Sunday, May 09, 2010

Daily Bleed for This 9th of May

My father makes counterfeit money
My mother makes synthetic gin
My sister makes love for a dollar
My god how the money rolls in.

My brother's a young missionary
Who saves young people from sin.
He'll save you a blonde for ten dollars
My god how the money rolls in . . .

— Vance Randolph, Unprintable:
Ozark Folksongs & Folklore

Edited with an introduction by Gershon Legman

Majestic Web version, in full, about 91 entries:
http://www.recollectionbooks.com/bleed/0509.htm

Excerpts:

MAY 9

JOHN BROWN
Radical abolitionist. "His truth goes marchin' on."

ASTRONOMY DAY. Look up. (after de sun goes down is best)

______________________________


1432 -- Charges of Witchcraft dismissed against Margery
Jourdemain, John Virley, & John Ashwell, in England. They're
executed for littering instead.

1785 -- Pumpin' Iron? Joseph Bramah receives British patent
for beer pump handles.

1800 -- US: John Brown, anti-slavery freedom fighter, who attempted
a guerilla war in the very heart of the south, lives.

There's a flutter in the Southland, a tremor in the air;
For the rice-plains are invaded, the cotton fields laid bare;
And the cry of "Help" and "Treason" rings aloud from tongue
and pen John Brown has crossed the border with a host of
fifteen men.

— "A Plea for Captain John Brown"
by Henry David Thoreau

1878 -- Neno Vasco (1878-1920) lives.
Portuguese lawyer, journalist & libertarian.

Vasco was part of a group of students of the University of
Coimbra who became anarchists at the start of the century.
Active in both Brazil & Portugal, & one of the most influential
militant libertarians in those countries.

http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/05ref.htm#9/1878

1883 -- Philosopher José Ortega y Gasset lives, Madrid, Spain.
Wrote The Revolt of the Masses, characterizing 20th-century
society as dominated by masses of mediocre & indistinguishable
individuals. His ideas converged with other 'mass society'
theorists such as Karl Mannheim, Erich Fromm & Hannah Arendt.
In exile during the Spanish Revolution, refusing to support either
side or hold academic office under Franco.

1897 -- U.S. cruiser ordered to Honduras to "protect U.S. interests".

1898 - Marcel Wullens lives (1898-1928). French
militant libertarian & syndicalist who participated, with his
brother Maurice, in the review "Les humbles," the journal
"L'insurgé," & helped found "La révolution prolétarienne"
& later became an organizer, with Andre Breton & Leon
Trotsky, of the F.I.A.R.I.

1921 -- Radical priest, anti-war activist & christian anarchist
Daniel Berrigan lives. Loves to burn draft records.

J. Edgar Hoover & his elegant crew of FBI guys have the same
affinity for Berrigan as for Martin Luther King, Jr. — trying to
smear & destroy him & also his brother Philip (a then Josephite
priest also doing God's work as a christian anarchist).

J. Edgar, now best-known for his peculiar interpretation of
"dress code," went so far as to publicly call Howard Zinn &
Berrigan "traitors" for going to North Vietnam & securing the
first release of American POWs.

http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/gallery/galleryindex.htm#DanielBerrigan

1927 -- Debut of Felix the Cat in daily comic strip.

Felix the Cat is God.

1932 -- US: Real Class Act? Rockefeller boards up Diego Rivera's
mural at Rockefeller Center, NYC.

1933 -- First Nazi-inspired mass public book-burning, Germany.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/images/BB/burnbk.jpg

1961 -- FCC chairman Newton Minow decries,

"If you were tune in one channel & watch it from sign-on to
sign-off, what you would find is a vast electronic wasteland."

http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/images/humor/mediaburn.jpg

1962 -- Beatles sign their first contract with EMI Pstlophone,
after being turned down at Decca with the infamous

"Guitar bands are on the way out."

1967 -- Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) stripped of his
heavyweight boxing title after being indicted for refusing
to accept induction into the army.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/images/military/army.jpg

1970 -- Five days after the Kent State killings, 100,000 march in
Washington, D.C. against Vietnam War. About 600 Canadian
protesters deface the Peace Arch at the U.S.-Canadian border at
Blaine, Washington.

1973 -- End of American Indian Movement occupation of Wounded
Knee, South Dakota. Protesters & US sign agreement in which the
government agrees to examine Lakota treaty rights; due to
government inaction, surprisingly, the treaty never takes effect.

1974 -- Impeachment hearings against Beloved & Respected
Comrade Leader Richard "Tricky Dick" m Nixon begin.

"The American people deserve to know
whether or not their President is a crook."

(What? Was there a question?)

1977 -- James Jones dies. Wrote From Here to Eternity. Sounds
like a lot of writing.

"[I]ts largely a matter of luck that decided whether or not you get killed.

It doesn't make any difference who you are, how tough you
are, how nice a guy you might be, or how much you may
know, if you happen to be at a certain spot at a certain time,
you get it.

— James Jones, letter to his brother, Jeff Jones, from
Guadalcanal, January 28, 1943

1999 -- Protests at US embassies in Beijing & around the
world after the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade is hit in a bungled
NATO air strike.

1999 -- US: Karl Yoneda, aged 92, dies.

As a student Yoneda read the works of Marx & the Russian anarchist
Vasily Eroshenko. He studied with Eroshenko & took dictation.
Yoneda later became an organizer for the Communist Party in Los
Angeles.

http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/05ref.htm#9/1999
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/EroshenkoVasily.htm

2000 -- US: Belly Up To The Bar? Fire destroys a Wild Turkey distillery near
Frankfort, Kentucky; bourbon runoff into the Kentucky River subsequently
causes a massive fish kill.

_____________________

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both
rich & poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the
streets, & to steal bread."

— Anatole France

_____________________


— Auntie Majestic 2010 or so, most probably

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