It's 420, in case you hadn't noticed, or, of course, 420 Day. It's all about weed, or, as the academicians among us would say, "Cannabis Culture". Weed was not always illegal in the US, but a handful of malevolent and perverse interests (and persons) came together to bring it about. Racists created and amplified a fear of its highly visible use by certain minorities. The cotton, rope and cordage and paper (and hence timber) industries opposed the cultivation of hemp for any purpose because it was an actual or potential competitor. The nation's burgeoning policing agencies had lost much of their raison d'etre and source of revenues, both licit and illicit, with the end of prohibition. There was the ever-present political desire to control everything and/or tax everything possible and the hordes of blue-nosed citizens who lived in perpetual horror at the thought that somebody somewhere might be taking pleasure in or from something other than prayer and bible study. The initial legislation was then exacerbated by the rise to power of Richard Nixon who had it elevated to a schedule 1 Drug as a further attack on his political enemies. Today we stand at a crossroads with Generation Reagan and its predecessors fighting a desperate rear-guard action in support of continuing criminalization should they somehow fail to destroy all life on earth first.

It is also Go Fly a Kite Day still a pleasant and fun activity in breezy open spaces. I recall once seeing some skateboarders using kite-surfing kites to rocket around the roads and parking area at Lake Cahuilla out near Indio, CA, taking advantage of the ever-present desert winds. Looked to be great fun and a likely source of full body road rash.

Items of Particular Interest Below:

After an eight-year conflict, Baldwin III of Jerusalem won sole control of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from his mother Melisende. One of the Crusader States founded by Europeans, mostly Franks, it's fortunes waxed and waned. It still has adherents who owe it allegiance today (see linked flag) Kingdom of Jerusalem.

President McKinley got Congress to declare an unprovoked war of aggression against Spain. His success in so doing makes it clear that all of our wars, especially the all too frequent unprovoked ones, should be done in accordance with the Constitution.

When the Chinese attacked HMS Amethyst in the Yangtze and drove it out of their waters they simultaneously reclaimed their territorial waters, ended western gunboat diplomacy in China, and finally ended the Century of Humiliation.

On this day in history:

1152 – Baldwin III of Jerusalem won sole control of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from his mother

1653 – Oliver Cromwell dissolved England's Rump Parliament, being a greater ass himself.

1657 – Freedom of religion was granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City).

1792 – France declared war against the "King of Hungary and Bohemia", the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars.

1828 – René Caillié became the second non-Muslim to enter Timbuktu and the first to return alive.

1836 – U.S. Congress passed an act creating the Wisconsin Territory.

1861 – Thaddeus S. C. Lowe made a record journey, flying 900 miles from Cincinnati to South Carolina in a balloon.

1862 – Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard completed an experiment disproving the theory of spontaneous generation.

1865 – Astronomer Angelo Secchi demonstrated the Secchi disk, which measured water clarity,

1876 – The April Uprising began. Its suppression so shocked European opinion that Bulgarian independence became condition for ending the Russo-Turkish War.

1884 – Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical Humanum genus, condemning Freemasonry. Is it not written "Thou shalt have no rites and rituals other than ours"?

1898 – U.S. President William McKinley signed a joint resolution to Congress for declaration of war against Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War. See how easy that was.

1902 – Pierre and Marie Curie refined radium chloride.

1914 – Nineteen men, women, and children (or more) participating in a strike were killed in the Ludlow Massacre

1922 – The Soviet government created the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within Georgian SSR.

1946 – The League of Nations officially dissolved, giving most of its power to the United Nations.

1949 – The People's Liberation Army attacked HMS Amethyst (F116) travelling to the British embassy in Nanjing during the Chinese Civil War.

1961 – Surrender of US-backed Cuban exiles who invaded Cuba as part of the US attacks on it.

1985 – Animal Liberation Front rescued 467 animals being tested in a lab at University of California, Riverside in Riverside, California, causing $700,000 in damages to the laboratory

2008 – Danica Patrick won the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.

2010 – The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that officially lasted six months.

2021 – Derek Chauvin was found guilty of all charges in the murder of George Floyd by the Fourth Judicial District Court of Minnesota in State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin.

Some people who were born on this day:

For me an object is something living. This cigarette or this box of matches contains a secret life much more intense than that of certain human beings.

~~ Joan Miro

1748 – Georg Michael Telemann, composer and theologian
1893 – Joan Miró, painter and sculptor
1908 – Lionel Hampton, vibraphone player, pianist, bandleader, and actor
1918 – Kai Siegbahn, physicist and academic
1920 – Frances Ames, neurologist, psychiatrist, and human rights activist
1923 – Tito Puente, drummer and producer
1927 – K. Alex Müller, physicist and academic
1930 – Dwight Gustafson, composer and conductor
1938 – Johnny Tillotson, singer and songwriter
1947 – Viktor Suvorov, intelligence officer, historian, and author
1951 – Luther Vandross, singer, songwriter, and producer
1953 – James Chance, musician
1967 – Mike Portnoy, drummer and songwriter
1972 – Stephen Marley, musician

Some people who died on this day:

They came with a Bible and their religion. They stole our land and crushed our spirit, and now tell us we should be thankful to the Lord for being saved.

~~ Chief Pontiac

1769 – Chief Pontiac, tribal leader
1899 – Joseph Wolf, ornithologist and illustrator
1912 – Bram Stoker, h novelist and critic, created Count Dracula
1918 – Karl Ferdinand Braun, physicist and academic
1932 – Giuseppe Peano, mathematician and philosopher
1982 – Archibald MacLeish, poet, playwright, and lawyer
1991 – Steve Marriott, singer, songwriter, and producer
2002 – Alan Dale, singer
2003 – Bernard Katz, biophysicist and academic
2004 – Lizzy Mercier Descloux, musician, singer, songwriter, composer, actress, writer and painter
2007 – Andrew Hill, pianist, composer, and bandleader
2012 – Bert Weedon, guitarist and songwriter
2018 – Avicii, DJ and musician
2021 – Les McKeown, pop singer

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

420 (cannabis culture)
National Go Fly a Kite Day
UN Chinese Language Day (United Nations)

Today's Tunes

420 Day

The Ludlow Massacre

Georg Michael Telemann

Lionel Hampton

Tito Puente

Johnny Tillotson

Luther Vandross

Stephen Marley

Steve Mariott

Alan Dale

Andrew Hill

Bert Weedon

Let there be drums
Tito, Sheila, and Pete

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

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

open thread, 420 Dat, Ludlow Massacre, Telemann, Lionel Hampton, Tito Puente, Johnny Tillotson, Luther Vandross, Stephen Marley, Steve Mariott