07/04 - Independence Day

Beset with various grievances against the King of England's government of Britain's North American colonies some of the more or less upper class colonists aired those grievances and declared the independence of those colonies and on this day executed a document to that effect. The final paragraph of said Declaration of Independence stated:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

A somewhat famous and oft quoted prior paragraph of that document reads as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Of course, the government that said persons established and implemented thoroughly belies that paragraph, even if we interpret all men not as all members of mankind but instead restrict it to only those possessing a penile appendage. It was, in essence, a government of all by and for the free, non-indian, male landed gentry. Though the franchise was slowly expanded, the effect is still essentially the same should one simply replace "landed" with "wealthy" so as to include those owning no land, but millions of dollars and the odd legislator and/or judge or two. As I was musing upon this my mind drifted back to a weird and preposterous Supreme Court decision in which the Supremes discarded and ignored the first half of the Second Amendment. I was taught that, in reading laws, treaties and court cases one had to give each and every word serious consideration and weight and that no word nor even any punctuation mark could be elided, yet there the first half of a compound sentence was discarded as mere prefatory babble. Looking critically upon the Declaration of independence, it is clear that it too contains operationally meaningless prefatory babble, and that this linguistic and grammatical corruption has afflicted our documents ab initio. Ah well, whatever ... I nearly titled this Is That You, Alice? Eighty-six years to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson first told a fanciful tale that would evolve into what is commonly known as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" to a young Alice Pleasance Liddell. Not that I intended to ignore Independence Day, but to perhaps draw a connection between his fanciful works and the prefatory material referenced above. Back when the earth was young and I was in high school, I wrote an english paper in which I asserted that Dodgson was a prototype or forerunner of the later existential/absurdist writers drawing primarily upon Alice, Sylvie and Bruno, and Hunting of the Snark. Surely there is much absurd and existentially so about the Declaration's preface, especially back when it was written and as subsequently implemented. Beyond that, is not "The Walrus and the Carpenter" a perfect analogy for the arrival or Europeans upon these shores and their colonization and conquest of its land and peoples? And, circling back to 1584 a couple of advance scouts casing the joint for the queen's designated master thief first saw Roanoke island on this day. Not knowing their evil intent the residents even assisted them and we found by them to be

"gentle, loving and faithful, void of all guile and treason, and such as live after the manner of the golden age

so unlike the emissaries from perfidious Albion who would report back that here indeed was a bountiful place just ideal for taking, colonizing and exploiting. Besides all that, a deep dive into the Battle of Mantinea in 362 in which the greatly scorned Thebans led by the great Epainondas trounced the mighty Spartans is worth it.

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On this day in history:

- 362 BC – The Thebans, led by Epaminondas, defeated the Spartans at Mantinea - - 1054 – A supernova, now called SN 1054, was seen by China's Song dynasty, Arab, and possibly Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. - - 1584 – Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe arrived at Roanoke Island - 1634 – The city of Trois-Rivières was founded in New France (now Quebec, Canada). - - 1744 – The Treaty of Lancaster between the Iroquois and the British colonizers - - 1776 – The US Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress. - - 1802 – The United States Military Academy opens at West Point, New York. - - 1803 – The Louisiana Purchase was announced to the American people. - - 1817 – Construction on the Erie Canal began - - 1831 – Samuel Francis Smith wrote "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" - - 1837 – The world's first long-distance railway, opened between Birmingham and Liverpool - . - 1845 – Henry David Thoreau moved into a small cabin on Walden Pond in Concord, Ma - - 1855 – The first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass was published - - 1862 – Lewis Carroll told Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels. - - 1863 – The Army of Northern Virginia withdrew from the battlefield after losing the Battle of Gettysburg, - - 1879 – The Zululand capital of Ulundi was captured and burned by British troops - - 1881 – The Tuskegee Institute opened - - 1886 – The Canadian Pacific Railway's first scheduled train from Montreal arrived in Port Moody - - 1894 – The Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed by criminal usurper Sanford B. Dole. - - 1903 – The Philippine–American War was officially concluded. - - 1918 – Bolsheviks killed Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family (Julian calendar date). - - 1941 – Nazi troops & collaborationists massacred Polish scientists and writers in the captured Ukrainian city of Lviv. - - 1941 – The Great Choral Synagogue in German-occupied Riga was burnt with 300 Jews locked in the basement. - - 1943 – The Battle of Kursk began - - 1946 – The Kielce pogrom against Jewish Holocaust survivors in Poland. - - 1946 – The Philippines attained full independence from the United States. - - 1950 – Radio Free Europe first broadcast. - - 1951 – William Shockley announced the invention of the junction transistor. - - 1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act - - 1976 – Israeli commandos raided Entebbe airport in Uganda - - 1982 – Three Iranian diplomats and a journalist were disappeared in Lebanon by Phalangist forces - - 1994 – Kigali was captured by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, ending the genocide in the city. - - 1997 – NASA's Pathfinder space probe landed on the surface of Mars. - - 1998 – Japan launched the Nozomi probe to Mars - - 2004 – The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower was laid - - 2005 – The Deep Impact collider hit the comet Tempel 1. - - 2012 – The discovery of particles consistent with the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider was announced at CERN.

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Some people who were born on this day:

“Don't worry, don't worry. Look at the Astors and the Vanderbilts, all those big society people. They were the worst thieves—and now look at them. It's just a matter of time.”

~~ Meyer Lansky - 1095 – Usama ibn Munqidh, poet, author and faris - 1477 – Johannes Aventinus, historian and philologist - 1694 – Louis-Claude Daquin, organist and composer - 1715 – Christian Fürchtegott Gellert, poet and academic - 1719 – Michel-Jean Sedaine, playwright - 1753 – Jean-Pierre Blanchard, inventor, pioneer in balloon flight - 1790 – George Everest, geographer and surveyor - 1804 – Nathaniel Hawthorne, novelist and short story writer - 1826 – Stephen Foster, songwriter and composer - 1842 – Hermann Cohen, philosopher - 1854 – Victor Babeș, physician and biologist - 1868 – Henrietta Swan Leavitt, astronomer and academic - 1880 – Victor Kraft, philosopher from the Vienna Circle - 1883 – Rube Goldberg, sculptor, cartoonist, and engineer - 1895 – Irving Caesar, songwriter and composer - 1896 – Mao Dun, journalist, author, and critic - 1897 – Alluri Sitarama Raju, activist - 1898 – Pilar Barbosa, historian and activist - 1900 – Nellie Mae Rowe, folk artist 1902 – Meyer Lansky, businessman - 1903 – Flor Peeters, organist, composer, and educator - 1905 – Irving Johnson, sailor and author - 1905 – Lionel Trilling, critic, essayist, short story writer, and educator - 1906 – Vincent Schaefer, chemist and meteorologist - 1909 – Alec Templeton, composer, pianist and satirist - 1910 – Robert K. Merton, sociologist and scholar - 1911 – Mitch Miller, singer and producer - 1911 – Elizabeth Peratrovich, civil rights activist - 1914 – Nuccio Bertone, Iautomobile designer - 1915 – Timmie Rogers, actor, singer, and songwriter - 1918 – Eppie Lederer, Ann Landers - 1918 – Pauline Phillips, Dear Abby - 1921 – Gérard Debreu, economist and mathematician - 1921 – Tibor Varga, violinist and conductor - 1924 – Delia Fiallo, author and screenwriter - 1925 – Ciril Zlobec, poet, writer, translator, journalist and politician - 1927 – Neil Simon, playwright and screenwriter - 1931 – Sébastien Japrisot, author, director, and screenwriter - 1934 – Colin Welland, actor and screenwriter - 1936 – Zdzisława Donat, soprano and actress - 1937 – Thomas Nagel, philosopher and academic - 1937 – Richard Rhodes, journalist and historian - 1938 – Bill Withers, singer, songwriter, and producer - 1941 – Tomaž Šalamun, poet and academic - 1941 – Pavel Sedláček, singer, songwriter, and guitarist - 1941 – Brian Willson, soldier, lawyer, and activist - 1942 – Peter Rowan, singer, songwriter, and guitarist - 1943 – Conny Bauer, trombonist - 1943 – Fred Wesley, jazz and funk trombonist - 1943 – Alan (Blind Owl) Wilson, singer, songwriter, and guitarist - 1946 – Ron Kovic, author and activist - 1948 – Jeremy Spencer, singer, songwriter ,and guitarist - 1951 – Ralph Johnson, R&B drummer and percussionist - 1952 – John Waite, singer,songwriter, and guitarist - 1952 – Paul Rogat Loeb, author and activist - 1958 – Vera Leth, Ombudsman - 1958 – Kirk Pengilly, guitarist, saxophonist, and songwriter - 1963 – Sonia Pierre, human rights activist - 1964 – Mark Slaughter, singer, songwriter, and producer - 1973 – Gackt, musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor - 1983 – Melanie Fiona, singer and songwriter - 1984 – Jin Akanishi, singer and songwriter - 1999 – Moa Kikuchi, musician - 2003 – Polina Bogusevich, singer

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Some people who died on this day:

“People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.”

~~ Samuel Richardson - 1761 – Samuel Richardson, author and painter - 1850 – William Kirby, entomologist and author - 1886 – Pîhtokahanapiwiyin, aka Poundmaker, Cree tribal chief - 1905 – Élisée Reclus, geographer and author - 1910 – Giovanni Schiaparelli, astronomer and historian - 1916 – Alan Seeger, soldier and poet - 1934 – Marie Curie, physicist and chemist - 1938 – Otto Bauer, philosopher and politician - 1948 – Monteiro Lobato, journalist and author - 1963 – Clyde Kennard, activist - 1963 – Pingali Venkayya, activist - 1970 – Barnett Newman, painter and illustrator - 1971 – August Derleth, anthologist and author - 1974 – Georgette Heyer, author - 1984 – Jimmie Spheeris, singer and songwriter - 1986 – Paul-Gilbert Langevin, musicologist, critic, and physicist - 1986 – Flor Peeters, organist and composer - 1986 – Oscar Zariski, mathematician and academic - 1990 – Olive Ann Burns,journalist and author - 1991 – Victor Chang, surgeon and physician - 1991 – Art Sansom, cartoonist - 1992 – Astor Piazzolla, bandoneon player and composer - 1995 – Bob Ross, painter and television host - 1997 – Charles Kuralt, journalist - 1997 – John Zachary Young, zoologist and neurophysiologist - 1999 – Leo Garel, illustrator and educator - 2000 – Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, journalist and author - 2002 – Gerald Bales, organist and composer - 2003 – André Claveau, singer - 2003 – Barry White, singer, songwriter, pianist, and producer - 2004 – Jean-Marie Auberson, violinist and conductor - 2007 – Bill Pinkney, singer - 2008 – Thomas M. Disch, author and poet - 2009 – Allen Klein, businessman and talent agent, founded ABKCO Records - 2009 – Drake Levin, guitarist - 2010 – Robert Neil Butler, physician and author - 2012 – Hiren Bhattacharyya, poet and author - 2013 – Bernie Nolan, singer - 2017 – John Blackwell, R&B, funk, and jazz drummer - 2017 – Daniil Granin, author -

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Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: - The first evening of Dree Festival, celebrated until July 7 (Apatani people, Arunachal Pradesh, India) - Independence Day, celebrates the Declaration of Independence of the United States from Great Britain in 1776 (United States and its dependencies) - Liberation Day (Northern Mariana Islands) - Liberation Day (Rwanda) - Republic Day (Philippines) - National Barbecue Day - Alice in Wonderland Day (1862)

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Today's Tunes

The Erie Canal:

YouTube Video

Lewis Carroll and/or the following:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Irving Johnson,

Louis-Claude Daquin

Alec Templeton

Tibor Varga

Timmie Rogers

Bill Withers