Monday Open Thread: April 22 is Earth Day

April 22 is the 112th day of the Gregorian Calendar year, Boomtime, Discord 39, 3185 YOLD (discordian), And let us not forget 13.0.6.7.13 by the Mayan Long Count

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Earth Day! Wow! Bet there'll be a metric boatload of speechifying and posturing today, 39 years later. So what happened in between? Mostly hippies and a handful of scientists "celebrating", howling into the wind, mostly ignored and/or mocked. Now the bandwagon will be overloaded with talkers, most of whom will propose assorted "planning" and "research", like they should have 39 years ago, but, most of whom have, during that period, pretty much done zip shit. In the near and not so near future, most of them will continue to talk and do zip shit. The youth, however, are rising, and may be able to accomplish something yet, in the face of all the subtle and not at all subtle opposition, obstruction, and resistance, all the stalling and can kicking on the part of the global establishment. It's up to Greta and all of her "fellow travelers" now, and one cannot help but wonder how many will die at the hands of the authorities and corporate goons in the coming decade.

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Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift, look out kid, ...  

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On this day in history: 1529 – The Treaty of Zaragoza divided the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal along a line 297.5 leagues east of the Moluccas. This was a bookend to the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, which sort of codified and enacted assorted Papal Bulls. It would seem that the popes and kings involved in this process were blithely unaware of certain fundamental properties of spherical objects, such as the fact that "everything west of a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands" must also include "everything east of a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands". This oversight led both Spain and Portugal to "rightfully" claim the Moluccas, which they did and then went to war for 9 years over. (Of course, none of them had any right whatsoever to make any claim on the Moluccas, but the pernicious doctrines embodied in that usurpation of the rights of indigenous peoples to their own lands has been recognized as valid by the US Supreme Court, and far be it from me to decry it and thereby disclose my allegiance to Putin or some such idiocy.) At any rate this final treaty put the end to 9 years of war caused by the fact that popes and kings are neither required nor even expected to know geometry or anything else remotely practical or useful, but, like all political animals, only what to kiss and when. 1864 – The U.S. Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1864, creating the 2 cent coin and allowing the inscription of the pernicious and nefarious phrase "In God We Trust" on said 2 cent piece.. (I'd like to assert that this is the origin of "my two cents' worth", but have no support for such an assertion, though, or course, supporting ones assertions is admittedly quite passe', old school, unnecessary and generally otiose today.) Sure enough, on March 3, 1865, Congress approved the inscription of this dastardly attack on the first amendment on all US silver and gold coins. and in 1956 Ike saw to it that it replaced "E Pluribus Unum" as our national motto and got printed and minted on all of our currency and coins. (Nonetheless, Ike didn't trust god be in charge of Viet Nam's fate, odd, that.) 1970 – The first Earth Day was celebrated. 2016 – The Paris Agreement was signed. The timing was intended to be symbolic. As signed, it pretty much was symbolic. The US eventually withdrew, sparing itself the stigma of ignoring it.  

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Born this day in: 1724 – Immanuel Kant, German anthropologist and philosopher. 1766 – Germaine de Staël, author and political philosopher 1830 – Emily Davies, suffragist and educator, co-founder of Girton College. 1870 – Vladimir Lenin, leftist lawyer 1891 – Nicola Sacco, anarchist martyr murdered by the state. 1892 – Vernon Johns, minister and activist 1899 – Vladimir Nabokov, novelist and critic 1904 – J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist 1916 – Yehudi Menuhin, violinist and conductor 1916 – Ruth A. M. Schmidt, geologist and paleontologist 1922 – Richard Diebenkorn, painter 1922 – Charles Mingus, bassist, composer, and bandleader 1927 – Laurel Aitken, singer 1935 – Paul Chambers, bassist and composer 1936 – Glen Campbell, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor 1937 – Jack Nitzsche, singer, songwriter, pianist, and conductor 1939 – Mel Carter. singer and actor 1950 – Peter Frampton, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer 1950 – Jancis Robinson, journalist and critic 1951 – Paul Carrack, singer, songwriter and guitarist  

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Died this day in: 1806 – Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, Nelson's foil 1983 – Earl Hines, pianist and bandleader 1984 – Ansel Adams, photographer and environmentalist 1995 – Jane Kenyon, poet and author 1996 – Erma Bombeck, journalist and author 2011 – Hazel Dickens, singer, songwriter, bassist and guitarist 2013 – Richie Havens, singer, songwriter and guitarist  

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Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: Earth Day  

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Music goes here, iirc, well,

Earth Day

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Yehudi Menuhin

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Charlie Mingus

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Laurel Aitken

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Paul Chambers

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Glen Campbell

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Jack Nitzsche

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Mel Carter

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Peter Frampton

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Paul Carrack

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Earl Hines

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Hazel Dickens

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Richie Havens

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Image is "Earth" by Joey Littlemore and is public domain  

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It's an open thread, so do your thing

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Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com