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The Price of Loyalty: Bush, the White House, & the Education of Paul O'Neill
The Da Vinci
Code
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A Short
History of Nearly Everything
Garden Witchery
Naked Lunch
Naked Lunch - Criterion Collection
The Twilight
of American Culture
Golden Bough
Folklore classic
Sabbat Entertaining
The Pagan Book of Days
Eight Sabbats for Witches
Celebrate the Earth
A Year of Holidays in the Pagan
Tradition
Wheel of the Year
The Trouble
with Islam
Be A Goddess
The Five Biggest Lies Bush
Told Us About Iraq
The Oxford Dictionary of Saints
Lucifer Ascending: The
Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture
White Noise
The Book of Spells
Spellcraft
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The Encyclopedia of Saints
Daily Everything
Brewer's
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An Inconvenient Truth
By Al Gore; DVD &
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The Permaculture Home Garden
By Linda Woodrow
The Corporation
Highly recommended DVD
A
Question of Torture
By Alfred McCoy
Remotely
Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives and What We Can Do About
It
What
Would Jefferson Do?
By Thom
Hartmann
How
Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World
Pagan
Christianity
For
God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire
By James Yee
Crimes Against Nature : How George W Bush and His Corporate
Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy
By Robert F Kennedy, Jr
The Price of Loyalty
The
Torture Debate in America
A
Question of Torture
By Alfred McCoy
When Corporations Rule the World
Alternatives to Economic Globalization
Feminism Without Borders
The Skeptic's Dictionary
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
365 Goddess
Adventures in a TV Nation
Michael
Moore
Drawing Down the Moon
Globalization/Anti-Globalization
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|
 Feast day of Jacob, patriarch in
the Book of Genesis
Father of the
twelve
tribes of Israel, he stole his elder brother's birthright by
trickery. He deceived his blind father Isaac into giving his
blessing that was reserved for Esau. He had two wives,
the sisters Leah and Rachael, at the same time. This Jacob is not to
be confused with St James,
feast day July
25, who is also sometimes known as St Jacob.
At
Luz (perhaps later 'Bethel'), on his way to
Padan-aram, Jacob slept using a stone as a pillow and in a vision
saw the angels of God ascending and descending a ladder which
reached to Heaven (Gen. 28:12). Jacob's Ladder is probably the best-known string figure in the western world, apart from the
'cat's cradle' game, as well as an ancient wooden folk toy.
It's also the name of a high-voltage
spark like the ones you've seen in
Frankenstein movies, in the
doctor's lab, and a cultivar of Aloe
dawei.
The image shown here is by William
Blake.
More artworks
Birth
of Esau and Jacob Isaac
Blesses Jacob, Raffaelo Raffaelo
Murillo
Rivera
Flinck
Jacob
Deceives Isaac Jacob Wrestling with
the Angel, Doré Moreau
Segal
JacobWrestlesAngel
Rachel
Jacob
and Rachel Vecchio
Rachel
and Leah, Michaelangelo Rossetti
Berchem
Jacob
abd Laban Jacob's Ladder,
Chagall Jacob's Ladder
Murillo
Chagall
Jacob's
Ladder Esau
Sells His Birthright to Jacob The
Meeting of Jacob and Esau Jacob-Joseph,
Michaelangelo Joseph's
Bloody Coat Brought to Jacob, Velázquez Jacob's
Journey to Egypt Jacob's
Departure for Egypt, Chagall Joseph Presents his
Father (Jacob-Israel) and Brothers to the Pharaoh Joseph
with Jacob (Israel) in Egypt Jacob
Blesses the Sons of Joseph, Rembrandt
Source
More
images of Jacob's ladder
Igbi, Dagestan, former USSR
A celebration of the middle of winter, cognate to Imbolc/St Brigid's Day
(February 1 -
2) in the Celtic/Christian traditions.
Celebrated both in Shaitli and in neighbouring Kituri among the Avar ethnic group which includes the Tsezy (Didoitsy) people,
igbi in the Tsezian language means 'ring-shaped loaves' (like bagels). The singular is
ig. Igbi are baked for other festivals such as first day of
ploughing (see also Plough Monday).
Young men, aged 14-25, take part and preparations start months before. Boys write down various positive and negative deeds of villagers – the igbi day is their day of reckoning. A couple of months before
Igbi, they commence making costumes and assign duties to participants. Personages in the festival include wolves, forest people, a devil, skeleton, doctor, speculators, a
policeman, and so on. Masks for these characters are made out of animal skins or
papier-maché.
A week before the Igbi, three to four 'wolves' appear in the settlement and announce in the name of the
botsi (wolves) the need to prepare for the feast and to start baking igbi.
On February 5, it is said, the sun for the first time shines on the locality of Khora situated opposite Shaitli, indicating that winter has half passed. Children get up early and collect igbi from door to door. At about
10am, six 'wolves' with wooden swords and about thirty boys gather, choosing two men from the village and forcing them to carry the
gari, a pole on which they string the igbi. They go around the village threatening to punish whoever will not give them igbi. Women try to steal the igbi from the youths, while the botsi try to prevent them. There follows a ceremonial naming of the good and bad deeds of the villagers, which are announced in the name of a demon called the
Kvidili, which later in the day is ritually 'executed'.
Festival of the Lęnaia to Dionysus,
god of wine and pleasure, ancient
Greece (c. Jan 28 - Feb 5)
Festivals in ancient Greece
Feast day of St Abraham (Abraamius),
bishop of Arbela, martyr
Feast day of St Adelaide of
Guelders
Feast day of St Agatha
Hildegard of Carinthia
Feast day of St
Alice (or Adelaide), abbess at Cologne
(Red primrose, Primula
aculis is another of
today's plants, dedicated to this saint.)
Feast day of St Avitus of
Vienne, archbishop
Feast day of St Genuinus
Feast day of St Indract
Feast day of St Isidore
Feast day of St John
Morosini
Feast day of the
martyrs of Pontus
Feast day of the twenty-six martyrs of
Japan
Feast day of the
martyrs of China
Feast day of St Modestus
Feast day of St Vodoaldus
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints
Iroquois
Midwinter Festival (Jan 30 - Feb 8)
Shiwasu Matsuri, Mikado Jinja,
Nango, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan (Jan 20 - Feb 20)
Owase Yaya Matsuri (Shouting
Festival), Japan (Feb 1 - 8)
Sounkyo Ice Festival,
Sounkyo
Onsen (spa), Hokkaido, Japan (Jan 29 - Mar 5)
Yuki Matsuri, or Snow Festival,
Sapporo,
Hokkaido, Japan (dates vary in early February)
Hokkaido's largest festival. Snow images are made in the main street, and a costume parade and skating contests are held. See
February 7
for more.
Kashmir
Day observed as a public holiday in Pakistan
1788 Robert
Peel (d. 1850), Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom and founder of London's police force
1788 Károly Kisfaludy, Hungarian romantic poet and dramatist, who
inspired his compatriots to voice their national cultural heritage
 1827
Peter Lalor
(d. February
9, 1889), best known of the leaders of
Australia's bloody Eureka Stockade rebellion
of 1854, one of Australia's few armed uprisings and sometimes characterized as the
'birth of democracy' in Australia.
Lalor was born in Ireland and immigrated to Australia in
1852, initially working on the construction of the Melbourne-Geelong railway line but before long joined the
gold rush. The wide political changes after the Eureka Stockade saw Lalor appointed to the Victorian parliament in
1855, and despite
his rebel background, he was a surprisingly conservative politician. He was postmaster-general and minister for trade and customs in the ministry of Sir Graham Berry from
1877 to
1879, and chairman of committees. He was
speaker of the parliament from
1870 until 1877 and was offered a knighthood, which he declined.
The northern Melbourne
suburb
of Lalor
is named for him, as is a federal electorate, the Division
of Lalor.
Lawson
& Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson
More
1837 Dwight L Moody (d.
1899), American
evangelist
1840 John Dunlop (John Boyd Dunlop; d. 1921), Scottish
inventor
who developed commercially practical pneumatic tyres (see October
31, 1888)
1846
Johann Most
(d. March 17,
1906),
German-American anarchist and orator, who in the late 19th
Century began to advocate the use of violence to achieve
revolutionary political and social change. He taught
Emma Goldman
public speaking.
Early progressives in the Book of Days
 1848
Belle Starr (Myra
Maybelle Shirley; d.
February 3, 1889), American
outlaw, associate
of Jesse
James, mother of
Pearl Starr
Belle
Starr manga
Belle Starr, Belle Starr, tell me where you have gone
Since old Oklahoma's sandhills you did roam?
Is it Heaven's wide streets that you're tying your reins
Or singlefooting somewhere below?
Eight lovers they say combed your waving black hair
Eight men knew the feel of your dark velvet waist
Eight men heard the sounds of your tan leather skirt
Eight men heard the bark of the guns that you wore.
From
'Belle Starr', by Woody Guthrie, 1947 Source
Belle
Starr's
grave
 1858 Thomas
Walker (d. May 10, 1932), English-born
spiritualist,
freethinker and
political activist influential in
Australia (particularly
Sydney and
New South Wales) in the late-19th and early-20th Centuries.
He co-founded the
Australasian
Secular Association (ASA), which came to be most active in
Melbourne; the Melbourne
Anarchist Club grew out of the ASA.
In 1885 he was
charged with promulgating "obscene articles", namely
diagrams explaining birth control, but he was found not guilty. He
set up as temperance lecture after inadvertently shooting and
wounding a clergyman in 1892.
"Member of the Senate University of
Western Australia from 1912 until 1916. Protectionist Member of
the Legislative Assembly in New South Wales. Labor Member of
Legislative Assembly in West Australia, where he defended
Aborigines and promoted reforms ...
Lecturer and writer. Child preacher on
Wesleyan circuit around Preston, then pupil/teacher at St Thomas'
school. Migrated to Canada with family in early 1870s and worked
as labourer. Set up as a materializing spiritualist medium in
Toronto 1874; returned British precipitately after fatal accident
at seance; journalist on Preston Herald, Lancashire. Possibly
returned to Canada briefly in 1875; journalist and spiritualist
medium in United States of America in 1876. Arrived in New South
Wales in March 1877. Journeyed to Melbourne and became a medium
and lecturer to British 1879, lecturing for National Reform Union;
to South Africa 1880, resuming spiritualist preaching and returned
Victoria in 1881 and was a spiritualist lecturer. Denounced
spiritualism in 1882, founding Australasian Secular Association
with himself as salaried president and lecturer. Went to Sydney in
1883, where he became secularist spokesman, 'larrikin populist
campaigner' and published poems and plays. As a 'protectionist,
democratic republican', condemned Sudan expedition and espoused
radical reforms; convicted then acquitted of obscenity when
advocating birth control 1885; set up as temperance lecture after
inadvertently shooting and wounding a clergyman in 1892; also
taught elocution and wrote for press. Visited New Zealand, then
settled in Western Australia in 1899; Became a journalist on
Kalgoorlie Sun and Kalgoorlie Miner; then
journalist, and later became an editor of the Western Australian
Sunday Times; editor and part owner of the Sunday Press in
1903. Soon returned to Kalgoorlie to edit the Sun. Gave up
journalism and studied law. Admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor
in 1911. Author of two volumes of poetry; Marmondelle the Moore
(a play); and dramatization of For the Term of His Natural
Life." Source
Early
progressives in the Book of Days
Lawson
& Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson
1878 André Citroën (d. 1935),
automobile pioneer
1900 Adlai Stevenson
(d. 1965), American
politician
1906 John
Carradine, American actor (The Invisible Man; The Last Tycoon)
1914
William
S Burroughs (d.
August 2,
1997), American 'beat' author (Naked Lunch;
Junkie);
the only person ever to make money out of heroin (apart from
dealers, and shareholders of the Bayer company, which invented heroin
and marketed it as a non-addictive cure for morphine addiction
and coughs)
"Burroughs was born on February 5, 1914 in
St.
Louis, Missouri. His upper-class midwestern background did not
suit his tastes. A bookworm with strong homoerotic urges, a
fascination with guns and crime and a natural inclination to
break every rule he could find, there seemed to be no way
Burroughs could ever fit into normal society. His parents seemed
to accept this, and after he graduated from Harvard they
continued to support him financially as he experimented with
various lifestyles." Source
More
1919
Andreas Papandreou (d. June
23, 1996),
Greek
economist
and politician who served three times as Prime
Minister of Greece (October
21, 1981
to July
2, 1989
and October
13, 1993
to January
22, 1996).
1919
Red Buttons, American actor
1940
HR Giger,
Academy Award-winning
Swiss artist in the genre of Fantastic Realism;
he is perhaps best known for his design work on the film
Alien
HR Giger: The Official Website
1944
Al
Kooper, American rock musician
famed for session and/or collaborative work with
BB King,
Harry
Nilsson,
Mike Bloomfield, Bob
Dylan, Jimi
Hendrix,
Stephen Stills,
The Rolling Stones,
The Who,
Cream and many others; he organized the group
Blood,
Sweat & Tears.
Kooper famously tricked his
way into the recording session of Bob Dylan's 'Like
a Rolling Stone' by saying he had a good
organ part
for the song (which he did not). Before producer
Tom
Wilson could explicitly reject Kooper, he took a phone call.
Kooper sat down at the organ (a
Hammond B3),
although he had rarely played organ before the session. Wilson soon
returned, surprised to find Kooper in the studio. Throughout the
song the organ can be heard coming in just behind the other members
of the band, as Kooper followed to make sure he was playing the
right chords. During recording, Dylan said, "Turn the organ up," and
rock's most famous organ riff was born.
"Because this is my life and this is my
job. I'm no better or worse than any one of you; I'm probably just
older (57) and perhaps a bit warier and a little wiser. I've no
Mercedes, or surround sound. I don't go out to parties or
restaurants every other night, and when I do venture out, I must
admit I'm often dressed in a rather humorous manner. I'm way
beyond the point of being a rock star or a name on anyone's lips.
"I live comparatively comfortably on the
small percentage of royalties I was able to pry out of
calculated, evil paws over the years." Source
"We went on about 4 PM. Ron Wood played the
whole show with us sans rehearsal. He's such a great guy.
Spotted in our backstage area: Eric Clapton, Val Kilmer, Frank
Bruno (England's favorite son/boxer - Bob's into boxing), Woody,
Michael Kamen, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, etc. It was a gala
turnout. I walked over to Val Kilmer and introduced myself and
told him I enjoyed his work - especially his Doc Holliday." Source: Kooper's
diary – The Dylan concert, Hyde Park
Al Kooper's website
His
MySpace page Wilson's
Almanac Book of Days hip list
1945 Charlotte
Rampling, British actress (The
Night Porter; Stardust
Memories)
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Feast day of St Agatha,
virgin martyr, patroness of Malta
