10/03 Kintpuash (Captain Jack)

Kintpuash (Captain Jack) was a Modoc leader who was hanged on 10/03/1873, ostensibly for murder. He would’ve made a great tragic hero except that he was not in the least fictional. He is remembered mostly for being the leader of a band of Modoc Indians which fought The Modoc War. The Modoc "force" consisted of a a mere 52 warriors and they held off US Army forces at times numbering over 500 soldiers plus supporting artillery for several months. The history leading up to this "War" is a travesty of injustice, as is Kintpuash's sentence.

A US Militia, with neither cause nor provocation attacked a Modoc village and wantonly slaughtered men, women, and children of all ages. Kintpuash was one of the survivors of that attack. Some of the Modoc retaliated by attacking an incoming wagon train. In response, a Califorina militia killed 41 Modoc at a peace parley This is very significant because Kintpuash was hanged after having been foound guilty of murder for having killed one man at a peace parley. It seems to me that the Modoc had 41 reasons to believe that this was perfectly legitimate behavior. Be that as it may, hostilities continued as more and more arriving "settlers" stole or tried to steal Modoc land. The US decided to resolve the matter by stealing the land itself and moving the Modoc to the Klamath reservation. The Klamath were bitter enemies of the Modoc, but that wasn't the government's problem, now, was it?

After suffering Klamath depredations with no assist from the US, Kintpuash and about 200 Modoc split for their old home, only to find it knee deep in "settlers". A detachment of 40 US soldiers reinforced by some of the citizenry and a group of militia descended on the Modoc camp with instructions tp move them back to the reservation. They had all but agreed and were beginning to comply with the outrageous command to surrender their weapons when a fight between one soldier and one warrior led to gunfire and a brief firefight as the Modoc bailed out headed for California. Kintpuash's band set up shop in the lava beds south of Tule Lake in an area now known as Captain Jack's Stronghold, and the war was on. The army tried a simultaneous attack from both the west and the east and managed to lose only 35 killed and 25 wounded to zero Modoc harmed. Next came a peace commission and a futile parley meeting, followed by futile meetings and a second parley at which Kintpuash killed General Canby. This is the "murder" for which he was hanged though nobody was ever charged for the murder of 41 Modoc at a parley. All the Modoc wanted, in the end, was a small separate revervation which could've been bought for about 5% of the dollar cost of the "Modoc War".

On 10/03/1957, the California State Superior Court ruled that Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems was not obscene. Good to know. It's a long fucker and continuosly reciting it in protest would've been exhausting.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, ... - Allen Ginsberg: HOWL

Remember Captain Jack And while you're at it, Howl at something!

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It is also German Unity Day, the cessation of its bifurcation.

On this day in history:

2457 BCE – Gaecheonjeol, the foundation day of the Korean People 1683 –- The Tungning kingdom on Taiwan surrendered to Qing dynasty naval commander Shi Lang 1835 -- The Staedtler company was founded 1873 -- Kintpuash (Captain Jack) and 3 other Modoc were hanged 1912 -- General Smedley Butler's U.S. marines shelled Coyotepe Hill during our criminal occupation of Nicaragua. 1932 -- Iraq gained independence from the UK. 1942 -- A V-2 launched from Peenemunde became the first man-made artifact to reach space. 1957 -- The California State Superior Court ruled that Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems was not obscene. 1963 -- A violent coup in Honduras initiated two decades of military dictatorship. 1985 -- The first flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis 1990 -- The DDR was merged into the Federal Republic of Germany. 1993 -- A US attempt to kidnap officials of Mohamed Farrah Aidid's organisation in Mogadishu, Somalia, became the Battle of Mogadishu when the intended victims and their followers had the audacity to fight back 2008 –- The Bush Bank Bailout was signed 2015 –- Forty-two people were killed and 33 were missing in the Kunduz hospital airstrike in Afghanistan

On 3 October 2015, a United States Air Force AC-130U gunship attacked the Kunduz Trauma Centre operated by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) in the city of Kunduz, in the province of the same name in northern Afghanistan.[2][3][4][5][6][7] 42 people were killed[8] and over 30 were injured. Médecins Sans Frontières condemned the incident, calling it a deliberate breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime. It further stated that all warring parties had been notified about the hospital and its operations well in advance.[9][10] ***

Eleven days after the attack, MSF said an American tank forcibly entered the hospital: "Their unannounced and forced entry damaged property, destroyed potential evidence and caused stress and fear." The tank smashed the gate of the hospital complex. The MSF executives who happened to be in the hospital at the time were told that the tank was carrying a US-Nato-Afghan team investigating the attack.

There has, of course, never been any independent investigation of the US attack on that hospital, and certainly never will be, just another US war crime.

YouTube Video

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Some people who were born on this day:

We are the United States of Amnesia, which is encouraged by a media that has no desire to tell us the truth about anything, serving their corporate masters who have other plans to dominate us.

~~ Gore Vidal

1790 -- John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 through 1866 1875 –- Dr. Atl, painter (d. 1964) 1885 –- Sophie Treadwell, playwright and journalist 1900 -- Thomas Wolfe, An author and academic 1916 -- James Herriot, A veterinarian and author 1924 -- Harvey Kurtzman, A cartoonist 1925 –- Simone Segouin (also known as Nicole Minet), French Resistance fighter and partisan 1925 -- Gore Vidal, An author, screenwriter, wit, and actor 1925 -- George Wein, co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival 1938 -- Eddie Cochran, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor. 1940 –- Alan O'Day, singer and songwriter 1941 -- Chubby Checker, singer & songwriter, somewhat twisted 1947 -- John Perry Barlow, poet, songwriter, blogger, and activist. Founding member of the EFF. 1947 -- Ben Cauley, trumpet player and songwriter, 1949 -- Lindsey Buckingham, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer 1951 -- Keb' Mo', singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor 1954 -- Stevie Ray Vaughan, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer 1955 -- Allen Woody, bass player and songwriter 1962 -- Tommy Lee, singer, songwriter, drummer, and producer 1969 – Gwen Stefani, singer, songwriter, actress, and fashion designer 1969 – Tetsuya, singer,songwriter, bass player, and producer 1975 – India Arie, singer-songwriter, producer, and actress 1979 – Josh Klinghoffer, guitarist, songwriter, and producer 1987 – Starley, pop singer

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Some people who died on this day:

I am but one man. I am the voice of my people. Whatever their hearts are, that I talk. I want no more war. I want to be a man. You deny me the right of a white man. My skin is red; my heart is a white man’s heart; but I am a Modoc. I am not afraid to die. I will not fall on the rocks. When I die, my enemies will be under me. Your soldiers began on me when I was asleep on Lost River. They drove us to these rocks, like a wounded deer…

~~ Kintpuash

1795 –- Tula, Curaçao slave leader (date of birth unknown; executed) 1838 -- Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak (Black Hawk), Sauk war leader 1867 –- Elias Howe, American engineer, invented the sewing machine 1873 -- Kintpuash, aka Captain Jack, leader of the Modoc rebellion 1891 –- Édouard Lucas, French mathematician and theorist 1896 -- William Morris, author, poet, textile designer, and socialist activist 1911 –- Rosetta Jane Birks, Australian suffragist 1966 –- Rolf Maximilian Sievert, Swedish physicist and academic 1967 -- Woody Guthrie, singer, songwriter and guitarist 1969 -- Skip James, singer, songwriter and guitarist 1987 -- Jean Anouilh, playwright and screenwriter

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Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: German Unity Day Foundation Day (Korea) National Butterfly and Hummingbird Day World Habitat Day Howl Day (Unofficial)

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Today's Tunes

Eddie Cochran

Chubby Checker

John Perry Barlow

Ben Cauley

Lindsey Buckingham