PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR MAY 22

On this day in 1176, a group of hired killers from Rashideddin Sinan's "Masyaf" branch of the Ismaili Hashshashin sect - also known as the Assassins - make their second attempt to murder Saladin, a world-historic figure who founded the Ayyubid dynasty, ruling Egypt, Syria and beyond. They come close, but fail.

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On this day in 1844, the Báb announces to the world the coming of "He whom God shall make manifest", thus founding the religion of Bábism, a new religious movement that represented a break with traditional Islam, and which was brutally suppressed in Persia. However, since he is considered the forerunner of Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, and seeing as Baha'i still revere the teachings of the Báb, it wasn't a total waste of time.

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On this day in 1856, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks sneaks up on, then beats the high holy hell out of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with a wooden cane because the latter insulted the former's state - as well as his uncle's "honor" - in an anti-slavery speech. It was the first act of physical violence to take place in the Congress, and is considered an important precursor to the Civil War.

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On this day in 1906, the Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine."

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On this day in 1954, Robert Zimmerman - that’s Bob Dylan to you, me, and Jesus - officially becomes a man when he’s Bar Mitzvahed! Mazeltov!

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On this day in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson announces social reforms to bring an "end to poverty and racial injustice in America", calling it the Great Society. Today, the only thing that remains of these reforms is the neoconservative reaction to them.

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On this day in 1968, the Skipjack-class nuclear-powered submarine the USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard 400 miles southwest of the Azores. The Navy still isn't sure what happened.

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On this day in 2002, the remains of Chandra Levy, an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, are found in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. She'd been banging Congressman Gary Condit (D-California) at the time of her disappearance in early 2001, and for a while he was a suspect... in the media, if not officially. Eventually, the September 11 terrorist attacks knocked Levy off the front page and police pinned the murder on illegal Salvadoran immigrant Ingmar Guandique. Case closed.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR APRIL 30

On this day in 1945, in an underground bunker, Adolf Hitler first poisons his wife, Eva Braun, then blows his own brains out with a pistol. Also, today is Walpurgisnacht, or Germany's Witch's Sabbath. Just a friendly reminder to all you devil-worshipers planning to gather in wooded glades in order to offer blood-sacrifices to Wotan the Horned One... stay alive, don't drink and drive!

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On this day in 1966, a former carnival barker by the name of Anton LaVey shaves his head, buys an abandoned insane asylum in San Francisco and converts it into the Church of Satan. Later he would declare: “The Satanic Age started in 1966. That’s when God was proclaimed dead, the Sexual Freedom League came into prominence, and the hippies developed into a free sex culture.” Nothing quite so fun as pulling the squares’ legs, eh, Anton?

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On this day in 1973, President Richard Nixon announces the resignation of top aides Haldeman, Ehrlichman and other co-conspirators, in what was the first in a series of pathetic attempts to offer up scapegoats in lieu of the big enchilada, himself, who would last another year in the White House, despite everything.

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On this day in 1975, Communist forces gain control of Saigon and the Vietnam War formally comes to an end with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh.

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On this day in 1980, upon the abdication of her mother, Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard becomes Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. 29 years later, on this day in 2009, seven people are killed and seventeen injured at a Queen's Day parade in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, when a cuckoo-bird by the name of Karst Tates rams his tiny little Euro-car through the parade route, killing six and mortally injuring himself. Flash forward another four years to this very day, and Queen Beatrix is, herself, abdicating the throne and handing it over to her eldest son, Willem-Alexander, who will be the Netherlands’ first king in 123 years.

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On this day in 1993, deranged tennis fanatic Günter Parche runs onto the court and stabs Monica Seles in the back during a quarterfinal match of the Citizen Cup in Hamburg, Germany.

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On this day in 2004, American media groups release graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR APRIL 19

On this day in 1961, the clandestine invasion of Cuba ends in spectacular failure when JFK refuses to lend air support to the unapproved covert military action kicked off by CIA-trained Cuban ex-pats who land at the rocky cliffs at Cuba's Bay of Pigs.

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On this day in 1971, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to die for his role in the Tate/LaBianca murders, which serve as an unofficial demarcation zone for the 1960's.

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On this day in 1985, the FBI surrounds the compound of the radical Christian identity group known as The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, in Arkansas. The siege ends quickly, without bloodshed, as negotiators succeed in convincing the groups leaders to lay down their arms and come out peacefully. Eight years later, after studying the strategies engaged in during the CSAL standoff, the FBI chose this date to put an end the standoff in Waco. This time, as detailed in the next entry, things don’t go exactly as planned...

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On this day in 1993, the FBI puts their plan to end the standoff at David Koresh's Branch Davidian Compound into action. At 5:59 in the morning, via megaphone, Koresh and his followers are told that they are under arrest, and to come out peacefully. They are also once again warned to stay out of a central tower where the insertion of tear gas is slated to begin. The previous night's reaction to these warnings was to hold children up to the windows, as well as signs that read: "Flames Await." At 6:02, two FBI combat engineering vehicles begin inserting gas into the compound. At 6:04, the Davidians start shooting. At 7:30, a CEV breaches the front side of the building on the first floor, injecting more gas. At 9:30, another CEV begins enlarging the opening in the front of the building, and a third CEV breaches the rear of the building, creating openings from which the FBI hoped cult-members would escape. At seven minutes past noon, the Davidians are seen starting fires throughout the compound. At 12:12, negotiators get on the phone and ask Koresh to lead the Davidians out to safety. Nine Davidians flee the compound, and are arrested without incident. Ten minutes later, the sound of gunfire can be heard coming from the compound. At 12:41, fire-trucks begin pumping water on the now rapidly-burning buildings. By mid-afternoon, it was confirmed… 86 corpses, including over a dozen children, lay dead under the rubble of the compound. After 20 years of studying this tragedy, during which time your humble correspondent has read and watched documentation from every conceivable viewpoint - including but not limited to the documentaries The Rules of Engagement and A New Revelation - I have come to believe the following: After 51 days of begging for it, those members of the Branch Davidian Cult remaining in the compound finally managed to succeed in their bid for collective "suicide by cop", making themselves martyrs and heroes to right-wingers and religious fundamentalists in the process. Which brings us to our next entry...

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In the early morning of 1995, enraged by the conflagration at Waco two years earlier, Timothy McVeigh drives a rented Ryder truck up to the north side of the A.P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. At 9:02, a huge fuel-bomb in the back of the truck detonates, collapsing the north face of the building, and snuffing out the lives of 168 unsuspecting souls, including many children who had just been dropped off at the building's daycare center. Once again, a huge volume of "alternative journalism" has risen around this event, some of it good, but much of it not. Regardless, serious and substantial questions do remain about what really happened in the days and weeks before, during and after this Satanic conflagration. Most of the popular conspiracy theories center on the federal government's foreknowledge of and even participation in the bombing. Ironically, your humble correspondent finds the more persuasive arguments to be on the other side of the fence, by which I mean probably a lot more Christian identity extremists were involved than we have been led to believe and the clown concurs.

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On this day in 2011, after 45 years in charge, Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's central committee.

LOVECRAFT, CROWLEY, OTO, KENNETH GRANT, "LUCIFER GNOSIS", UFO'S, MORE!

This guy is a religious nutbar, but around the 38 minute mark, his presentation tackles some lovely, juicy, meaty subject matter! One gets the impression that it wouldn't take much to lure Mr Schnoebelen away from Christian fundamentalism and onto a more interesting Left Hand path...

CONNECTICUT HIGH SCHOOL DEATH COVEN EXPOSED?

Have you heard the story about the Connecticut couple who are alleging that a "death-obsessed martyrdom cult" fronted by a foursome of high school teachers snared two of their three daughters in its dastardly clutches before they realized something sinister was up?

According to the Daily Mail:

A couple have claimed that their three daughters were indoctrinated into a religious cult by their school teachers leaving them with suicidal thoughts and alienated from their loving family, according to a new lawsuit. 

The couple, from Avon, Connecticut, filed the civil lawsuit in federal court on Monday against the Avon school district, three teachers and a guidance counselor at Avon High School and Wellesley College in Massachusetts. 

The parents alleged that their older daughters, now aged 22 and 19, became 'reclusive, secretive and distant' after they began taking Spanish classes at Avon High. 

The named defendants are Connecticut residents Tanya Mastoloni (also known as Tanya Romero), Rebecca Kessler; Laura Sullivan and California resident Christopher Esposito.

You know, it pains me to send eyeballs their way, but after hours of fruitless searching, it turns out the Daily Mail rundown of this perplexing case is the most complete and thorough coverage that I have so far been able to find. I urge you to read the entire story. It's really quite fascinating, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

In fact, I am so personally intrigued that I will be making my own inquiries in the coming days, and reporting on the results in this very blog. So keep your eyes peeled!

THIS DAY IN PARAPOLITICS, MAY 22

On this day in 1176, a group of hired killers from Rashideddin Sinan's "Masyaf" branch of the Ismaili Hashshashin sect - also known as the Assassins - make their second attempt to murder Saladin, a world-historic figure who founded the Ayyubid dynasty, ruling Egypt, Syria and beyond. They come close, but fail.

On this day in 1844, the Báb announces to the world the coming of "He whom God shall make manifest", thus founding the religion of Bábism, a new religious movement that represented a break with traditional Islam, and which was brutally suppressed in Persia. However, since he is considered the forerunner of Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, and seeing as Baha'i still revere the teachings of the Báb, it wasn't a total waste of time.

On this day in 1856, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks sneaks up on, then beats the high holy hell out of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with a wooden cane because the latter insulted the former's state - as well as his uncle's "honor" - in an anti-slavery speech. It was the first act of physical violence to take place in the Congress, and is considered an important precursor to the Civil War. 

On this day in 1906, the Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine."

On this day in 1954, Robert Zimmerman - that’s Bob Dylan to you, me, and Jesus - officially becomes a man when he’s Bar Mitzvahed! Mazeltov!

On this day in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson announces social reforms to bring an "end to poverty and racial injustice in America", calling it the Great Society. Today, the only thing that remains of these reforms is the neo-conservative reaction to them.

On this day in 1968, the Skipjack-class nuclear-powered submarine the USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard 400 miles southwest of the Azores. The Navy still isn't sure what happened.

On this day in 2002, the remains of Chandra Levy, an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, are found in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. She'd been banging Congressman Gary Condit (D-California) at the time of her disappearance in early 2001, and for a while he was a suspect... in the media, if not officially. Eventually, the September 11 terrorist attacks knocked Levy off the front page and police pinned the murder on illegal Salvadoran immigrant Ingmar Guandique. Case closed.

Celebrating a parapolitical birthday today are anti-Semitic epic-monger Richard Wagner (1813), Hidden Persuaders author Vance Packard (1914), cosmiconsciousness-raising space-jazz pioneer Sun Ra (1914), and creepy American billionaire T. Boone Pickens (1928).