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reetings from Australia.
Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.
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A woman's opinions are useless to her, she may suffer unjustly, she may be wronged, but she has no power to weightily petitions against man's laws, no representatives to urge her views, her only method to produce release, redress, or change, is to ceaselessly agitate. Since the time when equal suffrage was first agitated, the subject has been grossly misrepresented and grossly caricatured ...
[there is always] the covert sneer, the attempt at witticism, the unkind comparison ... I have always loved my countrywomen, always admired them, and believed in them, and believed them to be the most patient, long suffering, generous and capable Women in the whole World. I still think so. It does not seem so odd now as it did years ago, when Australians male and female were not considered as they are now. I had in my mind's eye a big capable, strong, virtuous Woman as a Representative of Australia. I saw her in my dreams when a little child, and when I grew up I wanted to fight every obstacle out of her way, and I fought, God knows I did with a persistence almost amounting to mania as long as health and means lasted. If the promise
to love and to cherish were kept, then women would probably have
settled down contentedly in their nests for another century or two and
never have evolved...but to be shackled in loveless but tolerable
marriage is to die before we have begun to live. |
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If this mania
of abject grovelling to Royal ermine and jewelled heads prevails, the
sooner we shake the dust from our knees and hold our heads erect the
better. It is high time that the national hope found a Voice ... to
give to the world the Flag of a Federated Australia, the Great
Republic of the Southern Seas.
Louisa Lawson; The Republican
Women are what men
make them. Why, a woman can't bear a child without it being received into
the hands of a male doctor; it is baptized by a fat old male; a girl goes
through life obeying laws made by men; and if she breaks them, a male
magistrate sends her to gaol where a male warder handles her and looks in
her cell at night to see if she's all right. If she gets so far as to be
hanged, a male hangman puts the rope around her neck; she is buried by a
male gravedigger; and she goes to heaven ruled over by a male God or hell
managed by a male devil.
Louisa Lawson, 'The Red Page' of the Sydney Bulletin,
probably 1890s
The popular idea of an advocate of women's rights, is this: she is an angular hard-featured withered creature with a shrill, harsh voice, no pretence to comeliness, spectacles on nose, and the repulsive title,
"blue-stocking" visible all over her. Metaphorically she is supposed to hang half-way over the bar which separates the sexes, shaking her skinny fist at men and all their works.
I don't think it will be difficult to unseat this idea as soon as we can get people to think about the subject at all, for it is remarkable that almost every thinking man who does investigate the topic seriously, at once hands in his allegiance. For, as a clever American woman has said,
"There are no arguments against women's suffrage – only objections."
Louisa Lawson; speech on the occasion of her foundation of The Dawn
Club, May 23,
1889, Forresters' Hall, Sydney
Why shouldn't a woman be tall and strong? I feel sorry for some of the women that come to see me sometimes; they look so weak and helpless – as if they expected me to pick
'em up and pull 'em to pieces and put 'em together again!
Louisa Lawson startles an interviewer; Matthews, Brian, Louisa, McPhee Gribble, Melbourne, 1987
Half of Australian women's lives
are unhappy, but there are paths out of most labyrinths and we will set up
finger posts ... we shall welcome contributions and correspondence from
women ... it is not a new thing to say there is no power in the world like
that of women.
Louisa Lawson;
The Dawn, Issue 1
Fornax [the
Oven] becomes a goddess; delighted with her the farmers pray that she would temper the heat to the corn committed to her charge. At the present day the Prime Warden
[Curio Maximus] proclaims in a set form of words the time for holding the Feast of Ovens
[Fornacalia], and he celebrates the rites at no fixed date; and round about the Forum hang many tablets, on which every ward has its own particular mark. The foolish part of people know not which is their own ward, but hold the feast
[Quirinalia] on the last day to which it can be postponed.
Ovid,
Fasti, ii.525 -
527
What has Kali to do with me?
Everything.
Her lotus feet are at the end of every pilgrimage.
When I meditate upon her
I float like a lily on an ocean of bliss.
I think of fire consuming fuel:
That is Kali.
Devotion to her is the root of all happiness.
Salvation is her companion.
Think hard upon the wild-haired goddess,
And all becomes clear.
Indian poet Ramprasad
I am the scourge of God appointed to chastise you, since no one knows the remedy for your iniquity except me. You are wicked, but I am more wicked than you, so be silent!
Tamerlane Khan before the the sacking of Damascus
[Lola
Montez] was an actress of questionable morals and talent. By the time she reached San Francisco, she had been through three marriages and numerous scandals involving the likes of Ludwig I of Bavaria and composer Franz Liszt. When Montez took her famed "spider dance" into the gold fields, it wasn't warmly received. In fact, the miners booed her off the stage. She threatened to horsewhip one newspaper editor who had given her a bad review, and dared another to a duel.
Patricia Cronin Marcello; 'No
Place for a Woman?'. Lola Montez was born on February 17, 1821.
And many a
bearded digger bold
In scarlet shirts arrayed
Assembled in the house the night
Lola Montez played
Quoted in an article 'A Pair of Pistols – An Actor's Story' in Wattle
Blossom magazine, Australia, 1881; Source:
Warren
Fahey
The characteristic and fascinating Spider Dance has been performed by Madame Lola Montez with the utmost success throughout the United States of America and before all the Crowned heads of Europe.
This dance, on which malice and envy have endeavoured to fix the stain of immorality, has been given in the other Colonies to houses crammed from floor to ceiling with rank and fashion and beauty.
The Ballarat Star, Australia
There is no mistaking the leading "star" when she makes her appearance. She has evidently inherited the best points of her aristocratic father and her handsome Creole mother. One has only to look at her magnificent dark, flashing eyes, her willowy form, the traces of former beauty, and her lithe, active movements to see that one is in the presence of a very remarkable woman...
William Craig on Lola Montez; My Adventures on the Australian
Goldfields, London, 1903, p. 162
Hello Possums!!!
Barry
Humphries, Australian comedian, born on February 17, 1934;
as Dame Edna Everage
I was born in Melbourne with a precious gift. Dame Nature stooped over my cot and gave me this gift. It was the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others.
Dame Edna Everage
I'm on my little "Tourette" around North America … I'm loving my tour and it's such a relief that I fired my producer Barry Humphries. It's a spooky feeling finishing a week's work on stage, to find I have considerably more than 5% of the takings in my purse. That man had his hand in the till up to the armpit!
Dame Edna Everage
I'll never
forget the day when my wonderful mother locked me in the boxroom.
Dame Edna Everage; My
Gorgeous Life
There's no doubt about it, Beryl makes a lovely sponge finger.
Dame Edna Everage
Dame Edna
Everage housewife, megastar, investigative journalist, social
anthropologist, children's book illustrator, diseuse, chanteuse,
swami, monstre sacré, polymath, adviser to British royalty, grief
counsellor, spin doctor and icon is arguably the most popular and
gifted woman in the world today ...
Source: Dame Edna's newsletter, Letters from Edna, formerly
at
www.dame-edna.com
Dear Webbies,
My famous face furniture is already misting up as I think sadly of my departure from Broadway. Madge has already starting packing my wonderful wardrobe; a task that takes weeks. Sometimes I wish I had as few clothes as she does: an all purpose fawn frock and moth gray cardigan. She always carries luggage on our trips to show off but, of course, her cases are empty. Tragically, she's pretending to own things.
My Tony Award and all the other trophies I've collected are going to play havoc with the airport security but they generally whisk me through anyway, much to Madge's annoyance. She longs to be stopped, poor woman, and subjected to a brutal body search, but it never happens …
Source: ibid
... really go down market ... buy Australian.
Barry Humphries, Australian comedian, born on February 17, 1934; as
Sir Les Patterson
Australia is an outdoor country. People only go indoors to use the toilet, and that's only a recent development.
Barry Humphries, Australian comedian, born on February 17, 1934
There is perhaps, no more dangerous man in the world than the man with the sensibilities of an artist but without creative talent. With luck such men make wonderful theatrical impresarios and interior decorators, or else they become mass murderers or critics.
Barry Humphries
My mother used to say that there are no strangers, only friends you haven't met yet. She's now in a maximum security twilight home in Australia.
Barry Humphries
My parents were very pleased that I was in the army. The fact that I hated it somehow pleased them even more.
Barry Humphries
New Zealand is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.
Barry Humphries
To live in Australia permanently is rather like going to a party and dancing all night with one's mother.
Barry Humphries
I still seem to shock people even though I look terribly respectable now in my old age ... I think what I do is encourage people to look at Australia critically and with affection and humour, which is what all comedians should do.
Barry Humphries
Disguising myself as different characters and I had a whole box of dressing up clothes ... Red Indian, sailor suit, Chinese costume and I was very spoiled in that way ... I also found that entertaining people gave me a great feeling of release, making people laugh was a very good way of befriending them. People couldn't hit you could they if they were laughing.
Barry Humphries
I'm very lucky to do a job that makes me happy and seems to give a lot of people pleasure because when you laugh you know you use muscles that you don't use in any other way and so it's very good for you when you laugh. I like to think that doctors send people to my shows.
Barry Humphries
Oh, I was down by Manly Pier
Drinking tubes of ice-cold beer
With a bucket full of prawns upon me knee.
But when I'd swallowed the last prawn
I had a technicolour yawn
And I chundered in the old Pacific sea.
Barry Humphries; (Chunder in) The Old Pacific Sea), 1965 song
I was warmed by the sun, rocked by the winds and sheltered by the trees as other Indian babes. I was living peaceably when people began to speak bad of me. Now I can eat well, sleep well and be glad. I can go everywhere with a good feeling.
Geronimo, Apache Chief, USA, who died on February 17, 1909
The soldiers never explained to the government when an Indian was wronged, but reported the misdeeds of the Indians. We took an oath not to do any wrong to each other or to scheme against each other.
Geronimo
I cannot think that we are useless or God would not have created us. There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children of one God. The sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening to what we have to say.
Geronimo
When a child, my mother taught me to kneel and pray to Usen for strength, health, wisdom and protection. Sometimes we prayed in silence, sometimes each one prayed aloud; sometimes an aged person prayed for all of us ... and to
Usen.
Geronimo
I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures.
Geronimo
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
Thomas
Watson, President of IBM, 1949
It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian.
James Baldwin,
African-American writer, in a speech at Cambridge, on this day in 1965
This award characterizes what the American male wants in a woman – brains, talents and gorgeous tits.
Bette Midler, American chanteuse, on February 17, 1976, receiving Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatrical Society Woman of the Year award
February 17 is the 48th
day of the year in the Gregorian
calendar, with 317
days remaining (318 in leap years).
Calendar converter Almanacs,
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locate the original.
The Fornacalia, Quirinalia, ancient Rome
Festival of bread, ovens, and the oven goddess, who showed
humans how to bake bread. In Roman mythology, Fornax is the goddess of
furnaces, whence their name. Observance of the day helped plants in the
coming growing season. Plants should be tended today with special loving
care.
The festivity was held over several days this month (this being the last day; I am uncertain which was the first) in the Forum by the curiae (ancient unions of kinsmen). The time for its celebration was proclaimed each year by the Curio Maximus, who placed in the Forum tablets that announced the different part which each curia had to take in the celebration of the festival.
Quirinalia: Feast of Fools
People who did not know to what curia they belonged, performed the sacred rites on the Quirinalia in honour of Quirinus, called because of this the Stultorum feriae, or Feast of Fools, which fell on the last day of the Fornacalia. (Ovid, Fasti, ii.525 - 527; Varro, De Ling. Lat. vi.13; see also January1 part II for the Christian Feast of Fools.)
Fornax (the furnace) is a southern constellation which was first introduced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille under the name Fornax Chemica (the chemical furnace).
Quirinus
From
Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia.
In Roman mythology, Quirinus was a mysterious god.
At
first he probably was a Sabine god. Sabines had a settlement near the future
site of Rome, and they called one of their sites, in which
they had erected an altar, the Collis Quirinalis ('Quirinal
Hill') after Quirinus; this area was later included among the Seven hills of Rome, and Quirinus became
one of the most important gods of the state, as associated with Romulus.
Quirinus'
wife was Hora.
In
art, he was portrayed as a bearded man with religious and military
clothing.
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 Complete Poems Banjo Paterson  Oxford Book of Modern Australian Verse
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Wilde/Humphries  Be A Goddess
 Spellcraft
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Tanis Diena, ancient Latvia From Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia: It was held in honour
of pigs
and was transferred to the feast day of St
Anthony after Christianization. A pig's head was placed atop a stone to protect from thunder and lightning. During the day, the townsfolk went to pig pens and sang songs glorifying the fertility of the pig. At lunch, a pig's head and feet were eaten and the remains were buried where the pigs would be herded the following year. Sewing or other needle-work was strictly prohibited, as was drinking in the home. A foggy day indicated floods; a sunny day indicated a good barley crop; a dry day indicated drought, and vice versa. Alternative: Tena Diena, Tunna Diena, Tenisa Diena, Cukausu Diena, Kunga Diena ('man's day').
Parentalia, ancient Rome (Feb 13 - 21) Shiwasu Matsuri, Mikado Jinja, Nango, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan (Jan 20 - Feb 20) Sounkyo Ice Festival, Sounkyo Onsen (spa), Hokkaido, Japan (Jan 29 - Mar 5) Bonten matsuri,
Miyoshi-jinja Shrine, Akita-shi, Akita, Japan (Feb 16 -
17) Powamu,
Pueblo/Hopi purification ceremony, (Feb 12 - 28) Celtic tree
month of Luis ends Egyptian day (dies egypticus, dies ægypticus or dies mala), unlucky day in Medieval Europe. ("But, notwithstanding, I will trust the Lord" was the associated saying.) Feast day of St Alexis Falconieri Feast day of St Anacletus, patron saint of bathroom cabinets Feast day of St Bartholomew degli Amidei Feast day of St Benedict of Cagliari Feast day of St Donatus the Martyr Feast day of St Faustinus and Companions Feast day of St Fintan of
Clonenagh, abbot in Leinster Feast day of St Flavian, archbishop of
Constantinople, martyr in Lydia Feast day of St Fortchern of Trim Feast day of St Gherardino Sostegni Feast day of St Guevrock Feast day of St Hugh dei Lippi-Uguccioni Feast day of St John Buonagiunta Monetti Feast day of St Julian of Caesarea, martyr in Palestine Feast day of St Loman, or Luman, first bishop of Trim Feast day of St Polychronius Feast day of St Romulus the Martyr Feast day of St Secundian the Martyr Feast day of the Seven Founders of Servants of Mary Feast day of St Theodulus, martyr in Palestine Feast day of St William Richardson Day of Cancelled Expectations God of the wine press. Tuesday before Shrove Tuesday
1699
Georg
Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff 1774 Raphaelle Peale, considered the first professional American painter of still-life 1798 Auguste Comte
Born Eliza
Rosanna Gilbert (or, according to one source,
Maria Dolores Eliza Gilbert) at Grange, County Sligo, Ireland,
and like many other aspects of her life, discrepant reports of her
birth have been published. In 1837
sixteen-year-old Eliza eloped with Lieutenant Thomas James. The
couple separated five years later and Eliza became a dancer under a
stage name. Her London debut as 'Lola Montez, the Spanish
dancer' in June 1843 was disrupted when she was recognized as Mrs
James. The resulting notoriety did not hurt her career and
she quickly became famous both for her self-created 'Tarantula
Dance', and the expression "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets". In 1846, she
traveled to Munich, where she was discovered by – and
quickly became the mistress of – Ludwig I of Bavaria, who made her
Countess of Landsfeld. As she was linked romantically to
writer Alexandre Dumas and composer
Franz Liszt as well as Ludwig,
her arrival in Australia was attended by much popular and
press interest. She was loved on the
goldfields
but the metropolitan press took a prudish view – wowserish
being the Aussie term. She played to packed houses in these
antipodean outposts of Western culture; one William Kelly wrote in
1860 " … eager lads and lasses, who crowded from the
remotest gullies, were impatient ... to see the charming dansante
in this popular ballet". The Sydney Morning Herald thought the spider
dance "the most libertinish and indelicate performance that could
be given on the public stage". An Australian musical comedy, Lola
Montez (1958), by Peter Stannard, Peter Benjamin and Alan Burke,
focused on the time she spent in Ballarat. After her Australian
tour, she moved to New York. Lola Montez was also a friend or acquaintance with Frédéric Chopin, Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, George Sand and Alphonse de Lamartine. The Victorians called her "La Grande Horizontele".
Discrepancies
concerning the record of Lola Montez Images of
Lola Montez
1844 Aaron
Montgomery Ward, department store founder
When female Australian British subjects won the vote with the Uniform Franchise Act (June 16, 1902), Louisa Lawson, who had had only two years of schooling, was hailed by her political sisters as "The Mother of Womanhood Suffrage". (Women in South Australia were the first in the world to win the right to vote and stand for election.) Lawson was a poor, Mudgee-born bush battler, forced by marital breakdown, economic depression and drought to move with her four surviving children to the city. She was an idiosyncratic but indomitable woman, a prodigious worker, powerful writer and fine poet, a spiritualist, farmer, inventor, postmistress and shopkeeper.
Lawson spent thirty-five years of her hard life fighting for women's rights. She founded the Association of Women, and with Henry, in 1887 - '88 she published the journal, The Republican. Louisa Lawson then became founder, owner, publisher and editor of The Dawn, the new nation's foremost women's political magazine, announcing that it would battle for women's rights, and the vote. "Why should one half of the world govern the other half?" was Lawson's rallying cry. While she supported her children in a little house at 138 Phillip Street near Sydney's docks, she had to teach herself the difficult trade of setting lead type, because of a black-ban by the New South Wales Typographical Association. The Postmaster-General's Department refused to register The Dawn for sending through the post. In 1891, Lawson helped launch (with Maybanke Anderson, Rose Scott, and Dora Montefiore) the Womanhood Suffrage League of NSW. She also founded the Dawn Club, which met in various locations in Sydney, including the tea rooms of the remarkable Quong Tart ... Read on at the Henry and Louisa Lawson page in the Scriptorium Australian politicians and educators, particularly conservative ones, tend to promote the myth of Henry Lawson as a homespun rural author, and consequently, although there is some truth in it, a bucolic view of Lawson is very wid |
