08/22 - Saint Nessie's Birthday

Today we celebrate Saint Nessie's Day, a holiday only partly of my invention. The earliest report of a monster in the vicinity of Loch Ness comes from Saint Columba and is reported in writing by the writer Adomnán. Adomnan's tale has a lot of other embellishments, but, objectively, Nessie was clearly born of the mind and imagination of Saint Columba springing full grown from his head like Athena from the head of Zeus. As Athena was a god because birthed of a god so Nessie must be a saint because birthed of a saint. Lest somebody cry sacrilege, please be aware that minimal research will disclose that many religions and sects have saints and celebrate saints' days. There is seemingly no bar to declaring a person or other entity to be a saint and assigning them a day. In this case, the day is the anniversary of the day in 565 CE on which Saint Columba, ahem, first saw it/him/her.

This saves me from having to address the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief. Nobody really desires to hear me rant on that topic, I assure you. Throughout my life, now and then one or more missionaries, willfully and intentionally violating the law of some foreign state got punished for said transgressions, which caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth and howling about how horrible, evil and dastardly those states were to do so. This is notwithstanding the fact that throughout history religious devotees have hideously tortured, murdered, and enslaved vast numbers of heathens, pagans, atheists, free thinkers, scientists and other non-believers, including even those who were co-religionists who merely differed as to one or more details of dogma or ritual, witness the intentionally genocidal Albigensian Crusade. No, I don't want to go there.

~~ Giordano Bruno, Martyr to Free Thought ~~

I should probably mention the Geneva Convention(s), for what it is worth. The First Geneva Convention was signed by 12 countries (not including the US) on this date in 1864, and the even the US eventually signed too. The convention tried to stipulate what could and could not be done to POWs and civilians in time of war and was to be enforced by the Red Cross. To paraphrase Stalin; How many divisions does the Red Cross have? None, and it shows. The perpetrators of such war crimes as Mai Lai and Abu Graib, for example, all combined, suffered a far lesser penalty than Julian Assange has so far for exposing some war crimes. Beside that, it appears that one can do anything one pleases to "unlawful enemy combatants" who are defined as anybody of any nationality that the US President decides to call an "unlawful enemy combatant". So, whatever.

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On this day in history:

0565 -- St. Columba reported seeing a monster in Loch Ness, Scotland. 1485 -- The Battle of Bosworth Field, the death of Richard III and the end of the House of Plantagenet 1639 -- Madras (now Chennai), India, was founded by the British East India Company 1642 -- Charles I called the English Parliament traitors. The English Civil War began 1791 -- The Haitian Slave Revolution started in Saint-Domingue. 1831 -- Nat Turner's slave rebellion started just after midnight in Southampton County, Virginia 1848 -- The United States annexed New Mexico. 1864 -- Twelve nations signed the First Geneva Convention. 1950 -- Althea Gibson became the first black competitor in international tennis. 1952 -- They permanently closed the penal colony on Devil's Island. Next up, Gitmo 1963 -- Joe Walker reached an altitude of 67.08 mi (354,200 feet) in an X-15 1966 -- The NFWA and AWOC merged to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) 1971 –- Jedgar Hoover and John Mitchell announce the arrest of 20 of the Camden 28. 1978 -- The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FLSN) occupied the national palace in Nicaragua. 1992 -- FBI HRT sniper Lon Horiuchi killed Vicki Weaver at her home at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. No hostage was found or rescued. 1996 -- Bill Clinton signed The Clinton Welfare reform CUTS into law

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Some people who were born on this day:

If I don't drive around the park, I'm pretty sure to make my mark. If I'm in bed each night by ten, I may get back my looks again, If I abstain from fun and such, I'll probably amount to much, But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn.

~~ Dorothy Parker

1647 -- Denis Papin, physicist and mathematician, developed pressure cooking 1862 -- Claude Debussy, pianist and composer 1880 -- George Herriman, cartoonist 1893 -- Wilfred Kitching, 7th General of The Starvation Army, pregnant with celestial fire 1893 -- Dorothy Parker, poet, critic, author, wit, member of the Algonquin Roundtable, Hollywood Blacklistee 1902 -- Leni Riefenstahl, actress and director, NAZI propagandist 1908 -- Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer and painter 1914 -- Jack Dunphy, dancer, author, playwright, Capote fancier 1915 -- David Dellinger, pacifist, activist, radical, 1/7th of Chicago 7. 1917 -- John Lee Hooker, singer, songwriter and guitarist 1918 -- Mary McGrory, journalist and author 1920 -- Ray Bradbury, author and screenwriter 1928 -- Karlheinz Stockhausen, composer and academic 1936 -- Chuck Brown, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer. 1936 -- Dale Hawkins, singer, songwriter and guitarist; swamp rocker 1945 -- Ron Dante, singer, songwriter and producer 1947 -- Donna Jean Godchaux, singer, songwriter 1948 -- David Marks, singer, songwriter and guitarist 1958 -- Vernon Reid, guitarist and songwriter 1959 -- Juan Croucier, singer, songwriter, bass player, and producer 1961 -- Roland Orzabal, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer 1961 -- Debbi Peterson, singer and drummer 1963 -- Tori Amos, singer, songwriter, pianist, and producer, activist 1967 -- Layne Staley, singer, songwriter 1972 -- Paul Doucette, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and drummer 1976 -- Bryn Davies, bassist, cellist, and pianist - look her up sometime

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Some people who died on this day:

When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.

~~ Jomo Kenyatta

1664 -- Maria Cunitz, astronomer and author 1965 -- Ellen Church, first female flight attendant 1967 -- Gregory Goodwin Pincus, co-created the birth-control pil 1978 -- Jomo Kenyatta, journalist and politician, founding father of Kenya, one of Kapenguria Six, alleged mau mau. 1979 -- James T. Farrell, novelist, short-story writer, and poet 1989 -- Huey P. Newton, activist, co-founded the Black Panther Party, brought gun control to California 2006 -- Bruce Gary, drummer and producer 2011 -- Jerry Leiber, songwriter, half of "Leiber & Stoller"

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Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: Why not Saint Nessie? Saint Columba birthed her on this date International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief (International)

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Today's Tunes

Wilfred Kitching

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