02/14 - Frederick Douglass Day

Image from page 5 of "My bondage and my freedom" (1855)

~~     Frederick Douglass

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It's Frederick Douglass Day.  Best known as an abolitionist, as an author and for his debates with Abe Lincoln, he was an all around social reformer and staunch supporter of women's suffrage.  He was the only black person to attend the famous Seneca Falls Convention and gave a speech in support of women's suffrage, controversial even there, in which he declared that he could not personally accept the right to vote as a black person so long as women were denied that same right.

 

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

-- Frederick Douglass       (quote HT -  Joe Shickspack)

Given Douglass' life and works, it is perhaps fitting that it is also Race Relations Day except for the fact that the phrase, standing alone like that, seems somewhat vacuous, like so many merely titular "holidays" that fail to promote anything or exhort people to any particular action or behavior.  One could almost see it as a Hallmark Holiday, though it isn't crass and commercialized.

Perhaps, given Douglass' status and standing as an author is is better paired with International Book Giving Day, Library Lovers Day, and Read to Your Child Day all of which occur on this day as well.

Today is also a real greeting card holiday, supposedly all about love and possibly caring and like that, but I suggest that a  quick perusal of world history on this date indicates no such thing, just like every other day.  It is more about greeting cards, store-bought bouquets and candy, which might be why it is also National Cream-Filled Chocolates Day

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On this day in history:

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1349 – Several hundred Jews were burned to death by mobs while the remaining Jews were forcibly removed from Strasbourg.

1530 – Spanish conquistadores overthrew and executed Tangaxuan II

1655 – The Mapuches launched coordinated attacks against the Spanish in Chile
 

1778 – The US flag was formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time

1779 – James Cook was killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.

1797 – John Jervis, and Horatio Nelson  led the British Royal Navy to victory over a Spanish fleet in action near Gibraltar.

1852 – Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for children, was founded

1855 – Texas was linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone, as did Elisha Gray.

1899 – Voting machines were approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.

1903 – The US Department of Commerce and Labor was established

1912 – Arizona was admitted as the 48th and the last contiguous U.S. state.

1912 – The U.S. Navy commissioned its first class of diesel-powered submarines.

1920 – The League of Women Voters was founded

1929 – Seven people, including six rivals of Al Capone's gang, were murdered in Chicago.

1945 – The British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden.

1945 – FDR met King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations.

1946 – The Bank of England was nationalized.

1949 – The Knesset convened for the first time.

1949 – The Asbestos Strike began in Canada.

1961 – Element 103, Lawrencium, was first synthesized at the University of California.

1966 – Australian currency was decimalized.

1983 – United American Bank of Knoxville, Tennessee collapsed 

1989 – Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal disaster.

1990 – The Voyager 1 spacecraft took the photograph of planet Earth that later became famous as Pale Blue Dot.

2000 – The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker entered orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.

2005 – In Beirut, 23 people, were killed when the equivalent 1,000 kg of TNT was detonated

2005 – YouTube was launched by a group of college students,

2011 – As a part of Arab Spring, the Bahraini uprising began with a 'Day of Rage'.

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Born this day in:

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“He has nothing useful to say about fascism who is unwilling to mention capitalism.”

~~     Max Horkheimer

1404 – Leon Battista Alberti, painter, poet, and philosopher

1602 – Francesco Cavalli, composer
1784 – Heinrich Baermann, clarinetist
1813 – Lydia Hamilton Smith, businesswoman
1819 – Christopher Latham Sholes, journalist and politician, invented the typewriter 
1838 – Margaret E. Knight,  inventor
1847 – Anna Howard Shaw, physician, minister, and activist
1848 – Benjamin Baillaud, astronomer and academic
1869 – Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, physicist and meteorologist
1895 – Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist
1898 – Fritz Zwicky, physicist and astronomer
1900 – Jessica Dragonette, singer
 
1913 – Jimmy Hoffa, trade union leader
1917 – Herbert A. Hauptman, mathematician and academic
1937 – Magic Sam, singer and guitarist
1939 – Razzy Bailey, country music singer, songwriter, and musician
1939 – Blowfly, singer, songwriter, and producer
1943 – Eric Andersen, singer and songwriter
1943 – Maceo Parker, saxophonist
1946 – Gregory Hines, actor, singer, and dancer
1947 – Tim Buckley, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1950 – Roger Fisher, guitarist and songwriter
1972 – Rob Thomas, singer, songwriter
1976 – Liv Kristine, singer and songwriter
1977 – Anna Erschler, mathematician

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Died this day in:

Balanced' is a code for 'denied': a right to free speech that must be 'balanced' against so exhaustive a list of other supposed values means a right that can be exercised only when those in power judge that the speech in question is innocuous to them.

~~     Ronald Dworkin

1744 – John Hadley, mathematician, invented the octant 
1779 – James Cook, captain, cartographer, and explorer
1780 – William Blackstone, jurist and politician
1884 – Lydia Hamilton Smith, businesswoman
1894 – Eugène Charles Catalan, mathematician and academic
1933 – Carl Correns, botanist and geneticist
1943 – David Hilbert, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher
1950 – Karl Guthe Jansky, physicist and engineer
1959 – Baby Dodds, drummer
1969 – Vito Genovese, mob boss
1975 – P. G. Wodehouse, novelist and playwright
1989 – James Bond, ornithologist and zoologist
1989 – Vincent Crane, pianist
1999 – Buddy Knox, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
2002 – Mick Tucker, drummer
2006 – Lynden David Hall, singer, songwriter, and producer
2007 – Gareth Morris, flute player and educator
2009 – Louie Bellson, drummer and composer
2010 – Doug Fieger, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
2010 – Dick Francis, jockey and author
2011 – George Shearing, pianist and composer
2012 – Tonmi Lillman, drummer and producer
2012 – Dory Previn, singer and songwriter
2013 – Ronald Dworkin, philosopher and scholar

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Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

Independence Day (Grenada), celebrates the independence of Grenada from the United Kingdom in 1974.
Frederick Douglass Day
Race Relations Day
International Book Giving Day
Library Lovers Day
Read to Your Child Day
International Epilepsy Day
League of Women Voters Day
National Cream-Filled Chocolates Day
Valentine's Day

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Music goes here, iirc, well, With apologies Wink

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Francesco Cavalli

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Heinrich Baermann

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Jessica Dragonette

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Magic Sam

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Eric Anderson

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Maceo Parker

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Roger Fisher

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Rob Thomas

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Baby Dodds

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Vincent Crane

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Buddy Knox

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Louie Bellson

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George Shearing

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Please Note: Please do not post any Covid-19 related commentary in the comments. Thank you. There is a separate OT, aka The Dose, where all such material is welcome. Thanks again.

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Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?

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Comments

Maybe should have wrote The Return of EPIC. Biden already ended child poverty, so what's next for the Ds? As California goes, so goes the carousel ride. round and round and round we spin, blah blah blah etc. Here is the old EPIC ya know
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_Poverty_in_California
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, etc..

Here is the new EPIC
Former Stockton mayor launches nonprofit to end poverty in California

In summary

Michael Tubbs, who now serves as an economic advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom, announces a new nonprofit called End Poverty In California (EPIC) to advocate for statewide policies to reduce the wealth gap.

Nothing says safety like access to a baby bond.

Tubbs, who relocated to Los Angeles after losing reelection in 2020 and now serves as an economic advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom, will lead End Poverty In California (EPIC), which he said will advocate for a broadening of California’s safety net, as well as making changes to statewide housing, criminal justice, workplace and wage policies that he argues contribute to inequities in the state.

EPIC will also promote a statewide guaranteed income program and publicly funded savings accounts, known as baby bonds, that children from low-income families can access once they’re adults. In an interview, Tubbs said the work of ending poverty remains California’s biggest challenge, with enormous wealth being created, but only reaching a tiny elite.

“It’s only going to get worse,” Tubbs said. “I would argue that the government has a responsibility not to give everything to everybody, but to make sure the rules and the laws and regulations are just — so that the outcomes are just.”

I vote STFU and just give everything to everybody. Debate that why not. The first book report I ever had to write was on Frederick Douglass and the debates, second grade. Still remember the B, above average! lol Whatever, it did encourage me to keep thinking both sides of everything, almost takes twice the calories. think thank thunk

I was educated in Marin County, or China? Ha ha! Pluto's Republic comment in another thread made me LOL. Marin General Hospital was my introduction to being overdosed by anasthesia. In 1965. My backyard neighbors gf works there now, pushing insurance papers around for the radiology department. She is the one who saved my ass when I broke my collarbone, and didn't want to go the hospital. Small world. Kinda circular.

earth.jpg
Peace and Love

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11 users have voted.
zed2's picture

@eyo @eyo

Won't. Its just theatre, like pretending to "consider" single payer.

They are lying and both are for almost the same reason. And its a roadblock.

I'm not kidding, it would require a huge change in the world for this GATS Article 1:3 c to change. Biden or any other US or California politician is not empowered to change it. See this:

https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/org1_e.htm

UNDERSTANDING THE WTO: THE ORGANIZATION
Whose WTO is it anyway?
The WTO is ‘member-driven’, with decisions taken by consensus among all member governments.

Get it? So, even though the State of California is the sixth largest economy in the world, thats not enough in this case.

If they were giving kids money, where is the banks cut? If less kids take out loans, or get foreclosed on, where does that leave the international banks? With less profit?

Also, what kids are they helping? What about the poorer fatherless ones? Are they kids in the official definition?

IS this implying that kids are part owners of anything, when they aren't supposed to be if that takes the entitlements which now seem to be owned by corporations. Owend by treaty, so its international. The people have been taken out of the picture. This cover up is intended to obscure, not reveal the truth.

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1 user has voted.

@zed2 thanks, maybe.

Get it? So, even though the State of California is the sixth largest economy in the world, thats not enough in this case.

I did not know California has fallen to sixth place, haven't checked. Go dawg go! Keep dropping! Drop all the way until the Central Valley quits sinking. that's my idea. Build back better dirt. right on

Peace and Love
tra la la

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enhydra lutris's picture

@eyo

truly EPIC indeed. Baby Bonds seemingly won't help babys at all, but, if they survive into adulthood will, if the bbf (baby bond fund) is still existent and solvent, give them some bread upon adulthood. No doubt they can spend it at the circus. EPIC's first matter of business will probably be to find a new name because there is an inteernational movement known as the Epic foundation, Epic Systems, and an Epic Charity Challenge plus who knows what else.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Lookout's picture

I believe there was another black person at Seneca Falls...
https://13870442.weebly.com/sojourner-truth.html
"Ain't I A Woman," one of Sojourner's most famous speeches, talks about the strength of black women.

Thanks for the OT and all the music.

Happy Valentines Day!

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7 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout

famously NOT at Seneca Falls. Her famous speech was given in Akron Ohio at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in May of 1851. Though a statue of her was placed in the Women's Rights National Historical Park, that statue celebrates her Akron speech and overall influence in the Womens' Rights Movement. That Weebly page doesn't assert anything to the contrary but characterizes her simply as an important figure in that movement and gives a shippet of herr speech annotated as follows:

-"A'Int I A Woman", Delivered at the 1851 Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio Internet History Sourcebooks, Fordham University

.

(For what it's worth, the actual full content of that speech, which was extempore, has been reported differently by various contemporary reporters.)

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Lookout's picture

@enhydra lutris

the link came from a search of sojourner and Seneca falls and had the title Seneca Falls as a header.
Screenshot 2022-02-14 at 13-01-32 Sojourner Truth.png

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5 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown! That along with The Jefferson Airplane was the first r&r act I'd seen live. Long time ago. Thanks for the memory jog and the OT. Funny about OT, I always thought that meant stick to the Original Topic.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@Snode

stands for the opposite of original topic (and how many topics are original, after all?). It is very much anything goes, within the parameters of any overall site rules.

be well and have a good one

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3 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

snoopydawg's picture

Smile

On a side note the Twit is abuzz with the guy training this granny is a neo Nazis. Good old long embedded war reporter Richard Engel broke the story about her training. He’s being taken apart.

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“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

snoopydawg's picture

@snoopydawg

169B69C7-FEE8-471E-AFE0-DA750590F1AB.jpeg

Lots of elderly gents are rolling in their graves after seeing this crap that their grandkids are doing.

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9 users have voted.

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

enhydra lutris's picture

@snoopydawg

Ukraine's post Maiden reality hearkening back to the good old days when they were an outright NAZI fiefdom. Most USians neither know nor care, so that propaganda effort is likely to get wings.

be well and have a good one

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8 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@snoopydawg

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enhydra lutris's picture

So now to play catch up. Happy whatever you may celebrate.

be well and have a good one.

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5 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

QMS's picture

regarding Biden's mental fitness. One minute it was there, by the time I typed a reply, it was gone.
"Access denied". Unpublished?

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3 users have voted.

truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

mimi's picture

@QMS
to go.

I guess this site can't afford such an essay without being 'made to go as well'. That is just my assumption and other than my gut's instinct, I have nothing to base my suspicions on.

Have a good evening, all.

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mimi's picture

@QMS

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QMS's picture

@mimi

sort of like life's fortunes
but come back again Wink

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1 user has voted.

truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

enhydra lutris's picture

@QMS

use the "edit" function to start editing it, does the original stay live while it is being edited?

be well and have a good one

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3 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Several months ago, a beautiful kitten showed up at my office, and before we could nab it, it disappeared.
Well, today, it came back. We were able to get it into a bathroom, and I got my husband to bring a crate. My assistant called a rescue center, and they got the beautiful cat this evening.
Oh, and my husband brought me some yellow roses and some chocolate covered strawberries.
Very cool Valentine's Day!

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4 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

My kind of Republican.

“A recently reprinted memoir by Frederick Douglass has footnotes explaining what words like ‘arraigned,’ ‘curried’ and ‘exculpate’ meant, and explaining who Job was. In other words, this man who was born a slave and never went to school educated himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today’s expensively under-educated generation.”

- THOMAS SOWELL

“A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.”

― Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice

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dystopian's picture

Hi all, Hi EL,

There was a copy of that first edition of Birds of the West Indies by James Bond in the house when I was growing up, so I always figured I would do the Carribean and see all those cool endemics. Todies. Never made it there, yet. Loaned one edition to a friend who gave it to his son, a Charter Captain down there... never saw it again. Have a paperback 2nd ed. now.

Of course Ian Fleming was a birder. Story very roughly, which I presume you heard but maybe some here would enjoy, was that once when birding in the U.K., a Peregrine flushed a mudflat of shorebirds, where there one one Knot the Peregrine almost caught, so close, the Knot shit, and Fleming said "shaken Knot's turd".

I'll be here all week.

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

enhydra lutris's picture

@dystopian

Just ate a long reply I had written. Horrible pun, thanks. Bird world has todies, which are cool. World of business and politics has toadies, who aren't. You really do need to bird the tropics a bit, fabulous boids there.

be well and have a good one

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3 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@dystopian hi and thank you, I'll be sure to tune in. All week! lol

This was one of my cage fortunes yesterday (~$ fortune -m cage fortunes2)

Once there was a marine biologist who loved dolphins. He spent his
time trying to feed and protect his beloved creatures of the sea. One day,
in a fit of inventive genius, he came up with a serum that would make
dolphins live forever!

Of course he was ecstatic. But he soon realized that in order to mass produce this serum he would need large amounts of a certain compound that was only found in nature in the metabolism of a rare South American bird. Carried away by his love for dolphins, he resolved that he would go to the zoo and steal one of these birds.

Unbeknownst to him, as he was arriving at the zoo an elderly lion was combing the zoo for the escaped animal, unaware that it had simply lain down on the sidewalk and had gone to sleep.

Meanwhile, the marine biologist arrived at the zoo and procured his bird. He was so excited by the prospect of helping his dolphins that he stepped absentmindedly stepped over the sleeping lion on his way back to his car. Immediately, 1500 policemen converged on him and arrested him for transporting a myna across a staid lion for immortal porpoises.

Peace and Love

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dystopian's picture

@eyo ROFL Eyo! That was great, I bow in respect to a master... Wink

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein