World Listening Day is somewhat recently invented with the intent that folks will take time to go listen to the world. According to Checkiday.com ( https://www.checkiday.com/fc1ba772b44badc8c64dca97d9c4971f/world-listening-day )
World Listening Day is an annual global event that was started in 2010 by the World Listening Project, a group "devoted to understanding the world and its natural environment, societies and cultures through practices of listening and field recording." The day celebrates the listening practices that occur around the world, as well as acoustic ecology—a discipline that studies the relationship between humans and the natural world in regards to sound.
That's all well and good if you are out in nature or some quiet old neighborhood in some quaint little village or town, but if you are in an urban environment you are likely to find yourself up to the ears in serious noise pollution. We are surrounded by what I call "aesthetic pollution" of all kinds and attacking all of our sensory pathways. Who knows, maybe if this movement catches on we will at some point attack that issue, trivial though it may be. Perhaps if we did we'd all be less stressed, anxious, ill at ease, angry, belligerant, and all that.
It is Nelson Mandela International Day I do no't feel competent to do justice to the man, his life, hardships and achievements, so I will just let Mama Africa say something. All I can possibly contribute is to note that he responsible for that brief period when the US at least tried to pretend that it opposed apartheid, at least in South Africa, and even joined in a boycott against it.
On this day in 1982, two hundred sixty-eight campesinos were slain in Ríos Montt's Plan de Sánchez massacre. Rios Montt was one of those darlings of the US government, a brutal, fascist dictator who received support from the CIA and assorted other agencies. He graduated from the US run School of Assassins in Panama (now rebranded as "WHINSEC" at Ft. Benning) and cut his teeth in the 1954 CIA organized coup d'etat against then Predident Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. We always enthrone or support horrible dictators like this SOB in our alleged pursuit of "global democracy". Perhaps the political classes need new dictionaries.
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On this day in history:
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0064 -- The Great Fire of Rome burned for six days, destroying half of the city.
1290 -- King Edward I of England issued the Edict of Expulsion, banishing the Jews
1870 -- The First Vatican Council decreed the dogma of papal infallibility
1925 -- Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf.
1936 -- An army uprising started the Spanish Civil War.
1942 -- The Germans flew the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet aircraft.
1969 -- Chappaquiddick
1982 -- Ríos Montt's Plan de Sánchez massacre
1994 -- The Rwandan Patriotic Front took control of Gisenyi and NW Rwanda ending the genocide.
1995 -- The Soufrière Hills volcano on Montserrat erupted and over time pretty much destroyed the island.
1995 -- Selena's Dreaming of You was released posthumously & became the best-selling Latin album in the United States.
2013 -- The Government of Detroit filed for bankruptcy.
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Some people who were born on this day:
If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve it.
~~ Immanuel Hermann Fichte
1659 -- Hyacinthe Rigaud, painter
1670 -- Giovanni Bononcini, cellist and composer
1718 -- Saverio Bettinelli, poet, playwright, and critic
1797 -- Immanuel Hermann Fichte, philosopher and academic
1811 -- William Makepeace Thackeray, author and poet
1853 -- Hendrik Lorentz, physicist and academic
1895 -- Machine Gun Kelly, businessman,
1902 -- Jessamyn West, author
1903 -- Chill Wills, actor, singer, talking mule
1906 -- S. I. Hayakawa, academic, opponent of ethnic studies, and politician
1909 -- Harriet Nelson, singer and actress
1918 -- Nelson Mandela, lawyer and politician, 1st President of South Africa,
1921 -- John Glenn, colonel, astronaut, and politician
1922 -- Thomas Kuhn, physicist, historian, and philosopher
1929 -- Screamin' Jay Hawkins, singer-songwriter, producer, and actor
1937 -- Hunter S. Thompson, journalist and author
1938 -- Ian Stewart, keyboard player and manager
1939 -- Brian Auger, keyboard player
1939 -- Dion DiMucci, singer, songwriter and guitarist
1941 -- Lonnie Mack, singer, songwriter and guitarist
1941 -- Martha Reeves, singer, actress, and politician
1950 -- Glenn Hughes, singer, dancer, and actor
1954 -- Ricky Skaggs, singer, songwriter, mandolin player, and producer
1955 -- Terry Chambers, drummer
1957 -- Keith Levene, guitarist, songwriter, and producer
1962 -- Jack Irons, drummer
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Some people who died on this day:
What we committed in the Indies stands out among the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind and this trade [in Indian slaves] as one of the most unjust, evil, and cruel among them.
~~ Bartolomé de las Casas
1100 -- Godfrey of Bouillon, knight & Crusader.
1566 -- Bartolomé de las Casas, historian who chronicled atrocities against indigenous people
1610 -- Caravaggio, painter
1721 -- Jean-Antoine Watteau, painter
1792 -- John Paul Jones, Revolutionary War admiral, US diplomat, and Russian rear-admiral.
1817 -- Jane Austen, novelist
1890 -- Lydia Becker, journalist, author, and activist, co-founded the Women's Suffrage Journal
1899 -- Horatio Alger, Jr., American fantasy novelist and journalist
1938 -- Marie of Romania, punchline for Dotty:
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.
-- Dorothy Parker
1954 -- Machine Gun Kelly, businessman
1966 -- Bobby Fuller, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1969 -- Mary Jo Kopechne, educator and secretary
2001 -- Mimi Fariña, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
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Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:
Constitution Day (Uruguay)
World Listening Day
Nelson Mandela International Day
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Today's Tunes
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For Nelson Mandela
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Montserrat
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Selena
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Screamin' Jay Hawkins
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Ian Stewart
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Brian Auger
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Dion DiMucci
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Lonnie Mack
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Martha Reeves
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Glenn Hughes
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Ricky Skaggs
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Terry Chambers
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Keith Levene
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Jack Irons
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Bobby Fuller
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Mimi Fariña
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Hmmmm, Memphis, eh?
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Just for grins
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I won't be around when this posts
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Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?
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Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com