reveal to us the drug-addled, cowed old man, already over-interrogated, for political -- election-related -- impact. I believe it's more for American approval points than to quell resistance attacks on troops, sad to say. Deadly attacks on troops have, in fact, increased because the Iraqis now feel that they don't need the U.S. to protect them from Saddam.
Anyway, I think the important thing to remember is that these events being touted as some sort of victory or achievement are meaningless in the face of the true damage to America, its image, its values and its respect in the world. And, at least with respect to our corporate presence in Iraq, hear Paul Krugman tell it:
Patriots and Profits
By Paul Krugman
New York Times
Tuesday 16 December 2003
Last week there were major news stories about possible profiteering by Halliburton and other American contractors in Iraq. These stories have, inevitably and appropriately, been pushed temporarily into the background by the news of Saddam's capture. But the questions remain. In fact, the more you look into this issue, the more you worry that we have entered a new era of excess for the military-industrial complex.
The story about Halliburton's strangely expensive gasoline imports into Iraq gets curiouser and curiouser. High-priced gasoline was purchased from a supplier whose name is unfamiliar to industry experts, but that appears to be run by a prominent Kuwaiti family (no doubt still grateful for the 1991 liberation). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers documents seen by The Wall Street Journal refer to "political pressures" from Kuwait's government and the U.S. embassy in Kuwait to deal only with that firm. I wonder where that trail leads.
Meanwhile, NBC News has obtained Pentagon inspection reports of unsanitary conditions at mess halls run by Halliburton in Iraq: "Blood all over the floors of refrigerators, dirty pans, dirty grills, dirty salad bars, rotting meat and vegetables." An October report complains that Halliburton had promised to fix the problem but didn't.
And more detail has been emerging about Bechtel's much-touted school repairs. Again, a Pentagon report found "horrible" work: dangerous debris left in playground areas, sloppy paint jobs and broken toilets.
Are these isolated bad examples, or part of a pattern? It's impossible to be sure without a broad, scrupulously independent investigation. Yet such an inquiry is hard to imagine in the current political environment — which is precisely why one can't help suspecting the worst.
Let's be clear: worries about profiteering aren't a left-right issue. Conservatives have long warned that regulatory agencies tend to be "captured" by the industries they regulate; the same must be true of agencies that hand out contracts. Halliburton, Bechtel and other major contractors in Iraq have invested heavily in political influence, not just through campaign contributions, but by enriching people they believe might be helpful. Dick Cheney is part of a long if not exactly proud tradition: Brown & Root, which later became the Halliburton subsidiary doing those dubious deals in Iraq, profited handsomely from its early support of a young politician named Lyndon Johnson.
So is there any reason to think that things are worse now? Yes.
The biggest curb on profiteering in government contracts is the threat of exposure: sunshine is the best disinfectant. Yet it's hard to think of a time when U.S. government dealings have been less subject to scrutiny.
First of all, we have one-party rule — and it's a highly disciplined, follow-your-orders party. There are members of Congress eager and willing to take on the profiteers, but they don't have the power to issue subpoenas. [Emphasis added. -v]
And getting information without subpoena power has become much harder because, as a new report in U.S. News & World Report puts it, the Bush administration has "dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government." Since 9/11, the administration has invoked national security to justify this secrecy, but it actually began the day President Bush took office. [Emphasis added. -v]
To top it all off, after 9/11 the U.S. media — which eagerly played up the merest hint of scandal during the Clinton years — became highly protective of the majesty of the office. As the stories I've cited indicate, they have become more searching lately. But even now, compare British and U.S. coverage of the Neil Bush saga.
The point is that we've had an environment in which officials inclined to do favors for their business friends, and contractors inclined to pad their bills or do shoddy work, didn't have to worry much about being exposed. Human nature being what it is, then, the odds are that the troubling stories that have come to light aren't isolated examples.
Some Americans still seem to feel that even suggesting the possibility of profiteering is somehow unpatriotic. They should learn the story of Harry Truman, a congressman who rose to prominence during World War II by leading a campaign against profiteering. Truman believed, correctly, that he was serving his country.
On the strength of that record, Franklin Roosevelt chose Truman as his vice president. George Bush, of course, chose Dick Cheney.
SOURCE
Related Stories:
In Iraq, The Slaughter Goes On
Many More Americans Dead, Wounded in Iraq
Halliburton Continues Extended Payday in Iraq
Anti-war MPs Give Blair No Respite Over WMD Hunt
Kabul is Hit by 2 Rockets
James Ridgeway | You Got Him? Get Out!
I've been listening to the mainstream talking heads blather on since Sunday about the victory Dubya has accomplished by unearthing Saddam--literally. They've pinned all sorts of heavy effects on this event, from ending the resistance in Iraq to giving the democratic candidates for the presidency nothing to compete against Bush with, to improving the economy and suddenly making us feel safer on America's shores! Sickening!
First of all, I'm not comfortable with the timing and method of revealing the finding of Saddam to the world. Something in my gut tells me they've had him for a while and chose this moment to reveal to us the drug-addled, cowed old man, already over-interrogated, for political -- election-related -- impact. I believe it's more for American approval points than to quell resistance attacks on troops, sad to say. Deadly attacks on troops have, in fact, increased because the Iraqis now feel that they don't need the U.S. to protect them from Saddam.
Anyway, I think the important thing to remember is that these events being touted as some sort of victory or achievement are meaningless in the face of the true damage to America, its image, its values and its respect in the world. And, at least with respect to our corporate presence in Iraq, hear Paul Krugman tell it:
Patriots and Profits
By Paul Krugman
New York Times
Tuesday 16 December 2003
Last week there were major news stories about possible profiteering by Halliburton and other American contractors in Iraq. These stories have, inevitably and appropriately, been pushed temporarily into the background by the news of Saddam's capture. But the questions remain. In fact, the more you look into this issue, the more you worry that we have entered a new era of excess for the military-industrial complex.
The story about Halliburton's strangely expensive gasoline imports into Iraq gets curiouser and curiouser. High-priced gasoline was purchased from a supplier whose name is unfamiliar to industry experts, but that appears to be run by a prominent Kuwaiti family (no doubt still grateful for the 1991 liberation). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers documents seen by The Wall Street Journal refer to "political pressures" from Kuwait's government and the U.S. embassy in Kuwait to deal only with that firm. I wonder where that trail leads.
Meanwhile, NBC News has obtained Pentagon inspection reports of unsanitary conditions at mess halls run by Halliburton in Iraq: "Blood all over the floors of refrigerators, dirty pans, dirty grills, dirty salad bars, rotting meat and vegetables." An October report complains that Halliburton had promised to fix the problem but didn't.
And more detail has been emerging about Bechtel's much-touted school repairs. Again, a Pentagon report found "horrible" work: dangerous debris left in playground areas, sloppy paint jobs and broken toilets.
Are these isolated bad examples, or part of a pattern? It's impossible to be sure without a broad, scrupulously independent investigation. Yet such an inquiry is hard to imagine in the current political environment — which is precisely why one can't help suspecting the worst.
Let's be clear: worries about profiteering aren't a left-right issue. Conservatives have long warned that regulatory agencies tend to be "captured" by the industries they regulate; the same must be true of agencies that hand out contracts. Halliburton, Bechtel and other major contractors in Iraq have invested heavily in political influence, not just through campaign contributions, but by enriching people they believe might be helpful. Dick Cheney is part of a long if not exactly proud tradition: Brown & Root, which later became the Halliburton subsidiary doing those dubious deals in Iraq, profited handsomely from its early support of a young politician named Lyndon Johnson.
So is there any reason to think that things are worse now? Yes.
The biggest curb on profiteering in government contracts is the threat of exposure: sunshine is the best disinfectant. Yet it's hard to think of a time when U.S. government dealings have been less subject to scrutiny.
First of all, we have one-party rule — and it's a highly disciplined, follow-your-orders party. There are members of Congress eager and willing to take on the profiteers, but they don't have the power to issue subpoenas. [Emphasis added. -v]
And getting information without subpoena power has become much harder because, as a new report in U.S. News & World Report puts it, the Bush administration has "dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government." Since 9/11, the administration has invoked national security to justify this secrecy, but it actually began the day President Bush took office. [Emphasis added. -v]
To top it all off, after 9/11 the U.S. media — which eagerly played up the merest hint of scandal during the Clinton years — became highly protective of the majesty of the office. As the stories I've cited indicate, they have become more searching lately. But even now, compare British and U.S. coverage of the Neil Bush saga.
The point is that we've had an environment in which officials inclined to do favors for their business friends, and contractors inclined to pad their bills or do shoddy work, didn't have to worry much about being exposed. Human nature being what it is, then, the odds are that the troubling stories that have come to light aren't isolated examples.
Some Americans still seem to feel that even suggesting the possibility of profiteering is somehow unpatriotic. They should learn the story of Harry Truman, a congressman who rose to prominence during World War II by leading a campaign against profiteering. Truman believed, correctly, that he was serving his country.
On the strength of that record, Franklin Roosevelt chose Truman as his vice president. George Bush, of course, chose Dick Cheney.
SOURCE
Related Stories:
In Iraq, The Slaughter Goes On
Many More Americans Dead, Wounded in Iraq
Halliburton Continues Extended Payday in Iraq
Anti-war MPs Give Blair No Respite Over WMD Hunt
Kabul is Hit by 2 Rockets
James Ridgeway | You Got Him? Get Out!
*Ø* Blogmanac | The Threat From Computerized Voting Machines
From the Desk Of...
Martin Sheen
Dear Current or Future Member of TrueMajority,
I am writing to you as a fellow member of TrueMajority to ask for your help in preventing a scandal that could shake our nation to the roots of our democratic principles. Please take a moment to send a free fax to your Representative in Congress, and then to pass this letter on to your friends and family in the hope that they will help too.
We start with a principle so obvious it seems strange even to write it: For a democracy to work, the people must believe that balloting is conducted fairly and votes are counted accurately. Americans feel justifiable pride that our nation has created a system to ensure this, including provisions for recounts.
In the wake of the punch card voting mess in Florida, the federal government dedicated billions of dollars to help states purchase new voting machines. Some pioneering states have begun purchasing a new type of touch screen computerized voting machine. These machines register votes on a memory chip and then digitally transmit the results via telephone modem to election headquarters.
We can only hope that neither glitches nor tampering will change or erase any of our votes. We all know that computers sometimes crash and lose data. Power cords get pulled out of the wall. And what better trophy for a hacker--or over zealous campaign worker--than to skew the outcome of the actual election?
There is a simple solution to these problems. The California Secretary of State has ordered that these new computerized voting machines print out a paper copy of your vote for your approval before the vote is registered. These printouts would then be saved in case the machines malfunction or there is any question as to whether or not they have been tampered with. Without them we would just have to trust the companies that make the machines--companies like Diebold whose CEO, Walden W. O'Dell, recently wrote in a fundraising letter for the Republicans,
"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year."
Without a paper trail, there is no way to reliably validate an election or conduct a reliable recount. It's that simple.
Register with TrueMajority, or customize your message here.
POWERFUL LETTER TO THE EDITOR FEATURE
Letters to the editor are another powerful way to influence your Congressmembers. This feature uses state-of-the-art technology to make it really easy for you to send a letter to the editor.
TrueMajority is working on this important issue with some of our partners, including Working Assets, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, and MoveOn.org.
The California Voter Foundation has lots of great links to these groups and news articles about this problem.
The New York Times also did a great editorial on this issue.
So please take a moment to protect your right--our right--to make sure every vote is counted and every election is fair.
Thanks for your help,
Martin Sheen
From the Desk Of...
Martin SheenDear Current or Future Member of TrueMajority,
I am writing to you as a fellow member of TrueMajority to ask for your help in preventing a scandal that could shake our nation to the roots of our democratic principles. Please take a moment to send a free fax to your Representative in Congress, and then to pass this letter on to your friends and family in the hope that they will help too.
We start with a principle so obvious it seems strange even to write it: For a democracy to work, the people must believe that balloting is conducted fairly and votes are counted accurately. Americans feel justifiable pride that our nation has created a system to ensure this, including provisions for recounts.
In the wake of the punch card voting mess in Florida, the federal government dedicated billions of dollars to help states purchase new voting machines. Some pioneering states have begun purchasing a new type of touch screen computerized voting machine. These machines register votes on a memory chip and then digitally transmit the results via telephone modem to election headquarters.
We can only hope that neither glitches nor tampering will change or erase any of our votes. We all know that computers sometimes crash and lose data. Power cords get pulled out of the wall. And what better trophy for a hacker--or over zealous campaign worker--than to skew the outcome of the actual election?
There is a simple solution to these problems. The California Secretary of State has ordered that these new computerized voting machines print out a paper copy of your vote for your approval before the vote is registered. These printouts would then be saved in case the machines malfunction or there is any question as to whether or not they have been tampered with. Without them we would just have to trust the companies that make the machines--companies like Diebold whose CEO, Walden W. O'Dell, recently wrote in a fundraising letter for the Republicans,
"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year."
Without a paper trail, there is no way to reliably validate an election or conduct a reliable recount. It's that simple.
Register with TrueMajority, or customize your message here.
POWERFUL LETTER TO THE EDITOR FEATURE
Letters to the editor are another powerful way to influence your Congressmembers. This feature uses state-of-the-art technology to make it really easy for you to send a letter to the editor.
TrueMajority is working on this important issue with some of our partners, including Working Assets, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, and MoveOn.org.
The California Voter Foundation has lots of great links to these groups and news articles about this problem.
The New York Times also did a great editorial on this issue.
So please take a moment to protect your right--our right--to make sure every vote is counted and every election is fair.
Thanks for your help,
Martin Sheen
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | The flight of fantasy
By Ray Comiskey
One hundred years ago today, the Wright brothers made aviation history on a North Carolina beach
"There were only five curious locals on the beach that morning, which was hardly surprising. It was a cold, bleak, windy December day, and a couple of bicycle manufacturers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, were attempting to do something that had never been achieved before in human history - piloted, powered flight in a heavier-than-air machine.
"To the casually interested, the odds must have seemed stacked against them. In a widely publicised attempt only nine days earlier, Samuel Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, saw his steam-powered machine, heavily financed by the US government, break up almost immediately on take off. His pilot finished up in Washington's Potomac River. The stinging shame, which clung to Langley and the Smithsonian for years afterwards, was to lead to a feud between the institute and the Wright brothers that lasted almost 40 years.
"The Wrights had already had their own failures. On December 14th they made an attempt to fly, tossing a coin for the honour of who would try first. Wilbur won, but their machine failed, which was why it was Orville who got into the unpromising-looking Flyer three days later. At 10.35 on the morning of December 17th, he took off on a stretch of sand just north of Big Kill Devil Hill near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and flew for 12 seconds, covering 120 feet. Later that day, alternating at the controls, they made three more flights. The next two covered 175 and 200 feet respectively. On the final flight of the day, Wilbur stayed up for 59 seconds and covered an astonishing 852 feet, before a crash from an altitude of 30 feet put an end to the day's work.
"Behind that achievement, however, were no gifted amateurs. The brothers, focused, methodical, practical and intelligent, had been fascinated by the problem of making a flying machine ever since they were boys, when their father, Milton, a minister and later a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, brought them home a toy "hélicoptère".
"For the next few years, Wilbur, born in Milville, Indiana in 1867, and Orville, born in Dayton, Ohio in 1871, tried to build a toy flying machine. Largely unsuccessful, they turned to kite making. Orville also started his own printing business in 1888, where, with Wilbur's help, he designed and built a printing press. After their mother, Susan, died in 1889, they sold the printing business and opened a shop to sell and repair bicycles. Brilliant at anything mechanical, they saw the business expand into manufacturing and, crucially, the money it generated helped support their early aeronautical research and experiments ...
"For better or worse a new era was emphatically launched. Little more than five years later, planes were in action over the trenches of the first World War, first for reconnaissance and guiding artillery fire, and finally for dogfighting; sometimes even with pistols at eyeball distance. The rest is civil and military aviation history."
Source: The Irish Times
By Ray Comiskey
"There were only five curious locals on the beach that morning, which was hardly surprising. It was a cold, bleak, windy December day, and a couple of bicycle manufacturers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, were attempting to do something that had never been achieved before in human history - piloted, powered flight in a heavier-than-air machine."To the casually interested, the odds must have seemed stacked against them. In a widely publicised attempt only nine days earlier, Samuel Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, saw his steam-powered machine, heavily financed by the US government, break up almost immediately on take off. His pilot finished up in Washington's Potomac River. The stinging shame, which clung to Langley and the Smithsonian for years afterwards, was to lead to a feud between the institute and the Wright brothers that lasted almost 40 years.
"The Wrights had already had their own failures. On December 14th they made an attempt to fly, tossing a coin for the honour of who would try first. Wilbur won, but their machine failed, which was why it was Orville who got into the unpromising-looking Flyer three days later. At 10.35 on the morning of December 17th, he took off on a stretch of sand just north of Big Kill Devil Hill near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and flew for 12 seconds, covering 120 feet. Later that day, alternating at the controls, they made three more flights. The next two covered 175 and 200 feet respectively. On the final flight of the day, Wilbur stayed up for 59 seconds and covered an astonishing 852 feet, before a crash from an altitude of 30 feet put an end to the day's work.
"Behind that achievement, however, were no gifted amateurs. The brothers, focused, methodical, practical and intelligent, had been fascinated by the problem of making a flying machine ever since they were boys, when their father, Milton, a minister and later a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, brought them home a toy "hélicoptère".
"For the next few years, Wilbur, born in Milville, Indiana in 1867, and Orville, born in Dayton, Ohio in 1871, tried to build a toy flying machine. Largely unsuccessful, they turned to kite making. Orville also started his own printing business in 1888, where, with Wilbur's help, he designed and built a printing press. After their mother, Susan, died in 1889, they sold the printing business and opened a shop to sell and repair bicycles. Brilliant at anything mechanical, they saw the business expand into manufacturing and, crucially, the money it generated helped support their early aeronautical research and experiments ...
"For better or worse a new era was emphatically launched. Little more than five years later, planes were in action over the trenches of the first World War, first for reconnaissance and guiding artillery fire, and finally for dogfighting; sometimes even with pistols at eyeball distance. The rest is civil and military aviation history."
Source: The Irish Times
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | The World Sleeps Safely!
"Statement by the President"
THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. Today I bring news of great consequence to all the pollsters of the world. Yesterday, December the 13th, at around 8:30 p.m. Baghdad time, former CIA employee Saddam Hussein was captured alive. This man, the most powerful, diabolical evildoer ever to threaten humanity, was found in his hometown of Tikrit, beneath the dusty lean-to of a long-time supporter. In short, he was exactly where everyone thought he'd be. And today, I am proud to say that it only took us just shy of nine months from the day I gave him forty-eight hours to skedattle or be promptly administered a Texas Lead Enema.
Also as expected, Saddam was found presiding over operations at a state-of-the-art Weapons of Mass Destruction control panel with a retractable top, hot babes and heliport – albeit artfully camouflaged to resemble an unstaffed, vermin-infested hole in the ground. It was here, from this advanced, zillion dollar terror complex that he concocted and carefully managed execution of his countless nefarious schemes – most notably his powerful, intoxicating ability to make us forget all about the people who were actually behind 9/11 by impersonating a filthy piece of poor homeless trash. Well that was his last mistake. Little did he know that this administration is even quicker at taking down the poor than it is at nabbing evildoers! ...
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the peerless arsenal of the United States military-industrial complex, do hereby proclaim December 15, 2003, to be National Victory Over the Guy Who Isn't Osama Bin Laden Day.
Full text at Whitehouse.org
"Statement by the President"THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. Today I bring news of great consequence to all the pollsters of the world. Yesterday, December the 13th, at around 8:30 p.m. Baghdad time, former CIA employee Saddam Hussein was captured alive. This man, the most powerful, diabolical evildoer ever to threaten humanity, was found in his hometown of Tikrit, beneath the dusty lean-to of a long-time supporter. In short, he was exactly where everyone thought he'd be. And today, I am proud to say that it only took us just shy of nine months from the day I gave him forty-eight hours to skedattle or be promptly administered a Texas Lead Enema.
Also as expected, Saddam was found presiding over operations at a state-of-the-art Weapons of Mass Destruction control panel with a retractable top, hot babes and heliport – albeit artfully camouflaged to resemble an unstaffed, vermin-infested hole in the ground. It was here, from this advanced, zillion dollar terror complex that he concocted and carefully managed execution of his countless nefarious schemes – most notably his powerful, intoxicating ability to make us forget all about the people who were actually behind 9/11 by impersonating a filthy piece of poor homeless trash. Well that was his last mistake. Little did he know that this administration is even quicker at taking down the poor than it is at nabbing evildoers! ...
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the peerless arsenal of the United States military-industrial complex, do hereby proclaim December 15, 2003, to be National Victory Over the Guy Who Isn't Osama Bin Laden Day.
Full text at Whitehouse.org
Monday, December 15, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | Totally Full of Crap Awards All 'Round
Two Items From Colleen:
Who the Hell Said That?
By Will Durst, AlterNet
December 11, 2003
And now it's time to play "Who the Hell Said That?"
1. "With a healthy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them."
A) Tom Delay, revealing his secret strategy to keep Republican Members of Congress in line when they express concerns about the Bush administration's rampant deficit spending.
B) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on his feud with Colin Powell and the State Department.
C) Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spokesman, H. D. Palmer, on cutting K-12 funding.
D) Lt. Colonel Nathan Sassaman, battalion commander of the forces occupying Abu Hishma, Iraq, explaining a plan to keep the village safe by encircling it in a wall of barbed wire.
2. "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
A) Donald Rumsfeld, articulating his frustration at the Coalition's inability to find Hussein's fabled Weapons of Mass Destruction.
B) Spokesperson for the legal team of Michael Jackson's accuser speaking either on behalf of his client's case or the King of Pop's missing nose cartilage.
C) California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver making a Freudian slip in defense of her husband's groping accusations.
D) Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, disputing whether the West Bank wall Israeli soldiers are erecting exists because he's banned all photographs of it.
3. "Wal-Mart is the greatest thing that ever happened to low-income Americans."
A) W. Michael Cox, chief economist of the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas.
B) W. Michael Cox, a man who obviously never tried to run a household paid minimum wage with little or no benefits.
C) W. Michael Cox, a man whose portfolio apparently includes absolutely no Kroger, Safeway, Jewel or Albertson's stock.
D) All of the above.
4. "I think gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman."
A) Former Vice President J. Danforth Quayle.
B) President George W. Bush.
C) California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
D) Reality Show Star Paris Hilton.
5. "We know there are known knowns: there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns: that is to say we know there are things we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns- the ones we don't know we don't know."
A) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during a briefing on Iraq.
B) My Uncle Bud after eight hours on a bar stool at Tony's Tavern watching an entire Sunday slate of NFL football.
C) AARP directors defending their decision to endorse Medicare reform even though it may end up costing seniors more money.
D) Iowa State Elections Chairman, Bob Roberts, explaining the state's arcane caucuses regulations.
6. "Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."
A) Actor Tom Cruise on the decision to portray little or no blood in the battle scenes of his new movie "The Last Samurai."
B) Condoleeza Rice, referring to the official White House policy of preventing journalists from documenting returning body bags.
C) Russell Crowe's character, Jack Aubrey, in the film adaptation of Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander."
D) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, when questioned as to why the Pentagon refuses to provide kill figures for enemy combatants.
Answers are 1. D) 2. A) 3. D) 4. C) 5. A) 6. D)
Will Durst's 2003 Totally Full of Crap Award goes to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
SOURCE
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
I especially love (NOT) the military attitude of "With a heavy dose of fear and violence . . . we can convince these people . . . that we are here to help them." I don't know if sentences can be considered oxymorons, but this particular bit of military intelligence -- itself an oxymoron -- seems to fall into that category. Should we laugh or cry? And does it really make any difference if we do either? Colleen
Totally FUBAR!
[This regardless of Sunday's reported discovery of Saddam. -v]
Bush's Iraq Policy: A Quagmire of Confusion
By Jim Lobe, AlterNet
December 12, 2003
As the Bush administration searches with increasing desperation for a viable "exit strategy," its so-called Iraq policy grows more muddled with each passing day.
The latest example – and an especially spectacular one – was when George Bush personally asked key European and other leaders on Wednesday to forgive tens of billions of dollars of Iraq's crushing debt. The very same day, the Pentagon announced on its website that companies from these countries will not be permitted to bid on 18.6 billion dollars in reconstruction contracts in Iraq.
Needless to say, the Pentagon's directive and its timing were unlikely to put the leaders of Russia, France and Germany – the most important of the excluded countries – in the mood to entertain the president's request
Read 'em and weep . . . or laugh--whatever
Two Items From Colleen:
Who the Hell Said That?
By Will Durst, AlterNet
December 11, 2003
And now it's time to play "Who the Hell Said That?"
1. "With a healthy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them."
A) Tom Delay, revealing his secret strategy to keep Republican Members of Congress in line when they express concerns about the Bush administration's rampant deficit spending.
B) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on his feud with Colin Powell and the State Department.
C) Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spokesman, H. D. Palmer, on cutting K-12 funding.
D) Lt. Colonel Nathan Sassaman, battalion commander of the forces occupying Abu Hishma, Iraq, explaining a plan to keep the village safe by encircling it in a wall of barbed wire.
2. "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
A) Donald Rumsfeld, articulating his frustration at the Coalition's inability to find Hussein's fabled Weapons of Mass Destruction.
B) Spokesperson for the legal team of Michael Jackson's accuser speaking either on behalf of his client's case or the King of Pop's missing nose cartilage.
C) California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver making a Freudian slip in defense of her husband's groping accusations.
D) Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, disputing whether the West Bank wall Israeli soldiers are erecting exists because he's banned all photographs of it.
3. "Wal-Mart is the greatest thing that ever happened to low-income Americans."
A) W. Michael Cox, chief economist of the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas.
B) W. Michael Cox, a man who obviously never tried to run a household paid minimum wage with little or no benefits.
C) W. Michael Cox, a man whose portfolio apparently includes absolutely no Kroger, Safeway, Jewel or Albertson's stock.
D) All of the above.
4. "I think gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman."
A) Former Vice President J. Danforth Quayle.
B) President George W. Bush.
C) California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
D) Reality Show Star Paris Hilton.
5. "We know there are known knowns: there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns: that is to say we know there are things we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns- the ones we don't know we don't know."
A) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during a briefing on Iraq.
B) My Uncle Bud after eight hours on a bar stool at Tony's Tavern watching an entire Sunday slate of NFL football.
C) AARP directors defending their decision to endorse Medicare reform even though it may end up costing seniors more money.
D) Iowa State Elections Chairman, Bob Roberts, explaining the state's arcane caucuses regulations.
6. "Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."
A) Actor Tom Cruise on the decision to portray little or no blood in the battle scenes of his new movie "The Last Samurai."
B) Condoleeza Rice, referring to the official White House policy of preventing journalists from documenting returning body bags.
C) Russell Crowe's character, Jack Aubrey, in the film adaptation of Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander."
D) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, when questioned as to why the Pentagon refuses to provide kill figures for enemy combatants.
Answers are 1. D) 2. A) 3. D) 4. C) 5. A) 6. D)
Will Durst's 2003 Totally Full of Crap Award goes to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
SOURCE
I especially love (NOT) the military attitude of "With a heavy dose of fear and violence . . . we can convince these people . . . that we are here to help them." I don't know if sentences can be considered oxymorons, but this particular bit of military intelligence -- itself an oxymoron -- seems to fall into that category. Should we laugh or cry? And does it really make any difference if we do either? Colleen
Totally FUBAR!
[This regardless of Sunday's reported discovery of Saddam. -v]
Bush's Iraq Policy: A Quagmire of Confusion
By Jim Lobe, AlterNet
December 12, 2003
As the Bush administration searches with increasing desperation for a viable "exit strategy," its so-called Iraq policy grows more muddled with each passing day.
The latest example – and an especially spectacular one – was when George Bush personally asked key European and other leaders on Wednesday to forgive tens of billions of dollars of Iraq's crushing debt. The very same day, the Pentagon announced on its website that companies from these countries will not be permitted to bid on 18.6 billion dollars in reconstruction contracts in Iraq.
Needless to say, the Pentagon's directive and its timing were unlikely to put the leaders of Russia, France and Germany – the most important of the excluded countries – in the mood to entertain the president's request
Read 'em and weep . . . or laugh--whatever
*Ø* Blogmanac | Captain Yee's Ordeal
New York Times
December 14
"The military's mean-spirited and incompetent prosecution of Capt. James Yee, the former Muslim chaplain at Guantánamo Bay, illustrates the danger of allowing the war on terrorism to trump basic rights. After holding Captain Yee in solitary confinement for nearly three months, and smearing him with adultery and pornography charges, the military is now uncertain whether the documents whose confidentiality he is charged with breaching were even confidential. In the interest of justice, and of resurrecting their own reputation, military prosecutors should drop the case ...
"It is already clear how much harm the military's misguided prosecution has done to Captain Yee and his family. What is less obvious, but no less real, is the threat this sort of prosecutorial mentality poses to all Americans. The specter of terrorism cannot become an excuse for the government to railroad people first, and ask questions later."
Full editorial
New York Times
December 14
"The military's mean-spirited and incompetent prosecution of Capt. James Yee, the former Muslim chaplain at Guantánamo Bay, illustrates the danger of allowing the war on terrorism to trump basic rights. After holding Captain Yee in solitary confinement for nearly three months, and smearing him with adultery and pornography charges, the military is now uncertain whether the documents whose confidentiality he is charged with breaching were even confidential. In the interest of justice, and of resurrecting their own reputation, military prosecutors should drop the case ...
"It is already clear how much harm the military's misguided prosecution has done to Captain Yee and his family. What is less obvious, but no less real, is the threat this sort of prosecutorial mentality poses to all Americans. The specter of terrorism cannot become an excuse for the government to railroad people first, and ask questions later."
Full editorial
Sunday, December 14, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 14 | Beginning of the Halcyon Days
During the Halcyon Days, the Mediterranean was supposed to stay calm. Halcyon is Greek for a kingfisher (‘sea-hound’). The ancient Sicilians believed that the kingfisher incubated its eggs for fourteen days on the surface of the sea, during which time, before the winter solstice, the waves were still.
Alcyone was a Greek demi-goddess, the daughter of Aeolus, the guardian of the winds, and Aegiale. She is sometimes regarded as one of the Pleiades. More often she was thought of as the daughter of Aeolus. She married Ceyx, son of Eosphorus (Morningstar) and the king of Thessaly.
They were very happy together, but then Ceyx perished in a shipwreck and Alcyone (‘queen who wards off [storms]’) threw herself into the sea. Out of compassion, the gods changed them into the halcyon birds. Since Alcyone made her nest on the beach, and waves threatened to destroy it, Aeolus restrained his winds and becalmed the waves during seven days in each year, so she could lay her eggs. These became known as the "halcyon days", when storms never occur. The halcyon became a symbol of tranquillity.
Pictured is Australia's Azure kingfisher.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
During the Halcyon Days, the Mediterranean was supposed to stay calm. Halcyon is Greek for a kingfisher (‘sea-hound’). The ancient Sicilians believed that the kingfisher incubated its eggs for fourteen days on the surface of the sea, during which time, before the winter solstice, the waves were still. Alcyone was a Greek demi-goddess, the daughter of Aeolus, the guardian of the winds, and Aegiale. She is sometimes regarded as one of the Pleiades. More often she was thought of as the daughter of Aeolus. She married Ceyx, son of Eosphorus (Morningstar) and the king of Thessaly.
They were very happy together, but then Ceyx perished in a shipwreck and Alcyone (‘queen who wards off [storms]’) threw herself into the sea. Out of compassion, the gods changed them into the halcyon birds. Since Alcyone made her nest on the beach, and waves threatened to destroy it, Aeolus restrained his winds and becalmed the waves during seven days in each year, so she could lay her eggs. These became known as the "halcyon days", when storms never occur. The halcyon became a symbol of tranquillity.
Pictured is Australia's Azure kingfisher.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Saturday, December 13, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 13 | St Lucia/Goddess Lucina
Feast day of St Lucy of Syracuse
(Cypress arbor vitae, Thuja cupressioides, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint)
It’s December 13 and we see that the Solstice is close, whether we speak of the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, or Winter in the Northern. As today is one of the shortest days of the year in Sweden, the locals celebrate a festival of light (which is appropriate because the root for 'Lucy' in Latin, lux, means 'light'). On this day the youngest daughter in many households, dressed in white as ‘Sankta Lucia’, wearing a headdress of evergreen leaves and a crown of lit candles, wakes the rest of the family with coffee, rolls, and a special song. Swedes begin their Christmas celebrations with this day, and traditionally her patronal day marks the end of harvest.
St Lucy (283-304), with her associations with light, is the patron saint of people who are blind or have eye trouble. She was born in Syracuse, Sicily, the daughter of noble and wealthy parents, and was raised a Christian ...
Saint Lucy/Goddess Lucina
In the Roman Empire, Lucina was an epithet for Juno as "she who brings children into light". Lucia is still honoured on St Lucia’s Day as the girl wearing the candle crown, usually the first-born daughter of the house, is symbolic of pagan symbols of fire and life-giving light. Lucina was the goddess of childbirth who safeguarded the lives of women in labour.
Juno was the equivalent in Roman Mythology of the Greek goddess Hera ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Feast day of St Lucy of Syracuse (Cypress arbor vitae, Thuja cupressioides, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint)
It’s December 13 and we see that the Solstice is close, whether we speak of the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, or Winter in the Northern. As today is one of the shortest days of the year in Sweden, the locals celebrate a festival of light (which is appropriate because the root for 'Lucy' in Latin, lux, means 'light'). On this day the youngest daughter in many households, dressed in white as ‘Sankta Lucia’, wearing a headdress of evergreen leaves and a crown of lit candles, wakes the rest of the family with coffee, rolls, and a special song. Swedes begin their Christmas celebrations with this day, and traditionally her patronal day marks the end of harvest.
St Lucy (283-304), with her associations with light, is the patron saint of people who are blind or have eye trouble. She was born in Syracuse, Sicily, the daughter of noble and wealthy parents, and was raised a Christian ...
Saint Lucy/Goddess Lucina
In the Roman Empire, Lucina was an epithet for Juno as "she who brings children into light". Lucia is still honoured on St Lucia’s Day as the girl wearing the candle crown, usually the first-born daughter of the house, is symbolic of pagan symbols of fire and life-giving light. Lucina was the goddess of childbirth who safeguarded the lives of women in labour.
Juno was the equivalent in Roman Mythology of the Greek goddess Hera ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Friday, December 12, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | Bush, you turkey
Turkeys on the Moon
Michael Moore
"Dear Mr. Bush,
"Well, it's going on two weeks now since your surprise visit to one of the two countries you now run and, I have to say, I'm still warmed by the gesture. Man, take me along next time! I understand only 13 members of the media went with you -- and it turns out only ONE of them was an actual reporter for a newspaper. But you did take along FIVE photographers (hey, I get it, screw the words, it's all about the pictures!), a couple wire service guys, and a crew from the Fox News Channel (fair and balanced!).
"Then, I read in the paper this weekend that that big turkey you were holding in Baghdad (you know, the picture that's supposed to replace the now-embarrassing footage of you on that aircraft carrier with the sign "Mission Accomplished") -- well, it turns out that big, beautiful turkey of yours was never eaten by the troops! It wasn't eaten by anyone! That's because it wasn't real! It was a STUNT turkey, brought in to look like a real edible turkey for all those great camera angles.
"Now I know some people will say you are into props (like the one in the lower extremities of your flyboy suit), but hey, I get it, this is theater! So what if it was a bogus turkey? The whole trip was bogus, all staged to look like "news." The fake honey glaze on that bird wasn't much different from the fake honey glaze that covers this war. And the fake stuffing in the fake bird was just the right symbol for our country during these times. America loves fake honey glaze, it loves to be stuffed, and, dammit, YOU knew that -- that's what makes you so in touch with the people you lead! ..."
Found at ollapodrida, a tres cool blog.
Turkeys on the Moon
Michael Moore
"Dear Mr. Bush,
"Well, it's going on two weeks now since your surprise visit to one of the two countries you now run and, I have to say, I'm still warmed by the gesture. Man, take me along next time! I understand only 13 members of the media went with you -- and it turns out only ONE of them was an actual reporter for a newspaper. But you did take along FIVE photographers (hey, I get it, screw the words, it's all about the pictures!), a couple wire service guys, and a crew from the Fox News Channel (fair and balanced!).
"Then, I read in the paper this weekend that that big turkey you were holding in Baghdad (you know, the picture that's supposed to replace the now-embarrassing footage of you on that aircraft carrier with the sign "Mission Accomplished") -- well, it turns out that big, beautiful turkey of yours was never eaten by the troops! It wasn't eaten by anyone! That's because it wasn't real! It was a STUNT turkey, brought in to look like a real edible turkey for all those great camera angles.
"Now I know some people will say you are into props (like the one in the lower extremities of your flyboy suit), but hey, I get it, this is theater! So what if it was a bogus turkey? The whole trip was bogus, all staged to look like "news." The fake honey glaze on that bird wasn't much different from the fake honey glaze that covers this war. And the fake stuffing in the fake bird was just the right symbol for our country during these times. America loves fake honey glaze, it loves to be stuffed, and, dammit, YOU knew that -- that's what makes you so in touch with the people you lead! ..."
Found at ollapodrida, a tres cool blog.
*Ø* Blogmanac December 12, 1731| Happy birthday, Erasmus Darwin
1731 Erasmus Darwin, English physician, scientist and poet, polymathic genius; grandfather of Charles Darwin and of Francis Galton, founder of eugenics; great-grandfather of George Darwin, Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge.
Erasmus was also an inventor, coming up with a steam car ("a fiery chariot"); a wire-drawn ferry; a horizontal windmill; and an artificial bird. He invented a speaking machine which could trick some people into thinking they heard real a person saying "mama" or "papa", a copying machine and a carriage steering system later used in motor vehicles.
Darwin was co-founder of The Birmingham Lunar Society, a small group of intellectual friends who met on the full moon. “The lunar men” included Joseph Priestley (preacher, politician and chemist, the first to discover photosynthesis and isolate the element oxygen); James Watt (‘father of the steam engine’); Matthew Boulton (engineer and chemist, business man backer of Watt); Josiah Wedgwood (mineralogist, chemist and potter to the Queen; related to Erasmus by marriage as Charles Darwin and his cousin Emma Wedgwood married).
Erasmus Darwin was the first to explain how clouds form and to describe the full process of photosynthesis in plants. As a young man he expounded the theory of biological evolution (as we have come to know it), later publishing E Conchis Omnia – ‘Everything from Shells’. In this work, the grandfather of the world’s most famous evolutionist expressed his belief that all life comes from a single microscopic ancestor, a radical idea that brought him condemnation in society and perhaps prevented him from obtaining the position of Poet Laureate.
Rejection by society did not stop him, and he wrote a long, precognitive poem, The Temple of Nature or The Origin of Society, tracing the progress of life from microscopic entities in primordial oceans through fishes and amphibians to humankind, as he calls us.
His ideas sometimes presaged those of his more famous grandson, Charles:
Some birds have acquired harder beaks to crack nuts, as the parrot. Others have acquired beaks adapted to break the harder seeds, as sparrows. Others for the softer seeds of flowers, or the buds of trees as the finches. Other birds have acquired long beaks to penetrate the moister soils in search of roots, as woodcocks; and others broad ones to filtrate the water of lakes, and to retain aquatic insects. All of which seem to have been gradually produced during many generations by the perpetual endeavour of the creatures to supply the want of food.
Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia Book I
... He was so corpulent he had to have a half-circle cut out of his dining table so his huge stomach would fit. Incongruously, perhaps, he also became the first Englishman to fly in a large-sized hydrogen balloon.
The 'Lunatics'
Around about 1765, Darwin helped to found the Lunar Society, a discussion club of a number of prominent geologists, chemists, engineers, theorists industrialists andscientists, who met regularly in the latter half of the 18th century. The society's name came from their practice of scheduling their meetings at the time of the full moon (the better light ensuring a higher attendance as generally the streets were unpoliced and very dark.). Meeting in, among other places, a house on a crossroads outside Birmingham, England, between them they managed to launch the Industrial Revolution, discover oxygen, harness the power of steam and pioneer the theory of evolution.
Venues included Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, and Great Barr Hall.
They were a very influential group in British science and industry of the time – amongst those who attended meetings more or less regularly were the following remarkable men:
Matthew Boulton, Erasmus Darwin, Samuel Galton Junior, James Keir, William Murdoch, Joseph Priestley, Josiah Wedgwood, James Watt and William Withering.
More peripheral characters and correspondents included:
Sir Richard Arkwright, John Baskerville, Thomas Beddoes, Thomas Day, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Anna Seward, William Small, John Smeaton, Thomas Wedgwood, John Wilkinson, Joseph Wright, James Wyatt, Samuel Wyatt.
Antoine Lavoisier frequently corresponded with various members of the group, as did Benjamin Franklin, who also visited them in Birmingham on several occasions.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today, including Iceland's Yuletide trolls and more on the Virgin Mary/Aztec goddess connection at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
1731 Erasmus Darwin, English physician, scientist and poet, polymathic genius; grandfather of Charles Darwin and of Francis Galton, founder of eugenics; great-grandfather of George Darwin, Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge. Erasmus was also an inventor, coming up with a steam car ("a fiery chariot"); a wire-drawn ferry; a horizontal windmill; and an artificial bird. He invented a speaking machine which could trick some people into thinking they heard real a person saying "mama" or "papa", a copying machine and a carriage steering system later used in motor vehicles.
Darwin was co-founder of The Birmingham Lunar Society, a small group of intellectual friends who met on the full moon. “The lunar men” included Joseph Priestley (preacher, politician and chemist, the first to discover photosynthesis and isolate the element oxygen); James Watt (‘father of the steam engine’); Matthew Boulton (engineer and chemist, business man backer of Watt); Josiah Wedgwood (mineralogist, chemist and potter to the Queen; related to Erasmus by marriage as Charles Darwin and his cousin Emma Wedgwood married).
Erasmus Darwin was the first to explain how clouds form and to describe the full process of photosynthesis in plants. As a young man he expounded the theory of biological evolution (as we have come to know it), later publishing E Conchis Omnia – ‘Everything from Shells’. In this work, the grandfather of the world’s most famous evolutionist expressed his belief that all life comes from a single microscopic ancestor, a radical idea that brought him condemnation in society and perhaps prevented him from obtaining the position of Poet Laureate.
Rejection by society did not stop him, and he wrote a long, precognitive poem, The Temple of Nature or The Origin of Society, tracing the progress of life from microscopic entities in primordial oceans through fishes and amphibians to humankind, as he calls us.
His ideas sometimes presaged those of his more famous grandson, Charles:
Some birds have acquired harder beaks to crack nuts, as the parrot. Others have acquired beaks adapted to break the harder seeds, as sparrows. Others for the softer seeds of flowers, or the buds of trees as the finches. Other birds have acquired long beaks to penetrate the moister soils in search of roots, as woodcocks; and others broad ones to filtrate the water of lakes, and to retain aquatic insects. All of which seem to have been gradually produced during many generations by the perpetual endeavour of the creatures to supply the want of food.
Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia Book I
... He was so corpulent he had to have a half-circle cut out of his dining table so his huge stomach would fit. Incongruously, perhaps, he also became the first Englishman to fly in a large-sized hydrogen balloon.
The 'Lunatics'
Around about 1765, Darwin helped to found the Lunar Society, a discussion club of a number of prominent geologists, chemists, engineers, theorists industrialists andscientists, who met regularly in the latter half of the 18th century. The society's name came from their practice of scheduling their meetings at the time of the full moon (the better light ensuring a higher attendance as generally the streets were unpoliced and very dark.). Meeting in, among other places, a house on a crossroads outside Birmingham, England, between them they managed to launch the Industrial Revolution, discover oxygen, harness the power of steam and pioneer the theory of evolution.
Venues included Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, and Great Barr Hall.
They were a very influential group in British science and industry of the time – amongst those who attended meetings more or less regularly were the following remarkable men:
Matthew Boulton, Erasmus Darwin, Samuel Galton Junior, James Keir, William Murdoch, Joseph Priestley, Josiah Wedgwood, James Watt and William Withering.
More peripheral characters and correspondents included:
Sir Richard Arkwright, John Baskerville, Thomas Beddoes, Thomas Day, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Anna Seward, William Small, John Smeaton, Thomas Wedgwood, John Wilkinson, Joseph Wright, James Wyatt, Samuel Wyatt.
Antoine Lavoisier frequently corresponded with various members of the group, as did Benjamin Franklin, who also visited them in Birmingham on several occasions.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today, including Iceland's Yuletide trolls and more on the Virgin Mary/Aztec goddess connection at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Light brought to a halt in scientific first
"(AP) -- Physicists say they have brought light to a complete halt for a fraction of a second and then sent it on its way, an achievement that could someday help scientists develop powerful new computers.
"The research differs from work published in 2001 that was hailed at the time as having brought light to standstill.
"In that work, light pulses were technically "stored" briefly when individual particles of light, or photons, were taken up by atoms in a gas.
"Harvard University researchers have now topped that feat by truly holding light and its energy in its tracks -- if only for a few hundred-thousandths of a second ..."
Source: CNbloodyN
"(AP) -- Physicists say they have brought light to a complete halt for a fraction of a second and then sent it on its way, an achievement that could someday help scientists develop powerful new computers.
"The research differs from work published in 2001 that was hailed at the time as having brought light to standstill.
"In that work, light pulses were technically "stored" briefly when individual particles of light, or photons, were taken up by atoms in a gas.
"Harvard University researchers have now topped that feat by truly holding light and its energy in its tracks -- if only for a few hundred-thousandths of a second ..."
Source: CNbloodyN
*Ø* Blogmanac | BATTLE LINES BEIN' DRAWN -- War and Peace
"There is nothing new in the world except
the history you do not know." -- Harry S. Truman
The 9/11 "investigation"– sometimes priorities dictate
By Kerry Tomasi
Online Journal Contributing Writer
"My father's no different than any other powerful man.
Like a senator or president."
"You know how naïve you sound? Senators and presidents
don't have men killed".
"Oh. Who's being naïve, Kay?"
—Michael Corleone in "The Godfather"
Suppose you were a detective assigned to investigate a rather brutal murder, one in which the victim had been tortured for several days prior to being killed.
At the scene of the crime you get what appears to be a lucky break—the suspect's wallet seems to have been
'carelessly' dropped. It contains his name, address, and phone number, and is someone you recognize as having connections to an organized crime family.
Problem is, you also find your name and address in there, as well as those of your children, grandchildren, and all of your nieces and nephews.
The message is quite clear, and your priorities dictate. You pocket the wallet, and any other evidence you happen upon, and the crime goes unsolved.
Now suppose you were a congressman assigned to investigate the 911 terrorist attacks. As you begin, it becomes apparent that certain members of the US government had conspired to allow the attacks to occur. In fact, it's just lying there, slightly below the surface, right out in the open. You immediately realize you're dealing with the kind of people who would—at the very least, and simply to further a political agenda—look the other way while 3,000 civilians were murdered.
And if that wasn't troubling enough, you then get a 'friendly' visit from someone you've never met before, inquiring into how well your daughter is doing at that overseas university in Dorm Room 305, and if your nephew made it into that prestigious preschool at 735 S. 4th Street in Atlanta.
You might even get a little note in the mail—laced with a powdery substance—just to help you sort things out in your head.
The message is quite clear, and your priorities dictate. When the "investigation" is complete, no governmental complicity in the crime is revealed.
As Henry Kissinger once theorized (as related in Paul Krugman's book "The Great Unraveling"), when a revolutionary power seeks to overthrow an existing and stable system, it begins first by refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of that system, or it's rules. Those living within the system do not realize this, and therefore reject the notion that anyone would, for instance, disobey 'the rules' so blatantly and permit the murder of 3,000 people purely for political gain; even though such an action (or inaction) would hand the conspirators the cover to achieve virtually everything they could have ever dreamed of politically.
Anyone who tries to suggest that they would actually do such a thing, or attempts to find out if they did, is derided as an alarmist and unpatriotic by those within the existing system, and given subtle, or not so subtle, 'encouragement' by the conspirators to 'pocket the wallet.' Thus, the revolutionary power is able to proceed unencumbered, without fear of oversight or challenge.
Could this be where we are in this country right now? Does anything else make sense? [Emphasis added. -v]
What else would justify the silence and/or acquiescence of certain 'in-the-know' members of our society to the flagrant economic, environmental, and societal devastation going on today? Why are the Democrats, the media (those not controlled by the 'revolutionary power'), the intelligence community, and even traditional conservatives, so cowed by this movement? Why won't they investigate, or at least speak up?
It can't simply be that they're worried about losing their jobs, or want a big tax cut that bad. Not with so much at stake. There has to be something more sinister in play here. Something most of us thought could never happen in this country. Not on this scale anyway.
I know this all sounds somewhat cynical and a bit paranoid. That's probably because I am quite cynical and a bit paranoid these days. I've been paying attention—I can't help but be.
But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong.
And if I am right, we are truly in a dreadfully serious situation.
Addendum:
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 (UPI)—Former Sen. Max Cleland, a Democrat, has been nominated by President Bush to serve on the board of the Export-Import Bank. As a result he will have to leave the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The statutes governing the panel, formally known as The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, bar anyone who holds a federal job, like being on the Ex-Im Board.
Cleland has been one of the more outspoken members of the commission, accusing the administration of delaying access to vital documents in an effort to run out the clock on its investigation.
My best wishes to Mr. Cleland, and all of his family members.
Sometimes priorities dictate.
SOURCE
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Truth, lies, and the legend of 9/11
Part 7 of 10 parts: Polishing the legend: A new 9/11 mastermind
By Chaim Kupferberg
December 6, 2003—With the foregoing background in mind, we are now in a
position to chronicle and analyze the final crystallization of the 9/11 Legend.
Continue here, go back to the beginning, whatever; just do it!
"There is nothing new in the world except
the history you do not know." -- Harry S. Truman
The 9/11 "investigation"– sometimes priorities dictate
By Kerry Tomasi
Online Journal Contributing Writer
"My father's no different than any other powerful man.
Like a senator or president."
"You know how naïve you sound? Senators and presidents
don't have men killed".
"Oh. Who's being naïve, Kay?"
—Michael Corleone in "The Godfather"
Suppose you were a detective assigned to investigate a rather brutal murder, one in which the victim had been tortured for several days prior to being killed.
At the scene of the crime you get what appears to be a lucky break—the suspect's wallet seems to have been
'carelessly' dropped. It contains his name, address, and phone number, and is someone you recognize as having connections to an organized crime family.
Problem is, you also find your name and address in there, as well as those of your children, grandchildren, and all of your nieces and nephews.
The message is quite clear, and your priorities dictate. You pocket the wallet, and any other evidence you happen upon, and the crime goes unsolved.
Now suppose you were a congressman assigned to investigate the 911 terrorist attacks. As you begin, it becomes apparent that certain members of the US government had conspired to allow the attacks to occur. In fact, it's just lying there, slightly below the surface, right out in the open. You immediately realize you're dealing with the kind of people who would—at the very least, and simply to further a political agenda—look the other way while 3,000 civilians were murdered.
And if that wasn't troubling enough, you then get a 'friendly' visit from someone you've never met before, inquiring into how well your daughter is doing at that overseas university in Dorm Room 305, and if your nephew made it into that prestigious preschool at 735 S. 4th Street in Atlanta.
You might even get a little note in the mail—laced with a powdery substance—just to help you sort things out in your head.
The message is quite clear, and your priorities dictate. When the "investigation" is complete, no governmental complicity in the crime is revealed.
As Henry Kissinger once theorized (as related in Paul Krugman's book "The Great Unraveling"), when a revolutionary power seeks to overthrow an existing and stable system, it begins first by refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of that system, or it's rules. Those living within the system do not realize this, and therefore reject the notion that anyone would, for instance, disobey 'the rules' so blatantly and permit the murder of 3,000 people purely for political gain; even though such an action (or inaction) would hand the conspirators the cover to achieve virtually everything they could have ever dreamed of politically.
Anyone who tries to suggest that they would actually do such a thing, or attempts to find out if they did, is derided as an alarmist and unpatriotic by those within the existing system, and given subtle, or not so subtle, 'encouragement' by the conspirators to 'pocket the wallet.' Thus, the revolutionary power is able to proceed unencumbered, without fear of oversight or challenge.
Could this be where we are in this country right now? Does anything else make sense? [Emphasis added. -v]
What else would justify the silence and/or acquiescence of certain 'in-the-know' members of our society to the flagrant economic, environmental, and societal devastation going on today? Why are the Democrats, the media (those not controlled by the 'revolutionary power'), the intelligence community, and even traditional conservatives, so cowed by this movement? Why won't they investigate, or at least speak up?
It can't simply be that they're worried about losing their jobs, or want a big tax cut that bad. Not with so much at stake. There has to be something more sinister in play here. Something most of us thought could never happen in this country. Not on this scale anyway.
I know this all sounds somewhat cynical and a bit paranoid. That's probably because I am quite cynical and a bit paranoid these days. I've been paying attention—I can't help but be.
But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong.
And if I am right, we are truly in a dreadfully serious situation.
Addendum:
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 (UPI)—Former Sen. Max Cleland, a Democrat, has been nominated by President Bush to serve on the board of the Export-Import Bank. As a result he will have to leave the commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The statutes governing the panel, formally known as The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, bar anyone who holds a federal job, like being on the Ex-Im Board.
Cleland has been one of the more outspoken members of the commission, accusing the administration of delaying access to vital documents in an effort to run out the clock on its investigation.
My best wishes to Mr. Cleland, and all of his family members.
Sometimes priorities dictate.
SOURCE
Truth, lies, and the legend of 9/11
Part 7 of 10 parts: Polishing the legend: A new 9/11 mastermind
By Chaim Kupferberg
December 6, 2003—With the foregoing background in mind, we are now in a
position to chronicle and analyze the final crystallization of the 9/11 Legend.
Continue here, go back to the beginning, whatever; just do it!
Thursday, December 11, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | Promises made, promises broken . . . so, what else is new?
From DUG:
WALL STREET JOURNAL:
PRESIDENT BACKS OFF PLEDGE TO FUND GLOBAL AIDS FIGHT
The Daily Mis-Leader
By the Staff of MoveOn.org
The Wall Street Journal today reports, "President Bush plans to ask Congress for relatively small funding increases to fight AIDS and poverty in the developing world, stepping back from his highly publicized pledge to spend huge sums to help fight them." The President's decision is just the latest step in a calculated effort to slowly -- but surely -- abandon his own commitment to fully fund the global fight against AIDS. [Emphasis added.]
Just last year in his State of the Union speech, the President said "I ask the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years...to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean. Seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many." At face value, it was an historic request, with Congress and AIDS activists ecstatic about the promise to pump $3 billion a year into combating AIDS throughout the world. U2 Singer Bono, who has been one of the leaders of the AIDS fight, "hailed" the President's speech, saying "If we can turn the president's bold long term vision into near term results we're excited," adding, "any delay in increased funding means more lives lost and an even bigger check in the future."
Unfortunately, as the LA Times reported, just five days later, the President introduced a budget in which he "only sought $2 billion for the year" for AIDS -- 33% less than he had promised. The Senate later voted to increase the President's request, and Bono visited with the President to urge him to keep his promise. Nonetheless, the White House "repeated its strong opposition to any funding beyond $2 billion" while claiming with a straight face that the President was doing all he could. When questioned about the discrepancy, White House spokesman Scott McClellan simply refused to address the issue, saying only "The President has shown unprecedented leadership in the fight against AIDS."
Read the Mis-Lead -->
From DUG:
WALL STREET JOURNAL:
PRESIDENT BACKS OFF PLEDGE TO FUND GLOBAL AIDS FIGHT
The Daily Mis-Leader
By the Staff of MoveOn.org
The Wall Street Journal today reports, "President Bush plans to ask Congress for relatively small funding increases to fight AIDS and poverty in the developing world, stepping back from his highly publicized pledge to spend huge sums to help fight them." The President's decision is just the latest step in a calculated effort to slowly -- but surely -- abandon his own commitment to fully fund the global fight against AIDS. [Emphasis added.]Just last year in his State of the Union speech, the President said "I ask the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years...to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean. Seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many." At face value, it was an historic request, with Congress and AIDS activists ecstatic about the promise to pump $3 billion a year into combating AIDS throughout the world. U2 Singer Bono, who has been one of the leaders of the AIDS fight, "hailed" the President's speech, saying "If we can turn the president's bold long term vision into near term results we're excited," adding, "any delay in increased funding means more lives lost and an even bigger check in the future."
Unfortunately, as the LA Times reported, just five days later, the President introduced a budget in which he "only sought $2 billion for the year" for AIDS -- 33% less than he had promised. The Senate later voted to increase the President's request, and Bono visited with the President to urge him to keep his promise. Nonetheless, the White House "repeated its strong opposition to any funding beyond $2 billion" while claiming with a straight face that the President was doing all he could. When questioned about the discrepancy, White House spokesman Scott McClellan simply refused to address the issue, saying only "The President has shown unprecedented leadership in the fight against AIDS."
Read the Mis-Lead -->
*Ø* Blogmanac | Statue of Iconic Goddess Needs New Home
"CARACAS, Dec 13 [sic] (IPS) - María Lionza, goddess of the second leading religion in Venezuela, has emerged from the depths of the forests and waters that she has protected since the era of the Spanish Conquest, according to her followers, to end up smack in the middle of a bitter cultural debate.
"An estimated two million Venezuelans, of a total population of 24 million, are followers of María Lionza, but most also identify themselves as Roman Catholic, the faith of the vast majority in this country.
"For the past half a century, a cement statue of this goddess, protector of nature has dominated a stretch of grass along the main highway of Caracas. María Lionza is depicted nude and muscular, astride a tapir and lifting a pelvis bone -- symbol of fertility -- to the heavens ..."
Source
Another item via Pagan Prattle, with thanks.
"CARACAS, Dec 13 [sic] (IPS) - María Lionza, goddess of the second leading religion in Venezuela, has emerged from the depths of the forests and waters that she has protected since the era of the Spanish Conquest, according to her followers, to end up smack in the middle of a bitter cultural debate.
"An estimated two million Venezuelans, of a total population of 24 million, are followers of María Lionza, but most also identify themselves as Roman Catholic, the faith of the vast majority in this country.
"For the past half a century, a cement statue of this goddess, protector of nature has dominated a stretch of grass along the main highway of Caracas. María Lionza is depicted nude and muscular, astride a tapir and lifting a pelvis bone -- symbol of fertility -- to the heavens ..."
Source
Another item via Pagan Prattle, with thanks.
I'll be moving house over the next few days, and all the shite that entails. My intention is to blog and do the ezine and Book of Days uninterrupted, as well as keep up with my correspondence. But you know how it is, moving house on a showstring. If I miss a beat, fret nyet, OK? When I get settled I'll post some pix of the river, bush, beach and farms around my new "country estate". Please bear with me while I cart boxes of books in 30-degree (Celsius) heat and 90% humidity LOL
*Ø* Blogmanac | World Human Rights Day
Amnesty International:
"USA: More state killing on Human Rights Day"
"On 10 December 1948, the international community adopted a vision of a world free from state killing and cruelty. What does it say about the USA's present-day attitude to such aspirations that it is set to mark the 55th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by killing two more people in its death chambers?
"Sadly, it is business as usual for US executioners. Last year, President George W. Bush proclaimed 10 December as Human Rights Day in the USA. Seven people were put to death there that week, designated by President Bush as Human Rights Week. This year, four people [are] scheduled for execution between 9 and 11 December.
"These calculated killings are casting a growing shadow on the United States in an increasingly abolitionist world. Today 112 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The USA's political leaders should be promoting abolition in their country, too. Their failure turns to hypocrisy when they trumpet the United States as global human rights champion.
"On 14 January this year, President Bush, whose five-year governorship of Texas saw 152 executions there and whose presidency has seen the first federal executions since 1963, issued a proclamation promising that the United States will 'continue to build a culture that respects life'. On the same day, the USA carried out its first execution of the year, and has conducted 64 more since then ... "
For more information please see: USA: A lethal ideology: More state killing on Human Rights Day as 900th execution looms
For current and background information on the death penalty please visit the dedicated Death Penalty Pages
Amnesty International:
"USA: More state killing on Human Rights Day"
"On 10 December 1948, the international community adopted a vision of a world free from state killing and cruelty. What does it say about the USA's present-day attitude to such aspirations that it is set to mark the 55th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by killing two more people in its death chambers?
"Sadly, it is business as usual for US executioners. Last year, President George W. Bush proclaimed 10 December as Human Rights Day in the USA. Seven people were put to death there that week, designated by President Bush as Human Rights Week. This year, four people [are] scheduled for execution between 9 and 11 December.
"These calculated killings are casting a growing shadow on the United States in an increasingly abolitionist world. Today 112 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The USA's political leaders should be promoting abolition in their country, too. Their failure turns to hypocrisy when they trumpet the United States as global human rights champion.
"On 14 January this year, President Bush, whose five-year governorship of Texas saw 152 executions there and whose presidency has seen the first federal executions since 1963, issued a proclamation promising that the United States will 'continue to build a culture that respects life'. On the same day, the USA carried out its first execution of the year, and has conducted 64 more since then ... "
For more information please see: USA: A lethal ideology: More state killing on Human Rights Day as 900th execution looms
For current and background information on the death penalty please visit the dedicated Death Penalty Pages
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | A Helpful Guide for Surviving an Australian Christmas
I'd recommend adding some hard core sun block and your favourite hangover cure to the list.
Australia: Hark the Herald angels sing — your complete guide to the festive season Downunder.
Advent: One of the oldest traditions of Christmas, in which the older generation get to vent their frustration at the commercialisation of the festive season, as expressed in the Ads. An event which is renewed by the changing nature of Christmas, Advent now involves parents complaining about how presents used to be made from a better grade of plastic.
Bethlehem: The birthplace of Jesus, who brought peace on earth and goodwill to all men. Located in a disputed area between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, just next door to Iraq.
Boxing Day: Traditionally the day after Christmas, both that in which unwanted gifts are rewrapped to be exchanged and the point in the holiday season in which tired and hungover relatives sharing the same house start punching each other.
Bush Christmas: Surprise bombing of Iran.
Christmas Eve: The unhappily married female colleague at the office party who, as you pause to take out photos of the triplets, asks you to pull out a loose thread from her skirt with your teeth, your hands being full and all.
Traditional Carol: Irritating, bossy relative who insists on digging up some obscure Christmas tradition and imposing it on the entire family, i.e.,This year, as they do in Bratislava, we'll hit the small children with badgers and drink cheese through straws to signify the birth of the Saviour.
Charades: Behaviour relatives display towards each other from December 24-26.
Christmas Cracker: The office-bound relative who harbours ambitions to a career in stand-up comedy and helpfully relieves tension by telling jokes for six days straight.
Epiphany: The 12th day after Christmas, traditionally the moment when you feel a sudden and all-encompassing awareness, such as the recollection that your office has a glass wall (see Christmas Eve; everyone else did).
Hanukkah, Chanuakah, C'hanakkah: A trio of Jewish celebrations held on the same day close to Christmas. A Jewish theologian has this to say about it:It's a very important celebration to do with the temple or something, or maybe it's Egypt. Can I call you back?Orthodox and reformed Jews call it the Festival of the Seventh Night, while Liberal Jews term it Christmas.
Manger: Makeshift accommodation lined with straw and smelling of domestic animals. It is now thought that Mary and Joseph were staying in a friend's son's bedroom.
Kwanzaa: A ceremony of African origin, developed by African-Americans as a Christmas equivalent. However, critics accuse it of having none of the depth and real tradition of the Christmas celebration as rooted in Coca-Cola advertising campaigns of the 1920s.
Nativity Scene: Ugly three-way confrontation that occurs in September (see Christmas Eve).
Prince Albert: The man responsible for popularising much of the Christmas activities which we now regard as traditional; also what your 16-year-old daughter announces she got her boyfriend as a present this year.
Santa's Little Helper: The big fat one you toke out back before diving into the second hour of the conversation about how great Pauline Hanson is.
Season's Greetings: Get out of the way ... That's mine ... Get out of the #%@! way ... I wanted the deluxe model ... Get out of the #%@! way you *&##$@! &!ing $$%! ... Go ##@!$@#! %$%!@#*&;! @$#!
The Turkey: Kim Beazley.
Stuffing: Simon Crean.
The Pudding: Sweet, suety mass set alight and then carved up wi ... Yes, you're way ahead of me, it's Beazley again.
Three Wise Men: Traditional Christmas figures, whose title derives from the fact that they spent the entire holiday season away from home. The wise men brought gifts to the infant Jesus, which consisted of:
Gold: Traditional present for an infant in 0th century Judea, although many complained it was a poor substitute for a jewel-encrusted ark of the covenant or the head of Salome (see Advent).
Frankincense: Low-rent Babylonian fragrance, the equivalent of picking up a stick of Brut 33 on Christmas morning and wrapping it in the car.
Myrrh: Actually the third wise man was drunk and this was not a gift, simply the only thing he said all night. Experts believe he may have brought a Black and Decker workbench.
Yuletide Log: That which is passed on December 27, after the ingestion of eight pounds of turkey, stuffing and Kim Beazley.
I'd recommend adding some hard core sun block and your favourite hangover cure to the list.
Wiser men decided that it was time to skip the pudding - The Sydney Morning Herald, 6th December 2003.
*Ø* Blogmanac December 10 | August Spies, Armand Hammer: No relation
1865 August Spies, German-born American labor activist, one of the Haymarket anarchists framed and hanged; victim of anti-anarchist repression.
All the men were found guilty: Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fisher, Louis Lingg and George Engel were given the death penalty; Oscar Neebe, Samuel Fielden and Michael Schwab were sentenced to life imprisonment. On November 10, 1887, Lingg committed suicide by exploding a dynamite cap in his mouth. The following day Parsons, Spies, Fisher and Engel were executed.
The Haymarket Square Bombing, May 4, 1886: A bomb killed seven Chicago, USA, police officers as they attacked demonstrators at a rally protesting police brutality the previous day at McCormick Reaper Works. On June 26, 1893, Neebe, Fielden, and Schwab, not already hanged by the state of Illinois the previous day, were pardoned by Illinois governor, John Peter Altgeld. The show trial and convictions were a travesty, but this effectively ended Altgeld’s political career ...
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
1990 Armand Hammer (May 21, 1898 - December 10, 1990), CEO (Occidental Petroleum), all-round villain, died at 92.
Regrets and recriminations only hurt your soul.
The Armand Hammer philosophy
New York-born Dr Armand Hammer led a most extraordinary life as an American businessman and a confidant of US presidents and Communist dictators. As a youth, he met Lenin and was the first capitalist to gain a business concession in the USSR; during the 1920s he was a courier for the Soviet government to the American Communist Party.
The new Marxist-Leninist regime in the USSR gave Hammer the rights to sell old Czarist paintings in the West, and he amassed a fortune as a young man. Many American and other art galleries and institutions as well as private collectors still own Russian masterpieces that the Communist regime and Armand Hammer shipped out of their rightful homeland.
His autobiography painted him as a philanthropist and worker for peace, though other biographies portrayed him as a liar, a Communist propagandist (and possibly an espionage agent through several US administrations), a bully and a briber. He always seemed to skirt prosecution, perhaps because his fortune and fame protected him, though he did come under investigation for a bribery scandal in Venezuela where he had oil concessions. A man of immense energy, he created the multinational giant Occidental Petroleum after he was 65 years old, and worked till 91 years of age.
In his autobiography he boasted that when he bought the corporation that owned Arm and Hammer Baking Soda Company, he was fulfilling a childhood dream of owning his namesake. He wrote that his father Julius Hammer had named him after a character, Armand Duval, in La Dame aux Camellias by Alexandre Dumas, fils. In fact, according to a biographer, his former press agent of many years, Armand Hammer was named after the arm-and-hammer insignia of the Socialist Labor Party that became, under Julius's leadership, the Communist Party of the USA.
These are just small snippets of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
1865 August Spies, German-born American labor activist, one of the Haymarket anarchists framed and hanged; victim of anti-anarchist repression. All the men were found guilty: Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fisher, Louis Lingg and George Engel were given the death penalty; Oscar Neebe, Samuel Fielden and Michael Schwab were sentenced to life imprisonment. On November 10, 1887, Lingg committed suicide by exploding a dynamite cap in his mouth. The following day Parsons, Spies, Fisher and Engel were executed.
The Haymarket Square Bombing, May 4, 1886: A bomb killed seven Chicago, USA, police officers as they attacked demonstrators at a rally protesting police brutality the previous day at McCormick Reaper Works. On June 26, 1893, Neebe, Fielden, and Schwab, not already hanged by the state of Illinois the previous day, were pardoned by Illinois governor, John Peter Altgeld. The show trial and convictions were a travesty, but this effectively ended Altgeld’s political career ...
1990 Armand Hammer (May 21, 1898 - December 10, 1990), CEO (Occidental Petroleum), all-round villain, died at 92.
Regrets and recriminations only hurt your soul.
The Armand Hammer philosophy
New York-born Dr Armand Hammer led a most extraordinary life as an American businessman and a confidant of US presidents and Communist dictators. As a youth, he met Lenin and was the first capitalist to gain a business concession in the USSR; during the 1920s he was a courier for the Soviet government to the American Communist Party.
The new Marxist-Leninist regime in the USSR gave Hammer the rights to sell old Czarist paintings in the West, and he amassed a fortune as a young man. Many American and other art galleries and institutions as well as private collectors still own Russian masterpieces that the Communist regime and Armand Hammer shipped out of their rightful homeland.
His autobiography painted him as a philanthropist and worker for peace, though other biographies portrayed him as a liar, a Communist propagandist (and possibly an espionage agent through several US administrations), a bully and a briber. He always seemed to skirt prosecution, perhaps because his fortune and fame protected him, though he did come under investigation for a bribery scandal in Venezuela where he had oil concessions. A man of immense energy, he created the multinational giant Occidental Petroleum after he was 65 years old, and worked till 91 years of age.
In his autobiography he boasted that when he bought the corporation that owned Arm and Hammer Baking Soda Company, he was fulfilling a childhood dream of owning his namesake. He wrote that his father Julius Hammer had named him after a character, Armand Duval, in La Dame aux Camellias by Alexandre Dumas, fils. In fact, according to a biographer, his former press agent of many years, Armand Hammer was named after the arm-and-hammer insignia of the Socialist Labor Party that became, under Julius's leadership, the Communist Party of the USA.
These are just small snippets of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Buddhism intersects with Christianity in the Middle Ages
Saints Barlaam and Josaphat are the main characters of a 7th-century Christian legend, a favourite subject of writers in the Middle Ages – but the Catholic Church now acknowledges that they are entirely fictitious.
Although Barlaam and Josaphat are included in the Roman Martyrology (November 27) and in the Greek calendar (August 26), the story is actually a Christianised version of a legend about Siddhartha Buddha and the details, while slightly different, are in broad terms similar in Indian, Ceylonese and Tibetan texts.
I didn't have this story written for the November 27 Book of Days page, but it's there now. I think it's quite fascinating, so I'm not waiting till next November to tell you it's there. I hope you enjoy it.
Saints Barlaam and Josaphat are the main characters of a 7th-century Christian legend, a favourite subject of writers in the Middle Ages – but the Catholic Church now acknowledges that they are entirely fictitious. Although Barlaam and Josaphat are included in the Roman Martyrology (November 27) and in the Greek calendar (August 26), the story is actually a Christianised version of a legend about Siddhartha Buddha and the details, while slightly different, are in broad terms similar in Indian, Ceylonese and Tibetan texts.
I didn't have this story written for the November 27 Book of Days page, but it's there now. I think it's quite fascinating, so I'm not waiting till next November to tell you it's there. I hope you enjoy it.
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 9 | Virgin Mary or Aztec goddess?
Feast Day of St Juan Diego, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the goddess Tonantzin
From Mexico comes a quaint story involving a goddess and the Roman Catholic Church’s holiest lady, Mary, mother of Jesus. On December 9, 1531, a 57-year-old Mexican Indian farmer by the name of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an Aztec who had converted to Christianity, was minding his own business as he walked to early morning Mass, passing by the hill known as Tepeyac, between his village and Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City).
Juan Diego was born in 1474 in the calpulli or ward of Tlayacac in Cuauhtitlan, which was established in 1168 by Nahua tribesmen and conquered by the Aztec lord Axayacatl in 1467, and was located 20 kilometres (14 miles) north of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City).
Tepeyac had for centuries been of significance to the people of what is now called Mexico – the Aztecs and their descendants – because it was the site of a shrine to the goddess Tonantzin. Tonantzin (pictured), associated with the snake goddess Coatlique (perhaps cognate with the Judaeo-Christian Eve), was worshipped in the Winter Solstice celebrations at around this time of year.
Tonantzin wore a white robe covered in feathers and seashells, which adorned her as the goddess promenaded among the worshippers and was ceremonially killed in a scene reminiscent of the apparent death of the sun of winter. The goddess was also known by the name of Ilamatecuhtli (‘a noble old woman’) and Cozcamiauh (‘a necklace of maize flowers’).
As Juan Diego walked to Mass (some sources say he was walking to the shrine of the goddess), he heard celestial music and the sound of beating wings. Presently, a maiden appeared to him, dressed in the attire of an Aztec princess, a lovely apparition who, speaking to him in his native Nahuatl language, introduced herself to the startled peasant as Maria, the Mother of God ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Feast Day of St Juan Diego, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the goddess TonantzinFrom Mexico comes a quaint story involving a goddess and the Roman Catholic Church’s holiest lady, Mary, mother of Jesus. On December 9, 1531, a 57-year-old Mexican Indian farmer by the name of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an Aztec who had converted to Christianity, was minding his own business as he walked to early morning Mass, passing by the hill known as Tepeyac, between his village and Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City).
Juan Diego was born in 1474 in the calpulli or ward of Tlayacac in Cuauhtitlan, which was established in 1168 by Nahua tribesmen and conquered by the Aztec lord Axayacatl in 1467, and was located 20 kilometres (14 miles) north of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City).
Tepeyac had for centuries been of significance to the people of what is now called Mexico – the Aztecs and their descendants – because it was the site of a shrine to the goddess Tonantzin. Tonantzin (pictured), associated with the snake goddess Coatlique (perhaps cognate with the Judaeo-Christian Eve), was worshipped in the Winter Solstice celebrations at around this time of year.
Tonantzin wore a white robe covered in feathers and seashells, which adorned her as the goddess promenaded among the worshippers and was ceremonially killed in a scene reminiscent of the apparent death of the sun of winter. The goddess was also known by the name of Ilamatecuhtli (‘a noble old woman’) and Cozcamiauh (‘a necklace of maize flowers’).
As Juan Diego walked to Mass (some sources say he was walking to the shrine of the goddess), he heard celestial music and the sound of beating wings. Presently, a maiden appeared to him, dressed in the attire of an Aztec princess, a lovely apparition who, speaking to him in his native Nahuatl language, introduced herself to the startled peasant as Maria, the Mother of God ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | If you watch no other TV this year ... watch this
"A compelling documentary, almost haunting at times, which takes one of the biggest political bones on the current global landscape (broadly, the war on terrorism and, specifically, its impact on Afghanistan) and chews it to pieces. "While the public relations machinery of Western governments recycles positive imagery as a way of allaying fears about the conflicts which have engulfed the world, journalist John Pilger reports from the front line of what appears to be a new and frightening cultural and political conflict.
"Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, is a city reduced to rubble. Much of the damage, reports Pilger, has been done not by the Taliban but by the US-backed warlords who now run the country. The government functions on less than $US300 million and there is no budget for reconstruction.
"Of the millions in aid which poured into the country, only a fraction of it has been spent rebuilding the country and - astonishingly - Pilger claims a large slice of it has been spent on military rebuilding.
"Deposing the Taliban may have brought music, education and some freedom for women back to Afghanistan, but you have to wonder if there has been any real victory in a country which, in parts, still subjects women, caught outdoors with an unrelated man, to a 'chastity' check.
"Coupled with the re-establishment of the opium industry and the fact that Afghanistan's US-backed president never leaves his office without his 42 US Special Forces bodyguards, you have to ask just who is running the country?
"From there, the program broadens into an examination of the 'truth and lies' in the war against terrorism, including the training of terrorists and the funding of terrorism.
"The program is astonishing. The information it presents is as disturbing as it is compelling and, undoubtedly, some of its claims will sound long and loud after this hour ends."
Source
You won't want to miss John Pilger's interviews with some top American State Department and military officials who seem to have no idea of what's happening in the world. Then there is a former top CIA official, a friend of George Bush Sr, who has fascinating insights to what he said were always called "The Crazies" ... people such as Perl and Wolfowitz. When Pilger asks him if he agrees with Norman Mailer that the USA has entered a pre-fascist era, he says "I hope so". Because he thinks America is already in a fascist era. It's chilling, as is the whole documentary by Australia's best-known doco journalist.
You can watch it here for free online with Real Media, thanks to the good folks at Informationclearinghouse.info Please view it and spread the word.
Monday, December 08, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 8 | Festival of Neith, ancient Egypt
In Egyptian mythology, Neith was a psychopomp, the beautiful but fierce predynastic goddess of war and weaving, was the goddess of the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the patron goddess of Zau (Sau, Sai, Sais) in the Delta whose temple was at Sais on the Nile.
Ancient tradition held that the city of Sais was founded by the Greeks before the flood, and Greeks were kindly treated when in this city. As the mother of Ra, the Egyptians believed her to be connected with the god of the watery primeval void, Nun. Shrouds worn by the mummified deceased were said to be gifts from Neith. She was often portrayed holding a set of bow and arrows, occasionally a harpoon.
She was linked to with a number of goddesses including Nephthys, Isis, Bast, Wadjet, Nekhbet, Mut, Anouke and Sekhmet. As a cow, she was linked to both Nut and Hathor. She was also linked to Tatet, the goddess who dressed the dead, and was thus linked to preservation of the dead. Her son, other than the sun god Ra, was believed to be Sobek, the crocodile god ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there. There's also plenty on John Lennon, who was killed on this day in 1980.
In Egyptian mythology, Neith was a psychopomp, the beautiful but fierce predynastic goddess of war and weaving, was the goddess of the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the patron goddess of Zau (Sau, Sai, Sais) in the Delta whose temple was at Sais on the Nile. Ancient tradition held that the city of Sais was founded by the Greeks before the flood, and Greeks were kindly treated when in this city. As the mother of Ra, the Egyptians believed her to be connected with the god of the watery primeval void, Nun. Shrouds worn by the mummified deceased were said to be gifts from Neith. She was often portrayed holding a set of bow and arrows, occasionally a harpoon.
She was linked to with a number of goddesses including Nephthys, Isis, Bast, Wadjet, Nekhbet, Mut, Anouke and Sekhmet. As a cow, she was linked to both Nut and Hathor. She was also linked to Tatet, the goddess who dressed the dead, and was thus linked to preservation of the dead. Her son, other than the sun god Ra, was believed to be Sobek, the crocodile god ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there. There's also plenty on John Lennon, who was killed on this day in 1980.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Bhopal activists hacked?
http://www.bhopal-justice.com/ was a link in my December 3 ezine story (also posted at the Book of Days for Dec. 3) about Bhopal. A reader has informed me that the link sent him to what he referred to as an "adult site". I haven't bothered to closely check out the link I was sent to when I hit http://www.bhopal-justice.com/, but it sure looks like the Bhopal justice people have been hacked by someone or other. Thank you to the reader, whose name I've forgotten unfortunately, who alerted me.
Announcing Corrigenda
From today, I have placed a page at the Scriptorium called Corrigenda where I have alerted readers to the bad links. At Corrigenda I will make notifications of annoying things like that, and any errors that I have found and corrected, or important amendments made, following publication in Wilson's Almanac ezine or anywhere else. Corrigenda also has a Tagboard like the one at the top-right of this page. There, all readers are welcome to make comments and advise of errors and so on. That's for the ezine and the Scriptorium website, of course. If you want to make comments on the Blogmanac, there are plenty of opportunities on this page.
The reason for Corrigenda is that, while I can correct things on this blog, I can't amend anything kept in the Yahoo! Groups archive of the ezine. And, less importantly, search engines only index every few weeks, so there might be things showing on, say, Google, that are weeks old and contain incorrect info. It's a fine point, but I think this is worth doing. I don't want people quoting the Almanac's mistakes. So please drop into Corrigenda, say "g'day" and let me know of any errors or suggestions. You're very welcome to tell me when I'm wrong.
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
The item in Wilson's Almanac ezine, by the way, said this on December 3:
Dec 3, 1984 In Bhopal, India, more than 20,000 people were killed (over time) and hundreds of thousands injured when the Union Carbide factory leaked 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate. The US Government later blocked extradition of Union Carbide officials facing criminal prosecution in India. UC paid about $500 compensation for each victim, while denying responsibility for the accident. Greenpeace and other activists have been arrested trying to clean up the site.
http://www.bhopal-justice.com/ was a link in my December 3 ezine story (also posted at the Book of Days for Dec. 3) about Bhopal. A reader has informed me that the link sent him to what he referred to as an "adult site". I haven't bothered to closely check out the link I was sent to when I hit http://www.bhopal-justice.com/, but it sure looks like the Bhopal justice people have been hacked by someone or other. Thank you to the reader, whose name I've forgotten unfortunately, who alerted me.
Announcing Corrigenda
From today, I have placed a page at the Scriptorium called Corrigenda where I have alerted readers to the bad links. At Corrigenda I will make notifications of annoying things like that, and any errors that I have found and corrected, or important amendments made, following publication in Wilson's Almanac ezine or anywhere else. Corrigenda also has a Tagboard like the one at the top-right of this page. There, all readers are welcome to make comments and advise of errors and so on. That's for the ezine and the Scriptorium website, of course. If you want to make comments on the Blogmanac, there are plenty of opportunities on this page.The reason for Corrigenda is that, while I can correct things on this blog, I can't amend anything kept in the Yahoo! Groups archive of the ezine. And, less importantly, search engines only index every few weeks, so there might be things showing on, say, Google, that are weeks old and contain incorrect info. It's a fine point, but I think this is worth doing. I don't want people quoting the Almanac's mistakes. So please drop into Corrigenda, say "g'day" and let me know of any errors or suggestions. You're very welcome to tell me when I'm wrong.
The item in Wilson's Almanac ezine, by the way, said this on December 3:
Dec 3, 1984 In Bhopal, India, more than 20,000 people were killed (over time) and hundreds of thousands injured when the Union Carbide factory leaked 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate. The US Government later blocked extradition of Union Carbide officials facing criminal prosecution in India. UC paid about $500 compensation for each victim, while denying responsibility for the accident. Greenpeace and other activists have been arrested trying to clean up the site.
Sunday, December 07, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 7, 1985 | Bye bye Graves
1985 Robert Graves (July 24, 1895 - December 7, 1985), English poet, novelist (I, Claudius; IV Claudius; Claudius the God), mythographer, critic and historian, died in Deya, Majorca, Spain. Graves wrote more than 140 works.
In 1946 Graves re-established a home in Deya, Majorca, and he married Beryl Hodge in 1950 and went on to a series of affairs and lesser amours with his 'muses'. In 1948 he published the controversial The White Goddess in which he explored and expounded upon a central theme: that "true poetry" or "pure poetry" has inextricable links with the ancient cult-ritual of the White Goddess and of her Son and deals with goddess worship as the prototypical religion. In 1961 he became Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, a post he held until 1966.
Just two snippets from today in the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days ... and here's another:
Happy birthday, Noam!
Born on this day in 1928: Noam Chomsky, linguist, anarchist, social critic, activist. Critic in the manner of the great IF Stone – and just as ignored and vilified by the establishment.
Chomsky learned a lot about linguistics from his father, William. Among his many accomplishments Chomsky is most famous for his work on generative grammar, which he developed from his interest in modern logic and mathematical foundations ...
1985 Robert Graves (July 24, 1895 - December 7, 1985), English poet, novelist (I, Claudius; IV Claudius; Claudius the God), mythographer, critic and historian, died in Deya, Majorca, Spain. Graves wrote more than 140 works. In 1946 Graves re-established a home in Deya, Majorca, and he married Beryl Hodge in 1950 and went on to a series of affairs and lesser amours with his 'muses'. In 1948 he published the controversial The White Goddess in which he explored and expounded upon a central theme: that "true poetry" or "pure poetry" has inextricable links with the ancient cult-ritual of the White Goddess and of her Son and deals with goddess worship as the prototypical religion. In 1961 he became Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, a post he held until 1966.
Just two snippets from today in the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days ... and here's another:
Happy birthday, Noam!
Born on this day in 1928: Noam Chomsky, linguist, anarchist, social critic, activist. Critic in the manner of the great IF Stone – and just as ignored and vilified by the establishment.
Chomsky learned a lot about linguistics from his father, William. Among his many accomplishments Chomsky is most famous for his work on generative grammar, which he developed from his interest in modern logic and mathematical foundations ...
*Ø* Blogmanac December 7 | St Columba and the first sighting of Nessie
Columba is the source of the first known reference to the Loch Ness Monster. According to the story, in 565 he came across a group of Picts who were burying a man killed by the monster, and brought the man back to life. In another version, he is said to have saved the man while the man was being attacked, driving away the monster with the sign of the cross ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Columba is the source of the first known reference to the Loch Ness Monster. According to the story, in 565 he came across a group of Picts who were burying a man killed by the monster, and brought the man back to life. In another version, he is said to have saved the man while the man was being attacked, driving away the monster with the sign of the cross ...This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | If you haven't already, meet Barry Crimmins
From A-Changin' Times (ACT):
Yippee! Some more good news!!! Our friend, Barry Crimmins, whose quips often fill this space [Words and Works at ACT -v], is a writer and commentator for the
new liberal radio network out of Boston. They (or we) couldn't ask for a better guy--the format is "comedy and content" and Barry is the cream of the crop of the genre. I can't wait to hear his words and works on a daily basis. Way to go, Barry!
This message from Barry:
Fellow Rabble,
Did you see W in the bulletproof box at the Pageant of Peace? Some jokes come pre-written.
Two major developments to report:
My upcoming book from Seven Stories Press has a title.
"Never Shake Hands With A War Criminal" should be out in time to help make the case against electing Bush (just this once) next fall.
The other development can be found in the Dean Johnson story from today's Boston Herald. I hope these two items help to explain why I've been less prolific than usual in recent weeks. A big year is headed our way and the required preparations are ongoing and extensive.
With warm wishes from a cold mountaintop,
Barry Crimmins
More from Barry:
W's Proudest Planks
Barry summarizes George W. Bush's strong suits in this essay originally read (available in audio version or text version)on the Christmas Comedy Coup Players 9/4/03 audio assault on WBAI (99.5 FM -- Pacifica in NYC). Judging by Barry's remarks, the Committee to Reappoint the President (CRAP) will have to fix a lot more than the Florida vote to keep their boy in office.
Want more?
More QUIPS
To join the CrimQuips mailing list please click: Crimquips homepage on Riseup
From A-Changin' Times (ACT):
Yippee! Some more good news!!! Our friend, Barry Crimmins, whose quips often fill this space [Words and Works at ACT -v], is a writer and commentator for the new liberal radio network out of Boston. They (or we) couldn't ask for a better guy--the format is "comedy and content" and Barry is the cream of the crop of the genre. I can't wait to hear his words and works on a daily basis. Way to go, Barry!
This message from Barry:
Fellow Rabble,
Did you see W in the bulletproof box at the Pageant of Peace? Some jokes come pre-written.
Two major developments to report:
My upcoming book from Seven Stories Press has a title.
"Never Shake Hands With A War Criminal" should be out in time to help make the case against electing Bush (just this once) next fall.
The other development can be found in the Dean Johnson story from today's Boston Herald. I hope these two items help to explain why I've been less prolific than usual in recent weeks. A big year is headed our way and the required preparations are ongoing and extensive.
With warm wishes from a cold mountaintop,
Barry Crimmins
More from Barry:
W's Proudest Planks
Barry summarizes George W. Bush's strong suits in this essay originally read (available in audio version or text version)on the Christmas Comedy Coup Players 9/4/03 audio assault on WBAI (99.5 FM -- Pacifica in NYC). Judging by Barry's remarks, the Committee to Reappoint the President (CRAP) will have to fix a lot more than the Florida vote to keep their boy in office.
Want more?
More QUIPS
To join the CrimQuips mailing list please click: Crimquips homepage on Riseup
Saturday, December 06, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 6 | Will the real Santa Claus please stand up?
Saint Nicholas's Day: The origins and folklore of the Santa Claus myth
Nicholas (Nikolaus) (c. 270 - 345/352) became a Bishop of Myra in Lycia, Asia Minor when quite young. From this fact arose the old European tradition of Boy Bishops, who reigned from December 6 to 28, in a parody of church officials. More of that later.
Among Christians, he is also known as the "Wonderworker". Several acts of kindness and miracles are attributed to him ...
Saint Nikolaus or St Nicholas is celebrated in several Western European countries. His reputation for gift giving comes partly from a story of three young women who were too poor to afford a dowry for their marriages: as each reached a marriagable age, Nicholas surreptitiously threw a bag of gold into the house at night. Some versions of the legend say that the girls' father, trying to discover their benefactor, kept watch on the third occasion, but Nicholas dropped the third bag down the chimney instead. For his helping the poor, St. Nicholas is the patron saint of pawnbrokers; the three gold balls traditionally hung outside a pawnshop are symbolic of the three sacks of gold.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Saint Nicholas's Day: The origins and folklore of the Santa Claus mythNicholas (Nikolaus) (c. 270 - 345/352) became a Bishop of Myra in Lycia, Asia Minor when quite young. From this fact arose the old European tradition of Boy Bishops, who reigned from December 6 to 28, in a parody of church officials. More of that later.
Among Christians, he is also known as the "Wonderworker". Several acts of kindness and miracles are attributed to him ...
Saint Nikolaus or St Nicholas is celebrated in several Western European countries. His reputation for gift giving comes partly from a story of three young women who were too poor to afford a dowry for their marriages: as each reached a marriagable age, Nicholas surreptitiously threw a bag of gold into the house at night. Some versions of the legend say that the girls' father, trying to discover their benefactor, kept watch on the third occasion, but Nicholas dropped the third bag down the chimney instead. For his helping the poor, St. Nicholas is the patron saint of pawnbrokers; the three gold balls traditionally hung outside a pawnshop are symbolic of the three sacks of gold.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | 'Now I've Heard Everything' Dep't
Consumerism's tentacles keep reaching further into the lives of Westerners. Now, clubs exist for 'mall walkers' – people who not only love to walk, they love to do it in shopping centres. Mmmm, now there's a great way to spend an idle hour!
If you feel like taking some exercise and some window shopping simultaneously, this site will guide you, and Tips for Mall Walkers might come in handy. Need therapy? Here's a great link.
Consumerism's tentacles keep reaching further into the lives of Westerners. Now, clubs exist for 'mall walkers' – people who not only love to walk, they love to do it in shopping centres. Mmmm, now there's a great way to spend an idle hour!If you feel like taking some exercise and some window shopping simultaneously, this site will guide you, and Tips for Mall Walkers might come in handy. Need therapy? Here's a great link.
Friday, December 05, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 5 | Happy Faunalia
Festival of Faunalia, Roman Empire, celebrated in honor of Faunus, the Roman version of the Greek god Phaunos, or Pan.
The Faunalia was commemorated in rural areas, as a celebration of Nature and animals. The people celebrated this festival with a dance performed in triple measure, as danced by the priests of Salii, the priests of Mars. Faunus was the son of Picus, whom Circe turned into a woodpecker for spurning her love, and grandson of Cronus (Saturn). On his tomb in Crete, according to Robert Graves (The Greek Myths, 1955), was the epitaph, “Here lies the woodpecker who was also Zeus”. Both Pan, the Greek god of the wild woods, and Hermes were also associated with this bird, and all three are rain-making shepherd gods, says Graves. Faunus was worshipped as the god of fields and shepherds, and as a god of prophecy.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Festival of Faunalia, Roman Empire, celebrated in honor of Faunus, the Roman version of the Greek god Phaunos, or Pan. The Faunalia was commemorated in rural areas, as a celebration of Nature and animals. The people celebrated this festival with a dance performed in triple measure, as danced by the priests of Salii, the priests of Mars. Faunus was the son of Picus, whom Circe turned into a woodpecker for spurning her love, and grandson of Cronus (Saturn). On his tomb in Crete, according to Robert Graves (The Greek Myths, 1955), was the epitaph, “Here lies the woodpecker who was also Zeus”. Both Pan, the Greek god of the wild woods, and Hermes were also associated with this bird, and all three are rain-making shepherd gods, says Graves. Faunus was worshipped as the god of fields and shepherds, and as a god of prophecy.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Attention, America!
From DUG:
The IRS Claims New Patriot Act Type Powers
to Punish Political Dissenters
By Robert R. Raymond
In a precendent-setting case, the IRS wielded new power
to punish the political speech of those who "espouse views"
the government considers "inconsistent" with government-
held beliefs.
In a hearing originally closed to the public in a secret tribunal on a military island, but moved to a public location after protests from the press and the public, the IRS wants to wield this power against a former IRS whistleblower, who was forced to resign upon his discovery of fraud in the agency.
After monitoring and taping the whistleblower's appearances on Sixty Minutes, talk radio shows, and political publications where he rebroadcast his findings of IRS fraud, the IRS initiated this inquisition against their former whistleblower. [At right: One very fear-filled fear mongerer. -v]
This new power may find new political targets soon enough.
The IRS, through the small office of "Director of Practice," claims the authority to wield carte blanche authority over all the other powers of government -- the authority to monitor, surveil, and eavesdrop on political dissenters, the authority to pry into the private financial records of banks, businesses, and taxpayers, the authority to conduct secret investigations under a criminal grand jury, and the authority to censure political dissenters by branding on them a badge of infamy and stripping them of governmentally-protected licenses.
In short, under the guise of a "practice" investigation, the IRS claims the right to wield all intrusive and invasive powers of government available.
A "license" to practice before the IRS -- even for people who have never requested such a license or actually practiced before the IRS, but are given one as a matter of law if they are accountants -- "licenses" the IRS to conduct private audits without notice to the taxpayer, confer with criminal prosecutors without disclosure, and bring special
"disbarment" proceedings against disfavored dissenters, even if the alleged "disreputable" conduct has nothing to do with any "practice" before the IRS.
The IRS now claims it can use these so-called "practice" investigations of anyone who Congress licenses to practice before the IRS -- regardless of whether they actually practice before the IRS -- to surveil the public appearances of dissenters, eavesdrop on the political conversations of dissenters, benefit from secret grand jury investigations, hold secret conferences with the criminal investigators, surreptiously tap the private database of taxpayer information, including taxpayers who merely have some financial "connection" to the accused, audit the political dissenter's personal financial records, and use all this information against the dissenter in the "practice" proceeding.
Under the guise of a "practice" investigation, the IRS can ignore all the normal procedural protections against an illicit audit while it conducts such an audit.
Simultaneously, the IRS can ignore all the legal protections afforded a person accused of a crime while conferencing with the people conducting a criminal investigation.
Indeed, the IRS can even ignore the sunshine laws, as the records of such "practice investigation" are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, as are grand jury proceedings.
The IRS claims it can exercise this authority in a secret proceeding without allowing a person the opportunity to cure any alleged mistakes, the opportunity to prepare a defense by knowing the exact facts they are accused of, without any opportunity for discovery, without any opportunity to call witnesses necessary for their defense, without any opportunity to cross examine their accusers, without any opportunity to testify at their own hearing about the merits of their position, without being forced to testify against themselves without such an assertion being held against them, and without even an opportunity for a hearing on the evidence.
This power of this little office with a Napoleonic vision goes even beyond the Patriot Act type authority and stories of FBI monitoring of war protestors.
Too Hoover-ish to be true in modern America?
Just read the case of the IRS against Joe Banister scheduled for a "hearing" -- a hearing where the IRS prohibited Banister from introducing any witnesses or presenting any evidence as to his defenses, and even discussing the sincerity, the truth or the "reasonableness" of his positions -- on December 1 in the city by the bay, in the Tax Court chambers of the federal courthouse in San Francisco.
History is being made.
Robert R. Raymond is the past Independent candidate for the U.S House of Representatives for Wisconsin's 5th District in the 2002 elections.
Please forward to any interested parties.
SOURCE
Joe Banister's web page
Sierra Times Homepage
From DUG:
The IRS Claims New Patriot Act Type Powers
to Punish Political Dissenters
By Robert R. Raymond
In a precendent-setting case, the IRS wielded new power
to punish the political speech of those who "espouse views"
the government considers "inconsistent" with government-
held beliefs.
In a hearing originally closed to the public in a secret tribunal on a military island, but moved to a public location after protests from the press and the public, the IRS wants to wield this power against a former IRS whistleblower, who was forced to resign upon his discovery of fraud in the agency. After monitoring and taping the whistleblower's appearances on Sixty Minutes, talk radio shows, and political publications where he rebroadcast his findings of IRS fraud, the IRS initiated this inquisition against their former whistleblower. [At right: One very fear-filled fear mongerer. -v]
This new power may find new political targets soon enough.
The IRS, through the small office of "Director of Practice," claims the authority to wield carte blanche authority over all the other powers of government -- the authority to monitor, surveil, and eavesdrop on political dissenters, the authority to pry into the private financial records of banks, businesses, and taxpayers, the authority to conduct secret investigations under a criminal grand jury, and the authority to censure political dissenters by branding on them a badge of infamy and stripping them of governmentally-protected licenses.
In short, under the guise of a "practice" investigation, the IRS claims the right to wield all intrusive and invasive powers of government available.
A "license" to practice before the IRS -- even for people who have never requested such a license or actually practiced before the IRS, but are given one as a matter of law if they are accountants -- "licenses" the IRS to conduct private audits without notice to the taxpayer, confer with criminal prosecutors without disclosure, and bring special
"disbarment" proceedings against disfavored dissenters, even if the alleged "disreputable" conduct has nothing to do with any "practice" before the IRS.
The IRS now claims it can use these so-called "practice" investigations of anyone who Congress licenses to practice before the IRS -- regardless of whether they actually practice before the IRS -- to surveil the public appearances of dissenters, eavesdrop on the political conversations of dissenters, benefit from secret grand jury investigations, hold secret conferences with the criminal investigators, surreptiously tap the private database of taxpayer information, including taxpayers who merely have some financial "connection" to the accused, audit the political dissenter's personal financial records, and use all this information against the dissenter in the "practice" proceeding.
Under the guise of a "practice" investigation, the IRS can ignore all the normal procedural protections against an illicit audit while it conducts such an audit.
Simultaneously, the IRS can ignore all the legal protections afforded a person accused of a crime while conferencing with the people conducting a criminal investigation.
Indeed, the IRS can even ignore the sunshine laws, as the records of such "practice investigation" are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, as are grand jury proceedings.
The IRS claims it can exercise this authority in a secret proceeding without allowing a person the opportunity to cure any alleged mistakes, the opportunity to prepare a defense by knowing the exact facts they are accused of, without any opportunity for discovery, without any opportunity to call witnesses necessary for their defense, without any opportunity to cross examine their accusers, without any opportunity to testify at their own hearing about the merits of their position, without being forced to testify against themselves without such an assertion being held against them, and without even an opportunity for a hearing on the evidence.
This power of this little office with a Napoleonic vision goes even beyond the Patriot Act type authority and stories of FBI monitoring of war protestors.
Too Hoover-ish to be true in modern America?
Just read the case of the IRS against Joe Banister scheduled for a "hearing" -- a hearing where the IRS prohibited Banister from introducing any witnesses or presenting any evidence as to his defenses, and even discussing the sincerity, the truth or the "reasonableness" of his positions -- on December 1 in the city by the bay, in the Tax Court chambers of the federal courthouse in San Francisco.
History is being made.
Robert R. Raymond is the past Independent candidate for the U.S House of Representatives for Wisconsin's 5th District in the 2002 elections.
Please forward to any interested parties.
SOURCE
Joe Banister's web page
Sierra Times Homepage
*Ø* Blogmanac | So funny I forgot to laugh!
From Colleen:
As Lily Tomlin's little girl character used to say,
"And that's the twoofthphbbbttth!!!"
The Grownups Have Left the Building
By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
December 2, 2003
AUSTIN, Texas – Call them – irresponsible ... Call them – unreliable ... Throw in – undependable, too ... Yes, it's undeniably true – the Congress of the United States makes Bart Simpson look like Averell Harriman.
The grownups have left the building. Good grief, what a horror show.
Just when you thought you'd seen the worst of the scams . . . .
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Who Tried To Bribe Rep. Smith?
Stop Protecting Him, Congressman.
By Timothy Noah, Slate
Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., says that sometime late Nov. 21 or early in the morning Nov. 22, somebody on the House floor threatened to redirect campaign funds away from his son Brad, who is running to succeed him, if he didn't support the Medicare prescription bill. This according to the Associated Press. Robert Novak further reports,
On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, [Rep.] Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.
Where are the RICOH laws when we need 'em?
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Colorado Justices Overturn Voter Districts
By the Associated Press
Redistricting case could influence 2004 national elections
In a decision that could have national implications, the Colorado Supreme Court threw out the state's new congressional districts Monday because the GOP-led Legislature redrew the maps in violation of the constitution. The General Assembly is required to redraw the maps only after each census and before the ensuing general election -- not at any other time, the court said in a closely watched decision. A similar court battle is being waged in Texas. [Emphasis added.]
Under the ruling, Colorado's seven congressional districts revert to boundaries drawn up by a Denver judge last year after lawmakers failed to agree.
The same power grab in my state gives Repugs seven seats!
From Colleen:As Lily Tomlin's little girl character used to say,
"And that's the twoofthphbbbttth!!!"
The Grownups Have Left the Building
By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
December 2, 2003
AUSTIN, Texas – Call them – irresponsible ... Call them – unreliable ... Throw in – undependable, too ... Yes, it's undeniably true – the Congress of the United States makes Bart Simpson look like Averell Harriman.
The grownups have left the building. Good grief, what a horror show.
Just when you thought you'd seen the worst of the scams . . . .
Who Tried To Bribe Rep. Smith?
Stop Protecting Him, Congressman.
By Timothy Noah, Slate
Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., says that sometime late Nov. 21 or early in the morning Nov. 22, somebody on the House floor threatened to redirect campaign funds away from his son Brad, who is running to succeed him, if he didn't support the Medicare prescription bill. This according to the Associated Press. Robert Novak further reports,
On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, [Rep.] Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.
Where are the RICOH laws when we need 'em?
Colorado Justices Overturn Voter Districts
By the Associated Press
Redistricting case could influence 2004 national elections
In a decision that could have national implications, the Colorado Supreme Court threw out the state's new congressional districts Monday because the GOP-led Legislature redrew the maps in violation of the constitution. The General Assembly is required to redraw the maps only after each census and before the ensuing general election -- not at any other time, the court said in a closely watched decision. A similar court battle is being waged in Texas. [Emphasis added.]
Under the ruling, Colorado's seven congressional districts revert to boundaries drawn up by a Denver judge last year after lawmakers failed to agree.
The same power grab in my state gives Repugs seven seats!
Thursday, December 04, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac December 4 | Feast day of Saint Barbara
St Barbara was a beautiful maiden from Asia Minor; her father Dioscorus imprisoned her in a high tower, where she was tutored by philosophers, orators and poets, and Origen and Valentinian converted her to Christianity. In folklore, her imprisonment has led to her association with towers, then the construction and maintenance of them, then to their military uses.
Dioscorus brought many suitors of his choosing but by then Barbara had lost all interest in marriage. Once, when she refused one of his unfair requests, he grew enraged and she turned a flock of sheep into a plague of locusts.
During many years in the tower, Barbara obtained her food and laundry by way of a basket on a rope. One day, a stranger put a book in the basket from which Barbara learned about the new religion. Barbara so longed to know more about Christianity that she grew ill and her father sent for a doctor but the doctor turned out to be, in fact, a priest, and Barbara was baptised ...
St Barbara’s weather
In Germany on St Barbara’s Day, it is the custom to cut Barbara twigs from fruit or nut trees and to place them in a warm place. Weather prophecies are made depending on the date and extent of the blossoms that come. Every member of the family puts his or her Barbara twig into water so that it will have blossoms on Christmas day. The child whose branch has the most blossoms on Christmas is supposed to be Mary's favourite. The vase or glass containing the St Barbara twigs may be placed on the family altar.
The hoped for date of blooming is Christmas, according to a tenth century legend that said that all the trees blossomed and bore fruit on the day Jesus was born.
St Barbara’s Day, Lebanon
Christmas season is said to begin with the feast day of Barbara, and wheat is today’s symbol. A special dish of kahmie is served. The head of the household will tell the legend of St Barbara as the wheat is being prepared. Blackburn and Holford-Strevens (Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press, 1999) tell us that in southern France, especially in Provence, wheat grains are soaked in water, placed in dishes and allowed to germinate from this day. The wheat is carefully tended, because if it grows quickly, it is an omen that crops will prosper in the coming year. Also on this day, cherry branches are brought into the house and placed in water, prognosticating good luck in the coming year if they bloom by Yule (December’s Winter Solstice).
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Barbara, Babel, barbarians and confusion
In the symbolism of Barbara, we have lightning or fire, and a tower side by side. From the very earliest printed Tarot cards, one card shows a tower struck by lightning, with human beings falling from it. Its title is ‘The Tower’, although early on it was often called ‘Fire’, ‘Lightning’, ‘Thunderbolt’ or ‘The House of the Devil’, or sometimes ‘Hell’.
Psychologist Carl Jung attached importance to the Tarot, regarding its cards as representing archetypes, fundamental types of person or situation embedded in the subconscious of all human beings. The similarity of the Barbara legend and the symbolism of The Tower card (lightning juxtaposed with a tower) is striking and seems to indicate more than fortuitous association. Among numerous interpretations, The Tower stands for catastrophic and irreversible change, and the whole scene, including the falling bodies, suggests confusion and even panic.
Twin Towers
If the tower, fire from the sky, and falling people are indeed strong archetypes in the collective unconscious, little wonder it is that the September 11, 2001 tragedy at the Twin Towers in New York resonated so deeply with people around the world. Many people have wondered why Americans reacted so strongly to that event (far larger numbers of people are dying around the world each day in situations as dramatic and tragic), and it might be that the answer to this puzzle is not simply that Americans value the lives of Americans more than those of other peoples (often seen as ‘barbarians’), and it is possible that we might look further than the cynical uses to which ‘America’s Reichstag Fire’ was put by the US Administration and media. The ‘tower-fire-people falling’ image’s power might go much deeper than this.
The card’s fire or lightning shooting down from the heavens, indicates divine punishment, bringing to mind thoughts of the Tower of Babel and its destruction by God. According to a story in Genesis Chapter 11, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity in order to reach the heavens. To prevent the project from succeeding, God confused their languages so that each spoke a different one and the work could not proceed. After that time, people moved away to different parts of the earth. The myth was used to explain the existence of many different languages and races. Babel has become a potent symbol of overambitious projects destined to end in confusion. The word Babel has several meanings. It is the name of a city, which translates to ‘the gate to god’, and in Hebrew there is a similar sounding word, which means confusion. In English, the word 'babble' is obviously similar.
One notes the similarity of ‘Babel’ to the name ‘Barbara’, she of the tower, and also the possible connection of both to the word ‘barbarian’ ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
St Barbara was a beautiful maiden from Asia Minor; her father Dioscorus imprisoned her in a high tower, where she was tutored by philosophers, orators and poets, and Origen and Valentinian converted her to Christianity. In folklore, her imprisonment has led to her association with towers, then the construction and maintenance of them, then to their military uses. Dioscorus brought many suitors of his choosing but by then Barbara had lost all interest in marriage. Once, when she refused one of his unfair requests, he grew enraged and she turned a flock of sheep into a plague of locusts.
During many years in the tower, Barbara obtained her food and laundry by way of a basket on a rope. One day, a stranger put a book in the basket from which Barbara learned about the new religion. Barbara so longed to know more about Christianity that she grew ill and her father sent for a doctor but the doctor turned out to be, in fact, a priest, and Barbara was baptised ...
St Barbara’s weather
In Germany on St Barbara’s Day, it is the custom to cut Barbara twigs from fruit or nut trees and to place them in a warm place. Weather prophecies are made depending on the date and extent of the blossoms that come. Every member of the family puts his or her Barbara twig into water so that it will have blossoms on Christmas day. The child whose branch has the most blossoms on Christmas is supposed to be Mary's favourite. The vase or glass containing the St Barbara twigs may be placed on the family altar.
The hoped for date of blooming is Christmas, according to a tenth century legend that said that all the trees blossomed and bore fruit on the day Jesus was born.
St Barbara’s Day, Lebanon
Christmas season is said to begin with the feast day of Barbara, and wheat is today’s symbol. A special dish of kahmie is served. The head of the household will tell the legend of St Barbara as the wheat is being prepared. Blackburn and Holford-Strevens (Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press, 1999) tell us that in southern France, especially in Provence, wheat grains are soaked in water, placed in dishes and allowed to germinate from this day. The wheat is carefully tended, because if it grows quickly, it is an omen that crops will prosper in the coming year. Also on this day, cherry branches are brought into the house and placed in water, prognosticating good luck in the coming year if they bloom by Yule (December’s Winter Solstice).
Barbara, Babel, barbarians and confusion
In the symbolism of Barbara, we have lightning or fire, and a tower side by side. From the very earliest printed Tarot cards, one card shows a tower struck by lightning, with human beings falling from it. Its title is ‘The Tower’, although early on it was often called ‘Fire’, ‘Lightning’, ‘Thunderbolt’ or ‘The House of the Devil’, or sometimes ‘Hell’.
Psychologist Carl Jung attached importance to the Tarot, regarding its cards as representing archetypes, fundamental types of person or situation embedded in the subconscious of all human beings. The similarity of the Barbara legend and the symbolism of The Tower card (lightning juxtaposed with a tower) is striking and seems to indicate more than fortuitous association. Among numerous interpretations, The Tower stands for catastrophic and irreversible change, and the whole scene, including the falling bodies, suggests confusion and even panic.
Twin Towers
If the tower, fire from the sky, and falling people are indeed strong archetypes in the collective unconscious, little wonder it is that the September 11, 2001 tragedy at the Twin Towers in New York resonated so deeply with people around the world. Many people have wondered why Americans reacted so strongly to that event (far larger numbers of people are dying around the world each day in situations as dramatic and tragic), and it might be that the answer to this puzzle is not simply that Americans value the lives of Americans more than those of other peoples (often seen as ‘barbarians’), and it is possible that we might look further than the cynical uses to which ‘America’s Reichstag Fire’ was put by the US Administration and media. The ‘tower-fire-people falling’ image’s power might go much deeper than this.
The card’s fire or lightning shooting down from the heavens, indicates divine punishment, bringing to mind thoughts of the Tower of Babel and its destruction by God. According to a story in Genesis Chapter 11, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity in order to reach the heavens. To prevent the project from succeeding, God confused their languages so that each spoke a different one and the work could not proceed. After that time, people moved away to different parts of the earth. The myth was used to explain the existence of many different languages and races. Babel has become a potent symbol of overambitious projects destined to end in confusion. The word Babel has several meanings. It is the name of a city, which translates to ‘the gate to god’, and in Hebrew there is a similar sounding word, which means confusion. In English, the word 'babble' is obviously similar. One notes the similarity of ‘Babel’ to the name ‘Barbara’, she of the tower, and also the possible connection of both to the word ‘barbarian’ ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Governments must tackle the "pain merchants"
Amnesty International
2 December
"Governments' failure to control the expanding trade in and use of security equipment is contributing to the incidence of torture and ill-treatment, reveals Amnesty International in its new report 'The Pain Merchants'.
"The latest research by the human rights organization highlights how a wide range of police and prison services are misusing old technologies and being encouraged to use new ones despite a lack of rigorous testing to establish if they are consistent with international human rights standards:
· Steel batons with spikes have been offered for sale at a police equipment fair in China.
· A metal and plastic projectile fired by a police officer permanently injured a woman in Switzerland in March this year, leaving fragments in her face which cannot be removed for fear of paralysis. This occurred before any other means of control had been attempted.
· More than nine tonnes of leg irons (an implement banned by UN rules for the treatment of prisoners) were exported from the USA to Saudi Arabia during 2002.
· Since the report went to press AI has discovered a South African government tender notice of 31 October 2003 calling for bids for the supply to the Department of Correctional Services of leg irons and belly chains, as well as electronic riot shields.
· The UK government has authorised trials on Britain's streets of the taser gun -- which delivers a 50,000 volt electric shock through two darts fired from a distance, or can also be used up close as a stun gun. In AI's opinion it has yet to publish full medical tests on the taser's effects.
· Sedative chemical incapacitating agents such as the one which killed more than 120 hostages when Russian security forces ended a siege in a Moscow theatre last year should be banned unless it can be proved that people will be protected from any indiscriminate or arbitrary effects.
"'Just because security equipment may be described as 'less than lethal' does not mean it cannot be abused, nor that it cannot injure or kill, said Brian Wood, Amnesty Internationals expert on security equipment. "We are extremely concerned that in many countries devices are being authorised for use on the population without sufficient investigation of their effects on human rights.' ...
Background:
Amnesty International reported torture by police or security forces in 106 countries last year.
There are now at least 856 companies in 47 countries involved in the manufacture or marketing of weapons described as being a "less than lethal" alternative to firearms, many of which easily lend themselves to torture.
Stopping the Pain Merchants, take action!
For more information see "The Pain Merchants: Facts and Figures"
THE PAIN MERCHANTS -
Security equipment and its use in torture and other ill-treatment
The full report online
Amnesty International
2 December
"Governments' failure to control the expanding trade in and use of security equipment is contributing to the incidence of torture and ill-treatment, reveals Amnesty International in its new report 'The Pain Merchants'.
"The latest research by the human rights organization highlights how a wide range of police and prison services are misusing old technologies and being encouraged to use new ones despite a lack of rigorous testing to establish if they are consistent with international human rights standards:
· Steel batons with spikes have been offered for sale at a police equipment fair in China.
· A metal and plastic projectile fired by a police officer permanently injured a woman in Switzerland in March this year, leaving fragments in her face which cannot be removed for fear of paralysis. This occurred before any other means of control had been attempted.
· More than nine tonnes of leg irons (an implement banned by UN rules for the treatment of prisoners) were exported from the USA to Saudi Arabia during 2002.· Since the report went to press AI has discovered a South African government tender notice of 31 October 2003 calling for bids for the supply to the Department of Correctional Services of leg irons and belly chains, as well as electronic riot shields.
· The UK government has authorised trials on Britain's streets of the taser gun -- which delivers a 50,000 volt electric shock through two darts fired from a distance, or can also be used up close as a stun gun. In AI's opinion it has yet to publish full medical tests on the taser's effects.
· Sedative chemical incapacitating agents such as the one which killed more than 120 hostages when Russian security forces ended a siege in a Moscow theatre last year should be banned unless it can be proved that people will be protected from any indiscriminate or arbitrary effects.
"'Just because security equipment may be described as 'less than lethal' does not mean it cannot be abused, nor that it cannot injure or kill, said Brian Wood, Amnesty Internationals expert on security equipment. "We are extremely concerned that in many countries devices are being authorised for use on the population without sufficient investigation of their effects on human rights.' ...
Background:
Amnesty International reported torture by police or security forces in 106 countries last year.
There are now at least 856 companies in 47 countries involved in the manufacture or marketing of weapons described as being a "less than lethal" alternative to firearms, many of which easily lend themselves to torture.
Stopping the Pain Merchants, take action!
For more information see "The Pain Merchants: Facts and Figures"
THE PAIN MERCHANTS -
Security equipment and its use in torture and other ill-treatment
The full report online
*Ø* Blogmanac | EU accused of covering up its anti-Semitism report
Irish Times, 3 December
"EU: The World Jewish Congress yesterday made public a disputed anti-Semitism report kept under wraps by the European Union.
"The Congress accused the EU of not facing up to anti-Jewish sentiment among Muslim immigrants in Europe.
"The WJC and Jewish community organisations in the 15-nation EU put the report on their websites even though it has not been released by the EU's European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), which commissioned the study.
"The report was also posted on at least one European news website, that of Danish television station TV2 (http://gfx.tv2.dk/images/Nyhederne/Pdf/report_en.pdf).
"The EUMC has denied accusations in the European press that it had shelved the report because it singled out Muslim immigrants and pro-Palestinian groups as the main culprits.
"'We think the failure of the EU to release it until now was an act of intellectual dishonesty and cowardice,' said Mr Elan Steinberg, executive vice-president of the New York-based WJC. 'To be candid, I think they are not prepared to deal with the sensitive subject of anti-Semitism among Muslims, who constitute Europe's largest minority.'
"The WJC and the affiliated European Jewish Congress said the EUMC report was being published in English on websites including those of the French umbrella group CRIF (www.crif.org), Britain's Board of Deputies of British Jews (www.bod.org.uk) and the Central Council of Jews in Germany (www.zentralratdjuden.de)."
Source
Irish Times, 3 December
"EU: The World Jewish Congress yesterday made public a disputed anti-Semitism report kept under wraps by the European Union.
"The Congress accused the EU of not facing up to anti-Jewish sentiment among Muslim immigrants in Europe.
"The WJC and Jewish community organisations in the 15-nation EU put the report on their websites even though it has not been released by the EU's European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), which commissioned the study.
"The report was also posted on at least one European news website, that of Danish television station TV2 (http://gfx.tv2.dk/images/Nyhederne/Pdf/report_en.pdf).
"The EUMC has denied accusations in the European press that it had shelved the report because it singled out Muslim immigrants and pro-Palestinian groups as the main culprits.
"'We think the failure of the EU to release it until now was an act of intellectual dishonesty and cowardice,' said Mr Elan Steinberg, executive vice-president of the New York-based WJC. 'To be candid, I think they are not prepared to deal with the sensitive subject of anti-Semitism among Muslims, who constitute Europe's largest minority.'
"The WJC and the affiliated European Jewish Congress said the EUMC report was being published in English on websites including those of the French umbrella group CRIF (www.crif.org), Britain's Board of Deputies of British Jews (www.bod.org.uk) and the Central Council of Jews in Germany (www.zentralratdjuden.de)."
Source
*Ø* Blogmanac | Bits and bobs that caught my eye ...
Rumsfeld Ramble Wins 'Foot in Mouth' Award
[But Arnie is learning fast]
LONDON (Reuters) -- "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's curious statement at a press briefing was named on Monday as the year's most baffling comment by a public figure.
"Rumsfeld, usually renowned for his uncompromising tough talking, was awarded the 'Foot in Mouth' award for a confusing message which probably left his audience in the dark as to its meaning, Britain's Plain English Campaign said.
"'Reports that say something hasn't happened are interesting to me, because as we know, there are known unknowns; there things we know we know,' Rumsfeld told the briefing. 'We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.'
"John Lister, spokesman for the campaign which strives to have public information delivered in clear, straightforward English, said: 'We think we know what he means. But we don't know if we really know.'
"Rumsfeld, whose boss President Bush is often singled out by language critics for his sometimes unusual use of English, took the booby prize ahead of a bizarre effort from actor-turned politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"'I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman,' was the odd statement from the new California Governor.
Source
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New Anti-Drug Weapon: Bras and Thongs
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- "They have tried aerial assaults and stiff jail sentences. Now Colombian officials have a new and unlikely weapon to combat the cocaine trade: push-up bras and thongs.
"Some 900 peasant women in Colombia are set to make racy lingerie and sell it to French supermarket chain Carrefour under a U.N.-backed program aimed at encouraging impoverished farmers and their families to stop growing drug crops.
"'We thought it was a very original idea. These are regions where there are drug crops and people need legal jobs,' said Thierry Rostan of the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Bogota.
"Despite a fierce U.S.-backed campaign to spray drug crops with herbicide and impose longer jail terms, Colombia remains the world's No 1. producer of cocaine. Poor farmers, many of them coffee growers gone broke, have turned to drug crops to make a living.
"The lingerie, which includes bras and lacy panties, will be made at clothing and shoe plants in the southern coffee-rich province of Cauca, which has seen a spike of cocaine crops due to the collapse of world coffee prices."
Source
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Palestinian Baby Born in Bethlehem Draws Crowds
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) -- "A baby born in Bethlehem is drawing crowds by the thousands. Palestinians in the West Bank town revered by Christians as Jesus' birthplace have been thronging to the adjacent Aida refugee camp for a glimpse of the 11-day-old infant many are calling a 'miracle baby.'
"The boy has gained attention for being born with a large birthmark across his cheek that roughly forms in Arabic letters the name of his uncle, Ala, a Hamas militant killed by Israeli troops after he was alleged to have planned a suicide bombing."
Source
Rumsfeld Ramble Wins 'Foot in Mouth' Award
[But Arnie is learning fast]
LONDON (Reuters) -- "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's curious statement at a press briefing was named on Monday as the year's most baffling comment by a public figure."Rumsfeld, usually renowned for his uncompromising tough talking, was awarded the 'Foot in Mouth' award for a confusing message which probably left his audience in the dark as to its meaning, Britain's Plain English Campaign said.
"'Reports that say something hasn't happened are interesting to me, because as we know, there are known unknowns; there things we know we know,' Rumsfeld told the briefing. 'We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.'
"John Lister, spokesman for the campaign which strives to have public information delivered in clear, straightforward English, said: 'We think we know what he means. But we don't know if we really know.'
"Rumsfeld, whose boss President Bush is often singled out by language critics for his sometimes unusual use of English, took the booby prize ahead of a bizarre effort from actor-turned politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"'I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman,' was the odd statement from the new California Governor.
Source
New Anti-Drug Weapon: Bras and Thongs
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- "They have tried aerial assaults and stiff jail sentences. Now Colombian officials have a new and unlikely weapon to combat the cocaine trade: push-up bras and thongs."Some 900 peasant women in Colombia are set to make racy lingerie and sell it to French supermarket chain Carrefour under a U.N.-backed program aimed at encouraging impoverished farmers and their families to stop growing drug crops.
"'We thought it was a very original idea. These are regions where there are drug crops and people need legal jobs,' said Thierry Rostan of the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Bogota.
"Despite a fierce U.S.-backed campaign to spray drug crops with herbicide and impose longer jail terms, Colombia remains the world's No 1. producer of cocaine. Poor farmers, many of them coffee growers gone broke, have turned to drug crops to make a living.
"The lingerie, which includes bras and lacy panties, will be made at clothing and shoe plants in the southern coffee-rich province of Cauca, which has seen a spike of cocaine crops due to the collapse of world coffee prices."
Source
Palestinian Baby Born in Bethlehem Draws Crowds
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) -- "A baby born in Bethlehem is drawing crowds by the thousands. Palestinians in the West Bank town revered by Christians as Jesus' birthplace have been thronging to the adjacent Aida refugee camp for a glimpse of the 11-day-old infant many are calling a 'miracle baby.'
"The boy has gained attention for being born with a large birthmark across his cheek that roughly forms in Arabic letters the name of his uncle, Ala, a Hamas militant killed by Israeli troops after he was alleged to have planned a suicide bombing."
Source
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | Eureka Stockade Day, Australia
1854 The Battle of Eureka Stockade, an uprising of gold miners against the State of Victoria, Australia; six troopers and 34 miners died in the civil revolt by gold miners against the officials supervising the gold-mining regions of Ballarat. Although the revolt failed, it has endured in the collective social consciousness of Australia.
Eureka has been variously described as the birthplace of Australia's democracy, republicanism and multiculturalism. Its heroes include an Italian writer, a freed American slave, a former German soldier and sundry American democrats, Irish rebels and British chartists.
The miners held a series of huge peaceful meetings demanding fairer treatment (their main complaint was about miners’ taxes), but following the murder of a miner, those calls for non-violence were pushed aside. A 27-year-old Irishman, Peter Lawlor, who'd never before addressed a public meeting was thrust into leadership; his first word: “Liberty”. The flag the miners flew, bearing the Southern Cross constellation, is still a national symbol of anti-authoritarianism.
More at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
1854 The Battle of Eureka Stockade, an uprising of gold miners against the State of Victoria, Australia; six troopers and 34 miners died in the civil revolt by gold miners against the officials supervising the gold-mining regions of Ballarat. Although the revolt failed, it has endured in the collective social consciousness of Australia.Eureka has been variously described as the birthplace of Australia's democracy, republicanism and multiculturalism. Its heroes include an Italian writer, a freed American slave, a former German soldier and sundry American democrats, Irish rebels and British chartists.
The miners held a series of huge peaceful meetings demanding fairer treatment (their main complaint was about miners’ taxes), but following the murder of a miner, those calls for non-violence were pushed aside. A 27-year-old Irishman, Peter Lawlor, who'd never before addressed a public meeting was thrust into leadership; his first word: “Liberty”. The flag the miners flew, bearing the Southern Cross constellation, is still a national symbol of anti-authoritarianism.
More at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
*Ø* Blogmanac December 3 | The naughty feast of Bona Dea
Men need not apply
At around December 3, and also around May 4 (though as early as May 1; called the Tarentia), the ancient Romans commemorated the “Good Goddess”: Bona Dea, which is the most popular name by which the goddess Fauna or Fatua (Fate) was known. She is also an aspect of the goddess Artemis Calliste, the Lily of Heaven. Angitia, a deity of the Marsii might have been the same goddess, and the Good Goddess is also identified with Cybele, Maia, Ge, Ops, Terra, Tellus, Semele, Marica and Hecate, and was thus a fertility and earth goddess. Her priestesses grew medicinal herbs and the sick were tended to in the gardens outside her temples. She was associated with the cornucopia, snakes and coins and her image frequently occurred on ancient Roman coins.
It was said that her father, Faunus, (known to the Greeks as Pan), had tried to seduce her but failed, despite having got her drunk on wine and having whipped her with a myrtle branch. Eventually, he father turned himself into a serpent and in that form succeeded in penetrating his daughter. Another legend says that Faunus was her husband and became incensed at Fauna's drunkenness, so he killed her, but then deified her ...
Not a lot is known about the nature of the Bona Dea mysteries. We do know that a sacred serpent appeared alongside the goddess and that her tabernacles were covered in vine leaves. The Roman satirist Juvenal said that the rites were orgiastic. A pig was sacrificed (a sow is the usual sacrifice for deities such as Ceres and Tellus), wine under the name of milk was offered to the goddess, the congregation danced to the sound of harps and flutes. Plutarch wrote that myrtle was excluded from the private use in the cult at home, because it was sacred to Venus and could have overtones of sexual impurity, and Macrobius tells us that myrtle was banned from use in the temple ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Men need not apply
At around December 3, and also around May 4 (though as early as May 1; called the Tarentia), the ancient Romans commemorated the “Good Goddess”: Bona Dea, which is the most popular name by which the goddess Fauna or Fatua (Fate) was known. She is also an aspect of the goddess Artemis Calliste, the Lily of Heaven. Angitia, a deity of the Marsii might have been the same goddess, and the Good Goddess is also identified with Cybele, Maia, Ge, Ops, Terra, Tellus, Semele, Marica and Hecate, and was thus a fertility and earth goddess. Her priestesses grew medicinal herbs and the sick were tended to in the gardens outside her temples. She was associated with the cornucopia, snakes and coins and her image frequently occurred on ancient Roman coins. It was said that her father, Faunus, (known to the Greeks as Pan), had tried to seduce her but failed, despite having got her drunk on wine and having whipped her with a myrtle branch. Eventually, he father turned himself into a serpent and in that form succeeded in penetrating his daughter. Another legend says that Faunus was her husband and became incensed at Fauna's drunkenness, so he killed her, but then deified her ...
Not a lot is known about the nature of the Bona Dea mysteries. We do know that a sacred serpent appeared alongside the goddess and that her tabernacles were covered in vine leaves. The Roman satirist Juvenal said that the rites were orgiastic. A pig was sacrificed (a sow is the usual sacrifice for deities such as Ceres and Tellus), wine under the name of milk was offered to the goddess, the congregation danced to the sound of harps and flutes. Plutarch wrote that myrtle was excluded from the private use in the cult at home, because it was sacred to Venus and could have overtones of sexual impurity, and Macrobius tells us that myrtle was banned from use in the temple ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | Catholics 'should challenge Church'
Irish Examiner, 2 December
"Catholics have been urged to challenge their local priests over controversial Vatican claims that condoms cannot prevent the spread of Aids.
"Nothing less than a grassroots Catholic rebellion is needed to counter the 'misleading and dangerous' claims, according to Liberal Democrat Euro-MP Chris Davies.
"His call came as fellow Euro-MPs tabled a motion in the European Parliament urging EU governments to denounce the claims as unacceptable.
"The cross-party motion, signed by MEPs from Italy, Holland, Greece and the UK, says millions of lives are being put at risk by a declaration from senior Vatican spokesman Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo ...
"The World Health Organisation has already described his views as 'dangerous' in the face of a disease which has killed 20 million people."
Full text
Irish Examiner, 2 December
"Catholics have been urged to challenge their local priests over controversial Vatican claims that condoms cannot prevent the spread of Aids."Nothing less than a grassroots Catholic rebellion is needed to counter the 'misleading and dangerous' claims, according to Liberal Democrat Euro-MP Chris Davies.
"His call came as fellow Euro-MPs tabled a motion in the European Parliament urging EU governments to denounce the claims as unacceptable.
"The cross-party motion, signed by MEPs from Italy, Holland, Greece and the UK, says millions of lives are being put at risk by a declaration from senior Vatican spokesman Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo ...
"The World Health Organisation has already described his views as 'dangerous' in the face of a disease which has killed 20 million people."
Full text
*Ø* Blogmanac December 2, 1793 | Coleridge becomes Comberbeck
1793 English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772 - July 25, 1834) enlisted in the Light Dragoons, fleeing his creditors.
Coleridge used the alias Silas Tompkyns Comberbeck, to retain his initials. A legend has it that when a drill sergeant asked, “Whose dirty rifle is this” Coleridge asked in return, “Is it very, very dirty?” The sergeant answered that it was. “Then it must be mine,” Coleridge replied. His only real service was in a military hospital, from which possibly he found the imagery for the dead sailors in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Later, after his parents had paid off his commission, at Cambridge University he came into contact with political and theological ideas then considered radical. Motivated by the heady political and intellectual atmosphere of the early years of the French Revolution, he dropped out of Cambridge without a degree and joined the Oxford poet Robert Southey (the two poets later married two sisters, Sarah and Edith Flicker) in a plan, soon abandoned, to found a utopian communist-like society in the wilderness of Pennsylvania, called ‘pantisocracy’, to be established on the banks of the Susquehanna on land bought by the radical Joseph Priestley after his exile from England. Southey later became a conservative and was appointed Poet Laureate.
Coleridge’s life was plagued by opiate addiction.
Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
1793 English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772 - July 25, 1834) enlisted in the Light Dragoons, fleeing his creditors. Coleridge used the alias Silas Tompkyns Comberbeck, to retain his initials. A legend has it that when a drill sergeant asked, “Whose dirty rifle is this” Coleridge asked in return, “Is it very, very dirty?” The sergeant answered that it was. “Then it must be mine,” Coleridge replied. His only real service was in a military hospital, from which possibly he found the imagery for the dead sailors in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Later, after his parents had paid off his commission, at Cambridge University he came into contact with political and theological ideas then considered radical. Motivated by the heady political and intellectual atmosphere of the early years of the French Revolution, he dropped out of Cambridge without a degree and joined the Oxford poet Robert Southey (the two poets later married two sisters, Sarah and Edith Flicker) in a plan, soon abandoned, to found a utopian communist-like society in the wilderness of Pennsylvania, called ‘pantisocracy’, to be established on the banks of the Susquehanna on land bought by the radical Joseph Priestley after his exile from England. Southey later became a conservative and was appointed Poet Laureate.
Coleridge’s life was plagued by opiate addiction.
Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Monday, December 01, 2003
*Ø* Blogmanac | Global Warming Still a Priority -- Just Not for U.S. Prez
League of Liberals Showcase Nominee Reminds us that Without Our Mother Earth, Nothing Else Matters
Damage -- Highlighting On-Going Problems Faced in the World Today
Category: Humanitarian / Endangered Species / Environmental
Year: 2003
Title: Global Warming Catastrophe - New Evidence
Full Story: Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment
Global warming over the next hundred years could trigger a catastrophe which rivals the worst mass extinction in the planet's entire history, according to new evidence unearthed by scientists at Bristol University.
The researchers have discovered that a mere six degrees of global warming was enough to wipe out up to 95% of the species which were alive on Earth at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago. Up to six degrees of warming is now predicted for the next century by UN scientists from the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if nothing is done about emissions of the greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, which cause global warming.
Related Article: Guardian Unlimited: Shadow of Extinction: Only six degrees separate our world from the cataclysmic end of an ancient era.
League of Liberals Showcase Nominee Reminds us that Without Our Mother Earth, Nothing Else Matters
Damage -- Highlighting On-Going Problems Faced in the World Today
Category: Humanitarian / Endangered Species / EnvironmentalYear: 2003
Title: Global Warming Catastrophe - New Evidence
Full Story: Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment
Global warming over the next hundred years could trigger a catastrophe which rivals the worst mass extinction in the planet's entire history, according to new evidence unearthed by scientists at Bristol University.
The researchers have discovered that a mere six degrees of global warming was enough to wipe out up to 95% of the species which were alive on Earth at the end of the Permian period, 251 million years ago. Up to six degrees of warming is now predicted for the next century by UN scientists from the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if nothing is done about emissions of the greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, which cause global warming.
Related Article: Guardian Unlimited: Shadow of Extinction: Only six degrees separate our world from the cataclysmic end of an ancient era.
*Ø* Blogmanac | The Internet Patriotic to Whom?
Expanded Patriot Act Reach Would Hit The Net, Too
By Charles Farrar
WASHINGTON - A bill approved by Congress last week to extend the reach of the Patriot Act would expand the FBI's business document and transaction power to cyberspace stations like eBay, Internet logs, and Internet service providers, and without requiring a judge's approval.
It's part of the new bill's redefinition of the term "financial institution" and "financial transaction," according to Wired, and allows the FBI to get such records by handing itself a national security letter saying those records are relevant to a terrorism investigation.
"The FBI doesn't need to show probable cause or consult a judge," the magazine said. "What's more, the target institution is issued a gag order and kept from revealing the subpoena's existence to anyone, including the subject of the investigation."
This bill follows a stalled attempt earlier this year by the Justice Department to write and push the so-called "Patriot II" act, but a leak of the draft provoked such an outcry that the department backed away from that proposal, but Wired said the newly passed bill involves one of Patriot II's most controversial aspects.
According to Duke University law professor Chris Schroeder, that shows those who wanted to expand the FBI's powers didn't want to stop despite the hoopla over Patriot II. "They are going to insert these provisions on a stealth basis," Schroeder told Wired. "It's insidious." [Emphasis added. -v]
He has an ally in the Center for Democracy and Technology's executive director, James X. Dempsey. "On its face, it's a cryptic and seemingly innocuous amendment," he told the magazine. "It wasn't until after it passed both houses that we saw it. The FBI andd CIA like to try to graft things like this into intelligence bills."
But don't tell those things to House Intelligence Committee chairman Porter Goss (R-Florida), who calls the new definitions of financial institutions and financial transactions bringing them up to date "with the reality of the financial industry. This provision," Goss said in a House floor speech, "will allow those tracking terrorists and spies to 'follow the money' more effectively and thereby protect the people of the United States more effectively."
Protect them from what -- strip clubs? The current issue of Newsweek, which hit the stands Nov. 24, includes a report saying that a little-enough known Patriot Act portion already redefined "money laundering" to the point where the FBI is suspected of using it to investigate anyone it pleases on pretexts having little to do with terrorism investigations. [Emphasis added. -v]
A recent case nicknamed Operation G-String, in fact, found the FBI using the money laundering provision to investigate whether the owner of a Las Vegas adult club was trying to bribe top city officials. They used it to look at all the financial records of those officials, Newsweek said. And that isn't all, potentially.
"Treasury Department figures show that this year the Feds have used the Patriot Act to conduct searches on 962 suspects, yielding ‘hits’ on 6,397 financial records," the magazine said announcing the Nov. 24 issue. "Of those, two thirds (4,261) were in money-laundering cases with no terror connection. Among the agencies making requests, Newsweek has learned, were the IRS (which investigates tax fraud), the Postal Service (postal fraud) and the Secret Service (counterfeiting). One request came from the Agriculture Department -- a case that apparently involved food stamp fraud." [Emphasis added -v]
Source of reports on mis-use of new laws
Related article: "Are You A Patriot?" by John Kaminski
Expanded Patriot Act Reach Would Hit The Net, Too
By Charles Farrar
WASHINGTON - A bill approved by Congress last week to extend the reach of the Patriot Act would expand the FBI's business document and transaction power to cyberspace stations like eBay, Internet logs, and Internet service providers, and without requiring a judge's approval.It's part of the new bill's redefinition of the term "financial institution" and "financial transaction," according to Wired, and allows the FBI to get such records by handing itself a national security letter saying those records are relevant to a terrorism investigation.
"The FBI doesn't need to show probable cause or consult a judge," the magazine said. "What's more, the target institution is issued a gag order and kept from revealing the subpoena's existence to anyone, including the subject of the investigation."
This bill follows a stalled attempt earlier this year by the Justice Department to write and push the so-called "Patriot II" act, but a leak of the draft provoked such an outcry that the department backed away from that proposal, but Wired said the newly passed bill involves one of Patriot II's most controversial aspects.
According to Duke University law professor Chris Schroeder, that shows those who wanted to expand the FBI's powers didn't want to stop despite the hoopla over Patriot II. "They are going to insert these provisions on a stealth basis," Schroeder told Wired. "It's insidious." [Emphasis added. -v]
He has an ally in the Center for Democracy and Technology's executive director, James X. Dempsey. "On its face, it's a cryptic and seemingly innocuous amendment," he told the magazine. "It wasn't until after it passed both houses that we saw it. The FBI andd CIA like to try to graft things like this into intelligence bills."
But don't tell those things to House Intelligence Committee chairman Porter Goss (R-Florida), who calls the new definitions of financial institutions and financial transactions bringing them up to date "with the reality of the financial industry. This provision," Goss said in a House floor speech, "will allow those tracking terrorists and spies to 'follow the money' more effectively and thereby protect the people of the United States more effectively."
Protect them from what -- strip clubs? The current issue of Newsweek, which hit the stands Nov. 24, includes a report saying that a little-enough known Patriot Act portion already redefined "money laundering" to the point where the FBI is suspected of using it to investigate anyone it pleases on pretexts having little to do with terrorism investigations. [Emphasis added. -v]
A recent case nicknamed Operation G-String, in fact, found the FBI using the money laundering provision to investigate whether the owner of a Las Vegas adult club was trying to bribe top city officials. They used it to look at all the financial records of those officials, Newsweek said. And that isn't all, potentially.
"Treasury Department figures show that this year the Feds have used the Patriot Act to conduct searches on 962 suspects, yielding ‘hits’ on 6,397 financial records," the magazine said announcing the Nov. 24 issue. "Of those, two thirds (4,261) were in money-laundering cases with no terror connection. Among the agencies making requests, Newsweek has learned, were the IRS (which investigates tax fraud), the Postal Service (postal fraud) and the Secret Service (counterfeiting). One request came from the Agriculture Department -- a case that apparently involved food stamp fraud." [Emphasis added -v]
Source of reports on mis-use of new laws
Related article: "Are You A Patriot?" by John Kaminski
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