PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 10

On this day in 48 BC, Roman dictator Julius Caesar barely avoids a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in Macedonia during the Battle of Dyrrhachium. The circumstances surrounding this battle were phenomenally complicated.

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On this day in 1212, London burns to the ground. Thousands perish in the blaze, which would be known as the Great Fire of London until 1666, when an even bigger fire came along to steal its thunder.

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On this day in 1821, the United States takes formal possession of Florida, which had been recently purchased from Spain. Imagine how pissed off they were when they got there and realized it was mostly swampland!

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On this day in 1832, US President Andrew Jackson vetoes a bill that would re-charter the Second Bank of the United States. Failing to secure recharter, the Second Bank became a private corporation in 1836, and underwent liquidation in 1841.

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On this day in 1890, Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state, thus paving the way for the possibility of Vice Preznit Dick Cheney. And also his daughter, Wyoming's former Representative, Liz Cheney. I'm not a fan of her politics, but she is a rare specimen - a Republican with a backbone! Respect!

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On this day in 1921, 16 people are killed and 161 houses destroyed during rioting and gun battles in Belfast, Northern Ireland in an event that will forever be remembered in Ireland (and by U2 fans curious enough to research the meaning of certain song lyrics) as Bloody Sunday.

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On this day in 1925 the so-called Monkey Trial begins in Dayton, Tennessee. John Scopes, a young high school science teacher, is accused of teaching his students evolution, which was a violation of Tennessee law. He actually lost the case, which is ironic when you consider that people in Tennessee are less evolved than the people in most other states. And unless you've been there and seen for yourself, don't contradict me on this.

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On this day in 1925, the guru Meher Baba begins his silence of 44 years. His followers observe Silence Day on this date in commemoration.

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On this day in 1962, the world's first communications satellite, called TELStar, is launched into orbit. 

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On this day in 1973, filthy rich Illuminati bloodline scion John Paul Getty III, grandson of the oil magnate J. Paul Getty, is kidnapped by Calabrese gangsters in Rome, Italy. The whole ordeal - involving cheapskate negotiation tactics by the elder Getty, even after the kidnappers cut off and mailed in one of John Paul's ears - is rather insane, and you can read all about it here.

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On this day in 1985, the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland harbor by "elite" French military agents, killing Portuguese photographer Fernando Pereira in the process. It is the French military's finest hour since the days of Napoleon.

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On this day in 1985, after a mere three months of sticking to their guns, the Coca-Cola Company announces they will be bringing back Coca-Cola Classic, in what many take to be a full-blown admission that the decision to change the Coca-Cola recipe - sparking a nationwide Coca-Cola hoarding crisis - was sheer idiocy, regardless of what they paid Bill Cosby to say about it on the TV. New Coke, which was sold alongside Coca-Cola Classic for a while, was soon euthanized without fanfare... or hoarding.

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On this day in 1989, one of the most familiar voices in the world - dozens of them, actually - is silenced when Warner Bros. cartoon veteran Mel Blanc dies at the age of 81. The next day, in the trade paper Variety, some true gentleman at Warner Bros. takes out a two-page/one-word tribute/eulogy for their old friend, an image which to this day is capable of turning yer old pal Jerky into a blubbering, snot-bubble-popping wreck. I don't know why... it just gets me every time. It is reproduced above. Enjoy.

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On this day in 1992, President George Herbert "Poppy" Walker Bush has one of his many CIA criminal co-conspirators, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, locked up for 40 years on drug and racketeering charges. It's a wonder he didn't end up dead, when you think about it. Hey, hold on a second… has anybody checked his cell lately? Dead in 2017? Maybe old Manuel is kickin' back, sipping boat drinks with Ken Lay, dead in 2006, on that fortified Costa Rican compound where The Powers That Be send all their invisible heavies these days.

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On this day in 2000, 250 villagers in Nigeria are killed in a massive fireball explosion while scavenging gasoline from a cracked petroleum pipeline. Don't laugh... the way gas prices are going, you'll be doing the same thing soon enough.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JUNE 10

On this day in 323 BC, after conquering almost the entirety of the known world and leaving scores of cities re-named in his honor, Macedonian legend-king Alexander the Great passes away at the ripe old age of 33.

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On this day in the year 1692, a woman named Bridget Bishop becomes the first person to be hanged for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. In all, 20 people have their lives cut short by their former friends and neighbors before somebody points out how fucking retarded it is to hang people for no good reason. Who says small town country living is safe?

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On this day in 1886, New Zealand’s Mount Tarawera erupts, killing 153 people and destroying the famous Pink and White Terraces, considered by many of those who were lucky enough to see them to be a strong contender for the Eighth Wonder of the Natural World. Wish I could have frolicked in them.

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On this day in 1977, James Earl Ray – the man who may or may not have assassinated Martin Luther King Jr – escapes from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee, only to be captured three days later.

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On this day in 1985, French agents restore a sense of pride to the nation's much maligned military by blowing up the un-armed Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior. A photographer drowns when he tries to retrieve his equipment from the rapidly sinking ship.

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On this day in 1991, an 11-year-old girl named Jaycee Lee Dugard is kidnapped by Phillip Craig Garrido and his wife, Nancy, in South Lake Tahoe, California. Dugard would remain missing for more than 18 years, during which time she would be held against her will in a secure area on Garrido’s property and forced to father two daughters by her captor and tormentor.

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On this day in 2002, the first “direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans” is carried out by the intensely creepy post-humanist pseudo-philosopher cum scientism evangelist Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom. Trust me, folks… when it comes to individuals whose hubris and massive blind spots could potentially wreak untold havoc on the entire planetary ecosphere, this guy is on the short list.

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Also on this day in 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft takes to the airwaves to announce the arrest of US citizen Abdullah al-Mujahir - a.k.a. Jose Padilla - allegedly over his being part of an al-Qaeda plot to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in a US city. Padilla was held as an “enemy combatant” for over a year, and subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques (a euphemism for torture) before the major charges against him were dropped for lack of merit, and he was tried for other transgressions in civilian court in 2007. Of particular note is the fact that authorities kept him strapped into a "sensory deprivation rig" whenever he was being transported from place to place, so he would never know whether his family (who were not allowed to meet with him) were there to support him. A nice, petty, Bush-era touch of malignant hubris.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR MAY 27

Are you fucking shitting me?!

On this day in 1919, the Curtiss NC-4 "flying boat" aircraft arrives in Lisbon, Portugal, completing the first-ever transatlantic flight. It took 19 days, including time for numerous repairs and for crewmen's rest, with stops along the way in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Azores Islands. This accomplishment was unfortunately eclipsed in minds of the public by the first nonstop transatlantic flight, made by British Royal Air Force pilots John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, two weeks later.

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On this day in 1930, the Chrysler Building opens its doors in New York City. At the time, it was the tallest man-made structure on Earth, and it remains one of the most symbolically potent. So, hey, why not build your own?

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On this day in 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaims an unlimited national emergency in response to Nazi Germany's threats of total global domination.

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On this day in 1962, an out-of-control garbage dump incineration sets an abandoned coal mine ablaze beneath the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. That fire still burns, to this very day.

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On this day in 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Paula Jones can pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President  Bill Clinton while he is still in office. Considering the implications, it is their second worse decision of the past 30 years, surpassed only by their decision in Bush v. Gore, 2000.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR MAY 1

The first day in the month of May is celebrated as May Day – also known as International Workers’ Day – almost everywhere in the world, with the most glaring exception being the nation whose citizens’ blood fertilized the soil of its inception: the United States of America.

First suggested at the first congress of the world socialist Second International in 1889, May Day was meant to commemorate Chicago’s infamous Haymarket Massacre of three years prior, in which dozens of labor demonstrators were gunned down by police after one of them allegedly threw a dynamite bomb.

The holiday was formally recognized as an annual event at the International's second congress in 1891. Three years later, following a particularly nasty Wall Street panic, the May Day Riots took place in Cleveland, OH. Ten years later, in 1904, the International Socialist Conference meeting in Amsterdam called on "all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on May First for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace."

Considering its origins and history, it shouldn't be too surprising that The Powers That Be have never had much love for May Day. Right-wing governments, invariably favoring Capital over Labor, have historically downplayed the holiday’s significance, often celebrating “Labour/Labor Day” on another day – for instance, as in the USA and Canada, on the first Monday of September.

Unfortunately, simply shifting the holiday to a different spot on the calendar left folks with nothing to celebrate on the first day of May. The solution? How about the one-two punch of Law Day and Loyalty Day? Yes, that’s right, in the late 50’s, Republican President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower and his Republican-led Congress created these two (count’em!) brand spanking new holidays to take people’s minds off the central role labor has played in human progress over the years!

Of course, the above covers the “Red Root” (Labor) version of May Day. There exists another, “Green Root” (Pagan) version of the holiday, related to the sex-heavy Celtic festival of Beltane and the somewhat less sexy Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night (which is named after a Saint, after all). Some of the more hard-core versions of this European celebration were done away with after Christianization, but surviving traditions usually involve dancing around a Maypole – representative of either a Sacred Tree or a giant phallus, depending on who you ask – and other fertility-related activities, such as presenting gifts of flowers to loved ones. Beltane, specifically, involves ritual purification through fire, and if you've seen the The Wicker Man (1973), you already know how much fun that can be.

ALSO ON THIS DAY

On this day in 1776, a Jesuit-trained Bavarian philosopher by the name of Adam Weishaupt adopts the name Spartacus and establishes a secret society which he dubs the Order of Perfectibilists, more popularly known as the Illuminati. Both Weishaupt and his long-defunct organization remain as poorly understood today as they were by their contemporaries, a point underscored by the fact that Thomas Jefferson counted himself an unabashed admirer.

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On this day in 1863, the Confederate Congress passes a resolution declaring no Black Union soldiers may be taken prisoner. Instead, all Black soldiers are to be shot on sight. And yet, some people still try to make believe the Civil War was about "state's rights," and had nothing to do with the institution of slavery. Go figure!

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On this day in 1915, the RMS Lusitania departs from New York City for her 222nd – and final – crossing of the Atlantic. Six days later, a torpedo launched from a German submarine would sink her off the coast of Ireland, killing twelve hundred. 128 of the dead were Americans, which caused an about-face in the US population’s doggedly non-interventionist stance vis-à-vis the Great War. Within months, Americans would be dying in their thousands in the hideous, Satanic meat-grinder of trench warfare, ostensibly to avenge the deaths of those unlucky dozens.

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On this day in 1930, the Solar System’s ninth planet is saddled with the decidedly Hellish name Pluto, borrowed from the Greek Lord of the Underworld. Upon their discoveries, Pluto’s moons would be given the similarly Stygian monikers Charon, Nix and Hydra. Who makes these decisions?! Later, much to the public's dismay (and misunderstanding) the Planetary Union demote Pluto to planetoid, leaving Niburu (yet to be found, though calculations SUGGEST it is there) to become the 9th planet, eventually.

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On this day in 1945 a German newsreader announces that Adolf Hitler has "fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany.” 

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On this day in 1948, The "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" – a.k.a. North Korea – is established by “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung. Folks, you couldn't pack more irony into a single sentence if you tried. Today, 75 years and two generations of despotism later, North Korea retains its title as quite possibly the single most fucked up nation on a planet that is known for being home to some incredibly fucked up nations. The USA falls uncomfortably high on that same list now. Time for someone else to become well-hung as well.

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On this day in 1956, the polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public. And we all lived happily ever after.

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On this day in 1960, a Lockheed U-2 spy-plane being piloted by American Francis Gary Powers is shot down over the Soviet Union. Powers survives by ejecting, and his U-2 glides to a soft crash-landing that leaves it frustratingly intact, allowing the Soviets to learn everything about the plane's structure and abilities when they pick it apart. Powers is interrogated for months, then forced to confess to espionage. He was sentenced to 10 years hard labor at a Soviet work camp, but ended up serving less than 8 months before being sent back to the USA in a spy-swap. After a different kind of rough landing back home (he was interrogated by hostile officials from the CIA, Pentagon, a few Senate committees and even Lockheed!), Powers continued his aviation career until 1977, when he died while heroically ditching his helicopter rather than risk a crash-landing in a field where children were playing..

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On this day, in 1986, Russia finally tells the rest of the world about the nuclear accident at Chernobyl… five days after what was at that time the worst meltdown in the history of nuclear power. Much to the delight of the Ukrainian Tourism Bureau, “Fukushima” is poised to replace “Chernobyl” as short-hand for “FUBAR Nuclear No-Go-Zone”.

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And, finally, on this day in 2003, Americans celebrate "Mission Accomplished Day" when Preznit Dubya appears before a cheering crowd of soldiers on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in full padded-crotch regalia to declare that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” Sadly, nothing could have been further from the truth.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR APRIL 20

On this day in 1939, Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday is celebrated as a national holiday in Nazi Germany. Six years later, in 1945, Hitler makes his final trip to the surface of the Fuhrerbunker in order to award Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth. After returning underground, he would never resurface alive.

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On this day in 1914, the Colorado National Guard and a goon squad hired by the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company march on a tent colony of striking miners and their families. Before the night was through, nineteen people – including eleven children – would be killed in an event that would come to be known as the Ludlow Massacre.

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On this day in 1939, jazz singer Billie Holiday records what many people consider to be the first Civil Rights song, Strange Fruit. Give it a listen; it’s real good.

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On this day in 1968, English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial “Rivers of Blood” speech, in which he takes a giant crap all over the UK’s surging non-White population. Give it a listen; it’s real bad.

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On this day in 1998, the left-wing German terrorist group Red Army Faction, also known as Baader-Meinhof, announces its dissolution after 28 years. Seeing as most of the terrorist attacks attributed to them (and many other left-wing European groups) were actually committed under the aegis of Gladio, a clandestine fascist remnant, they needn't really have bothered. This documentary is a good starting point if you want to understand the truth about the evolution of Western Civilization in the latter half of the 20th century.

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On this day in 1999, psycho-teens Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold live out the revenge fantasy dreams of Doom-playing teenage gun-nut Rammstein fans everywhere when they go on a record-breaking rampage at Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado. They left 13 dead and two dozen seriously wounded in their wake, before turning their guns on themselves. But they had even bigger plans. According to police reports at the time, Eric and Dylan wanted to – get this – hijack a couple jumbo jets, fly them to New York city, and crash them into skyscrapers. Perhaps if they had achieved their goal, 9/11 wouldn't have happened, seeing as no suicide-hijacker worth his salt wants to be thought of as a rip-off artist.

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On this day in 2010, British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil well explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last for six freaking months. Here is a rundown of all the conspiracy theories that have grown up around this generation-staining ecological holocaust.

ZIZEK JOINS THE GROWING CHORUS OF INTELECTUALLY RIGOROUS APOCALYPTIC ANGST

THIS DAY IN PARAPOLITICAL HISTORY - APRIL 22

On April 22 in the year 1864, Congress passes the Coinage Act, which mandates that, from that day forward, all United States currency should be inscribed with the motto: "In God We Trust." Which God, exactly, is a matter still up for debate.

On this day in the year 1912, the first issue of Pravda, the voice of the Bolsheviks in the soon-to-be Soviet Union, is published in Saint Petersburg. Seeing as this was in pre-revolutionary Russia, the tone of discourse and the level of philosophical rhetoric was pretty elevated. The comics section, however, was just sad.

On this day in the year 1954, live television coverage of witness testimony during the Congressional Army-McCarthy Hearings begins...as does the Red Scare, in earnest.

On this day in the year 1970, the first ever Earth Day is celebrated... by PAGANS!!!

On this day in the year 2000, absolutely nobody is hurt when 6-year-old Elián González is rescued from the clutches of his celebrity-craving relatives' home in Miami, Florida, after a lightning raid by federal agents... the SAVAGES!!!

On this day in 2010, British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon oil rig sinks to the bottom of the Gulf Of Mexico after suffering a blowout two days previous. This precipitates the largest oil spill in U.S. history... and we've already all but forgotten about it.

And, finally, it was on this day in the year 2011 that you finally learned the difference between England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, by watching the video, below...

IS GLOBAL WARMING CAUSING ALL THESE MONSTER QUAKES?

Might this article from 2006 - in which University of Alberta geologist Patrick Wu says the loss of polar ice volume will lead to increased global earthquake activity - qualify as a secular prophecy of sorts? Did Wu foretell, in a roundabout way, the disastrous, deadly, monstrous quakes that have hit Haiti, Chile, New Zealand and Japan? These four major quakes have all hit in the last 2 years - an unprecedented "close clustering" for events of this magnitude.

In the article, Wu is quoted as saying:

"What happens is the weight of this thick ice puts a lot of stress on the earth. The weight sort of suppresses the earthquakes, but when you melt the ice the earthquakes get triggered."

Now, I am fully aware that there is a robust and thriving skeptic community working hard to deny the prevailing wisdom / scientific consensus about Global Warming - especially as concerns the issue of "Anthropogenic Global Warming", the idea that human behaviors are to blame. Some in the parapolitical and conspiracy communities suspect that "AGW" is nothing more than an elaborate hoax perpetrated by genocidal elites, that it is nothing more or less than the laying of groundwork for the future implementation of horrific depopulation schemes to weed out the riffraff, the great unwashed, we "useless eaters". 

As the name of this blog implies, I am certainly not prepared to dismiss out of hand the idea that there are very powerful forces working behind the scenes that would dearly love to dump a bunch of herbicide all over the Great Human Garden. This does not mean, however, that I - or anyone else - should automatically subscribe to any theory that fits into the gestalt of that particular suspicion. That would simply be a variation on the age-old logical fallacy known as "confirmation bias", and any serious student of parapolitics needs to be ever-vigilant not to fall prey to its powerful lure.

In short, we should always, all of us, seek out the very best information possible. And currently, as far as my research has shown me, the Global Warming Skeptics community just isn't cutting the mustard. The majority of them are brain-whores (thought-stitutes?) whose work on the subject - mostly op-eds, hardly ever peer-reviewed - is bought and paid for by the very industry lobbies and corporations that either a) are major contributers to the problem, or b) depend on continued government inaction to maintain their profitability. 

And so, until someone comes along and convincingly debunks this excellent and thorough debunking of the Global Warming "debunkers", I'm going to stick with the eggheads on this one.