Daily Bleed for April 28th

Catalina Rodriguez, 24,
body shrivelled to a child's at twelve,
catalina rodriguez, last stages of consumption,
works for three dollars a week from dawn to midnight.
A fog of pain thickens over her skull, the parching heat
breaks over her body.
and the bright red blood embroiders the floor of her room.
White rain stitching the night, the bourgeois poet would say,
white gulls of hands, darting, veering,
white lightning, threading the clouds,
this is the exquisite dance of her hands over the cloth,
and her cough, gay, quick, staccato,
like skeleton's bones clattering,
is appropriate accompaniment for the aesthetic dance
of her fingers
and the tremulo, tremulo when the hands tremble with pain.
Three dollars a week,
two fifty-five,
seventy cents a week,
no wonder two thousands eight hundred ladies of joy
are spending the winter with the sun after he goes down . . .

— Tillie Olsen, excerpt,
"I Want You Women Up North To Know"

Web page in full, 68 entries,
http://www.recollectionbooks.com/bleed/0428.htm

Text excerpts,

APRIL 28

ROBERTO BOLAÑO
Chilean novelist, nomad, cultural iconoclast.

Alternate Saint:
JULES BONNOT
Anarchist bank robber, inventor of the getaway car.

International: WORKERS' MEMORIAL DAY.

Charles, Louisiana:
CONTRABAND DAYS PIRATE FESTIVAL honors Lafitte.

"In many parts of the Caribbean, flying the "Jolly Roger" flag
was the equivalent of a happy face: it meant the pirate ship
was willing to take prisoners. The appearance of a red flag,
however, signified no prisoners, & the pirates would slaughter
crew & passengers to a man. Bear in mind that the flags had
different meanings [or none] at different time periods & in
different regions."

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1789 -- Fletcher Christian leads a group of mutineers against
Captain William Bligh aboard HMS Bounty in history's most
famous mutiny. Recounted by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman
Hall in a trilogy; the first book being Mutiny on the Bounty.

1861 -- Henry Bauer lives.
German-American anarchist. In 1893 Bauer was arrested
& sent to prison for five years for distributing leaflets during the
Homestead Strike, where Alexander Berkman had attempted to
assassinate Henry Frick.

Sing ho, for we know you, Carnegie;
God help us and save us, we know you too well;
You're crushing our wives and you're starving our babies;
In our homes you have driven the shadow of hell.
Then bow, bow down to Carnegie,
Ye men who are slaves to his veriest whim;
If he lowers your wages cheer, vassals, then cheer. Ye
Are nothing but chattels and slaves under him.

— 2nd verse, "A Man Named Carnegie,"
anonymous, California, 7 July 1892

1874 -- Austrian philosopher Karl Krauss lives, Jicin, Bohemia,
Austria-Hungary. "KARL KRAUSS 1998 SAINT"
Great Austrian satirist, language theorist, social rebel.

1912 -- Jules Bonnot, French illegalist gang leader,
killed in police shootout.

Les banques criaient "Misérables!"
Quand s'éloignait le bruit du puissant moteur
Comment rattrapper les coupables
Qui fuyaient à toute allure à trente-cinq à l'heure
Sur les routes de France, hirondelles et gendarmes
Etaient à leurs trousses, étaient nuit et jour en alarme
En casquette à visière, les bandits en auto
C'était la bande à Bonnot

— Joe Dassin, La bande à Bonnot

1919 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Seattle mayor
Hanson gets a bomb in the mail. He declares the government
should "buck up & hang or incarcerate for life all the
anarchists." This is one of 36 bombs which turn up in the
mails across the nation.

1926 -- Harper Lee lives, Alabama. Famous for
Pulitzer prize-winning race relations novel To Kill A
Mockingbird. An international bestseller adapted to the
screen in 1962. She modeled the boy Dill after her childhood
next-door neighbor, author Truman Capote.

1932 -- France: Michèle Bernstein lives, Paris.

Novelist & critic, best known as a member of the Situationist
International from its foundation in 1957 until 1967, & as the
wife of its most prominent member, Guy Debord.

1943 -- Brilliant Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño (d. 2003) lives,
Santiago, Chile. A founder of 'infrarealism", a surrealist-type movement,
which — when not writing poems — became notorious for heckling other
poets — especially Octavio Paz — on the grounds that they were both
excessively "literary" & corrupted by the Mexican state's munificence.

"Experience at full speed, self-consuming structures, crazy contradictions
... Never too long in the same place, like guerrillas, like UFOs, like the
white eyes of life prisoners ... LEAVE IT ALL BEHIND, AGAIN. GO OUT
ON THE ROADS."

1961 -- US: Holy Moley! We're No Moles? Over 2,000 defy mandatory
civil defense drill, New York City. Inspires Holy Modal Rounders!
(Also the movie "Shaft"... & a massive run on dental plates.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Modal_Rounders

1965 -- 20,000 Marines invade Dominican Republic to prevent
democracy & prop up military junta/dictatorship; Beloved & Respected
Comrade Leader President Johnson sends US troops to prevent the
ascension of democratically elected president Juan Bosch. The
troops are not withdrawn until next year. Another "Free World" thing.

We're the cops of the world, boys;
We're the cops of the world.

— Phil Ochs

http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/sf/1965.htm#Cowboy%20Diplomacy

1967 -- US: Muhammad Ali refuses induction, during the Vietnam
War, into the army & is stripped of his boxing title:

"No Viet Cong ever called me nigger."

The World Boxing Association withdraws Muhammad Ali's
recognition as heavyweight champion because of his refusal to
serve in the U.S. military.

1968 -- Rush To Judgment?: India: A lawsuit begun in 1205 is
resolved today, settled in favor of Mr. Thorat. Sorry, we failed
to catch his reaction following the verdict...

1977 -- Argentina: First rally by Mothers of the Disappeared
at Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires.

Under US supported "Free World" terrorism,
this military dictatorship of 1976-1983, saw
20-30,000 people "disappeared".

American CIA tax dollars hard at work.

Night hangs like a prisoner
Stretched over black and blue
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat

— excerpt, U2 "Mothers Of The
Disappeared" (track 11, The Joshua Tree)

1987 -- Nicaragua: Benjamin Linder, an American volunteer
engineer from Seattle, Washington is murdered by U.S.-sponsored
Contras (characterized by then-Beloved & Respected Comrade
Acting Prez Reagan as "the moral equivalent of our founding
fathers") while working on a hydroelectric project..

In America we do not call our rightwing pals terrorists.

1989 -- First Workers Memorial Day, international day of
remembrance for those who have been injured or died
on the job & to renew the fight for safe workplaces,
drawing attention to the plight of the 335,000 workers
worldwide who die & millions injured every year as a
result of their work.

"Mourn the dead & fight like
hell for the living".

1991 -- Death of Igal Roodenko, World War II conscientious
objector/pacifist activist, New York City.

2002 -- Ireland: John McGuffin (Sean Mac A' Phinn) of Belfast
& Derry (& other parts) dies. Cremated on May Day.

The announcement of his end told that he died peacefully
on the morning of April 28th after a long illness, & that two
days before turning sideways to the sun had married his
long-term collaborator, comrade & partner Christiane.

He was laid out in his coffin with a smile of final satisfaction
on a face sculpted like a chieftain of old, in a black t-shirt
with square red lettering,

"Unrepentant Fenian Bastard".

Way to go, McGuffin!

2004 -- US: The Bush administration tells the US Supreme Court
"you have to trust the executive" not to mistreat prisoners; later
today, CBS News broadcasts the first photos of US soldiers
abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

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"The most violent element in society is ignorance."

— Emma Goldman

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