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The Blogmanac: "On This Day" ... and much more
Think universally. Act terrestrially.
For in a hard-working society, it is rare and even subversive to celebrate too much, to revel and keep on reveling: to stop whatever you're doing and rave, pray, throw things, go into trances, jump over bonfires, drape yourself in flowers, stay up all night, and scoop the froth from the sea.
Anneli Rufus*
*Ø* Blogmanac January 10, 1880 | Vale Emperor Norton
1880 Having died on January 8, Emperor Norton I, Emperor of the United States of America and Protector of Mexico, was buried at Masonic Cemetery in San Francisco. The funeral arrangements were the most elaborate the city had ever seen. The cortege was two miles long, and as many as 30,000 people turned out to pay homage and celebrate ...
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
January 10, 738 CE The final (sixth) phase of the Ball Court at Copán, Honduras, was dedicated by Mayan ruler and pre-Columbian ‘Renaissance Man’, 18-Rabbit (real name, Waxaklahun Ubah K'awil, which means ‘18 Are the Images of K'awil’). It was the same year that Xukpi suffered a major defeat from Quirigua ...
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 | Destroying our planet -- and ourselves
Farmed salmon linked to cancer risk By Mark Henderson, Times.co.uk
""People who regularly eat farmed salmon may be raising their risk of developing cancer, scientists said yesterday.
"Salmon raised on British fish farms are so contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals that consumers would be unwise to eat them more than once every other month, a major study has concluded ...
"The analysis of more than 700 fish weighing more than two tonnes in total found that farmed salmon across Europe and North America had much higher concentrations of 14 pollutants than fish caught from the wild.
"The chemicals, which include dioxins, DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), belong to a class known as organochlorines, which are linked to cancer and birth defects ...
"The most likely explanation for the high levels of pollutants in farmed salmon is the feed they are generally given, which consists of a high-fat mixture of other fish, ground into fishmeal, and fish oil. As organochlorines build up in the fatty tissue of fish, they become concentrated in this high-fat food, and are passed on to the farmed salmon."
"Climate change is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism, the UK Government's chief scientific adviser has said. Sir David King said the US had failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"And without immediate action flooding, drought, hunger and debilitating diseases such as malaria would hit millions of people around the world.
"US President George Bush says more research is needed before he introduces punitive carbon taxes on industry. But Sir David criticised the Bush administration for relying too exclusively on market-based incentives and voluntary actions."
The totality is – the Prime Minister lied By Boris Johnson The Telegraph, 8 January
"Right. OK then! Now I get it (slap forehead). How could I have been so slow on the uptake? I understood until yesterday that the Prime Minister had been caught out in a great big fat steaming smoking-pants lie. I thought it was clear to the meanest intelligence that Tony Blair had authorised the naming of poor Dr David Kelly to the media, and then pretended otherwise.
"But it turns out that we haven't been paying enough attention to the 'totality' of what he said. No, no, he kept saying yesterday, as he wriggled before Michael Howard like a kebabbed witchetty grub. Only the 'totality' is operative, said Blair, irresistibly recalling the performance of Nixon's spokesman during Watergate. Well, let us indeed examine the totality of the Prime Minister's words and deeds, and discover how we came by this misunderstanding. They total up to quite a lot ...
"In the 48 hours before Dr Kelly's name was released to the media, the Prime Minister chaired four meetings on the business of how to do just that, and those meetings lasted several hours. As Sir Kevin Tebbit, the Permanent Secretary at the MoD, revealed to the Hutton Inquiry, 'a policy decision on that matter had not been taken until the Prime Minister's meeting on Tuesday, July 8.'
"And yet that is a fact that Mr Blair chose to try to conceal. Flying to Hong Kong a few days after Dr Kelly's death, he was asked directly: 'Did you authorise anyone in Downing Street, or the MoD, to release David Kelly's name?' He replied: 'Emphatically not.' He was asked: 'Why did you authorise the naming of David Kelly?' He replied: 'That is completely untrue.'
"Yesterday, in a feat of Clintonian pretzel-words, he told us that, in order to understand this flagrant inconsistency, we had to look at the 'totality' of his words, because he also said that he did not authorise the 'leaking' of the name. So he accepts that he authorised the 'naming', but not the 'leaking'?
"That is a distinction without a difference. He authorised and orchestrated a strategy to put Kelly's name out, and panicked when the lights came on. He was shocked and appalled by the death, and fearful, of course, for his political skin.
"The PM lied, and that is the totality of the matter."
US calls off search for weapons of mass destruction
Irish Times, 9 January
"The Bush administration has quietly withdrawn a 400-member military team it sent to Baghdad to scour Iraq for evidence of unconventional weapons, write Conor O'Clery in New York & Deaglán de Bréadún in Dublin.
"The move indicates that the US does not now expect to find illegal weapons, the main reason given by President Bush for the war last year that toppled Saddam Hussein.
"At the same time, a prestigious Washington-based research foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has published a scathing report on President Bush's case for war."
Powell Admits No Hard Proof in Linking Iraq to Al Qaeda
New York Times, 9 January
"WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell conceded Thursday that despite his assertions to the United Nations last year, he had no 'smoking gun' proof of a link between the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and terrorists of Al Qaeda.
"'I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection,' Mr. Powell said, in response to a question at a news conference. 'But I think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did.'
"Mr. Powell's remarks on Thursday were a stark admission that there is no definitive evidence to back up administration statements and insinuations that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda, the acknowledged authors of the Sept. 11 attacks. Although President Bush finally acknowledged in September that there was no known connection between Mr. Hussein and the attacks, the impression of a link in the public mind has become widely accepted — and something administration officials have done little to discourage." [My emphasis - N]
American singer Rickie Lee Jones has attacked the policies of the Bush administration on her latest record -- despite the potential risk to her career.
Lee Jones took the music world by storm in the late 1970s when her self-titled debut album won best newcomer award at the Grammys.
But despite having vowed to stay away from politics, her latest album, The Evening Of My Best Day, features many political protest songs that directly criticise current US policy.
"To address George Bush and his presidency is a departure from my usual point of view," Lee Jones told BBC World Service's Everywoman programme.
"I usually reflect things totally internally. But I think what is happening in America is so disturbing to me, it becomes internal.
NOTE: Rickie Lee Jones also has created a website entitled "FURNITURE FOR THE PEOPLE, a web community working to bring people together for peace."
From The Evening of My Best Day, Rickie Lee Jones' latest:
tell somebody (repeal the patriot act now)
not long ago it was alright there were no bad dreams that kept me up at night it was not brother against brother mother against mother
so tell somebody, you've got to tell somebody tell somebody what happened in the usa
now they want us to just get in line behind a president when you know they spent milions of dollars condemning and accusing the last one from the other side
tell somebody, tell somebody tell somebody what's happening in the usa? tell somebody, tell somebody tell somebody what happened in the usa
tell somebody, tell somebody, tell somebody?
i want to know how far you will go to protect our right of free speech? because it only took a moment before it faded out of reach...
oh, tell somebody, tell sombody right now tell somebody what happened in the usa? i wanna read about it in the news i wanna hear about it on tv, yeah what happened in the usa? when they ask you what happened in the usa? tell sombody. they'll wanna know, oh people
the depth of our democracy is only as good as the voices of protest she protects voices of protest - rise!
On the ninth of January, now four days ago, I received by the evening delivery a registered envelope, addressed in the hand of my colleague and old school-companion, Henry Jekyll. I was a good deal surprised by this; for we were by no means in the habit of correspondence; I had seen the man, dined with him, indeed, the night before; and I could imagine nothing in our intercourse that should justify formality of registration. The story unfolds in Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
*Ø* Blogmanac January 9, 1683 | The King's Evil, the King's Evil!
1683 King Charles II of Britain issued orders for the future regulations of the ceremony of touching ‘the King's Evil’.
The King's Evil This was the name for scrofula, a a form of tuberculosis, affecting the lymph nodes (usually spread by unpasteurized cow's milk) which from the time of King Clovis of France in 481 CE was believed to be cured by a touch of the monarch's hand. Shakespeare mentioned it in Macbeth. The famous diarist, Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), recorded in his diary for April 10, 1661 that he saw the cure effected by the king.
The notion was first introduced into England by King Edward the Confessor and the belief continued to be common throughout the Middle Ages but began to die out with the Enlightenment.
In Cornwall, it was believed that the seventh son of a seventh son was able to touch-cure the disease. The seventh son of a seventh son was widely believed in Britain and Ireland to have all kinds of powers.
The Marcou In old France it was believed that if a seventh son was born into a family, and he had no sisters, he was called a marcou, and a fleur-de-lis was branded on him ...
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 two sure signs of insanity. One is doing something the same way over and over expecting a different result. The other is saying "I'm all right, the WORLD'S all wrong!" --v
US Rejects IMF Warning that Debts Could Affect Global Economy By Barry Wood, Washington Voiceof AmericaNews 08 Jan 2004, 20:52 UTC
The U.S. Treasury Department Thursday rejected a warning from the International Monetary Fund that the huge American trade and budget deficits could pose a risk to the global economy.
A Treasury spokesman dismisses the IMF report as breathless hyperbole. The IMF says the $500 billion U.S. fiscal deficit combined with a $135 billion trade deficit could undermine the world recovery by pushing the dollar lower and interest rates higher.
Treasury Secretary John Snow acknowledged Wednesday that the growing fiscal deficit is a problem. But he promised to cut the deficit by half within five years. Mr. Snow outlined several reasons why the deficit is higher than anticipated.
"The war in Iraq: It is a one-time thing. {Yep. A one-time, 20+ year, $300Billion+ "thing." -v} But it had to be dealt with. Afghanistan had to be dealt with," he said. "But they created a bulge in [government] spending. And then we had the tax reductions."
The IMF has for a long time been worried about the burgeoning U.S. trade deficit. Its concern about the U.S. fiscal deficit is more recent, as the United States went from having a budget surplus in 2000 to having a very large deficit just three years later.
"Climate change could drive a million of the world's species to extinction as soon as 2050, a scientific study says. The authors say in the journal Nature a study of six world regions suggested a quarter of animals and plants living on the land could be forced into oblivion.
"They say cutting greenhouse gases and storing the main one, carbon dioxide, could save many species from vanishing.
"The United Nations says the prospect is also a threat to the billions of people who rely on Nature for their survival."
[Note: TomFlocco.com is apparently being barraged with hits. The front page is loading very slowly, and the permalink to the full story (also above) gives a quota-related error message. If you have trouble getting through, try this Information Clearinghouse linkinstead. –L.]
U.S. media blackout continues as New Hampshire widow’s attorney also served multiple government officials and moved to examine new evidence while preparing subpoenas and written interrogatories for individual depositions. This, as corporate media execs continue to withhold important stories about presidential foreknowledge of attacks, military stand-down, and evidence of controlled demolition of third WTC Building 7, containing critical Securities and Exchange Commission corporate fraud investigation documents.
by Tom Flocco
PHILADELPHIA -- January 6, 2003 [sic? I hope they meant 2004! –L.] (TomFlocco.com) -- On Friday, Philip J. Berg, attorney for 9-11 widow Ellen Mariani in her Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) suit seeking to hold President Bush and various government officials accountable for the September 11 attacks, served Bush and top officials in his Administration with a personal summons, the original complaint and the first amended complaint via a federal process server, as required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Among those served besides the President, were Vice-President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet, National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, 9-11 Congressional Victim Compensation Fund Special Master Kenneth Feinberg, former Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein, Zacarias Moussaoui, and former President George H. W. Bush.
***
Berg told TomFlocco.com "the multiple summonses and complaints were filed last week in Philadelphia; and they require an answer within 60 days," adding "we feel confident that we'll be successful, and that the evidence in this case is so strong, it will lead to the end of the Bush presidency." ... [Emphasis mine. –L.]
*Ø* Blogmanac | USA/Guantanamo: holding human rights hostage
Statement from Amnesty International, 6 January
"Two years after the first inmates arrived in the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Camp X-Ray and its successor, Camp Delta, have become synonymous with a government's pursuit of unfettered executive power and disregard for the rule of law. As detainees enter their third year held in tiny cells for up to 24 hours a day without any legal process, it seems that the current US administration views human dignity as far from non-negotiable when it comes to 'national security'.
"According to the USA's National Security Strategy, 'America must stand firmly for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity', including 'the rule of law' and 'limits on the absolute power of the state'. Its National Strategy for Combating Terrorism concludes by saying much the same thing, and adds: 'We understand that a world in which these values are embraced as standards, not exceptions, will be the best antidote to the spread of terrorism. This is the world we must build today'.
"Instead, the USA built a prison camp in Guantánamo Bay and filled it with detainees from around the world, including a number of children."
For more information on the situation of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, please see:
Today was named by some medieval English comedian after an imagined saint, Distaff, and honours the distaff, a sort of yarn spinning device.
It was also called ‘Rock Day’ in England until the19th Century, the custom being for women to return (after the Christmas holidays) to the spinning wheel (which was also called a ‘distaff’, or ‘rock’). Men went back to work yesterday on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Day (which in 2003 happened to fall on January 6, Twelfth Day).
Today is the first day after the ‘twelve days of Christmas’ which began on Boxing Day (the Feast of St Stephen), December 26. The women having gone back to the distaff, or rock, the men would play the prank of setting the flax on fire; in retaliation the women would drench the men from their water pails.
Most women would spin whenever they had nothing else to do. Thus, women were associated with the distaff. Because an unmarried woman was likely to do a lot of this work rather than caring for children and other domestic duties associated with marriage and motherhood in those days, she was known as a spinster, a term that was commonly used in Australia until about the 1960s and until more recently could still be found in some official documents.
The spear side and the distaff side were legal terms for male and female children with regard to inheritance. There is a French proverb “The crown of France never falls to the distaff" ...
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.
Dr Morris Berman is an American academic, cultural historian and social critic who believes that American civilisation is on the verge of collapse.
Listen to an excellent interview with him by Australia's Phillip Adams (requires Real Media). It's the second interview in the one-hour program, Late Night Live. The first one is also worth listening to (an interview with Dubya's 'Axis of Evil' speech writer, David Frum). Adams is Australia's top interviewer, and his diametrically opposed guests make compelling listening while you read the Blogmanac.
Berman's book, The Twilight of American Culture, is available here through our store.
Exotic fish focus on Ireland Irish Examiner, 6 January
"Global warming is being credited with attracting exotic aquatic visitors to Ireland.
"Climbing seawater temperatures have brought more and more unusual fish species into Irish coastal waters.
"The clownfish, blue tang, shark, sea turtle and the angler fish -- many of which were featured in this year’s Captain Nemo film [surely they mean 'Finding Nemo' and 'last year'? - N] set on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef -- are now to be seen in the Mara Beo aquarium, in Dingle, Co Kerry."
Epiphany, or Twelfth Day Epiphany, the oldest festival on the Christian Church calendar, is a national holiday in at least 15 nations. Celebrations generally are related to children. The name derives from the Greek word meaning appearance of a god. It commemorates the visit of the Magi, or Three Wise Men, to the baby Jesus in the stable in Bethlehem, and also His baptism as an adult. Because of the latter, many customs today have watery associations, such as the blessing of fishing fleets in harbours around the world ...
Twelfth Cake On Twelfth Night, English people held parties and ate the Twelfth Cake. Inside were baked a bean and a pea; he who found the bean was king for the day, and she who found the pea was queen. It might be that this came from the Roman festival of the Saturnalia, at the end of which children drew lots with beans to see who would be “king”.Both French and English revellers on Epiphany enjoyed special cake on the occasion. The English version, called a Twelfth Cake, was taller and fluffier than the French kind, and elaborately decorated with frosting. Lucky charms, to be found by diners, were baked inside, such as a ring to foretell marriage, a button for a single life and coins for wealth.
In seventeenth-century England, the Epiphany Cake was made with honey, ginger, pepper and flour. When it was cut up, slices for Christ, the Virgin Mary and the Magi were given to the poor. Whoever found a coin baked into the cake was made “king” and hoisted to the ceiling, where he chalked crosses on the rafters.
When any member of a family in old England was absent from the Twelfth Night revels, a piece of Twelfth Cake was kept for them. If the absent one was in good health, the cake would remain fresh, but if ill, the cake would perish. Or, so it was said ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in two big pages of folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
[If you've been waiting for today's Almanac ezine, please excuse the delay. It's all because of my ISP's POP server.]
Center for American Progress: 2003 Review of Bush claim vs Bush fact
Once again SmirkingChimp.com has provided a link to even more superb information to document the massive errors of the Bush regime. This time, SmirkingChimp recycled a report from the Center for American Progress which provided specific data to counter the various inaccurate and deceptive claims from the White House propaganda machine.
On Dec. 13, the White House issued a document entitled "2003: A Year of Accomplishment for the American People." The document made various inaccurate and deceptive claims about the administration's record over the last year. This report by the Center for American Progress seeks to correct those distortions, matching the White House's rhetoric with facts.
This is an excellent document, discussing the specific distortions on the subjects of drug coverage, drug costs, health savings accounts, economy, deficits, 'healthy forests,' power plant emissions, mercury emissions, education, consumer protection, veterans' benefits, AIDS, international financing, international military help, weapons of mass destruction, Saddam-Al Qaeda ties, military support, funding, terrorist financing, first responders, and cyber security.
Like the defective energy policy so eloquently described by Greg Palast in his often-seen article Power Outage Traced to Dim Bulb in White House, President Bush cotinues to exhibit extremely poor judgement, this time in the matters of public health.
Sandra Blakeslee of New York Times writes about the problems of the Mad Cow disease, and how the Bush administration has stood in the way of intelligent government policy. Again, another reason why America desperately needs a better president.
Expert warned that mad cow was imminent -- but Bush administration did not listen By Sandra Blakeslee, New York Times
Ever since he identified the bizarre brain-destroying proteins that cause mad cow disease, Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurologist at the University of California at San Francisco, has worried about whether the meat supply in America is safe.
He spoke over the years of the need to increase testing and safety measures. Then in May, a case of mad cow disease appeared in Canada, and he quickly sought a meeting with Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture. He was rebuffed, he said in an interview yesterday, until he ran into Karl Rove, senior adviser to President Bush.
So six weeks ago, Dr. Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prions, entered Ms. Veneman's office with a message. "I went to tell her that what happened in Canada was going to happen in the United States," Dr. Prusiner said. "I told her it was just a matter of time."
The department had been willfully blind to the threat, he said. The only reason mad cow disease had not been found here, he said, is that the department's animal inspection agency was testing too few animals. Once more cows are tested, he added, "we'll be able to understand the magnitude of our problem."
*Ø* Blogmanac | Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
First, an article about Willie Nelson's strong feelings about Bush and the Iraq "war," then a recap on the lyrics of the new peace song debuted at the Dennis Kucinich fundraiser on Saturday, "Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth."
Willie Nelson, Taking Bush to Task Reuters Thursday, January 1, 2004; Page C03
DALLAS TX USA -- Country music icon Willie Nelson has written a Christmas song with an edge -- a protest against the war in Iraq that he hopes will stir passions. Nelson, 70, told Reuters yesterday he wrote "Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth" after watching the news on Christmas Day. He will play it in Austin on Saturday at a concert to benefit Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.
His rare foray into protest music -- he said it was only the second such song he had written, after the Vietnam-era "Jimmy's Road" -- follows recent political controversies stirred by the Dixie Chicks and Steve Earle.
The Dixie Chicks, one of the biggest acts in country music, had their music boycotted by some country stations after lead singer Natalie Mains said at a concert in London just before the invasion of Iraq that she was embarrassed to be from the same state as President Bush.
Last year, Earle sparked the ire of conservatives with his song "John Walker's Blues" about John Walker Lindh, the young American who converted to Islam and was captured while fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Nelson said his new song criticized the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq and those who thought it unpatriotic to speak out against the war.
The song opens with the line "How much oil is one human life worth?" and swings into the chorus: "Hell they won't lie to me / Not on my own damn TV / But how much is a liar's word worth / And whatever happened to peace on Earth?"
"I hope that there is some controversy," said the country singer, who has five nominations in the upcoming Grammy Awards." If you write something like this and nobody says anything, then you probably haven't struck a nerve.
"I got it out of my system. I was able to say what I was thinking," Nelson said.
David Swanson, a spokesman for the Kucinich campaign, said the candidate was a Willie Nelson fan and the song resonated with themes raised by Kucinich on the stump.
"This is a patriotic song," Swanson said. [Emphasis added. -v]
Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in March, saying that Saddam Hussein threatened U.S. security by possessing weapons of mass destruction, but no such weapons have been found.
What Ever Happened To Peace On Earth By Willie Nelson
There's so many things going on in the world Babies dying Mothers crying How much oil is one human life worth And what ever happened to peace on earth
We believe everything that they tell us They're gonna' kill us So we gotta' kill them first But I remember a commandment Thou shall not kill How much is that soldier's life worth And whatever happened to peace on earth
(Bridge) And the bewildered herd is still believing Everything we've been told from our birth Hell they won't lie to me Not on my own damn TV But how much is a liar's word worth And whatever happened to peace on earth
*Ø* Blogmanac January 5 | Twelfth Day Eve, or Epiphany Eve
When is Twelfth Night, January 5, or 6? Many reputable folkloric sources say that January 5, the Eve of Epiphany (which is Twelfth Day), is the night called Twelfth Night on which great revels used to take place all over Europe. For example:
“The day before Epiphany is the twelfth day of Christmas, and is sometimes called Twelfth Night, an occasion for feasting in some cultures. In some cultures, the baking of a special King's Cake is part of the festivities of Epiphany (a King's Cake is part of the observance of Mardi Gras in French Catholic culture of the Southern USA).” Source
No less an authority than Encyclopedia.com’s article on the subject also claims the evening of January 5 as Twelfth Night.
However, according to the authoritative Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough:
The last of the mystic twelve days is Epiphany or Twelfth Night, and it has been selected as a proper season for the expulsion of the powers of evil in various parts of Europe. Frazer, Sir James George (1854–1941), The Golden Bough, 1922
So, to Frazer, Epiphany (January 6) is Twelfth Night. Moreover, in many places Twelfth Night is still celebrated on January 6.
Until I’m shown an authority greater than Frazer, not to mention many eminent others, such as Waverley Fitzgerald from School of the Seasons (who has a very good article on the celebration) and Robert Chambers (who calls today “Twelfth-Day Eve”), I will stick to January 6, Epiphany, as being both Twelfth Day and Twelfth Night, January 5 being the Eve of Twelfth Day/Night.
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.
"As the serious business of correcting and clarifying enters the new year, here -- without minimising the mistakes -- Ian Mayes offers a reminder of some of the things that made us smile, or grit our teeth, in the old one"
[I've taken just a few of these. See the full list here - N]
"The 'equine statue of Saddam' in Tikrit's main square should have been described as an equestrian one, unless a withering insult was intended. Equine: resembling a horse -- Collins (A moment of pure Hollywood in the town of a thousand Saddams, page 3, April 15).
"In an article about the adverse health effects of certain kinds of clothing, pages 8 and 9, G2, August 5, we omitted a decimal point when quoting a doctor on the optimum temperature of testicles. They should be 2.2 degrees celsius below core body temperature, not 22 degrees lower.
"Louis Blériot's flight across the English Channel was in July 1909 not 1902 as incorrectly stated in a leader, page 25, August 1. The leader concluded by asking: 'Why do all the famous crossings seem to be from England to France?' In fact, Blériot crossed from France to England.
"In describing the sexual activity of the main character in the new film The Mother as including 'torpid afternoons in bed with her daughter's boyfriend', we reversed the entire meaning of the article (torpid: apathetic, sluggish, lethargic). Torrid -- highly charged emotionally -- was the word required (Why make do with cocoa?, G2, page 14, November 13).
"An editing error giving miles instead of metres (for the abbreviation m) made nonsense of a report headed Europe and US clash on satellite system (page 11, December 8). It caused us to say that Europe's planned navigation system to rival the US one would be accurate to within four miles."
*Ø* Blogmanac | British soldiers 'kicked Iraqi prisoner to death'
Robert Fisk, Basra 4 January
"Eight young Iraqis arrested in Basra were kicked and assaulted by British soldiers, one of them so badly that he died in British custody, according to military and medical records seen by The Independent on Sunday.
"Amnesty International has urged its members to protest directly to Tony Blair about the death of Baha Mousa, the son of an Iraqi police colonel, and to demand an impartial and independent investigation into the apparent torture of the Basra prisoners. A major at 33 Field Hospital outside the southern Iraqi city said that one of the survivors suffered 'acute renal failure' after 'he was assaulted ... and sustained severe bruising to his upper abdomen, right side of chest, left forearms and left upper inner thigh'.
"British military authorities have offered Mr Mousa's relatives $8,000 (£4,500) in compensation, providing they are not held responsible for his death, but the young hotel receptionist's family plans to take the Ministry of Defence to court ...
"After Mr Mousa's death, the Army's Special Investigation Branch opened an investigation. The Ministry of Defence told the IoS yesterday that there was 'nothing in the records to suggest an inquiry was not still ongoing'. But two soldiers who were arrested have since been released, and no charges have been made.
"Mr Mousa's violent death left two children orphaned: his 22-year-old wife died of cancer shortly before his detention by British troops."
"At haggishunt.com we are reviving a fine old Scottish tradition: the hunting of the haggis. To encourage the resurgence of this great pastime, we are offering some great prizes.
"But fear not, to win you do not need to go out onto the hills, nor will you have to harm one of these rare creatures (haggishunt.com is totally environmentally friendly). You can hunt the haggis from the comfort of your computer.
"Simply browse through our ten haggis-cams, which are located in various parts of our beautiful country (and in London and New York, for the benefit of the haggis diaspora). If you see a haggis click on the 'I saw a haggis' link displayed under the cam. You will then be entered into a draw for one of our great prizes. If you see a Golden haggis you'll have a chance to win our grand prize - a stay at a luxury Scottish hotel."
1785 Jakob Grimm, German folklorist and philologist, one half of the Brothers Grimm. Jakob and his younger brother Wilhelm, were professors at Berlin, investigators of the early history and literature of Germany. They published a large Dictionary of the German Language, and their famous Grimm’s Tales.
Not very Disney “Before they could fall asleep a peasant woman appeared before their house, knocked on the door, and asked to be let inside. The girl got up immediately and told the woman that the dwarfs had only seven beds, and that there was no room there for anyone else. With this the woman became very angry and accused the girl of being a slut, thinking that she was cohabiting with all seven men. Threatening to make a quick end to such evil business, she went away in a rage.
“That same night she returned with two men, whom she had brought up from the bank of the Rhine. Together they broke into the house and killed the seven dwarfs …” Not by Grimm, but ‘The Death of the Seven Dwarfs’, Ernst Ludwig Rochholz, Schweizersagen aus dem Aargau, vol. 1 (Aarau: Druck und Verlag von H. R. Sauerländer, 1856), no. 222, p. 312
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.
In January – Dogon tribe, Republic of Mali The Dogon are a group of people living in Mali, in West Africa. There are about 300,000 Dogon people living today. They are most noted for their descriptions of the Sirius star system.
Funerals are held for those who died during the year. Every 12 years or so the dama dance is held to induce souls of recently departed to leave the local environs and join those of the ancestors. About every 60 years the Dogon celebrate the most important funeral of all, the Sigi. It involves all the Dogon villages and takes about six years to complete. It commemorates the death of the first human and initiates a new generation of males into the Dogon secrets ...
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The Dogon and outer space Dogon mythology seems to describe Sirius B, which is not visible without the use of a telescope. Some of the information given by Dogon natives on the Sirius system was recorded before it was discovered by Western science.
They call Sirius B Po Tolo. This star was the seed of the Milky Way galaxy and "navel" of the entire universe, according to the Dogon mythological explanation of the universe ...
According to some, the Dogons came in contact with an amphibious alien race, the Nommos, about 5000 years ago. The Nommos came from a planet orbiting Sirius and passed on information regarding the star system ...
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 more than six thousand million people sharing this little round rock with you and me.
They live in about 190 "nations", and when they read a website, if it says "national" or "our country", they shouldn't have to interpret that as meaning "American" unless they live in that particular one nation out of 190. The same goes for ezines and e-newsletters. Being the unchallengable global hegemon must surely indicate that some sensitivity is required towards the other 189.
The Internet is global and used in all those 190 nations. Like Australia. As much as we Aussies might admire Americans (and we do), we are not an American state quite yet. We would like, too, to see Internet news more reflective of the planetary realities. The world's in deep shit and Net news is so much about pop culture it's truly sick-making. And check out an "On This Day" website of any kind. It's as though only one country has any events, births or deaths. Hell, Lucille Ball's OK, and her birthday is interesting, but 3.5 million people have died in the Congo war in the past 3.3 years. Check it out. Is that not more important than some rich actor, or sports record?
However, it must be said about 99% of our brothers and sisters on this round rock have never used the Internet, and about half of them have never used a phone. That's only because of global inequity and injustice, and we must help it change. We, in our profression, can do a lot to alter the situation, largely by our awareness and use of words and images. Let's keep in touch with the real situation, please fellow blog owners and webmasters. I'm not directing this to any one person or group, just a tendency on the Internet. Thanks, and please pass it on if you agree.
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1880 Having died on January 8, 
"Climate change is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism, the UK Government's chief scientific adviser has said. Sir David King said the US had failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 
"Climate change could drive a million of the world's species to extinction as soon as 2050, a scientific study says. The authors say in the journal Nature a study of six world regions suggested a quarter of animals and plants living on the land could be forced into oblivion. 
"Two years after the first inmates arrived in the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Camp X-Ray and its successor, Camp Delta, have become synonymous with a government's pursuit of unfettered executive power and disregard for the rule of law. As detainees enter their third year held in tiny cells for up to 24 hours a day without any legal process, it seems that the current US administration views human dignity as far from non-negotiable when it comes to 'national security'. 
Today was named by some medieval English comedian after an imagined saint, Distaff, and honours the distaff, a sort of yarn spinning device. 
Dr Morris Berman is an American academic, cultural historian and social critic who believes that American civilisation is on the verge of collapse. 
"Global warming is being credited with attracting exotic aquatic visitors to Ireland.
Twelfth Cake
When is Twelfth Night, January 5, or 6?
"At 
Not very Disney
In January – Dogon tribe, Republic of Mali