Monday OT: Oct 12 - Indigenous Peoples' Day

Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo  

Virtue is to herself the best reward.

-- Henry More 1614 – Henry More, philosopher

1687 – Sylvius Leopold Weiss,  lute player and composer 1860 – Elmer Ambrose Sperry, engineer and businessman, 1864 – Kamini Roy, British India's first female graduate, Bengali poet, social activist, and feminist writer  1868 – August Horch, engineer and businessman 1872 – Ralph Vaughan Williams, composer and educator 1875 – Aleister Crowley, mystic, magician, and author 1896 – Eugenio Montale, Ipoet and translator, 1921 – Art Clokey, animator, producer, screenwriter, and voice actor, 1929 – Nappy Brown, R&B singer, and songwriter 1932 – Dick Gregory, comedian, actor, activist, and author ( 1934 – James "Sugar Boy" Crawford, singer, songwriter, and pianist 1935 – Sam Moore, singer and songwriter 1935 – Luciano Pavarotti, tenor and actor 1942 – Melvin Franklin, (bass) singer 1946 – Daryl Runswick, bassist and composer 1947 – Chris Wallace, journalist 1954 – Michael Roe, singer, songwriter, and record producer 1954 – Linval Thompson, singer and producer 1955 – Pat DiNizio, American singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1955 – Jane Siberry, singer, songwriter and producer 1956 – Rafael Ábalos, author 1956 – David Vanian, singer, songwriter 1957 – Clémentine Célarié, actress, singer, and director 1958 – Maria de Fátima Silva de Sequeira Dias, historian, author, and academic 1958 – Jeff Keith, singer and songwriter 1958 – Bryn Merrick, bass player 1962 – Chris Botti, trumpet player and composer 1969 – Martie Maguire, singer, songwriter, violinist, and producer 1975 – Susana Félix, singer, songwriter, producer, and actress 1979 – Jordan Pundik, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.

Demosthenes

#include int main() { int num; printf("Enter an integer: "); scanf("%d", &num); // True if num is perfectly divisible by 2 if(num % 2 == 0) printf("%d is even.", num); else printf("%d is odd.", num); return 0; }

-- Dennis Ritchie

322 BCE – Demosthenes, orator and statesman, 1492 – Piero della Francesca, mathematician and painter 1590 – Kano Eitoku, painter and educator 1654 – Carel Fabritius, painter 1845 – Elizabeth Fry, prison reformer, 1858 – Hiroshige, painter 1914 – Margaret E. Knight, inventor 1915 – Edith Cavell, nurse 1924 – Anatole France, journalist, novelist, and poet 1965 – Paul Hermann Müller, chemist and academic 1969 – Serge Poliakoff, painter and academic 1970 – Feodor Stepanovich Rojankovsky, illustrator and painter 1971 – Gene Vincent, musician 1985 – Ricky Wilson, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1997 – John Denver, singer, songwriter, guitarist, pilot, and actor 1998 – Matthew Shepard, hate based murder victim 2002 – Ray Conniff, bandleader and composer 2005 – C. Delores Tucker, activist and politician 2009 – Dickie Peterson, singer, songwriter, and bass player 2011 – Dennis Ritchie, computer scientist, created the C programming language    2013 – George Herbig, astronomer and academic

Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: Indigenous Peoples' Day

Native American Day

Día de la Resistencia Indígena,

"Day of Indigenous Resistance" (Venezuela)

Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural, "

Day of respect for cultural diversity" (Argentina)

National Gumbo Day

Pulled Pork Day

Feast for Life of Aleister Crowley, celebrated as "Crowleymas" (Thelema)

Freethought Day

International Day Against DRM

Indigenous Peoples Day versus that dude's day; Cancel Culture? Let us contemplate the statue of Christopher Columbus in many a town square.  There we see a brave, heroic, triumphal, explorer - a tribute to a man who never was.  Perhaps a statue portraying the historical SOB, as he really was, would be more acceptable?  He was not brave nor heroic, and not, in his mind, an explorer so much as a merchant, imperialist, slaver, and colonist given only that somebody would capitalize his venture. He was a brutal avaricious tyrant who allowed his crews and fellow colonists to brutalize, torture and rape both the indigenous people they enslaved as well as those they did not. He had a risk free sure fire plan to garner great wealth and power as well as dominion and control over foreign lands, resources, peoples and their labors.  He would get some monarch to provide him with a fleet hitch a ride west to the far east on the easterlies, score some spices, tea and more, work those winds to take him north a bit and ride the westerlies back home. He knew of those winds, which was pretty common knowledge and that the earth was spherical, also common knowledge, and he knew, with great certitude, that it wasn't really all that far to the far east, a mere 2400 miles or so. This plan was simple and not at all brave, bold or heroic. It was only in error in two regards, the distance to the orient was vastly underestimated and there was another continent in the way. Of course, the unexpected continent saved his bacon, allowing him to make landfall rather than being strung up by his crew for sailing further than their water could last. Knowledgeable, but no great mariner, he did manage to run his flagship aground so badly that she was lost. No great navigator, he went to his grave certain that he had reached the orient even though the travels of others piled up ever more and more evidence that he had not. He did manage to claim some lands for "Their Most Catholic Majesties", Ferdinand and Isabella, and dominion over them as governor/viceroy, but behaved so outrageously toward the natives and fellow colonists that even the Queen of the Spanish Inquisition had him arrested and recalled. How about it, a statue of some guy hiding behind his armor and guns brutally torturing some helpless  women and children while their mutilated husbands and fathers look on, surrounded by some sleazy looking piratical crewmen busily raping some female children.  I think the descendants of the survivors could appreciate that, but could all those who have been taught to revere and honor the man?