Witches Night

April 30, 2008 at 4:00 am (Europe, Germany, Pagan, cross-quarter days)
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Deutschlands Dunklelegenden

The witches toward the Brocken strain

When the stubble yellow, green the grain.

The rabble rushes - as ’tis meet -

To Lord Urian’s lordly seat…

— Goethe’s Faust, “Walpurgisnacht”

Exactly six months before Halloween, the Germans and Scandinavians celebrate Walpurgis Night, May-Eve, Beltane, or Hexennacht, aka Witches’ Night.

According to legend, on the last night of April, witches would meet at Hexentazplatz (Witches’ Dancing Place, conveniently named in case you got lost and had to ask a tourist) near the town of Thale in northern Germany. From there they would fly upon broomsticks to the highest point in the Harz Mountains, a summit called “The Brocken.”

At the Brocken there they would dance with the devil, a horned he-goat demon named Lord Urian, who would grant them mystical powers…for a price. Scarier than even the orgiastic rituals of Walpurgis Night, is the unholy marriage of Google-translation and the German language in describing this event:

“On the chunk of dance legend after all witches in a large circle around the fire and then the devil kiss the butt. Then you can have with the devil marry and receive from him magic powers.”

Don’t be Frightened!

Ok, be a little frightened. For centuries tales spread of sordid revels atop the Harz Mountains. To this day, the Brocken is haunted by the spirits of angry tourists who felt cheated having yet to encounter a single supernatural event.

There are many reasons this point became synonymous with the dark legends of Deutschland. Its inaccessible height and remote location are two. The region wasn’t settled until after 1000 AD. (In Germany that’s like the 1950 in America.)  Also the mountain produces an eerie optical illusion called the Brockengenspenst, or the “Brocken spector.”

“As the sun sinks, the shadow of a walker cast from a ridge becomes magnified and an enormous silhouette appears on low-lying clouds or mist banks below the mountain. Although it’s only a shadow, the distant “specter” appears to be walking at the same pace, doggedly tracking the observer’s path.”

In other words, in the centuries before the meteorological sciences, many a Brocken hiker were spooked by their own shadows. At least one was frightened to death.

Germany may not have been the birthplace of the witch, but it did propagate the image of the witch as we know it today, through its literature, legends, and its ‘litigation’:

“Between 1623 and 1633, the prince-bishops of two Bavarian towns, Wƒrzburg and Bamburg, ordered the burning of at least fifteen hundred “witches” between them. The victims of Wƒrzburg’s bishop included his own nephew, nineteen priests, and a child aged seven. One reason why medieval Germany developed an obsession with stamping out “witchcraft” may lie in the food that was being eaten. If the weather is warm and damp, rye (then a staple crop) can produce a poisonous fungus called ergot. Hallucinations, fits, pinpricking sensations, muscle spasms: the symptoms of ergotism are similar to the effects of LSD, which itself is derived from ergot.”

Witches of the Harz Mountains

This organic LSD substance is also believed to be responsible for the Belgian “Smurfs.”

Walpurgis got its name from an 8th century saint. Walpurgis had nothing to do with witches, but April 30 was her feast day. In the Church’s effort to Christianize Germany’s tenacious pagan roots, they made Walpurgis Night about Walpurgis’ fight with the dark forces of paganism.

Yet still the pagan rituals continue to this day…   

Walpurgis Night, the time is right,

The ancient powers awake.

So dance and sing, around the ring,

And Beltane magic make.

–Doreen Valiente, Witchcraft for Tomorrow

 

Links:

Brocken “Money” - a tourist gimmick from the 1920s

Brocken postcard collection from the late 19th/early 20th century.

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Everybody Dance Now

April 29, 2008 at 11:23 pm (International)
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Today’s International Dance Day, which is celebrated on April 29, believe it or not, because of this guy.

Stuffy as he looks, Jean-Georges Noverre could apparently cut a rug in his day. He began dancing professionally at age 16 and wrote his first ballet at 20. He danced in Paris, London, Vienna and Strasbourg, and was head of the Paris Opera Ballet until his boss, Marie Antoinette, lost her own head. Noverre was allowed to keep his, but the French Revolution ended his career and reduced him to poverty.

When times were good he hung with the likes of Mozart, Voltaire, and Frederick the Great. His ideas revolutionized ballet. He believed a dancer’s personality is part of performance, rather than the one-size-fits-all training technique commonly taught. He believed all dances and movements must be integrated into the story, character and theme, and did away with superfluous numbers.

Criticizing the masks traditionally worn in Paris ballet that hid dancers’ genuine expressions, he wrote, “Destroy the masks and we shall gain a soul.”

So tonight, put on your red shoes, your dance shoes, your boogie shoes, turn on the red light, get down, make love, and shake it like a polaroid picture.

No mask necessary.

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17 Minutes that changed America

April 28, 2008 at 3:54 am (Canada, North America, USA)
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Today is a National Day of Mourning in Canada and a dozen other countries. Not for those killed in wars or natural disasters, but for those who made the fatal mistake of showing up to work.

A random sampling of Canadians found that most had never heard of the National Day of Mourning, an effort by the Canadian Labour Congress to spread awareness of workplace safety. However, spokesperson Terry O’Connor believes the lack of safe working conditions is a growing problem in Canada.

“Canada continues to have one of the highest workplace fatality rates of any Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development country…In 2006, the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada reported 976 workplace fatalities in Canada, compared to 805 workplace fatalities in 1996 — an 18 per cent increase in a 10-year period.”

South of the border, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that fatal accidents on the job have declined since 1994 by 14%, while the number of people in the workforce has increased by the same amount. The most dangerous jobs in North America?

10. Agricultural workers
9. Truck Drivers/Drivers
8. Roofers
7. Electrical power line repairers
6. Farmers & Ranchers
5. Refuse collectors/recyclers
4. Steel workers
3. Loggers
2. Pilots
And #1?

Fishermen.

Yes, that crab you bite into comes a steep price, and we’re not just talking money. The occupational-fatality rate for commercial fishing is over 20 times the national average.

17 Minutes That Changed America

Overall North American working conditions have greatly improved since Upton Sinclair wrote his scathing look at America’s meatpacking industry in The Jungle over 100 years ago. His aim was to raise awareness of the plight of exploited workers, many of them women and children in dangerous conditions for long hours and for the lowest of wages.

But the reading public cared more about what was going into their hot dogs (hint: you thought Soylent Green was nasty…) than of the workers’ plight. When foreign sales of American meat products declined by 50%, Washington established the Food and Drug Administration to improve the food industry’s appalling standards.

It would take 146 deaths in a single day to spark outcry for legislation that would improve workplace safety.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company, the “largest blouse-making operation in New York,” was located on Washington Place and Greene Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Each day 500 workers, mostly young immigrant girls, crowded into the factory. At 4:40 pm on March 25, a bin under a wooden desk on the eighth floor caught fire (most likely from a tossed cigarette).

When workers first spotted the flame they tried to put it out with water, but the scraps of cotton fabric in the bin–more more flammable than paper–turned the flame into a conflagration within seconds. Panic struck the workers, and “those clustered at the Greene Street partition stampeded into the small opening, pushing and shouting and wrestling toward the stairway. Behind them, others in the factory saw this pileup and ran toward the opposite corner of the room, where they bottlenecked at the Washington Place elevators…”

One worker on the 8th floor managed to reach the secretary and swicthboard operator on the 10th floor via telephone.

Most of the tenth floor executive staff escaped by climbing onto the roof and into a taller adjacent building. But when the switchboard operator left her post, there was no way to call and warn the 9th floor workers. All calls had to be routed through the 10th floor.

Of the 146 victims, 140 worked on the ninth floor.

Fire blocked the stairwell. The one flimsy fire escape collapsed. The owners had locked the ninth floor doors from the outside to make sure the girls didn’t steal. The doors opened inward, so by the time they were unlocked, the doors were impossible to open because of the weight of dozens of screaming employees crushed against them, trying to escape.

The fire hoses on the top floors lacked adequate water pressure. The weight of escapees in the elevator immobilized the unit. One girl survived by jumping down the elevator shaft landing atop the elevator on its last trip.

Over fifty workers jumped out the windows of the 9th floor rather than be consumed by fire. When the last one jumped to her death it was 4:57.

These tragic seventeen minutes–and the furor that followed–laid the foundation for sweeping changes in the labor movement that continue to protect workers to this day.

Below is a list of those killed in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911. It was compiled by David Von Drehle, author of Triangle: The Fire That Changed America.

Lizzie Adler, 24
Anna Altman, 16
Anna Ardito, 25
Rosie Bassino, 31
Vincenza Bellota, 16
Ignazia Bellotta,
Vincenza Benenti, 22
Essie Bernsetin, 19
Jacob Bernstein, 28
Morris Bernstein, 19
Gussie Bierman, 22
Abraham Binevitz, 20
Rosie Brenman
Surka (Sarah) Brenman
Ida Brodsky, 16
Sarah Brodsky, 16
Ida (Ada) Brooks, 18
Laura Brunette, 17
Frances Caputto, 17
Josephine Carlisi, 31
Albina Caruso, 20
Josie Castello, 21
Rosie Cirrito, 18
Anna Cohen, 25
Antonia (Annie) Colletti, 30
Dora Dochman, 19
Kalman Downic, 24
Celia Eisenberg, 17
Rebecca Feibisch, 17 or 18
Yetta Fichtenhultz, 18
Daisy Lopez Fitze, 24
Tina Frank, 17
Rosie Freedman, 18
Molly Gerstein, 17
Celina Gettlin, 17
Esther Goldstein, 20
Lena Goldstein, 23
Mary Goldstein, 18
Yetta Goldstein, 20
Irene Grameatassio, 24
Bertha Greb, 25
Dinah Greenberg, 18
Rachel Grossman, 17
Rosie Grosso, 16
Esther Harris, 21
Mary Herman, 40
Esther Hochfield, 22
Fannie Hollander, 18
Pauline Horowitz, 19
Ida Jakofsky, 18
Augusta (Tessie) Kaplan, 18
Becky Kappelman, 18
Ida Kenowitz, 18
Becky Kessler, 19
Jacob Klein, 28
Bertha Kuhler, 20
Tillie Kupfersmith, 16
Sarah Kupla, 16
Benjamin (Benny) Kuritz, 19
Annie L’Abbato, 16
Fannie Lansner, 21
Mary Laventhal, 22
Jennie Lederman, 20
Nettie Lefkowitz, 23
Max Lehrer, 22
Sam Lehrer, 19
Kate Leone, 14
Rosie Lermarck, 19
Jennie Levin, 19
Pauline Levine, 19
Catherine Maltese, mother of Lucy & Sara
Lucia (Lucy) Maltese, 20
Rosaria (Sara) Maltese, 14
Maria Manara, 27
Bertha Manders, 22
Rose Manofsky, 22
Michela (Mechi) Marciano, 20
Yetta Meyers, 19
Bettina Miale, 18
Frances Miale, 21
Gaetana Midolo, 16
Becky Nebrerer, 19
Annie Nicholas, 18
Nicolina Nicolosci, 21 or 22
Annie Novobritsky, 20
Sadie Nussbaum, 18
Julia Oberstein, 19
Rose Oringer, 20
Becky Ostrowsky, 20
Carrie Ozzo, 22
Annie Pack, 18
Providencia Panno, 43
Antonietta Pasqualicca, 16
Ida Pearl, 20
Jennie Pildescu, 1
Millie Prato, 21
Becky Reivers, 19
Emma Rootstein
Israel Rosen, 17
Julia Rosen, 35, mother of Israel
Louis Rosen, 38
Yetta Rosenbaum, 22
Jennie Rosenberg, 21
Gussie Rosenfeld, 22
Nettie Rosenthal, 21
Theodore (Teddy) Rothner, 22
Sarah Sabasowitz, 17
Serephina (Sara) Saracino, 25
Teraphen (Tessie) Saracino, 20
Gussie Schiffman, 18
Theresa (Rose) Schmidt, 32
Ethel Schneider, 30
Violet Schochep, 21
Margaret Schwart, 24
Jacob Selzer, 33
Annie Semmilo, 30
Rosie Shapiro, 17
Beryl (Ben) Sklaver, 25
Rosie Sorkin, 18
Gussie Spunt, 19
Annie Starr, 30
Jennie Stellino, 16
Jennie Stern, 18
Jennie Stiglitz, 22
Samuel Tabick, 18
Clotilde Terdanova, 22
Isabella Tortorella, 17
Mary Ullo, 26
Meyer Utal, 23
Freda Velakowsky, 20
Bessie Viviano, 15
Rose Weiner, 23
Celia (Sally) Weintraub, 17
Dora Welfowitz, 21
Joseph Wilson, 21
Tessie Wisner, 21
Sonia Wisotsky, 17
Bertha Wondross, 18

A covered pier had to be converted to a makeshift morgue to make room for the bodies.

The factory’s owners were charged with manslaughter.

And were acquitted.

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Pascha - Orthodox Church

April 27, 2008 at 8:13 pm (Christian, Eastern Orthodox)
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In March the Protestant and Catholic Churches celebrated Easter; last week Jehovah’s Witnesses observed the Memorial of Christ’s Death; but today the Eastern Orthodox Church gets the last word, celebrating the Resurrection in what is known in many countries as Pascha.

(Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem; AP, BBC News)

The English word Easter is thought to derive from early pagan deities such as Eostre. In most Christian countries the holiday celebrating the Resurrection is referred to by variants on the Greek Pascha. (Pascha, or pesach in Hebrew, was the holiday Jesus and His disciples observed on the occasion of the Last Supper. Often translated as “pass over,” pesach can also mean “hover over” as in to protect, or safeguard.)

The Orthodox Paschal cycle repeats every 19 years, as opposed to the Western Paschal cycle, which repeats every 84 years. One proviso of the Orthodox date of Pascha is that it cannot fall before the Jewish Passover, which partly accounts for the different dates when Easter is celebrated.

Lewis Patsavos, in Dating Pascha in the Orthodox Church, points out a conundrum in the New Testament:

In the Gospels the Last Supper is described as a Passover meal, while St. John records the death of Christ as the same hour in which paschal lambs were sacrificed in preparation for the holiday.

Two traditions grew out of this discrepancy. One in which Pascha was observed on Passover itself, “regardless of the day of the week. The other observed it on the Sunday following Passover.”

The latter approach won out, which is why virtually all Churches celebrate Pascha on Sunday.

In Pascha Means Passover Reverend Anthony Michaels draws an analogy between the sacrifice of the lambs in Egypt by the Hebrews, the blood of which was meant to protect them from the tenth plague, and the “Sacrifice of the Son of God who is the ‘lamb that takes away the sin of the world.’”

The site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection is believed to be the present day site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

“It stands on a site that encompasses both Golgotha, or Calvary, where Jesus was crucified, and the tomb (sepulchre) where he was buried. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been an important pilgrimage destination since the 4th century, and it remains the holiest Christian site in the world.”

Sacred Destinations

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The Deadliest Creature on Earth

April 25, 2008 at 10:54 pm (Africa)
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Statistically, you’re more likely to be struck by lightning, crushed by a vending machine, or flattened by falling airplane parts than to be killed by a shark.

In terms of deadliest animals, sharks barely make the top ten and are superseded by the vicious jellyfish (100 human deaths per year) and hippopotami (200 DPY).

Clocking in at #7 are lions (250)
#6 Bees (400)
#5 Elephants (600)
#4 Crocodiles (2000)
#3 Scorpians (5000)
#2 Snakes (100,000)

But the death toll of all these murderers together wouldn’t be a tenth of Public Health Enemy #1: 

Weighing in at 2.5 milligrams and half an inch in length, the Mosquito kills 2 to 5 million people each year, from one disease alone: Malaria.

Today on World Malaria Day (formerly Africa Malaria Day) organizations such as WHO are getting the word out about the leading cause of premature mortality in the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria consumes four out of every ten public health dollars, and one out of every five children in sub-Saharan countries will die of malaria before their fifth birthday. 3000 every day.

A Harvard study in the year 2000 found that, had Malaria been eliminated 35 years earlier, the GDPs of Central and Southern African nations would be 30% higher today.

The vast majority of the infected are children in Africa, but the disease also effects South and Central America, the Indian subcontinent, and Southern Asia.

What can we do about it?

From 1992 to 2006, despite medical advances with other diseases, malaria infection and mortality rates actually increased, as strains of malaria became resistant to drugs such as chloroquine. Once cheap and readily-available, chloroquine is now ineffective in half of Africa’s malaria cases.

There are no vaccines proven effective against malaria. And though prophylactic drugs are available, the best forms of prevention today are still the simplest. Mosquito netting around beds and mosquito repellant are two.

It’s estimated that it would take $3 billion a year to eradicate Malaria. Not a chunk of change anyone wants to part with, but still less than the amount spent each week on the war in Iraq.

On the other hand, in the past two years the President’s Malaria Initiative, a $1 billion+ initiative focusing on preventive treatment in children under 5 and pregnant mothers, has helped to reduce new cases of malaria across 15 African nations.

A recent shark attack in San Diego made national headlines yesterday. The attack was horrifying and tragic, no doubt.

But imagine if the same attention were paid to each of the million+ fatal animal attacks each year by the common mosquito…

Or if we could see the devastation of a 9/11-size catastrophe, 3000 people dead from malaria, every single day… 

The resources devoted to solving such a crisis would be bottomless. But we don’t hear about it in the news precisely because it happens every day.

Malaria once terrorized Europe and America as it now does Africa. On April 25th we imagine a day when Malaria Day memorializes those millions killed from the eradicated disease, rather than the 3000 who will die today.

President Talks About Malaria in Hartford, Conn.

UN Launches World Malaria Day

Drive Against Malaria

Malaria Free Future

Malaria Day 2008 - MSF

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Armenian Genocide

April 24, 2008 at 10:44 pm (Armenia, Europe)
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“If a man is killed in Paris, it is a murder; fifty thousand throats are cut in the East and it is a question.”

–Victor Hugo

Hugo died 30 years before the Armenian Genocide of 1915, but his quote could be applied to it—just multiply by thirty.

The Armenian Genocide has been called the first genocide of the twentieth century.

In November 1914 the Ottoman Empire entered World War I, and immediately met crushing defeats against the Russians to the north. Blaming the losses on Armenian traitors, the government conscripted mass numbers of Armenian men, removed them of their weapons, and forced them into labor camps.

The reason April 24 is chosen to memorialize the dead, is because on April 24 over 200 of the most prominent Armenian leaders and intellectuals were rounded up and arrested. Up until then Armenian arrests and executions had not been widely reported.

The following month the government announced the Temporary Deportation Law which allowed for the temporary relocation of anyone deemed a threat to national security. In September the Temporary Law of Expropriation and Confiscation expanded their authority: land, livestock, homes, and belongings of Armenians was to become government property.

The Armenians were taken to deserts, concentration camps, and other remote locations by the hundreds of thousands. Men, women, and children were either left to starve or executed.

The Turkish government today disputes the numbers of those killed, and the extent of government involvement, claiming for example, that many of the deaths were the result of poor farming weather that coincided with the relocation.

News of the atrocities were reported in the West at the time, and even theOttoman’s allies during WWI, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, expressed concern over the mass deportations and executions of the Ottoman Empire’s Christians.

Years later a German statesman would ask, “Who after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

But he didn’t say it out of pity. It was Adolf Hitler, speaking to his generals, prior to the invasion of Poland and the Jewish Holocaust.

April 24

Armenians Are Sent to Perish in Desert - Turks Accused of Plan to Exterminate Whole Population - People of Karahissar Massacred - NY Times - Aug. 18, 1915

April24.net

Nothing Personal / Among the Deniers

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Shakespeare and World Book Day

April 23, 2008 at 11:27 am (Europe)
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Hamlet, Don Quixote and Lolita walk into a book…

Here’s a curious coincidence:

Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare are each considered the greatest writers in their respective languages and cultures.

Though no records exist to confirm Shakespeare’s birthday, it is assumed to be April 23, 1564, three days before his recorded baptism.

Shakespeare died exactly 52 years later, on April 23, 1616.

It’s not so unusual that he died on his supposed birthday. One out of every 365 people do.

What is unusual, is that Miguel de Cervantes, the most renown Spanish writer of all time, died on exact same date as Shakespeare, the most renown English writer of all time, on April 23, 1616.

William Shakespeare    Miguel de Cervantes

If that weren’t strange enough, despite having the exact same death date, Shakespeare and Cervantes died ten days apart.

How is this possible? Spain began using the Gregorian calendar in 1582, while England, ever the traditionalist, didn’t switch to the Julian calendar until 1752, over a century after the Bard’s death.

This chronological anomaly made April 23 an ideal date for the United Nations to create an international holiday celebrating literature.

World Book Day is celebrated around the world on April 23.

…Except in England, the Bard’s homeland, where it’s celebrated in March, because that’s the way they roll.

And because April 23 was already taken by England’s patron saint, St. George, a 3th century Roman soldier turned martyr.

April 23 is also the birthday of famed Russian scribe Vladimir Nabokov—author of fun-for-the-whole-family classics like Lolita—and the death day of Peruvian poet Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, who died the exact same date as Shakespeare and Cervantes: April 23, 1616.

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St George’s Day

April 23, 2008 at 1:33 am (Europe, UK)

The legend of St. George has been heralded around the world, ever since the publication of The Golden Legend, a compilation of the lives of saints, which took for fact the mythic tale of St. George and the Dragon.

All that we really know for sure about St. George is that he was a soldier in the Roman army at the end of the third century AD, he was apparently of noble birth, of Christian parentage, and he was executed on the orders of Diocletian on April 23 in the year 303 in Palestine.

It is believed the reason for his execution was his protestation of the persecution of Christians. Fifth century documents indicate that he was imprisoned, tortured–in an effort to force a renunciation of Christianity–and beheaded when torture proved ineffective.

Much that we previously thought to be fact about George may have been the result of confusing him with other Georges. His birth in Turkey in 270 may have actually been that of another George, Bishop of Cappadocia who lived around the same time.

Before he was the patron saint of England, George was already the patron saint of soldiers, rumored to have been seen fighting alongside Crusader forces in the Battle of Antioch in 1098. Richard I later declared his Crusading army to be under the protection of St. George’s watchful eye.

As for the dragon, the legend was spread by the 13th century’s The Golden Legend, which set the scene between George and the Dragon in Lybia. There a town is terrorized by a dragon who demands sheep to devour, and occasionally children, who are selected by lottery. (Note: April 23 is also Children’s Day)

George slays the dragon, frees the townsfolk, and wins the girl. The story may have been the result of the retelling of George’s defiance of Diocletian, symbolized as a satanic demon or dragon.

About the time of Golden Legend, St. George became the Patron of the Knights of the Garter, and later of all England.

Shakespeare coincidentally died on St. George’s Day, April 23, 1616. He reflected England’s faith in their patron hero when he scribed one of the most quoted speeches of his works, Henry V’s rallying cry to his soldiers before the Battle of Agincourt. The one that begins “Once more unto the breach” and climaxes with:

“…there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry
‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”

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I pledge to put a man on the earth by the end of the century - Earth Day

April 22, 2008 at 3:18 am (USA)
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“It’s April 21st
Everybody knows today is Earth Day…
Happy Birthday
To whoever’s being born.”

Well, Dramarama was just one day off.

Today, April 22, is the unofficial birthday of Earth. She won’t say exactly how old she is this year, but rumor has it, it would take about 4.5 billion candles to light her cake. (Although flattering Creationists insist she doesn’t look a day over 6,012.)

Earth Day as we know it, as celebrated on April 22, began in 1970. It was a grass-roots campaign, suggested by the unfortunately-named Gaylord Nelson (1916-2005), a senator and former governor from the state of Wisconsin, who had been instrumental in requiring pharmaceutical companies to disclose medicinal side-effects. In 1963, he changed his focus to environmental issues and organized a “Conservation Tour” under President Kennedy. With Kennedy’s assassination later that year, the national agenda changed. By the end of the decade the idea of environmentalism wasn’t even a blip on the political radar in Washington, yet Nelson found that students on college campuses were focusing on the environment with new intensity.

The timing was ripe for a holiday without borders to raise awareness of the environment. 20 million participated in the first Earth Day. Nelson later admitted neither he nor anyone in D.C. could have organized that many people. It was a true grass-roots holiday. “That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day,” he said, “It organized itself.”

Earth Day reminds us of the one thing we all have in common, no matter our country, language, religion or race. We all (okay, all but 483 of us, to be exact) have spent every day of our lives on this planet.

The furthest any of us have ever gotten from Earth–without exception—is 401,056 kilometers. That record belongs to the three astronauts of Apollo 13, the fated craft that splashed down to Earth on April 17, 1970—just 5 days before the first Earth Day—as if to emphasize our own fragility and dependence on our home base. Note, we haven’t gone one inch further in 40 years.

Flashback:

May, 1961. To an address Kennedy made to a joint session of Congress, and to the nation, that put forth a previously unimaginable initiative:

“…I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”

At the time, landing on the moon–let alone bringing someone back–was the stuff of science-fiction. The U.S. space program, Kennedy even admitted, was lagging behind the Soviets, and they weren’t about to declare such an outlandish dream.

But on July 21, 1969, the feat was accomplished. With 5 months to spare, Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on a celestial sphere other than Earth, the planet on which every other living organism we know of has lived and died.

Flash-forward:

January 2003.

In his State of the Union, President Bush sets forth another initiative, with a new deadline:

“A single chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen generates energy, which can be used to power a car–producing only water, not exhaust fumes. With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom, so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen and pollution-free.”

Environmentalists had waited a long time to hear something, anything in this direction. Not that hydrogen is the end-all earth-loving fuel of the future that politicians think it is, but still, it’s progress, right?

Take another look at the differences between the addresses:

Kennedy proposed a deadline of 8 and a half years to do what was widely believed to be impossible, what was far beyond our technical, practical, financial, and scientific ability. To go to the moon and back.

Bush, forty years later, called for a timeline of roughly twice Kennedy’s—16 years (”the first car driven by a child born today”)—to implement the use of technology we already have today.

We assume that technology moves much faster in today’s world than it did forty or fifty years ago, but it depends on which direction you’re looking. Our computers are faster, our radios smaller, but when it comes to using our technology to save our planet, we are nowhere near harnessing the momentum and energy of the technological dreams to reach the moon in the 1960s.

The missing element?

One thing the 2003 speech lacked, that Kennedy understood, was the necessary element of sacrifice. He understood that people working together toward a common goal will make that sacrifice. Today it’s very unpopular for a politician today to tell us to change our lifestyle–I mean, unless you’re gay–but if you’re not gay, they can’t tell you to change. And they especially can’t tell you to adapt your way of living to (prepare yourself):

CONSUME LESS.

The idea is almost considered unAmerican. Just by using the two words together in a single sentence this post is already on a CIA watchlist.

But it’s also a real solution, that, though unuttered by most politicians, is a real action that anyone can take that can help, starting today, not 16 years from now.

You don’t hear the rest of Kennedy’s 1961 speech these days—the not-so-sexy part. He’s talking about the space race, but he could just as easily be talking about the sacrifice necessary in the 21st century mission to protect and sustain life on our own planet Earth:

I believe we should go to the Moon. But I think every citizen of this country as well as the Members of the Congress should consider the matter carefully in making their judgment, to which we have given attention over many weeks and months, because it is a heavy burden, and there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. If we are not, we should decide today and this year.


This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, material and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford undue work stoppages, inflated costs of material or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries, or a high turnover of key personnel.


New objectives and new money cannot solve these problems. They could in fact, aggravate them further–unless every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant gives his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.

Or in the equally exciting adventure of Earth.

 

Happy Birthday.

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Passover, Part 2

April 20, 2008 at 12:21 pm (Israel, Jewish)
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Where we last left off, six plagues had devastated Egypt, dealing mainly with water, animals, and disease.

The third of the three plague trilogies moves to the meteorological arena and has its most damaging effects on agriculture:

#7: Hailstorm of fire.

Described as fiery hail in the Bible, it’s also interpreted to mean lightning and hail. This hailstorm which was said to be so violent it would kill any person or animal left outdoors. The Bible makes an unusual parenthetical here (such as this one) to explain how the early crops of flax and barley were destroyed while the wheat and spelt, which were still in the ground, were unaffected.

#8: Locusts.

To the modern urbanite this sounds to be a plague of inconvenience. Who wants to scrub dead grasshoppers off your windshield every time you get gas? But to an agrarian society whose water, fish, livestock, and half their crops depleted, this was the kiss of death. To give you an idea of the damage locusts can do, a swarm of locusts in Ethiopia in 1958 cost the country 167,000 tons of grain—enough to feed a million people for a year. (The Desert Locust in Africa and Western Asia)

#9: 3 Days of Darkness.

In modern times, explosions from crashing meteors such as Tunguska 1908, and volcanic eruptions such as Tambora 1815, sent out ash particles that covered the earth’s atmosphere for months. (1815 was called the Year Without Summer.) Exodus doesn’t give much to go on, other than the strange weather pattern of the previous two plagues. 

All this said there really is no explanation for the deadliest of the plagues, number 10 in which

…I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment.  – God, Exodus 12

No known plague or disease makes any distinction as to birth order.

One theory is that the “first-borns” that were killed originally referred to the first-born crops, not the people. And that may make sense if, for nothing else, the events in the story of Exodus are not mentioned in any ancient Egyptian text of the supposed time. You would think a massive slave revolt and exodus, unprecedented horrors, plagues, and the killing of the first-born in every house would have at least garnered a footnote on a papyrus scroll. But nope.

The real miracle of Passover may be that it is one of the oldest continuously observed holidays ever. On Passover Jews gather around the table, and the youngest asks the elders “Why is this night different from all other nights.” The story of the Exodus is retold, and Jews continue to follow the instructions laid down in Exodus.

And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations…Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread…

Jews eat matzoh during Passover in memory of their ancestors who left Egypt without time to bake their bread, which hardened in the hot sun on their backs.

Though Abraham the monotheist is considered the father of the Judeo-Christian religions, long before Moses walked the earth, the moment the Hebrews left Egypt is considered to be the beginning of codified Judaism as it is recognized today. (Note: It was a Passover meal that Jesus and the disciples observed over a thousand years later during the Last Supper.)

After escaping Egypt and crossing the Red Sea, the Jews spent 40 years roaming the desert for their homeland. Proof that even then Judaism, like Christianity and Islam, was a patriarchal society.

No one asked directions.

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