* "The Trump Administration’s 1776 Report: The far-right attempts to seize opening from the 1619 Project" (2021-01-30, wsws.org/en/articles/2021/01/30/1776-j30.html) [archive.is/w6bfr]
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* "Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture review – superb history of Haiti; An outstanding study of how ‘the first black superhero of the modern age’ led the world’s only successful slave revolution" (2020-10-11, theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/11/black-spartacus-the-epic-life-of-toussaint-louverture-review-superb-history-of-haiti) [archive.is/vANx4]
* "Ten Commandments of Democracy in Haiti, September 25, 1991" (2021-02-17, blackagendareport.com/manifesto-ten-commandments-democracy-haiti-september-25-1991) [archive.is/Xx9R0]
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* "Frederick Douglass On How Slave Owners Used Food As A Weapon Of Control" (2017-02-10, npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/02/10/514385071/frederick-douglass-on-how-slave-owners-used-food-as-a-weapon-of-control) [archive.is/gEzFM]
THE SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 135
ceased altogether. The crisis had been passed—the charter was safe. In two months from the commencement of the panic some of the strongest of the branches resumed their usual business. In three months all were under full headway, and with credit strengthened and improved by the manner in which they had met their obligations. From that time to the commencement of the civil war the business of the bank was healthy and prosperous.
South Carolina led the way in the attempted secession of the Southern States. Her example was soon followed by other States, but there was no financial disturbance, until it became apparent that the nation was to be involved in a civil war, the extent and duration of which could not be foreseen. For a considerable time, even after the war had begun, the specie standard was maintained, and hopes were indulged that the war might be prosecuted on a specie basis. These hopes were dissipated by the action of Secretary Chase in his dealings with the New York, Philadelphia and Boston banks, which had agreed to advance to the Government on its seven and three-tenth notes $150,000,000 ($50,000,000 in August, $50,000,000 in October, and $50,000,000 in November, 1861), under the ex-pectation that the Treasury drafts for the money would be pre-sented through the clearing-houses, and be paid without large reductions of their coin. The Secretary did not, however, feel at liberty to meet their expectations, and the drain upon their coin reserve soon became so heavy that they were forced to sus-pend specie payments. Their suspensimi was soon followed by the suspension of nearly all the banks in the country. As a con-sequence, specie commanded a premium, and the directors of the Bank of the State of Indiana were not slow in coming to the conclusion that the circulation of the bank must be retired. The premium which specie commanded at Cincinnati was small, but it was large enough to induce the brokers of that city to assort and send home the notes of the branches for
136 MEN AND MEASURES OF HALF A CENTURY.
gold, which was then the only legal tender in circulation. There was no panic, but property of nearly all descriptions began to be depressed in market value, and a feeling of dis-trust pervaded the country. The managers of the branches were therefore instructed to redeem promptly in coin all notes that might be presented ; to anticipate and prevent their return, as far as might be practicable, by taking them up at commercial points with other cash means ; to make arrange-ments with depositors by which deposits of gold should be paid in gold, deposits of bank notes should be paid in bank notes, and to be thus prepared for any crisis that might occur. These instructions were promptly obeyed. In a few weeks the larger part of the circulating notes of the branches were at rest in their vaults, and the business of the branches was reduced to what could be safely done upon their capitals and deposits. It was, of course, impossible that this should have been effected without inconvenience to borrowers and inter-ruption to trade; but the action of the bank directors was judi-cious, and it commanded the approbation of even those who were incommoded by it. The business of the bank was thus conducted until some time after the passage of the legal-ten-der acts of 1862, and the legal-tender notes had become a sub-stitute for coin. The question, Can these notes be lawfully used by the branches of the Bank of the State in the redemp-tion of their circulating notes ? then became a question of great interest, not only to the bank, but to the State. By the char-ter, the obligations of the bank could be discharged only by coin. The legal-tender notes had been declared by Congress to be lawful money in all payments, except at the custom-houses. Could they be regarded as lawful money in the dis-charge of the coin obligations of the bank ? This question could only be decided by the Supreme Court of the State, and it was quite important that a decision should be made before any risk had been incurred. I therefore waited upon Judge Perkins, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who was
LEGAL TENDER IN INDIANA.
137
not only eminent as a judge, but a Democrat of the strictest order, explained to him the condition of the bank, and that its inability to maintain circulation upon a gold basis (gold then being at a premium over legal-tender notes) was preventing it from doing what it was important it should do in aid of the business of the State. I informed him that all the other banks of the country were treating the legal-tender notes (green-backs, as they were called,) as lawful money, and using them in the discharge of their coin obligations, and that the Bank of the State was desirous of doing the same, if it would not be in violation of the requirements of its charter ; and I then asked him whether the Supreme Court, if the question should be presented in a case involving it, would order the case to be advanced upon the docket, in order that a decision might be expected at an early day. Without a moment's hesitation, he replied that he could not answer for his associates, but that he thought the question a very important one, and that he had very, little doubt that such an order would be made. The next day a fifty-dollar note, issued by the branch at Indianapolis, was presented for payment in coin. Instead of coin, legal-tender notes were offered in payment, which were refused. A suit was immediately commenced against the bank in the Circuit Court, and as the question involved was regarded by the judge as one of great public interest, the case took precedence of all others. As the facts were agreed upon by the counsel on both sides, the trial was a short one. I do not now recollect how the case was decided by the Circuit judge, but an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court, and the case was, on motion of Mr. Joseph McDonald, counsel for the bank, advanced upon the docket and immediately taken up. Arguments on both sides were listened to with great interest (the argument of Mr. McDonald was a very ingenious and able one), and in the course of a week or two the court decided (there was no dis-senting opinion) that the legal-tender acts were constitutional ; that the United States notes were lawful money, and could be
138 MEN AND MEASURES OF HALF A CENTURY.
used by the bank in the payment of its notes without a viola-tion of its charter. It is.my impression that this decision was the first decision by a court of high standing in favor of the power of Congress to make anything but gold and silver law-ful money. This decision was a very advantageous one to the bank, as it enabled it not only to extend its business, but to strengthen its position. At the next meeting of the board of directors, I advised that the notes which had been so long resting in the vaults of the branches should be put into active use. As, however, I feared that the war in which the country was engaged would be protracted, and might cause a large appreciation of gold or depreciation of the legal-tender notes, if not great financial disturbance, I also advised that every dollar of the means of the branches not absolutely needed in their regular business should be used in the purchase of gold. This advice was followed. The premium on gold was then only about one and a half per cent., so that no great expense was incurred by the branches in raising their gold reserve to a very high point. When I resigned the presidency of the bank in April, 1863, it held $3,300,000 in gold on a capital of $3,000,000. As the premium on gold soon after rapidly advanced it is not necessary for me to say that the profits of the branches from this source were quite satisfactory to their stockholders. Upon the passage of the act of Congress by which notes of all banks except those of the national banks were subjected to a ten per cent. tax, the Bank of the State went into liqui-dation. Its career was short, but fortunate. It fully main-tained the credit of its predecessor. If it was conceived in sin, as was charged by Governor Wright, who vetoed the bill creat-ing it, it brought forth in a large measure the fruits of a well-conducted business. In closing what I have to say about banking in Indiana, I cannon forbear to refer to the action of the New Orleans banks towards their Northern correspondents at the outbreak
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* "Malcolm X family demands reopening of murder investigation" (2021-02-21, bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56147505) [archive.is/B7L09]
* "New Evidence Regarding Malcolm X’s Assassination Names NYPD, FBI As Co-Conspirators; A deathbed declaration by a former undercover NYPD officer accuses the NYPD and the FBI of acting as co-conspirators in the assassination of the civil rights icon" (2021-02-19, newsone.com/4094497/malcolm-x-assassination-nypd-fbi-conspiracy/) [archive.is/eWXj0]
* "Malcolm X's family releases letter alleging FBI, police role in his death" (2021-02-21, reuters.com/article/us-usa-malcolm-x-newser-idUSKBN2AL0FI) [archive.is/Tksr1]
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"With respect to the situation in Vietnam, the President feels that he must in all candor, express again to the Vice Premier our view that it would be a mistake to take any action at this time which would draw attention away from the Vietnamese and Soviet actions in Kampuchea [Cambodia]." - Message from President Jimmy Carter to Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping on China's invasion of Vietnam, which began on this date in 1979. "216. Backchannel Message From the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Aaron) and the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (Holbrooke) to the Deputy Chief of the Liaison Office in China (Roy)" (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XIII, China - Office of the Historian, via history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v13/d216) [archive.is/u12yJ]
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* "Adwa as an African heritage" (2021-02-18, press.et/english/?p=30330#psfbmodal) [archive.is/U1tBx]
* "The Battle of Adwa: A historical springboard for Pan Africanism" (2021-02-17, press.et/english/?p=30264#psfbmodal) [archive.is/6vhnW] [begin excerpt]:
Black people across the globe celebrate one historical asset that occurred 125 years ago in a small town in northern Ethiopia. The Battle of Adwa was a rocket booster or a launching pad for the inception of Pan Africanism. This historic battle and the subsequent victory registered by irregular peasant army of Ethiopia resonated across the world as the first victory against a colonial power ever to be won by an African country.
History proves that the victory at the Battle of Adwa was not a victory only for Ethiopia. Although the Battle was fought in Ethiopia, the entire global community of peoples shares this outstanding victory against a European colonial power that was thought to be invincible.
The western newspapers lost no time to report of this historic victory.
On March 4, 1896, the New York Times had this headline about the Battle of Adwa:
“ITALY’S TERRIBLE DEFEAT”
“The present campaign against the Abyssinians threatens to become one of the most disastrous in which the Italians arms have ever taken part, and what the final outcome will be it would be hard to predict. It was rumored today that the latest defeat of the Italians by King Menelik had compelled Ministry to resign, owing to the popular disapproval of the Government’s policy, but tonight this report is denied.
Details received here today of the defeat on Sunday of the Italian Army show that the Italian losses were very heavy, they being placed by some at 3,000 killed.”
Another weekly newspaper, Lloyd’s Weekly News Paper, London 1896, March 8 came out in the same vein.
“Disaster has overtaken the Italian forces in Abyssinia. A desperate battle was fought with the Shoans at Adwa on February 29 and resulted in General Baratieri being almost annihilated.”
The London Times almost foresaw the future impact of the war:
“The defeat of the Italians will go through the annals of history. This history will invigorate the fighting spirit of Africa which was hitherto considered as savage.”
The paper seemed to forecast the impact of the defeat of the Italians on the future emergence of Pan-Africanism both in the US, the Caribbean and the African continent. The founders of Pan Africanism were definitely inspired by the victory at the Battle of Adwa which has played a role in unifying Africans in the region and at the Diaspora. The spirit of the movement spread across the world calling for unity among all black people in their quest for self-assertion, freedom from colonial rule and oppression.
Pan-Africanist ideas first began to circulate in the mid-19th century in the United States, led by Africans from the Western Hemisphere. The most important early Pan-Africanists were Martin Delany and Alexander Crummel, both African Americans, and Edward Blyden, a West Indian.
Those early voices for Pan-Africanism emphasized the commonalities between Africans and Black people in the United States. Delany, who believed that Black people could not prosper alongside whites, advocated the idea that African Americans should separate from the United States and establish their own nation. Crummel and Blyden, both contemporaries of Delany, thought that Africa was the best place for that new nation. Motivated by Christian missionary zeal, the two believed that Africans in the New World should return to their homelands and convert and civilize the inhabitants there.
However, the true father of modern Pan- Africanism was the influential thinker W.E.B. Du Bois. Throughout his long career, Du Bois was a consistent advocate for the study of African history and culture. In the early 20th century, he was most prominent among the few scholars who studied Africa. His statement, made at the turn of the 20th century, that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line” was made with Pan-Africanist sentiments in mind.
From the 1920s through the 1940s, George Padmore, Léopold Senghor of Senegal and, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, was also an important figure in Pan-Africanist thought. The first formal Pan-African Congress (the first to bear that name) took place in 1919 in Paris and was called by Du Bois.
That meeting was followed by a second Pan- African Congress two years later, which convened in three sessions in London, Brussels, and Paris. The most-important result of the second Pan-African Congress was the issuance of a declaration that criticized European colonial domination in Africa and lamented the unequal state of relations between white and Black races, calling for a fairer distribution of the world’s resources. [end excerpt]
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* "How Bullwinkle Taught Kids Sophisticated Political Satire Culture critic; Beth Daniels argues the cartoon moose even allowed viewers to reckon with nuclear war" (2017-09-07, smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-bullwinkle-taught-kids-sophisticated-political-satire-180964803/) [archive.is/8qSS4]
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* "How Britain stole $45 trillion from India; And lied about it" (2018-12-19, by Dr Jason Hickel is an academic at the University of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, via aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/12/19/how-britain-stole-45-trillion-from-india) [archive.is/Pr4Ys]
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The 1912 Bread and Roses Strike in Lawrence, Mass., was one of the most significant struggles in U.S. labor history due to its level of organization and collaboration across ethnic and gender lines. Thousands of largely female workers engaged in a lengthy, well-organized, and successful walkout, standing firm against an entrenched group of mill owners and their hundreds of militia and police. Workers maintained soup kitchens and nurseries for children. Meetings were simultaneously translated into nearly 30 languages. Representatives from every nationality formed a 50-person strike leadership group.
- image caption: Woman marchers, 1912. Image: Digital Library of America.
For those who now consider Itailian-Americans "white"--understand it wasn't always so. The largest mass lynching in U.S. history took place in New Orleans in 1891 — and the victims were Italian-Americans. What was the reaction of our country's leaders to these lynchings? Teddy Roosevelt, not yet president, famously said it was "a rather good thing." The response in The New York Times on March 16, 1891 referred to the victims of the lynchings as "... sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins." An editorial the next day argued that: "Lynch law was the only course open to the people of New Orleans. ..." John Parker, who helped organize the lynch mob, later went on to be governor of Louisiana. In 1911, he said of Italians that they were "just a little worse than the Negro, being if anything filthier in [their] habits, lawless, and treacherous."
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* "The Spanish Civil War Shows Canada Isn’t Truly Opposed To Fascism; A government that believed in fighting fascism would at least acknowledge the wrongs it did to the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion volunteers" (2021-02-18, readpassage.com/the-spanish-civil-war-shows-canada-isnt-truly-opposed-to-fascism/) [archive.is/eiMh6]
- image caption: Photo via the University of Victoria’s Mackenzie-Papineau website (https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/macpaps/gallery-2/nggallery/page/1).
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* "INNOCENCE ABROAD: THE NEW WORLD OF SPYLESS COUPS" (1991-09-22, washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1991/09/22/innocence-abroad-the-new-world-of-spyless-coups/92bb989a-de6e-4bb8-99b9-462c76b59a16/) [archive.is/8oBlt] [begin excerpt]:
The CIA worked hard in the old days to draw foreign newspapers and magazines into its web, so as to counter Soviet disinformation. Frank Wisner, the head of CIA covert operations during the mid-1950s, once remarked that he could play his media assets like a "mighty Wurlitzer."
Today the mighty Wurlitzer actually exists. It's called CNN. But it doesn't need playing by anybody but the independent journalists who work there. CNN's objective, omnipresent, real-time coverage of the news helps America's interests more than all the besotted Third World "media assets" of old could ever have imagined. And the bar bills are less. [...]
The sugar daddy of overt operations has been the National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-private group headed by Carl Gershman that is funded by the U.S. Congress. Through the late 1980s, it did openly what had once been unspeakably covert -- dispensing money to anti-communist forces behind the Iron Curtain.
To read through the NED's grant list (a public document) is to take a stroll down the democracy movement's memory lane: In Czechoslovakia, the endowment began aiding democratic forces in 1984, including support for Civic Forum; in Hungary, the aid began in 1986 and included election help and funding for Hungary's first independent public-opinion survey; in Romania and Bulgaria, the endowment has supported new intellectual journals and other tools of democracy. Among its many activities in Poland, the endowment has backed the Gdansk Video Center, which helped produce and distribute pro-democracy videos throughout Eastern Europe during the 1980s. And through the Free Trade Union Institute and the Center for International Private Enterprise, the endowment helped support new unions and employers' associations across Eastern Europe -- building the infrastructure of a free economy.
The endowment has also been active inside the Soviet Union. It has given money to Soviet trade unions; to the liberal "Interregional Group" in the Congress of Peoples Deputies; to a foundation headed by Russian activist Ilya Zaslavsky; to an Oral History Project headed by Soviet historian Yuri Afanasyev; to the Ukrainian independence movement known as Rukh, and to many other projects.
Covert funding for these groups would have been the kiss of death, if discovered. Overt funding, it would seem, has been a kiss of life. [end excerpt]
* DPRK psyop leaflet dropped over USA soldiers
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* "Eugenio Martínez, Last of the Watergate Burglars, Dies at 98; A hero to exiles from Castro’s Cuba, he was the only person other than Richard Nixon to receive a presidential pardon in the scandal" (2021-02-02, nytimes.com/2021/02/02/us/politics/eugenio-martinez-dead.html) [archive.is/aagj7] [begin excerpt]: Eugenio Martínez, the last surviving Watergate burglar and the only figure in the scandal besides Richard M. Nixon to be granted a presidential pardon, died on Saturday in Minneola, Fla. He was 98.
His death, at his daughter’s home near Orlando, was announced by Brigade 2506, a veterans group of Mr. Martínez’s fellow anti-Communist Cuban exiles. Their abortive invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 to overthrow the government headed by Fidel Castro was covertly supported by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mr. Martínez was indelibly linked to a crime that set in motion the downfall of a president. “I wanted to topple Castro, and unfortunately I toppled the president who was helping us, Richard Nixon,” Mr. Martínez said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo in 2009.
Mr. Martínez, who was said to have infiltrated Cuba hundreds of times on C.I.A. missions to plant anti-Castro agents there or extract vulnerable Cubans, was one of four operatives recruited in 1972 to burglarize the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington. He said he had been enlisted by E. Howard Hunt, a White House operative and another Bay of Pigs veteran and C.I.A. alumnus.
By Mr. Martínez’s account, the burglars were instructed to search for proof that Castro was subsidizing the campaign of Nixon’s Democratic rival for re-election, Senator George S. McGovern.
On June 17, 1972, on their second foray into the Watergate offices, to fix problematic listening devices that they had planted weeks earlier, according to the authorities, they caught the attention of an alert security guard, who notified the police.
In January 1973 four of the five burglars — members of the so-called plumbers, an informal White House team assigned to plug information leaks — pleaded guilty so as to avoid revealing details of the bungled operation. They were convicted of conspiracy, theft and wiretapping.
The others, also Cuban-born, were Bernard L. Barker, a former Miami real estate agent and C.I.A. operative, who died in 2009; Virgilio González, a Miami locksmith, who died in 2014; and Frank A. Sturgis, a soldier of fortune, who died in 1993. (In 1971, the four had taken part in the break-in at the Los Angeles office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department analyst who disclosed the Pentagon papers to the press.)
Each of the four served about 15 months in prison. Mr. Hunt served about 31 months.
They were led by James W. McCord Jr., a security coordinator for the Nixon campaign whose confession to the judge just before his sentencing precipitated the revelations of White House crimes and cover-ups that culminated in Nixon’s resignation in 1974. For aiding prosecutors in pursuing senior presidential aides in the scandal, Mr. McCord had his one-to-five-year sentence cut to less than four months.
In 1977, the four Cuban-born burglars each accepted an out-of-court settlement of $50,000 from the Nixon campaign. They said they had been misled into believing that they had acted with government sanction on behalf of a White House administration that was concerned about American security and sympathetic to Cuban refugees.
In 1983, after his requests for clemency had been rejected by Presidents Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter, Mr. Martínez — who, it turned out, had still been on retainer to the C.I.A. at the time of the Watergate break-in — was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan. [end excerpt]
- image caption: A police photo of Mr. Martínez after his arrest. “I wanted to topple Castro,” he later said, “and unfortunately I toppled the president who was helping us, Richard Nixon.”
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* "Ron Dellums, former congressman and Oakland mayor, dies at age 82" (2018-08-03, sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Ron-Dellums-former-congressman-and-Oakland-13116263.php) [archive.is/PYqAv] [begin excerpt]:
Dellums, who died Monday at age 82, made that clear during his first run for Congress in 1970, when Republican Vice President Spiro Agnew, speaking for President Richard Nixon’s White House, pointedly branded the young Berkeley councilman as “an out and out radical” who needed to be “purged from the body politic” for his stance against the war in Vietnam and up-front fight against social ills.
The attack, like many others to come during his decades on the political battlefield, never fazed him.
“If it’s radical to oppose the insanity and cruelty of the Vietnam War, if it’s radical to oppose racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression, if it’s radical to want to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, and other forms of human misery, then I’m proud to be called a radical,” he told a scrum of reporters at his campaign headquarters. [end excerpt]
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Not mentioned in the anti-Leftist AP article is the presence of "Goon" snipers apart from all of the ATF & FBI snipers who were more prone to targeting people for the sake of chaos. The article relies on FBI documents which are inconclusive. Yet, it follows that by omission, the AP newswire continues its vilification of the AIM and Independent Ogala Nation by, in basic terms, censoring the existence of the snipers.
* "FBI confirms black activist was killed during 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee" (2020-02-20, AP newswire, via cbsnews.com/news/fbi-confirms-activist-ray-robinson-was-killed-during-1973-occupation-of-wounded-knee/) [archive.is/629h4]
* "Last public statue of Spanish dictator Franco is removed; Monument in north Africa commemorates the fascist leader’s earlier role in the Rif war of the 1920s" (2021-02-24, theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/23/last-public-statue-of-spanish-dictator-franco-is-removed) [archive.is/XOaq1]
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* "Review: ‘Dear Comrades!’ is a meticulous historical re-creation of a true 1962 Russian crime" (2021-02-02, datebook.sfchronicle.com/movies-tv/review-dear-comrades-is-a-meticulous-historical-recreation-of-a-1962-true-russian-crime) [archive.is/IKkXJ] [begin excerpt]:
The town of Novocherkassk had a reputation for resisting Soviet policies since the revolution. Under the comparatively enlightened Khrushchev regime, things were supposed to be better, freer and less genocidal than in the Lenin and Stalin times. But when food prices increase and the local electric locomotive plant cuts wages, angry workers strike at the factory, then the next day march on City Hall. In the interim, however, the army’s been unconstitutionally mobilized to protect government property, while KGB snipers have taken rooftop positions. [end excerpt]
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* "Rennie Davis, ‘Chicago Seven’ Antiwar Activist, Dies at 80; The trial arising from the “police riot” at the 1968 convention thrust him into the spotlight. He later became an unlikely spokesman for a teenage guru" (2020-12-03, nytimes.com/2021/02/03/us/politics/rennie-davis-dead.html) [archive.is/Rmn0c]
- image caption: The Chicago Seven in 1969. Standing from left are John Froines, Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner and Abbie Hoffman. Seated are Mr. Davis (left) and David Dellinger.
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* " 'Black Rage' co-author Dr. Price Cobbs dies at 89" (2018-07-10, sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Black-Rage-co-author-Dr-Price-Cobbs-dies-13064300.php) [archive.is/S8Ld6] [begin excerpt]: Dr. Price M. Cobbs, a psychiatrist and management consultant who co-authored the seminal 1968 book “Black Rage,” which portrays the psychological trauma that racism and the legacy of slavery inflicts on black people, has died at 89. [...]
Dr. Cobbs and his co-author, Dr. William H. Grier, were the only two black psychiatrists practicing in San Francisco at the time “Black Rage” was published, according to Dr. Cobbs’ family.
“We began to talk about our patients, and we realized that anger was bubbling up,” Dr. Cobbs said in a 2006 NPR interview. “We then began to put together a systematic study of our patients, a systematic study of the literature and, incidentally, we talked about the anger within ourselves. And we were then able, through a very big study of the black experience at that time, to put our finger on, oh, this anger is going to erupt — and erupt it did.”
Released shortly after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the resulting protests, “Black Rage” was a best-selling sensation and led to a 1969 ABC TV special, “To Be Black.” The New York Times called it one of its decade’s most important books on race. [...]
Dr. Cobbs’ work presaged such modern-day movements as “Black Lives Matter,” inclusion training, and the need for corporate diversity.
In 1967, along with the late George Leonard, a humanist psychologist, Dr. Cobbs convened multiracial workshops at Big Sur’s Esalen Institute. The pioneering events, later held at UCSF Medical School as well, were termed “racial confrontation groups,” and used “raucous back and forth, rough talk, truth telling and confrontation” to help drive home racism’s impacts, Dr. Cobbs wrote in his 2006 autobiography, “My American Life: From Rage to Entitlement.”
After years as a practicing psychiatrist in San Francisco, Dr. Cobbs founded Pacific Management Systems, a consultancy that created and ran programs on diversity and inclusion for companies, community organizations, social service agencies, schools and government departments. Clients included Procter and Gamble, PepsiCo, Apple, Walmart and Lockheed. [end excerpt]
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* "Paul Laxalt, sheepherder's son who became a Nevada political power, dies at 96" (2018-08-06, sfchronicle.com/nation/article/Paul-Laxalt-sheepherder-s-son-who-became-a-13136733.php) [archive.is/fPxcM] [begin excerpt]: As Nevada governor, Laxalt was credited with repairing damaged ties between state and federal governments over Nevada’s gambling industry. He had numerous phone conversations with eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, encouraging Hughes’ casino acquisitions that helped to rid Las Vegas of mob influences. [end excerpt]
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* " ‘White’ Slaves of New Orleans (PHOTOS)" (2014-03-25, chrisdier.com/2014/03/25/white-slaves-of-new-orleans-photos/) [archive.is/BiaLH]:
The Civil War broke out in 1861. The Union captured New Orleans in April, 1862, saving the city from the destruction faced by other Southern cities. New Orleans remained an occupied city until the end of the war.
With slavery ending, one of the first goals of newly freed African-Americans was education. Abolitionists opened schools throughout New Orleans for the thousands of recently enslaved children desiring to learn. Opening and operating a school required funding, something not easily accessible during wartime. They decided on a unique strategy for donations – sending pictures of former slaves who were lightly colored across the country. Their reasoning was mainly twofold: to appeal to whites who might be able to relate to those in the photograph and to demonstrate the illogical nature of the “one-drop-rule”, a construct instituted during slavery claiming anyone with African ancestry as black, regardless of appearance.
The success of the campaign demonstrated who was understood to be a victim and deserving of an education in 19th century America. Despite the collapse of the legal institution of slavery, the respect and opportunities of personhood, including the human right to an education, remained absent for the majority of people of color.
Notice those photos with the Union flag used to appeal to Northerners. The pictures sold for $1 for “the large picture, 25 cents each for the small ones.”
Photos are public courtesy of The Library of Congress.[end article]
- selections from photoset:
* "History Resources: Enslaved Children of New Orleans, 1863; A Spotlight on a Primary Source" (by Charles Paxson, gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/enslaved-children-new-orleans-1863) [archive.is/NN6T1], introduction: Photographs of emancipated children were sold to raise money for the education of freed slaves in New Orleans. The children featured in this photograph drew attention to the fact that slavery was not solely a matter of color. If a child’s mother was an enlsaved person, then he or she was enslaved as well.
The following article appeared in Harper’s Weekly on January 30, 1864. The short biographies contained in the article offer us a rare (and possibly unique) record of enslaved children.
[...]
Charles Taylor is eight years old. His complexion is very fair, his hair light and silky. Three out of five boys in any school in New York are darker than he. Yet this white boy, with his mother, as he declares, has been twice sold as a slave. First by his father and "owner," Alexander Wethers, of Lewis County, Virginia, to a slave-trader named Harrison, who sold them to Mr. Thornhill of New Orleans. This man fled at the approach of our army, and his slaves were liberated by General Butler. The boy is decidedly intelligent, and though he has been at school less than a year he reads and writes very well. His mother is a mulatto; she had one daughter sold into Texas before she herself left Virginia, and one son who, she supposes, is with his father in Virginia. These three children, to all appearance of unmixed white race, came to Philadelphia last December, and were taken by their protector, Mr. Bacon, to the St. Lawrence Hotel on Chestnut Street. Within a few hours, Mr. Bacon informed me, he was notified by the landlord that they must therefore be colored persons, and he kept a hotel for white people. From this hospitable establishment the children were taken to the "Continental," where they were received without hesitation.
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* "Story of the Underground Railroad to Mexico gains attention" (2020-09-16, apnews.com/article/mexico-race-and-ethnicity-archive-texas-d26243702f11e27b59b591332bb6775e) [archive.is/FOtMi]
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V-Mail, a fabulous invention that came out of WW2, enabled speed and efficiency of letters from soldiers to loved ones and vice versa. As detailed in a report from 1942, “The Post Office, War and Navy departments realize fully that frequent and rapid communication with parents, associates and other loved ones strengthens fortitude, enlivens patriotism, makes loneliness endurable and inspires to even greater devotion the men and women who are carrying on our fight far from home and from friends.”
V-Mail was created with the intention to save space when delivering vital mail. Senders would write out on the V-Mail envo-letter, which would be sent off, photographed in microfilm, which would be sent to its destination, reproduced in a small format and delivered to the recipient. Between June 1942 and November 1945, over 1 billion V-Mails were processed.
I have original letters from both of my parents who were serving in Gibraltar 1943-45 and writing back home to their parents. Also have a great scrapbook of their exploits in troop entertainment -The North Front Players. Gaslight was their final production and was toured to Tangier after the end of hostilities.
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* "UNDER THE STAR OF THE GUARD: The Story of the Black Legion" (1993, by Mark S. English, https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/143428/English.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y):
* "Black Legion (1937): American fascism, then and now" (2021-02-10, wsws.org/en/articles/2021/02/11/blac-f11.html) [archive.is/WJvEN]
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* "The American state, the fascists and the Soviet Union’s ex-revolutionaries" (2021-01-27, wsws.org/en/articles/2021/01/27/ciae-j27.html) [archive.is/LSQs8]
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* "Polish court convicts leading Holocaust historians" (2021-02-11, wsws.org/en/articles/2021/02/11/pole-f11.html) [archive.is/YVPG4]
* "Polish court convicts leading Holocaust historians" (2021-02-11, wsws.org/en/articles/2021/02/11/pole-f11.html) [archive.is/YVPG4]
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* "TINTIN: Racism, Nazis and Sweden Democrats" (in-spite-of-it-all-trots-allt.se/products/tintin-racism-nazis-and-sweden-democrats/) [archive.is/N3sjy]
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German-occupied Poland, Warsaw local stamp
German-occupied Poland, Warsaw local stamp
SKIERNIEWICE local overprint on WARSCHAU GENERAL GOVERMENT stamps on cover (not posted) Year: 1918
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Estonia / german ww2 occupation pernau local issues - 1941 (19 aug)
Beauties, Bella, Belle, Schön WITH KASATIN UKRAINE DIENSTPOST (OFFICIAL) POSTMARKS
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* (mysticstamp.com/Products/United-States/C66/USA/) [archive.is/yKRtq]
U.S. #C66
1963 15¢ Montgomery Blair
Issue Date: May 3,1963
City: Silver Spring, MD
Quantity: 42,245,000
Printed By: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Giori press printing
Perforations: 11
Color: Carmine, deep claret, and blue
This stamp salutes Abraham Lincoln’s Postmaster General. Blair served from 1861-64. He called the first International Postal Conference at Paris in 1863, and it became the forerunner of the Universal Postal Union. Blair also put into effect George B. Armstrong’s idea of a Railway Mail Service in 1862 and a Postal Money Order System in 1864.
First International Postal Conference -
On May 11, 1863, representatives from 15 nations met in Paris to discuss postal issues. That first International Postal Conference would eventually lead to the creation of the Universal Postal Union.
Up until this time, mail between nations had been regulated by a number of different agreements that were binding only to signing members. At one point, Germany had 17 postal agreements, France had 16, Belgium had 15, and the United Kingdom had 12. Plus, some nations used different weight measurements – the US and UK used ounces while France used grams. This made it especially difficult to calculate the postage rates as a letter traveled through different countries.
In 1862, US Postmaster General Montgomery Blair issued a report to Congress stating that, “the whole system, as now established, is too complex to be readily understood by postmasters. Our International mail system is extremely loose and defective. There is no common standard weight for the single rate. There is no common rate for sea transit or for overland transit. The inland transit rate upon domestic correspondences furnishes no rule for the overland transit of foreign correspondence. Rates upon closed mails are not uniform by distance, or by other common rule and they vary greatly according to the route of carriage.”
Blair suggested that representatives from different nations meet to discuss their common postal concerns and look for a solution. The First International Postal Conference as it was called, would be held in Paris, France, from May 11 to June 8, 1863. In addition to the US, other postal administrations in attendance came from Austria, Belgium, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Hawaii, and Switzerland.
When the meeting ended, the representatives compiled a list of objectives for future postal agreements. These included reducing international mail rates, reducing or abolishing transit fees, setting uniform postal rates, and establishing clear rules on the exchange of mail between countries.
Although Blair did not intend to create a permanent organization, another conference was held 11 years later in Bern, Switzerland. Twenty-two nations, comprising the International Postal Congress, drafted and signed the Treaty of Bern, which established the General Postal Union. Under this treaty, member nations, including Europe, Britain, and the United States, standardized postal rates and units of weight. They also set forth procedures for transporting ordinary mail, which included letters, postcards, and small packages. Separate rules governed the transportation of items, such as parcel post, newspapers, magazines, and money orders.
Under this agreement, known as the International Postal Convention, a simpler accounting system was devised as well. Previously, countries set their own rate for international mail. In addition, many countries charged a 1¢ surtax for mail being transported by sea for more than 300 miles. Using the basic idea that every letter generates a reply, the Convention allowed each country to keep the postage it collected on international mail. However, that country would then reimburse other members for transporting mail across their borders. The benefits to member nations included lower postal rates, better service, and a more efficient accounting system.
In 1878, at a second conference, the name was changed to the Universal Postal Union (UPU). It wasn’t until the 1880s that the organization became truly universal. By the 1890s, nearly every nation had become a member.
In 1898, the Universal Postal Union standardized the colors of certain stamps in order to make international mailing easier and more efficient. They proposed that member nations use the same colors for stamps of the same value. In order to conform to the UPU’s regulations, America’s 1¢, 2¢, and 5¢ stamps underwent color changes. Later that same year, the 4¢, 6¢, 10¢, and 15¢ stamps were changed to avoid confusion with current issues printed in similar colors.
In 1947, the UPU became a specialized agency of the United Nations. Today, it continues to organize and improve postal service throughout the world. It’s the oldest international organization.
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* "150th Anniversary of the Balloon "Jupiter" Airmail Flight" (2009, postalmuseum.si.edu/collections/object-spotlight/150th-anniversary-of-the-balloon-jupiter-airmail-flight) [archive.is/m5zBY]
- image caption: The Lafayette Daily Courier advertisement for the "Jupiter" flight, August 15, 1859
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* "Meet 75-yr-old man keeping Beijing's last wall calendar store alive" (2021-02-05, news.cgtn.com/news/2021-02-05/Meet-75-yr-old-man-keeping-Beijing-s-last-wall-calendar-store-alive-XCOvPNt2Tu/index.html) [archive.is/XjQCs] [begin excerpt]: The founding of the People's Republic of China and the development of color printing technology in the late 1940s first promoted the growth of calendars. Most of the calendars in the 1950s, featuring images of the country's beautiful natural landscape and printed in Chinese and English, served as gifts for foreigners as publicity and thus were seldom distributed inside the country. In the 1960s and 1970s, images of the country's leaders and stills from revolutionary operas were dominant in the calendars.
In line with the country's reform and opening-up policy, the 1980s and 1990s marked a golden age for wall calendars, which carried a higher degree of diversity in terms of themes, sizes and materials. According to Jin, celebrities, beautiful actresses and cars were quite popular at that time. [end excerpt]
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* "The last survivor: Ex-railway worker recalls Japanese invasion of Hainan" (2021-02-09, news.cgtn.com/news/2021-02-09/Last-survivor-Ex-railway-worker-recalls-Japanese-invasion-of-Hainan-XK5GmwktJ6/index.html) [archive.is/1uuFe] [begin excerpt]: Zhang lives with her daughter in Basuo Town, Dongfang City. The city is nestled on the western coast of south China's Hainan Island, a quiet testament of the Japanese army's plunder and the persecution of laborers during the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
80 years on... A memory still fresh
From 1939 to 1945, to build ports and railways in Basuo, the Japanese army captured laborers from across China by deception and force. After brutal torture and killings, only a handful survived, according to Qin Wei, the director of Dongfang City Museum.
"The Japanese army arrived in Hainan when I was 14," recollected Zhang, who was then still an adolescent and didn't have the strength or muscle to perform the mandatory tasks lain ahead. Fortunately, she was spared hard labor and was assigned menial chores that didn't require much physical exertion. She cooked meals, swept floors, washed clothes, and carried coal to the trains as instructed by the Japanese invaders. But others were not so "lucky."
"Laborers were forced to kneel, take off their pants, and then get flogged. They were beaten to the ground and were pulled up again, over and over," Zhang sighed as she described the horrors to CGTN. Even though the tragedy struck over 80 years ago, she narrated the events in such detail as if it all happened just yesterday.
"We spotted the grave when we went to dig for wild vegetables nearby. I was frightened. They (The Japanese) killed people every day," said Zhang. What she called "the grave" is actually a "mass grave" in Basuo Town. Not far from where Zhang lives, it's where the Japanese army massacred laborers, creating mountains of corpses.
The mass grave is one of the three mass graves in China from the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, said Qin Wei, the other two mass graves are located in Fuxin City, northeast China's Liaoning Province and Datong City, north China's Shanxi Province.
"Human bones were a common sight on this beach until the 1980s," said Qin.
"My mom used to speak Japanese. She was quite fluent," remembered Fu Jiangqiong, Zhang's daughter. Fu said she can't even bear to imagine the scars the Japanese left on her mother.
"How many of our compatriots were killed? They killed many people from our village," Zhang uttered less of her own experiences and feelings and more of her compatriots. "I am still scared of the Japanese," she continually emphasized.
Behind the railway construction
The Japanese captured over 30,000 laborers and prisoners of war to build the Basuo Port and railway for minerals and other valuable natural resources. The first light railway in the history of the Hainan Railway was built in 1939, with plunder being the sole motive.
Japanese army found rich iron mines in Shilu Town, Changjiang Li Autonomous County. In 1941, they decided to build a railway line between Shilu and Basuo towns, which is called Shiba Line, the first main line railway on Hainan island, according to Qin Wei. It took less than a year from exploration to operation.
The Japanese army shipped 694,500 tons of high-quality iron ore from Shilu Town starting from 1939, according to Dongfang City Museum's historical record. In 1944, the Anti-Fascist Alliance blocked waters to preclude shipping of minerals to Japan, and that's when the Japanese halted ore extraction. [end excerpt]
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* "Jane Fonda & Donald Sutherland Deliver Anti-Vietnam War Comedy in Exclusive Trailer for New Restoration of F.T.A." (2021-02-10, thefilmstage.com/jane-fonda-donald-sutherland-deliver-anti-vietnam-war-comedy-in-exclusive-trailer-for-new-restoration-of-f-t-a/) [archive.is/eh8Ya]
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* "Black U.S. Olympians Won In Nazi Germany Only To Be Overlooked At Home" (2016-08-13, npr.org/sections/thetorch/2016/08/13/489773389/black-u-s-olympians-won-in-nazi-germany-only-to-be-overlooked-at-home) [archive.is/SPsBA]
- image caption: At the 1936 Olympics, 18 black athletes went to Berlin as part of the U.S. team. Pictured here are (left to right, rear) high jumpers Dave Albritton and Cornelius Johnson; hurdler Tidye Pickett; sprinter Ralph Metcalfe; boxer Jim Clark; sprinter Mack Robinson. In front: weightlifter John Terry (left); long jumper John Brooks.
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Soviet anti-colonialism poster, 1961
[top]: "Polite words, but intentions are still the same"
[bottom]: "Colonialists do not mind
Helping people of Africa!
To send troops... To give a credit...
Or even to change their... chains."
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* "Marx's defence of Jewish emancipation and critique of the Jewish question" (2018-02-28, Manchester University Press, manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526104960/9781526104960.00007.xml) [archive.is/ZUCBz]
* "Karl Marx's Radical Antisemitism; Michael Ezra argues that Karl Marx's anti-Semitism is clear and unambiguous" (2015-03-23, philosophersmag.com/opinion/30-karl-marx-s-radical-antisemitism) [archive.is/BLWzv]
* "On The Jewish Question" (1843-08, by Karl Marx, via marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/) [archive.is/iEdQA] [begin excerpt]: Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism – huckstering and its preconditions – the Jew will have become impossible, because his consciousness no longer has an object, because the subjective basis of Judaism, practical need, has been humanized, and because the conflict between man’s individual-sensuous existence and his species-existence has been abolished. [end excerpt]
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* "Story of the Underground Railroad to Mexico gains attention" (2020-09-16, apnews.com/article/mexico-race-and-ethnicity-archive-texas-d26243702f11e27b59b591332bb6775e) [archive.is/FOtMi]
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Overviews of World History before the Modern Age
* "Once upon a time on a Chinese New Year" (2021-02-13, by Pepe Escobar, via informationclearinghouse.info/56316.htm) [archive.is/m7drN] [begin excerpt]: Six years after becoming Great Khan, Kublai started the construction of a new winter capital, Ta-tu (“great capital”), northeast of the old city of Chungtu (that’s where modern Beijing is located).
Overviews of World History before the Modern Age
* "Becerrillo: The Terrifying War Dog of the Spanish Conquistadors" (2021-02-15, ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/becerrillo-0014283) [archive.is/fbwv5]
--
In Turkic, the city was named Khanbalik (“royal capital”). That’s the Cambalac we find in Marco Polo’s travels.
Kublai’s war against the Song dynasty was an immensely protracted affair. His final victory only happened four years after he became Great Khan – when the Song empress dowager handed him over the imperial seal.
The Yuan dynasty was a de facto, historical game-changer – because deep down the Mongols, nomad sons of the steppe, never trusted the sedentary, refined, urbanized Chinese.
Kublai, though, was a master strategist. He kept a lot of very important Chinese advisers. But later on, his successors preferred to staff the administration with Mongols, assorted Muslims from Central Asia, and Tibetans.
The Great Khanate under Kublai included Mongolia and Tibet – which, of course, were not Chinese. Yet the most extraordinary point is that Yuan China was in fact integrated and/or absorbed into the Mongol empire. China became part of the Khanate.
Follow the script
The Yuan dynasty also sealed a defining moment in Mongol history. The Mongols were always open to the influence of every religion. But all in all, they remained fundamentally pagan. The ones who really commanded their attention – and devotion – were their shamans.
Still, some Mongols had converted to Nestorian Christianity. Kublai’s wife, Chabi, was a fervent Buddhist. But then Kublai’s generation, en masse, started to turn towards Mahayana Buddhism. Their tutors were not only Tibetans, but Uighurs as well.
And that leads us to a key juncture. Kublai decided he needed a unified Mongol script to congregate the Babel of languages spoken across the Khanate.
The man appointed to carry the formidable task was Phagspa – Kublai’s National Preceptor, the Viceroy of Tibet, and later imperial preceptor, that is, the supreme authority over all Buddhists in the whole Mongol empire.
Phagspa came up with a script, not surprisingly, based on the Tibetan alphabet. Yet that was written vertically – like Chinese script, and Uighur and Mongol script.
In 1269, three years before the official start of the Yuan dynasty, that became the official writing system. Why is that so important? Because it was the first multilingual transcription system in the world. [end excerpt]
* "Renaissance-Era Venetian Beads Found in Alaska Were There Before Columbus" (2021-02-12, mymodernmet.com/venetian-glass-beads-alaska-trade/) [archive.is/W6HlC]
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Taboo & Errony
A Native American overlooks the newly completed transcontinental railroad in Sacramento, c. 1867
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The entrapment of eastern Tartaria, the combined celestial realm of Mongolia, Thibet and China is monetized. All cultural frameworks not suitable are set aside, in mosoleums, abandoned. Ancient China officially ends in 1911, at the start of Sun Yat Sen's new order (he himself being a natural born of the USA using his certificate of Live Birth in Hawaii). At a time between 1820s and 1860s, the British Empire monetize elements of economic infrastructure of China proper, some type of tax regimen, concessionary city at Hong Kong, and the Opium Trade.
China was once the arbitration center of the known world, charted as "Tartaria" on European maps into the 1860s, though not as centralized as at the beginning of the epoch of the Pax Yuan, the central authorities of Tartaria for Buddhists remained without foreign control at Lhasa and in Outer Mongolia. The tax regimen imposed by China did not affect Thibet?
At what decade was the Golden Horde destroyed, 1820s?
East (Russia) to West (Britain and France), the invasion of "China" (Tartaria) continued apace, in the north and west by Russia, and in the eastern concessions of Britain and France (in their so-titled Indochina).
By the 1890s, the entire Eurasia is subsumed primarily by Britain and Russia, that even China was divvied into foreign controlled Spheres of Influence, each with their own tax regimen. China was colonized by capitalism.
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* "The Afaq Khoja Mausoleum And The Legacy Of A Great Uyghur Leader" (2021-02-23, ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/afaq-khoja-mausoleum-0014967) [archive.is/lW19i]
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* "The year San Francisco's mud was so bad, it swallowed horses" (2020-06-12, sfchronicle.com/chronicle_vault/article/The-year-San-Francisco-s-mud-was-so-bad-it-15335769.php) [archive.is/wzX76] [begin excerpt]:
A cliche about San Francisco during the Gold Rush was that “its streets were paved with gold.” This was not literally true, although there was so much gold dust blowing around town that one man collected $50 worth of it from the sweepings of a Montgomery Street store floor.
But the truth was almost as strange. The instant city’s byways were made up of the unlikeliest collection of objects ever used as pavement.
San Francisco in 1849 had only dirt streets and a couple of sidewalks. The streets’ primitive condition didn’t matter much when the weather was dry, although blowing dust and sand was a constant irritant. But as ill luck would have it, the winter of 1849-50 was one of the rainiest ever recorded in the city. And as the torrential rains fell, the young city became a quagmire. [...]
Worse, the mud was mixed with garbage and sewage. A Gold Rush editorialist wrote, “From (Rincon) Point to the sandy eastern suburbs of the city there is one vast fathomless sea of mud. ... Its character is heterogeneous, its character antipellucid, its adhesive qualities immense and antagonistic to a composed state of nerves. Its ingredients are dust and water, egg shells, cabbage leaves, potato parings, onion tops, fish bones, and other articles too numerous to mention. [...]
Because San Francisco had no street lighting until 1851, and drunkenness was common, people were constantly falling into the mud at night. Usually this occasioned only merriment or irritation, but it could be dangerous or even fatal. A number of horses fell into the muck and suffocated, and a few men died after falling into the mud on Montgomery Street, probably while drunk.
Owners and shopkeepers began filling up the quagmires outside their doors with anything solid they could get their hands on. In the winter of 1849 the first sidewalk, on Clay Street, was made with barrel staves and narrow planks. But large quantities of brush, as well as bottles, shirts and garbage were also tossed into the muddy streets. This created traps that tangled the feet of horses, and often made matters worse by damming the mud and turning streets into lakes. So San Franciscans began using crates and bales of newly arrived merchandise as temporary streets, crude sidewalks and stepping-stones. [...]
In “Black Fire: The True Story of the Original Tom Sawyer — and of the Mysterious Fires That Baptized Gold Rush-Era San Francisco,” Robert Graysmith writes, “Each segment of the planked Kearny Street sidewalk was different. There was a stretch of packing cases, window shutters, and a mosaic of sides and ends covered with tin. In front of Hanlon’s Saloon, forty kegs had been hammered into the mud as a makeshift sidewalk that ended so abruptly that unwary pedestrians pitched full length into the mud. ... The Montgomery Street sidewalk from Clay to Jackson Street was the oddest of all: Two blocks made of pianos. ... One landfill consisted of two boatloads of Spanish brandy dumped over two acres of waterfront ground.”
By 1851, San Francisco had finally begun to plank and even cobblestone its streets, and lights appeared on Kearny Street. Pedestrians still had to pick their way with care during the rainy season, but the days when a walk down the street at night could end with an involuntary mud bath were gone. [end excerpt]
* "The original Grizzly Adams kept his bears on a chain in SF" (2018-07-07, sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/The-original-Grizzly-Adams-kept-his-bears-on-a-13055251.php) [archive.is/k651Y] [begin excerpt]:
Adams made a log hut near present-day Long Barn (Tuolumne County) and fell in with local Indians, shooting deer for them. In exchange, they gave him the deerskin suit, hat and moccasins he was to wear for the rest of his life.
He survived by hunting and fishing and began trapping grizzlies. He took one of his grizzlies to Mariposa to stage a public wrestling match, a feat that netted him $800. Soon afterward, Adams met a Texan named Saxon who persuaded him to explore the Pacific Northwest.
Along with two Indian youths, the two adventurers journeyed beyond the Snake River, where Adams set out to capture young grizzlies. [...]
Adams and his men had become friendly with the local Indian chief, who traded them 30 horses and six Indians to transport their menagerie to Portland for sale. It was one of the strangest caravans ever seen in the Old West: Along with horses carrying boxed bear and wolf cubs, foxes and fishers, Adams and his men drove a herd of six bears, four deer, four wolves, four antelope, two elk and a small dog the Indian chief had given Adams. Adams delivered the animals safely, keeping only his beloved Lady Washington. [...]
In 1855, Adams gave up the wilderness, opening his Mountaineer Museum first in San Jose, then San Francisco, where he turned heads as he walked down Kearny Street in his buckskins. His slept with his beloved bears. His one concession to civilization was abandoning his frying pan to eat in San Francisco restaurants.
In April 1860, Adams took his menagerie to New York, where he partnered with P.T. Barnum. [end excerpt]
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* "Everything Is a Rich Man's Trick" (video page, topdocumentaryfilms.com/everything-rich-man-trick/) [archive.is/PcOGF], video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8nE-8ctbTI):
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy lingers as one of the most traumatic events of the twentieth century. The open and shut nature of the investigation which ensued left many global citizens unsettled and dissatisfied, and nagging questions concerning the truth behind the events of that fateful day remain to this day. Evidence of this can be found in the endless volumes of conspiracy-based materials which have attempted to unravel and capitalize on the greatest murder mystery in American history.
Now, a hugely ambitious documentary titled Everything is a Rich Man's Trick adds fuel to those embers of uncertainty, and points to many potential culprits whose possible involvement in the assassination has long been obscured by official historical record.
Authoritatively written and narrated by Francis Richard Conolly, the film begins its labyrinthine tale during the era of World War I, when the wealthiest and most powerful figures of industry discovered the immense profits to be had from a landscape of ongoing military conflict. The film presents a persuasive and exhaustively researched argument that these towering figures formed a secret society by which they could orchestrate or manipulate war-mongering policies to their advantage on a global scale, and maintain complete anonymity in their actions from an unsuspecting public. Conolly contends that these sinister puppet masters have functioned and thrived throughout history - from the formation of Nazism to the build-up and aftermath of September 11.
The election of President Kennedy in 1960 represented a formidable threat to these shadowy structures of power, including high-profile figures within the Mafia, crooked politicians, and the world's most influential and notorious war profiteers. Thus, a plot was hatched which would end Kennedy's reign prior to any chance of re-election, thereby restoring the order and freedoms of these secret societies.
At nearly three and a half hours, Everything is a Rich Man's Trick examines a defining event of our times from a perspective not often explored. While it may or may not win over viewers who remain skeptical of mass-scale conspiracy, it presents its findings in a measured and meticulous manner which demands attention and consideration.
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* "The True Jesus of the Gospels" (by Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher to the Papal House, translation by Zenit news), pt. 1 [archive.is/7Rqkt], pt. 2 [archive.is/WwC0t], pt. 3 [archive.is/Q0ASE] [begin excerpt]: Without denying therefore that the later situation did something to further the contrast, it is impossible to eliminate every opposition between Jesus and an influential part of the Jewish leadership without completely unraveling the Gospels and making them historically incomprehensible. The ill will that the Pharisee Saul bore against the Christians did not come from nowhere and he did not bring it from Tarsus!
Once the existence of this contrast has been demonstrated, how can it be thought that it did not play any role at the moment of the final rendering of accounts and that the Jewish authorities, almost against their will, decided to denounce Jesus to Pilate only because of their fear of a Roman military intervention.
Of course Pilate was not so sensitive to the demands of justice to be worried about the fate of an unknown Jew; he was a hard and cruel type, ready to suppress with blood the tiniest hint of rebellion. All of that is true enough. However, he did not try to save Jesus out of compassion for the victim but only to score a point against his accusers with whom he had been in a cold war since his arrival in Judea. Naturally, this does not at all diminish Pilate's responsibility in Christ's condemnation. He was just as responsible as the Jewish leaders.
After all we should not aim at being "more Jewish than the Jews." From the accounts of Jesus' death present in the Talmud and in other Jewish sources (however late and historically contradictory they may be) one thing emerges: The Jewish tradition has never denied the participation of the religious leadership of the time in Christ's condemnation.
It has never defended itself by denying the fact but rather by denying that the fact constituted a crime and that it was an unjust condemnation: A version compatible with that of the New Testament sources which on the one hand highlight the participation of the Jewish authorities (of the Sadducees more than the Pharisees) in the Christ's condemnation, and on the other hand often excuse them, attributing their actions to ignorance (cf. Luke 23:34; Acts 3:17; 1 Corinthians 2:8). Raymond Brown also comes to this conclusion in his 1608 page book on "The Death of the Messiah."
A marginal note, but one that touches on a very delicate issue: According to Augias, Luke attributes to Jesus the following words: "And my enemies who did not want me to be king, bring them in and slaughter them before me" (Luke 19:27). Augias says of this line that "it is with such passages that the supporters of 'holy war' and armed struggle against unjust regimes seek to legitimate their actions."
[end excerpt]
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