Stellarium

Stellarium is a freeware nightsky viewer. Plenty of options, including being able to see the stars as they are at your location, with or without meridian grids, astrological artwork (from Western, Egyptian, Chinese and other traditions), and much more.

My only problem is with setting my coordinates. I've been able to get my longitude in, but click as I might (and I closed the software and retried four or five times) I can't scroll the latitude button past a few degrees. Still, it's a commendable and elegant open source production and it's this week's pick of the crop. It's good to have something like this to refer to -- check out your stars tonight in the sky and on your Stellarium.

Tagged: astronomy, astrology, internet+resources, freeware, open+source

Gumstool Hill woolsack races

Gumstool Hill woolsack races at Tetbury, Cotswolds, UK

The town of Tetbury, England leaps into festive action today when relay teams of four run carrying 27 kilo (60 lb) -- 15 kilos (35 lb) for women – woolsack to the crown of Gumstool Hill -- and back down again. The gradient of Gumstool is about 1 in 4, which is steep enough to raise a sweat. When it began in the 17th Century, this race was run between the Royal Oak and the Crown pubs. Tetbury was once an important producer of wool, and no doubt the race was originally run as a way for men in that industry to show off their prowess. These and other Cotswold district games are part of the rich folkloric customs of Whitsuntide, the time around the Christian feast day of Pentecost.

Tagged: britain, uk, british+folklore, folklore, calendar+customs

Baptist joke

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!" He said, "Like what?" I said, "Well, are you religious or atheist?" He said, "Religious." I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?" He said, "Christian." I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?" He said, "Protestant." I said, Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist? He said, "Baptist!" I said, "Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord? He said, Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" I said, "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/jokes.htm

http://www.bluedonut.com/100jokes.htm

Benefits of giving kids time in the natural world

"Richard Louv, author of 'Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder', says the benefits of giving kids unstructured time in the natural world include reduced stress, increased creativity, sharper observation skills, a longer attention span, a better ability to cooperate, even a decrease in the signs and symptoms of ADD. Most important is the concept of wonder, says Louv, a visiting scholar at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

"Spirituality is anchored in wonder, he points out, and a sense of it in nature is a central building block of many of the world’s religions. 'What happens to the child’s spirit when he’s away from nature?' he asks."
Source

Tagged: nature, spirituality

Did the Communists starve the author of Dr Zhivago?

1960 Boris Pasternak (b. 1890), Russian winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature, died.

Did the Communists starve the Nobel-laureate author of 'Dr Zhivago'?

Boris Pasternak, in the years leading up to his death on May 30, 1968, suffered appalling persecution by his own government. He had won the Nobel Prize, but, like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov after him, was not permitted to leave the USSR to attend the awards ceremony and expect to return. He was even expelled from the union of Soviet writers.

Evidence that the Communist regime of the Soviet Union might have wilfully starved Boris Pasternak to death emerged in a book, 'Moscow: Under the Skin', written by an Italian journalist, Viro Roberti ...

Tagged: russia, ussr, literature, communism

Lincoln Hall's friend reported dead near Everest

Prominent Australian mountain climber Sue Fear, the first Australian woman to climb Mt Everest (from the north side in 2003), has been reported as having perished on a mountain near Mt Everest, soon after having summited the world's eighth-highest mountain.

Sue Fear is a friend of Lincoln Hall who we have been writing about this week, and last year co-authored a book ('Fear No Boundary - The Road to Everest and Beyond') with the 'Lazarus' mountaineer. Let's hope that the reports of her death are as greatly exaggerated as those of Lincoln's.

Meanwhile, Lincoln is reported to be approaching Katmandu, and his friend Simon Balderstone is on his way to meet him in the Nepali capital and escort him home.

Australian climber Sue Fear missing :: She'd never give in to fear
Speculation mounts over Fear's fate :: Australia media reports Sue Fear dead, others not so sure...
Sydney Morning Herald :: The Age :: all 117 related »

Latest Lincoln Hall reports at Google News

Tagged: australia, tibet, nepal

Did a Pacific volcano change Western history?

1453 The 'fall' of Constantinople preceded by heavenly wonders

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 the Great, 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 ...

Tagged: history

Earth-wall construction - is it good insulation?

"Latest tests by CSIRO have confirmed that rammed earth walls have poor thermal resistance -- adding hard facts to the debate about their insulation properties.

"CSIRO says this raises the question, "Why do so many Australians believe earth construction provides such a comfortable home?"

"The research, conducted by CSIRO and funded by the Western Australian Office of Energy, also produced results that effectively end the controversy over the accuracy of previously published data for the thermal resistance of rammed earth walls.

"'Our findings were based on testing of two commercially-produced rammed earth products, both of which turned out to have poor thermal resistance,' says Mr Robin Clarke, of CSIRO Thermal & Fluids Engineering (T&FE)."
CSIRO

"Mudbrick houses, the traditional domain of conservationists and alternative-lifestyle devotees, are under threat from the Australian State Government's five-star energy standard - which, ironically, was introduced to improve the environmental performance of homes."
The Age

Google 'mud brick' australia

Tagged: permaculture, shelter, australia, sustainability

It was no ordinary eclipse in 585 BCE

585 BCE A solar eclipse occurred, as predicted (according to Herodotus) by Thales of Miletus (pictured; c. 635 - 543 BCE), the Greek philosopher and father of science. However, this was no ordinary eclipse, if such can be ordinary.

On this day, while King Alyattes of Lydia (619 - 560 BCE), was battling King Cyaxares (625 - 585 BCE) of Media (Iran) by the Halys River in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), this pheomenon of Nature led to a remarkable phenomenon of history.

Sobered by the sudden darkening of the sky, the superstitious Lydians and Medians promptly signed a peace treaty, packed up their gear and went home. This is one of the cardinal dates – some say the oldest – from which other dates in the human record can be calculated.

Tagged: science, solar, eclipse

Lincoln Hall first pictures after rescue

Readers will know that over the past few days we have been covering the reported death, then the dramatic rescue of Australian writer and mountain climber Lincoln Hall from high up on Mt Everest. Lincoln, who had been left for dead then spent a night outside in the cold, is very much alive, and smiling.

Now the first pix are in. According to this page which has the pictures enlarged, Lincoln will not lose his fingers to frostbite.

Lincoln about to leave ANC by Yak.
Photo courtesy Jamie McGuinness - ProjectHimalaya.com (many thanks)

Lincoln in ABC the same evening he arrived.
Photo courtesy Jamie McGuinness - ProjectHimalaya.com (many thanks)

Pictures and story here, latest news will be at mounteverest.net. And as that site says, welcome back, champ!

Update: "I imagine you are surprised to see me here"
"As the rescue continued, details emerged of Mr Hall being found alive by American climber Dan Mazur after the Australian's own team had believed he was dead, and who gave him oxygen and hot tea. Disoriented from the effects of cerebral oedema, an acute form of altitude sickness, Mr Hall was found with his legs over a sheer drop 'half undressed and without a hat', Mr Mazur told EverestNews.com website. 'Lincoln's first words were: "I imagine you are surprised to see me here",' the website reported."
Sydney Morning Herald

Lincoln Hall at Wikipedia

Tagged: australia, tibet, nepal

Julia Ward Howe

1819 Julia Ward Howe (d. October 17, 1910), prominent United States abolitionist, social activist, pacifist and poet.

Howe was the author of 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' which was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862 and quickly became one of the most popular songs for the Union during the American Civil War.

Despite the bloodthirstiness of 'Battle Hymn of the Republic', after the war Howe focused her activities on the causes of pacifism and women's suffrage. In 1870 she was the first to proclaim Mothers' Day [qv], which was originally an occasion specifically for strenuous and organised opposition to war.

Early progressives in the Book of Days

Tagged: usa, pacifism, war, peace, progressive, radical, radical+history, biography

Climber walks into base camp

Lincoln's walked into base camp! Let's hope this time the news media have got it right.

"Australian climber Lincoln Hall has walked into the advanced base camp on Mount Everest in reasonably good health, a fellow climber says ..."
Source

Tagged: australia, tibet, nepal

Friend confirms Lincoln Hall's alive but seriously ill

This is the latest news to hand about Australian mountaineer Lincoln Hall who yesterday was widely reported by the media to have died on Mt Everest. I posted on it yesterday and then unconfirmed reports came through that Lincoln is alive after all.

ABC News has just reported on radio (not yet posted on their site) that his friends thought he was dead and had "abandoned" him, but he was found alive the following day and a rescue mission is now being organised to bring him down the mountain. He is apparently critically ill. This webpage appears to be the breaking news page for the official Mount Everst site.

Holding my breath and crossing my fingers. Good luck, Lincoln! Om Mani Padme Hum.

"Australian climber Lincoln Hall, feared dead after an attempt to tackle the world's tallest mountain, Mount Everest, is alive, says his friend Simon Balderstone.

"Mr Balderstone had treated earlier reports that his friend had survived with caution.

"A confirmed report from one of his expedition members, Michael Dillon, on Friday night revealed that 50-year-old Hall has been taken to the North Col camp, 7,000 metres above sea level.

"The North Col is the lower point of one of Everest's three great ridges that rise to the summit.

"The Everest summit is 8,848 metres above sea level.

"Hall's Sydney friend, Simon Balderstone, told AAP on Friday night that Hall was in the hands of an expedition doctor, but there were grave concerns about his health.

"Hall's wife Barbara Scanlan and their two sons, Dylan, 17, and Dorje, 15, were waiting for more news of the dramatic turn of events ..."
The Age

(MountEverest.net) "Early this morning, climbers on their way up the mountain found Australian Lincoln Hall still alive - after his spending one night in the open at 8700m. A rescue operation was immediately launched – resulting in an unprecedented joint effort from all teams still on Everest’s north side."
Joint effort never before seen on Everest’s North side: Lincoln Hall in C1

Friend confirms Lincoln Hall's alive :: Climber 'conscious but disoriented'

The odd case of Kaspar Hauser

1828 Kaspar Hauser showed up in Nuremburg.

This is a story that intrigues me as much for the way it captivated the German people of its day and succeeding generations, as for its intrinsic oddness.

On this day, at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, a youth of about 16 or 17 years of age showed up in a pathetic condition in the marketplace in Nuremburg, Germany.

The boy was dressed in peasant clothes, and had with him a letter addressed to the cavalry captain of the city. He was led to the captain and interrogated, and it was found he could scarcely speak. To every question he replied “Von Regensburg” (from Regensburg) or “Ich woais nit” (I don't know). Except for dry bread and water, he showed a violent dislike to all forms of food and drink. He seemed ignorant of commonplace objects. He carried a handkerchief marked ‘KH’ and a few written Catholic prayers.

In the letter that he carried, it was stated that the writer was a poor day-labourer who had ten children of his own. The man had found the boy deposited on his doorstep by his mother, and had secretly brought the boy up as his own, keeping him confined to the house, somewhere in Bavaria. The boy, said the letter, had expressed an interest in becoming a horse soldier. Accompanying this letter was also a note purportedly from the boy's mother, saying that she, a poor girl, had had the baby, named Kaspar Hauser, on April 30 (Walpurgisnacht, the witching time), 1812, and that his father, an officer in Nuremburg's sixth regiment, was dead.

A burgomaster named Binder took a kindly interest in Kaspar. In the course of many conversations with him, it was discovered that the boy had been kept underground all his life, in a space so small he could not stretch to full length. He had been fed only on bread and water by a man who never showed himself ...

Tagged: mysteries, germany

Lincoln Hall dies on the Mother of the Universe

It's with a very heavy heart that I report the death of an old friend, Lincoln Hall, 50, who died yesterday on his descent from the summit of Qomolangma ('Mother of the Universe') -- Mount Everest.

Lincoln, father of two sons, was a member of the first Australian expedition to reach the summit of Qomolangma, Mt Everest, but on that 1984 expedition, he himself only got within a few metres of the top. If there is any good to come out of this terrible news, it is that Lincoln did in fact reach the summit this time, and perhaps if he had to choose a place to depart this world, I might assume it would be on the roof of the world.

Lincoln Hall was one of Nature's gentlemen. I have met few people for whom I felt more admiration and with whom a greater sense of fellowship. He was a strong, handsome man and highly intelligent, yet sensitive and gentle, and surprisingly humble and softly spoken. I loved the way this Australian hero would respond to a question or statement with "Quite", like an old-fashioned English gent, and I admired the innate humility that seemed to exude from his every word. If I felt a lesser man than him, it was not of Lincoln's doing.

Lincoln did an exclusive interview with His Holiness The Dalai Lama for 'Simply Living', a magazine I was editing in the mid-'80s, and (I think in the same issue) he also gave me a scoop story about how the Chinese were testing nuclear submarines in a lake in Tibet. Lincoln recounted to me that he had seen, from high up on Mt Everest, what he believed to have been a nuclear explosion in Chinese territory -- he presumed he had seen an above-ground testing of a nuclear bomb.

It was Lincoln who told me the Tibetan name for the great mountain, Qomolangma.

I was, as you might guess, very fond of this man. Occasionally we helped each other out -- he might see me when he needed a hand with something, and sometimes I would ask him for help on a certain project. I have no idea how he felt about that, nor about me, but I do know how I felt -- I was always delighted to see him and supremely honoured to have him in my home. Like your almanackist, he was a writer and novelist, so I believe we 'clicked' (despite my total lack of athletic prowess) and I felt a special bond with him. As I said, he seemed to me one of the best men I have ever met, so I deeply regret his tragic and untimely death.

'Vale', Lincoln Hall. I'm glad it was on Qomolangma.

Australian Lincoln Hall among three fatalities at Mount Everest

"Hall reached the summit of the world's highest mountain on May 25 with a team including Thomas Weber (Weber) from Germany and guide Harry Kikstra from Holland ... "
Australian Lincoln Hall dies on Everest

Thomas Weber and Lincoln Hall lost, Abramov confirms Mounteverest.net
Top Aussie climber dies on Everest :: Everest claims another life
The Age :: Independent Online

Tales from the grave: Rescues on Altitude
Everest claims lives of two more climbers Radio New Zealand
First Everest, now climber must tackle Hillary

Stop Press!: 'Sydney Morning Herald' reports Lincoln Hall 'still alive'!!?

Everest rescue underway for Australian
"A dramatic rescue operation is underway in the hope of saving the life of an Australian climber given up for dead on Mount Everest.

"Lincoln Hall, 50, and one of Australia's leading climbers, was reported by a Russian expedition leader to have died on Thursday while descending from the summit of the world's highest mountain.

"Friends in Australia mourned Hall after Russian Alexander Abramov declared on Everest news websites that the climber's death 'was verified', and was probably due to cerebral edema.

"However, the reports were thrown into confusion on Friday by a new website posting by Australian climber and Everest summiteer Duncan Chessell, who said a climber had found Hall alive and set in train a rescue operation.

"'Lincoln Hall is still alive,' Chessell said on a DCXP/Project Himalaya team website in a report headlined 'Lincoln Hall still alive after one night out'.

"Chessell said he had been told by radio that Hall, of Blackheath west of Sydney, was being helped down the mountain by Russian team Sherpas and had been gaining in strength.

"'This is perhaps the most dramatic rescue on the mountain,' Chessell said on the website."
The Age

Update (9.30 AM Saturday, May 27):
Climber 'conscious but disoriented'
Friend confirms Lincoln Hall's alive
This will be the last update placed on this post. We'll be keeping an eye on the news and keeping our fingers crossed.

Tagged: australia, biography

Captain Thunderbolt allegedly shot dead

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. 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? ...

See also Highwaymen, outlaws, bushrangers, pirates, gangsters, etc in the Book of Days

Tagged: law, biography, crime, australia, bushrangers

Edmund Hillary blasts climbers who left dying man

"Mount Everest pioneer Sir Edmund Hillary said Wednesday he was shocked that dozens of climbers left a British mountaineer to die during their own attempts on the world's tallest peak.

"David Sharp, 34, died apparently of oxygen deficiency while descending from the summit during a solo climb last week.

"More than 40 climbers are thought to have seen him as he lay dying, and almost all continued to the summit without offering assistance.

"'Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain,' Hillary was quoted as saying in an interview with New Zealand Press Association."
Source

"An explorers' group which runs a news website monitoring attempts to climb Mt Everest says it has been battling to provide more transparency on the way some climbers die on its slopes ..."
'Raise hell' over Everest deaths secrecy

Everest: Why I left dying man :: Death on Everest divides climbers
Everest death climb outcry :: Monsters and Critics.com :: ABC Online :: all 201 related »

From mounteverest.net:
Everest fatality silence mystery solved: British David Sharp left to die by 40 climbers

Useful computer trick

Bill Donoghue writes:

"This is great! Wish I'd known it a long time ago!

"Many people have a problem reading small text, so this is very useful when trying to read small e-mail or web page print.

"If you hold down the Ctrl key on your key board and turn the small wheel in the middle of your mouse, the print size will change -- it will either get larger or smaller - depending on which way you turn the wheel. Try it -- you'll be amazed at the difference!

"Please pass this on to others who may find it useful. I'm sure glad somebody told ME!!!"

This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm

Tagged: internet, internet+resources

AA's longest sober member dies with 64 yrs sobriety

In a similar vein to my previous post, here is a recent death notice:

"COSTELLO, CHAUNCEY LLOYD; of Pontiac; age 95. Born Dec. 30, 1910. Surrendered to God May 11, 2006 surrounded by family and friends. Beloved husband of Vivian for 80 yrs.; father of Robert (Marge) of Houghton Lake; preceded in death by children Arthur Costello, Delores Shear, Grace McCullum, and Dawn Chancy; grandfather of 14; great grandfather of 26; and great, great, grandfather of 10. Long time member of All Saints Episcopal Church. Owner and operator of Costello Excavating for 40 years. Recognized as the longest living active member of AA with 64 years of sobriety."

I dips me lid to Chris Keeley for this one.

Tagged: biography, longevity, drugs

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away

Heathen though I may be, I was very saddened to hear recently that Sydney's St Barnabas's Anglican Church, Broadway went up in flames in the early hours of May 10. It was an unprepossessing little church overshadowed by large modern buildings, but perhaps that was half of its charm.

I used to have a job in Bay Street, just off Broadway, and every morning on the way to work I would see a spiritual message posted on St Barnabas's noticeboard, which was always wittily responded to in turn on a sign outside the hotel on the other side of Broadway. The riposte was composed by Arthur Elliott, the hotel's publican.

Usually the pub's rejoinder was corny, but always a bit naughty and cheeky, and the decades-old tradition must have put a twinkle in the eye of both the publican and the parson every week when they changed their signs. It was a much-loved part of Sydney culture for saint and sinner alike. The sign at St Barny's when it burned to the ground was "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away". I can't report what the corresponding sign said at the pub that day.

The church was 148 years old, and was the place of conversion of a person whose cultural impact on the life of Sydney was without parallel -- it was the little building in which Mr Eternity was converted to Christianity.

Mr Etenity
Mr Eternity (Arthur Stace, born February 9, 1885) had been a methylated spirits-drinking, hopeless alcoholic and derelict in the streets of Sydney, when he was converted to Christianity at about 46 years of age. He had returned from World War One shell-shocked and soon became a scout for brothels, a petty criminal, and a 'cockatoo' (lookout) for two-up schools (illegal gambling rooms where the Australian game of two-up is played).

Just after his conversion to Christianity at St Barnabas's, Stace heard the evangelist John Ridley at the Burton Street Baptist Church preach about a man who was converted in Scotland through 'Eternity' being written on a footpath. Ridley cried out "Oh for someone to write Eternity on the footpaths of Sydney!" Arthur Stace said to himself, "Here is something I can do for God." He did so, writing the word in the pre-dawn with yellow chalk in perfect Copperplate italic script on footpaths half a million times over nearly four decades.

As a child, many was the time I saw 'Eternity' written on the footpaths of Sydney. On January 1, 2000, the worldwide telecast of 'millennium' celebrations showed the Sydney Harbour Bridge with a city's tribute to one of its treasured eccentrics.

Arthur Stace passed into Eternity on July 30, 1967, aged 83. People and church buildings come and go, but Eternity ... that's something different.

St Barnabas fire: new message to be posted :: Rob Forsyth on St Barnabas

Who was St Barnabas? (in the Book of Days)

Tagged: sydney, australia, religion, christianity

9/11 updates

Judicial Watch caught pulling a 180 on Pentagon footage
"The president of the organization that sued for the video footage, also made an appearance on Fox on the same day of the government-released video clips. He appeared for a few minutes on Mr. O'Reilly's show, on which the new footage was also aired. On that show, the JW president made the absurd statement 'this definitely proves a plane was present.' Even O'Reilly, well known as a staunch supporter of the administration was forced to state 'I can't see a plane there.'"
Global Research

A united call for a further investigation of 9/11
"Some of the people whose testimony or writings challenge the official account:
Michael Meacher MP, John Pilger (journalist), Richard Clarke, Republican Congressman Curt Weldon, Sibel Edmonds (FBI interpreter), Josef Bodansky, (director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare), David Shayler (former MI5 officer), Morgan Reynolds (economist in GW Bush administration), Scott Ritter (UN Weapons Inspector), Republican Congressman Ron Paul (2, 3), Andreas von Buelow (2) (German government minister), Indira Singh (whistleblower), Max Cleland (Former 9/11 Commissioner), US Green Party (2), Fire Engineering Magazine, Greg Palast (BBC journalist), Catherine Austin Fitts, Charles Grassley (Republican Senator), David Schippers (Attorney), Peter Dale Scott (1),William Rodriguez, Gore Vidal (journalist), Cynthia McKinney (US Congress), former ISI director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad, Dan Ellsberg (Former Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA), DOD) and over 100 of family members (1,2, 3, 4) and many, many more ..."
British 9/11 Campaign

"Fire Engineering magazine, the 125-year old journal of record among America’s fire engineers and firefighters, recently blasted the investigation being conducted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of the collapsed World Trade Center as a 'a half-baked farce.'"
Source

Thank you, Trudy W from Australia.

Tagged: 9-11, 9/11, disinfo, disinformation

Million seed balls

7 Million People. Million Seed Balls. One Day. Green Bangalore.

"Imagine then, a clay ball the size of a large marble.
Imagine also that it contains seeds for a complete habitat.
The seed ball: it could contain plant potential for an entire ecosystem.
It can be made by anyone, anywhere in the world where there is clay, compost, seed and water."

http://www.millionseedballs.org/

Tagged: action, activism, india, permaculture, environment

Happy 65th birthday Bob Dylan

Dylan cover of Oz magazine (more such covers), by Martin Sharp

Birthday boy Bob Dylan is known more for his genius with words and tunes, and for deadpan (once, asked by a journalist how many children he had, he said "Some") than as a comedian.

However, he also has a fondness for silly wisecracks and is known among fans as a real joker at gigs. Sometimes he’s corny, but his cornball jokes are loved by the audience. Here are a few of his quips, and if you have any more, I'm collecting them.


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."

"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."

More today in the Book of Days.

Born again converter

Millihelen: The unit of beauty required to launch one ship.

But if you want serious measurements and conversions of weights, measures, currencies, temperatures, international times and all like that, you want the Wilson's Almanac Converter.

The Wal-Mart effect

According to Charles Fishman, author of the 2006 book 'The Wal-Mart Effect' (which is not overly critical of the mega-corporation), 90 per cent of Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart store, and 100 million Americans shop at Wal-Mart once a week.

There's an interesting article on Criticisms of Wal-Mart at Wikipedia. There's also a number of books that are critical of Wal-Mart, such as 'The Case Against Wal-Mart', 'How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and the World' and 'The Bully of Bentonville'.

Also of related interest is David C Korten's bestseller, 'When Corporations Rule the World'.

Tagged: corporations

Deaths of Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie and Clyde clown for the camera
1934 Near their hide-out in Black Lake, Louisiana, bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed and shot dead by Texas Rangers in a hail of bullets. Before police brought their rampage to an end, the notorious young couple had killed twelve people.

Bonnie was something of a poet, it seems, and shortly before she died, she sent the following ballad to the Dallas, Texas 'Dispatch'.

'Saga of Bonnie and Clyde'
By Bonnie Parker

You've read the story of Jesse James
of how he lived and died.
If you're still in need;
of something to read,
here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde ...

Tagged: biography, crime, law, usa

Bush announces Global Peace Imaginatorium

President Bush announces his Global Peace Imaginatorium

Is it satire, is it prophetic, or is it just maybe a good idea?

Tagged: bush, dubya, humor, humour, progressive, peace

Those Mooslim towelheads will get you with muffins

"We have new information on those tainted muffins ..."

Hilarious video (truly, a genuine news clip) from the very country that turned the Western world onto most of the planet's illicit and dangerous drugs. And who says pot doesn't make people paranoid?

Joint Terrorism Task Force deployed because of marijuana in muffins

Watch closely Jeff, the newsreader. He failed Recesss at acting college, but got a 'B+' in Ken Doll 101, which headed him straight for a career in TV news. And keep your eye on John McSwain, who is from the Joint Terrorism Task Force and collects stamps and Swedish "nature" pictures in his spare time -- apparently he is a real human being and not an actor like Jeff. (John-boy only failed Recess at Junior High.)

Tagged: drugs, usa, terrorism

Video - Who is behind Iraq's death squads?

Thanks Trudy for sending this clip.

Tagged: iraq, disinfo, disinformation

Cindy Sheehan Australian meetings

Cindy Sheehan arrives in Sydney tomorrow and there is a lot of interest from the media.

For more info on Cindy and Salam, visit this page.

For public meetings in Brisbane and Melbourne, and info on the national peace conference visit here.

Cindy Sheehan is one of the most prominent voices in the US anti-war movement, and has become a symbol of the resurgence in the strength of the movement in the US over the last year. Cindy began campaigning against the Iraq war after her son Casey was killed in Iraq while serving in the U.S. army. Cindy captured national media attention after setting up a peace camp outside George Bush's Texas ranch in 2005, demanding to know for "what noble cause" her son had died. She is one of the founding members of Gold Star Families for Peace, formed by families who have lost relatives in the Iraq war and are campaigning for an end to the occupation.

Dr Salam Ismael is secretary-general of Doctors for Iraq, leading teams of volunteer doctors in crisis situations in Iraq. His trip will be an opportunity to hear first-hand about health conditions in occupied Iraq, and to raise awareness about the humanitarian plight of Iraqis living under occupation. Dr Ismael was one of the first independent observers to enter the city of Fallujah after it was destroyed by US and allied occupation forces in November 2004. The Doctors for Iraq Society has brought to the world's attention numerous US atrocities in western Iraq. They are campaigning for an independent inquiry into human rights abuses in Fallujah.

[By the way, Dr Ismael says that since Bush, Blair & the Coalition of the Killing invaded and occupied Iraq, 3,000 doctors have fled for their lives and 61 senior doctors have been killed, as well as many ordinary doctors. Baghdad's radiology facilities have had to close due to lack of senior staff.]

Tagged: peace, peace+movement, cindy+sheehan, australia

Sherlock author, Wicca founder duped by girls

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 esoteric matters 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 ...

Tagged: wicca, pagan, neopagan, hoax, hoaxes, spiritualism, literature, biography, folklore

UK and Aussie PMs both aware of WMD lie

"A former U.N. biological weapons specialist is asserting that the prime ministers of Australia and Britain knew at the time that pre-war intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was false."
UK and Australian Prime Ministers were both aware of WMD lie

Tagged: war+on+terror, disinformation, disinfo, military, australia, uk, blair, john+howard, wmd, iraq

Lawmaker: Marines killed Iraqis 'in cold blood'

Navy conducting war crimes probe into violence in Haditha

"A Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines 'killed innocent civilians in cold blood,' a U.S. lawmaker said Wednesday.

"From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children.

"One young Iraqi girl said the Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents. 'The Americans came into the room where my father was praying,' she said, 'and shot him.'

"On Wednesday, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said the accounts are true.

"Military officials told NBC News that the Marine Corps' own evidence appears to show Murtha is right.

"A videotape taken by an Iraqi showed the aftermath of the alleged attack: a blood-smeared bedroom floor and bits of what appear to be human flesh and bullet holes on the walls.

"The video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine."
MSNBC

Tagged: iraq, military, war+on+terror

What's wrong with this video?

Sarah McLachlan's 'World On Fire' Video


What IS wrong with this video?

The Internet doesn't get any better than this.

Give till it hurts.

Lid dip to a truly excellent new blog, Maryannaville. Well worth taking out an email subscription to, or put Maryannaville's feed into your feed reader.


Tagged: poverty, activism, globalization, human+rights, video, music

Armand Hammer. Bucks or ideology?

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 ...

Other late starters & late achievers in the Scriptorium

Tagged: usa, biography, oil, marxism-leninism, communism, capitalism, corporations

Bush Countdown Clock

Tagged: bush, funny, dubya, humour, humor, clock

The Karl Rove indicted? story

I'm so glad I was cautious and put a question mark in my headline Karl Rove indicted?

Here is Truthout's apology (a bit half-arsed if you ask me) for Jason Leopold's original piece (the headline of which definitely did not have a question mark), which went all over the blogosphere as fact.

Rove might well be indicted, but Truthout's presentation of the story was not a good way to go about things.

666 and a note to Raelene

So June 6, 2006 will be 666, according to RavenLuna (the entity's name be praised), the spiritual advisor channelled and worshipped by both your almanackist and Baz le Tuff.

If anyone notes anything about the Whore of Babylon (Iraq), particularly if it has anything to do with Raelene, a nice girl from the Tudor Apartments, Macleay St, Kings Cross, Sydney, with chewed fingernails and a heart-shaped tattoo on her left breast, please let me know.

And Raelene, if by any slim chance you're reading this:

Alpha: I always told you you could learn to read if you put your mind to it. You owe me one;
Beta: Forget about the fifty. I did, long ago;
Gamma: Do you still have that green jacket of mine? That's OK, but it has sentimental value as I pinched it from a friend only a few days before you pinched it from me;
Delta: You still have my number, do you? I've lost yours. My mobile fell off my belt into a toilet near the El Alamein Fountain, or maybe in the Bourbon and Beefsteak, I forget which;
Epsilon: That scene that happened in Orwell St, near the Waxworks. That was mostly my fault, I admit it, but you should own up to your part in it too, and it cost me a whole lot more than you.

Tagged: apocalypse, prophecy

Shhhh! Don't tell the fundos this one

"The separation between the ancestors of modern humans and chimpanzees was not as far back as evolution researchers had always thought ..."
Ancestors of humans, chimpanzees, may have interbred

Humans and Chimps Still Messed Around After Split
You May Be A Monkey's Uncle, Study Says
Ancestors of humans, chimpanzees, may have interbred :: all 321 related »

Tagged: evolution, science

Why isn't Gitmo closed already?

Everyone wants Guantanamo closed. Some because they hate torture and the imprisoning of people for year after year without charging them.

Some have less altruistic motives: they want it closed because they hate the USA getting a bad name internationally, and they know that the more the USA is hated for it, the more endangered their lives become.

There must be lots of other reasons.

For more than four years the whole world has known Guantanamo Bay is a vile concentration camp containing hundreds of people from many countries, including Australia, who have not been charged with any crime.

So why isn't Gitmo closed yet?

Tagged: guantanamo, usa, torture, human+rights, military, civil+rights, war+on+terror

World's first film for paying audience

1895 Australian boxer Young Griffo (1871 - 1927) starred in Young Griffo vs. Battling Charles Barnett (filmed on the roof of Madison Square Garden, May 4, 1895), the first motion picture to be screened before a paying audience, on this day at 153 Broadway in New York City.

It premiered more than seven months before the Lumière brothers showed their film at the Grand Cafe on the Boulevard des Capucines, Paris, on December 28 – the event usually said to be the first movie-by-ticket screening in the world.

Tagged: movies, cinema, history

Historic Tree of Knowledge poisoned

According to one legend, the Cross of Jesus Christ was built from the Tree of Knowledge. And in 1549 Ket's Rebellion met under the Oak of Reformation.

Well, Australia has its Tree of Knowledge, beneath which thousands of rebels met, discussed, argued and debated, and laid the foundations of a progressive social movement that created the first democratic socialist government in the world. The Tree of Knowledge marks the birthplace of the Australian Labor Party and many of the civil rights, freedoms and privileges enjoyed by Australians -- and others -- today.





I speak of the Shearers' Strike of 1891, and the Tree of Knowledge, a Ghost gum in Barcaldine, Queensland beneath which the striking workers sang our national poet Henry Lawson's great poem 'Freedom on the Wallaby' with its stirring final lines:

"So we must fly a rebel flag,
As others did before us,
And we must sing a rebel song
And join in rebel chorus.
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting
O' those that they would throttle;
They needn't say the fault is ours
If blood should stain the wattle!"

[From Wikipedia: The last two stanzas of the poem were read out by Frederick Brentnall MP on July 15, 1891 in the Queensland Legislative Council during a 'Vote of Thanks' to the armed police who broke up the Barcaldine strike camp. There were calls in the chamber for Lawson's arrest for sedition. Lawson wrote a bitter rejoinder to Brentnall, 'The Vote of Thanks Debate'.

The Rebel flag is the Eureka Flag that was first raised at the Eureka Stockade in 1854, above the Shearers' strike camp in 1891 and carried on the first Australian May Day march in Barcaldine on May 1, 1891.]

Vandalism
Well, sadly, someone has poisoned Australia's great icon, the Tree of Knowledge. It comes at a symbolic time, as the conservative Howard Government is dismantling most of the IR (industrial relations) rights for which thousands at Barcaldine in 1891 struggled against police and militia who came bearing rifles, bayonets and cannon.

"Federal Labor leader Kim Beazley said the poisoning was 'vandalism of the highest order' but would "not stop the great traditions of the Australian labour movement".

"'It is highly symbolic of these times,' Mr Beazley said.

"'In 1891, the shearers had to stand for the right for collective action and it is the same now.

"'The industrial relations system has been comprehensively poisoned by John Howard as has the tree.

"'Labor will fight to revive the IR system.'"
Source

Historic 'Tree of knowledge' poisoned
Fears held for Tree of Knowledge's survival
Historic tree of knowledge 'poisoned'
Barcaldine Tree of Knowledge poisoned
Courier Mail :: ABC Online :: all 32 related »

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Related Audio
[RealMedia 28k+] [WinMedia 28k+] [MP3]


Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson

Free Speech Australia : Wattle Day, Australia

Tagged: labor, history, radical+history, progressive, australia, activism, tree

Pentagon attack footage

Is the new footage really any good? When I heard that the US Government had been forced to release security cam footage showing the plane hitting the Pentagon on 9-11, I went to the CNN site and had a look at the video. I played it twice.

There wasn't anything I could see that looked anything like a plane hitting the building, as opposed to what the conspiracy theorists say. Does anyone know of an online version of this new footage that is as good as the conservative media say it is? I seriously would like to see something that looks like a passenger plane hitting the Pentagon. Bear in mind that I don't have a TV so maybe everyone else has seen it -- but I still would like to.

On the conspiracy side of things, I've started watching the long video Loose Change from Google Video, but I have dial-up so I've only seen the first ten minutes of it. Based on my limited viewing of both videos, I'd say the conspiracy nuts are winning 1-0.

I won't forget this quote in a hurry:

Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center.
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld speaking of the September 11 attacks; interview with Lyric Wallwork Winik, Parade Magazine, October 12, 2001 [emphasis mine]

Update: Trudy, an Aussie Almaniac, has kindly sent me this link to the footage
www.judicialwatch.org/flight77.shtml and neither she nor I can make out a plane.

Tagged: 9-11, 9/11, video

The Darkness of 1780

1780 The Darkness of 1780: An unexplained near-total darkness fell on Eastern Canada and America’s New England states at around 2 pm.

On the day, both houses of the Connecticut Legislature were in session. That afternoon the sky became exceedingly dark for hours, so in the House of Representatives, members adjourned, being unable to transact their business, and the members left in haste. The rumour was circulating that a natural disaster or even the end of the world was imminent.

Meanwhile, a move to adjourn the Council was opposed by Colonel Abraham Davenport who is said to have moved that proposed that candles be lit so they could go on with their business. "I am against an adjournment," he said, "The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment: if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I move that candles be brought, and we proceed to business." The good senators continued their civic duties in the Council by candlelight until late in the afternoon when the sun gradually re-emerged.

This event was memorialised in a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892), entitled 'Abraham Davenport' ...

Tagged: anomalies, meteorology, usa

Are you a late starter?

1703 The death of Charles Perrault (b. 1628), the French writer who gave us such classic fairy tales as Cinderella and Tom Thumb. He published them in 1697 at the age of 69, not under his own name but that of his infant son, Perrault d’Armancourt.

It's also the birthday of Lord Bertrand Russell who called for the abolition of war and remained a prominent peace activist for many years. He was born in 1872 and published his three-volume autobiography in the late 1960s. While he grew frail, he remained lucid until the end.

Are you a late starter? Other late starters and late achievers in the Scriptorium

Here are some samples from that page:

F Murray Abraham: got his first decent role (Amadeus, for which he won an Oscar) at 45;
Frank Lloyd Wright: created New York's amazing Guggenheim Museum when he was 80;
Grandma Moses was 78 when she began painting, almost 100 when she found fame and fortune;
Jiddu Krishnamurti: no late starter, but his career as a teacher of philosophy continued well into his eighties;
Mother Jones (‘the Miners’ Angel’: ‘the greatest woman agitator of our times’), Irish-American anti-war activist and labor radical; at 37 years of age she became active in the union movement following the death of her husband and was active for many of the next 63 years;
Benjamin Franklin helped draft the Declaration of Independence at the age of 70;
Aged 82, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe finished writing Faust;
George Burns worked almost right to his death at 100 years of age, and won an Oscar at 80 for his role in The Sunshine Boys;
Daisy Bates began her life's work at about 36 when she went into the Australian desert to work among tribal Aborigines, and worked into old age;
By the time Canadian-born American economist John Kenneth Galbraith was in his mid-90s, he had sold 8 million books and been awarded 52 honorary doctorates, and was still writing;
American progressive political activist Granny Haddock (Granny D) didn't know that in her nineties she was supposed to stop helping to change the world. She's still doing it!

Tagged: longevity, literature, activism, health

Parenting website launches in Australia

Great to see that the Australian Government has put a few million bucks into supporting the non-government Raising Children Network initiative, launched this month. It's new, and growing fast, and will be useful in countries other than Australia.

"The Raising Children website was launched in May 2006 after about nine months in the making. While nine months can feel like an eternity to some (especially those who are pregnant!) it’s not a lot of time to develop a truly national, quality-assured, comprehensive parenting website of uncompromising quality."


Sample topics:
Indigenous parents :: Different culture :: Grandparents
Step-parents :: Teenage parents :: Children with disabilities
Older parents :: Adoptive parents


Tagged: internet+resources, family, australia, children, parenting

Fingers crossed for Feedblitz

If you are an email subscriber to this blog, your subs from today will no longer come via Bloglet but via Feedblitz. I hope the transfer goes smoothly, and you are welcome to let me know if it does or doesn't.

If you don't get this blog in your email box each day, you are very welcome to join the happy throng by signing up in the sidebar on this page.

Update: I'm a dirty rat. I've said harsh things in the past about Bloglet, but this post at Feedblitz explains a lot of stuff I didn't know, so this is my public apology to Monsur who pioneered blog-to-email subs and did it altruistically, not as a money-making scheme. He has actually allowed Feedblitz to import all his free 'customers' (read his new post). Good luck to Monsur in all ways, and thanks. And anyone else who appreciates what he did can email him at bloglet at gmail dot com.

Tagged: internet, rss, email, internet+resources, blog, bloggers, blogging

Da Vinci Code movie panned

If the Australian sequel to The Da Vinci Code, The Dundee Code (2004), had caught the eye of movie producers, I might be a quivering ball of shame today. Call me lucky.

The critics don't think much of The Da Vinci Code movie. Still, if it's as much of a stinker as the book, which has sold 60.5 million copies in 44 languages, it will be a roaring success.

I might not have Dan Brown's money and prodigious literary talent, but I do have artistic integrity and I'll sell it for a very reasonable price -- so somebody make me an offer today.

Tagged: entertainment, movies, literature

The Canary Project

The Canary Project's mission is to photograph landscapes throughout the world that are exhibiting dramatic transformation associated with global warming and to show these photographs to as many people as possible.

[I dips me lid to Chris Keeley for this one.]

Climate Change News updating at Daily Planet News

Tagged: climate+change, global+warming, environment, permaculture, action, activism

Red Jacket Zipper Fish

Red Jacket Zipper Fish,
originally uploaded by raumoberbayern.

I've caught Leatherjacket fish but never one of these. I thought this photo by raumoberbayern was too funny for words, and enlarged to its fullest it even looks scary.

Professor Julius Sumner Miller

1909 Professor Julius Sumner Miller (d. April 14, 1987), American science populariser, best known in Canada for his 'mad professor' work on TV’s The Hilarious House of Frightenstein (this page has audio files) and in Australia for his hit show, Why Is It So? (video), which was broadcast from 1963 to 1986. In the 1950s, he was Walt Disney's 'Professor Wonderful' on The Mickey Mouse Club.

He was also, briefly before his death, my friend, for which I am truly grateful ...

Personal recollections of the Professor ...

Tagged: science, television, eccentrics

Mercy Ships, bringing hope and healing

(Mercy Ships is an international organisation. This photo is from their English site)

How cool is this? Mercy Ships is a fleet of volunteer-run (no government funding) which makes and takes hospital ships where they are needed around the world. When you think that Liberia has just been through an 11-year civil war and has only 25 doctors, you can see the need. This Christian charity only goes to the countries with the greatest problems.

"Mercy Ships, a global charity, has operated a growing fleet of hospital ships in developing nations since 1978. Following the example of Jesus, Mercy Ships brings hope and healing to the poor, mobilizing people and resources worldwide, and serving all people without regard for race, gender or religion. Our goal is to serve one million people a year.

"Since 1978, Mercy Ships has impacted over 5.5 million people; delivered more than $21 million of medical equipment, hospital supplies and medicines; completed close to 350 construction and agriculture projects including schools, clinics, orphanages and waterwells; and demonstrated the love of God to people in 95 ports in 53 developing nations."

Readers know that I have problems with Christianity, but I'm always the first to admit that there aren't a whole lot of charities run by your local Pagans, Marxists or Anarchists, so good on Mercy Ships for what they are doing, and I hope they get lots of donations.

Tagged: charity, poverty, war, health, activism

Naked Aussie birds in my shower - video

I now have two Gouldian finch videos on this page -- the courtship dance of the cock bird (John Gould) for the hen (Lizzie), and a new one of the cock and hen enjoying my shower, which they do most mornings. I hope you enjoy these one-minute videos which were taken with my Olympus C-370.

There is now a flickr photo group called Uncaged! Birds in our homes for people who share their homes with uncaged birds indoors. Maybe you know some other nutter like me who would like to join, so please invite them.

Tagged: gouldian, finch, finches, birds, pets, australia, video

Today is Pet Blondes Day

1966 The Communist Party of China issued the 'May 16 Notice', marking the beginning of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, in which up to 20 million people were killed and many millions more tortured and abused.

But, because anyone in the West who dares to bring this to people's attention has always been branded a jack-booted McCarthyist, and because it is still so uncool to talk about any 20th-Century holocaust but "that one", we have decided to note today in the Book of Days something more palatable to the popular taste.

Yes, on the same day in 1966 on which a decade of unrivalled bloodshed was unleashed before the eyes of an uncaring and trivia obsessed West, two extremely influential rock albums were released: Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde and The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds.

So, because the 40th anniversary of the May 16 Notice was not commemorated in China and scarcely mentioned in the Western press, and as Wilson's Almanac also does not wish to rock the boat with regards to the splendid array of Chinese consumables in our shops ... happy pop music to us all!

Wishing to keep my Western priorities politically correct, I therefore nominate May 16, 1966 as Pet Blondes Day and may we celebrate it each year. Maybe Stephen Spielberg could make a movie about it.

Tagged: marxism, leninism, maoism, china, genocide, torture, progressive

Wavy Gravy, happy birthday!

1936 Wavy Gravy: Paul Krassner called him “The illegitimate son of Harpo Marx and Mother Teresa”. Wavy Gravy, or Hugh Romney as he was born (he got his nickname from BB King), is a clown, philanthropist and cult hero of the Californian counterculture circa 1960s.

He is the founder of the famed hippie commune the Hog Farm, but he is best known worldwide as the Master of Ceremonies at Woodstock (1969) and the second Woodstock in 1994.

Wavy is a life-long activist for peace and personal empowerment, and the official clown of the Grateful Dead. Born in New York, in 1962 he moved to California at the request of Lenny Bruce, who became his part-time manager ...

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list :: CounterCulture Wiki


Tagged: woodstock, hip, hippie, hippies, music, eccentrics

Karl Rove Indicted?

Karl Rove Indicted?
ProgressiveU.org, CA - May 14, 2006Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove. ...

Karl Rove indicted on perjury, lying to investigators News Hounds
Rove Indictment Report Denied New York Sun
The Rove Indictment Questions and Observations
SF.Indymedia.org - AlterNet - all 26 related »

Tagged: karl+rove, rove, plame

Che - Communist firebrand, capitalist brand

"For me, it meant 8,000 days of hunger, of systematic beatings, of hard labor, of solitary confinement and solitude, 8,000 days of struggling to prove that I was a human being, 8,000 days of proving that my spirit could triumph over exhaustion and pain, 8,000 days of testing my religious convictions, my faith, of fighting the hate my atheist jailers were trying to instill in me with each bayonet thrust, fighting so that hate would not flourish in my heart, 8,000 days of struggling so that I would not become like them."
Armando Valladares, one of Che Guevara's thousands of victims Source


1928 Che Guevara (Ernesto Guevara; d. October 9, 1967), Argentinian-born Stalinist revolutionary who fought with Fidel Castro in Cuba, and in Bolivia; commonly extolled as a hero despite his authoritarian and bloodthirsty ideology and crimes against humanity.

Guevara's first position in the ruthless Communist Cuban dictatorship was that of comandante of La Cabana fortress in Havana. There he had jurisdiction over the notorious 'war criminals' trials, which allegedly resulted in the execution of 600 civilian and military officials.

Many individuals imprisoned at La Cabana, such as poet and human rights activist Armando Valladares, who worked in the new revolutionary government, allege that Guevara took particular and personal interest in the interrogation, torture, and execution of prisoners. Guevara also assisted Raul Castro in purging and reorganizing the national army to make it the “principal political arm of the people's revolution”.

The famous ’60s image of Guevara was taken from a photo from March, 1960 by lifelong communist Alberto Korda. The eyes of the revolutionary have been altered by an unknown person to give him a more saintly and courageous look.

Korda said, “As a supporter of the ideals for which Che Guevara died, I am not averse to its reproduction by those who wish to propagate his memory and the cause of social justice throughout the world.” The intention of your almanackist accords with only the second of Korda’s criteria ...

[Next time you see someone wearing a Che T-shirt, ask them if they also have Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein in their wardrobe. If you get a blank look, suggest they do some research.]

Tagged: communism, human+rights, torture, capital+punishment, death+penalty, liberty, che+guevara, leninism

Daughters of Rebecca were activist men in drag

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 ...

Tagged: activism, direct+action, british+history, poverty, uk

FreeSpeechOz popup on your site

Here’s a FreeSpeechOz popup box which will put all the latest news and views on your own site. As it opens in a new window it will bring readers to Free Speech Australia but not close your site’s window.

To put it on your site, download the html tag from here (it’s less than one kb). Spread it round — share it with your friends who have sites in Oz or overseas!

Paste anywhere into your site. If you know some html you can change the colour, size and text.

Give it a burl now and see if you like it. It's in the sidebar of this blog (in green).

The popup box is hosted at my site, but of course you’re welcome to rip the code and make it your own.

Tagged: free+speech, australia, freespeechoz, internet+resources, civil+rights, civil+liberties, liberty

Millions of Americans spied on by own government

Today in the Yellow Pages we have an article, Bush lying about spying on millions of US citizens, with a big list of background links on the NSA, Project Echelon and more. It will keep you occupied for a while so give yourself time to surf the urls.

Especially if you are an American reader, stay in touch with what the US Administration is doing to you and planning for your democracy.

Aussies you are needed
Register at FreeSpeechOz as we fight similar issues in Australia!

Tagged: national+security+agency, nsa, bush, usa, liberty, civil+rights, disinformation, war+on+terror

Festival of the Ludi Martiales, Roman Empire

Games held in connection with the dedication of the shrine and temple of the god Mars Ultor (‘the avenger); also held on August 1.

The temple to Mars Ultor was in the Forum of Augustus which was built in celebration over Augustus’s victory (together with Marcus Antonius, known in English as Mark Antony) over Julius Caesar’s murderers.

Tagged: festivals, roman, calendar+customs, mythology, folklore, military, gods, deities

LSD animation

Sure, I know today isn't Bicycle Day, the day that Sandoz chemist Dr Albert Hofmann self-administered LSD and had a trip while riding on his bicycle. That was April 19, 1943.


But it's only now that I've added a cute animation made specifically about that event, so check out Bicycle Day in the Book of Days ... and enjoy the trip!

By the way, January 11 was the centenary of Albert's birth and we forgot to mention it here, so belated happy birthday, Albert!

Tagged: drugs, entheogen, entheogens, lsd, psychedelic, video, animation, history

A tale of two citizens

Australians, like many in the Important Hemisphere who have heard of this minor continent, are still rejoicing about the rescue of the two miners who were trapped a kilometre underground in Beaconsfield, Tasmania. We covered the mining story on Tuesday.

(Note to our American readers: Tasmania is the fictional African nation home of the Warner Bros 'Devil' character -- it doesn't really exist, as you know.)

The scramble is on. According to some, about $6 million could be chucked around for the rights to this story -- for TV, press, radio, streaming vid, mobile phone news services, and blah blah blah. The book. The movie. The sequel. The product endorsements.

How much will go to the two miners and their families, and to the widow and family of the miner who didn't make it, and how much to the untold numbers of unsung people who risked their lives to perform the rescue, remains to be seen. That depends a lot on how much is left over after the TV execs, PR agents and "talent management" suits empty out their pockets.

Meanwhile, in darkie country: "Call off the rescue, there ain't no TV crews here"

What most Australians, and people in the Important Hemisphere, don't realise is that while we had a 14-day in-your-face TV drama from the goldmine of Beaconsfield, there was a 22-day tragedy, also involving three men in dire circumstances, unfolding at the other end of the continent.

Three men were lost at sea in the waters off the north of Australia. Did the nation, and the important part of the world, fix its gaze on Torres Strait? Did hundreds of reporters and camerapersons fly in and book out every available hotel room and Winnebago for OBs (outside broadcasts)? Over their corn flakes each morning, did Australians discuss in hushed tones the plight of the three missing men?

Did a nation pull out all the stops to rescue these three family men? Are there even any photographs of the emaciated three? Where are the $6 million?

Hell no, we never even heard of them till they got stranded, nearly dead, on an island a couple of days ago, though everyone on Murray Island, where they came from, have certainly known for more than three heart-rending weeks.

And here's the rub: the authorities called off the search after the first week, and for another 15 days the three guys drifted around and around like corks on the sea and nearly died of dehydration and starvation.

"Three Torres Strait islanders lost at sea for 22 days switched their mobile phones off to conserve the batteries before finally getting enough of a signal to text message for help.

"In another amazing story of survival, John Tabo 38, his son John Jr, 20 and 16-year-old nephew Tom Tabo were on Tuesday found drifting in a five metre boat south of Murray Island - more than two weeks after the search for them was called off."
Source

The rescue was an Act of God -- because it certainly wasn't an act of fellow human beings.

Tabo, huh? What sort of a surname is Tabo? It's not a good, solid Aussie name like Russell, Webb or Knight, the names of the three brave, lucky miners of Beaconsfield.

No way. It sort of sounds like ... like ... like a blackfella name to me.

Oh, now I get it. Sure, Torres Strait Islanders are Australian citizens, but it's ... well, as our American friends know, it's like New Orleans: you have citizens, and then you have Citizens.

Saved by a text message after 22 days adrift at sea
Australians lost at sea live off squid
Men survive three weeks at sea
The Age :: Mainichi Daily News :: all 127 related »

Tagged: racism, indigenous, aboriginal, australia, torres+strait

Germany's ice saints were pagan spirits

Eisheilige (ice saints), southern Germany (May 11 - 15)

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 ...

Tagged: germany, saint, saints, customs, calendar+customs, folklore, winter

Video of Stephen Colbert, new American hero

Stephen Colbert: New American Hero

Colbert Speaks Truth to Power at the White House Correspondents Dinner
Salon: Making Colbert Go Away
Salon: The Truthiness Hurts
Editor & Publisher: Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner– President Not Amused?
Crooks and Liars: Colbert Does the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Must see video

*** Google: The Actual Speech *** See this hilarious routine before it gets pulled (as it was from some other sources)

HuffPo: Colbert Worship.
iFilm: Bush’s Facial Reactions

Thank you, Stephen Colbert

54768 Thank Yous. Add another »

Tagged: activism, comedy, bush, dubya, humour, humor

Actor jealousy led to 23 shot dead by NY militia

1849 The Astor Place Riot

Twenty-two men and one woman (a passer-by named Bridget Fagan) were killed by police and militia bullets in a riot in New York city. The rioters had gathered to protest the presence of famed visiting actor William Charles Macready (1793 - 1873), a patrician Englishman who had been scornful of Americans and their way of life.

The protesters were mainly partisans of popular American actor Edwin Forrest (1806 - 1872), Macready’s allegedly jealous rival. Here is John Coleman's eyewitness account of the hissing Macready received while playing Hamlet in Edinburgh (Edwin Forrest retaliating against Macready for a slight he had received in London). This was the first incident in a running battle which led to the New York riot, one of the worst catastrophes in theatrical history.

On this day, a crowd of between 10,000 and 15,000 New Yorkers assembled in Astor Place to protest the Englishman's presence in their city, although only a few hundred mainly young men were actual rioters.

On May 7, many New Yorkers had been outraged by a disturbance at the Astor Place Opera House, in which Macready had been pelted with “four or five eggs, a great many apples, nearly-if not quite-a peck of potatoes, lemons, pieces of wood, a bottle of asafoetida”, as he wrote in his diary that night.

A petition condemning the behaviour of Forrest’s supporters, signed by 48 prominent New Yorkers, including Washington Irving and Herman Melville, was immediately sent to Macready and published in local newspapers. Macready was offered protection from his supporters and agreed to perform as Macbeth on May 11, but the decision turned out to be fatal for the many rioters who died that night.

Tagged: theatre, theater, history

Inflammatory Breast Cancer - 400 people have each told two people

I'm very excited. We've just had our 400th person tell J-9 they've read it!



If you don't know what that means, visit the page Tell J-9 You've Read It! ... and read it. Then tell J-9 you've read it. It takes about five minutes of your time to help save lives. No strings -- no one asking for money.

Hint: It's something every woman and man should know about a little-known kind of breast cancer that often goes undiagnosed. We believe that Tell J-9 You've Read It! has already led to some diagnoses, maybe saved some lives. Pass it on.

Tagged: action, activism, breast+cancer, health, IBC, inflammatory+breast+cancer

Can PC get any madder than this?

I must say it galls me to report from Faux News, but, really ...

"An aquatic theme park in Australia has renamed a species of penguins on exhibit lest the birds' real name, fairy penguins, cause offense to people in the local gay community ..."
Fox

Keef falls out of tree, lands in pile of coke

"AUCKLAND, New Zealand - ROLLING Stone Keith Richards is due to have his brain examined after falling from a palm tree. Lucky for the sexagenarian coconut aficionado, his fall was broken by a pile of cocaine being shovelled by roadies poolside. After rolling and tumbling down the dune of soft white powder, our mossless Keef came to a stop in a stack of garden hoses which served as snorting implements for Mick’s entourage. No real harm was done apart from a few umbrella drinks spilled among the guests."
BigFib

(Click thumbnail)

Keith Richards has surgery for blood clot on the brain
Independent, UK - 2 hours agoThe holiday mishap in which Keith Richards fell out of a coconut tree in Fiji has turned out to be more serious than previously thought, with the Rolling ...

Keith Richards Undergoes Surgery
Rolling Stones' Keith Richards Has Brain Surgery After Fall
Keith Richards Has Head Surgery
Monsters and Critics.com - EiTB :: all 333 related »

Peter Maurin worked for the people

1877 Peter Maurin (Aristode Pierre Maurin; d. May 15, 1949), co-founder, with Dorothy Day (1897 - 1980), of the Catholic Worker Movement. He founded farming communes, which he preferred to call "agronomic universities".

He died of heart failure at Maryfarm in Newburgh, New York. Dressed in a donated suit of clothes, he was buried in a donated grave in St John's Cemetery, Brooklyn. His program of Roundtable discussions, houses of hospitality, and Catholic Worker farms remains central to the Catholic Worker Movement ...

Early progressives in the Book of Days :: CounterCulture Wiki

Tagged: cooperatives, community, labor, history

Congrats to the freed Tasmanian miners

Congratulations to Todd Russell and Brant Webb and to the workers and the Beaconsfield gold mine management who never gave up.






It was an extraordinary effort. For the first five days of the 14-day ordeal, no one knew if the men were alive.

"Beaconsfield's relief at the men's rescue is tempered by sadness at the death of their colleague, Larry Knight, who died in the initial rockfall." BBC

Russell and Webb appear to be in excellent health and have already checked themselves out of hospital. Tough blokes, these men who work underground. They intend to be at Larry Knight's (delayed) funeral today.

A lot must have been learned in these two weeks of effort. Perhaps the Australian skills that saved these men's lives could be exported to China, which has many thousands of miners die each year in coal mines in that nation's rush to emulate the Western consumerist lifestyle (80 per cent of the total number of accidental deaths for this type of work in the entire world -- source).

Miners freed after fortnight underground
Two Australian gold miners trapped half a mile underground for the past fortnight were finally freed last night after rescuers managed to "defy the laws of gravity" and cut upwards ...

Miners rescued after 13 days Times Online
Trapped Australian miners walk free Reuters
New Zealand Herald :: BBC News :: Special Broadcasting Service ::
all 1,641 related »

In pictures: Miners' rescue :: Tears, beers flow

ABC has video :: So does BBC

Tagged: australia, tasmania

What would our PM do with these famous Aussie seditionists?

John Haynes (April 26, 1850 - August 15, 1917), was an Australian parliamentarian for 29 years, 9 months and 11 days, and co-founder with JF Archibald, of The Bulletin, Australia's most influential magazine.

In 'The Bully's" earlier years he once spent thirteen weeks in prison for libel (the public raised £3,000 and he was released). He was later editor of the Newsletter. In parliament and through the courts he pursued the corrupt NSW politicians William Patrick Crick and William Nicholas Willis, the latter all the way to South Africa.

In 1891, Haynes was ratepayer on two Sydney addresses that were the focus of radical and anarchist activity in Sydney Leigh House, Active Service Brigade HQ and McNamara's Book Depot).

Jack Lang, Australian politician (December 21, 1876 - September 27, 1975), brother-in-law of the radical Australian poet Henry Lawson (pictured above right). Lang was an early member of the Australian Labor Party, and the Premier of New South Wales for two terms, from 1925 - 27, and again from 1930 - 32. Like William Morris Hughes (later Australian Prime Minister; see below), in his youth Lang worked on Arthur Desmond's anarchist journal, Hard Cash.

Wlliam Morris Hughes, seventh Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1952); wartime leader (WW I) and Australia's longest-serving federal parliamentarian (51 years, 7 months continuous service). In the early-1890s he was associated with the establishment of a paper called The New Order, which was the brainchild of the anarchist Active Service Brigade leader, Arthur Desmond. (William Holman and Jack Lang, both later Premiers of New South Wales, were also involved in Desmond's anarchist newspapers in Sydney.)

What would John Howard and Philip Ruddock do with these famous Australians today?

Source: Free Speech Australia

Tagged: sedition, australia, free+speech, cvil+rights

Alfred E Neuman turns 50 today

1956 Alfred E Neuman (“What, me worry?”).

He first appeared on the cover of William Gaines's MAD Magazine on this day. The boy with the inane grin, missing tooth, jug ears and one eye slightly higher than the other was contrived by cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman.

Comix, comics and cartoons in the Book of Days

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to Alfred E Neuman

A collection of Neuman quotes :: Origins of Alfred E Neuman

New York Daily News: Senator Hillary Clinton compares President Bush with Alfred E Neuman

The Quest for Alfred E Neuman [PDF file] by Carl Djerassi, his encounters with the Nazis' use of his image

The first Alfred E Neuman?

Tagged: comics, comix

Addiction, neither disease nor defect

Have you noticed that Rush Limbaugh's addiction is a character flaw or moral defect, while Patrick Kennedy's addiction is a disease or illness?

My own view: I don't follow either model. I don't think addiction is a disease, but I sure as hell don't believe it's a moral defect.

Tagged: drugs, addiction

Feast day of St John of Beverley

(Asiatic globeflower, Trollius asiaticus, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)

Famed Beverley Hills and those named Beverley or Beverly owe their names to the humble European Beaver in Britain – before they were hunted to extinction in that nation in the 16th century (sadly, only a few thousand remain in continental Europe).

John of Beverley (c. 640 - May 7, 721) was Bishop of Hexham, England and subsequently Archbishop of York, and the famous Catholic historian, the Venerable Bede was a pupil of his. John of Beverley was said to possess healing gifts. He founded Beverley Minster: there his shrine was a favourite resort of pilgrims.

Born at Harpham, England (Yorkshire), John preferred solitude and contemplation to the public life. He lived in a cell in midst of woods near a stream in which beavers lived, called in Anglo-Saxon (Old English) Beofor-leagh, or lea (field, or grove) of beavers – a name that changed over years to Beverley ...

Tagged: saint, saints, england

Good luck, Sophie

Accident victim Sophie Delezio will be on a life-support system for at least three weeks as she battles multiple injuries.
Sydney Morning Herald

In 2003 little Sophie Delozio was on the front pages as she was horrifically burnt after being hit by a car outside a childcare centre. "She suffered burns to 85 per cent of her body, lost both her feet, an ear and some fingers and faced an uphill battle of years of surgery to cope with her burns." See Girl who inspired a nation

Then, on Friday, she was hit by a car again and is in a critical condition in Sydney Children's Hospital. Our thoughts go out to Sophie and her family.


* Ø * Ø * Ø *

Personal recollections of a Sydney Children's Hospital PR guy

When I awoke this morning, a few minutes ago, a radio news item about Sophie was the first thing that came to my ears, apart from my 'alarm clock' -- the pecking of my Gouldian finches in their feeder on the floor next to my bed. I thought of poor Sophie, and, oddly, I thought of the poor Public Relations Manager of Sydney Children's Hospital. And the wonderful staff, nurses and doctors of that excellent institution. (I refer not to some of the managerial class.)

I held the position of Public Relations Manager for two or three years, when the place was called The Prince of Wales Children's Hospital. The job of the PR officer was varied with many functions (even to bring in entertainers for the kids, but that's another story for another time, with some rather interesting reflections on the nature of minor celebrities, good and bad), but it was a very hectic one whenever stories like little Sophie's came along, as unfortunately they did with terrible regularity.

There were often tragedies that came in doubles. I was in the foyer of the hospital one day when a woman ran in screaming, with a baby in her arms. "My baby's been burned!" she cried, and I directed her to the Casualty/Emergency door several metres to my left. About 30, maybe 60 seconds later, another woman with babe at arms ran in, bellowing the same awful words. The Medical Superintendent and I looked with alarm at each other as he sprang into action. We both thought there must have been one big horrific accident, maybe a car on fire. But it wasn't so. They had been two separate accidents, simultaneously, in two different homes. Life can be a bitch.

One morning I had an Italian man cry as he spoke to me. In my job I got to know many children and parents very well, and was already on friendly terms with this lovely gent and his son, who was very seriously ill on one floor of the hospital. Overnight, the man's other son had been seriously injured in a bus crash, and Papa was now rushing between floors to hold hands and pray at the side of two iron beds.

I knew another woman who had a little girl on one floor suffering badly from cystic fibrosis (a life-threatening disease), and another near deeath in the leukaemia ward. The two diseases, as far as science knows, as far as I know, are unrelated. Life can be a bitch. "I'm a parent myself," I said, and added rather foolishly, "I know how you feel, dear". "No you don't," she shook her head ruefully and spoke with the teary voice of a poor woman whose state of heart was almost beyond human endurance.

This morning I felt moved also for the current PR manager at the hospital. When there's a story like this, the PR guy/gal takes phone calls all day at work and also at home, from late at night to early morning. Phone calls from Sydney, interstate, overseas. No one in the hospital, not even the Clinical Director, was allowed to speak to the media without the approval of the PR Manager -- not to TV, radio, not even the local newspaper, and the media knew that so they rang me first, then I had to ring the appropriate experts and "groom" them for media contact. It was an odd situation for me to be in, as I have no medical training, and often had to field questions from some very astute and experienced medical reporters.

On the whole, though, the reporters were neither astute nor experienced, and my job was to help them hold their crayons and show them how to spell words like "infection" and "critical condition".

I remember writing an average of one media release a day, and seeing 90 per cent of what I'd written repeated verbatim by TV, radio and newspapers. That is very often what is called journalism these days -- the reproduction of media releases written by PR people (who are usually unemployed journalists). It was at the hospital and another institution I worked for as PR guy, that I learned that the media are 49 per cent run by advertising guys and 49 per cent by PR guys. The rest is "journalism". If you have read my stuff before, you will see that I have a certain cynical perspective on the media which might seem a little unusual to you. May I say, I have it because I have worked on both sides of the editorial desk. You need to work for some years as a magazine editor and a PR manager to get a certain perspective on the mire that is called 'the media'. I actually feel lucky that I have had both views of the media. PR rules ..., everything, from your local car dealership and hospital, to the US Army and the White House (see the funny video 'The Speechialist' for another hilarious view, on Presidential speechwriting, which is simply PR).

So many memories rushed back as I listened to the radio in bed this morning. Like when Channel 7 was so broke that they sent out a cameraman -- no reporter -- to interview the Clinical Director. He was your usual looking cameraman ... tubby belly, balding, old T-shirt, shorts, sandals with socks. I was standing there with the distinguished Harvard professor (making sure his hair was combed; advising him on what to say and what not to say -- that's what PR people do for a living), and the cameraman was standing there -- with a TV camera in one hand and a phone in the other. Back at Channel 7 head office, the Chief of Staff was feeding him the questions.

I recall writing a long report to the board of The Prince of Wales Children's Hospital advising that they change the name to Sydney Children's Hospital. I worked hard on that report. The idea was dismissed out of hand. The Chairperson of the Board said "Over my dead body". A couple of years after I left, I noticed the big sign out the front: "Sydney Children's Hospital". I wonder which jumped-up little bureaucrat took the credit for the name change.

I decided to organise a competition among design students at the local technical college, for a new design for the entrance, which at the time was as drab as an entrance to a bottle factory. I thought it might be a good and free way to get some improving ideas. I held a wine and cheese night to display the students' innovative designs. On display in the hospital foyer was a brilliant idea ... since the hospital is only a mile from Coogee Beach, why not use yellow, blue and waves as the corporate livery? A few of the bureaucrats strolled around, had some wine and cheese, nodded to me and the design students, and went home to their McMansions.

However, if you drive past Sydney Children's Hospital today you will see that it's all blue, and yellow, and over the driveway is a big awning that looks like a rolling surf wave from nearby Coogee Beach. I wonder if that same jumped-up bureaucrat stole the credit that was deserved by that kid from East Sydney Tech College?

Many memories from my years at the hospital. Lots of bus crashes and dying children who you get to love for a short time. Play therapists who closely bonded with dying children but were not permitted to attend their funerals. Phone calls at 3 am about an abused baby or a teenager with a bullet in his chest. Enough to write a book. But too much for a blog post, so I'll shut up now.

Anyway, I have to go and get some breakfast. My last word: I can picture Sophie this morning, and the frantic wonderful doctors, nurses ... and PR officer. My heart goes out to all concerned.

Tagged: health, australia, pr, public+relations

Holy mackerel!

Hitchens the Warmongering Hacker

A piece by Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan, attacks former peacenik-turned-Neocon-lover Christopher Hitchens for attacking Cole, but it's well worth reading to the end and following the links.

Cole closes with:

"So sit down and shut up, American Enterprise Institute, and Hudson Institute, and Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and American Heritage Institute, and this institute and that institute, and cable "news," and government "spokesmen" and all the pundit-ferrets you pay millions to make business for the American military-industrial complex and Big Oil.

"We don't give a rat's ass what Ahmadinejad thinks about European history or what pissant speech the little shit gives.

"I call on university students across America to begin holding antiwar rallies. The only way you can have a war on Iran is to draft the young people. It is you who are on the line. Demonstrate! Demonstrate against the very hint of war! Demonstrate in front of the warmongering "institutes" in Washington, D.C.! Demonstrate to end the one we've already got! (See Speaker's Forum on Iraq)"

Be prepared for a tough and righteously angry article.

Going nukular

So often, William Rivers Pitt writes what we all think. Shrub's inability to pronounce 'nuclear' has had the world laughing for years. So why is it catching on with other people?

And did you know that in Baghdad, US soldiers are begging door to door for food? That's the first I've heard of it.

Read Going Nukular (lid dip to GreenWillow)

Tagged: dubya, nuclear, pronunciation

Aussie peace activists rally over Iran attack

"Australian peace activists have demanded the federal government give assurances it will play no part in any attack on Iran. Peace groups around the country held small but vocal protests in capital cities as part of an international day of protest."
SouthNews :: More

Bush's Five-Point Plan to Invade Iran

Fishing for a Pretext to Squeeze Iran

Stop the War Coalition, Sydney


Tagged: progressive, action, activism, military, peace+movement, war, peace, usa, iran

Bush calls terror fight WWIII

Remember when Mad King Bush called for a 'Crusade', thus freaking out the entire Middle East?

And just when we thought he couldn't get any dumber or more pathologically dangerous:
Bush calls terror fight WWIII

Tagged: bush, usa, cia, war+on+terror, military

Alchemist James Price failed bigtime

1782 James Price, a Guildford, England chemist, began an experiment (concluded May 25) to turn mercury ... into gold. He presented some of his supposed gold to King George III, and was awarded the degree of MD by Oxford University.

Sir Joseph Banks (the botanist famed for his work in Australia with Captain James Cook) and suspicious members of the Royal Society asked him to repeat his experiments publicly. For this purpose he left London, in January 1783, for his laboratory at Guildford, faithfully promising to return in a month, and confound and convince all his opponents. Eight months passed, and on August 3, 1783, Price called a group of three very dubious RS members together – and drank prussic acid in front of them, falling dead. It may be seen to mark the death of traditional alchemy in England ...

Alchemists in the Almanac:

Cornelius Agrippa :: Roger Bacon :: Count Cagliostro :: John Dee :: Edward Kelley

Robert Fludd :: Isaac Newton :: Paracelsus :: Tycho Brahe :: Raymond Lulle

Tagged: alchemy, science

Oz Archbishop: "Obsession with climate change a symptom of pagan emptiness"

"Australia's Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal George Pell has sparked furious reaction today with his description of the Muslim holy book as an incitement to violence.

"In a speech delivered to a group of Catholic business leaders in the United States, the archbishop also took aim at what he claimed were hysterical and extreme claims about global warming, saying the west's obsession with climate change is a symptom of pagan emptiness.

"And he said a crisis confidence in the west was manifesting itself in a decline in fertility rates, as Edmond Roy reports ..."
The World Today (ta Baz)

Tagged: religion, christianity, pagan, paganism, neopagan, neopaganism, islam, australia, climate+change, global+warming, environment

Howling Cheese deserves an award, or something

Dear friends of the Almanac:

Most bloggers will tell you that today they watched some TV re-runs, dyed their hair, or had a fight with their boyfriend. The brighter ones will tell you that today they had a cheese sandwich.

I like to think that I have taken the Holy Grail of bloggers, the cheese sandwich, to a high level of art and sophistication, where it belongs. It has a verified Technorati rating of 902,859! Not bad after three years!

Please vote for me. Go to http://www.chickenhead.com/contact.asp and write something like (you can copy this):

I think Pip Wilson's 'Howling Cheese' blog http://cheesesandwich.blogspot.com/ deserves high ranking in the Worst Blogs of All Time, or even its own category for Really, Really Bad Blogs. Tragically, some of the Bottom 50 blogs listed at Chickenhead no longer exist, which is even more reason to praise Howling Cheese, because it's a proven stayer, having lasted brilliantly since May, 2003. Commitment should be rewarded. Thank you.

Of course, if you know anywhere else to nominate Howling Cheese as the worst blog on the Net, I'd be grateful if you'd do so (see Google "worst blogs"). You might even like to share your nomination with me/us.

Howling Cheese really is bad, I hope you'll agree, and elevates the cheese sandwich blog to the place it deserves in the blogosphere. That wasn't attained without immense effort and dedication.

If you would like to link Howling Cheese on your website as 'The Worst Blog on the Internet', I would be so honoured I can hardly begin to tell you.

Many thanks.

PS If you don't want to nominate Howling Cheese as the World's Worst Blog, Tim Blair's blog is a worthy contender and I won't be offended if you nominate Australia's Most Popular Albeit Most Boring Blog, even if does give a bad name to right-wing pricks-with-ears. More on Mr Blair's weblog later, I promise.

Tagged: blog, blogging, internet

Unit 731: General MacArthur let it be

1945 A US B-29 bomber was shot down over Japan and eight American airmen prisoners were made available for medical experiments at Kyushu Imperial University. The eight were dissected while they were still alive.

This is the only occasion on which Americans became part of the cruel practices of Lt Gen. Shiro Ishii’s Unit 731, and the only time at which such experiments were done in Japan. Unit 731 was most active in China in a little known chapter of human bestiality in which perhaps hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were deliberately killed.

The personnel behind the unit went relatively unpunished as General Douglas MacArthur and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff secured their immunity from retribution in exchange for vast amounts of documentation of research conducted (upon Chinese civilians) into biological warfare, which proved useful to the USA military ...

Tagged: usa, japan, war, peace, military, torture, human+rights

Australians obtaining organs from executed prisoners

"Australian doctors have said Australians have gone to China to receive organ transplants from executed prisoners.

"Australians are going to China for organ transplants knowing the organs are from executed prisoners and the numbers are likely to increase according to transplant surgeons in Australia

"Dr. Scott Campbell from the renal unit of Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, told The Epoch Times he personally knew of half a dozen patients who had been to China for kidney transplants but added that: 'There is bound to be significantly more than that if you look at all the patients that have been seen by different people around the country.'"
Sydney Indymedia

Tagged: australia, china, capital+punishment, human+rights, death+penalty

Free Speech Australia wants YOU today!

Join today!

Recently (April 24) I announced a new website, Free Speech Australia. I invite you to join right now and make it an exceptional site to help protect your civil liberties and those of your friends, your family, your children and grandchildren.

Australians are finding their civil liberties undermined at an alarming rate, with the excuse (and it is only an excuse from cynical politicians) being the so-called 'war on terror'. You're cordially invited to visit for news on this vital topic, and also to register, post and leave comments. And, of course, bookmark it and return.

You don't have to be Australian to register for free to Free Speech Oz. But please forward this post today to your Australian friends, as many as you have in your email address book, as this new site has been constructed especially for people to get involved with.

Here's the kind of news and opinion you will find at Free Speech Oz:

Howard ‘controls’ flow of news
“AUSTRALIA’S Press Council says the Howard Government is exerting more control than ever over the flow of information.
“Speaking on World Press Freedom Day, Australian Press Council Chairman Professor Ken McKinnon said information in general was becoming more constrained and carefully hedged around misleading spin.
“‘During Prime Minister (John) Howard’s regime, the Commonwealth has centralised power to an unprecedented degree and used the buzzword ’security’ to erect a seamless protective wall around information flows,’ he said.
“‘Every instance of uncensored flows of information and leaks has been chased down and the chocks put in.’
“Professor McKinnon said the latest instance has been the revival by the Commonwealth of sedition laws.”

Tagged: free+speech, sedition, civil+rights, liberty, australia

Gitmo treatment of Aussie shocks US Army lawyer

"ELEANOR HALL: The US military lawyer for Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks has hit back at US authorities and denied claims by the head of the US detention centre that his client is arrogant and uncooperative.

"The Colonel in charge of the US facility in Cuba says David Hicks sees himself as different from other detainees and is constantly demanding greater privileges.

"But Major Michael Mori says his client has always been cooperative, and that the accusations are simply an attempt to distract people from Hicks' long solitary confinement.

"This report from Washington Correspondent Michael Rowland.

"MICHAEL ROWLAND: Major Mori, who's just returned from Guantanamo Bay, says he was shocked to see David Hicks had been in the same clothes for three weeks.

"MICHAEL MORI: His clothes were very soiled and smelled very badly. Obviously it concerned me a great deal. He told me hadn't been changed in three weeks, I brought it up with the JTF command, and we got him new, clean clothes. I'm not sure what was going on with that.
The World Today

www.fairgofordavid.org

Tagged: david+hicks, australia, guantanamo, war+on+terror, human+rights, civil+rights, usa, torture

California's first gang was a mob of Aussies

1851 California's first known gang, the Sydney Ducks (from Sydney, Australia), were blamed by some San Franciscans for a fire in their city which followed an earthquake on May 1. Both events occurred during the California Gold Rush (1848 - 1858).

It might well have been arson, and might well have been arson by an Australian: San Francisco had already been devastated by fire on December 24, 1849, and in 1850 on May 4, June 14, and September 17 -- and it was alleged a man recognized as a Sydney-Towner was seen running from a paintshop on the southern side of Portsmouth Square, just before building burst into flames. Hordes of Australians started looting once the fire took hold ...

In San Francisco's gold rush days on the 'Barbary Coast', some of the Australian gold diggers (mostly ex-convicts) had formed tribes or gangs with names such as the 'Sydney Ducks' and 'Sydney Coves'. There were so many of them that the district in which they congregated, along the waterfront at Broadway and Pacific Street, and on the slopes of Telegraph Hill, had come to be known as Sydney-Town, on Sydney Cove. In June, a Vigilance Committee of 400 influential men was established. Many Aussies left the district after the June 10, 1851 lynching of John Jenkins, and the lynching of two Sydney Ducks named Samuel Whittaker and Robert McKenzie on August 24, and the vice and crime of the district petered out, but there was a Sydney-Town of sorts for half a century ...

Tagged: australia, australian+history, usa

Almaniac gets it off

Melissa, a valued free Almanac ezine subscriber cheered me today:

"I haven't written before, but I had to stop and tell you how much we love you. I do NOT begrudge you having a vacation, and leaving us a daily way to check the calendar is nice. Everyone where I work asks me 'what does Pip have to say about today?' I keep a few gems in my head to tell them what we are celebrating. My kids (full grown) get emails of your stuff whenever it is pertinent to them. Thanks so much for giving us something to celebrate every day.

"I shall be celebrating NAKED DAY on Thursday. Hope you enjoy it, too. (I am too old to go to work naked, so I'll be naked under my clothes.)

"Thanks for doing such fun stuff for all of us."

My honoured correspondent is referring to the fact that the daily ezine is having a break. But it will be back, so you can subscribe now and start getting the free daily ezine when it resumes. The Wilson's Almanac free daily ezine is not the same as the free-zine which comes from this blog, which may be subscribed to at wilsonsalmanac.com/blogmanaczine.html

Malls doing their bit for global warming

As far as I can tell, there are three reasons one might find oneself in a shopping mall, viz:

1) One is hopelessly lost;
2) One has to buy something that cannot possibly be bought in a reasonable, human-scale place;
3) One is prepared to go to prison for outrageous and illegal situationist behaviour that being in a mall tempts one to participate in.

I needed a heater. I received a welcome SMS text message from Ireland at about 2.45 am this morning, to inform me that there had been an 8.1 Richter earthquake off Tonga and there was a tsunami alert. (Why do they always say 8.1 "on the Richter Scale"? We never say "29 on the Fahrenheit Scale", "240 on the Watt Scale" or "12 on the Inches Scale". So I always say "8.1 Richter" and expect that the world will one day catch up.)

As I live about one metre above sea level, I spent the next two hours online trying to find the latest reports. By nearly dawn the authorities had assured the populace of Australia's east coast that there was no tsunami expected. My fishpond is safe. This was good, as my car's petrol tank was empty and at that time of day there are no petrol stations open here in the boondocks. Even if one has money to buy fuel, which I didn't.

Anyway, in the hours before dawn it was cold here. Unfortunately, most of my cabin has just one layer of fibro (asbestos cement -- aaagghhh!!) nailed onto the studs, so there's no insulation. Today was dole day so I decided to splurge and buy a heater. I wish I didn't have to, but a man mustn't freeze to death when he has loyal readers to attend to.

The car prize, or prize car

In the shopping mall there was a shiny new car (I think it was a four-wheel drive [4WD or 4X4, or what the Americans call a SUV], but I know bugger-all about cars so I might be wrong) and a lot of obese people milling around. The car was about 50 per cent larger than would be required by any family smaller than that of Ma and Pa Kettle. It could probably only seat about five people but was as big as a train carriage. Your typical modern behemoth mode of transport.

An over-made-up early middle-aged woman in a blue uniform -- you don't need me to describe that superannuated air hostess visage -- came up to me (that alone was enough to give me the heeby-jeebies and if you knew my life story you would understand why) and asked me if I wanted to have a free ticket to win the vehicle.

"No thank you," I replied.

"No?!" was her response. The exclamation and queston marks signify her utter surprise. The question "Why on earth wouldn't you?" was understood.

"That car looks like it's doing its bit for climate change," I responded. She obviously couldn't comprehend that someone would find it unethical to try to get such a mode of transport.

I left that poor woman with a look on her face that I hope will have dissolved by the time she gets back to the car dealership where she works, or else they might have her committed, or maybe dock her pay for wearing wrinkles on the job.

Anti-SUV bumper stickers :: Anti-SUV links

Tagged: suv, 4wd, 4X4, energy, oil, global+warming, climate+change, environment

In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre

"Since 1973, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre has been using water, flour, newspaper, paint, and unlimited imagination to tell stories that explore the joys and sorrows, struggles and celebrations of human existence. Inspired by ancient tales and eternal questions, as well as this morning's newspaper, its vital, poetic theater appeals to audiences of all ages and backgrounds."
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre

Check out the May Day pictures.

UK Royal Air Force kills nearly 7,000 POWs

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 ...

Tagged: uk, british+history, wwII, army, military, war, peace

Thursday will be 01.02.03.04.05.06

Meanwhile, this from The Wrap:

"On the subject of numbers, the Mail reports that Thursday will be 'a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and one that has gone largely unnoticed until now. [It] will see us hit precisely 01.02.03.04.05.06.' -- or two minutes and three seconds past 1am.

"'The world has not seen a date like it since 0.0.0.0.0.0 -- midnight at the turn of the millennium. Unless, of course, you live in the US, when the date was 01.02.03.04.05.06 on April 5 this year. This is because in the US format the month comes before the day'."

Lid dip to Nora from Extra!Extra!

Athanasius Kircher and the Voynich Manuscript

1602 Athanasius Kircher (d. November 27, 1680), 17th century German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology and medicine. He made an early study of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

He was ahead of his time in proposing that the plague was caused by an infectious microorganism and in suggesting effective measures to prevent the spread of the disease.

Kircher was a probable one-time owner of the Voynich Manuscript, the mysterious and so far untranslatable 240-page medieval manuscript ...

Race Against Time

A must-listen:

"I have spent the last four years watching people die."

With these wrenching words, diplomat and humanitarian Stephen Lewis opens his 2005 Massey Lectures.

More

Tagged: aids, africa, poverty

Elusive Exclusive Brethren

The Exclusive Brethren sect had an insidious but significant effect on recent elections in Tasmania, Australia, helping to crush the Green Party and support the conservatives.

"They shun contact with the world. Not just with technology, books, radio and TV, but also other people. They do not vote, because voting interferes with God's right to ordain who rules. But Satan has infiltrated democracy and the Exclusive Brethren have started putting money and time into political campaigns." [more]

Listen in :: Real Media :: Windows Media :: Download MP3 :: Podcast

Source :: More

Tagged: religion, christianity, fanaticism, rightwing, conservative

Shame, Bomber Beazley, shame

Australia: Following an earth tremor six days ago, there is a continuing tragedy at a mine in Beaconsfield, Tasmania, with one miner dead and two miners a kilometre underground awaiting rescue in the cold and dark.

The leader of the Federal Opposition, Kim Beazley, doesn't think it was insensitive to try to make political capital out of this tragedy which has the whole nation and much of the world watching, hoping and praying.

Beazley’s mine call provokes ministers
Andrews calls for Beazley apology Beaconsfield comments
Beazley bucketed for workplace laws link
Beazley uses accident to attack IR laws
Sydney Morning Herald :: Daily Telegraph :: all 36 related »

I suppose it would also not be insensitive to call Mr Beaazley a lard-arse political has-been with one of the lowest popularity ratings of any leader of the Australian Labor Party in its long and proud history.

Nor to mention quietly that he has broken one of the unspoken rules of political life: never try to score political points on the broken backs of people in catastrophes, particularly when those sad events are in progress. And again, it might be insensitive to mention that when he was Minister for Defence, 'Bomber' Beazley liked nothing better than to pose for photo opportunities sitting atop an army tank while wearing a camouflage uniform and a smile two feet wide. I think he must have been a child war hobbyist who never grew up.

Beazley grew up in a political family. He is a Rhodes Scholar and a friend of Tony Blair. Has he learned nothing from a life in politics? I think he has just taken his points even lower with the Australian electorate, which never likes this sort of grandstanding. He should remember the flak over the political grandstanding during the Granville Railway Disaster when some other idiots tried to make political footballs out of dead and dying people.

Bush deserves a fair trial

(Today is the third anniversary of the end of the invasion of Iraq, otherwise known as "MISSION ACCOMPLITCHED".)

Tagged: bush, dubya, humor, humour

Let Havel walk on wild side, demanded activists

1989 In Prague, anti-Communist-government protesters demanded the release from jail of playwright Vaclav Havel (b. 1936), who later became President of the Czech Republic. Ironically, these demonstrations occurred on May Day, a day traditionally co-opted by the Communists themselves.

In November 1989, Vaclav Havel was one of the leading initiators of the founding of the Civic Forum, an association uniting opposition civic movements and democratic initiatives. From the very first days of its existence he was the head of the Civic Forum, becoming a key figure of the ‘Velvet Revolution’ (named after Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground rock band), when, beginning on November 17, 1989, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators for freedom took to the streets of Prague. This became a popular uprising that seized the reins of power from the incumbent Communist Party.

Havel’s works were banned by the government, but the manuscripts circulated privately and printed in Western Europe. He has been awarded numerous international prizes and honorary doctorates.

Rock music, especially that of Frank Zappa and Lou Reed, and the Czech band Plastic People of the Universe, inspired Havel and other dissidents during their struggle against Soviet rule.

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list :: CounterCulture Wiki

Frank Zappa, Lou Reed and Czech President Vaclav Havel, in the Book of Days
How Western rock music helped bring down a Communist government

Plenty of May Day origins, folklore and history today in the Book of Days

Tagged: rock+music, communism, dissidence, activism, human+rights, civil+rights