08/24 is National Knife Day (Open Thread)
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~~ mis cuchillos
National Knife Day: (per Google AI)
National Knife Day is celebrated every year on August 24th. It honors one of humanity's oldest and most essential tools, recognizing the craftsmanship, history, and daily utility of both everyday carry (EDC) pocket knives and professional culinary blades.
August 24th was chosen to commemorate a pivotal moment in American knife history. On this date in 1838, Rezin Bowie wrote a letter to the Planters' Advocate officially claiming credit for designing the iconic Bowie knife.
Sadly, the Supremes have never interpreted the Second Amendment as applying to knives and many (most?) states seriously regulate possession and/or carrying of same
On August 24, 1954, the US Communist Control Act went into effect. This outlawed the Communist Party in the US. In reality, it did much more, effectively outlawing democracy in this country and destroying the First Amendment. Mind you, we never had a democracy or anything similar, but this act made it clear that it cannot and will not ever happen here, and destroyed the myth that the US governs by the consent of the people. Similarly, we've never really had any rights under the First Amendment, but this act destroyed the myth that we do. The First Amendment to the US constitution says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
and has been interpreted by the US courts as creating, presuming , implying or including a "Right of Free Association". Of course, we have none of those rights, it is a tissue of lies and quite a thin one at that.
The act also makes an absolute mockery of the laughable propaganda fiction that we have free elections, or something vaguely resembling democracy. You cannot pretend to have either free elections or a democratic form of government when you can and do outlaw parties and organizations either by law, as in this case, or by assassinating its leaders and members, framing them for crimes and seizing or destroying their property as we have done so many times in the past.
On August 24, 1967, Abbie Hoffman and assorted Yippies exposed the enormity of the petty greed and avarice of our capitalist masters by throwing handfuls of single dollar bills out onto the floor of the stock exchange. All business ceased as the putative savants and masters of the market and the economy ran hither and thither scrambling and scrabbling for ceretificates good for the price of a couple of big macs. There was the very essence of the US exposed in all of its hollow soullessness for all of the world to see.
On this day in history:
0410 – The Visigoths under king Alaric I began to pillage Rome.
1215 – Pope Innocent III, who was very far from being such, issued a bull declaring the Magna Carta invalid.
1349 – Six thousand Jews were killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague.
1682 – William Penn received the area that is now the state of Delaware, and added it to his colony of Pennsylvania, just like that.
1814 – British troops invaded Washington, D.C. and Burned it.
1816 – The Treaty of St. Louis was signed in St. Louis. Quelle surprise.
1820 – There was a Constitutionalist insurrection in Oporto,
1821 – The Treaty of Córdoba was signed in Córdoba, now Veracruz, ending the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.
1857 – The Panic of 1857 began, setting off an economic crises in the US. They are a periodic affliction in the US from which nobody ever seems to learn, or do they?
1891 – Thomas Edison patented the motion picture camera.
1909 – Workers started pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.
1932 – Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the US non-stop
1936 – The Australian Antarctic Territory was created.
1949 – The treaty creating NATO went into effect. Since its purpose vanished in 1991 it has taken to roaming the world aimlessly causing trouble so people will think it has a job.
1950 – Edith Sampson became the first black U.S. delegate to the UN
1954 – The Communist Control Act went into effect, outlawing the American Communist Party.
1967 – Led by Abbie Hoffman, the Youth International Party temporarily disrupted trading at the New York Stock Exchange by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble to grab them.
1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1991 – Ukraine declared itself independent from the Soviet Union.
2006 – The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefined the term "planet" such that Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet, perhaps Grumpy.
2023 – Japan officially began discharging treated radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean
Some people who were born on this day:
If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.
~~ Howard Zinn
1552 – Lavinia Fontana, painter and educator
1556 – Sophia Brahe, horticulturalist and astronomer
1759 – William Wilberforce, politician, leader of movement to ban slave trade
1787 – James Weddell, sailor, hunter, and explorer
1872 – Max Beerbohm, essayist, parodist, and caricaturist (
1890 – Duke Kahanamoku, swimmer, actor, and surfer
1897 – Fred Rose, pianist, songwriter, and publisher
1898 – Malcolm Cowley, American novelist, poet, literary critic (d. 1989)
1899 – Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator
1902 – Carlo Gambino, businessman
1905 – Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, singer, songwriter ,and guitarist
1915 – Wynonie Harris, singer and guitarist
1921 – Eric Simms, ornithologist and conservationist
1922 – Howard Zinn, historian, author, educator, and activist
1924 – Alyn Ainsworth, singer and conductor
1924 – Louis Teicher, pianist
1926 – Nancy Spero, painter and activist
1930 – Jackie Brenston, singer, songwriter, and saxophonist
1938 – David Freiberg, singer and bass player
1938 – Mason Williams, guitarist and composer
1942 – Jimmy Soul, pop-soul singer
1945 – Ronee Blakley, singer, songwriter, producer, and actress
1945 – Molly Duncan, saxophonist
1945 – Ken Hensley, singer, songwriter, and musician
1945 – Marsha P. Johnson, gay liberation activist and drag queen
1947 – Jim Fox, rock drummer and organist
1951 – Danny Joe Brown, singer, songwriter, and musician
1953 – Ron Holloway, saxophonist
1957 – Jeffrey Daniel, singer, songwriter, and dancer
1979 – Kaki King, guitarist and composer
Some people who died on this day:
[T]he production of heat alone is not sufficient to give birth to the impelling power: it is necessary that there should also be cold; without it, the heat would be useless.
~~ Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot
1217 – Eustace the Monk, black magician, Benedictine Monk, Pirate, and Privateer
1540 – Parmigianino, rather cheesy painter and etcher
1595 – Thomas Digges, mathematician and astronomer
1832 – Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, French physicist and engineer (b. 1796)
1888 – Rudolf Clausius, German physicist and mathematician (b. 1822)
1923 – Kate Douglas Wiggin, author and educator
1932 – Kate M. Gordon, activist
1940 – Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, technician and inventor, invented the Nipkow disk
1943 – Simone Weil, philosopher and activist
1978 – Louis Prima, singer, songwriter, trumpet player, giggilo, and actor
1999 – Alexandre Lagoya, guitarist and composer
Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:
William Wilberforce Day
International Strange Music Day (Please define same)
International Day Against Intolerance, Discrimination and Violence Based on Musical Preferences, Lifestyle and Dress (Zoot suit riots?)
National Waffle Day (US)
National Peach Pie Day (US)
Can Opener Day (nickel? dime? Quarter?)
National Knife Day (Hola, Az!)
Today's Tunes
Knife Day
Fred Rose
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup
Wynonie Harris
Alyn Ainsworth
Louis Teicher
Jackie Brenston
David Freiberg
Mason Williams
Jimmy Soul
Ronee Blakley
Molly Duncan
Ken Hensley
Jim Fox
Louis Prima
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, knives, William Wilberforce, sack of Rome, commies, nato, outlawing democracy, Big Boy Crudup, Wynonie Harris, Jackie Brenston, Louis Prima.
Comments
Well, *this* is a kind of a disappointment
In the Sixties and Seventies, a lot of folks like me really pinned a lot of hope on, and put a lot of trust in, some of these people as inspirational radical leaders.
https://xcancel.com/ChrisHelali/status/2090790927480537244
Nice try at the “we condemn both sides equally” approach, but at this moment in time a color revolution undermining Iran’s current government only helps Trump, the elites and Deep State swamp creatures he pretended to run against, and Israel.
Agreed. One wonders where these folks get their ideas and
information. Folks who get caught trying to stage insurrections, for example, may be "political prisoners", but they are also insurrectionists and, in the classical sense, outlaws.
be well and have a good one
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 --
I caught the "letter" last night
I have to imagine that those whose names are mentioned on it will eventually come out and disavow it, though of course that would be up to them.
At any rate, my response to the "letter" is here. The fact that this thing showed up at The Guardian should raise red flags with a lot of people.
"Progress is not possible without deviation" -- Frank Zappa
Good morning...
A nice mid-60 temp here.
I carry a swiss army knife, and have done so for decades. I sharpened it this weekend and it was needed. So happy knife day.
If we really believed our system is better than communism, why did we eliminate the party in the US and attack any country trying to make it work, like Cuba for example. We are hypocrites for sure.
Well, thanks for all the music and the OT!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Yeah, a keystone of US foreign policy is to stamp out any
government to the left of Mussolini lest the US population become aware that such governments can work and can work to benefit their citizenry.
be well and have a good one
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 --
As for culinary blades
I really love my ceramic bladed knives. The set I have is as sharp today as they were the day I bought them a few years ago. No sharpening required.
MAGA
Morons
Are
Governing
America
Good morning social. I've always wondered about those,
but also figured that I would sure as shit drop and shatter it if I got one. Besides that, we have an obscene quantity of culinary knives having merged to households as adults and then received more as gifts and acquired more specifically to carry in our trailer when we still had it, and some for camping before we got it.
be well and have a good one
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 --
Good morning, el, et al!
At age 4, my Dad taught me the proper way to use a knife to kill an attacker. He went through the demonstration of how to hold it, how to use the weight of my body for the plunge, then twist my body side to side once the knife was in their body to do maximum internal damage. 70 years have passed, and I have not had to show some ass hole what my soldier Dad taught me.
But I haven't forgotten the lesson.
The afternoon at the hospital while JtC goes under for a scope. Wish him well!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Good morning otc, an interesting lesson, glad you never had to
use it. Very best of luck to JtC; have been there and done that many, many times, which I use as an excuse to consume special comfort foods afterward.
be well and have a good one
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 --
Dad was
always concerned about me being sickly, very small, and having no strength. No way my arm strength would have been useful, so the whole thing was about using my upper body weight.
JtC's procedure went well, according to the dr. No new growths were detected.
So far, so good!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Great news about JtC. I keep seeing references to less
invasive procedures, but wonder about their efficacy given that my provider has not switched over to them and easily could. At any rate, tell him congrats.
be well and have a good one
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 --
Thank you, sir