Mails: Why so slow?

An airmail package to Canada should take six days. I posted a package there a few weeks ago, and it took more than 2 weeks to arrive. I feel my money was extracted under false pretenses.

I've been reading a lot of biographical and historical stuff about Henry Lawson (1867-1922) lately and have been struck by the evidence of a very fast mail service. The speed with which letters got to their destinations was truly extraordinary, given the distances and modes of transport of the day. And other things I've been reading about late-19th century London indicate that there were several deliveries each day. We get one a day now.

Even when I was a kid, almost but not quite in that century, we had post deliveries morning and afternoon, and Saturday mornings -- eleven a week as opposed to five now. The only significant difference I can see between now and then is that Australia Post (formerly the PMG) has grown increasingly privatised. A post office used to be a very spare office, obviously just for posting items. Now it's a boutique full of products made in China, and a TV blaring commercials at the people standing in the long queue.

Worst town name in USA?

Onancock. Don't come much worse. (Thanks, Metafilter.)

Tulsa burning, 1921

1921 More than 300 were killed in a race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA – the most devastating race riot in US history in terms of lives lost.

This sad (and little known) day marks the worst racial violence in American history. Angered by false rumours, whites were shooting throughout the night of the 31st, looting and burning in the early hours of June 1. 

Earlier on this day, the Tulsa Tribune newspaper ran a front page article entitled 'Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator', and a back page editorial entitled 'To Lynch Negro Tonight' ...

Geek washes keyboard in dishwasher

A blogger writes:

"Last Monday, I spilled beer on my keyboard and received the Dishwasher advice from two very tech-savvy people.

"Today, I can report that not only will the keyboard come out clean, but it will probably work once it dries completely. Every key on the keyboard works and feels just right - the Caps Lock light even works! This ‘hack’ is not for the weakhearted, and I would probably avoid putting a $100+ keyboard in the dishwasher. But if you don’t have any other options, it’s a pretty good bet."
Source: Plastic Bugs via BoingBoing

Holocaust Survivor Leaving US - Sees What's Coming

"One of our neighbors is moving. I've been in this neighborhood for about six years now, but didn't really know them very well at all - just waves and nods, mostly.

"So I heard the moving van pull up this morning. When I got home this evening I happened to spy my neighbor (he's like 85 years old - I don't know exactly, but he's old, talks and moves very slowly) standing on the sidewalk next to the van. I walked over and shook his hand, and we started talking. I asked him where he was moving, and he said, 'Back to Germany.'

"I had been stationed in Germany for two years while in the military, so I lit up, and commented about how beautiful the country was, and inquired if he was going back because he missed it.

"'No,' he answered me. 'I'm going back because I've seen this before.' He then commenced to explain that when he was a kid, he watched with his family in fear as Hitler's government committed atrocity after atrocity, and no one was willing to say anything. He said the news refused to question the government, and the ones who did were not in the newspaper business much longer ...

"He said he was too old to see it happen right in front of his eyes again, and too old to do anything about it, so he was taking his family back to Europe on Thursday where they would be safe from George W. Bush and his neocons ..."
By Joey Picador
Justice For None.com

Source via pagans4peace

[I've heard an old person from South Africa say that they see what's coming in Australia too, for precisely the same reasons. Neocons, and their bit-by-bit erosion of civil rights.]

Naked Australian birds

I have my desk webcam up and running. Can'tbelieve my little Gouldian finches have had 343 visitors in just one day. If I can work out how to do a streaming video cam (that doesn't grind Esmeralda to a halt), I'll do it sometime.

The birdies come to feed on my desk any time they want, but especially around 8am, noon, and 4pm, Sandy Beach time. (The page tells you local time.) Enjoy. :)

US told to face up to climate change

The British environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, says Washington is not doing enough to help the fight against global warming:

"Margaret Beckett today urges the Bush administration to accept that the "incontrovertible" weight of scientific evidence on the dangers of global warming is stimulating an urgent worldwide dialogue that the US must seriously engage with - or risk being left out."
Source: Guardian

Did a Pacific volcano change Western history?

1453 The 'fall' of Constantinople preceded by heavenly wonders

Did a Pacific volcano change Western history?

On a Tuesday, Constantinople (now Istanbul) fell to the Turks, or, as it is said in the Muslim world, Constantinople was liberated, after a siege, ending the Byzantine Empire.

It was a major turning point in world history as Constantinople, founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine, was a seat of learning and the tangible presence of Western civilization in the East. It has been said that the flight of many scholarly refugees from Constantinople to Italy was the single most important mainspring of the European Renaissance. Yet the antagonists of the siege of Constantinople had the minds of the Middle Ages era, and the effect of ‘ominous’ heavenly wonders probably affected the outcome ...

UK plan to introduce identity cards

"In Britain, the Government has revived a controversial plan to introduce compulsory identity cards.
"Apart from containing basic information and a photograph, the cards would also include biometric details, such as physical characteristics that can verify the cardholder's identity. Assuming there are no delays to the legislation, the scheme could be introduced by 2008."
Source: ABC Oz

US wants to be able to access Britons' ID cards
"The United States wants Britain's proposed identity cards to have the same microchip and technology as the ones used on American documents."
Source: The Independent via Slashdot

IT leaders slam national ID card plans
"UK IT chiefs have rounded on the government's reintroduction of the national Identity Card Bill this week, slamming it as a project growing out of control that will end up being a 'fee-fest' for suppliers.

"The government claims the biometric technology is robust enough despite Home Office trials showing significant levels of failure in the registration and verification of iris, fingerprint and facial recognition trials involving 10,000 citizens last year."
Source

Political prisoner: 22 years for burning SUVs

June 10-12, 2005 'Weekend of Resistance' for Political Prisoner Jeff 'Free' Luers

In June 2001, 23 year-old forest defense activist Jeffrey "Free" Luers was sentenced to 22 years and 8 months in prison for the burning of three Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) in Eugene, Oregon. To make a statement about global warming, Jeff and his codefendent, Craig 'Critter' Marshall, set fire to 3 Sport Utility Vehicles at a Eugene car dealership. Their stated purpose was to raise awareness about global warming and the role that SUVs play in that process. No one was hurt in this action nor was that the intent. An arson specialist at trial confirmed that the action did not pose any threat to people based on its size and distance from any fuel source. Despite the fact that this action hurt no one, caused only $40,000 in damages and the cars were later resold, Jeff was sent to prison for a sentence considerably longer than those convicted of murder, kidnapping and rape in Oregon state. Jeff is recognized as a political prisoner by the Jericho Movement and the Anarchist Black Cross Network and Federation and continues to write and agitate for his release while imprisoned at Oregon State Penetentiary. His appeal was filed in January 2002. You can read the latest on his appeal here.
The June 10-12th Weekend Of Resistance is three weeks away. Events for 2005 have already been planned in North America and around the world. Check out the Ideas for Action to plan an event in your community. Read about last year's June 12 Day of Action here and the FBI and Fox News' lies here.
Source: Indymedia

Purification of Pythia, ancient Greece

From about 1400 BCE, the shrine at Delphi, Greece, was sacred, probably to Gaia, the mother earth goddess, or to a snake goddess.

So important was it as a sacred site, it came to be described as Omphalos, the 'navel', or centre of the world. Later, it became sanctified to Apollo (son of Zeus, and god of the sun, light, youth, beauty, and prophecy), perhaps signifying a shift from matriarchal to patriarchal society, though this is uncertain and still a matter of academic enquiry and debate.

Delphi gained its name from the dolphin, and Apollo was said to have visited the place as one of those sea mammals that barely survive today’s polluted Ionian sea. Snakes were part of Delphic lore until c. 800 BCE when Apollo was said to have slain the serpent that guarded the sanctuary, establishing the oracle anew. (Thus, Apollo became one of the many dragon-slayers of mythology: St George, St Martha and Hercules among them.)

The serpent’s name was Python, and had been made from mud and slime by Gaia. At first the oracle priestess (sometimes two in shifts) could only be consulted on one day a year. She might have become entranced, by a drug perhaps; she answered questions in hexameter verse.

The priestess, Pythia (Sybil), seated on a tripod above a crack in the earth, went into a trance while chewing laurel leaves. The temple priests formulated the oracle from the glossolalia (‘speaking in tongues’ ...

Jelle De Boer, a geologist at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, reported in Geology, August 2001, that ethylene, rising up through fissures in the rock beneath the shrine, was probably the sweet-smelling vapour that put the priestess in her trance. We know of this vapour from the first-century CE writer, Plutarch (c. 45 - 125 CE), who, as a temple priest, was familiar with the shrine and reported that the priestess was under the influence of such a vapour. In his day, however, the vapours were weaker than in previous centuries, which may be attributed to changes in the bedrock beneath this fabled place.

Any relation to the Blind Watchmaker?

Blind Biologist Finds Clues to Human Societies in Shells

"California professor Gary Vermeij thinks he's found clues to the power of nations and multinational corporations -- by studying seashells. During his 35-year career, this biologist has overcome significant obstacles to carry out his research. He has been blind since age 3."
Source: NPR (audio)

Norma and her big step

1893 Norma Talmadge (d. December 24, 1957), American actress who, on May 18, 1927, became the first celebrity to leave her mark in the famous concrete outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Legend has it that before the theatre officially opened, owner Sid Grauman was giving a tour to some celebrities, during which Norma unintentionally walked across a wet slab of cement. Grauman’s publicists saw the fortunate mistake as the opportunity for publicity, so they continued the practice.

Variations of this honoured tradition are imprints of the spectacles of Harold Lloyd, the cigars of Groucho Marx and George Burns, the legs of Betty Grable, the ice skating blades of Sonja Henie and the noses of both Jimmy Durante and Bob Hope. Two of today's birthday boys are also represented in Grauman's concrete in unusual ways: a stroll outside the theatre will reveal Al Jolson's knees and John Wayne's fist. Errol Flynn I'm not sure about.

One of Norma's husbands was comedian George Jessel (1898 - 1981). Like her actress sisters Natalie Talmadge (who married Buster Keaton in 1921) and Constance Talmadge, her grave marker gives a false date of birth (1897).

Faaaaaark! Gray-Gray's dead

The world has got a lot less funny in 2005, with the deaths of Dave Allen, John Paul Junior and Graham Kennedy (yesterday). After his In Melbourne Tonight reign over Australian TV, he apparently vowed never to be funny again, but broke his vow just once, big time, by getting sacked from TV for loudly imitating a crow (see headline above) on prime time.

Gray-Gray's best work was on IMT in the early days of TV, mainly because of the commercials he did live -- he persistently ridiculed the product and the sponsor. Of course, it didn't bring down the temples of capitalism, but it did deliver a few laughs to a 1960s society being conditioned to believe that consumerism was the way forward.

Gray-Gray, or Gra-Gra as Melbourne newspapers inexplicably called him, has gone to that special place in the sky for old people of indeterminate sexuality who never had a relationship with another human being. Unlike Dave Allen (who toured with the Beatles in 1961 before they were famous -- just thought I'd chuck that in). As for John Paul Jr, I have no opinion on the matter, but he didn't tour with the Fab Four as far as I know.

Captain Thunderbolt, dead or alive

1870 Captain Thunderbolt (Frederick Ward), the notorious Australian bushranger, was allegedly shot dead by Constable AB Walker. Thunderbolt had been the scourge of inns and mail coaches around Bourke and Uralla, New South Wales, and had done at least 80 robberies netting him £20,000. Many of these ill-gotten gains, however, were in the form of cheques and half notes, pretty useless to a highwayman out in the Armidale tablelands wilderness.

A number of years ago I sometimes used to stay on Cockatoo Island, in Sydney Harbour. The house I stayed in had once been the mansion of the governor of the notorious Cockatoo Island Prison that existed during the convict days of Australia – like a mini-Alcatraz or Robbin Island. In the old sandstone prison yard I have seen the iron rings on the walls, with which prisoners were restrained as they were scourged with the cat o’ nine tails, a leather whip sometimes made more fearsome by the addition of small pieces of sharp lead at the end of nine knotted thongs. Cockatoo has only recently been opened to public tours so visitors can get a feel for what a terrible living tomb it was.

On September 11, 1863, Fred Ward and Frederick Britten were the only prisoners ever to escape from the hell of that place, which they did by covering their heads with boxes and swimming a kilometre or so to land. Some say that Thunderbolt was shot dead on May 25, 1870, but a respectable theory has it that Thunderbolt lived a long life and died in a Sydney boarding house in the 1920s; the boarding house was, I believe, in Stanmore, possibly within a few blocks of where I was born. Ward family members have long asserted that it was not Fred at all who was shot, but his brother William (known as ‘Harry’), and word has it that there was a tall, veiled ‘woman’ with a masculine gait at the funeral, but no one ever saw ‘her’ face. Was Fred having a larrikin lark at his own interment?

Thunderbolt’s associate, Will Monkton, was the one who identified the body for the authorities, but he alleged later that he had been coerced by the police to swear falsely. Unlike today, the constabulary of New South Wales didn’t entirely comprise fine, upstanding citizens, so perhaps there is some truth to the story.

Perhaps Constable Walker never did kill Captain Thunderbolt, and perhaps Ward didn’t die in that Stanmore boarding house at all. Perhaps, like me, you prefer to think that Fred Ward is still hiding out in Thunderbolt’s Rock on the Uralla road, with one eye out for a Cobb & Co, and one eye out for the troopers. ...

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).

US leads attack on human rights: Amnesty

"Four years after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, human rights are in retreat worldwide and the United States bears most responsibility, rights watchdog Amnesty International said.

"From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe the picture is bleak. Governments are increasingly rolling back the rule of law, taking their cue from the US-led war on terror, it said.

"'The USA as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide,' secretary-general Irene Khan said in the foreword to Amnesty International's 2005 annual report.

"When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity," she added."
Source: ABC News

US media not showing Iraq casualties pix

Don't look now!

By Ed Naha

"Shhhh. Don't tell anyone but ... there's a war going on and Americans are dying. I know, it's hard to believe, but trust me on this one. We can all go back to watching Michael Jackson news in a minute.

"As I write this, 1,636 American troops have died in Iraq, 49 this month alone, and over 12,000 have been injured. And how is America responding to this? With a big yawn. Last week, The Los Angeles Times, printed the results of a study it conducted, tracking six newspapers and two news magazines on their coverage of the Iraq invasion from the period of September 1, 2004 to February 28 of this year. Just how many photos of American casualties had been shown to our fellow citizens during that time period?

"Newsweek: 0. Time: 0. Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 0. Los Angeles Times: 0. New York Times: 0. St. Louis Post-Dispatch: 0. Washington Post: 0. Seattle Times: 1.

"1,636 American men and women killed in action. Almost no photographic coverage. I guess the MSM has followed the lead of Barbara Bush who, back in '03, said: 'Why should we hear about body bags and deaths...? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?'"
Source: South News e-group (recommended)

Goldfish

This site has a very clever design.

Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham v'Rachel Riva, aka Bob Dylan

1941 Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman) American folk-rock musician.

Nat Hentoff: What made you decide to go the rock 'n' roll route?
Bob Dylan: Carelessness. I lost my one true love. I start drinking. The first thing I know, I'm in a card game. Then I'm in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13-year old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns down the house. I go to Dallas. I get a job as a "before" in a Charles Atlas "before and after" ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy, he ain't so mild. He gives her the knife, and the next thing you know I'm in Omaha. It's so cold there, by this time I am robbin' my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble into some luck and get a job as a carburettor out at the hot-rod races every Thursday night. I move in with a High School teacher who does a little plumbing on the side, who ain't much to look at, but who's built a special kind of refrigerator that can turn newspaper into lettuce. Everything's going good until that delivery boy shows up and tries to knife me. Needless to say, he burned the house down, and I hit the road. The first guy who picked me up asked me if I wanted to be a star. After what I'd been through, how could I refuse?
Hentoff: And that’s how you became a rock n' roll singer?
Dylan: No, that's how I got tuberculosis.
Some interview somewhere some time ago

Picture: Bob Dylan cover of Oz magazine (check out the covers), by Martin Sharp

Dylan corn (the audiences love it)

At one gig, Dylan apologized, saying that “I almost didn't make it tonight ... had a flat tire. There was a fork in the road.”

At Western Connecticut State University in 1997, when he introduced Bucky Baxter he said, “When I first met Bucky, he didn't have a penny to his name. I told him to get another name.”

February 13, 1999, in Normal, Illinois (Illinois State University campus): “They said I'd never make it to Normal.”

At a concert’s end he said he had to “get a hammer and hit the sack”.

Late show, Park West, 2002 (?): Bob introduced Kemper by saying: “David Kemper on drums. David grew up on a farm and on Saturday nights he used to take the cows to the moooooovies.”

“Nice to be here. One of my early girlfriends was from Milwaukee. She was an artist. She gave me the brush-off.”

(Referring to David Kemper on drums): “One of David's first jobs was here in Chicago. He had a job as a waiter but he never took any tips. He was a dumb waiter.”

“Larry almost wrote a song today. He wrote a song about his bed, but it hasn't been made up yet.”

“Charlie went to see his cousin today at the Hamilton County Jail. He brought him a cell phone ... He almost made it to the show.”

“My ex-wife left me again. She's a tennis player. Love means nothing to her.”

“This is a love song. We love to play it.”

“David Kemper on the drums. David's turning 21 tonight. David never lies unless he's in bed.”

“David [Kemper] and I drove here tonight in a car singing songs on the way. We were singing cartoons.”

“David swallowed a roll of film today. We’ll see what develops.”

“Dave is the only drummer that tried to make a slow horse fast, but he stopped feeding him.”

“David was going to be a doctor but he didn't have any patients.”

Oklahoma City: “Dave must have thought he was playing golf today because he wore two shirts, in case he gets a hole in one.”

“Tony was here once before. He got a bicycle for his wife. Tony said it was a pretty good trade.”

“Larry hurt his foot today, we had to call a toe truck.”

When Bob shared the bill with Joni Mitchell in Chicago, 1999, he introduced Make You Feel My Love by saying, “This is a song I wrote for Garth Brooks. Regrets, I've had a few ... but then again, too few too mention.”

A club show at Park West in Chicago, late 1999. Among the crowd along the stage was someone writing notes. Dylan, in great spirits all night, finally grinned down at the fan and asked: “You writing a check for me?”

Minneapolis : “David Kemper on drums, ladies and gentlemen … David and I were in the Pickled Parrot this afternoon and David asked the waitress if they served crabs ...She said 'Buddy, we'll serve just about anybody.'”

Mostly from here and lots more in Book of Days at foot of today's page.

The event that ushered in a new music genre, folk-rock

From the famous July 25, 1965 concert when Dylan played electric guitar in public for the first time, singing 'Maggie’s Farm' at the Newport Folk Festival. But did the crowd really boo Dylan? Click to hear the mp3

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).

Hi-tech shoes are a TV turn-off

Here's the perfect device for the parent who has relinquished parenting in favour of career and leisure, but still has a vague notion that TV is fucking the kiddies' consciousness:

"It could be the ultimate incentive to get kids exercising - a shoe that controls the amount of TV they watch.

"The shoe -- dubbed Square-eyes -- has a unique insole that records the amount of exercise a child does and converts it into television watching time.

"One button on the shoe -- the brainchild of a student at west London's Brunel University -- records the number of steps taken by the child over the day.

"Another transmits this information to a base station connected to the TV."
Source: BBC

"Please, Blogger", or, "Is it just me?"

Lately the Edit mode of Blogger has been loading like caramel sauce on a bowl of ice cream. Any other Blogger blog owners finding it excruciatingly slow these days? At least I'm not still getting those word verification pictures.

For the love of retro

Gotta love RetroRandy. I love circa 1900 ads, and they have some beauties there, but the real killer is the 1972 lounge room with pot plants.

A tale of two Newsweek covers

As much as I'm loath to pass on posts from Riding Sun and (yawn) Instapundit, Riding Sun's article shows how Newsweek in Japan ran a different cover story from Newsweek USA.

It is indeed interesting that Newsweek lacks the courage to reveal to its American readers one of the world's truly big stories of our times -- the one that ran in Japan Newsweek: "the world's rejection of the American way of life".

$25 million creation museum

"Today's Cincinnati Enquirer has a long profile of (creation museum) founder Ken Ham. In the article, Jerry Falwell says that Ham is 'the most informed creationist in America' and that the museum is 'going to be a mini-Disney World.' From the Enquirer article, here are a few of Ham's beliefs:

"Earth is about 6,000 years old, a figure arrived at by tracing the biblical genealogies, and not 4.5 billion years, as mainstream scientists say. The Grand Canyon was formed not by erosion over millions of years, but by floodwaters in a matter of days or weeks. Dinosaurs and man once co-existed (see accompanying Enquirer photo), and dozens of the creatures -- including T-rex -- were passengers on the ark built by Noah, who was a real man, not a myth.

"Link to Enquirer article, and Link to Scientific American's '15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense'."
Source: BoingBoing

(The Scientific American list is a pay site. Want some rationalist quotes? We now have Quote a Minute from Secular Web, other Internet Infidels like me, at our quotes page.)

Thank you, Anonymous

For your assistance with petrol and groceries. Your support of the Almanac project is very much appreciated.

Margaret Fuller

1810 Margaret Fuller, Marchioness Ossoli (d. July 19, 1850), American journalist, critic, women's rights activist, revolutionist; the first female foreign correspondent and book review editor in the USA, and the first female journalist to work on the staff of a major American newspaper (Horace Greeley's New York Tribune).

In Europe she interviewed many prominent writers including George Sand and Thomas Carlyle, also meeting the Italian revolutionary Giovanni Ossoli by whom she had a son. In 1849, the Ossolis supported Giuseppe Mazzini's revolution for the establishment of a Roman Republic, Giovanni fighting in the struggle and Margaret doing voluntary hospital work.

Fuller was a friend of the Alcotts and Ralph Waldo Emerson and became part of the Concord transcendentalist circle with which they were associated. In 1850, when she disappeared with her husband and infant son in a shipwreck near Fire Island off the coast of New York, fellow transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau was one of those who searched for the victims.

See also our list of Early progressives in the Book of Days.

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).

Newsweek's Koran gaffe not sole cause of riots

JOHN SHOVELAN: ... was it just the Newsweek story that had caused the violence?

Or could it be that the Newsweek story was part of a believable narrative in the Muslim world?

The frequent reports of mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay by those who have been released helped to convince Muslims the desecration had occurred.

Along with FBI memos alleging torture, a recent book by a former Guantanamo Bay guard questioning interrogation techniques, internal government documents showing the administration had discussed methods in breach of Geneva Convention, and the constant controversy surrounding the camp placed in Cuba to avoid American law, the Newsweek story, however inaccurate, seemed perhaps as just another consistent chapter.

Among those condemning the Newsweek article was the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

DONALD RUMSFELD: I think it was Mark Twain who said that something that's not true can speed around the world three or four times in a matter of seconds, and while truth is still trying to put their boots on.

And people have said, "My goodness, why does it take so long for someone to come back and have the actual facts?" Well it takes a long time to be truthful, to be responsible, it takes a long time to review 25,000 documents, which is what they have had to do.

And the only other thing I'd say about it is people lost their lives, people are dead, and that's unfortunate. And people need to be very careful about what they say, just as people need to be careful about what they do.

JOHN SHOVELAN: But after Abu Ghraib and all the allegations about Guantanamo, the Department of Defence continues to investigate itself, and the result is that only a few low ranking soldiers have been punished.

So it's not any wonder when Newsweek, however slowly, declared its error that the Muslim world didn't believe it.

It did nothing to stop the rampant anti-Americanism.

The fact is allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo such as those reported by Newsweek are common among ex-prisoners.

So not only must the magazine step up and try to reverse the damage its report caused to American interests, but the White House must accept the responsibility it has in creating the circumstances where the erroneous report is seen as completely believable.

John Shovelan, Washington.

Source: Correspondents' Report

Arthur Conan Doyle and the little people

1859 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (d. July 7, 1930), Scottish physician and author, creator of Sherlock Holmes. After his son died in World War I, he dedicated himself to spiritualistic studies.

An example is The Coming of the Fairies (1922) in which he supported the existence of ‘little people’ and spent more than a million dollars on their cause. He was apparently totally convinced of the veracity of the obviously faked Cottingley fairy photographs, which he reproduced in the book, together with theories about the nature and existence of fairies.

Doyle’s gullibility possibly was heightened because he had first been told about the photographs by his fellow devotee of esoteria and enthusiastic believer in the pictures, Gerald Gardner, the founder of modern Wicca.

By May 1920 Gardner was using slides of the Cottingley pictures at lectures. Doyle saw the first two photos and Gardner convinced him they were real, whereupon Doyle wrote an article on the subject in The Strand, the magazine that published his Holmes tales. Doyle did, however, say that the photos should be tested by disinterested people.

While Doyle was in Australia on a lecture tour in 1921, Gardner sent him information about three more photos that he had been shown by the Cottingley cousins, and Doyle shed any doubts that he might have had, apparently believing that Gardner fit the bill of his "disinterested" person.

Doyle at this time was a major international celebrity, but his fascination with ghosts, fairies and "the afterlife" drew ridicule worldwide. In 1923, as he toured America, an editorial in the New York Times said: "Again Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is placing on many of this country's inhabitants the embarrassing task of trying to strike a balance between their long-established liking for him and their equally well-settled dislike for what he is doing."

Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, two young cousins living in Cottingley, near Bradford, England. The children took a total of five photographs between 1916 and 1920 of what appeared to be fairies dancing. The photos showed the fairies as small humans with 1920s style haircuts, dressed in filmy gowns, and with large wings on their backs. One picture is of a gnome, about 12 inches tall, dressed in a somewhat Elizabethan manner, and also with wings.

Examination of the pictures today shows that the fairies look like paper cutouts, having a flat appearance, with lighting that does not match the rest of the photograph. At the time, however, the photos were viewed by many as evidence of fairies, most notably by Doyle ...

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).

New monkey discovered in Africa

"A previously unknown monkey species has been found in the mountains of southern Tanzania.

"The animal is believed to be a critically endangered species, with no more than perhaps a thousand individuals remaining.

"The highland mangabey, as it is called, lives in the trees and is thought to be closely related to the baboon family.

"Full details of the discovery were revealed on Thursday in the journal Science."
Source: BBC News

Google's new personalised home page

"Google users can choose from 12 'modules' to add to the home page, including one that displays the first few messages from a user's Gmail e-mail account."
Source: Linux News

Armand Hammer, modern villain

1898 Armand Hammer (d. December 10, 1990), American physician, entrepreneur, oil magnate, art collector, founder of Occidental Petroleum when he was in his 60s.

New York-born billionaire Dr Armand Hammer led a most extraordinary life as an American businessman and a confidant of US presidents as well as 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. In 1976 he pleaded guilty to charges of concealing a $54,000 contribution to the re-election campaign of Richard Nixon, receiving just a small fine and eventually a pardon from President George Bush (Daddy).

A man of immense energy, Hammer created the transnational giant, Occidental Petroleum, after he was 65 years old, and worked seven days a week until 91 years of age. And he bought or created many more corporations. 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.

Bucks or ideology?
In fact, according to his 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 ...

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).

Wisconsin Phalanx

1844 The Wisconsin Phalanx was founded, an American community based on the ideals of French utopian socialist, Charles Fourier ...

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).

Bush's Uzbek buddy Karimov killed up to 1,000 last week

"Uzbek police and security forces may have killed as many as 1000 unarmed civilians in Andijon and Pakhta-abad using machine guns, other automatic weapons, and helicopters, according to independent journalists and local human rights organizations including the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan. Another 2000 people have been injured. The attacks on demonstrators have been followed in some cases by summary executions of the wounded, and by arbitrary arrests and detentions. The region has been blockaded, excluding news media and investigators including those from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)."
International Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights

Uzbekistan unbound
"'Such people must be shot in the forehead,' Uzbekistan dictator Islam Karimov once said of political dissidents. 'If necessary, I'll shoot them myself.' When not personally gunning down his opposition, Karimov keeps busy by instructing his security forces to boil, rape or asphyxiate political prisoners.

"Luckily for Karimov, he's a key US ally in the war on terror ...

"When thousands of demonstrators, emboldened by the jail break, assembled in Andijan's town square to protest their country's climate of repression, corruption and poverty, Karimov travelled to the city and instructed his soldiers to open fire on the crowd. Violence soon spread to the border with Kyrgyzstan, as soldiers allegedly targeted women and children. Anywhere from a few hundred to 745 people are reported dead.

"The Bush Administration's response to the butchery was both comical and sad. 'We have some concerns about human rights in Uzbekistan, but we are concerned about the outbreak of violence, particularly by some members of a terrorist group freed from prison,' Scott McClellan said. 'The people of Uzbekistan want to see more representative and democratic government, but that should come through peaceful means, not through violence.'

"How peaceful change will occur when the US has supplied Karimov with $500 million in military aid and waived human rights requirements for military and non-proliferation assistance is anyone's guess. Shortly after 9/11, Uzbekistan granted the US a crucial air base to use for the war in Afghanistan ..."
Source: Yahoo! News (yes, even Yahoo is appalled)

Melba

1861 Dame Nellie Melba (born Helen Porter Mitchell; d February 23, 1931), Australian opera soprano who 'played before the crowned heads of Europe'.

Melba's professional debut was in Verdi's Rigoletto at the Theatre Royale de la Monnaie, Brussels, on October 13, 1886. On May 24, 1888 she made her first appearance at Britain's famed Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, but was not particularly successful and returned to Brussels.

Her acclaimed June 5, 1889 return to Covent Garden in Romeo and Juliet opposite Jean deReszke sealed her position and she remained Covent Garden's prima donna through to the 1920s. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York in Lucia di Lammermoor (December 4, 1893). In early 1902 Melba first sang with Caruso, at Monte Carlo. On February 13, 1904, she appeared in the world premiere of Helene by Camille Saint-Saens at Monte Carlo. In 1920 she appeared on a pioneering radio broadcast from Guglielmo Marconi's factory in Chelmsford, England. On June 2, 1927 Nellie Melba received the Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, thenceforth being known as 'Dame' Nellie, but she was then, and now, one of that select band of notables (eg Coleridge, Paderewski, Lincoln, Dylan) generally known or identified by just one name.

She died due to an infection acquired during plastic surgery – a facelift.

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).

Happy birthday Ralph Metzner, psychonaut

1936 Ralph Metzner, American psychonaut, psychotherapist and professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, colleague of Timothy Leary and co-author with him and Richard Alpert of the seminal work The Psychedelic Experience.

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).

Aussie claims torture in Kuwait

Australian man in Kuwaiti jail says Govt has failed him
"An Australian citizen facing terrorism charges and accusations in Kuwait has accused the Australian Government of abandoning him to his fate because he's an Arab and a Muslim.

"Thirty-year-old Sydney man Talaal Adri was arrested by Kuwait's security forces three months ago as part of a crackdown on Islamist militants. His family claims that while he's been held in custody he's been tortured ...

"Indeed, Talaal Adri's family believes he's been abandoned by Australia, because he's received no consular assistance since his arrest. After two months in jail, Talaal Adri even wrote to Australia's ambassador to Kuwait, expressing his anger at what he perceives to be official indifference to his plight.

"I will be exonerated and will confront you before the law when you will be asked about your failure to assist me"

" His letter states in part:

"I am surprised, very surprised as to the embassy's position in relation to my matter, knowing that I was severely beaten and abused.

"All I want to say is that I am an Australian citizen, but I did not receive any assistance at all from the Australian embassy towards me or towards my family or my children who were born in Australia.

"I am absolutely sure that I will be exonerated and will confront you before the law when you will be asked about your failure to assist me. You have shown nothing but racism because I am an Arab and a Muslim."
Source

Free Schapelle Corby

Australian woman might be shot by firing squad

In October 2004 Schapelle Corby set out with her family on a 10 day holiday in Bali to enjoy the beach and the surf. Instead of happy holiday memories and a sun tan she has endured a harrowing nightmare burned with humiliation and injustice.

Since then she has been trapped in a country with a harsh inquisitorial system that threatens to kill her. She has been denied a presumption of innocence and forced to spend her days in the inhumane conditions. She shares a dirty, unhygienic cell with 10 other inmates. And every day she is forced to ponder the possibility of being executed over a sick criminal bundle up.
Source: www.schapellecorby.com.au

"Please join the yellow ribbon campaign; tie a ribbon to your letterbox, fence, tree, car radiator grill, bumper bar, bicycle or mobile phone. This campaign has been initiated by Schapelle's family as a peaceful way for concerned people to support Schapelle; please help us cover Australia with yellow ribbons as an overwhelming signal to the Indonesia Government to free our innocent Schapelle so she can come home."
Source: Email received

'Help Schapelle Cory' Forum
Schapelle Corby at Wikipedia
Don't Shoot Schapelle
Google News on Schapelle Corby
Get news alerts on Schapelle

Academic in torture row won't hear refugee cases

Ever since Bush and Rumsfeld allowed a retrograde leap of about 200 years by putting torture on America's "to do" list, we have said that they have put it on the whole world's agenda. So we keep an eye on it.

Well, it's showing up in the strangest places, but for once, people's protest has scored a victory:

Australia: "A Victorian academic who has been criticised for supporting legalised torture will not work for the Refugee Review Tribunal when he returns from leave later this year.

"The head of the Deakin Law School, Mirko Bagaric, has co-authored a paper suggesting torture is justified in emergency situations like terrorist attacks.

"He is also on the Refugee Review Tribunal and the Greens say his comments are inappropriate for someone in that position.

"The Federal Government has confirmed Professor Bagaric is currently on leave from the refugee body and will not serve on it when he returns.
Source

We'll continue to keep a watching brief on torture, Messrs Bush and Rumsfeld.

Nauru: Guano, and Aussie gov't bullshit

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.

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 imprison asylum-seeking men, women and children who show up on Australia’s shores: the so-called 'Pacific Solution' to a problem involving people fleeing persecution ...

Australia detains asylum seekers on remote Nauru and Christmas Island, and warehouses refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia for years. Nauru Wire is about their struggle against deportation to countries where they fear persecution. Australia's thrown away 'boat people' urgently need fair refugee assessments by DIMIA and the UNHCR ...

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).

Latest on SIEVX

"... media 'expert' analysis" turns out to be official BASARNAS document

"Up until now no-one has drawn attention to a small, partially obscured logo on the corner of what has become known as the 'Jakarta Harbourmaster's Report' (JHR) concerning the rescue of the SIEVX survivors.

"SIEVX.com has recently discovered that this logo indicates that the Harbourmaster's report is in fact an official document of the Indonesian search and rescue authority BASARNAS ..."

Source: sievx.com

SIEV-X accused faces trial

"This war came to us": Condy bombs in Iraq

Anotherie from Baz 'Newshound' le Tuff, who notes that Condoleezza Rice told Iraqis this week:

"Now, this is a tough environment sometimes, maybe all of the time, but I want you to stay focused on what it is that we are doing here. You see, this war came to us, not the other way around."

With Condy's gang having killed 100,000 civilians in an illegal and still mysteriously unexplained invasion, that one must have gone down a bomb with the surviving natives.

Who is this man?

"A month ago, police in Sheerness, Kent, England, picked up this man wandering the streets soaking wet and wearing a suit. He hasn't said a word since the police found him but apparently he plays piano beautifully."
Source: BoingBoing

What the hell is a Cultural Creative?

"What the hell is a Cultural Creative? According to this book, there are already 50 million Cultural Creativists in the US, many of whom may not know it yet. Are you one? But is this really a social movement, or just another manufactured demographic marketing term, like 'metrosexual'? Could CC give the left a language with which to discuss spirituality? or is this all just hype?"

es_de_bah at Metafilter

Concert for George

At last I've seen Concert for George (2003), the Royal Albert Hall tribute gig for the great George Harrison.

It's so good, so moving I can't begin to say. The big occasional piece written by Ravi Shankar was superb and brought tears to my eyes. I don't think that was because the sitar player was Ravi's daughter, Anoushka Shankar, my wife-to-be.

I expected Paul McCartney, Ringo, Billy Preston, God, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty et al to perform, but was pleasantly surprised by a funny, classic set (including Lumberjack Song) by Monty Python. It was also good to see Dhani Harrison, George's lookalike son.

Natch, I've finally got Concert for George in Cafe Diem!, the Almanac's store. If you love George but don't want to buy it, try to borrow the concert like I did. (Thanks and a shuffle of the Savoy Truffle to Baz 'My Sweet Lord' le Tuff.)

www.concertforgeorge.com

PS What was George's favourite album of all time? Dhani says it was Mandolin Ecstasy, recorded by a child prodigy from Madras called U Srinivas at the age of 13.

Brazil landless march on capital

"More than 12,000 landless farmers are to hold a mass protest in Brazil's capital against what they see as the government's slow pace of land reform.

"The protesters arrived in Brasilia after a 200km (125-mile) walk from the city of Goiania, capital of the neighbouring state.

"They say they want to highlight the government's failure to distribute land and resettle landless peasant families."
Source: BBC

AIDS & lemon juice: Bush impedes research

"Since 2002 Professor Roger Short has been promoting lemon juice as a cheap and effective microbicide for use in HIV/AIDS prevention and also as a contraceptive. Last year he discovered that he had been scooped by a group of commercial sex workers in Nigeria who have been using lemon juice for as long as 10 years. Professor Short now wants to do a study of this population but due to a withdrawal of US federal funding of studies of prostitutes unless they undertake to give up their profession, he has to find another source. So, he decided to launch the Mary Magdalene Project to raise research money." [Emphasis mine.]
Source: AIDS Prevention & Mary Magadalene

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"They want us to die"

'Christian' welfare state of Missouri, USA

USA: "Missouri’s 'devout[ly] Christian' Governor Matt Blunt intereprets the teachings of Jesus to mean that a single working mother of three no longer qualifies for this vital program unless she makes less than -- get this -- $86 a week or $4,472 a year (less than a fourth of the notoriously inadequate US poverty level for a family that size). Previously that working mom qualified at $15,600.

"Blunt's version of the Gospel in action means that a 44-year old disabled woman named Irene Schivers will have to 'ration her food and sell her dogs.' The way Schivers sees it, 'they want us [the poor and disabled] to die. We are a burden on society, so they don’t care.'"
Source: Paul Street's blog at ZNet

Must-Flee TV: GOP on PBS

"It's true, columnist Joe Conason warns, that public broadcasting is about to be flooded with 'politically correct orthodoxy' at the taxpayers' expense. But the party line that's being toed is Republican." -- Hannah Lobel
More

Source: Utne Short Takes

Ham Solo & Chewbroccoli rescue Princess Lettuce

"The makers of The Meatrix invite you to a supermarket not so far away, where the Organic Rebellion is leading the struggle against the Dark Side of the Farm. Follow Cuke Skywalker and Obi Wan Cannoli -- and their comrades-in-arms Ham Solo and Chewbroccoli -- as they rescue Princess Lettuce and battle to save the market from the evil Lord Tader." -- Leif Utne
More

Source: Utne Short Takes

Death of Heloise

1162 (Sources differ as to dates) Heloise (b. 1101) died in Paraclete Abbey. She was the brilliant student and later lover of French theologian and philosopher Pierre Abélard (Peter Abelard; 1079 - 1142), but their tragic love affair resulted in his castration.

The medieval story of Heloise and Abélard, written down by two of the protagonists of the tale, tells us that Heloise was an orphan, 18 years old, living with a canon of Nôtre Dame Cathedral at Paris, Fulbert, who was her uncle and guardian. Abélard was her tutor, at first by mail, and she grew greatly in learning. Abélard, twice her age, was the most famed man of his time, a rising teacher, philosopher and theologian, and pupils came to him by the thousands. He was also very attractive to women, had a good voice and sang beautifully. Heloise wrote "Female hearts were unable to resist (his singing)" ...

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).

dKosopedia

This looks interesting (shame about the name, which is hard to spell, pronounce and remember):

"Welcome to the dKosopedia, a collaborative project of the DailyKos community to build a political encyclopedia. The dKosopedia is written from a left/progressive/liberal/Democratic point of view while also attempting to fairly acknowledge the other side's take. It was started in April of 2004, and currently consists of 2831 articles."

Jordan bans Da Vinci Code

[Not because it's so historically daft and terribly written, but because it slanders Christianity]:

"AMMAN, Jordan -- Jordanian authorities reportedly confiscated copies of the controversial bestseller, 'The Da Vinci Code,' for slandering Christianity.

"Amman's daily al-Ghad said copies of the book were seized from a publishing house in the Jordanian capital and its owner, Ahmed Abou Tawk, was summoned for interrogation."
Source: World Peace Herald

Blogger word verification: Why?

The last few days, sometimes when I edit a post in Blogger, I get a word verification picture that I have to type in characters for. What gives? I see that blind bloggers are having the same problem, although in Blogger's reply to this complaint, they say it's only when you create a new blog. Is this necessary, Mr Blogger? And why is it only sometimes when I edit?

Australian quadricentennial news

Tiwi people commemorate Dutch navigators

The first Dutch landings in Australia occurred in the early 1600s.*

Then, just on 300 years ago, in April, 1705, a party of Dutch sailors under the command of Commander Maarten van Delft spent about three months on the Tiwi islands, writing detailed recordings of the Tiwi people, their culture and unique homeland. (The largest of the Tiwi Islands are Melville and Bathurst Islands, just 80 km off the coast of Darwin.)

First contact was difficult and violent, but soon the Dutch and Tiwi Aboriginal people got on well. On May 1, a tricentennial festival was held in the islands, attended by Dr Hans Sondaal, the Ambassador of the Netherlands.

"Commander van Delft`s instructions in 1705 were to capture some of these unknown people and return with them to Batavia; instructions he chose to ignore. Van Delft also, having wounded a Tiwi during their 1705 landing on Melville Island, returned his men to the beach to attend this wounded Tiwi man. These first contacts of reconciliation encouraged the Dutch explorers to remain some weeks with the Tiwi."
Source

Tiwi islanders mark Dutch landing
Tiwi Islands celebrate anniversary of Dutch arrival

* Australia 400
*2006 will be the 400th anniversary of European sighting of the continent of Australia:

"In 1606 Captain Willem Janszoon, in the vessel Duyfken, sailed into Australian waters, the first recorded European to do so. Captain Louis Vaéz de Torres, in the San Pedro and the very small Los Tres Reijes, sailed through Torres Strait later that year. Both captains and their crews sighted Cape York Peninsula."
Source

Tasmanian Devils in trouble

Carrie Campbell reports on DFTD, Devil Facial Tumour Disease, which has reached crisis point and is now believed to affect two thirds of wild populations of Australia's largest marsupial carnivore, the Tasmanian Devil.
More

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Owen: Father of cooperative movement

1771 Robert Owen (d. November 17, 1858), Welsh-born philanthropic social reformer and pioneer of the cooperative movement, founder of several model communities of a Utopian bent, such as New Lanark (Scotland; preserved as a tourist site) and New Harmony, Indiana, USA.

Engels called Owen "a man of almost sublime, childlike simplicity of character, and at the same time one of the few born leaders of men" (Socialism: Utopian and Scientific). He was the founder in 1832 of an equitable labour exchange system, a forerunner of today's Ithaca Hours, Local Exchange Trading Systems (the LETS Scheme), UNILETS and the Global Resource Bank).

Owen was the father of Robert Dale Owen, Scottish-born American social reformer and politician (1801 - 1877). One of New Harmony's prominent citizens was the anarchist author Josiah Warren (1798 - 1874). ...

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).

World's tallest flowering plants threatened

Tasmania's Valleys of the Giants

The Styx Valley, about 90 minutes from Hobart, Tasmania (Australia's island State) is home to the world's tallest hardwood trees - majestic Swamp Gums which can grow up to 95 metres and over 400 years old. These giants are currently being felled for woodchips and sawlogs. They need our protection.

The tallest trees in the Styx are the mighty Eucalyptus regnans – the tallest hardwood trees and flowering plants on Earth. In Victoria, these trees are known as ‘mountain ash’, and in Tasmania as ‘swamp gum’. They are second in height only to the famous coastal redwoods of North America (softwoods). This was not always the case – an E. regnans in Victoria in the 1870s was measured at over 120 metres - the tallest tree ever recorded. There may well be even taller trees that are as yet undiscovered in the remote, roadless parts of the valley.

The Styx also contains large areas of unlogged tall E. obliqua, E. delegatensis and rainforest. Together these make up one of the most spectacular forests in the world. These forests are home to many native species of wildlife, including the majestic Wedge-tailed Eagle, the Eastern Pygmy Possum, the Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, owls and rosellas. [Source]

Howard Governement "reneged on promise"
"Australian Greens senator Bob Brown has criticised the federal government for going back on its election promise to protect Tasmanian forests.

"Prime Minister John Howard on Friday visited Tasmania's Styx Valley to announce a $250 million package to extend the state's old growth reservation past the one million hectare mark.

"Senator Brown said the details of the package showed the government had reneged on its election commitment."
Source: The Age

"While The Wilderness Society welcomes protection of important forests in the Tarkine and Styx valleys, many magnificent old growth forests will still be sacrificed to the woodchipping industry under the forest plan."
Source: Wilderness Society

More

Australia must investigate Dep't Immigration

The Blogmanac wishes it didn't have to keep bringing these things to our readers, but it's necessary. First it was the SIEVX, the Tampa, then Children Overboard, Cornelia Rau and more scandals after scandal. Former head of the department of Immigration, John Menadue, has joined the chorus of calls for an enquiry into the Department of Immigration, citing a culture of racism, and poor leadership from both government and department management. Australia must finally get a public discussion and investigation via a Royal Commission.

I did not know I was being deported: Solon

"Vivian Solon, the Australian woman wrongly deported to the Philippines, says she was unaware she was being deported.

"Ms Solon was located on Wednesday after a priest in the Philippines recognised her in a report from ABC TV's Lateline that was broadcast into Asia.

"She had been missing since her deportation four years ago, which occurred after she underwent surgery for spinal injuries in New South Wales.

"Ms Solon says she was told by Australian officials that she would be ineligible for medical assistance unless she returned to the Philippines."
Source: ABC News

Related Audio
Vivian Salon, the Australian woman wrongly deported to the Philippines, has told the ABC she did not realise until recently she had been deported, saying Australian officials told her that in order to have medical treatment she had to return to the Philippines.
[RealMedia 28k+] [WinMedia 28k+] [MP3]
Dr Sev Ozdowski, from the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, says there needs to be an independent inquiry into the Vivian Solon case.
[RealMedia 28k+] [WinMedia 28k+] [MP3]
As information is gradually revealed about the circumstances of Vivian Solon's deportation, more people are demanding that the Palmer Inquiry into Australia's Immigration Department become a Royal Commission. One woman who was involved in a last-minute rush to stop Ms Solon being deported says she only wishes she knew then what she knows now.
[RealMedia 28k+] [WinMedia 28k+] [MP3]

Social worker says Solon bashed

Solon case sparks calls for Royal Commission

Hallliburton protest action (Houston), May 18

Protest the 18 May 2005 Halliburton Shareholder's meeting in downtown Houston.

WHEN: Wednesday, 18 May 2005; 8:00 AM
WHERE: Gather at the green space located at 1000 Crawford (Crawford and Lamar), in front of the statue of George R. Brown. March to the Four Seasons Hotel, 1300 Lamar Street, Houston, Texas

Source: Houston Global Awareness Center

Check the top right-hand corner at Daily Planet News regularly for international action alerts on many topics.

Disneyland Memorial Orgy

By Paul Krassner

"Last week marked the beginning of an 18-month celebration of Disneyland’s 50th anniversary ...

"When Walt Disney died, in 1966 ... [on] behalf of my magazine, The Realist, I contacted Mad’s Wally Wood and, without mentioning any specific details, told him my general notion of a memorial orgy at Disneyland. He accepted the assignment and presented me with a magnificently degenerate montage, a detail of which you see here ... the feature became so popular that in 1967 I decided to publish it as a poster. Recently I found a carton of those original posters in my garage, and they’re now available via my Web site, paulkrassner.com."
Source: LA Weekly News

Torture’s Dirty Secret: It Works

"I recently caught a glimpse of the effects of torture in action at an event honoring Maher Arar. The Syrian-born Canadian is the world’s most famous victim of 'rendition,' the process by which US officials outsource torture to foreign countries. Arar was switching planes in New York when US interrogators detained him and “rendered” him to Syria, where he was held for ten months in a cell slightly larger than a grave and taken out periodically for beatings ..."
Source: Common Dreams

The future of media

TV Piracy is good?
Hyperdistribution of television programs via the internet is set to forever change the way we watch the box. So says Mark Pesce.
Read the interview transcript

Media Futures
Changes brought about by technology -- especially the internet -- are beginning to pose real challenges to the media as we know it. Both commercial television and newspapers face a future very different from their situation now. [more ...]

Listen Real Media Windows Media

If you see these ads, please tell me

I've spent hours over the past few weeks removing banner ads for Earth Spirit Emporium and Pagan Shopping, from hundreds of webpages. I was greatly underwhelmed by the service from these online affiliate companies. I shudder to think that any Wilson's Almanac readers will mistakenly think I endorse them, so if I've neglected to remove a link or banner, please let me know. Ta.

The Rebecca Riots

1839 The Rebecca Riots began, Efailwen, Wales.

Led by a huge man named Thomas Rees, a group of men dressed in women's clothing, calling themselves the Merched Beca (‘Daughters of Rebecca’), burned down a hated toll-gate at Efailwen (Yr Efail Wen), Carmarthenshire, Wales. A few weeks later they destroyed the tollgate at Maesgwynne.

The Rebecca Riots, as they were known, were direct actions by poor Welsh tenant farmers and farm workers against turnpikes -- gates set across roads to prevent passage until a toll had been paid. Until that time, most tollkeepers had allowed locals to pass through for free, but now Thomas Bullin, a wealthy turnpike owner, made sure that all who passed through, paid.

There had been a bad crop that year, as well as a rapid increase in population and the imposition of a money economy upon a rural society dominated by a small landowning class. The tolls were the last straw ...

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).

The film US TV networks dare not show

The Power of Nightmares at Cannes

"There will be no red carpet for Adam Curtis when his film The Power of Nightmares receives its gala screening at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday. There would be no point: his film has no leading ladies who could disport themselves in backless numbers or lantern-jawed himbos to vogue fatuously before the snappers. Unless, of course, two of his chief protagonists, Osama bin Laden and Paul Wolfowitz, could be prevailed upon to pose together for the world's press on the Grand Palais steps ..."
Source: Guardian

Eisheilige (ice saints; May 11 - 15)

It's cold and very wet in Sandy Beach today. I wonder if it has something to do with the saints of the week:

The presence of these 'Strong Lords' brings unseasonably cold and/or wet weather -- a reversion to the days of Winter, or an opposite to an 'Indian Summer'. These are the 4th- and 5th-Century saints Mamertius, Pancratius (Pancras), Servatus (Gervatius; Servatius), Boniface of Tarsus (Bonifatius), and 'Cold Sophie' (Sophia von Rom). These Christian names are versions of the Swabian presiding spirits of these days.

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).

Chapel decorated with human bones

Sedlec Ossuary (Kostnice) is a small chapel dedicated to All Saints and decorated with human bones, at Sedlec, a suburb in the outskirts of the Czech town Kutna Hora.

See the galleries.

World stats as they happen

Check out worldometers (I found it at Metafilter). Enjoy the ticking while I (probably) have a day off from blogging here. See ya round like a rissole.

Victory Day, Russia; 'Great Patriotic War' ends

Inflated figures are regularly given for the number of people who died in the USSR during WWII (eg, “Twenty-seven million soldiers and citizens died during the war, many of them fighting what turned out to be some of the most decisive battles.” – Eleanor Hall, The World Today, ABC Radio National, Australia, May 9, 2005).

However, it has been well documented that the Soviet Union's official figures were a subterfuge to cover up the many millions killed in Josef Stalin's purges and forced collectivization policies, and the figures were less than half that. See Robert Conquest's classic 1968 accounts, The Great Terror and The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine, University of Alberta Press, 1986 ...

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).

US Senate to vote on ID card

This Tuesday, the US Senate is scheduled to vote on the implementation of a national ID card system. More at http://www.unrealid.com/

Colonel Hack, he dead

(Vale David Hackworth)

I was saddened to learn of the death of US Colonel David Hackworth on May 4, in Tijuana, Mexico. He was the 'model' for Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, but so much more.

He used to give me very elegant copy for a magazine I used to edit during the heyday of the peace movement, and he was a top bloke.

Hack was the founder of Tiger Force, the legendary unit in Vietnam that went on to commit outrageous atrocities (like My Lai but longer).

"He was America's youngest full colonel in Vietnam, and won a total of 91 medals, including two Distinguished Service Crosses, 10 Silver Stars, 8 Bronze Stars and 8 Purple Hearts.

"Later, he was an author, a military affairs correspondent for Newsweek, a syndicated newspaper columnist and a campaigner for military reform.

"In Vietnam, he became an almost mythical figure, arriving in 1965 with the first group of American paratroopers and going on to command the helicopter unit that was later immortalized in the movie 'Apocalypse Now.'"
Source: NY Times

Legend 'Kurtz' is dead (Sunday Mirror, UK)
Col. David H Hackworth NPR (audio)

Captain Blood and England's Crown Jewels

1671 Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempted to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. He was immediately caught because he was too drunk to run with the loot. Later he was condemned to death and then mysteriously pardoned and exiled by King Charles II ...

According to contemporary chronicles, King John was once travelling from Spalding in Lincolnshire to King's Lynn in Norfolk, but unwisely sent his baggage train, including his crown jewels, along the coast road, which would only have been passable at certain times of day. The horse-drawn carts moved too slowly for the incoming tide, and many were lost. The present-day location is supposed to be somewhere near Sutton Bridge, on the River Nene ...

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).

Media ignore Brit-US collusion pre-Iraq

"Eighty-eight members of Congress have signed a letter authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on President Bush to answer questions about a secret US-UK agreement to attack Iraq ...

"'Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a 'runaway bride' to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers', Conyers writes. 'The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so.'"

"The members say they are seeking an inquiry."

Read the letter at Raw Story. Thanks Nora at extra!extra!.

Just for the record: No God, please

I think I get much more than my fair share of religious emails sent to me. Just for the record, and I hope people with religious convictions will note, although Wilson's Almanac is replete with information on gods, goddesses, mythical beings, Santa Claus, the Loch Ness Monster, UFOs and other imaginary friends, I do not believe in them. I'm interested in things that interest me, that's all, and I write about them. I'm as close to being an atheist as it is possible for an agnostic to be without taking a leap of faith and believing in something for which I have no evidence. Would that this was a common practice.

I'm particularly allergic to emails with stuff about 'God'. I reply to every personally addressed letter received (except offensive ones) but it's often hard to reply without offending. Thanks people.

NPR's Hagerty's narrow view of "Christian values"

USA: "In a May 5 report about religious conservatives who believe that separation of church and state is inconsistent with the principles espoused by the country's founders, National Public Radio (NPR) religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty concluded by intoning: 'While many Americans may travel a middle road, they are caught in the crossfire between those who believe that asserting Christian values is the greatest hope for America's future and those who see it as a threat.'

"Hagerty appeared to have learned nothing from her own report, on Morning Edition, which illustrated that many believe that a clear delineation between church and state is a Christian value."
Source: MediaMatters

Was the USA founded on Christianity?

Barbie with a USB sticking out of her neck

"This is the bestest Barbie doll mod ever: a doll with a USB keychain drive in her chest, with a pop-off head that reveals the USB prongs sticking out of her neck"

Source: BoingBoing who got it from Gizmodo but it all started at B3ta

Mothers' Day was once a strike for peace

In Britain, the fourth Sunday of Lent (Mid-Lent, typically in March or early April) was known as Mothering Sunday, when furmety, a sweetened boiled cereal dish, was often served at the family dinner. Originally, it was a time for visiting one's ‘mother church' – the church in the town where one hailed from, and people would travel back home to attend – but gradually came to be a day for honouring one’s mother and giving her gifts. Thus, it is the progenitor of today’s Mothers' Day.

It is believed that Mothers’ Day emerged from the custom of mother worship in ancient Greece. Mother worship, which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of gods, and Rhea, the wife of Cronus, was held on March 15 to March 18 around Asia Minor.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe (pictured), prominent United States abolitionist, social activist, and women's suffrage campaigner, pacifist and poet, author of Battle Hymn of the Republic, was the first to proclaim Mothers' Day.

This is the text of Julia Ward Howe's first proclamation for Mothers' Day (long before Hallmark Cards and others watered down the intention that the day would be a general strike for peace):

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!

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 May 9 this time, as that's where I placed it for Mothers' Day, 2004.

Building a better umbrella

I want one of Andy Wana's Lotus 23 umbrellas. It was inspired by the lotus flower. It retracts into a nice tube, and squeezes out the water when you put it away. It doesn't catch the wind (I like that!), it has no sharp points, and you can make it go small when you're in a crowd. Anyway, the advertisements speak very highly of it. Just kidding -- it really does sound great and I'd love to see one.

"The device won the Gold 2005 Australian Design Award for its fully retractable umbrella screen, which is pushed out of its housing tube-worm style; flexible ribs stand up to harsh winds, instead of breaking and buckling."
Source

I haven't seen the brolly but from a radio interview, it sounded great and he sounds like a really nice young bloke. Read Andy Wana's submission: "Lotus 23 is inspired by nature, our greatest designers. The double vented canopy appeared from the stem, akin to a flower blooming. This method of operation put forward a solution offered by no other umbrella – to get in and out of various transport easily without getting wet."

More

Jenny Joseph

1932 Jenny Joseph, British poet, best known for one poem which was twice voted the nation's favourite post-war poem, 'Warning: When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple', beating even Dylan Thomas's 'Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night'. The renowned poem is the inspiration for the Red Hat Society which has chapters worldwide.

Warning:
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens ...

See also Red Hat Society Day.

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).

New Tories win

Four more years.

::: sigh :::::

Old news; not really

'Old news' but too good to pass up. And it's not old news, really. Almaniac George from north Queensland sent it in.

Another shot

John and Liz by day.
(Click thumbnail to enlarge)

Sleeping beauties

For so long I've wanted a digital camera but it was just out of the question. It would be so useful for Sandy Beach Almanac and everything else. I'm excited and grateful that a very special friend who I won't name (a very private somebody) has given me a fine camera, and today I have taken my first three pix. This one shows what goes on in my bathroom at night: John Gould the Gouldian finch and his new girlfriend, Lizzie after a busy day flitting around my cabin.

(Click thumbnail to enlarge)

Amnesty commemorates "mighty blog"

May 3 was World Press Freedom Day. Unfortunately, we did not mark it in the Blogmanac, so here is a belated note.

On World Press Freedom Day, Amnesty International celebrates "the mighty blog" as having "profound implications for press freedom and human rights." The organization states, "People in Iran and China have used blogs to expose violations by their governments and provide the outside world with information." Yet, in both countries, "the authorities have increasingly targeted bloggers to stifle dissent." According to Freedom House's annual survey, "the United States has suffered 'notable setbacks' in press freedom," slipping to 24th of 194 countries.
Source: Inter Press Service News Agency via PRWatch

World Press freedom Day homesite
More at UN

These strong ads are worth the download wait

Wikipedia and Hitchhiker's Guide

"'It's too bad Douglas Adams wasn't able to see his vision brought to life. I don't mean the so-so movie version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'm talking about Wikipedia, the Web's own don't-panic guide to everything.

"'The parallels between The Hitchhiker's Guide (as found in Adams' original BBC radio series and novels) and Wikipedia are so striking, it's a wonder that the author's rabid fans don't think he invented time travel. Since its editor was perennially out to lunch, the Guide was amended "by any passing stranger who happened to wander into the empty offices on an afternoon and saw something worth doing." This anonymous group effort ends up outselling Encyclopedia Galactica even though "it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate ...

"Wikipedia, with more than 1 million entries in at least 10 languages, is the mother of all wikis, but there are also wikis devoted to quotations, the city of Seattle, and Irish politics. (Check out this wiki of wikis, which lists more than 1,000 sites.) Instead of enforcing rules, wikis trust that groups can behave. Anyone can edit or reorganize their contents. If you realize something's missing, incomplete, or incorrect, you can fix it yourself without asking permission."
Source: Slate via Disinformation

Hell money: a Chinese custom

Hell money is used at certain Chinese fests such as Ching Ming (Qingming). Here's some background (click thumbnail to enlarge).

"Hell Money 'the Chinese believed Hell was the English term for the Afterlife. The word was incorporated and printed on the traditional Chinese Afterlife Monetary Offerings, otherwise known as Hell Bank Notes.'"

Source: dhruva at Metafilter

Defense Dep't can't handle bloggers

"Over lunch on the first day of the conference a representative from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defence for Public Affairs discussed strategies to counteract critical viewpoints of the non-lethal weapons programme in the media. She encouraged those present to keep repeating a positive message particularly when there was a negative story published, and not to shy away from commenting.

"If there was negative coverage about an important programme that could be derailed by the general public or congress then they would 'really go after them', she said. She indicated that officials would give increased information access to 'bread and butter military journalists' as opposed to the '60 minutes type journalists' in return for more positive coverage. She also advocated a strategy of targeting military analysts working for various news media and getting them on message.

"She admitted, however, that they still don't know how to handle the bloggers."
Source: defensetech via boingboing

"Most in US say Iraq war not worthwhile": Poll

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A majority of Americans do not believe it was worth going to war in Iraq, a national poll reported Tuesday.

"Fifty-seven percent of those polled said they did not believe it was worth going to war, versus 41 percent who said it was, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of 1,006 adults.

"That was a drop in support from February, when 48 percent said it was worth going to war and half said it was not.

"It's also the highest percentage of respondents who have expressed those feelings and triple the percentage of Americans who said that it was not worth the cost shortly after the war began about two years ago."
Source: South News

Today in the Discordian Calendar

Rejoice, for today is
Setting Orange
Day 52 of Discord, YOLD 3171
Know ye that today's Holy Name hath been decreed thusly:
_Error_

Today in the Discordian Calendar, another odd page in the Scriptorium.

Nellie Bly, investigative journalist

1865 Nellie Bly (d. January 27, 1922), pseudonym of Elizabeth Jane Cochran/Cochrane, a pioneering female investigative journalist.

On January 25, 1890 Bly bettered Phileas Fogg’s fictional Around the World in Eighty Days feat by doing it in just 72 days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds after her departure from Hoboken, New York on November 14, 1889.

Born to Judge Michael Cochran and Mary Jane Kennedy Cochran, part of the large Cochran family of Apollo, Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Cochrane revolutionised journalism for women.

In September 1887, Bly talked her way into the office of John Cockerill, managing editor of Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Cockerill hired the unknown journalist and gave Bly her first assignment – to be committed to the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island. Impersonating an insane woman, Nellie Bly came back from the asylum ten days later with stories of cruel beatings, ice cold baths and forced, rancid meals. This adventurous and daring stunt propelled Bly into the limelight of New York journalism, and, at only 23, Nellie Bly had become a pioneer of a proud tradition that was well known in the West until the early 21st Century: investigative journalism ...

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).

Blogmanac now loads more quickly

We're marking a milestone: 3,000 subscribers of the Almanac ezine. It seemed like a good time to celebrate with a new template for the Blogmanac, mainly to get a faster download.

It's still sort of under construction, but does it load faster? We hardly had any complaints before, but our guess is that the people who didn't wait for the load never got a chance to tell us. I hope you like the new Blogmanac template, and please let us know what you think.

May the Fourth be with you

Thomas Huxley & Oxford Debate

1825 Thomas Henry Huxley (d. 1895), English scientist, supporter and populariser of Charles Darwin's theories. His investigations in comparative anatomy, palaeontology and evolution exerted a great influence on 19th- century biology. He was the grandfather of biologist Julian Huxley and writer Aldous Huxley.

At the famous Oxford University Meeting of 1860, Huxley defended Darwin's theory of Natural Selection against Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford. Wilberforce used essentially the same arguments that he had used in his anonymous review of Darwin's epochal On the Origin of Species for the previous July's The Quarterly Review. Then he smugly asked, was it through Huxley's grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey?

“Huxley instantly grasped the tactical advantage which the descent to personalities gave him. He turned to Sir Benjamin Brodie, who was sitting beside him, and emphatically striking his hand upon his knee, exclaimed, ‘The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands.’ The bearing of the exclamation did not dawn upon Sir Benjamin until after Huxley had completed his ‘forcible and eloquent’ answer to the scientific part of the Bishop's argument, and proceeded to make his famous retort ...

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).

Hollywood holocaust amnesia inexplicable

Speaking of Nazi prisoners: Hollywood, TV and book publishers still constantly mine and remine one of the 20th century's worst holocausts, that of the Jews under the Nazis. It was a terrible tragedy, and we should never forget.

But what about the other holocausts? Almost virtual silence on those of Stalin and Mao, and only one major movie feature (The Killing Fields) on the communist holocaust of Cambodia. The Stalin and Mao killings eclipse those of Hitler, but for some reason we are not supposed to remember, and writers seem to have not the slightest interest.

Here's some grist for the mill: Student Attacks Against Teachers: The Revolution of 1966 ... one aspect of Mao's holocaust.

The Cap Arcona tragedy

Britain sinks 7,000 prisoners of Nazis

1945 World War II: Britain's Royal Air Force sank the floating prisons Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland in Lübeck Bay.

The ships were carrying some 7,000 prisoners of Nazi concentration camps, virtually all of whom died. This makes it a nautical disaster far greater than the sinking of the Titanic, in which 1,523 people perished in the accidental sinking. Compare, too, with the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the greatest maritime disaster in history in which 9,372 people were killed by 'our side', approximately 5,000 to 7,000 of them refugees. Also by way of comparison, Germany's sinking of Britain's Lusitania resulted in the loss of 1,198 lives and the USA's entry into World War One ...

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.

Essential Guide to The Da Vinci Code

"A runaway bestseller on the fiction lists, Dan Brown's novel about the Holy Grail has people wondering if it's true. Macquarie University's scholars of early Christianity - Chris Forbes, Malcolm Choat and Alan Dearn - pick out the fact from the fiction, and University of Sydney's Carole Cusack provides the medieval and feminist background to The Da Vinci Code."
Source
[You can listen to this program (needs Real Media)]

The Dundee Code (sequel to The Da Vinci Code)
Exclusive: We publish excerpts from the manuscript

Wal-Mart attempts to censor parody website

By Daniel Papasian

"For several days in April, this address, www.walmart-foundation.org, hosted a parody of the Wal-Mart Foundation's website. I created a derivative work by changing all of the text and several of the images from the original site. The goal was to make the parody look like it could be a real site from a company like Wal-Mart. However, the text was so ridiculous that anyone who read it would realize that it was absurd. If anyone believed it to be a real Wal-Mart website, that is only a testament to the degree of absurdity that exists within corporate America today.

"I believe that the website constituted fair use of the copyrighted material from the original website; it was done for the purpose of parody. The text on the website was all designed to highlight problems with the growing influence of large multinational corporations such as Wal-Mart. It contained many facts that were critical of Wal-Mart's labor, trade, and environmental impact. I engaged in a form of "identity correction." The Wal-Mart Foundation's main purpose is to generate a positive public image for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc by donating small amounts of money here and there in an attempt to behave like a philanthropy. As the Wal-Mart Foundation would never tell you that their goal was to help improve the image of the stores, I figured I would "correct" this through parody ...

Read on at http://www.walmart-foundation.org/

Bill/Marion Edwards, gender rebel

On April 30, I missed out on mentioning here a very interesting centennial anniversary from south of the border, down Victoria way:

April 30, 1905 Collingwood, Victoria, Australia: Woman/man Bill Edwards (1881 - 1956), was arrested and charged with burglary of a Collingwood pub. Transvestite and/or transexual Edwards (real name (Marion Edwards) went on to public notoriety and wrote The Life and Adventures of Marion Bill Edwards, the Most Celebrated Man-Woman of Modern Times: Exciting Incidents, Strange Sensations, Told in the Graphic Manner by Herself ...

Read on at April 30 in the Book of Days.

Euro May Day: Hundreds of thousands demo

Hundreds of thousands of workers, students and the general public across Europe mobilized on May Day '05. In Germany, more than 500,000 trade union activists hit the streets and at least four marches were held in Paris.

Some 20,000 trade unionists marched in Moscow demanding the minimum wage be raised. Turkish riot police detained at least 47 people who rallied in a venue despite an official ban to mark May Day in the country's biggest city, Istanbul. Tens of thousands of protestors turned out in Vienna to assail Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's economic policies and demand his resignation. Some 4,000 demonstrators marched through the Swiss financial capital, Zurich, and called for the defence of public services and a fairer distribution of wealth.

In his first Sunday Angelus blessing, Pope Benedict XVI issued a clarion call for workers' rights to be respected, saying solidarity, justice and peace were the pillars of the human family.

"I hope that the young, especially, will not want for work, and that working conditions will be ever more respectful of the dignity of the human person," the 78-year-old pope told more than 50,000 pilgrims in St Peter's Square in an address on May Day.

Source: AP

Euromayday 2005
Report, via South News
Pictures of the London Mayday PRECARITY action
Euro May Day in Hamburg

Other EuroMayDay Sites:
Amsterdam Barcelona
Copenhagen Helsinki Jyväskylä
L'Aquila Leon Liege London Maribor
Milano Napoli Palermo Sevilla Stockholm Wien

World Naked Bike Ride 2005

What's your weather been like?

Australia: Hottest April on record

"TEMPERATURES in April across Australia were further above average than those in any other month on record, according to the National Climate Centre.

"Climatologist Blair Trewin said the average for April, including maximums and minimums from about 100 sites nationwide, stood at 2.79C above the norm for the month.

"'The average temperature will be a record by a very substantial margin,' Dr Trewin said. He said the previous April record was 1.73C above average in 2002, and the previous biggest difference from normal in any month was 2.32C in June 1996.

"It's fairly spectacular.'"
Source: The Australian

Australia drought threatens to devastate crop
World Weather: More Rain Needed In Eastern Asia
Global warming rate discovered
Global warming debate isn't cooling anytime soon
Experts: New data show global warming

Be alert! The world needs more lerts
Google News on global warming
Get the latest news on global warming with Google Alerts.
Google News on climate change
Get the latest news on climate change with Google Alerts.

What's your weather been like?
Of course, variations in climate are the norm, but have you noticed climate change? Are the insects, animals, birds, plants and trees, or temperatures, behaving out of the ordinary? It's starting to look that way from where I sit.

May Day, Beltaine

It's the merrie, merrie month, as the English have long called the beautiful month of May.

Their ancestors, the Anglo-Saxons, called it thrimilce, because at this time of year cows can be milked three times a day. The modern name is thought by some scholars to come from the Latin Maia (consort of Jupiter, mother of Hermes, or Mercury), the goddess of growth and increase. It is also connected with major, because in the Northern Hemisphere, May is a beautiful time of Spring growth.

Despite the congeniality of the month, it was also an old belief that May is an unlucky month in which to be married. This superstition, current even today, is Roman in origin and was mentioned by the poet Ovid.
Lovers should wait until the propitious month of June before tying the knot ...

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.

The Pagan Pilgrim

May Day, 1626, New World: 'Pagan Pilgrim' Thomas Morton (1590? - 1646), royalist rake, a trader and lawyer, raised the Maypole with Native American allies.

Fed up with Puritan restrictions on life and liberty, Morton (calling himself "mine Hoste of Mare Mount") and a Captain Wollaston had set up near the Plymouth Colony a fur-trading post in 1624 which they named "Mare Mount" -- Mount by the Sea. Their Puritan neighbours saw through his pun and its suggestion of a rejection of Puritan values (for it was a place of revelry), and sneeringly called it "Merrymount".

When Morton set up a Maypole, with a poem attached and the whole shaft topped with antlers, all hell broke loose at the Plymouth colony nearby. Miles Standish's Pilgrim stormtroopers invaded the free settlement, John Endicott chopped down the proud Maypole, scattered Merrymount's inhabitants, destroyed its houses and renamed the place Mount Dagon.

Governor Bradford dared not execute the well-connected Morton so he marooned him on a desert island till 1628 when an English ship transported him back to London where he stood trial and was acquitted. There he spent the next decade in using his talents and resources to oppose the Puritans with wit and humour, particularly in the satirical tract New English Canaan (1637). He pointedly contrasted the lives of the uptight Pilgrims with those of the good-natured and hospitable Native Americans ...

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.