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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*
I am trialling the new Google Desktop Search and will let you know what I think when I've given it a spin around the block.
It's a 446 kb, free download that lets you search your own computer (something I've always wanted with my thousands of Almanac .doc and .html files and a large email correspondence).
Here's what Google offers:
Search email from Outlook 2000+ and Outlook Express 5+ Search files in TXT, HTML, DOC, XLS, and PPT formats (Office 2000+) Search chats from AOL 7+ and AOL Instant Messenger 5+ Search web pages viewed in Internet Explorer 5+
Almaniac Dragonsgrail writes: "Wanted to make sure this didn't stay lost in smaller newspapers. When you have two Sergeants, one a 24 year reservist, refusing orders because of concerns of not having the equipment needed to provide safety for their men, you have to take notice. Too bad Mr. Bush doesn't have the same ethics in leading his troops as these two do." Thanks for sending it in, DG:
Soldier calls home, cites safety concerns
"A 17-member Army Reserve platoon with troops from Jackson and around the Southeast deployed to Iraq is under arrest for refusing a 'suicide mission' to deliver fuel, the troops' relatives said Thursday.
"The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to Taji, Iraq — north of Baghdad — because their vehicles were considered 'deadlined' or extremely unsafe, said Patricia McCook of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Larry O. McCook.
"Sgt. McCook, a deputy at the Hinds County Detention Center, and the 16 other members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company from Rock Hill, S.C., were read their rights and moved from the military barracks into tents, Patricia McCook said her husband told her during a panicked phone call about 5 a.m. Thursday.
"The platoon could be charged with the willful disobeying of orders, punishable by dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and up to five years confinement, said military law expert Mark Stevens, an associate professor of justice studies at Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C." Source
Eight out of 10 countries favour Kerry for president
"George Bush has squandered a wealth of sympathy around the world towards America since September 11 with public opinion in 10 leading countries – including some of its closest allies – growing more hostile to the United States while he has been in office.
"According to a survey, voters in eight out of the 10 countries, including Britain, want to see the Democrat challenger, John Kerry, defeat President Bush in next month's US presidential election.
"The poll, conducted by 10 of the world's leading newspapers, including France's Le Monde, Japan's Asahi Shimbun, Canada's La Presse, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian, also shows that on balance world opinion does not believe that the war in Iraq has made a positive contribution to the fight against terror.
Contempt for Bush "The results show that in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, Spain and South Korea a majority of voters share a rejection of the Iraq invasion, contempt for the Bush administration, a growing hostility to the US and a not-too-strong endorsement of Mr Kerry. But they all make a clear distinction between this kind of anti-Americanism and expressing a dislike of American people. On average 68% of those polled say they have a favourable opinion of Americans." Source: Guardian
Republicans, Out of Ideas, Ask Prosecutors to Arrest Michael Moore By Michael Moore 10/6/04
Dear Friends,
You may have heard by now that the Michigan Republican Party has called for my arrest. That's right. They literally want me brought up on charges -- and hope that I'm locked up.
No, I'm not kidding. The Republican Party, yesterday, filed a criminal complaint with the prosecutors in each of the counties where I spoke last week in Michigan.
My crime? Clean underwear for anyone who will vote in the upcoming election.
Each night on our 60-city "Slacker Uprising Tour" through the 20 battleground states, I've been registering hundreds (and on some nights, thousands) of voters at my arena and stadium events. I then ask for everyone over 23 who has never voted (or didn't vote in the last election) to stand up. I tell these slackers that I understand and respect why they think politicians are not worth the bother. I tell them that I may have been the original slacker, and that I do not want them to change their slacker ways. Keep sleeping 'til noon! Keep drinking beer! Stay on the sofa and watch as much TV as possible! But, please, just for me, on 11/2, I want you to leave the house and give voting a try -- just this once. The stakes this time are just too high.
If they promise me that they'll do this, I give the guys a 3-pack of new Fruit of the Loom underwear, and the women get a day's supply of Ramen noodles, the sustenance of slackers everywhere.
"A 135-million-year-old fossil dinosaur caught apparently grabbing a kip with its head tucked under its forearm has been discovered by scientists in China ...
"'Exactly how volcanic activity captured the life posture, we don't know,' Professor Xu told BBC News. 'There are many possibilities. For example, volcanic gas cut off the oxygen and the animal died sleeping, peacefully. Then, later, the body was covered quickly by ash.'"
This is a worldwide phenomenon that calls into question everything about Western lifestyles, and globalization, which is the engine by which corporations spread those lifestyles to parts of the world as yet undamaged. Here are just two of many articles on what's happening to our water:
UK: Pollution 'changes sex of fish' "A third of male fish in British rivers are in the process of changing sex due to pollution in human sewage, research by the Environment Agency suggests ..." Source: BBC News
USA: Mutant fish prompt concern "When Colorado biologist John Woodling and a team of researchers pulled fish from the South Platte River and Boulder Creek two years ago, they found deformities they'd never seen before.
A word from Australia, Mr President: We have had free universal health care here since 1972. If you feel sick, you go to the doctor and you can choose between one who charges you and one who charges the government. Most of them will not charge you, and except in remote areas, the choice is easy. I've been countless times to excellent doctors and never paid a cent in my life. This is the norm in Australia and many other countries. It doesn't matter whether you are employed or not, high quality health care is free to all. Maybe Bush should travel a bit more, or just learn how to tell the truth.
If you need to go to hospital in Australia, it's free. The sytem isn't perfect, but it is still excellent. In the past four years I have had two operations and not paid a cent. On both occasions I was treated like a king, and was operated on very soon after diagnosis. What is Bush trying to sell the American people? I hope they don't believe him but I fear some will.
As for the USA being the envy of the world, the fact is that in countries like Australia we are continually amazed and aghast at the stories we get from our American friends about the health care they receive and that they have to pay for.
Mr Bush, we laughing at you from Australia, Britain, continental Europe ... even from Cuba, where the infant mortality rate is less than that of Washington, DC.
Fontinalia, garlanding of fountains, Roman Empire Festival dedicated to Fontus (Fons), the god of wells and springs and son of Juturna and Janus. From this God's name and the Latin word font or fons we derive the names of fountain, the baptismal font and the fonts, or typefaces, that we use most days.
The latter comes from the font, or well, of hot metal (usually an alloy of lead, tin and antimony) from which letters were cast in letterpress printing. The Latin verb fundere, from fons, meaning to pour out, gave the French fondre, to melt or pour out, which led to our typeface word. A cognate is the Sanskrit dhanvati, meaning flows, runs.
Now that you know this, you can be the font of wisdom at your next dinner party, and hope that they serve fondue, a molten meal or dessert, which is from the same root.
The freshwater goddesses, the Camenae, oracular water-nymphs, were honoured today as well. Today saw sacrifices, feasts, games, and the drinking of wine mixed with spring water. Garlands were used to decorate wells and springs today.
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
"Survivors and family and friends of victims gathered on a chilly London evening to remember the 28 Britons killed by the Bali bombs two years ago but the rest of the nation seemed to have forgotten the atrocity.
"The second anniversary of the bombs, which claimed 202 lives in Kuta, did not rate a paragraph in any of Britain's national newspapers or a mention on television news." Source: Yahoo News Oz
The perils of having an Australian accent are many, and for scriveners include having one's readers not being able understand what one writes. Or so I learned in my guestbook on Monday.
Muyboi oi need a flimin' terpreter for my lanwidge, zatroit, cobbers?
October 12, 1960 Nikita Khrushchev pounded his shoe on a table at a General Assembly of the United Nations meeting in anger at a point, made Lorenzo Sumulong, the Filipino delegate, about Soviet Union policies regarding Eastern Europe.
Sumulong asked ‘Mr K’ how he could protest Western capitalist imperialism while the Soviet Union was at the same time rapidly assimilating Eastern Europe. Khrushchev became enraged and informed Sumulong that he was, “a jerk, a stooge and a lackey of imperialism,” then removed one of his shoes and banged it on his table.
Or, so it is said, but it is doubted by some ...
This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives, with many more links, at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date (or your birthday) when you're there.
So sayeth the New York Times, and far be it from me to disagree on this occasion. The NYT gives an opinion that pretty much echoes my own. I'm talking of course, about the "Town Hall Debate". (2 am to 3.30 am my time in Dublin last night, so I'm now in the class of the walking dead!)
Excerpt:
"One of the uncommitted voters in the audience sensibly asked President Bush to name three mistakes he'd made in office, and what he had done to remedy the damage. Mr. Bush declined to list even one, and instead launched into an impassioned defense of the invasion of Iraq as a good idea. The president's insistence on defending his decision to go into Iraq seemed increasingly bizarre in a week when his own investigators reported that there were no weapons of mass destruction there, and when his own secretary of defense acknowledged that there was no serious evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
"Even worse, the president's refusal to come up with even a minor error -- apart from saying that he might have made some unspecified appointments that he now regretted -- underscores his inability to respond to failure in any way except by insisting over and over again that his original decision was right.
"Unfortunately, for long stretches of the evening, the format did not lead to such telling responses. On occasion, the arguments were impossible to follow. Heaven help any citizen who relied on last night's debate to understand what is going on with North Korea or who tried to understand the fight about tax cuts on Subchapter S corporations. [I do have to wonder why anyone would have to rely on this 'debate' (32 pages of rules?) to know what's going on with North Korea. Or anything or anywhere else. - N]
"Mr. Bush was deeply unpersuasive when asked why he had not permitted the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. He claimed that the reason was 'I want to make sure it cures you and doesn't kill you'. Mr. Kerry cleanly retorted that four years ago in a campaign debate, Mr. Bush had said importing medicine from Canada sounded sensible.
"And the president was utterly incoherent when asked about whom he might name to the Supreme Court in a second term. His comment about how he didn't want to offend any judges because he wanted 'them all voting for me' was a joke -- but an unfortunate one, given the fact that the president owes his job to a Supreme Court vote." [my emphasis - N]
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"A 135-million-year-old fossil dinosaur caught apparently grabbing a kip with its head tucked under its forearm has been discovered by scientists in China ...
A word from Australia, Mr President: We have had free universal health care here since 1972. If you feel sick, you go to the doctor and you can choose between one who charges you and one who charges the government. Most of them will not charge you, and except in remote areas, the choice is easy. I've been countless times to excellent doctors and never paid a cent in my life. This is the norm in Australia and many other countries. It doesn't matter whether you are employed or not, high quality health care is free to all. Maybe Bush should travel a bit more, or just learn how to tell the truth.
Fontinalia, garlanding of fountains, Roman Empire
"One of the uncommitted voters in the audience sensibly asked President Bush to name three mistakes he'd made in office, and what he had done to remedy the damage. Mr. Bush declined to list even one, and instead launched into an impassioned defense of the invasion of Iraq as a good idea. The president's insistence on defending his decision to go into Iraq seemed increasingly bizarre in a week when his own investigators reported that there were no weapons of mass destruction there, and when his own secretary of defense acknowledged that there was no serious evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.