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Our Daily Bleed...
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Grave, canting, Mammonite freebooters, Who in the name of Christ & Trade (Oh, bucklered forehead of the brass!) Deflower the world's last sylvan glade! — Herman Melville |

JANUARY 3
FRANS MASEREEL
Powerful Belgian graphic artist, radical social critic.
http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/art/voorstellen2.html
Alternate Saint,
MARY DALY
Radical American lesbian educator, feminist theorist.
Paris: ST. GENEVIEVE'S DAY
(Patroness of Paris).
FESTIVAL OF SLEEP.
106 -- [BC] Roman philosopher/essayist/orator Marcus Tullius Cicero lives, near Arpinum.
1521 -- Martin Luther excommunicated from Roman Catholic Church.
1781 -- Inca Rebellion. Inca besiege Cuzco (Perú) in attempt to dislodge Spanish.
1793 -- Lucretia Mott lives, Nantucket, Massachusetts. Abolitionist & feminist.
Daily Bleed Patron Saint 2003-2007
Pioneer feminist, conductor of the underground railroad.
1803 -- A widow wrote this epitaph in a Vermont cemetery:Sacred to the memory of
my husband John Barnes
who died January 3, 1803
His comely young widow, aged 23, has
many qualifications of a good wife, &
yearns to be comforted.
1803 -- Douglas William Jerrold — author, playwright, & wit — lives, London. A contributor to Punch, he also founded a magazine & a newspaper bearing his name.
http://www.bartleby.com/100/418.2.html
1825 -- US: Scottish factory owner & socialist Robert Owen buys 30,000 acres in Indiana as site for New Harmony utopian community.
http://www.reocities.com/Hollywood/Cinema/3117/sociosmurf2.htm
On Robert Owen, see Kenneth Rexroth's Communalism
1865 --
Strange: January Fortean Events 1865 -- Outer Space: Second sighting of red lights on Mars (previously seen in Oct 1864) [C. R., 85-538]
1869 -- England: Sound of six or seven reports, "as if of heavy guns far away", Harlton, Cambridgeshire [Nature, 30-19]
http://web.archive.org/web/20060502035242/www.passarola.com/strange/janfort.html
http://www.resologist.net/lands210.htm
1867 -- US: Joshua Norton I, "Dei Gratia" Emperor of the United States & Protector of Mexico, abolishes Congress & calls out the Army to clear out the riff-raff & crooks...
1882 -- US: Docking in New York, Oscar Wilde is asked by customs if he has anything to declare; he replies:
"Nothing but my genius."
http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/frameset.html
http://struggle.ws/ws98/ws53_wilde.html
1892 -- Lordy, Lord! Medieval J.R.R. Tolkien lives, Blomfontein, Orange Free State, Africa. The English philologist also publishes scholarly studies of Chaucer & Beowulf & an edition of Sir Gawain & the Green Knight.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/tolkien.htm
http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/Moorcock.htm
1899 -- Algeria: Alphonse Cannone (1899-1939) lives.Cannone was one of the French anarchiste sailors who rebelled during the 1919 Black Sea Mutiny, refusing to fight the Russian revolutionaries during the Allied intervention.
"Marins français, ouvriers et paysans russes, femmes et enfants, se tenant par les bras, montaient vers la ville hurlant leur joie et leur espérance en des temps qui permettraient de connaître enfin le bien-être et la liberté."
1903 --Ukraine: Anarchist Jack (Yankel) Frager lives (1903-1998), Ismeryuka. He was last arrested at age 88 during a Hiroshima Day protest, for painting the shadows of bomb victims on sidewalks in New York City. The rain washed away the evidence, so the charges were dropped (no pun intended!).
http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/1rn923
1904 --US: During this month Emma Goldman, on behalf of the
Free Speech League, undertakes a brief lecture tour to gain support for English anarchist John Turner; Emma speaks before garment workers in Rochester & miners in Pennsylvania.
[Details, John Turner's arrest]
1904 -- México: Ricardo Flores Magón, with his brother Enrique, seeking to escape constant repression by the dictatorship, leaves México for the United States.
While Ricardo ends up dying in an American prison, never able to return to México alive, his career significantly influences the Mexican Revolution, even in exile.
1911 -- England: Sidney Street Siege, East London: three anarchists suspected of killing three cops three weeks ago shoot it out with over 1,000 troops, including Scots Guards from the Tower of London & armed police.
1916 --US: During this month Emma Goldman lectures in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, & Pittsburgh, on sexuality, modern drama, & the war, including "Preparedness: A Conspiracy between the Munitions Manufacturers & Washington." Emma also lectures before enthusiastic members of a prominent women's club in Brooklyn.
1917 -- US: Tom Mooney trial begins in San Francisco.Martin Swanson, a detective with a long involvement in strikes, & various labor confrontations in Frisco, spent a couple of months trying to frame Mooney for an earlier bombing of PG&E power lines, offering bribes of $5,000 to several of Mooney's allies. He also maintained constant surveillance & harassment of Mooney, Billings, & the anarchists Alexander Berkman & Emma Goldman, who were living at 569 Dolores in the Mission District.
Over the next two years it was gradually revealed that Swanson was primarily responsible for finding & coaching false witnesses for the District Attorney. In spite of revelations showing all the evidence against them was faked, & a convincing demolition of the state's case in each of the trials, Warren Billings & Tom Mooney were both convicted of first degree murder.
1920 -- US: Baseball's Babe Ruth is sold by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees.
1922 -- France: La Revue Anarchiste appears in Paris. It runs for 35 issues, until August 1925, & counts many talented collaborators.Cover, premier issue of La Revue Anarchiste; courtesy of Ephéméride Anarchiste
1923 -- ¡Dead Drunk! Czechoslovakian writer Jaroslav Hasek dies of drunkenness at 39, having finished only fourQUARTSvolumes of his projected six-volume anarchist novel The Good Soldier Schweik [or Svejk]. For the first edition Hasek's friend Karel Vanek provides a weak, spurious ending. Now a classic in world literature, Schweik is a soldier who creates havoc in the Austrian army during World War I by pretending to be extremely stupid.
http://recollectionbooks.com/anow/ppl/wri/
1924 -- Egypt: Two years after British archaeologist Howard Carter & his grave robbers discover the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen near Luxor, they uncover the greatest treasure of the tomb — a stone sarcophagus containing a solid gold coffin that holds the mummy of Tutankhamen.
1924 -- Sweden: A rain of red worms in Halmstad.
Source: [Calendar Riots]
1925 -- Italy: Mussolini puts an end to the parliamentary system & issues a decree ordering the dissolution of the anarcho-syndicalist USI (Unione Sindacala Italiana).
1931 -- US: Some 500 farmers in England, Arkansas, many of them armed, march on the business section of town...Shouting that they must have food for themselves & their families, the invaders announce their intention to take it from the stores unless it is provided free from some other source.
The long drought last summer, in this depression era, ruined many Arkansas farmers & has put them in drastic straits leading to dramatic actions such as today's.— cited in Mauritz Hallgren, Seeds of Revolt
1933 --US: Howard Hughes movie Scarface is retitled "Scarface: The Shame of a Nation" at the insistence of chief censor Will Hays.
1935 --Canada: During this month Emma Goldman is absorbed writing lectures with the hope that a new lecture series & published articles will provide a meager livelihood, as well as spread anarchist ideas. She considers writing a book of portraits of famous people she has known, an idea first suggested by Frank Heiner. Emma suggests that the sustaining fund Jeanne Levey is helping to raise might be designated to support its writing.
1935 -- Italy: Il governo dell'Etiopia si rivolge alla Società delle Nazioni a causa del ripetersi di incidenti con le truppe dell'esercito italiano in Ogaden.
Source: [Crimini e Misfatti]
1937 -- England: Emma Goldman begins organizing a publicity campaign about the Spanish Revolution.Aside from the London anarchists, Emma finds allies among leading members of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), including Fenner Brockway & especially writer Ethel Mannin.
1938 -- England: During this month Emma Goldman moves into new offices for the C.N.T.-FAI, S.I.A., & the publication "Spain & the World" in central London, but finds little enthusiasm for the S.I.A. (International Antifascist Solidarity)venture, as numerous antifascist organizations & Spanish aid committees already exist.![]()
US labor leader & anarchist Rose Pesotta meets with Emma in London; promises to help organize a committee to obtain a US visa for Goldman.
[Details / context]
1955 -- US: The government announces that over 3,000 persons designated security risks have been discharged from federal employment between June of 1953 & October of 1954, a period regarded as the height of "McCarthyism" in America.The witchhunt for commies turns up mostly suspect homosexuals; none are prosecutable, but the the rabid right & its liberal flunkies needs to be mollified with a tough look.
1961 -- US: Diplomatic & consular ties with Cuba severed after disputes over the nationalization of US firms, the US military presence at Guantanamo Base (in Cuba), & other "concerns." The US Marine Corps Cuba campaign begins (-Oct. 23, 1962).
1961 -- US: Nuclear reactor explodes at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho Falls, Idaho, killing three military technicians, & releases a surge of radioactivity which, in the words of John A. McCone, Director of the Atomic Energy Commission, was "largely confined" to the reactor building.
1961 --France: Carloman François Rose (b.1879) dies, Paris. Anarchiste, trade unionist (CGT, UD, CGTU), served on the editorial board of Germinal & a salesman for Libertaire. Organized support for the Black Sea Mutineers in 1921.
1962 --Cuba: Pre-SuperBowl! Pope John XXIII excommunicates Beloved & Respected Comrade Dictator Fidel Castro I.
1964 -- US: Why Johnny Can't Read?: 450,000 public school kids strike in New York City. Pissed off against de facto racial segregation & crummy learning conditions.
1965 --![]()
eritico!!
January 1965
During this month (exact date unknown — ed.) Following a complaint from the American Moral Rearmament movement, J.V. Martin, representing the Situationist International in Scandinavia, is charged with offenses to morals & good taste, eroticism, pornography, antisocial activity, outrages to the state & injury to the Danish royal family over eritico-political leaflets published by the SI & distributed in Denmark & Spain.
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/chronology/chronology.html | [Situationist Resources]
1966 -- US: Ron & Jay Thelin open a head shop intersection of Haight Street & Ashbury in Frisco (cleverly named The Psychedelic Shop).
http://www.diggers.org/ron_thelin.htm
1967 -- US: Jack Ruby, assassin who killed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (see 24 November), dies in prison of natural causes(?) while awaiting retrial.
1967 -- Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys is indicted for draft evasion for trying to avoid getting killed in Vietnam.
1969 -- US: Police at New Jersey's Newark Airport confiscate 30,000 copies of John Lennon & Yoko Ono's "Two Virgins" album, saying the cover photo of the nude John & Yoko is "pornographic." In Chicago, vice squad officers close down a record shop for displaying the cover.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfinished_Music_No.1:_Two_Virgins
http://www.johnlennon.it/john-lennon-two-virgins-eng.htm
1970 -- African nationalist guerrillas based in Zambia stage their first infiltration raid on white-ruled Rhodesia since mid-1968.
1971 -- US: First lesbian center established in America, in New York.
Source: [Calendar Riots]
Masereel came from a well-to-do family. He attended an art academy, & became interested in anarchism & pacifism.
At the outbreak of WWI, he fled to Geneva, where he met many left artists & writers, such as Romain Rolland & Stefan Zweig, who became friends for life. Masereel started illustrating the pacifist magazines Les Tablettes & La Feuille. They established his international reputation.![]()
In the late 1920's artists surveyed by a German magazine named Grosz, Käthe Kollwitz, & Masereel as the most important artists concerned with the daily lives of workers.[Details / context]
1983 -- US: Times Beach, Missouri, declared disaster area due to dioxin contamination.
1985 --Israel: Government confirms resettlement of 10,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel.
1993 -- START II Treaty signed.
1995 -- Sri Lanka: Cease-fire agreement between government & Tamil rebels.
1998 -- México: The army invades Aguascaliente, La Realidad, looking for firearms & harassing the population. Part of the ongoing effort to repress the Zapatistas, the mass media is full of rumors & uncertainties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation
http://www.cedoz.org/site/content.php?doc=277&cat=73
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ej%C3%A9rcito_Zapatista_de_Liberaci%C3%B3n_Nacional
2000 -- México: Zapatista Air (Mail) Attack
From the Mexican daily La Jornada:Amador Hernandez, Chiapas -- The Zapatista Air Force today attacked the Federal Army encampment here with paper airplanes. Some flew well & maneuvered themselves right into the dormitories, hidden by vegetation & large black plastic sheeting. Others sputtered in flight & barely cleared the barbed wire fence.
"We do not sell our lives. We want to free our lives & those of your children, your lives & those of your wives, your brothers & sisters, your uncles & aunts, fathers & mothers, & the lives of millions of poor exploited Mexicans.
We want to free their lives also so that soldiers do not repress their towns by the order of a few thieves."[Details / context]
2006 -- Australia: Sydney Opera House 'No War' activists face court to prevent them from auctioning the paint can & two brushes used to paint "NO WAR" in five-metre-high red letters on the highest sail of the Opera House on the eve of the invasion of Iraq (March 2003).
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Sydney_Opera_House_%27No_War%27_activists_face_court_for_paint_cans
2009 -- Palestine: Israel begins ground assault on Gaza Strip. One of the bloodiest attacks on Gaza since 1948, the three week assault kills some 1400 Palestinians & 13 Israelis.
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2009/12/24/noam_chomsky_gaza_one_year_later
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Israel_begins_ground_assault_on_Gaza_Strip
2010 -- US: Radical lesbian theorist, academic, & Catholic theologian, Mary Daly dies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Daly
2013 -- Revisiting Rexroth's Cabin — Terry Bisson & Kim Stanley Robinson organized this event as a sort of follow-up to Stan's publication of In the Sierra: Mountain Writings of Kenneth Rexroth.
3000 --
"A mental disease has swept the planet: banalization. Everyone is hypnotized by production & conveniences — sewage system, elevator, bathroom, washing machine...
Presented with the alternative of love or a garbage disposal unit, young people of all countries have chosen the garbage disposal unit."
— Ivan Chtcheglov, October 1953, "Formulary for a New Urbanism"
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/Chtcheglov.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Chtcheglov
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/amroth/scritti/debord5.htm
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