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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 | One incident. Forty dead. Two stories. What really happened?
Justin Huggler in Baghdad Independent.co.uk, 21 May
"A tiny bundle of blankets is unwrapped; inside is the body of a baby, its limbs smeared with dried blood. Then the mourners peel back the blanket further to reveal a second dead baby.
"Another blanket is opened; inside are the bodies of a mother and child. The child, six or seven years old, is lying against his or her mother, as if seeking comfort. But the child has no head ...
"So potentially damaging is the video to the US occupation that American officials have demanded that the Dubai-based al-Arabiya television news network, which obtained the footage, give them the name of the cameraman who took it. Al-Arabiya has refused."
Read the statements by the US military and by the local Iraqi people at The Independent and make up your own mind.
Until the past few years, I was always able to refute my left-wing friends against their assertion of some of Noam Chomsky's sacrosanct ideas, one in particular being his notion of media filters. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I argued my case with reasonable cogency.
This was before 9-11 when I could pull out statistics, such as that 70 per cent of American journalists identified as 'liberal', which acted as a counterbalance to the capital interests of their employers.
I would point out the rather obvious fact that the rush for Australia and the US to disengage from Indochina was not hampered but actually led by the media and Hollywood. "Nixon was brought down not by Chomsky," I would say, rather hyperbolically, "but by TIME magazine." Years ago, TIME was a mere step behind the progressive ideological vanguard on many issues: race, women, gays, the environment, art, literature, religion, censorship ...
Then, in recent years, TIME actually started to sport the kinds of filters Chomsky had sweepingly named. Who can forget the pre-election cover story on Dubya, for example? That edition looked like it had been written and photographed by Bush's campaign PR team. For many months the magazine has been as weak as water, gone to seed like the old MAD magazine and the media in general. So I dropped my analysis as outmoded.
Since 9-11, it got even worse, if worse were possible, and TIME starting looking like Bush's PR men had teamed up with Herbert W Armstrong, Walt Disney and J Edgar Hoover to produce a kind of Plain Truth or Watchtower magazine for Beaver Cleaver's Mom and Pop. Pure crud. Rah rah, let's bomb the terrorist countries!!
Now, there has been a slight sea change in America, or so my sniffing tackle detects from the Australian Hub of the Universe/boondocks. It's been a long time coming, such that I was almost in despair about the country that I grew up alongside: the country of Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Abbey, Rachel Carson, Martin Luther King. Then the dinosaurs of the Soviet Union abandoned world conquest, America gave the nod to South Africa that it was now safe to set Mandela free, the neo-cons staged a bloodless coup in Washington and the US corporate juggernaut rumbled across the world. But the tide inexorably turns, and in the past six months, scarcely a week has gone by that an anti-war, anti-Shrub book has not been foremost in the NY Times bestseller list (sponsor's note: we sell some at Cafe Diem to pay the Internet bills), and unflattering photos of Bush and Rummy adorn front pages, not to mention images of what American soldiers do when cheering people in loud clothes aren't waving little polyester flags in their faces. I started smiling again.
Even TIME is letting a little light into its hadean halls, "not before time", as it were. This week's (May 24) edition finally edges towards rationality, and I sense that even as Bush and Rumsfeld's cowardly chickens start coming home to roost, the chickens of the press are beginning to show some courage.
However, TIME never was Ramparts (and even Ramparts can't be Ramparts, not since its radical editor in the '60s, David Horowitz, became a fundraising speaker for the Repugs), and liberal credentials do not progressive make. That's why I'm saddened but not suprised that in the midst of events in Iraq that will forever live in infamy, and of a turning of the tide of media honesty about the conduct of the war, TIME could write this week:
"Watching it all unfold, it has been hard to dismiss the fear that the US not only might be failing to make America safer but might be doing the opposite."
Shades of Basil Fawlty under his breath to his wife: "Can't we get you on Mastermind, Sybil? 'Next contestant Sybil Fawlty from Torquay, special subject: the bleeding obvious.'" The journalist wakes. Lock up your daughters.
It would be funny if it weren't so tragic. The rest of the world has been watching Bush's America, Blair's Britain (and Howard's Australia) self destruct by sticking a branch into a hornet's nest, wiggling it around and telling the world that freedom from hornets will result. "Let's have a Crusade," said the Shrub. Millions have been screaming "No!! You stupid!!! Bad idea!" for nearly three years, and yet this highly paid writer at TIME is just hearing it. We have a long way to go when mealy-mouthed prose such as that poses as reporting for a magazine read by millions wherever people can read.
Mealy mouthed Mini-Me? You rang??!! Speaking of mealy mouthed, who can hear the expression without thinking of Australia's John Howard? This week, Mitsubishi sacked 700 workers in a single blow, in a single factory and in a single town. Yesterday, the best that Australia's PM could say to the erstwhile employees of the Japanese car firm was, "We have a sense of concern". Jesus, that's even weaker than "We have concern", and that's 157 rungs down the ladder from "You poor bastards ... next week will ya pay the rent, or buy food and petrol?" Of course, Howard's never had to fork out money for any of those three luxuries in his whole adult life.
"Little Johnny" Howard is actually copping a bit of flak from the newly teething media here too, and ticcing his neck in his collar a tad more than usual. I think the natives are getting restless. The media reception he got over his gratuitous tax cuts for the rich (Howard is Mini-Me Bush) was comfortable for a coupla days until the press sniffed a poll that said the Australian voting (and newspaper-buying) public wouldn't wear it.
I mean, it sucked so badly that it was obscene. To push the envelope of mealy mouthed, Howard and some spotty-faced minister of his who shouldn't have been up so late, both said, and I quote (more or less), "Crikey, the tax cuts don't start till $52,000 annual income, and the average income in Australia is $52,000."
What they didn't come clean about, Mini-Me and Mini-Mini-Me, is that if Kerry Packer died, the annual average income in this country would be about the price of a packet of rollie tobacco and a bottle of New Zealand plonk.
It's like saying that the average colour of a zebra is grey, and the average woman in Australia is 17 days pregnant.
You know, the main reason I love writing for a blog is that, unlike journalists and people employed in absolutely anything at all, including bureaucratised progressive NGOs like Greenpeace or the ACLU, is that I don't have to filter what I say. And Noam, you can quote me on that, old son.
*Ø* Blogmanac May 21, 1898 | Armand Hammer, billionaire friend of dicatorships
1898 Armand Hammer (d. December 10, 1990), American physician, entrepreneur, oil magnate, art collector (seen here with Brezhnev).
New York-born billionaire 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. It might be a job he continued into his old age.
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.
Good guy/bad guy? 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 Hammer's biographer, Carl Blumay (The Dark Side of Power, Simon & Schuster, 1992), 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.
Bucks or ideology? Whether over six decades Armand Hammer used the enemies of freedom to help him make a buck, or made bucks so he could help the enemies of freedom (and whether he was a Party member all through those decades that the USSR was determined to defeat the capitalist world) is a moot point and perhaps we shall never know. My guess is that it is not an either/or question; he was probably both. As the Spectator wrote: Hammer was "one of the century's shysters, fraudsters, double-dealers, self-promoters and manipulators, a mephistophelean character ...".
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
At one point during the war, his famous blog was getting three million hits a day. The 30-year-old architect inspired and inspires us with his courage, as he blogged in such dangerous circumstances under Hussein and also the invasion, and also as a gay man in Iraq. Here's an interview (audio) on Sydney radio and another with Phillip Adams on Late Night Live. He sounds like a lovely bloke.
Ascension is the end of the Easter season, when almanackists can take things a bit easier for a while.
During the 40-day period beginning with Easter Sunday, Christians celebrate the time when Jesus Christ reappeared to some of His followers. This period ends on Ascension Day, or Ascension Thursday ...
On Ascension Day in Tissington, England, wells are traditionally dressed with flowers, and sometimes Bible verses are made out in letters of flowers. Well-dressing, practised in many other places throught Britain, is the art of decorating springs and wells with scenes, usually made from local plant life. The dressings are set in clay-filled wooden trays, mounted on a wooden frame and take up to seven days to complete.
Some believe the custom arose during a drought in Derbyshire in 1615, but it is known that the custom of well-dressing began in Celtic times ...
In another custom associated with today, farmers hung in their roof, an egg laid on Ascension Day, in order to protect against lightning and fire.
Thor's hammer Thursday was named after the Viking god, Thor, and to the Vikings today was also the Festival of Mjollnir, Thor’s hammer, on a Thursday, at around the time that Christians celebrate Ascension Day. Mjollnir was made by Brok and Eitri and had enormous destructive abilities; it was associated with lightning ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
"The alleged Australian Taliban fighter David Hicks received a prolonged beating from US military personnel during an interrogation soon after his capture in Afghanistan.
"Accounts given to the Herald by several sources reveal that Mr Hicks was beaten extensively during at least one interrogation, and was shackled and denied sleep for long periods.
"His lawyer, Stephen Kenny, gave no details of the abuse but said it was sanctioned by higher authorities and 'not just the work of individual guards'.
"The revelations raise new questions about the length and extent of US maltreatment of prisoners and what the Australian Government knew about them.
"Transcripts of the Hicks interrogation were taken and it is believed there is also video and photographic documentation ..." Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Unfortunately, David Hicks's lawyer is prevented by the US Army from releasing information to the public. Info just trickles out, but we know that the Red Cross were told about the beatings many months ago, on their first visit to David, and no doubt they brought it up with the governments of Oz and the USA, but everyone's keeping mum on this scandal. Only investigation (probably by journalists with balls) will uncover the extent of the breaches of the Geneva Convention by the Coalition of the Willing. I hope they do it soon, before all the evidence is shredded.
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
The following piece is news about Mamdouh Habib, the other lost Aussie captive of the US military:
Former Guantanamo inmate says Habib was tortured "A former detainee at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba says American guards tortured Australian man, Mamdouh Habib.
"British citizen Tarek Degoul was released from the military prison earlier this year and says Mr Habib was punched and kicked, photographed naked and filmed by US guards ..." Source: ABC Oz
*Ø* Blogmanac | Soldier snapped grinning over Iraqi corpse
"A female American soldier is seen grinning and giving a thumbs-up over the corpse of an Iraqi detainee in the latest shocking photograph to emerge from the prisoner abuse scandal.
"Specialist Sabrina Harman was pictured with the body of an Iraqi, who other soldiers have told investigators died during interrogation at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
"The photograph was obtained by ABC News, which identified the dead Iraqi as Manadel al-Jamadi ..." Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Warning, the photo is very disturbing.
The dead man's name was Manadel al-Jamadi. Quick quiz question to ask around the office: What is the name of any of the men in the Abu Ghraib torture and humiliation photos? I bet not one person in ten will know. This, I believe, is because the 'enemy' has been characterized as sub-human. Sad to say, those responsible will probably make a fortune by telling their story to Hollywood and the media. Meanwhile, we let wars happen and put guns in the hands of mean, stupid people.
Could Bush administration officials be prosecuted for 'war crimes' as a result of new measures used in the war on terror? The White House's top lawyer thought so
By Michael Isikoff Newsweek Updated: 9:14 a.m. ET May 19
"May 17 -- The White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for 'war crimes' as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the issue.
"The concern about possible future prosecution for war crimes—and that it might even apply to Bush adminstration officials themselves— is contained in a crucial portion of an internal January 25, 2002, memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales obtained by NEWSWEEK. It urges President George Bush declare the war in Afghanistan, including the detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, exempt from the provisions of the Geneva Convention ..."
*Ø* Blogmanac | Homes wrecked, lives destroyed: Israeli tactics that fuel the Intifada
By Donald Macintyre in Gaza Independent.co.uk, 19 May
"Israel was accused yesterday of committing a war crime by its destruction of more than 3,000 Palestinian homes in Israel and the occupied territories since the intifada began three and a half years ago.
"The damning report from Amnesty International came as the Israeli army killed up to 19 Palestinians -- children as well as militants -- in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip where General Moshe Ya'alon, the army chief of staff, warned at the weekend that hundreds more homes could be destroyed.
"In its critique of the Israeli policy of destroying buildings and 'vast areas' of agricultural land, the report challenges head-on the argument that the destruction is militarily necessary. It also warns that 'punitive forced evictions and house demolitions' are a 'flagrant form of collective punishment' that 'violate a fundamental principle of international law'...
"Asmaa Mughayer, 15, and her brother Ahmed, 13, were shot dead yesterday as they fed pigeons on the roof of their house. Their uncle, Mahmoud Mughayer, said that they had been unaware of the extent of the incursion because with the camp's electricity supply cut off by the assault there was no television. Their elder brother, Ali, 24, had shouted at them to come down because it was dangerous. When he heard no response, he climbed the steps to find his sister and brother lying dead in a pool of blood."
Australian Prime Ministers, J Edgar Hoover and others
Excuse me for a private advertisement. I have some autographs for sale, including all the Australian Prime Ministers since 1949:
Sir Robert Menzies, Harold Holt, John McEwen, John Gorton, Sir William McMahon, Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard. Christiaan Barnard, Jack Lang and Francis Edward de Groot, J. Edgar Hoover. Original typed poem by Judith Wright.
This one was for the search engines, thanks dear reader.
*Ø* Blogmanac | Nicholas Berg execution video faked?
It's a trailer trash kind of thing
Whooshing round the Net this week at this site and others is some conspiracy stuff about the death of Nicholas Berg.
Of course, there is always conspiracy stuff whenever any unusual death happens in Media World. (In the 1960s when Australian Prime Minister Harold "All the way with LBJ" Holt disappeared off Cheviot Beach, persistent rumours started that he had been taken by a Chinese submarine. No doubt the SS JFK Elvis McCartney.)
The "Nicholas Berg was faked" case rests on the chair, m'lord. Plus a US military-capped head that supposedly wanders into the video by mistake. It does look that way to me, more or less, I admit. Hmmmm ...
Another conspiracy point? "Terrorists definitely wouldn't clothe their captive in a US orange prison jump suit like those worn at Guantanamo", we're told. This is the biggest crock since Ronald Reagan's chamber pot ... of course they bloody would. That was the point, to protest American torture of Muslim prisoners, so they dressed Berg in Gitmo chic. It was excellent situationist theatre. Despite my absolute horror at the execution of Mr Berg, I took the point. Didn't everyone? Apparently not these budding Oliver Stones on the Net.
All I can say is that the floor and walls a la Berg do look similar to those a la Abu Ghraib prison/Lynndie England, and the chairs do seem the same .... but, those white chairs are as common as muck. I held one in my hands less than ten days ago. There's a green one not 5 metres from where I'm sitting right now. Anyone with a drop of K-Mart in their veins has sat on one of them there chairs many times. Maybe, after all, murderin' Moos-lim terrorists are trailer-trash K-Mart sort of people, just like Lynndie, the whole US Army provisions department ... and me.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Those who have read Robert Fisk or heard him interviewed know that he is an impressive commentator on current events with a good understanding of the War on Terrorism.
His website is well worth a regular visit, and is now showing a large number of links under the heading "A picture is worth a thousand words".
The pictures that these links lead to will reveal some of the horrors perpetrated by the Coalition of the Willing. Nasty stuff indeed, and I couldn't look for long at all, but it is healthy to be reminded that human beings are not statistics. These images go just a short way to doing that reminding.
"Good evening, and welcome to the Third Annual Strategies for Enhanced Sustainability and Public Sector Personnel Development Programmes Conference.
"At these now traditional fora, officers commit to flexible world-class outcomes in present and future iterations and key strategies in personnel development programmes ..."
Don Watson, historian and former speechwriter for Australian former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, delivered one of the funniest and most intelligent speeches I have heard for a long time. Transcript is here.
Watson tears apart the global language of management that infects almost all of the institutions of our society. Even the CIA refers to its 'customers'! He quotes actual bullshit like this (and we know it abounds in our society now):
"From the strategic management point of view, customer-focused differentiation effective through design can be a source of competitive advantage. From the user-centred design and customer-centred marketing point of view market-place practices can be developed that inform the strategy formation process especially in the transaction from plan to emergent strategy. This systematic production of design information can support the creation and iteration of all customer interactions manifested in the design of product services, environments and communications."
"You’ll find those phrases in the public language of every significant organisation in the country, including quite possibly your local school, the library and swimming pool," Watson says.
"Then there is the political side of it and I won’t dwell on it. There’s a site on the internet that someone pointed out to me last night where the Gettysburg Address has been reduced to a Powerpoint Presentation."
Watson raises nothing really new to anyone who is aware of how capitalism co-opts language, but his speech is well constructed, dense with ideas, and smart. It's worth reading right through as some of the best bits are at the end. And at the end of the day, in this time frame at this point in time, you'll want a good outcome to support the creation and iteration of all customer interactions manifested in the design of product services, environments and communications, won't you?
Over the weekend, the brave people from the ~flotilla~ (Flotilla of Hope)organisation left Sydney on their journey to the Pacific Island of Nauru, where they will be protesting against the concentration camps for refugees run by the Australian government.
The Eureka left Sydney for Brisbane and a second yacht, One Off, will join it for the voyage to Nauru on May 23. The crews hope to arrive by World Refugee Day on June 20.
Today, May 17, by the way, is Constitution Day, Nauru This holiday commemorates the May 17, 1968, amendments to the constitution of this tiny Pacific nation, which established a republic with a parliamentary system of government, now being undermined by Australia's using Nauru as a penal colony, just as Britain used America and Australia in centuries past.
Goodbye guano 'goldmine' Nauru is the world’s smallest independent republic, and its richest. Boasting only about 14 square kilometres, it is largely composed of phosphates, the product of centuries of bird droppings. The mineral is a valuable ingredient of fertilizers such as superphosphate, and consequently the island's 10,000 people each receives the financial benefits that accrue – nearly $US31,000 per citizen in 1974.
Unfortunately for the citizens, the deposits are all but mined out and the nation is bankrupt, yet another victim of globalization and putting profit before sustainable economics. Soon will only be a memory the ‘goldmine’ that gave Nauru one of the world’s highest rates of car ownership – with only one road to drive the cars on.
The Australian government has bribed Nauru with millions of dollars to accept asylum seekers who show up on Australia's shores. The conditions in which they live are described as being like a concentration camp, and many detainees are having severe psychological problems.
After decades of campaigning, people have finally won a victory against Monsanto:
"Monsanto, the world's biggest producer of GM crops and the related herbicides, backed down for economic reasons. Against consumer and farmers wishes there is no market for GM wheat in Europe: foreign buyers started looking for alternative sources in Australia and Eastern Europe, and US and Canadian farmers were not prepared to take the chance of some short term benefits, a lot of future problems, and the loss of a world market over night." Source: Indymedia
*Ø* Blogmanac | Guantanamo: US guards 'filmed beatings'
Senator urges action as Briton reveals Guantanamo abuse
The Observer, 16 May
"Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.
"The disclosures, made in an interview with Tarek Dergoul, the fifth British prisoner freed last March, who has been too traumatised to speak until now, prompted demands last night by senior politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to make the videos available immediately.
"They say that if the contents are as shocking as Dergoul claims, they will provide final proof that brutality against detainees has become an institutionalised feature of America's war on terror."
Donald Rumsfeld has a new war on his hands -- the US officer corps has turned on the government
Sidney Blumenthal (excerpt):
"One high-level military strategist told me that Rumsfeld is 'detested', and that 'if there's a sentiment in the army it is: Support Our Troops, Impeach Rumsfeld' ...
"In 1992, General Colin Powell, chairman of the joint chiefs, awarded the prize for his strategy essay competition at the National Defence University to Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dunlap for 'The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012'.
"The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 is today circulating among top US military strategists."
*Ø* Blogmanac | US to leave Iraq June 30, Return July 1
Bush Announces ‘Operation Iraqi Re-freedom’
"In his weekly radio address, President George W. Bush announced that if the new Iraqi government asks the United States to leave Iraq on June 30 it will do so, but added that it will return to Iraq on July 1, one day later.
"Mr. Bush expressed his hope that the U.S.’s one-day absence from Iraq would stir nostalgia for the coalition troops and cause a public groundswell of support for their re-occupation of the country.
"Calling the U.S.’s planned July 1 re-invasion of Iraq 'Operation Iraqi Re-freedom,' Mr. Bush said the troops’ return to the Middle Eastern nation would give the Iraqi people a unique chance to 'get it right this time.'
"'Last time we invaded, we were not greeted with flowers,' Mr. Bush said. 'There are operators standing by at 1-800-FLOWERS even as I speak.'
"The president also revealed that U.S. forces were currently re-erecting a statue of Saddam Hussein to be re-toppled upon their July 1 return.
"In other developments in Iraq, Mr. Bush announced that as a goodwill gesture the U.S. would close Abu Ghraib prison and re-open it as a Wal-Mart.
"The president pointed out that the prison was an ideal candidate for such a conversion since it already had the facilities necessary to lock in its employees at night as well as an extensive ladies’ underwear department.
"Mr. Bush concluded his radio address by confirming that he had asked Congress for $25 billion for Iraq and a books-on-tape version of the Geneva Conventions."
"U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the expansion of a secret program that encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq, The New Yorker magazine reported Saturday ...
"The program got approval from President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush was informed of its existence, the officials told New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh." Source: Free Internet Press
Feast day of St Brendan the Elder (aka, the Navigator, or Voyager) This most widely diffused of all legendary saints, St Brendan, is found in manuscripts of all Western European languages, and the travels of St Brendan are the subject of a popular medieval romance, 'The Voyage of Saint Brendan'.
Some say that Brendan sailed from Ireland and found America in the 6th century. In the 1970s, Tim Severin in showed that it was possible to sail a coracle (a small boat made of wood and leather) to America, so it is possible, if unlikely, that Irish monks might have preceded Christopher Columbus by several centuries.
Founder and first abbot of monastery at Clonfert, Galway, Brendan went looking for the island that had once contained Adam and Eve's paradise, encountering the monstrous fish named Jascon (Jasconius) along the way. He got a ship victualled for seven years, and for 12 monks, but two more wanted to come. "Ye may sail with me", he said, "but one of you will go to perdition ere you return" ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.
Odd. At least 150,000 Israelis demonstrate in Rabin Square in the heart of Tel Aviv, demanding immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops and Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip.
The huge rally is addressed by none other than the Leader of the Opposition, Shimon Peres, and by Yom Tov Samia, the former head of the Israeli army's southern command. It's a big story, and it's all over the Internet on news sites from non-American countries. ABC Radio National (Australia) reported a crowd of a quarter of a million.
It's a big story which happened within the last 24 hours but does not appear, as I write, on the front pages of the following websites: Google News, Reuters, Yahoo News, MSNBC News and the New York Times. The San Francisco Chronicle doesn't give it a mention either, and its lead story is about a singer called Brody Dalle. Fox News, to its credit, has the story, but no picture on page one, and gives a crowd estimate of only 100,000.
All of these sites are American-based, and they tend to feed 90% of the world's mainstream news media.
One recalls an anti-Iraq invasion demonstration in London that was held some months before the huge protests of February 15, 2003. At that big demo an estimated half a million people gathered, but it was on the same day as an anti-fox hunting demo that attracted fewer than 20,000 people. Only the latter was reported in the US media, even in the Washington Post, or so I recall from the time.
I also recall reading somewhere that 97 per cent of media consumed in America is produced in that country. By way of contrast, in Australia a minority of media consumed is locally produced. The effect for the good citizens of the USA seems to be an almost hermetically sealed information prison of their own making. Thank heavens for the Internet. Unfortunately, even the news on the Net is dominated by the handful of American TNCs (transnational corporations) that dominate world information.
And there are some dangerous backroom politics involved there as well. For example, a vast amount of Internet news is produced by MSNBC, which is co-owned by Microsoft and NBC.
So what? Well, NBC is fully owned by General Electric, the 14th largest contractor to the US military. Let's not mince words: the job of GE is to market the means of war to any purchaser. MSNBC is GE's PR wing. Worth thinking about.
*Ø* Blogmanac | When You Talk with God, Mr. President . . .
From Raff:
When You Talk with God A Letter to President George W. Bush By Frank Fugate
Mr. President:
Recently, much has been made of your talks and your closeness with God in extracts quoted from Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack" and the recent PBS’s "The Jesus Factor." We know talks with God are usually personal. However, one cannot help but wonder if He has exempted you from the Ten Commandments He gave Moses and that are the foundation of our civilized Christian society.
When you talk with God, Mr. President, did He tell you it is ok to ignore His commandment: "Thou shalt not kill," and allow you to support Sharon in his killing of innocent Palestinian Christians and Muslims, mostly infants, children, women and the old? Are they not humans? Like you, are they not God’s children? We know, Mr. President, you haven’t personally killed another human. You went to great lengths not to go to the war in Vietnam – to kill or be killed. You haven’t personally killed an Iraqi citizen. You just sent other Americans in harm’s way to do it for you. You haven’t personally killed a Palestinian. You just turn your back while Sharon continues to kill and maim.
Pages
of Days
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This was before 9-11 when I could pull out statistics, such as that 70 per cent of American journalists identified as 'liberal', which acted as a counterbalance to the capital interests of their employers. 
1898 Armand Hammer (d. December 10, 1990), American physician, entrepreneur, oil magnate, art collector (seen here with Brezhnev). 
Salam Pax, whose blog from Baghdad called 
Interesting that he's 
Ascension is the end of the Easter season, when almanackists can take things a bit easier for a while. 
"Specialist Sabrina Harman was pictured with the body of an Iraqi, who other soldiers have told investigators died during interrogation at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
"Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.
Feast day of St Brendan the Elder (aka, the Navigator, or Voyager)
Odd. At least 150,000 Israelis 