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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*
It's something of a milestone today: I got this report from Atomz when I did an index of the Book of Days:
"The last index of your web site index completed 13 seconds ago. It took 2 minutes to crawl 397 pages and index 397 pages containing 3003861 words for a total of 65362364 bytes. 51803 word endings, 0 synonyms, 124645 sound-alike words, and 15 excluded words were included in the index."
That's about the length of 60 paperback books since we started 16 months ago and an average of more than 8,190 words on each and every day of the year ... plenty of info on your birthday and those of your friends and family, so I invite you to check it out. We'll be battling to pay our Internet bill in less than two weeks, so if you'd like to throw Puppy a coin, that will be very welcome and help this project grow.
Those three million words, plus the Scriptorium, and this blog, are all searchable at our Search page.
Fallas (in Spanish), or Falles (Catalan/Valencian), started in the Middle Ages, when artisans put out their broken artefacts and pieces of wood that they had sorted during the winter and burned to celebrate the Spring Equinox.
Today in Valencia, the Falles celebrates Saint Joseph's Day, and at about midnight the city will go up in flames – or so it will seem as about 300 massive fires are lit. The first written records of this now hugely popular festival date from the mid-18th century and the early 19th, though it's thought that the Falles started in the Middle Ages.
A group called the Casal Faller meets, one in each neighbourhood of the city, and works all year long holding fundraising parties and dinners, usually featuring the famous regional seafood dish, paella. Formerly, much time would also be spent at the Casal Faller preparing the ninot (Valencian for puppet or doll) for the Falles ...
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.
Almaniac George from north Queensland, Australia, sent me this cool trip, which he said is "better than acid". I'm not sure I would go that far, but it's a lot better than no acid.
(Drag and keep your mouse clicked down on the image after it's loaded.)
"JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Munir Said Thalib, Indonesia's best-known human rights campaigner, started feeling sick shortly after his overnight flight left for Europe last September. After he made brief layover in Singapore, the pain grew so intense that a doctor on board was roused from his sleep to tend to him. Within hours, somewhere in the night skies above Eastern Europe, Munir died." Source: Washington Post
The question is, who wanted Munir dead? A guess would be the Indonesian military and/or secret police. Perhaps someone in the Yudhoyono government itself. Why do I feel a sinking feeling when I read that Garuda (Indonesia's national airlines) has had its boss sacked and its management board reshufffled? The government's decision is supposedly based on commercial reasons, but is it a sop and diversion for the sake of the Indonesian public, many of whom are outraged over Munir's murder?
Photo: Munir Said Thalib and his wife, Suciwati, at the Jakarta airport. Munir was headed to the Netherlands on Indonesia's state-owned airline when he was given a fatal dose of arsenic.
Activism for the Mind: Reclaiming Our Cerebral Commons
"Is modern life polluting your brain? The editor of Adbusters: The Journal of the Mental Environment, Kalle Lasn, thinks so. And he's spearheading a mental ecology movement to do something about it. A well-known media activist, trouble maker, and culture jammer, Lasn wants us to reclaim our cerebral commons, and rehabilitate our mental environment. As rates of depression and other psychological ailments escalate worldwide, do we need more than self-reflection to work out what's going on? This is meme warfare with a touch of mad pride, so turn off your TV and tune in -- you risk losing your head if you don't. " Source: All in the Mind
"President George Bush's nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank has triggered reactions ranging from polite acceptance to outright hostility among foreign governments and aid groups.
"Some believe he is unqualified for the job while others fear he will be all too effective in using the post to expand America's global dominance.
"Although his nomination is almost certain to be accepted by the World Bank's board of directors and participating states, both the European Union and the French government made a point of saying that his assumption of the presidency is not a foregone conclusion." Source: The Independent
Bush stuns with Wolfowitz pick "Certainly, the second-in-command at the Pentagon has more enemies than allies in the Middle East, and his heavy-handed approach to foreign policy in general will be a sore point for the aid agency that depends on consensus-building among its 184 member nations.In fact, while many liberals have criticized Bush's decision to appoint fellow neocon John Bolton as the U.S. representative to the United Nations, Bolton will be in New York as the voice of the Bush administration, while Wolfowitz must act beyond U.S. national interest and strive to bring the diverse range of interest to agreement on policy issues of concern to the World Bank." Source: New Kerala
"Devastating" "'The recommendation ... is devastating. The cold warrior has already proven he is an arsonist,' said Michael Mueller, a deputy leader of Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) in parliament.
"Mueller warned that if Wolfowitz got the job, there would be "a militarisation of thinking" which would lead to "oppression and hegemony" through the World Bank's policies." Wolfowitz nomination devastating, says Mueller
March 18, 1910 American escapologist and aviator Harry Houdini flew a heavier-than-air machine at Digger’s Rest, near Melbourne, Australia. This was probably the first such flight on the continent.
The magic of flight, he later wrote, was in the “glorious thrill” of first adventure, and “not in minor modification which is perpetual in any art”.
However, if 110 metres be considered a flight, Colin Defries should get the honour. On December 9 [qv], 1909, Defries arguably flew a powered aircraft about 110 metres at Sydney's Victoria Park racecourse.
However, at the time Defries's flight was disputed. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the aviator had successfully completed a short flight, while Sydney's Daily Telegraph said that he had not left the ground. The Aerial League insisted that a controlled flight had not occurred. In the five months before Houdini's success, Defries crashed on three attempts to be the first, including once at Digger's Rest on March 1, 1910.
On the day before Houdini's great successful attempt, Fred Custance allegedly made a short flight in South Australia in an imported Bleriot aircraft, with a "very rough landing", but the claim has long been disputed.
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.
"Two new studies conclude that even if humankind takes dramatic action now to curb global warming, the world will continue to heat up and sea levels will rise for centuries. The reports, in Science magazine, underscore the difficulties in dealing with a worldwide environmental issue." Source: NPR (audio)
White House to Agencies: Ignore GAO's Ruling on 'Illegal' TV News Releases
TO Editor's Comment: This story appears to be gathering steam quickly. In addition to considerable public outrage, the White House's position was further complicated by a ruling from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that the practice described was illegal, violating laws prohibiting the U.S. government from producing covert propaganda. In response to the GAO's ruling, an attorney for the Justice Department issued a statement in opposition to the GAO's position, stating the White House had not broken the law and is within its rights to continue the practice.
While the attorney who drafted the opinion was Steven Bradbury, the final decision on whether or not to take legal action against the White House would have to be made by the head of the Justice Department, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the man who has been George W. Bush's personal attorney for decades. Accordingly, we are reporting that the Justice Department, under the direction of Gonzales, is shielding the White House rather than acting on the recommendation of the GAO. - ma.
White House to Agencies: Ignore GAO's Ruling on 'Illegal' TV News Releases By Ken Herman, Cox News Service
Washington - The White House, intent on continuing to crank out "video news releases" that look like television news stories, has told government agency heads to ignore a Government Accountability Office memo criticizing the practice as illegal propaganda.
In a memo on Friday, Joshua Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the lawyers the White House depends on disagree with the GAO's conclusions.
Accompanying Bolten's memo was a letter from Steven Bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, who said video news releases "are the television equivalent of the printed press release." advertisement
"They can be a cost-effective means to distribute information through local news outlets, and their use by private and public entities has been widespread since the early 1990s, including by numerous federal agencies," Bradbury said.
Comptroller General David Walker of the GAO said Monday that his agency is "disappointed by the administration's actions" in telling agency heads to ignore the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.
"This is not just a legal issue, it's also an ethical matter," Walker said. "The taxpayers have a right to know when the government is trying to influence them with their own money."
Bradbury's memo said video news releases are legal and legitimate as long as they don't "constitute advocacy for any particular position or view."
The GAO, in a Feb. 17 memo to agency heads, said its review of video news releases distributed to television stations by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of National Drug Control Policy showed violations of federal law barring the use of government money for propaganda. The GAO said, "Television-viewing audiences did not know that stories they watched on television news programs about the government were, in fact, prepared by the government."
Giving no indication that the administration would change its policy, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "It's very clear to the TV stations where they are coming from."
But the GAO, in the Feb. 17 memo from Walker, said that's not enough.
"They are intended to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public by independent television news organizations," Walker wrote. "To help accomplish this goal, these stories include actors or others hired to portray 'reporters' and may be accompanied by suggested scripts that television news anchors can use to introduce the story during the broadcast."
Former White House press secretary Mike McCurry, who held the job in the Clinton administration, said there was a "considerable amount of video news release activity" during those years, but much of it was limited to raw footage."
"You've had a cold for five to seven days and thought you were getting better. Then it grew worse. More congestion, increasing fatigue and now headache or facial pain around your nose or eyes or upper teeth. You guessed it was a sinus infection.
"Depending on the severity of the symptoms, the doctor's examination and inclinations about treatment, you may be prescribed an antibiotic.
"But is this what you need to get better?
"Chances are, it is not. Most cases of acute sinusitis are caused by viruses, not bacteria, and taking an antibiotic does nothing more than enrich the pharmaceutical companies and increase the chances of being infected with drug-resistant bacteria ...
"In the latest study, published last month in The Journal of Family Practice, no significant benefit over a placebo was found from using the antibiotic amoxicillin among 135 patients with typical indications of a sinus infection." Source: NY Times [Thanx Baz]
"The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraibthoroughly documents repeated and shocking perversions of justice. The torture of prisoners became standard practice as the internationally accepted tenets of the Geneva Convention were bypassed and ignored. This is not a collection of complex legalese but pages where a clear episodic story unfolds free of bias and spin. The documents and their authors speak for themselves; key individuals approved torture as a coercive interrogation technique while others, namely Secretary of State Colin Powell, strongly opposed it. This is required reading for everyone concerned with fairness, justice, and difficult choices made under the pressures of our post 9/11 world." Nadine Strossen, President, American Civil Liberties Union
"The Torture Papers may well be the most important and damning set of documents exposing U.S. government lawlessness ever published. Each page tells the story of U.S. leaders consciously willing to ignore the fundamental protections that guarantee all of us our humanity. I fear for our future. Read these pages and weep for our country, the rule of law and victims of torture everywhere." Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights
"More than 5,000 Chinese miners are killed each year, 75% of the global total, even though the country produces only a third of the world's coal. Working under appalling safety conditions, they are sacrificed to fuel the factories that make the cheap goods snapped up by consumers in Britain and other wealthy nations.
"Faced with energy shortages this winter, the government has stepped up the pressure on mine operators to raise output. This has contributed to a spate of the worst disasters in the country's history. Last month, 216 miners were killed at Sunjiawan mine in north-east China in the most deadly accident in 50 years. Last October, another gas explosion killed 148. Last Thursday, a cave-in at a mine in Sha'anxi province killed 16 miners and left another 11 trapped underground." Source
What's the duty of the prisoner? Is it to decorate the cell, or to complain about cruel fate, or endlessly to describe the four walls, or discuss how wonderful it must be outside the cell? Certainly not. The sole duty of the prisoner is to escape.
It's pretty clear, though, that probably the majority of the world's literature and entertainment would not exist if it wasn't for the tenacity with which the human organism refuses to accede to the common sense of that proposition. Every happy escapee is one less best-seller.
The author of the blog Things I Hate About My Flatmate, which the Guardian said "distils the rage of living with a stranger into a daily nugget of purest blog bile", has called it quits: "I'm afraid people, that this blog has come to an end, I'm moving out today."
March 14, written 3/14 in the USA date format, is the official day for Pi day derived from the common three-digit approximation for the number ?: 3.14. It is usually celebrated at 1:59 PM (in recognition of the six-digit approximation: 3.14159) ...
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.
USA: The Joints Chiefs of Staff (the heads of the US Army, Air Force and Navy) presented a plan to Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara (and possibly to President John F Kennedy himself), that suggested using terrorism in the USA to turn opinion towards a US invasion of Cuba.
Long believed to be residing in the imagination of conspiracy theorists, the Operation Northwoods document (Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba) was declassified in recent years by the Freedom of Information Act.
We can be thankful that the military's plan was not enacted, for more reasons than one. McNamara has recently revealed that it was not till years after the Cuban Missile Crisis (began October 15, 1962), he discovered that Fidel Castro's Cuba had complete nuclear missiles; he and Kennedy had been incorrectly briefed by the CIA that the delivery systems were 'on the water' in a shipment from the USSR.
The Joint Chiefs even proposed killing astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit. The US brass wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof ... that the fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]".
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.
"A world homosexual event planned for Jerusalem this summer is morally outrageous and highly offensive to religious sensibilities, a Christian group that is seeking 1 million signatures on a petition to stop the event told WorldNetDaily.
"World Pride 2005, a mass international gathering of homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals, is scheduled to take place August in Jerusalem. The theme for the gathering, according to the event website, is 'Love without borders,' with the goal of bringing a 'new focus to an ancient city through a massive demonstration of LGBT dignity, pride and boundary-crossing celebration. In these times of intolerance and suspicion, from the home of three of the world's great religions, we will proclaim that love knows no borders.' ...
"But the Jerusalem Prayer Team, a Christian group that asks members to pray for and encourage the people of Israel, has called the planned World Pride event a moral abomination and is seeking 1 million signatures on a petition to ask the Jerusalem mayor and the city's municipality to cancel the event." Source: WorldNetDaily via Bad Thinking World Pride 2005
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of Days
Almanac
Book of Days passes 3 million words
Indonesian activist's murder: Garuda scapegoated?
Houdini and Australia's first flight
Most sinusitis viral, not bacterial
The Torture Papers: 37% discount
Joint Chiefs planned terrorism in USA
World gay pride meet in Jerusalem