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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*
Down the coast from here, a long way down (about 600 clicks), is Sydney's Manly Beach, said to be "Seven miles from Sydney and a thousand miles from care". That was before miles were replaced with 'clicks'.
Like everywhere in Oz and in a lot of the world, the guys and gals like to surf in Manly, and at Sandy, and they owe it to the Big Kahuna.
On this day, January 15, 1915, the Big Kahuna (Duke Kahanamoku; 1890 - 1968), from Hawaii performed surfboard riding for the first time in Australia, at Freshwater Beach near Manly Beach. And on the same day, sixteen year-old Isabel Letham became Australia's first female board rider.
The birth of Aussie surfboard riding Legendary surfer Duke Paoa Kahanamoku ("The Big Kahuna") was an Hawaiian Olympic swimming champion, in Australia for a competition swim at the Domain Baths. He toured Sydney's northern beaches and chose Freshwater Beach, near Manly, to show Sydneysiders the finer points of surfboard riding, a hitherto unknown sport in Australia.
The Duke made a board out of a piece of sugar pine provided by a surf club member. After some graceful acrobatics, he called for a volunteer from the crowd that had assembled on the sand, to join him in a display of tandem riding. Sixteen-year-old Isabel Letham rode with the Duke for three hours becoming the Australia's first female surfer, on the day the sport was first demonstrated in Australia.
Isabel Letham died on March 11, 1995. She left Australia for the US in 1918 to become a stunt woman in the movies, later teaching swimming and water ballet. (Click thumbnail to enlarge)
Cute little rhinoceros beetle who came to see me last night. More Sandy Beach critters and Nature in general at my new blog Sandy Beach Almanac http://sandybeachalmanac.blogspot.com (Click thumbnail to enlarge)
[A story presented quietly, well after the presidential election. No shock and awe for this one.]
"Washington (Reuters): The U.S. force that scoured Iraq for weapons of mass destruction -- cited by President Bush as justification for war -- has abandoned its long and fruitless hunt, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
"The 1,700-strong Iraq Survey Group, responsible for the hunt, last month wrapped up physical searches for weapons of mass destruction, and it will now gather information to help U.S. forces in Iraq win a bloody guerrilla war, officials said."
"After being held for nearly three years [actually, more than 3 years, 3 months - PW] without charge in the United States prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Australian terrorist suspect, Mamdouh Habib, is about to walk free.
"The announcement by the Federal Government last night stunned lawyers for the two Australians held at the US detention facility in Cuba ...
"Mr Habib's release will leave David Hicks as the only Australian still detained at Guantanamo Bay, where he's facing a military trial ...
"But the release of Mamdouh Habib's given new hope to David Hicks's lawyer, Stephen Kenny.
"IAN TOWNSEND: Mr Kenny says David Hicks should also be released immediately.
"STEPHEN KENNY: I think it's now untenable that David Hicks should continue to be detained in Guantanamo Bay.
"The Australian Government has consistently said he's committed no offence known to Australian law and no doubt that includes international war crimes that the Americans are purporting to try him under.
"And given that the British are likely to all be sent home without charge, I think it is now just untenable that he should continue to be detained in Guantanamo Bay." Source
Free at last! US shamed by torture tactics "Mr Habib has been released not as a result of the Howard Government's intervention but because his imprisonment and torture have become an embarrassment to the US Administration. [..] The Free Hicks and Habib Campaign will continue until David Hicks is released and repatriated, and Guantanamo Bay is closed and all prisoners released." Source: Indymedia
Jan 7: "Something historic happened Thursday. For the first time since 1877 a member of the House and a member of the Senate stood up together to object to a state's electoral college votes.
"This is the first step on a necessary road toward making sure that everyone is allowed to vote and that every vote is counted (something we did not see in 2000 or 2004) ..." Source (thanx Star Light)
Jan 10
'Fahrenheit 9/11' People's Choice Best Movie of the Year "Last night, at the People's Choice Awards, 'Fahrenheit 9/11' was named the Best Movie of the Year. It was a stunning moment for us. And, somewhere inside the Bush White House, someone there must have been stunned, too.
"21 million people voted in the People's Choice Awards. They chose our film over "Shrek 2," "Spiderman 2" and "The Incredibles." If we can beat that many superheroes, surely we can survive the next four years ... "Thanks again, and now let's get on with the serious work at hand -- winning more awards! Hahahaha. Just kidding. We have an inauguration to attend, don't we?" Source (thanx J-9)
El Salvador-style 'death squads' to be used by US in Iraq
Information Clearing House:
"The Pentagon is considering forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago.
"Under the so-called 'El Salvador option', Iraqi and American forces would be sent to kill or kidnap insurgency leaders, even in Syria, where some are thought to shelter."
"You have been rewarded for your unflinching loyalty to George W. Bush with a nomination for Attorney General of the United States. As White House Counsel, you have walked in lockstep with the President. As Attorney General, you will be charged with representing all the people of the United States. Your performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday verified that you will continue to be a yes-man for Bush once you are confirmed.
"In the face of interrogation by members of the Committee, you waffled, equivocated, lied, feigned lack of memory, and even remained silent, in the face of the most probing questions. Your refusals to answer prompted Senator Patrick Leahy to say, 'Mr. Gonzales, I'd almost think that you'd served in the Senate, you've learned how to filibuster so well'.
"Even though the Department of Justice retracted the August 2002 torture memo, and replaced it with a new one on the eve of your confirmation hearing, you still refuse to denounce the old memo's narrow and illegal definition of torture. You permitted that definition to remain as government policy for 2 1/2 years, which enabled the torture of countless prisoners in U.S. custody.
"You continually evaded inquiries about your responsibility for drafting the now-repudiated memo by portraying yourself as a mere conduit for legal opinions from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. This puzzled Senator Russ Feingold, who said, 'If you were my lawyer, I'd sure want to know your opinion about something like that'.
"Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told you, 'I think we've dramatically undermined the war effort by getting on the slippery slope in terms of playing cute with the law, because it's come back to bite us'. Indeed, 12 retired professional military leaders of the U.S. Armed Forces wrote to the Judiciary Committee, expressing 'deep concern' about your nomination because detention and interrogation operations which you appeared to have 'played a significant role in shaping' have 'undermined our intelligence gathering efforts, and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world'.
"When Senator Graham, an Air Force judge advocate, asked you if you agreed with a professional military lawyer's opinion that the August memo may have put our troops in jeopardy, you were tongue tied. You said nothing for several embarrassing seconds, until Senator Graham suggested you think it over and respond later.
"When Senator Richard Durbin asked 'Do you believe there are circumstances where other legal restrictions, like the War Crimes Act, would not apply to U.S. personnel?' you again sat mute for several seconds, and then asked to respond later.
"It is alarming, Mr. Gonzales, that a lawyer with your pedigree would be stumped into silence by these questions.
"You have taken the unprecedented step of advising the President that the Geneva Conventions have become 'obsolete'. You testified that since 'we are fighting a new type of enemy and a new type of war', you 'think it is appropriate to revisit whether or not Geneva should be revisited'. You admitted preliminary discussions are already underway.
"The 12 former military leaders wrote, 'Repeatedly in our past, the United States has confronted foes that, at the time they emerged, posed threats of a scope or nature unlike any we had previously faced. But we have been far more steadfast in the past in keeping faith with our national commitment to the rule of law'.
"Mr. Gonzales, you have concurred in, even commissioned, advice that led to the following:
Sodomy with a broomstick, chemical light, metal object
Severe beatings
Water boarding (simulated drowning)
Electric shock
Attaching electrodes to private parts
Forced masturbation
Pulling out fingernails
Pushing lit cigarettes into ears
Chaining hand and foot in fetal position without food or water
Forced standing on one leg in the sun
Feigned suffocation
Gagging with duct tape
Tormenting with loud music and strobe lights
Sleep deprivation
Hooding
Subjecting to freezing/sweltering temperatures
"Dietary manipulation"
Repeated, prolonged rectal exams
Hanging by arms from hooks
Permitting serious dog bites
Bending back fingers
Intense isolation for more than 3 months
Grabbing genitals
Severe burning
Stacking of naked prisoners in pyramids
Injecting with drugs
Leaving bullet in body of wounded prisoner
Taping naked prisoner to board
Shooting into containers with men inside
Keeping prisoners in small, outdoor cages
Pepper spraying in face
Forcing heads into toilets and flushing
Threatening live burial, drowning, electrocution, rape and death
Beating prisoners to death
Killing wounded prisoners
Throwing off bridge into river and drowning
Rape
Murder
"Saddam Hussein would be proud of you, Mr. Gonzales."
On the heels of my post of January 3, 'The generosity of the Bush government', in which I expressed the view that the USA administration must have known about the Indian Ocean tsunami right from the initial undersea earthquake event, comes this snippet from the end of Friday's fascinating Guardian article, 'US island base given warning':
"Professor Michel Chossudovsky of Ottawa University said the argument put forward by other experts that countries hit by the tsunami could not have been warned of the approaching waves because they had no sensors or special buoys in the Indian Ocean was a 'red herring'.
"Prof Chossudovsky, who helps run the centre for research on globalisation, added: 'We are not dealing with information based on ocean sensors. The emergency warning was transmitted in the immediate wake of the earthquake based on seismic data.' With modern communications, 'the information of an impending disaster could have been sent round the world in a matter of minutes, by email, by telephone, by fax, not to mention by satellite television', he said.
"He said the US military had advanced systems 'which enables [sic] it to monitor in a very precise way the movement of the seismic wave in real time'." Source: The Guardian
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