December

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"When icicles hang by the wall..." (Shakespeare)

                    2nd - First self-sustaining Nuclear Chain Reaction (1942)

2nd Dec 2002
Ivan Illich died .

Austrian philosopher

& Anarchist social critic.

Wrote Deschoooling Society,

Tools for Conviviality,

Medical Nemesis, etc



3rd - Robert Louis Stevenson died aged 44 (1894)

"Here he lies, where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."

( Robert Louis Stevenson, Requiem,
written for himself and engraved on his tombstone in Samoa)

                        5th - Prohibition repealed in USA (1933)

                                  Anniversary of Great Smog (London, 1952)

                         7th - Birthday of Noam Chomsky (1928)

"All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system,

there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless,

that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume."

- Blue Marble photo, Apollo 17, (1972)

8th - John Lennon assassinated 1980, aged 40.

click pic

10th - (1901), First Nobel Prizes awarded in Stockholm, Sweden. Dynamite!

General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (10th December 1948)

eg

Article 3.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

etc

Gonna argue with that?

10th December 1968, Thomas Merton, American Trappist monk, writer etc died aged 53. Probably assassinated for criticising Vietnam War.

Died same year as M.L.K.

12th - 29,000 British Women linked hands around Greenham Common airbase in protest against Cruise Missiles (1982)

13th - St.Lucy's Day (Patron of writers, lights, people with eye troubles, lamplighters etc)

This writer's Birthday! (Should have been a lamplighter instead...)

Also, Kenneth Patchen's (1911)

(1577) Seadog Francis Drake set out on a voyage that became first circumnavigation of earth by a Brit.

(1784) Samuel Johnson, best known for his Dictionary, died.

16th - Man Will Never Fly Society Annual Meeting

- Richard Brautigan, American writer died 1984, aged 49.

17^th - Saturnalia begins

18^th - (1865), Slavery (finally) abolished in America. Wage-slavery remains however...

19^th- J.M.W. Turner, painter etc died 1851, aged 76.

20^th- Adrian Mitchell died, aged 76 (2008)

21^st - Winter Solstice, Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock (1620)

24^th - Xmas Eve (Silent Night?)

25^th- Birthday of Muhammed Ali, Isaac Newton , Quentin Crisp & countless millions of others, but NOT of the historical Jesus!

Dalai Lama fled Lhasa, Tibet (1950); British & German troops observed ceasefire WW1 (1914)...

Xmas Present for loyal readers!

Letter to Santa (X-rated Xmas!)

And for the kiddies: A Teddy Bear's Christmas

Festive Trimmings for the hurrying consumer...

(music, pictures, text)

How about some Peace on Earth?

(Ask the War-mongers!)

more food?

31st -

- Death of Gustave Courbet, 1877. French Painter, Realist. Famous for his 1866 Painting, L'Origine du Monde: