Today is National Women's Check-Up Day, which I find to be completely baffling. The US government and governing class doesn't give a crap about the health of the populace; that's why, in this day and age, we still do not have any kind of healthcare system. Beyond that, there have been a ton of decisions and legislative actions intended to subvert and pervert such limited access to injury and illness care as women previously enjoyed for the past 50 to 60 years. They are being singled out to be given less, not more, so-called health care.
We do, of course, have numbers of independent, for profit, injury and illness treatment providers which team up with insurance companies to deny provide injury and illness treatment to those who can afford it. A 2010 corporate welfare law requiring all persons to obtain injury and illness treatment insurance and mandating such to be the sole permitted means of financing injury and illness treatment, however, required the insurance companies to provide their victims with one free "check-up" annually. Though this did, to some extent, make it look as if the law was intended to benefit the populace as a whole, it also means that the treatment provider-insurance company combine reaped no net profit from such check-ups unless the providers found some grounds to prescribe something and thereby cut pharma in on the deal.
Given that uber-patriarchal cultures hold their female chattels to be mere breeders during certain portions of their lives, there might be some perceived benefit to trying to maintain their baseline health during the appropriate portion of their lives. This does seem to be a bit misguided however, insofar as automation, ai, offshoring, and the increasing use of proxies instead of US "boots on the ground" seemingly would mean that an ever growing populace would come to consist more and more of those that the WEF and other self-appointed elites consider to be "useless eaters". As I said, I just don't get it.
On this day in history:
1612 – The famous duel between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro on the shores of Ganryū Island. Musashi (Read his Book of 5 Rings) won.**
1830 – Ecuador gained its independence from Gran Colombia.
1846 – The US declared war on Mexico.
1861 – John Tebbutt discovered the Great Comet of 1861
1888 - The Empire of Brazil abolished slevery
1909 – The first Giro d'Italia started
1912 - The Royal Flying Corps was established, cue Groucho
1917 – Three children spotted Our Lady of Fátima in Fátima, which is why she isn't, like, our Lady of Milwaukee, or something
1952 – The upper house of the Indian Parliament held its first session
1958 - The Algiers Putsch
1958 - Nixon's car and motorcade were attacked in Caracas
1960 – Hundreds of UC Berkeley students gathered to protest HCUA hearings in S.F. and were dispersed with fire hoses and force. This was one of the reasons I chose to go to Cal
1985 – Cops bombed MOVE headquarters in Philly killing 6 adults & 5 kids and destroying the homes of 250 people.
1995 – Alison Hargreaves became the first woman to conquer Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas.
** The films known as "The Samurai Trilogy" by Hiroshi Inagaki are about the life of Miyamoto Musashi. Volume III starring Toshiro Mifune as Musashi Miyamoto and Kōji Tsuruta as Kojirō Sasaki is about the duel on Ganryū Island.
The listener - and obviously he's the one all of us musicians are trying to reach - doesn't have to be able to 'analyze'. He doesn't necessarily have to know how it's put together. But if we can reach him emotionally, he becomes part of the music. He adds his responses to the continuum of experience that keeps alive what a musician does. I mean, the music is out there, becoming part of so many different kinds of consciousness in ways the musicians can't possibly conceive. Reaching is what counts, not the listener's ability to analyze."
~~ Gil Evans
1221 – Alexander Nevsky, Prince of Novgorod, Grand Prince of Kiev, Grand Prince of Vladimir, savior of the Rus
1713 – Alexis Clairaut, mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist
1883 – Georgios Papanikolaou, pathologist, invented the pap smear
1907 – Daphne du Maurier, novelist and playwright
1911 – Maxine Sullivan, singer and actress
1912 – Gil Evans, pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader
1914 – Antonia Ferrín Moreiras, mathematician, academic, and astronomer
1927 – Fred Hellerman, folk singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1937 – Roger Zelazny, author and poet
1941 – Joe Brown, singer and musician
1941 – Ritchie Valens, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1943 – Mary Wells, singer and songwriter
1944 – Carolyn Franklin, R&B singer-songwriter
1945 – Magic Dick, harmonica, trumpet, and saxophone player
1945 – Lou Marini, sxophonist and composer
1950 – Danny Kirwan, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1950 – Stevie Wonder, singer and songwriter; harmonica, organ, and piano player
1954 – Johnny Logan, singer-songwriter and guitarist
1969 – Buckethead, guitarist and songwriter
1969 – Eric Lewis, pianist
1976 – Ana Popovic, singer, songwriter and guitarist
To be right is the most terrific personal state that nobody is interested in.
~~ Franz Kline
1612 – Sasaki Kojirō, master swordsman (see above)
1832 – Georges Cuvier, zoologist and academic
1884 – Cyrus McCormick, developed the mechanical reaper
1885 – Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle, physician, pathologist, and anatomist
1916 – Sholem Aleichem, Yiddish author and playwright
1945 – Tubby Hall, drummer
1946 – Zara DuPont, suffragist
1962 – Franz Kline, painter and academic
1975 – Bob Wills, singer, songwriter, musician, and actor
1977 – Mickey Spillane, businessman
1988 – Chet Baker, singer and trumpet player
2012 – Donald "Duck" Dunn, bass player, songwriter, and producer
2019 – Doris Day, singer and actress
2019 – Unita Blackwell, civil rights activist and politician
Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:
National Women's Check-Up Day
National Apple Pie Day
World Cocktail Day