06/21 is summer (winter) solstice

Today is day 172 of the Gregorian Calendar year, Boomtime, Confusion 26, 3187 YOLD (discordian) And let us not forget 13.0.8.11.4 mlc (the Mayan Long Count) ***** This day usually marks the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, which is the day of the year with the most hours of daylight in the Northern Hemisphere and the fewest hours of daylight in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Solstice is one of two days in the calendar year when the tilt of the Earth's spin axis relative to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the sun reaches its maximum toward or away from the sun. The sun reaches its greatest elevation above (or below) the equator as viewed from earth and the sun is above (or below) the visible horizon for the longest amount of time, leading to the description that it is the longest (or shortest) day of the year. (But you knew all that, didn't you.) It has been celebrated by many, in many ways, for millenia. Before you deem China crazy for declaring war on all and sundry in 1900, that was the Boxer Rebellion. The Chinese were in the right on all counts, but sadly incapable of driving the sleazy imperialist, colonialist, thieving foreigners and their drugs and missionaries out of their country. In Guinn v. United States the Supremes struck down a grandfather clause granting an exemption to the requirements that citizens of Oklahoma had to pass a literacy test in order to vote. The clause was carefully drafted so as to make it easy for illiterate whites to qualify for the exemption while making it all but completely impossible for illiterate blacks to qualify. The court struck the provision down as "repugnant to the Fifteenth Amendment", but Oklahoma and other "southern" states easily found other ways to disenfranchise black citizens, so it accomplished very little. In fact, that "battle" was still going on in 1964, witness the murders of Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner (below) In Miller v. California, the Supremes made it easier to successfully declare things to be obscene because Burger was a bluenose. They instituted The Miller Test as it came to be known, that anything was obscene if it lacked ""serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."; a definition that is essentially a steaming pile of subjective claptrap. As long as there is such a thing as obscenity laws, then any and all arguably obscene materials must be held to possess serious political value if nothing else. That's because only the concept of obscenity is obscene. InTexas v Johnson the Supremes held that burning a US flag was protected speech. On its way up the ladder of lesser judiciary bodies,, the Tejas Supremes(tm) stated

... a government cannot mandate by fiat a feeling of unity in its citizens. Therefore that very same government cannot carve out a symbol of unity and prescribe a set of approved messages to be associated with that symbol.

That view and language, IMHO, should be applied to the Pledge of Allegiance as well, or at least its recitation at the opening of civic functions. One of the dissents in Texas v Johnson would carve out a special exemption for the flag because it is a unique symbol of the country for which the populace has formed a great measure of attachment and reverence. Well, no shit Sherlock, precisely because via the Pledge of Allegiance we have created that bogus unanimity and idolization that the lower court condemned. On this day in history:

533 – A Byzantine expeditionary fleet under Belisarius sailed from Constantinople to attack the Vandals in Africa, no doubt looking for the pump handle they took 1813 – Wellington defeated Joseph Bonaparte at the Battle of Vitoria. This was a BFD. 1898 – The United States seized Guam from Spain. 1900 – China formally declared war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Japan 1915 – The Supremes held that a grandfather clause in Oklahoma's literacy test law was unconstitutional. (Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915) 1919 – The RCMP fired a volley into a crowd of unemployed war vets during the Winnipeg general strike which killed two of them. 1942 – A Japanese submarine surfaced near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at Fort Stevens, one of the few attacks in history on the US mainland. 1957 – Ellen Fairclough was sworn in as Canada's first female Cabinet Minister. 1964 – Civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, were murdered by Klan members down in Mississippi 1970 – Penn Central declared Section 77 bankruptcy in what was then the largest corporate bankruptcy in the US 1973 – The Supremes established the Miller test for determining whether something is obscene in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15. 1989 – The Supremes held , that burning the US flag is a form of political speech protected by the First Amendment. (Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397) 2000 – Section 28 (of the Local Government Act 1988), outlawing the 'promotion' of homosexuality in the UK was repealed in Scotland . 2004 – SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight. 2005 – Edgar Ray Killen, who had been found not guilty for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, was convicted of manslaughter in a new trial 2006 – Pluto's newly discovered moons were officially named Nix and Hydra. Shouldn't they be NotMoons since it is a NotPlanet?

Born this day in:

“We are our choices.”

~~ Jean-Paul Sartre 1706 – John Dollond, optician and astronomer 1710 – James Short, mathematician and optician 1781 – Siméon Denis Poisson, mathematician and physicist 1811 – Carlo Matteucci, physicist and neurophysiologist 1823 – Jean Chacornac, astronomer 1839 – Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, author, poet, and playwright 1845 – Arthur Cowper Ranyard, astrophysicist and astronomer 1863 – Max Wolf, German astronomer and academic 1870 – Clara Immerwahr, chemist and academic 1870 – Julio Ruelas, painter 1887 – Norman L. Bowen, geologist and petrologist 1894 – Harry Schmidt, mathematician and physicist 1896 – Charles Momsen, invented the Momsen lung 1903 – Al Hirschfeld, caricaturist, painter and illustrator 1905 – Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher and author 1912 – Mary McCarthy, novelist and critic 1913 – Luis Taruc, political activist 1915 – Wilhelm Gliese, astronomer 1916 – Herbert Friedman, physicist and astronomer 1918 – Josephine Webb, engineer 1924 – Wally Fawkes, jazz clarinetist and a satirical cartoonist 1928 – Wolfgang Haken, mathematician and academic 1932 – Lalo Schifrin, pianist, composer, and conductor 1932 – O.C. Smith, R&B/jazz singer 1938 – Don Black, songwriter 1938 – Michael M. Richter, mathematician and computer scientist 1942 – Marjorie Margolies, journalist and politician 1943 – Eumir Deodato, pianist, composer, and producer 1944 – Ray Davies, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1944 – Jon Hiseman, drummer 1946 – Brenda Holloway, singer and songwriter 1947 – Joey Molland, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1950 – Anne Carson, poet and academic 1950 – Joey Kramer, drummer and songwriter 1950 – Trygve Thue, guitarist and record producer 1950 – John Paul Young, singer, songwriter 1951 – Nils Lofgren, singer, songwriter and guitarist 1952 – Judith Bingham, singer, songwriter 1955 – Tim Bray, software developer and businessman 1957 – Berkeley Breathed, author and illustrator 1959 – Marcella Detroit, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1959 – Kathy Mattea, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1978 – Gervase Markham, software engineer 1983 – Edward Snowden, activist and academic

Died this day in:

Politics have no relation to morals.

~~ Niccolò Machiavelli

ALSO-

War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

~~ Smedley D. Butler 1527 – Niccolò Machiavelli, historian and author 1547 – Sebastiano del Piombo, painter and educator 1661 – Andrea Sacchi, painter 1874 – Anders Jonas Ångström, physicist and astronomer 1908 – Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer and educator 1914 – Bertha von Suttner, journalist and author 1940 – Smedley Butler, general and author

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

1940 – Édouard Vuillard, painter 1951 – Charles Dillon Perrine, astronomer 1954 – Gideon Sundback, engineer who developed the zipper 1957 – Johannes Stark, physicist and academic 1964 – James Chaney, civil rights activist 1964 – Andrew Goodman, civil rights activist 1964 – Michael Schwerner, civil rights activist 1981 – Don Figlozzi, illustrator and animator 1990 – June Christy, singer 1994 – William Wilson Morgan, astronomer and astrophysicist 2001 – John Lee Hooker, singer, songwriter ,and guitarist 2003 – Leon Uris, author 2013 – James P. Gordon, physicist and academic

Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: Go Skateboarding Day International Yoga Day (International) National Indigenous Peoples Day (Canada) International Surfing Day We Tripantu, a winter solstice festival in the southern hemisphere. (Mapuche, southern Chile) Willkakuti, an Andean-Amazonic New Year (Aymara) Fête de la Musique World Humanist Day (Humanism) Atheist Solidarity Day World Hydrography Day (International)

Music goes here, iirc, well, With apologies ;-)

summer solstice

YouTube Video

Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner

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Wally Fawkes

O.C. Smith

Eumir Deodato