The Daily Bleed: Vernon Richards, August Spies, Haymarket anarchists, David Edelshtat, CNT, Emma Goldman, Arthur Bortolotti

O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

— William Blake

Where there's no future, how can there be sin?
We're the flowers in the dustbin

— The Sex Pistols

DECEMBER 10
HENNING CHRISTIANSEN
Danish avant-garde composer, radical Fluxus collaborator.

The ancient Roman festival of LUX MUNDI (Light of the World) celebrates the goddess of Liberty.

USA: NATIONAL LAGER DAY. Heads Up Hodads!

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ALL WRONG DAY.

Point Hope, Alaska: Merry Inuit FESTIVAL FOR THE SOULS OF DEAD WHALES.

http://www.perp.com/whale/video.html

--

1593 -- Italian archaeologist Antonio Bosio first descends into the subterranean Christian burial chambers, located under the streets of Rome. Bosio was dubbed the "Columbus of the Catacombs" & his books long remained the standard work on the underground tombs of the early Roman Church.

1777 -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe hikes up the Brocken, the highest summit in the Harz mountains (Germany), in spite of the cold & snow. He reports the climb in a letter to his friend, Charlotte von Stein. It inspires his famous poem "Harzreise im Winter."
There is nothing more odious than the majority.

It consists of a few powerful men who lead the way; of accommodating rascals & submissive weaklings; & of a mass of men who trot after them without in the least knowing their own minds.

1787 -- Thomas H. Gallaudet, pioneer of educating the deaf, lives.

1805 -- Abolitionist, journalist William Lloyd Garrison lives.
Daily Bleed Patron Saint 1997
Abolitionist, proto-feminist, indigenous rights agitator.

1824 -- George Macdonald, Scottish novelist (Lilith), lives.

1830 -- Poet, recluse Emily Dickinson lives, Amherst, Massachusetts.
"If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry."

http://www.sappho.com/poetry/e_dickin.html
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/emilydic.htm

1865 -- August Spies lives; one of the Haymarket anarchists, labor agitator, victim of anti-anarchist repression.
Daily Bleed Patron Saint 2004-2008
Haymarket anarchist conspirator, martyr.

"The day will come when our silence

will be more powerful than the voices

you are throttling today."

— August Spies

"That I have made myself generally obnoxious to the extortionists & fleecers during my management of the Arbeiter Zeitung [the Chicago German labor newspaper Spies edited] — this I need hardly add... I am proud of the enemies, & no less of the friends I have made.

"A time will come, when from our coffins
"Will rise a powerful voice,
"Stronger than that which you want now to choke,
"A thousand times stronger, more striking!"

These were the last words of Spies...
Hangmen, what do you gain from this?
Did you annihilate the spiritual giant?
Did you extinguish the sun?

"August Spies," by David Edelshtat (Oct 10, 1890; translated from Yiddish by Ori Kiritz) from Kiritz's The Poetics of Anarchy: David Edelshtat's Revolutionary Poetry. (Frankfurt: Lang, Europaischer Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1997.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Spies
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAspies.htm

1869 -- US: Wyoming is first territory to grant women the right to vote.

1879 -- Ernest Shepard, the illustrator for A. A. Milne's Pooh books, lives, London.
"I'll tell you why you bastard," screamed Pooh, "It serves you right, hiding behind doors & jumping out, & scaring the shit out of people."

Pooh Goes Apeshit - A classic Internet tale. While it has satanic overtones (depending on your point of view) it does not mention anything satanic in the actual document. Written by an anonymous PUE working at IBM, Warwick, in 1987.

1891 -- Nelly Sachs lives, Berlin. German poet/dramatist, Nobel winner ("O the Chimneys").

Transformed by the Nazi experience into a poignant spokesperson for her fellow Jews. Her most famous work is "O die Schornsteine" ("O the Chimneys"), in which Israel's body drifts upward as smoke from the Nazi death camps. Recipient of the 1966 Nobel Prize for Literature (shared with S. Y. Agnon).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelly_Sachs
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/nsachs.htm

1896 -- Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, dies.

1896 -- "Ubu Roi," Alfred Jarry's obscene farce, opens in Paris. Scatological references, pompous style, & bastardized French cause the audience to riot.

"Ubu Roi," a grotesque farce about Père Ubu, a gluttonous, greedy, & cruel individual who slaughters the royal family of Poland, opens in Paris. The play's scatological references, pompous style, & bastardized French cause the audience to riot.

Yesterday a riot occurred at dress rehearsal during Jarry's curtain speech.

1898 -- In France, the Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Spanish-American War & granting the US its first overseas empire. Spain cedes the Philippines, Puerto Rico, & Guam to the Americans.
Utah's original quota of volunteers was 425, but by the end of the conflict Utah had sent 800 troops.

The war erupted in April of 1898, after the US demanded the withdrawal of Spain from Cuba. Spain's brutal response to Cuban rebellion against Spanish rule, a mysterious explosion of the US battleship Maine in Havana harbor, heavy losses to American investment caused by the conflict, & yellow journalism are factors that all intensified US feeling against Spain.

When the news of the stunning victory reached home, Americans cheered ecstatically. Dewey, "the conqueror of the Philippines," became an instant national hero. Stores soon filled with merchandise bearing his image.

Few Americans knew what & where the Philippines were, but the press assured them that the islands were a welcome possession.

1901 -- The first Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature & peace. The awards were devised by Alfred Nobel, who regretted the damage he had done mankind through his inventions of dynamite & other explosives.

1903 -- Children's writer most famous for her series on the Borrowers, Mary Norton, lives, London, England. The complete miniature universe Norton creates earns her comparison to such imaginative writers as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, & Lewis Carroll.

1903 -- Author William Plomer lives.

1904 -- Russian doctor Ivan Pavlov wins Nobel Prize for Physiology. Inspires drooling contests.

1904 -- US: The first & single number of L'Effort appears in San Francisco, California. Published by the French anarchist group Germinal, intended to replace the French language supplement to Protesta Umana which folded with the death of its publisher, Giuseppe Ciancabilla.
"L'Effort combat les grands mots creux, tels que Dieu, Religion, Patrie, Drapeau, Gouvernement, Honneur, etc. qui ont maintenu depuis des siècles, les hommes à l'état d'enfants en tutelle et les fit toujours se dévorer mutuellement."

— Extrait

Masthead: premier number, Acratie, le 5 décembre 1908
courtesy Ephéméride Anarchiste

1906 -- US: IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) sponsors first sit-down strike in the US, at a General Electric plant in Schenectady, New York. The method was adopted by the labor movement in the 1930s, with the Flint Sit-Down Strike being one of the most famous.

"When they tie the can to a union man,
Sit Down! Sit Down!
When they give him the sack they'll take him back,
Sit Down! Sit Down!
When the speed-up come, just twiddle your thumbs,
Sit Down!, Sit Down!
When the boss wont talk don't take a walk,
Sit Down! Sit Down!"
— Maurice Sugar
(Maurice Sugar was a prominent labor & civil rights attorney, General Counsel of the UAW, & songwriter, authoring the famous songs, "Soup Song" & "Sit Down."; See Maurice Sugar : law, labor, & the left in Detroit, 1912-1950 by Christopher H. Johnson)
http://www.iww.org/

1907 -- Novelist Rumer Godden (Black Narcissus; In This House of Brede) lives, Lydd House, Aldington, Kent.

1911 -- Few men have met & conquered the obstacles Calbraith Perry Rodgers faced in accepting the challenge of a coast-to-coast flight across the US in 1911 (fewer than 8 years after the Wright brothers made the first successful flights in an airplane).
William Randolph Hearst offered a $50,000 prize to the first pilot to cross North America by air in 30 days....Rodgers miraculously survived several crashes, like one in Indiana, where he broke both legs & ankle, & a collarbone, cracked several ribs. He was thrown from the "Vin Fiz" 15 times during the cross-country flight.
Today he taxied the "Vin Fiz" into the ocean with his crutches lashed to the top of his lower left wing; Rodgers was still recovering from a recent crash.
[Details / context]

1911 -- US: The anarchist feminist Emma Goldman presents a lecture on "Sex, the Element of Creative Work," in New York City.
source: flyer reproduced in The Traffic in Women published by Times Change Press

1919 -- Spain: The Madrid Congress of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT (December 10-20). The questions on the agenda, the quality of the delegates & the sheer number of workers represented (over 600,000) made this the most important congress to date. Dazzled by the Russian Revolution, & despite complaints it was a "political" revolution & did not incorporate the libertarian ideal, the congress voted provisionally to join the Communist International & to send a delegation to the Second Congress of the Third International (Moscow on July 15, 1920).
[Details / context]

1921 -- Socialist Albert Einstein receives Nobel Prize for Physics.
http://www.westegg.com/einstein/

1924 -- Founding of the Society for Human Rights, first Gay Rights Organization.

1929 -- Poet/publisher Harry Crosby takes his life — his bizarre reputation established.
His Black Sun Press in Paris, founded with wife Caresse Crosby, published Hart Crane, Kay Boyle, Rene Crevel, T.S. Eliot, Archibald MacLeish, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce.
http://www.banger.com/crosby/

1929 -- US: Businesses still operating after the Great Crash in October continue to assure people that the future looks rosy. Remember, you heard it here first.
"Never before has American business been as firmly entrenched for prosperity as it is today."
— Charles Schwab, Bethlehem Steel
"This old town should have burned down in 1929
That's when we stood in line
Waiting for our soup
Swallowing our pride."
— Janis Ian & Jon Vezner

1931 -- Jane Addams (first US woman) named co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize.

1936 -- Max Elskamp, an outstanding Belgian Symbolist poet, dies in his hometown of Antwerp.

1936 -- After a lifetime exploring the subconscious of his characters, novelist & dramatist Luigi Pirandello (Six Characters in Search of an Author) dies in Rome. 1934 Nobel winner.
http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc30.html

1938 -- Enrico Fermi riceve il premio Nobel per la fisica e da Stoccolma parte direttamente per gli Stati Uniti. L'Italia non è di certo un luogo vivibile per un cervello come il suo.
Source: [Crimini e Misfatti]

1939 -- Canada: Emma Goldman spends the first two weeks of this month in Winnipeg & speaks five times, reaching 1,400 people in two weeks: once in Yiddish to a women's organization on Living My Life; to a large audience on the Nazi-Soviet Pact; a lecture on Hitler & Stalin; a talk to the IWW; & a lecture on "The Jew in Literature in England until the End of the 19th Century" to the Jewish Woman's Cultural Club.
During this month Emma, with the help of Dorothy Rogers, also attempts to raise $5,000 bail for the anarchist Arthur (Attilio) Bortolotti's release.
[Details / context]

1939 -- US: Bertrand Russell-Rudolf Rocker reception & banquet held in LA. Impressive Opinions by Important Persons About a Significant Book is published as a souvenir of the event held today. (Los Angeles Rocker Publications Committee, 1939, 20 pages. Republished in 1947, 12 pages.)
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/RockerRudolf.htm

1944 -- France: The first public anarchist assembly following the Libération (WWII) is staged today. Organized by the editors of the newly revived newspaper Ce Qu’il Faut Dire (What Must Be Said) & Charles Auguste Bontemps.

http://liveweb.archive.org/http://www.lelibertaire.net/article44.html

1945 -- Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh sends Vietnamese Left Communists & Trotskyists to heaven.

1945 -- "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" first published.
http://www.thebulletin.org/

1948 -- United Nations passes Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

1949 -- Roman Strauss gets the death penalty today.
(in the film, Dead Again.)
http://www.branaghcompendium.com/photos.htm

1950 -- Ralph J. Bunche (first African American) presented Nobel Peace Prize.

1950 -- American novelist William Faulkner receives Nobel Prize. In his acceptance he avers,
"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail."
Kenneth Rexroth told Brad Morrow that he had recommended to Laughlin publication of Faulkner's Light in August & Sanctuary & Isherwood's Berlin Stories & All the Conspirators.
— "An Interview with Kenneth Rexroth" http://recollectionbooks.com/links.html#WilliamFaulkner
http://www.thing.net/~grist/ld/rexroth/rexn01.htm

1956 -- Italy: Exhibiting in Favor of Unitary Urbanism, December 10-15th

Unitary Urbanism

Exhibition featuring work by Sandro Cherchi, Constant, Guy Debord, Jacques Fillon, Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio, Franco Garelli, Asger Jorn, Walter Olmo & Piero Simondo, Turin Cultural Union, Turin.

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/chronology/chronology.html | [Situationist Resources]

1958 -- US: National Airlines opens the first jet passenger service in the US, between New York City & Miami, Florida.

1959 -- The four male members of the Platters are acquitted of charges of aiding & abetting prostitution, lewdness & assignation stemming from their August 10 arrest in Cincinnati. Municipal Court judge Gilbert Bettman, in handing down the decision, tells the black singers:
"You have lost an opportunity to be an example to your people...You have taken that which can be the core of reproductive life & turned it into a socially abhorrent, tawdry indulgence in lust...
For these transgressions you will be accountable in that highest court before which you must in the stand final judgement."

1960 -- Italy: La polizia di stato, su mandato del procuratore della repubblica di Genova, Francesco Coco, perquisisce le sedi di Milano e di Genova del giornale comunista l'Unita. Si cercano lettere di appartenenti alla Guardia di finanza e alla Pubblica sicurezza in cui si esprimono proteste per questioni salAriali e di regolamento. L'obiettivo è di individuare e incriminare i firmatari.
Source: [Crimini e Misfatti]

1961 -- US: Clouds of radioactive steam escape underground nuclear test, closing several New Mexico highways.
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Photos/index.shtml
http://zvis.com/nuclear/ndb/usnuks.shtml
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/facility/nts.htm

1961 -- US: Dec 10-15 SNCC Freedom Rider test of ICC ruling in Albany, Georgia leads to five days of arrests of 469-500 students for marching around city hall. Some 350 choose to stay in jail as part of the Albany movement.

Sheriff Campbell, inviting me into his office a few weeks after that happened, turned & said: "You"re not with the goddam niggers, are you?" I chose not to answer, but asked him about what happened to Attorney King. He stared at me:

"Yeh, I knocked hell out of the son-of-a-bitch, & I'll do it again. I wanted to let him know ... I'm a white man & he's a damn nigger."

— Howard Zinn , You Can't Be Neutral on A Moving Train.

http://zinnedproject.org/
http://www.crmvet.org/crmlinks.htm

1962 -- US: Hunters Point (Frisco, California) jitney ends service after 50 years.

1964 -- US: Several whites sprinkle gasoline over a Ferriday, Louisiana shoe shop, & making certain the black man inside had no possible means of escape, set fire to the place. He subsequently died in a Louisiana hospital.

1964 -- Sam Cooke, rocker, slain at Bates Motel. One of the most popular & influential R&B singers of his generation, dies under violent & mysterious circumstances in Los Angeles.

By the time police arrive, Sam was Cooked.

[Details / context]

1964 -- African-American Martin Luther King, Jr. awarded Nobel Peace Prize.

1965 -- Bill Graham holds second benefit for SF Mime Troupe, at Fillmore (first time there) Fillmore & Geary — 3,500 turn out. Warlocks become "The Grateful Dead," & debut with the new name for the Mime Troupe Appeal Party. The Jefferson Airplane also appears.
http://www.sftoday.com/enn2/summerlove2.htm

1966 -- Vietnam: US planes over South Vietnam accidentally drop two 250-pound bombs on US Marine company, killing 16, wounding 11.

1966 -- Israeli Shmuel Yosef Agnon wins Nobel Prize for literature.

1967 -- Composer, singer Otis Redding, "Sitting on the dock of the bay, just watching the time slip away" —for the last time.

1967 -- US: The first "commercial" atomic bomb is detonated under the New Mexico desert as part of an experiment in natural gas recovery.

1968 -- Trappist monk, writer, poet Thomas Merton (My Arguments with the Gestapo; Zen & the Birds of Appetite; The Seven Story Mountain) accidentally electrocuted, Bangkok, Thailand.
http://edge.edge.net/~dphillip/Merton.html

1971 -- Frank Zappa breaks his leg & ankle & fractures his skull as he is pushed from a London stage by the jealous boyfriend of a Zappa fan. Zappa spent months in a wheelchair recovering. Wrote such highbrow classics as "Broken Hearts are for Assholes," "Camarillo Brillo," "Muffin Man" & "Yo, Mama."
http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/zappa/

1971 -- US: 10 Friday / MC-5 not invited to "Free John (Sinclair) Now" Benefit Concert, *Crisler Arena*, Ann Arbor . 15,000 people attend.
http://makemyday.free.fr/mc5timeline.htm
http://makemyday.free.fr/mc5insf.htm

1974 -- US: Souse & Douse? Representative Wilbur D. Mills, Democrat from Arkansas, resigns as chairman of the Ways & Means Committee in the aftermath of the first truly public sex scandal in American politics.
On October 7 at 2:00 a.m., Mills was stopped by park police... "Fanne Foxe," or the "Argentine Firecracker," then proceeded to jump into the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial & had to be pulled out by the cops.

[Details / context]

1975 -- 14 acquitted of "incitement to disaffection" of soldiers over Northern Ireland, Britain.

1977 -- México: First 61 of 300 Americans held in Mexican prisons on drug charges released in prisoner exchange.

1980 -- US: Second instance of surrogate motherhood reported (Tennessee).

1980 -- US: Radio commentator Paul Harvey scoffs at renewed calls for gun control in the wake of John Lennon's murder. "Well, now, wait a minute," he says.
"Death has claimed a lot of rock musicians prematurely, & none with guns. Keith Moon & Janis Joplin & Jimi Hendrix OD'd on drugs & Elvis Presley & Brian Jones & John Bonham ... Plane crashes killed Jim Croce & Otis Redding & Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Ronnie Van Zant. In fact, Lennon at 40 lived much longer than most of those."
So, it turns out Lennon was really kinda lucky to be repeatedly shot in the back.

1984 -- South African Bishop Desmond Tutu receives his Nobel Peace Prize.
http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?include=docs/misc/2010/umzabalazo.html

1986 -- Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel accepts 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.

1986 -- France: In a festival similar to the ancient Roman festival of Lux Mundi (Light of the World), celebrating the goddess of Liberty, today two police stations are firebombed & cars burnt after an Arab is killed by an off-duty cop, Paris.
Source: [Calendar Riots]

1988 -- Armenia: Massive Earthquake kills 100,000 in cities of Leninakan & Spitak.

1992 -- Indigenous activist, Mayan indian Rigoberta Menchu Tum is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work opposing US-sponsored military dictatorships, terrorism & genocide in Guatemala.
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/maya/menchu.html
http://www.frmt.org/en/

1997 -- US: Twelve arrested at protest of Lockheed-Martin arms exports. Nashua, New Hampshire.

1998 -- US: In the spirit of the massive Spanish-American War Centennial celebrations planned all over America today, Little Grey Men from Texass return the USS Maine to port, back from Bermuda Triangle oblivion.
http://web.tiscalinet.it/andrebalza/
http://www.steelnavy.com/gallery_battleships.htm

1999 -- US: NASA is pleased to announce the discovery of a new feature on the surface of Mars: the Polar Lander Crater. In a related story, the long-distance phone charges to the American public are said to be increasing astronomically though NASA's phones remain inoperable due to Little Grey Y2K bugs.

1999 -- Russia: Anarchists Protest Atop Lenin Mausoleum
MOSCOW, Dec 10, 1999 --

Reuters

Anarchist protesters climbed onto the Lenin mausoleum on Moscow's Red Square on Thursday, a rare demonstration at the holy of holies of the former Soviet Union.

The protesters draped a white banner with the words "Against Everyone" scrawled on it over the large "LENIN" inscription which fronts the mausoleum before policemen hustled them away.

[Details / context]

1999 --

American poet Edward Dorn (b.1929) slings guns no more. Often associated with the Black Mountain poets. Lived in the Pacific Northwest for some years, a mentor & supporter of the musical group Devo, Fulbright lecturer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Dorn
http://www.bigbridge.org/chapbook.htm

2001 --

England: Italian/British anarchist, Vernon Richards dies. Companion to Marie Louise Berneri until her tragic death during childbirth. Author, secondhand bookseller, produce seller, Carrara marble trader, civil engineer, photographer, tour guide, & longtime editor at Freedom Press.

http://panizzi.comune.re.it/Eventi/RICHARDS/freedom
http://web.archive.org.../panizzi.comune.re.it/Eventi/2004/RICHARDS/Mostra/
Photo credit: http://panizzi.comune.re.it/

2006 -- US: Anarchist Anthropology, ongoing discussion group / meetings this month, Jack Pine Center, Minneapolis, Min., partially based on the syllabus worked out by the Anarchist Free University, Toronto, Canada on September 20, 2005. Texts used include Graeber Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology; Franz Boas Social Organization of the Inuit, Kwakiutl; Haida Social & Mythical Discourse; Pierre Clastres Archaeology of Violence, with attention to indigenous cultures such as Inuit, Kwakiutl & Haida societies.

2006 -- Chile: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Augusto Pinochet dies. American government sweetheart, boosted into power & considered responsible for some 5,000 murders of radicals, labor leaders, oppositionists...Pinochet & the US orchestrated the overthrow of a socialist government, ending 150-years of democracy.
Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Henry Kissinger, national security adviser & secretary of state, summed up American policy (actually the attitude of American oligarchy towards democracy generally) this way:
"I don't see why we need to stand by & watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."

...The man in the river

wears a white shirt, dark pants & sprawls
as if sleeping while water riffles his hair.
This is a photograph from the coup or golpe,

meaning also hit or shock — just one death
from thirty thousand.

— Stephen Dobyns, excerpt from "Paco"

http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/dobyns.htm
Amy Goodman, Ask Kissinger about Pinochet's regime
Background materials on the Chilean workers' movement of the 1970s,
http://recollectionbooks.com/cs/index.htm#chile

2007 -- US: Pioneer world music Henrietta Yurchenco dies, NY City.
HENRIETTA YURCHENKO, Patron Saint 2010
Ethnomusicologist, radio broadcaster, folk music pioneer.

http://www.henriettayurchenco.com/

2008 -- Danish avant-garde composer Henning Christiansen dies, Man Island. An active member of the Fluxus-movement, he worked with Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik & many others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henning_Christiansen

2010 -- Day 12 of the WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables leak. Meanwhile, the state of Virginia — home to the CIA, NSA, FBI & Alphabet Soup — is reported to be Googling "WikiLeaks" more than any part of the country.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/10/whos-googling-wikileaks-t_n_795099.html

3000 --

MISCREANT

n. A person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, & its present signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language.

— Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary

3500 --

anti-CopyRite 1997-3000, more or less
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