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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*
1706 Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790), American journalist, publisher, author, philanthropist, public servant, scientist, diplomat, and inventor who was also one of the leaders of the American Revolution, known also for his many quotations and his experiments with electricity. He corresponded with members of the Lunar Society and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1775, Franklin became the first US Postmaster General.
Franklin was born on January 6, 1706, which was then Epiphany, but in 1752, when he was 46, England and her colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar and also changed to New Style, which dropped 11 days. Thus we remember this American ‘Renaissance man’ on January 17. Long before there was Wilson’s Almanac, there was Poor Richard’s Almanac, by Ben Franklin, the first American bestselling book, which gave the young Franklin financial security to begin his life’s work doing … absolutely everything.
The prodigious accomplishments of the boy who left school aged ten include: the foundation of the Society to Abolish Slavery and the American Philosophical Society, the first US hospital and its first lending library, its first police and fire departments and the first American fire insurance company. He invented the lightning rod, a platform rocking chair, the step ladder that folds down into a chair, the Franklin stove (still popular today) and bifocals. He created the first efficient postal service in the USA, and an academy that became the University of Pennsylvania.
He was America’s first newspaper cartoonist; the US Ambassador to England and France (helping to cement the alliance so valuable to the American Revolution); a musician, philanthropist, cartographer, linguist and printer. He sat on the committee that drafted the US Declaration of Independence. He founded a popular publication, the Pennsylvania Gazette, later to become The Saturday Evening Post. He invented swim fins, and a tool to get books off of high shelves; he headed the Pennsylvania delegation to the Albany Congress; he established two major fields of physical science, electricity and meteorology. Old Ben wrote a scientific essay that for the first time described the existence of the Gulf Stream ...
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.
The Bush administration's lack of attention to meat safety regulations has left the door wide open for mad cow disease to enter this country, and several cows have potentially been tainted by the disease. Meat is being recalled in 13 states and over 100 cows have been destroyed.
President Bush has benefited from his close ties to the meat industry. The livestock industry gave him over $500,000 during his first election campaign, and has chipped in another $250,000 this election cycle. Meat processing companies dumped over $75,000 into the Bush campaign in 2000, and have followed that with another $40,000 this cycle. [This doesn't include donations from individuals in the meat industry as well as donations given in the names of employees who might not have donated had their employers not coerced them to allow the donation in their names. -v] [Emphasis added. -v]
On several occasions since Bush took office, Congressional Democrats introduced provisions demanding the increased inspection of meat, only to have them shot down by their conservative counterparts. As you know, we think there is something else that needs to be recalled along with American meat, so we're asking you to help us Recall the Mad Cowboy.
We're starting a new campaign to Recall the Mad Cowboy. Please go to our Bush Recall website (www.bushrecall.org) and sign the new petition, as well as forward this along to all of your friends. At the website, you can find background information about our mad cowboy on the Daily Reality Check column.
We also thought you might enjoy the fact that right-wing strategist Paul Weyrich has targeted BushRecall.org's treasurer and co-founder Mike Lux as someone to "look out for." We couldn't be more proud.
Mr. Weyrich will be dismayed to learn that the BushRecall.org website is looking to expand so that we may bring you more in-depth information on this, and many other issues we know are important to you.
Help us raise money to make right-wingers like Weyrich even more mad, money that will help us organize more of the campaigns and projects like the ones you've already seen -- The Lord of the Right Wing video and the Daily Reality Check column.
Esmeralda has crashed. Maybe died. But then, she is about 93 in computer years and there sure were a lot of cobwebs inside when we opened her up.
Thanks to the highly spiritual and barely subgenius Baz le Tuff, I have his 2nd-best computer on loan until we can figger something out about the old gal.
Excuse me please – looks like no Almanac ezine for Thursday 15th and Friday 16th, and maybe not much of me till the weekend. The plan: to stay online.
Anyway, you can read all about Australia's first female surfboard rider at the Book of Days (click January 15). It's an interesting tale, the day in 1915 that Hawaii's famous Duke Kamewhatsit (the Big Kahuna) taught Aussies to shoot the curls. Young Isabel Letham learned that day, and it happened at a beach I used to live at, so it kinda stirs my imagination.
Dubya's handlers are pushin' the Kennedyesque "vision thing" for the election season. Spare us! He's already made such a mess down here, he's ready for another Star Wars project and a hiding place for himself. For someone whose vision didn't even extend to an exit strategy in Iraq, today's moon speech was laughable. Especially in light of his reputation with the sciences!
Politics in the lab hits US scientific integrity By Barton Reppert Christian Science Monitor
GAITHERSBURG, MD. – In theory, science is supposed to be cold, analytical, dispassionate -- and studiously apolitical. But in the real world of competing demands for federal research dollars, savvy scientists of all disciplines -- from cognitive psychologists running rats through mazes to nuclear physicists operating massive particle accelerators -- recognize that a certain amount of political meddling in their research by policymakers in the executive branch and Congress is to be expected.
However, there are limits -- limits the Bush administration has frequently disregarded by imposing stringent political controls on a broad variety of federal scientific programs and activities. This has raised acute concern in the American scientific community that the administration's drive to stamp its conservative values on science isn't just affecting policy decisions, but undermining the integrity of the US research infrastructure itself. [Emphasis added. -v]
Speaking of "Kennedyesque," ol' Ted may be a little slow on the uptake, but at least he's speaking out.
Kennedy Says Iraq War Has Made America Less Safe By Congressional Quarterly January 14, 2004
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., today delivered a blistering attack on the Bush administration for its insistence on going to war in Iraq, saying the effort has made America less safe. The administration, Kennedy told a liberal advocacy group, the Center for American Progress, "is leading this country to a perilous place. It has broken faith with the American people, aided and abetted by a congressional majority willing to pursue ideology at any price, even the price of distorting the truth." Kennedy said the administration "squandered the immense good will" showered on America after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by launching a war against Iraq without United Nations support. "If Congress and the American people knew the whole truth, America never would have gone to war," he said, adding, "The war has made America more hated in the world. And it has made our people more vulnerable to attacks both here and overseas."
Yep, this was bound to happen. Kick us when we're down, right, George? Okay, evasion is one thing--but legal avoidance? What about the shelters for the big boys? Take back that tax cut! And how about some corporate taxes? I'm sure this is the tip of the iceberg for middle-income individuals.
Treasury Outlines Proposals To Curb Tax Evasion, Avoidance by Congressional Quarterly January 13, 2003
The [U.S.] Treasury Department today laid out an extensive agenda of more than 20 legislative proposals to crack down on tax abuses. The proposals, to be included in President Bush's fiscal 2005 budget due Feb. 2, would raise more than $46 billion over 10 years, according to the administration's estimate. It was not clear if the proposals would make much of a dent in the tax abuse problem, which a December report by the General Accounting Office said is costing the government $40 billion a year in unrealized revenue, based on IRS documents. The largest of the proposals, which alone would raise $33.73 billion over 10 years, would limit the ability of companies and wealthy individuals to buy tax benefits from government agencies and tax-exempt entities that cannot use them. A second proposal that would affect far more ordinary taxpayers would tighten rules for vehicle donation deductions, a plan that would raise $2.55 billion over 10 years [Emphasis added. -v]
Many Kucinich supporters lament the number of people that have assembled, somewhat skittishly, behind Howard Dean. Since many Dean supporters have confessed that they would really prefer Dennis Kucinich were he "electable" many of us wonder, "why not get behind the candidate you REALLY believe in?" [Emphasis added. -v]
Instead of fighting the current situation, I say celebrate it! The reason is that there are two main waves of change sweeping the country. Howard Dean provides a powerful rallying point for the first wave and Dennis is providing the rallying point for the second. Many people involved in the early stages of the second wave wonder why the masses haven't yet caught on. But this misses a crucial point: people can't be forced into the second wave until the first wave has worked its magic. And that magic is this:
Many, many Americans are hurting. Every new announcement from the Bush administration is like a dagger, cutting the proud ideals of America into red, white, and blue ribbons. We are ashamed of America's behavior in the world, outraged by the overthrow of so many advances, galled at the waste of life and resources. We feel grief and pain over our national trajectory
For quite some time, many have felt the wound, but most felt powerless to stop the ongoing abuse. Corporate money, fear of terrorists, distorted media, and the juggernaut of Bush's neo-cons seemed unstoppable.
The magic of Howard Dean is that his feisty demeanor and anti-Bush rhetoric has stirred progressive America from its slumbers. Through righteous anger in the service of ending the abuse of power, he has provided a rallying point. Through his goading, he resurrects our confidence that we can defeat Bush next year. Through his attacks, he inspires the grass roots to organize. He is allowing us to shed the first layer of our cocoons.
The thing to notice, though, is that Dean has a much more cloudy vision of the society and world we want to create. His energy is that of rebellion, not progress. His voice is that of combat, not peace. His vision is that of railing against the status quo, not creating a truly just world. His stance is one of antagonism, not the stance that goes beyond the fight and stands in a fundamentally wiser place.
Dennis Kucinich spent some of his early career in a more oppositional stand, just as Dean does now. He fought the good fight with the "enemies." However, he now stands beyond that, in a place of commitment to truth. He will certainly go into battle for a good cause, but he does so without rancor or demonizing the perceived enemy. He has worked through the dramas that are necessary to become a man of wisdom and integrity. He has been through his fiery trials to become a light unto the world.
From that place, his policies emerge as a service to the country and a service to his constituents rather than a way for him to maintain or increase power. In doing this, he rekindles the noble fire at the heart of America and reminds us of our highest mission as a country. [Emphasis added. -v]
He is a new kind of political leader for today's America, more like Mandela in South Africa or Lula in Brazil, or stretching backwards in time, like Abraham Lincoln. These leaders surface at moments of crisis when it is imperative that a country evolves beyond the problems of the moment into the next stage of maturity. [Emphasis added. -v]
[While being deeply and bitterly disappointed in the leaders of the U.S. and their actions "in our name," I've always held out hope for a leader "with vision like Kennedy" to emerge and, with a higher purpose, join the world community in a way that fulfills the potential of all of us, working together. This is the first time I've seen my thoughts expressed. Now I wish I'd written what I'd been feeling. LOL! Stephen states it very well. Could it be . . . ? -v]
*Ø* Blogmanac January 14 | Feast of the Ass, old England
This was a popular theatrical representation of the Biblical ‘Flight into Egypt’, performed in the Middle Ages.
The escape of the Holy family of Jesus into Egypt was represented by a beautiful girl holding a child at her breast, and seated on an ass, splendidly decorated with trappings of gold-embroidered cloth. After the procession, the ass was taken to the church's high altar, where it remained during the religious services. In place of the usual responses, the congregation brayed like donkeys. At the end, the priest brayed three times instead of pronouncing the benediction. He was answered by a general hee-hawing ...
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.
1967 Timothy Leary, Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder and others attended the first 'Human Be-In' in a park in San Francisco, USA, one of the big events of the ‘Summer of Love’. Among the performers were The Grateful Dead and The Jefferson Airplane. Estimates of numbers in attendance range wildly from 20,000 to 300,000 (estimate in Ringolevio by Emmett Grogan). Leary, in his first San Francisco appearance, uttered the sound bite of the decade: “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out”.
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.
Where's the evidence . . . the smoking gun, so to speak?
Three commentaries from Online Journal tell it like it is! (And we deserve better than this.)
Random Thoughts: 2003 By W. David Jenkins III
January 10, 2004—Okay, 'fess up. Does anybody else feel totally beat up? Kind of like the feeling of waking up with the hangover from Hell only to have some idiot drop a box of sledge-hammers on your head. I remember hearing that you should never challenge "worse." Never say to yourself, "Oh man, things can't get worse" because worse has a way of crawling up onto your lap and—with a big smile on its face—smacking you over the head with an iron skillet.
Quail hunting in the backwoods By Teresa Simon-Noble
January 10, 2004—Quail, my friend Claudette tells me, is an innocent, fragile, trusting bird.
Out in the backwoods of Texas on New Year's Day 2004, the Enchanted Prince and his proud as a peacock that my son is President of the United States, father, George Herbert Walker Bush, hunt for quail on the enchanted land of a family friend who is related to a Texas engineering and construction company that many years ago became part of Halliburton—the firm which has received untold, overgrown, oversized, disproportionate favors from the Bush administration in the so called reconstruction of Iraq.
Emerging from said enchanted forest to face an enthralled press corps, where the only mortal danger lurking about was the one the Prodigious (don't get in my way or your life will pay) Father and his Enchanted Prince posed to any poor, defenseless quail, unlucky enough to make its living in those woods, Splendid Son said he thought he shot five quail.
"I'm not that good of a shot," he said, then, flaunted for the press corps and in the face of all of the families he has temporarily or forever disjoined with his takeover of Iraq, "but it was a lot of fun. It's a good way to start the New Year—outdoors [and] with my dad."
Outdoors in America these days is filled with the many empty places of mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, aunts, and uncles, nieces, who have died or are fighting in Iraq for Bush's oil and for the establishment of his New American Century.
January 10, 2004—It's a new year: 2004. A time to reflect on all that's past and a time to be filled with the hope of all that's new. Try as I might, though, I find it very difficult to imagine that this new year, this the fourth year in the new millennium holds any more promise than the years that came before.
Frightening indeed. Many Canadians are becoming frightened of the US government, and they are well justified in that fear.
Justice Goes Offshore and is Imprisoned By Tom Engelhardt, tomdispatch.com
Timothy Noah of Slate writes: "[Vice-president Dick] Cheney violated the Bush administration's policy of never saying the e-word in a Christmas card he and his wife sent out to various supporters and important Washingtonians. -- Along with their best wishes for this holiday season, the Cheneys included the following quotation from Benjamin Franklin: 'And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?'"
The imperial (vice-)presidency has new meaning -- and not just because Dick and Lynne implicitly plugged God's Empire, the United States of Everything, in a Christmas card. The New York Times had a fascinating, if chilling, front-page rundown on the underside of Cheney's imperial dream, the sort of thing for which his New Year's card might be inscribed, "Happy New Year, Welcome to Hell."
James Risen and Thom Shanker began their report, "Hussein Enters Post-9/11 Web of U.S. Prisons," this way:
"Saddam Hussein is now prisoner No. 1 in what has developed into a global detention system run by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, according to government officials. It is a secretive universe, they said, made up of large and small facilities throughout the world that have sprouted up to handle the hundreds of suspected terrorists of Al Qaeda, Taliban warlords and former officials of the Iraqi government?"
A "FLASHBACK' from WHATREALLYHAPPENED.COM November 17, 2003 issue Copyright ? 2003 The American Conservative
[You and me both! I never thought I'd reprint from a conservative source either! But it's a definite MUST READ! LOL! -v]
Most Favored Democracy The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies goes on offense. By Daniel McCarthy
The images on the screen show American flags on fire, children dressed as suicide bombers, Saddam Hussein triumphantly addressing a throng of Iraqis, and grainy footage of the destruction wrought by a terrorist attack. These arresting pictures and the voice-over narration tell viewers that the war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and al-Qaeda?s attacks against the United States are all part of a larger war that Israel and the U.S. must fight together.
Congressmen and senators, White House aides and Pentagon officials, lobbyists and journalists are seeing the ad, which has been running on cable television in the Washington D.C., area. It is just one tactic used by an aggressive new neoconservative think tank, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), to shape American thinking on war, terrorism, and the Middle East. The Foundation is only two years old, but already the group is making its influence felt on the nation's policymakers.
In early 2001, a tightly knit group of billionaire philanthropists conceived of a plan to win American sympathy for Israel's response to the Palestinian intifada. They believed that the Palestinian cause was finding too much support within crucial segments of the American public, particularly within the media and on college campuses, so they set up an organization, Emet: An Educational Initiative, Inc., to offer Israel the kind of PR that the Israeli government seemed unable to provide itself.
At first, Emet floundered, without an executive director or a well-defined mission. But that changed after Sept. 11, and Emet changed too, into what is now the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The name is different, but the goal of influencing America's opinion-forming classes remains.
Israel to Request Billions from the U.S. to Actualize Unilateral Separation Plan 14:40 Jan 08, '04 / 14 Tevet 5764
(IsraelNN.com) A "senior Jerusalem source" quoted by Israel Radio this morning stated Israel will be seeking billions of dollars in U.S. assistance to actualize Prime Minister Ariel Sharon?s unilateral separation plan to cut ties with the PA.
Funds would be required to pay for the logistical separation of forces/persons from the PA, as well as making compensatory payment to the tens of thousands of families residing in Yesha (Judea, Samaria & Gaza) communities.
Like St Distaff's Day, Plough Monday in England of old represented a return to work after the Christmas holidays. Before the Protestant Reformation, ploughmen (or, plough bullockers) kept lights burning in front of certain images in the church, and there was also a procession, with the men gathering money for the support of these plough-lights as they were called. A plough light was a lamp in the church that was never allowed to go out .
After the Reformation, the procession continued, with the men collecting money to spend on grog instead. A plough known as the Fool Plough was decorated with ribbons among other things, and dragged from house to house by 30 or 40 men dressed in clean smock-frocks, hats and shirts (outside their coats) decorated with ribbons and wheat. The Fool Plough was preceded by one ploughman in front dressed – over-dressed, in fact, and wearing a bullock’s tail – as an old woman known as Bessy, and carrying the money box. There was also a fool, or jester, in fantastic costume. In some parts of the country, morris dancers entertained the throng, and in the corn growing areas of eastern England, Plough Plays were versions of mumming plays. Sometimes there was a reproduction of an ancient sword dance that might have Scandinavian, Germanic or Roman origins. One of the ‘mummers’ wore a fox-skin hood, the meaning of which has been lost in the passing centuries ...
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.
Burning the Clavie, Burghead, Morayshire, Scotland The people of the north-eastern Scottish fishing port of Burghead enact the ritual Burning of the Clavie (tar barrel) on January 11, preferring their Hogmanay (Scottish New Year’s Eve celebration) according to the Old Style calendar that was in use in Scotland until 1660. So, on the evening of Auld New Year at 6 o'clock, the tar barrel (clavie) is set alight and paraded around town. The clavie is the bottom part of a wooden barrel, mounted on a pole and filled with tar-soaked wood, and must be lit with a piece of burning peat from a local household fire.
The barrel is pounded onto an eight-foot pole called ‘the spoke’ (using a round stone, never a hammer), the same nail being ritually used every year – perhaps there’s a link between ‘clavie’ and clavus, the Latin for ‘nail’, though it might come from the Gaelic word for basket, cliabh. Then the clavie is hoisted onto the shoulders of a local villager and the procession begins.
The clavie crew of nine or ten local men (led by the ‘Clavie King’) must make sure that the clavie isn't dropped, or else bad luck will come to Burghead in the coming year. Eventually, after the crew has stopped at a number of traditional stations along the route, it reaches its destination at an ancient mound called Doorie where it’s set on a specially prepared base. It is allowed to burn for some time, before being ritualistically broken up with a hatchet. Flaming embers are then snatched up by onlookers. Traditionally these used to be kindling for a special New Year Fire in the home, but are now kept for luck and even sent to relatives or friends who have moved away from the district.
Opinions differ as to the roots of the ancient festival of the Burning of the Clavie – it might be Pictish, Celtic, Viking or Roman in origin, but it is certainly pre-Christian. Until about 1875, clavies were also carried into each fishing boat, where handfuls of grain were sprinkled on their decks to ensure plenty in the coming year. In the 18th Century this picturesque and harmless rite was condemned as 'superstitious, idolatrous and sinfule, an abominable heathenish practice'. In Bannfshire there was 'ane act against clavies' in 1704 protesting that the barrels were 'carried about idolatrouslie sanctifying the cornes and cattle'.
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 | Former Treasury Sec. Paints Bush as 'Blind Man'
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill likened President Bush at Cabinet meetings to "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," according to excerpts on Friday from a CBS interview.
"O'Neill, who was fired by Bush in December 2002, also said the president did not ask him a single question during their first one-on-one meeting, which lasted an hour.
"'As I recall it was just a monologue,' he told CBS' [sic] '60 Minutes,' which will broadcast the entire interview on Sunday.
"In making the blind man analogy, O'Neill told CBS his ex-boss did not encourage a free flow of ideas or open debate ..." Source
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1706 Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790), American journalist, publisher, author, philanthropist, public servant, scientist, diplomat, and inventor who was also one of the leaders of the American Revolution, known also for his many quotations and his experiments with electricity. He corresponded with members of the Lunar Society and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1775, Franklin became the first US Postmaster General. 
Esmeralda has crashed. Maybe died. But then, she is about 93 in computer years and there sure were a lot of cobwebs inside when we opened her up.
This was a popular theatrical representation of the Biblical ‘Flight into Egypt’, performed in the Middle Ages. 
1967 Timothy Leary, Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder and others attended the first 'Human Be-In' in a park in San Francisco, USA, one of the big events of the ‘Summer of Love’. Among the performers were The Grateful Dead and The Jefferson Airplane. Estimates of numbers in attendance range wildly from 20,000 to 300,000 (estimate in Ringolevio by Emmett Grogan). Leary, in his first San Francisco appearance, uttered the sound bite of the decade: “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out”.
