Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 13:29:29 -0700
From: David Brown <recall-AT-eskimo.com>
Subject: Daily Bleed: 4/25 GEORG SIMMEL


Web Radiation: http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/0425.htm

APRIL 25

GEORG SIMMEL
Sociologist, theorist of impersonalism & capitalist alienation.

NABOHASSAR NEW YEAR, 2743.

Ancient Rome: ROBIGALIA, Sacrificial rites to placate the God of
Mildew.

ANTI-NUCLEAR DAY: Mutants for Nuclear Power -) say
"No Nukes is Not Enough!"
& "Better Living Through Radiation!"
http://www.stmartin.edu/~dprice/cold.war.html


1324 - An entry in the Jornal de la Chambre of King Edward II
shows pence a day paid to one "Robyn Hod" for service to the
King.

1593 - Why?: Moroccans take Timbuktu.

1684 - Patent granted for the thimble.

1793 - Highway to Hell?: Guillotine first used -- executes
highwayman Nicolas Pelletier.

In contrast to today's sanitary executions, behind closed
doors, yesteryear's were held in the town center, where
families & friends  gathered for the 18th-century equivalent
of mass entertainment. The death penalty didn't count for much
unless it could be stretched out, subjecting all but upper-
class convicts to excruciating hours of torture. In earlier
days, quartering was popular (simply tie the victim's limbs to
four horses & send the beasts galloping in four directions);
fun were the rack & the wheel, both designed for drawn-out
death. Luckier victims were simply gutted, then hanged.
http://www.liii.com/~nycore/guilltne.htm

1816 - As Lord Byron leaves England in permanent exile,
friends arm themselves with firearms to protect him lest the
very sight of the poet incites a riot.

1846 - Pig in a Polk?: Mexican forces obligingly attack a U.S.
"scouting party" sent by Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader
President James Polk into disputed territory between the
Nueces & Rio Grande Rivers in hopes of provoking just such a
skirmish. The incident was used by the expansionist Congress
as an excuse to start the Mexican-American War, during which
the US seized California (Surf's Up!).

1873 - Walter de la Mare lives (1873-1953), Charlton, Kent,
England. Novelist, mystic poet, loosely in the literary
tradition of Wordsworth & Coleridge. His material often appear
in horror collections because of their ghostly atmosphere. Aka
Walter Ramal.  http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/delamare.htm

1878 - Anna Sewell completes “Black Beauty, the Autobiography
of a Horse” & dies, in England, after being invalided to her
home in Old Catton, Norfolk the last eight years. This
children's classic is said to have been instrumental in
abolishing the cruel practice of the "checkrein".
ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/etext/gutenberg/etext95/bbeau10.txt

1892 - France: The trial of Ravachol begins. Ravachol had been
pointed out to police by a waiter (the boy Jules Lhérot) in
the  restaurant Very, & last night, before his trial today,
the restaurant was bombed, killing its owner & a customer.

“Who is it  -- throughout this endless procession of tortures
which has been the history of the human race -- who is it that
sheds the blood, always the same, relentlessly, without any
pause for the sake of mercy? Governments, religions,
industries, forced labor camps, all of these are drenched in
blood.
     ---Octave Mirbeau, “Ravachol”
     http://burn.ucsd.edu/~mai/TEXT/mirbeau_ravachol.html

1898 - Candy Man?: William S. Porter, convicted of
embezzlement, enters the Ohio penitentiary where he begins
writing short stories under a name copped from a guard -- O.
Henry.

1901 - Licentious Communism?: New York becomes first state
requiring auto license plates ($1 fee).
http://webreference.com/outlook/license/gallery.html

1920 - Poland invades Russia. Most of the WWI allied
countries have done the same (including the US) in an
effort to overthrow the Bolsheviks.

1923 - Albert King, bluesman, lives.

1944 - "Krazy Kat" cartoonist George Herriman dies, Hollywood.
http://www.krazy.com/

1959 - More Leaway?: Saint Lawrence Seaway opened.

1959 - Georges Conchon (1879-1959) dies. French tapestry
maker, anarchist & very popular secretary of the "Federation
of Tenants" (ancestor of the DAL).
http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/sinners/ConchonGeorges.htm

1964 - Heads Up?: "Little Mermaid" statue loses head to saw in
Copenhagen harbor.

1968 - US: 80 Olympic Community College students arrested in a
protest on their Bremerton, Washington campus.

1968 - The Beatles refuse to perform for the Queen of England
at a British Olympic Appeal Fund show. Ringo Starr explains,
"Our decision would be the same no matter what the cause. We
don't do benefits."

1969 - US: The Rev. Ralph Abernathy & 100 others are arrested
while picketing a Charleston, South Carolina hospital to
support unionization.

1970 - After playing a concert in Raleigh, North Carolina,
where men in the crowd taunted the interracial band with
racial insults, Pacific Gas & Electric is shot at as its van
leaves the club. Four bullets hit the vehicle but no one is hurt.

1974 - Portugal: Armed Forces Revolt, the "Carnation
Revolution" begins, ending 48-year military dictatorship.

1982 - Australia: Women lay wreath for all women of all
countries raped in war, Canberra.

1983 - A House of Representatives report criticizes the
Interior Department for selling coal leases at "fire sale"
prices. More than 1.6 billion tons in the Powder River Basin
went for 55 million dollars -- about half its market value.

A Northern Cheyenne community organization called Native
Action forms to protect the reservation from the impact of the
Powder River coal fields & Colstrip, which hosts the nation's
largest coal-generating & gasification complex. Native Action
launches a court action resulting in a
nationwide moratorium on all federal coal leases.

1984 - James Baker III is asked if he's ever been to a
Communist country. "Well," he replies,

         "I've been to Massachusetts."

1990 - Blind Leading the Blind?: Hubble Space Telescope is
deployed from the Space Shuttle.
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html

1996 - Australia: ANZAC Day. Swastikas were painted on front
door of Barricade Books, as well as other local anti-fascist
activists. A local demonstration against fascist organising is
held, & a march to the bookstore.
http://www.anarki.net/barricade/history.html


"Expect nothing from the state except your passport & your
ticket home to a prison of your country's choice. A free hotel
for you & your kind. The rats that came ashore with the cargo
have got a sporting chance of survival. They can hide & set up
house & they don't need a passport, & they don't speak out
except in times of plague."

 — Ralph Steadman, from his introduction to “Waterstone's &
The Medical Foundation For the Care of Victims of Torture
celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights”.


Auntie-Plague 1999