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reetings from Australia.
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The astrologers and idolaters have told the Great Khan [ie,
Kublai Khan], that he must make a libation of the milk of these mares every year on the 28th of August, flinging it into the air and on the earth, so that the spirits may have their share to drink. They must have this, it is said, in order that they may guard all his possessions, also the men and women, beasts, birds, crops, and everything besides.
Marco Polo, Travels, on the holy white mares of Shang-tu (Xanadu)
Source
From my father, I inherited my stature and the serious conduct of my life; from my dear mother, my gaiety of spirit and delight in story-telling.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, novelist and playwright, born on August 28, 1749
I cannot recall those years without horror, loathing, and heart-rending pain. I killed people in war, challenged men to duels with the purpose of killing them, and lost at cards; I squandered the fruits of the peasants' toil and then had them executed; I was a fornicator and a cheat. Lying, stealing, promiscuity of every kind, drunkenness, violence, murder – there was not a crime I did not commit ... Thus I lived for ten years.
Count Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist, born on August 28, 1828; on his youth
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
Leo Tolstoy
I'm not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.
Ernest Hemingway
In America, when you have an accent, in the mind of the people they associate you with kissing hands and being gallant. I think that has harmed me, just as it has harmed me to be followed and plagued by a line I never said.
Charles Boyer, French Hollywood actor born on August 28, 1897, who never said
"Come with me to the Casbah"
This feast
day is held at a time between late July and late August
and
marks the the harvest in Iceland. (Some,
but not all, sources place it precisely at Freysfest, ie what other
European tradition calls Lughnasadh/Lammas,
vizAugust 1,
or its eve.) Dedicated to the god of the harvest, it
is time for celebration with horse races and martial sports.
A blot (formerly,
'blood sacrifice', but now generally a more benign ritual) is held to
the god Freyr (Frey) and
his sister, the goddess Freya
(Frigg). Also honoured at Freyfaxi may be Nerthus and Njörðr, Þórr and
Sif and Farmatýr ('Cargo-God', one of the names of Óðinn (Odin). Their
protection is sought over the fruits of the harvest during the coming
darker half of the year. Frey especially is honoured as god of the green
and fruitful months. Horses, too, are central to the Freyfaxi festival.
According to an old legend from Norse saga, Freyfaxi was
a blue dun stallion belonging to the 10th-Century
Icelandic clan-chief Hrafnkel
Freysgodi.Hrafnkel was devoted to Freyr and shared all his best possessions with the god he loved, especially
his horse.
As is the
case with many traditions, the dates of the main Ásatrú blots may be
seen as variable, according to celestial phenomena and regional or group
variations, but the following gives a general guide:
Augustine
of Hippo (Hippo Regius – modern Bône, now Annaba,
Algeria),
one of the fathers of the Roman Catholic
Church, was an African of
berber
(Amazigh) origin. He was born on November 13,
354at
Tagaste (Tagasta), Numidia,
an ancient country of north Africa,
very roughly between modern Libya and Tunisia. Tagaste was
a town large enough to have its own bishop but too small for a
college or university. Augustine's father was a pagan who
converted to Christianity on his death bed; his mother was Saint Monica (feast day August 27),
a devout Christian.
He is
remembered as one of the greatest of the 'Latin fathers' of the
Roman Catholic Church. He was a man whose writings had a profound
effect on Western civilization, and hence the world. He was born to
a Christian mother and a pagan father. In their
son they recognized an intelligent boy so they sent him to Carthage,
a much larger city with greater resources, to study rhetoric.
He read Cicero's Hortensius,
in praise of the pursuit of a philosophical way of life, and desired
a nobler destiny, so after a self-indulgent life he was was
converted to the Manichaean
sect and baptised in 387. He taught at Carthage but grew tired of
what he saw as his students' profligacy, so he travelled to Milan
where he became professor of rhetoric. He gave up his Manichaean
ways, entered the priesthood in 391, and was raised to the bishopric
of Hippo in 396.
What he taught
Augustine was a prolific writer; his Confessions is usually accorded
the position of the first autobiography in history; see also Soliloquies.
De Civitate Dei (The
City of God), which took him 17 years to write, influenced
many utopian writers over the centuries. His impetus for writing
that classic stemmed from the sacking of Rome by
theVisigoths
under Alaric(which began on August 24, 410), which many Roman
pagans blamed on the Roman Empire's
abandonment of its pagan gods for Christianity. Augustine opposes
this notion from the outset. In one of more odd ideas in this book,
Augustine pronounced that infants dying before baptism were deprived
of the sight of God, a doctrine that suited the Church well and has
influenced Christianity ever since.
Augustine also proposed the relatively hard to
substantiate assertion that sin is transmitted from generation to
generation by the act of procreation. He took this idea from Tertullian (born
c. 150 - 160, died c.
220 - 240), the
theologian who coined the phrase 'original sin'.
(Eastern Orthodox theologians consider
that Augustine's theology of original sin is a key source of
division between East and West.) He zealously opposed what he saw as heresies of
his day, even advocating the use of force against other Christians he deemed to have gone
astray doctrinally, namely the Donatists.
Augustine's writings helped formulate the theory of just
war.
St Augustine once observed a boy
spooning water from the ocean into a hole in the ground. When he
asked the boy what he was doing, the boy replied: "I'm going to
empty the whole ocean into this hole!"
The saint smiled at the boy's
desired goal, but also couldn't help but consider how this
situation is so very similar to the human mind. After all, thought
St. Augustine, when one tries to contemplate all God's mysteries
– such as the Holy Trinity – it's similar to trying to empty
the whole ocean into a hole with his spoon! It just can't be done.
Augustine assured his followers,
however, that once in heaven, we will know such things, since we
will be intimately united to God for eternity. He got his chance to
find out onAugust
28, 430,
during the siege of Hippo by the Vandals.
He may have been the first saint to find
a home page on the Internet.
An Augustinian father-general was
once debating with the head of a Jesuit college as to
which order was the most sanctified. The Jesuit sent one of his
monks to bring burning coals in to heat the room. The Augustinian
thought, then quickly said, "Reverend Father, forebear. Do not
command me to tempt God! I am ready to fetch you fire in a chafing
dish, but not in my bare hands."
Plutarch (De
Iside et Osiride) tells us that "on the fifth [intercalary day
was born] Nephthys, to whom they gave the name of Finality (Teleute)
and of Aphrodite, and some also the name of Victory (Nike)". The day was
also sacred to Nut (Nuit),
Egyptian mythology's sky goddess.
Nephthys is also goddess of night and known
as the 'Mistress of the House' (the palace of Osiris).
She was depicted with a
basket or a house on her head, and sometimes as a kite,
falcon,
hawk or
other bird. She is a daughter of Nuit and Seb and the
wife of Set, with whom she is the mother of Anubis.
She is the sister of Isis, with whom she is often depicted.
Feast day of St Edmund
Arrowsmith He was martyred for the crime of
being a Jesuit priest in 1628 by hanging, drawing and quartering at
Lancaster, England during the anti-Catholic madness that gripped
that country. When the jury found him guilty, he exclaimed,
"Thanks be to God!" His hand is preserved as a relic at the
Church of Saint Oswald,
Ashton-in-Makerfield. Edmund was canonized as one of the Forty
Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
Koenji
Awa Odori Festival, Suginami City, Tokyo, Japan (Aug 27 -
28)
"Large-scale festival of street dance modelled on the Awa Odori
festival on Shikoku. Thousands dance in the streets to rhythmic
traditional music and over a million come to watch."Source
1865AG
Stephens (Alfred George Stephens; d. April 15, 1933), Australian
miscellaneous writer and literary critic, notably for The Bulletin,
to which position he had been appointed by its owner, JF Archibald,
in 1894. In
about 1890 he had been sub-editor of The Boomerang at
Brisbane, which had been founded by the prominent radical, William Lane
in 1887.
In mid-1896 Stephens developed
on the inside of the cover of The Bulletin the famous 'Red
Page' reviews of literature which helped make, and perhaps break,
the careers of many writers in what might well be called 'the Golden
Age of Australian literature'. He had many a run-in with Henry Lawson.
Stephens held his then-famous position with the magazine until
October, 1906.
He wrote a biography of poet Christopher
Brennan.
The Red Pagan, a collection of his criticisms from the 'Red
Page' of The Bulletin appeared in 1904, and a
biography of Victor
Daley in the same year.
"A. G. Stephens wrote a fair amount of
verse, for which he claimed no more than that it was 'quite good
rhetorical verse'. He was an excellent interviewer because he was
really interested in his subjects, and he was a remarkably good
critic, largely because he had an original analytic mind, and also
because he fully realized how difficult the art of criticism is. He
was not infallible and occasionally made a bad mistake, but he
helped numberless writers, he set a standard, and he strongly
influenced the course of Australian literature. In this respect
there is no other writer who may be set beside him."
Source
1885Vance
Palmer (Edward Vivian Palmer; d. July
15, 1959) Australian novelist, dramatist, essayist and
critic, considered one of the founders of Australian drama.
He was born in Bundaberg, Queensland and passed up the chance to go to university so that he could experience
"real life" on a sheep station in western Queensland. From his early years he was determined to be a writer, and in 1905 and again in 1910 he went to London, then the centre of Australia's cultural universe, to learn his craft and advance his prospects. He failed to break into the inner circle of London literary life, but his association with
Alfred Orage
(British intellectual,
now best known for editing the magazine The
New Age) and other guild socialists greatly influenced his political outlook.
In 1954
Vance published The Legend of the Nineties, a critical study
of the development of the nationalist tradition in Australian
literature usually associated with The
Bulletin.
His wife Nettie (Janet Gertrude Palmer,
née Higgins, 1885 -
1964) was a poet, essayist and Australia's leading literary critic.
Nettie Higgins was born in Bendigo,
Victoria,
the niece of HB
Higgins, a leading Victorian radical political figure and later
a federal minister and justice of the High
Court of Australia. Between them they did more to promote Australian literature, particularly (in Nettie's case) literature by women, than anyone else of their generation.
Source
"Her first book, The Lagoon
(1951), is a collection of short stories expressing a sense on
isolation and insecurity drawn from Frame's early memories of
poverty, the deaths of two sisters, and several stays in
psychiatric hospitals. Other work includes Owls Do Cry
(1957), Faces in the Water (1961), Scented Gardens for
the Blind (1963), and Living in Maniototo (1979)."
Source: Literary Calendar
"African-American writer, teacher, and poet laureate,
Rita
Dove, is born in Akron, Ohio. Her work will include The
Yellow House on the Corner (1980), Museum (1983), a
volume of short stories entitled Fifth Sunday (1985), and the
Pulitzer Prize-winning
Thomas and Beulah (1986), a cycle of poems chronicling the
lives of the poet's maternal grandparents, born in the Deep South at
the turn of the century."Source:
Literary Calendar
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1835Australia:
William Buckley (1780 - 1856), an escaped convict who had
lived amongst Aboriginal tribespeople for 32 years, was granted a free pardon.
Although
not born in a prominent family (in fact, he came from the wrong side of the
tracks according to the social stratification of the day), Smith taught himself
the fundamentals of geology. As revealed in
Simon Winchester's book, The
Map That Changed the World: A biography of William Smith, a respectable
scientist of his day appropriated his map as his own.
When he was a lawyer,
Abraham Lincoln defended a man, one William Armstrong, who had been charged with
murder.
The prosecutor said that Lincoln's client had murdered a man
on August 28, 1857 in the "light of the moon". Holding up the 1857 edition
of the Old
Farmer's Almanac for the jury to see, Lincoln pointed out that on the
night in question the "moon was riding low". Thus was Armstrong acquitted of
all charges in a real-life scenario that has had its echo in countless crime
fictions since then.
Excerpt from The (Old)
Farmer's Almanac, August, 2002 AS SUMMER HITS its long stride this month, you may be getting tired of the
same old salads and sandwiches at your summer picnics. Our Pita Pockets Stuffed with
Curried Tuna Salad give a new zing to tuna, with the added benefit that
they travel well. If you
planted herbs this season, you may want to check out Basil Loves Tomatoes
for tips on using this wonderful herb. While you're at the beach in August,
pack up some white sand to bring home to make your own Sand Jars, an
easy-to-make craft project that doesn't require any investment in materials.
Here's a tip for your bountiful harvest: If your zucchini are getting out of
hand, don't forget to freeze some for use in the dark days of winter, when
you'll actually appreciate them. Shred them into one- or two-cup portions,
then freeze. These portions are great for soups, stews, and nut breads.
Similarly, if you can't get your corn on the cob into the steamer
immediately, at least get it on ice. The sweetness of corn fades quickly at 70
degrees F. Find more household tips in The Frugal Housekeeper.
Ever hear of tomato wine? In 1870, in The Family Circle, an Iowa woman
wrote that a "very excellent wine can be made from tomatoes. I tried it on a
small scale last year, and find it serves as good a purpose for using in
sickness and in cooking as compounds of nauseous drugs usually sold for
wine." We must admit we haven't tried it ourselves. And find out what
chores were done in August a century ago in our Farmer's Calendar.
Oh, joy. Prepare for the canning season with a review of our 1983 reader
recipe contest Jams,
Jellies, and Marmalades.
1883
"Can any of my brother readers of
'KNOWLEDGE' offer a feasible explanation of a very remarkable phenomenon
which I witnessed at 10h. 35m. p.m. on Tuesday, August 28?
"I was just
coming out of my observatory when, on the E. N. E. point of the horizon beneath
the Pleiades, I saw a bright light. My first thought was that the moon was
rising, but an instant's reflection sufficed to remind me that she would not
be up for the next two hours.
"As I
watched the light becoming brighter and brighter, I saw that it threw a kind of
radial illumination upward, the effect of which I have tried to reproduce in the
accompanying rough little sketch.
"As will be
seen, a few distant cumulo-stratus clouds, close to the horizon, crossed it. For
a moment I imagined that I was viewing the apparition of a new and most glorious
comet; but, as I watched, the 'tail' disappeared and what would represent
the nucleus flashed up brilliantly.
"Then I made
up my mind that some distant house, barn, or haystack was on fire, and returned
to the observatory for a 3 inch telescope, which I keep for looking over the
landscape. Before I had time, however, to enter the door, every vestige of
illumination disappeared as suddenly as it had come into view, and after waiting
in vain for some time, I left the observatory and came into the house.
"I have
diligently inquired if there was a fire anywhere in this part of Sussex on the
night of which I am speaking, but there was none."
William Noble, letter published in Knowledge magazine,
1883
Emmett was buried on September
6 in Burr Oak Cemetery, Alsip, Illinois,
with his mother, Mamie Carthan, insisting
on an open-coffin funeral, so that "all the world [could] see what they did to
my son". At about the same time,
Roy Bryant and his half-brother, JW Milam were indicted in Mississippi by a grand jury
in the killing. When the all-white jury came back from deliberations on September
23 after just 67 minutes, the two defendants were acquitted.
Probably the most important troubadour of the movement
in the early 1960s was Bob Dylan, who had
performed on sites where "black is the color and none is the number". Born
in the same year as his fellow Midwesterner Till, Dylan was to transcribe his
sense of horror in the Delta in an early song, 'The Death of Emmett Till'.
Some men
they dragged him to a barn
and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason,
but I can't remember what.
They tortured him and did some things
too evil to repeat.
They were screaming sounds inside the barn,
there was laughing sounds out on the street.
Then they
rolled his body down a gulf
amidst a bloody red rain
and they threw him in the waters wide
to cease his screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there,
and I'm sure it ain't no lie,
Was just for the fun of killin' him
and watch him slowly die.
"One hundred days after Emmett's death, a black woman, Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery city bus and was arrested for violating Alabama's bus segregation laws. The Women's Democratic Council, under Jo Ann Robinson, called for a citywide bus boycott and asked a young, 26-year-old minister to help.
"His name was Reverend Martin Luther King Jr." Source
"I have a
dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be
judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
1968Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman was
arrested while having breakfast at a restaurant for having the word 'Fuck'
written on his forehead. He was charged with resisting arrest and disorderly
conduct. He listed his occupation as 'revolutionary artist'. Hoffman was to
appear in court in answer to the complaints on September 6.
1972 Prince
William of Gloucestershire was killed in an air crash.
1975Missionary
Armand Doll was imprisoned in Mozambique by Marxist extremists. Over the next
several months he smuggled letters out inside toothpaste tubes.
1988A crowd of 300,000 at the US Air Force base at Ramstein, West
Germany, watched in horror as three Italian Air Force aerobatics jets
collided, killing 69 people.
1993 "Opening of the Second World Parliament
of Religions, attended by members of all the world's religions. A Global Ethic was
adopted that condemns hatred, aggression, oppression, and environmental abuses
committed in the name of religion."
1993 This colour mosaic shows the asteroidIda and
its newly-discovered moon, Dactyl.
The images were taken by the camera system on the Galileo
spacecraft, about 14 minutes before its closest approach to the asteroid on
August 28, 1993. Ida appears to be about 52 km (32 mi) in length and is
irregularly shaped. This view shows numerous craters, including many degraded craters,
indicating Ida's surface is older than previously thought.
2001Dutch
prime minister Wim
Kok announced that he would not be available for another term as PvdA party
leader or prime minister after the 2002 elections.
2003
Erie,
Pennsylvania, USA:
Brian Wells,
46, a pizza
delivery man, robbed a suburban bank of $25,000, with the bomb
attached to his neck. He was soon killed when it exploded as he sat
handcuffed in a parking lot while
police waited for
a bomb squad. In a July 2007
indictment, Federal prosecutors alleged that Wells was involved
in the planning of the botched crime.
From his Texas ranch where he was not on vacation Bush
warned, "We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf
Coast communities. We will do everything in our power to help the people and the
communities affected by this storm."
reetings from Australia.
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