May 11: Emil Heinrich Maximilian Hoedel, Home Colony, Albin Cantone, Virgilia d'Andrea, Armando Borghi, Georges Yvetot, Antonio Soto Canalejo; Literature, Authors, Poets, Anarchists...

i am a man's head hunched in the road.
i was chosen to speak by the members
of my body. the arm as it pulled away
pointed toward me, the hand opened once
and was gone.

why & why & why
should i call a white man brother?
who is the human in this place,
the thing that is dragged or the dragger?
what does my daughter say?

the sun is a blister overhead.
if i were alive i could not bear it.
the townsfolk sing we shall overcome
while hope drains slowly from my mouth
into the dirt which covers us all.
i am done with this dust. i am done.

— Lucille Clifton, jasper texas 1998

MAY 11

EQBAL AHMAD
Indefatigable combatant of capitalist empire.

Guatemala: FIVE DAY RAIN CEREMONY. Heads up, Ketchikan, Alaska! Also known as "Seattle Weather".

868 -- Date on a Chinese translation of the Buddhist Diamond Sutra (earliest surviving printed work).

1508 -- England: Wynkyn de Worde prints "The Festyvall or Sermons on sundays & holidais taken out of the golden legend," Flete strete, London.
Source: [Robert Braunwart][Hereafter attributed with this symbol:

]

1676 --

New Old World: Papa May I? Beggars are ordered to get permission from priests to beg in the streets of Montreal & Quebec.

1768 -- England: During the first ever 'strike' (of sails), sailors forcibly shut down the Stock Exchange, London.
Source: [Calendar Riots]

1787 --

Japan: Rioters break into rice warehouses in Osaka.

1792 -- US: Captain R. Gray locates the mouth of the Columbia River, naming it for his favorite mass murderer.

1811 -- Chang & Eng Bunker, the original "Siamese Twins," live, Meklong, Siam. Linked together at the chest.

1812 -- Waltz introduced into English ballrooms. Most observers consider it disgusting & immoral. We agree, of course. (No wonder it catches on! — Robert B.)

1812 -- England: Spencer Percival, Tory Prime Minister, is assassinated in the lobby of the Commons by John Bellingham, who is cheered by the crowds outside as he is led away. When the news reaches Nottingham the following day, it is celebrated with a great parading of flags & drums through the town. Percival is the only British PM to be shot in office — so far.
Source: [Calendar Riots]

1818 --

The Old Vic Theatre opens in London, with "Trial by Battle."

1846 -- US: "Manifest Destiny" is official. Polk's War on México: Half of México is soon taken, despite massive troop desertions, death by disease, & mutinies. In the resulting treaty México is paid $15 million; as one American newspaper put it:

"We take nothing by conquest . . . Thank God."

Giving rise, of course, to the "timeless lament," cited in Carlos Fuentes' novel The Old Gringo:

"Poor Mexico, So far from God, but so close to the United States."

1871 -- John Herschel, cataloger of southern hemisphere stars, dies.
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/16/carmen.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Herschel

1872 --

US: Marshall & Co.'s Great Tycoon Troupe of Japanese jugglers & acrobats performs at the Pavilion, Seattle, Washington.

1873 -- France: Anarchiste Charles Achille Simon (aka Biscuit, Ravachol II) lives, Loiret.
http://www.ephemanar.net/mai11.html

1878 -- Emil Heinrich Maximilian Hoedel, a 21-year-old worker-anarchist, shoots Prussian Emperor Guillaume I to protest & publicize the misery of the workers. Sentenced to death & executed July 16, 1878, his last words are "Vive la commune."
http://www.ephemanar.net/mai11.html

1885 -- US: Jazz musician "King" Oliver lives, somewhere near New Orleans, Louisiana.

1886 -- The "Milwaukee Daily Sentinel" publishes an article headlined "No Poles Need Apply." The story applauds railroad companies for firing Polish immigrants.

After this month's militant protests for the 8-hour day in Wisconsin, the press attacks not only organized labor but also Milwaukee's Polish community, which has grown dramatically since 1870 in this predominantly German city. Leading the demonstrations have been Polish workers with Milwaukee's lowest-paid & most physically demanding jobs.

Today's "Sentinel" article gleefully concludes, "A good many of those who struck to have their hours reduced to eight have been successful in reducing them to nothing."

[Insurgent Radio Kiosk]

1891 -- US: National building-trades strike.

1894 -- US: Beginning of the Pullman Railroad Strike, Chicago, Illinois. The American Railroad Union strikes the Pullman Sleeping Car Co. Eugene Debs soon joins the strike. The largest industrial strike to this date in US history, eventually broken by federal government troops. At least 24 strikers killed ...

"Debs Strikers Begin Work Of Destruction, Guns Awe Them Not, Drunken Stockyard Rioters Defy Uncle Sam's Troops, Mobs Invite Death"

— Chicago Tribune headline

"A lawbreaker [Debs] & an enemy to the human race."
— The New York Times

[Details / context]

1894 -- French Orientalist painter Jean-Louis Gerome lives.

1894 -- US: A gopher turtle encased in ice falls in a hailstorm, Bovina, Mississippi; meanwhile over to Vicksburg, a huge hailstone is found to contain a piece of alabaster nearly 2 cm in diameter.

1895 -- Jan Parandowski, lives, Lwów, Galicia, Austria-Hungary. Polish writer, essayist, translator.

1895 -- William Grant Still lives. African American composer, jazz arranger, oboist, & conductor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Grant_Still

1898 -- The Discontent: Mother of Progress, anarchist paper of Home Colony, Washington, first issued. See the Anarchist Encyclopedia,
http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/HomeColony.htm

1898 -- Italy: Arresto dei redattori del giornale socialista "Avanti" e del deputato Leonida Bissolati che rimarrà in carcere due mesi.
Source: [Crimini e Misfatti]

1904 -- Spanish surrealist huckster Salvador Dali lives.
Collage by SaintMeister James Koehnline

1906 --

US: Big Flat Tire? George Ferris's wheel is dynamited, St. Louis.

1913 --

US: Emma Goldman delivers 13 lectures in Los Angeles, May 11-19.

"Her development, her freedom, her independence, must come from & through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality, & not as a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right of anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children, unless she wants them, by refusing to be a servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc., by making her life simpler, but deeper & richer. That is, by trying to learn the meaning & substance of life in all its complexities; by freeing herself from the fear of public opinion & public condemnation."

— Emma Goldman, Anarchism & Other Essays, p. 211

1914 -- US: Radical theorist, socialist/labor organizer Daniel DeLeon dies, New York City.
http://www.slp.org/
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/critics/deleon.html
http://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/
http://www.iww.org/

1914 -- US: Emma Goldman makes a brief appearance in Salt Lake City, Utah.

1916 -- Camilo José Cela lives. Spanish experimental writer, 1989 Nobel Prize winner. A lifelong fascist, he served with Franco's army during the Spanish Revolution (1936-39), notable since literary history knows mostly writers who opposed Franco — Hemingway, Orwell, & García Lorca to name just a few.
In 1998 Cela infuriated groups in Spain during celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the homosexual playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. Cela said gays & lesbians should stay away, in a lecture in the town of Pontevedra, saying he preferred commemorative festivities that were "more solid, less anecdotal & without the support of gay groups."

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/cela.htm
http://www.grandpoohbah.net/Grandpoohbah/BookReviews/alcarria.htm

1916 -- Einstein's Theory of General Relativity presented, went relatively well.

1918 -- Jokester, Nobel physicist, teacher, bongo player, Richard Feynman lives, Far Rockaway, NY City.

Alternate Daily Bleed Patron Saint. Renegade scientist-as-joker, celebrant of the individual.

"Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' because you will get 'down the drain,' into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped.
Nobody knows how it can be like that.''

http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html
http://www.pitt.edu/~druzdzel/feynman.html

1921 -- US: Burp? Prohibition charges against NY saloon owner William Manning are dropped when the judge discovers the police drank the evidence.

1926 -- Mort Sahl, comedian, political satirist, beatnik (Big Party) lives.

1927 -- After To the Lighthouse is published, Virginia Woolf notes in her diary:
"What is the use of saying one is indifferent to reviews when positive praise, though mingled with blame, gives one such a start on, that instead of feeling dried up, one feels . . . flooded with ideas?"

1929 -- French anarchiste propagandist Albin Cantone, dies of cancer, age 41. Born in Italy 1888, metal worker in Lyon. Cantone published the review, "Les Glaneurs," in 1917-18, wrote for "Les vagabonds" (1921-1922), "La brochure mensuelle," "Semeur," etc.
http://www.ephemanar.net/mai11.html#albin

1930 -- Novelist Stanley Elkin lives, New York.

1932 -- Virgilia d'Andrea (1890-1932) dies, NY City, age 43. Italian poet, teacher, writer. Met Armando Borghi while a teacher & from then on was a dedicated anarchist. Her anti-fascist activities forced her to leave Italy, but she continued her militant activities in Germany, Holland, France & the US.
[Details / context]

1933 -- Edmund Wilson writes John Dos Passos: "I heard T.S. Eliot read his poems the other night . . . He is an actor & really put on a better show than Shaw."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Wilson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dos_Passos

1933 -- US: Louis Wolcott lives, New York City. Nightclub singer &, after a number of name changes, the head of the Nation of Islam as Louis Farrakhan.
Sing-A-Long with Louis Farrakhan,
http://www.freespeech.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Farrakhan

1934 -- US: Dust storms in Texas, Oklahoma & Kansas begin blowing tons of soil into the sea.

1934 -- A bust of Adam Lindsay Gordon (the only Australian) is placed in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.

1937 -- Battle of the Bands between Benny Goodman & Chick Webb, Savoy, NY.

1942 -- Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner is published.

1942 -- France: Georges Yvetot (1868-1942) dies, Paris. Typesetter & corrector, anarchiste, syndicalist, anti-patriot, pacifist.
http://www.ephemanar.net/mai11.html#yvetot

1946 -- Charles Ives' "The Unanswered Question" premiers, Columbia University.

1948 -- Palestine: The port of Haifa, is taken over by Haganah, as is the city of Safed.

1950 -- Eugene Ionesco play "La Cantatrice chauve" premiers, Paris.
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/sfe/1960/03.htm

1952 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade FBI Cross-Dressing-Hunk J. Edgar Hoover publishes "Could Your Child Become a Red?" in Parade magazine.
Well, stop me on the highway, search my car & my cavities,
delve into my past like I'm a supreme court nominee.
If I don't got nothing to hide, then why should I complain?
& if I don't like it, I can always live with Castro or Hussein.

Well, I'm a real american. I bought a little flag
to prove I ain’t no commie, fascist, muslim, pinko fag....

http://www.adambrodsky.com/index.php?page=cds&display=21
http://war.miniaturegigantic.com/thumbnails/

1954 -- Turkish short-story writer Sait Faik Abasiyanik dies in Istanbul.

1957 -- Mao Tse-tung writes his poem "Reply to Madame Li Shu-yi."

1958 -- Last Poet's Follies, San Francisco.

1960 -- Argentina: Adolf Eichmann kidnapped by Israeli agents. As head of the Gestapo Department IV B4 for Jewish Affairs, responsible for keeping the trains rolling, he dispatched millions of Jews to death camps. Brought to trial in Jerusalem, he claimed only to be following orders — a good bureaucrat. Convicted, & hanged in 1962, his last words were, reportedly, "I had to obey the rules of war & my flag."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann

1961 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Liberal JFK sends 500 more US advisers to South Vietnam & orders clandestine warfare against the North & infiltration of South Vietnamese into Laos.

1962 -- Jerry R. Hollerman, a Kennedy administration Assistant Secretary of Labor, resigns after admitting he accepted a $1,000 "personal expense" check from swindler Billy Sol Estes (see 5 April).

1962 -- US: The FBI names Martin Luther King, Jr. a Communist scheduled for arrest in a national emergency.

1962 -- Canada: RCMP arrests nine Sons of Freedom Doukhobors for bombing a power station, Trail, BC; they are sentenced to 15 years in prison.
http://www.usccdoukhobors.org/about.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp5umD3HA8k

1963 -- US: KKK rally just outside of Birmingham, Alabama & the bombings of Reverend A.D. King's home (Martin Luther King's brother), & the Gaston Motel, followed by a riot around the motel area.

1963 -- Patagonia: Antonio 'El Gallego' Soto Canalejo (1897-1963) dies. Militant anarchist & anarcosindicalista. See O Galego Soto, Lider Da Patagonia Rebelde (Gallego Soto, Leader of Rebel Patagonia) by Lois Pérez Leira, Dolores Vieites Torreiro, Osvaldo Bayer & Manuel Mera. See also the films Patagonia, utopía libertaria & La Patagonia Rebelde (based on the book by Osvaldo Bayer).
http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/2z35m3
http://espanoladasyole.blogspot.com/2011/08/un-gallego-en-la-patagonia.html
http://www.revistaenie.clarin.com/ideas/Antonio-Soto-Lois-Perez-Leira-gallego-rebelde-Patagonia_0_505749431.html
Film trailers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3LkowDLhB4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NKFiGj_DYI&feature=endscreen&NR=1
La Patagonia Rebelde (complete film) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z-FcJcC_xU

1966 -- Spain: Barcelona police disperse antigovernment demonstrators (students & priests).

1966 -- Teamsters union end a 4-week strike that disrupted Ontario transport.

1967 -- US: Jackson State Riot Number One. One student killed & two wounded as cops fire into a crowd after rioters storm a police barricade. The Mississippi National Guard is called in to quell the violence.

1967 -- US: Vanguard Records party at Fillmore Auditorium for Country Joe & the Fish, in Frisco, California.
http://www.countryjoe.com/
http://www.sftoday.com/enn2/summerlove2.htm

1968 -- France: In Paris, The "Night of the Barricades," May 10-11.

The students are now calling everything into question, generating an enormous enthusiasm for the re-examination & criticism of all aspects of public & private life.

Their actions lead to the three biggest French labor federations calling a General Strike to support students, on May 13.

http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/5
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/6.everyday.htm
http://www.hootpage.com/hoot_therev_lyrics.html

Saturday, May 11, sees the decisive battle & the defeat of the Government. There is ferocious fighting, barricades are set up by the students & cars overturned to form a barrier. It is a night of the barricades which the capital has not witnessed since the Commune days of 1870.

After a hurried conference with de Gaulle, Pompidou, the Prime Minister, announces concessions. The student unions are not impressed, calling them 'extremely interesting' but they would wait to see if their comrades are to be released.

From all reports the population of the Latin Quarter is solidly backing the students. They shower debris over the police & water over the students to minimise the effect of chlorine gas grenades. The demonstrators are issued a leaflet on how to protect themselves against tear gas. They take an anti-flu pill before demonstrating & when the gas grenades start flying, apply lemon-soaked handkerchiefs & smeared bicarbonate of soda around their eyes.

The brutality of the police horrifies reporters. Photographs show policemen clubbing students on the ground, blood streaming from their faces. But the students fought back, kicking gas grenades back to the police, & the police tried to protect their faces from thrown stones with what looks like fencing masks.

The French Government is desperately trying to cope with a revolutionary situation forced by the students — now supported by the working class.

The general strike is called on the tenth anniversary of de Gaulle's assumption of power, on the day that the Vietnam 'peace talks' were to provide him with added glory. The adulation in Sunday's British Press was an indication of the treatment he was to be given & still got without a reference to the upheavals!

The students also have to fight off the dubious & belated embrace of the Communist Party & all those now climbing on the bandwagon.
11 mai 68 Georges Pompidou revient d'Afghanistan et fait libérer les manifestants.
Les étudiants occupent Censier.

http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/12.era1.htm
http://www.42explore2.com/1968.htm

1968 -- Italy: 3,000 protesters march in Rome.

1968 -- Germany: 50,000 students & workers march in Bonn.
Len Bracken: ''One truly amazing aspect of May '68 was the way the protest encircled the globe..."

[Details / context]

1968 -- US: Caravans arrive in Washington DC for the start of the Poor People's Campaign; Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr.'s designated successor, & the Southern Christian Leadership Corps are granted a permit for an encampment on the Mall.
Eventually, despite nearly a solid month of rain, over 2,500 people will eventually occupy Resurrection City. On June 24th the site is raided by police, 124 occupants arrested, & the encampment demolished.

[Source: WholeWorld is Watching]

1968 -- Canada: 4,500 British Columbia lumber workers end a 7-month strike.

1970 -- US: Augusta, Georgia police kill six blacks protesting prison brutality, provoked by the beating death of Charles Oatman in the Richmond County jail.

1970 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Cross-Dress-Code FBI honcho-hunk J. Edgar Hoover says students killed at Kent State "got what they deserved".

1972 -- England: Death of pacifist activist Gerald Bailey.

1972 -- US: The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reverses most of the contempt convictions of the Chicago Seven & their two defense attorneys, Leonard Weinglass & William Kunstler. Jail time is voided for the remainder of the citations.
Source: [Chicago '68: A Chronology]

1972 -- Vietnam: South Vietnamese President Thieu declares martial law, while up to the north, the US activates previously dropped mines in Haiphong harbor.

1972 -- On "The Dick Cavett Show" John Lennon says the FBI is wire-tapping him.

1973 -- US: Charges against Daniel Ellsberg are dropped; Ellsberg had secretly copied & made available secret government files relating to the Vietnam War . Published as "The Pentagon Papers," they caused a major scandal because of the decades of government lies, duplicity & deception being foisted on the citizenry.
The Pentagon Papers "big bang" led to a series of events that would forever change America. The Nixon people were so threatened by the great outbreak of truth that they organized a goon squad, the Plumbers to go after me & Ellsberg ...

— Anthony Joseph Russo

http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Ellsberg/ells.QA99.leak.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers

1975 -- US: 80,000 turn out in New York's Central Park to celebrate the end of the Vietnam War.

1980 -- Sweden: Agreement is reached in massive strikes & lockouts after 16 days.

1980 -- Henry Hill is arrested in the movie "Goodfellas."

1981 -- In Miami's Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, reggae star Bob Marley, 36, dies. Succumbs to a brain tumor that ended his career in October 1980. Regarded a hero both in Jamaica & abroad. Will be given a state funeral & buried near his birthplace in St. Ann's Parish, Jamaica.
http://www.bobmarley.com/

1983 -- Canada: Crabby!? A mob of 100 fishermen burns & sinks two fisheries patrol boats in Nova Scotia to protest lobster quotas.

1983 -- Chile: & in 1982 the textile workers went on strike after many years of fear; the Government couldn't intimidate them with repression any longer. They decided to risk police brutality for the sake of the whole workers' movement . . .
The strike kept on going until its bitter end. On May 11th (1983) a solidarity strike was called: at 2pm workers would go straight to home, children wouldn't go to school, teachers wouldn't give any lessons, people wouldn't buy anything & vehicles would march slowly through the streets. At nightfall, lights would be extinguished & people would march hitting empty pots. Everything happened as planned, although there were some incidents at the universities. At 8pm the sound of empty pots began. The police tried to silence it by throwing tear gas bombs at the buildings. Two were killed in La Victoria (a popular neighbourhood) & Lo Plaza, & 600 were arrested with several wounded. Between 1983 & 1984 mass protests became more frequent & the people defended themselves against the police with molotovs, stones & barricades.

Anarchists were, of course, involved in these uprisings but they did not especially try to spread their ideas...
http://recollectionbooks.com/cs/index.htm#chile
http://libcom.org/history/1872-1995-anarchism-in-chile

1986 -- Honduras: Cristobal Perez Diaz, trade-union leader, is found murdered.

1986 -- US: Printer, typographer Frederic William Goudy, 82, is fontless.
http://www.linotype.com/search/Goudy#63df89b2fbf00e15b510258de4d2262e

1989 -- US: Puget Sound Grocery Workers (Seattle, Washington) strike & lockout.

1989 -- US: Panama: Government calls election void; Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Pres. George Bush orders 2,000 combat troops to Panama "to protect" US citizens.

1991 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Bush sends 7,550 US marines to Bangladesh to help with typhoon cleanup.

1993 -- Iraqi VP Taha Modehin Maruf says 250,000 have died from UN sanctions.

1993 -- US: 80 are arrested at UCLA as Chicano-studies demonstration turns violent.

1994 -- Yemen: A Scud missile hits Sanaa, North Yemen; there are 53 casualties.

1996 -- England: March against black on black violence, Birmingham.

1996 -- Brazil: 55 police are indicted for the April massacre of peasants.

1997 -- IBM's Deep Blue defeats chess champ Garry Kasparov in 6-games during the second chess match between Deep Blue & Kasparov. 3.5-2.5. Next up, Bill Gates.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/22/gary-kasparov-on-chess-me_n_432043.html
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/deepblue/
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/472_html/Intro/ChessContents.html

1999 -- Russia & China call for an end to Serbian bombing; NATO increases it.

1999 -- Pakistan: Marxist political theorist Eqbal Ahmad dies, Islamabad.
Source: Autonomedia Calendar

2001 -- Ghana: Hundreds of youths have attacked police stations in Accra, & set fire to kiosks & tyres in protest of the police role in last Wednesday's football stadium tragedy in the city. The demonstrators blame police for sparking the stampede in which at least 126 football fans died. The police chief issued an apology for police actions.

2001 -- Don't Panic?! Douglas Adams takes the Big Hike, aged 49. Author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy which was five books ("So long & thanks for all the books" — Robert Braunwart), about the adventures of a fella traveling the universe & using a handy dandy guide (The Daily Bleed?!) to help him out. The guide was inscribed with the useful advice "Don't Panic." Adams died of a heart attack while exercising (Reader Beware!!). Detective Dirk Gently is investigating this unlikely scenario...

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry ..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaphod_Beeblebrox
http://www.floor42.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jun/09/douglasadams

2001 -- US: Emmett Watson, "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" columnist, dies at 82. Lesser Seattle is Lesser without him.

2002 -- Israel: 50,000 Jews protest the government occupations of the West Bank & Gaza.
While many American Jews have donned war-paint in support of Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Ariel Sharon's terrorism on Palestinians, Israeli novelist Amos Oz today describes Sharon & Yasser Arafat as "miserable leaders" & calls for their replacement & for establishing a "peace party."

4500 --
https://www.freespeech.org/

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