Friday, May 20, 2011

Daily Bleed for May 20th

Web version in full, 124 entries (oh, my aching back!):
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/0520.htm

A few excerpts:

MAY 20

STANISLAV MARKELOV
Russian human rights lawyer, activist, martyr.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5547721.ece

Old England: BEATING OF THE BOUNDS, ceremonial
perambulation of Parish boundaries. That's bounds, not hounds!

Wicken, England: LOVE FEAST UNDER THE GOSPEL ELM.

Florence, Italy: FESTIVAL OF THE CHIRPING CRICKETS.

FEAST OF ST. LUCIFER.

______________________________



1806 - John Stuart Mill, philosopher & radical reformer, lives,
London. Learns Greek at age three, Latin & arithmetic at eight,
logic at twelve. Like you & me.

1856 -- France: Henri-Edmond Cross (aka Delacroix) (1856-1910) lives.
Neo-impressionist/pointillist painter, illustrator, anarchist.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/CrossHenri-Edmond.htm

1899 - Speed Kills?: Jacob German of NY City is the first driver
ever arrested for speeding. Mr. German was whipping his taxicab
all over Lexington Avenue & going over the posted 12 mile-per-
hour speed limit. Impossible to go that fast in NY these days.

1904 - US warships ordered to Tangiers, Morocco to "protect U.S.
interests." Making Tangiers safe for Paul & Jane Bowles, William
Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, et al?

1911 - Mexico: The anarchist Magonistes of the Parti Libéral
Mexicano publish a proclamation calling for the peasants to take
collective possession of the land in the territories of Lower
California where they have driven out the government, for " a
free & happy life, without Masters or Tyrant".

1913 -- US: Emma Goldman & Dr. Ben Reitman arrested on arrival
in that bastion of "free speech," San Diego, California; vigilantes
surround the police station. Police order Goldman & Reitman to
board the afternoon train back to Los Angeles.

1931 - At the now-famous Parisian bookstore & lending-library
Shakespeare & Company, Anaïs Nin joins up & borrows e.e. cummings'
Enormous Room.

1933 -- US: No Condoms? Rubber workers strike in Akron, Ohio.

1937 - Spain: Author & one-time used bookseller George Orwell,
sympathetic to the anarchists, & fighting for the Republic, is shot on
the front lines. His Homage to Catalonia is based on his experiences
during the Spanish Revolution.

"When I see an actual flesh & blood worker in conflict with his
natural enemy, the police[man], I do not have to say which side I
am on."

— George Orwell

1953 -- French General Navarre says he can see "light at the end
of a tunnel" in Vietnam. Can't call him a dim wick...big ol' tunnel.

1959 -- US: Hawaiian protest songster Israel Kamakawiwo'ole lives.
Activist for Hawaiian rights & Hawaiian independence. Best known
for the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Kamakawiwo'ole

1961 -- Wales: Protest demonstration by the CND (Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament), in Aberystwyth.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/05ref.htm#20/1961

1964 - US: Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) wins
free-speech fight, Roosevelt University, Chicago.

1968 - France: The upheavals of 1968 continue: Beloved &
Respected Comrade Leader General de Gaulle howls as more
than six million workers are now on strike. France is practically
paralyzed.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/05ref.htm#11/1968
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/sources.htm#France68

1969 -- Hold the McMustard?: US troops make their 11th assault in
10 days on "Hamburger Hill," finally capturing it in one of the
Vietnam War's bloodiest battles. The mountain proves of little
strategic value, & is abandoned eight days later.
Plenty of time to pick up the bodies.

1970 -- China: Mao Tse-tung issues People of the World,
Unite & Defeat the US Aggressors & All Their Running Dogs!


1971 -- Chicago lead singer Peter Cetera beaten up by four creeps
at a Cubs baseball game. The men objected to the length of his
hair. Cetera underwent four hours of emergency surgery.

1974 -- Russia: Human rights activist, martyr Stanislav Markelov lives,
Moscow. Shot dead on January 19, 2009 while leaving a news conference.
Anarchist/journalist Anastasia Baburova was also murdered when she
tried to come to his aid.
http://anarkisterna.com/blog/2009/02/19/remembering-anastasia-baburova-and-stanislav-markelov/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Markelov

1989 -- China: Martial law in Beijing ordered to quell the pro-
democracy movement & massive student demonstrations.

1997 -- About 50 activists occupy & prematurely harvest a trial
field of genetically engineered maize (corn), ruining the test.
Schonfeld, Germany.

2002 -- Stephen Jay Gould dies.

Biologist/Paleontologist. Mr. Gould wrote a heck of a
whole lot on evolution & the science of man. He thought
evolution a "a fortuitous cosmic afterthought."

He debated creationists. A baseball fanatic, he appears
in the Ken Burns documentary, "Baseball". Among Stephen's
works are Ever Since Darwin, The Mismeasure of Man, &
The Panda's Thumb.

____________

"Who controls the past controls the future.

Who controls the present controls the past."

— George Orwell

____________

— Anti-PastFuturePresent, 1897, 2001, 2004, 2009, 2011, 2024 more or less

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