PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR AUGUST 7

On this day in 1933, the Iraqi government slaughters over 3,000 Assyrians in the village of Simele. The day becomes known as Assyrian Martyrs Day.

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On this day in 1965, the infamous first Reyes party between Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and motorcycle gang the Hell's Angels takes place at Kesey's estate in La Honda, California introducing psychedelics to the gang world and forever linking hippies and bikers in the public imagination.

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On this day in 1970, California judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during in a failed effort to free Black Panther leader and "Soledad Brother" George Jackson from police custody. Just over one year later, Jackson would be shot and killed by prison guards during an escape attempt.

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On this day in 1974, some crazy Frenchman by the name of Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center 1,368 feet in the air, without safety harness or a net.

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On this day in 1978, US President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal due to toxic waste that had been negligently disposed of.

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On this day in 1998, a massive truck bomb explodes outside the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Minutes later, another bomb goes off outside the embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Two hundred and twenty four people, including 12 Americans, die in the attacks. 4,500 more are wounded. At the time, all signs pointed towards disgruntled Saudi construction scion Osama bin Laden.

Thirteen days later, on August 20, President Bill Clinton orders cruise missiles launched against bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, and against a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, where bin Laden was allegedly making or distributing chemical weapons.

Reaction from traitorous, seditious Republicans is swift. Clinton, they claimed, was "wagging the dog" - borrowing the title of a movie that was actually based on former President Ronald Reagan's ass-covering farce of an invasion in Grenada, which was hastily thrown together to deflect criticism of the disastrous Beirut barracks bombing in which 242 Marines were killed - to deflect attention from the blooming Monica Lewinsky scandal. Because, of course, in the minds of such ethical luminaries as Trent Lott and Bob Barr and Jesse Helms and Dan Burton and on and on, ad infinitum, Clinton's actions couldn't possibly have been to avenge the murders of a couple hundred darkies on the least important continent on the planet! Such a move, for these racist, scum-sucking GOP jackasses, could ONLY be either a diversionary tactic, or a waste of good missiles.