every day's a holiday!

August 1, 2011August 2, 2011

Swiss National Day

August 1

“In Switzerland they had brotherly love — they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

So goes Orson Welles’ famous line from The Third Man. But the Swiss will tell you Switzerland has produced much more than the cuckoo clock, the army knife, holey cheese, and those nifty bank accounts. Here, for the first time ever, ranked by the world’s most brainiest scientists, are the top 20 things to come out of Switzerland over the last 500 years:

20. internal combustion engine
19. e (as 2.71828 )
18. fondue
17. Amish people
16. Nescafe
15. velcro
14. absinthe
13. William Tell
12. i (square root of negative 1)
11. LSD
10. LCDs
9. Rorschach tests
8. Diesel
7. aluminum foil
6. cheese spread
5. the Red Cross
4. the World Wide Web
3. Toblerone
2. photosynthesis
and…
1. Ursula Andress

ursula_andress — Ah the Swiss...Ursula Andress in Dr. No

Despite these achievements, women in Switzerland didn’t get the right to vote until 1971. Since then, however, they’ve had two female Presidents.

Today’s National Day celebrates the Federal Charter of 1291, penned in August of that year. It states:

…know all men, that the people of the valley of Uri, the democracy of the valley of Schwyz, and the community of the Lower Valley of Unterwalden, seeing the malice of the age, in order that they may better defend themselves, and their own, and better preserve them in proper condition, have promised in good faith to assist each other with aid…against one and all, who may inflict upon any one of them any violence, molestation or injury, or may plot any evil against their persons or goods.

And they meant it. Mild-mannered as they seem today, the Swiss Confederation was the terror of Europe starting in the days of national hero William Tell in the 14th century until 1515 when French, German, and Venetian troops defeated 20,000 Swiss–the best trained army on the continent–in the Battle of Marignano. The battle also marked the end of the days of pikes and phalanxes and the beginning of the dominance of field artillery.

Switzerland joined the United Nations in 2002.

August 1, 2011August 1, 2011

Lughnasadh

July 31-August 1

BookOfHours(August) — Book of Hours, August

Today is Lughnasadh! Not to be confused with Lasagna Day. That was July 29.

Also known by its more Christian name, Lammas, aka “Loaf-mas”, Lughnasadh marked the time of year villagers would celebrate the first Harvest, on or around August 1, by baking and sharing bread from the first grain of the season.

Lughnasadh is a cross-quarter day—days that fall directly between equinoxes and solstices—the others being Imbolc (Candlemas), Beltane (May Day), and Samhain (Halloween).

The holiday would have been celebrated by the Celts starting at sundown (on the 31st) until the following day.

July 31 is also Harry Potter’s Birthday! Coincidence?

Today the ancient pagan tradition is carried on by wiccans and is becoming increasingly popular in neopaganism.

from http://jksalescompany.com/dw/wicca_calendar.html

http://thunder.prohosting.com/~cbarstow/lammas.html

Lughnasadh recipes

August 1, 2011August 3, 2011

Ramadan 1432

~August 1, 2011 (varies)

Like all Islamic months, Ramadan begins when the crescent moon is first visible, just after the new moon.

During Ramadan, Muslims fast for thirty days.

30 days!? Wouldn’t you die after, like, a week?

Yes, you’d think that, but Muslims fast for 30 days, not 30 nights.

Families awaken early in the morning to eat Sahur (breakfast) before the sun rises and to pray the first of five daily prayers. The fourth prayer is at sunset (Maghrib), after which the family eats Iftar, the evening meal. Eating in between is forbidden, with exceptions for children, diabetics, pregnant women, the very elderly, ill people, etc. [No, you can’t eat children or ill people, silly. Children and ill people can eat.]

: Procession through the streets of Cairo on the 1st day of Ramadan, c. 1870

Fasting, or Sawm, is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The others are Faith (Iman), Prayer (Salah), Charity (Zakah), and Pilgrimage (Hajj).

The fasting refers not only to food, but to the abstinence of earthly desires. The Fast is is a way to show faith and devotion to God; yet it is much more than that. Muslims use this time to seek spiritual guidance and to atonefor sins and past mistakes. According to www.30-days.net:

Fasting helps one to experience how a hungry person feels and what it is like to have an empty stomach. It teaches one to share the sufferings of the less fortunate. Muslims believe that fasting leads one to appreciate the bounties of Allah, which are usually taken for granted – until they are missed!

The Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar. Unlike other calendars, the Islamic calendar contains no intercalary period (like a leap day or a leap week). Since the calendar is about 354 days, the date of Ramadan falls about 11 days earlier each year.

Ten or fifteen years ago, when Ramadan fell in the middle of winter, it was easier to fast, since the days were shorter. As we move into the summer months the fasting hours grow longer and longer.

But as Shahed Amanullah points out:

There is, however, a bright side to this holiday mobility. As Ramadan moves slowly through the calendar year, we have multiple opportunities to share Ramadan with other faith traditions and holidays as their paths cross in time. And each time this happens, there is a bit of cross-pollination that goes on that I believe enriches both traditions.

The word ‘Ramadan’ comes from an Arabic ramida, meaning “scorching heat”. It refers to the purging of sin from the soul.

: Watch for the Sunset (©Aphrodite)

You Know It’s Ramadan When…

Ramadan Moon Over Morocco

———————

(from 2009/1430)

“August 23 will be the first day of the Holy Month Ramadan as the moon was not sighted on Friday, according to the Central Ruet-i-Hilal Committee.”

— Samaylive.com, August 22, 2009

Hilal has been sighted over many places (Florida, Texas etc) in the USA after the sunset on Friday 21st August 2009. The astronomical data also strongly predicted the possibility of naked-eye sighting in most of North America. Therefore we announce that Saturday, 22nd August 2009 is the first date of Ramadhan 1430.

— http://www.hilalsighting.org, August 21, 2009

[from September 1, 2008/1429]

This month marks a rare occurrence in the Islamic and Gregorian calendars. The ninth months of both calendars (Ramadan and September, respectively) begin and end on just about the same days. The Gregorian date of Ramadan will vary depending on where in the world you are and on the night sky. But essentially, Ramadan 1429 will begin September 1 and end on September 29th or 30th.

This is the first time this has occurred since…well, if you find out, let me know. There’s a good chance it’s the first time it’s happened in your lifetime.

This just in! Ramadan Announced

July 31, 2011August 2, 2011

St. Ignatius of Loyola

July 31

ALMOST 500 years ago in the Basque country in the north of Spain, a young man sat in bed recovering from a long and brutal operation. Inigo, an officer in the Spanish army, had been struck during a French siege by a small cannonball which had shattered one leg and severely wounded the other.

After 15 days, doctors…

decided that the leg ought to be broken again and the bones reset because they had been badly set the first time or had been broken on the road…This butchery was done again; during it…he never spoke a word nor showed any sign or pain other than to clench his fists… — Culture and Belief in Society, David Englander & Rosemary O’Day

But as he healed, one of the bones remained on top of the other, shortening his leg. A self-admittedly vain Inigo didn’t want to live life deformed. He opted to to undergo a third operation to fix it, even though it would be the longest and most painful, as the bone had already healed.

Having cut into the flesh and sawed off the projecting bone, the surgeons set themselves to the task of reducing the shortness of the leg…and continually stretching it by means of mechanical devices, which for several days on end cause him great torture. — Saint Ignatius Loyola: the Pilgrim Years, James Brodrick

In recovery Inigo asked for some books to occupy him. All they had to read were two books, De Vita Christi (Life of Christ) by Ludolph of Saxony and a book on the lives of the Saints, both in Castilian.

(On a personal note, I was once stuck in a laundromat for three hours where the only book I could find was “The Valley of the Dolls.” We are glad that was not the case with Inigo, because) After reading these tomes and healing from his operation, he tossed aside three decades of vanity and materialism, to found the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.

It didn’t happen overnight. It began with a competitive pursuit of “besting” the saints, to be more ascetic than this one or to fast more stringently than another. But each exercise and pilgrimage slowly transformed his faith. He spent several months living in a cave. He begged his way across Europe to Jerusalem. He preached on the streets of Barcelona. He was interrogated during the Inquisition, and briefly incarcerated in Salamanca.

“About what do you preach?” Loyola was once asked.

He replied, “We do not preach, we speak to a few in a friendly manner about the things of God, just as one does after dinner with those who invite us.”

He left his troubles (and his name) in Spain to study at the University of Paris. There ‘Ignatius’ of Loyola met six other like-minded men who formed Societas Iesu–the Society of Jesus. In August 1534 the men made a vow–to live in poverty and chastity, to devote themselves to missionary work and other good deeds, and to serve the Pope.

By the time of Ignatius’s (Inigo’s) death, on this day in 1556, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) had spread to three continents, where they operated dozens of schools. They made enemies among colonial powers while defending the the rights and lives of indigenous inhabitants of North and South America.

With over 18,000 members in 112 nations, the Jesuits are the largest male religious order of the Roman Catholic Church. Millions more have been educated at Jesuit schools and universities.

Prayer of Saint Ignatius Loyola
Teach us, Good Lord,
To Serve Thee as Thou deservest;
To give and not to count the cost;
To fight and not to heed the wounds;
To labor and not to ask for any reward,
save that of knowing that we do Thy will.
Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen.

http://www.pray-as-you-go.or

July 30, 2011July 26, 2011

First Assembly Day

July 30

“The first phase of the story of the American democracy begins with the meeting of the first General Assembly in 1619 at the Jamestown church…”

— Jamestown, the Buried Truth, William Kelso

Yes, it all begin in a little church on a summer’s day in 1619. They didn’t meet with the intent to change the world, just takin’ care of business.

It’s said that America was founded on freedom of religion, but 13 years before the Pilgrims ever stepped aboard the Mayflower, the London Company (later the Virginia Company) packed over a hundred men on three ships bound for America in the hopes of establishing a permanent, viable, and profitable settlement.

After 144 days at sea they settled upon what became Jamestown Island, which they named for the English king. Life was tough in those days. The first years in Jamestown brought us legends like Pocahontas and Captain John Smith, but by far the most popular activities in the early years were getting sick, starving, and dying.

In 1609, the Virginia Company in England shipped much-needed food, supplies, more colonists, and new leaders aboard eight ships, which then got caught in a storm. Most of the colonists arrived in tact; however the ship carrying key foodstuffs, supplies, and leaders (the Sea Venture) crash landed on an uninhabited island chain named Bermuda. (That’s how Bermuda became an English colony. The shipwreck is still visible on Bermuda’s coat-of-arms, and some historians believe the wreck influenced Shakespeare’s ripped-from-the-headlines classic “The Tempest”).

Of the 500 Jamestown settlers, only about 100 survivors remained in June 1610, at which time the colonists decided to abandon Jamestown.

Yes, Jamestown was not a permanent settlement. It was abandoned for two days—June 8-9, 1610. The colonists had just begun sailing back to England when they were intercepted by the new governor, Lord de la Warr, and his party arriving from England. (Back in England, John Smith’s writings had just been published and had sparked a renewed interest in the colony in the nick of time.) Lord de la Warr ordered the colonists back to Jamestown, and it’s been inhabited ever since.

Originally Jamestown was run by a council of seven men, chosen by the Virginia Company. (On that first journey to Virginia in 1607, the list of leaders was kept secret in a locked box, not to be opened until the colonists reached land. The story goes that the captain sentenced John Smith to be executed upon their arrival, but his life was spared because he turned out to be one of the seven.)

By early 1609 only one of the seven remained. The following year the Virginia Company established martial law, making Lord de la Warr the supreme ruler of the colony and the arbiter of all disputes.

In 1618, in an effort to increase productivity and immigration, the Virginia Company back in London allowed colonists to own their own land. The “Greate Charter” also created an annual General Assembly, to consist of the Governor (Sir George Yeardley), the Council (members selected by the Virginia Company) and the House of Burgesses. The House of Burgesses was a group of representatives elected by the colonists, two from each of the 11 towns and plantations. The Assembly’s mission: to decide upon “just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people.”

The Assembly first convened on this day (July 30) in 1619. They met for six days in the mid-summer Virginia heat. One of their members died from the heat before the assembly was over.

The Assembly set the price of tobacco—the colony’s big export—and they laid down fines and punishments “Against Idleness, Gaming, drunkeness & excesse in apparell…” Laws also touched upon marriage, food stocks, and the converting of Indians to Christianity.

The assembly adjourned on August 4. One of their best decisions: to meet in much cooler March next time.

Nearly 400 years later, residents of Jamestown, Virginia, celebrate First Assembly Day on July 30, the anniversary of the First General Assembly of the former British colonies and the birth of democratic government in the United States.

Did the Sea Venture shipwreck inspire The Tempest? – MP3 file

Laws at Jamestown – Making Decisions

Jamestown: the Perilous Adventure, by Olga Hall-Quest

Full text of the First General Assembly of Virginia

July 29, 2011July 26, 2011

St. Olav’s Day

July 29

Almost a thousand years after he sailed the fjords of Norway, King Olaf is remembered with Olavsfestdagen (Olaf’s Feast Day) — a week of music, entertainment, and partying.

Legends abound of King Olaf’s heroic deeds. According to “Scandanavian Folk-lore – Illustrations of the Tradition Beliefs of the Northern Peoples”

When St. Olaf came to the farm of Sten, where his mother is said to have lived, he resolved to build a church there. A giantess, who at the time lived in the mountain…was not at all satisfied with this plan…and challenged him to a contest. “Before you are finished with your church,” said she, “I shall have built a stone bridge over Stensfirth.” Olaf accepted the challenge, and before she was half finished with the bridge, the glorious peal of the bells was heard from St. Olaf’s Church.

In a rage the troll seized the stones with which she had intended to complete the bridge, and hurled them…over the firth at the church, but as none of them struck it, she became so angry that she cut off one of her legs and let that fly at the steeple… [T]he leg landed in a bog behind the church, where to this day it causes a bad smell.

Despite the stories, Olav was not always the saintliest of saints. So scribed Sigvald the skald:

The youthful king stain red the hair
Of Angeln men, and dyed his spear
At Newport in their hearts’ dark blood;
And where the Danes the thickest stood–
Where the shrill storm round Olaf’s head
Of spear and arrow thickest fled,
There thickest lay the Thing-men dead!
Nine battles now of Olaf bold,
Battle by battle, I have told

Yes, Olaf had a tendency to convert Scandanavia’s pagan remnants, not with scripture and Bibles but with sword, fire, and battle-axe.

He was slain in battle in 1030, his body buried near the field, to be later disinterred and moved to Trondheim…

where it was deposited in the magnificent cathedral which rose upon the ruins of the temple of Thor. The recollection of his cruelties was forgotten, and such was the reverence paid to him as a hero and martyr that he might almost be said to have filled the place of the ancient idols in the affections of the nation.

In death the former king became more powerful than in life. Having uprooted centuries of pagan myth and tradition, Olaf himself replaced the Norse god Thor in some ways. He inherited the god’s red hair and beard, and the weapon of choice was changed from hammer to Olaf’s battle-axe.

In death, Olaf’s powers had no bounds. His shrines were said to heal the sick, make strong the weak, and even to heal crippled and severed limbs–though whether this is related to his encounter with the angry giantess at Stensfirth, and the smell emanating from the bog behind his church, the sagas do not say.

July 28, 2011July 26, 2011

Independence Day – Peru

July 28

Jose de San Martín had liberated the Rio de la Plata (Argentina), marched his army across the Andes, and defeated the Spanish in Chile before turning his attention to the north, to Peru—Spain’s most tenacious stronghold on the continent. In Chile he created a navy from scratch in order to attack Peru by sea.

At that moment, San Martín’s newly independent homeland of Argentina was emerged in civil war; yet he felt if he used his army to intervene in Argentina it would only lead to more destruction. Before debarking from Valpasairo, Chile, he issued his proclamation to his countrymen in Argentina on his reasons for continuing to Peru, rather than returning to his homeland to support one warring faction over another:

Provinces of the Rio de la Plata: This proclamation will be my last response to my calumniators: I can do no more than to risk my life and my honor for the sake of my native land. Whatever may be my lot in the campaign of Peru, I shall demonstrate that ever since I returned to my native land, her independence has been my constant thought, and that never had I entertained any ambition other than to merit the hatred of the ungrateful and the esteem of the virtuous.

Upon reaching Peru, he was interviewed by an Englishman, Captain Basil Hall, who paraphrased the General as saying that the war in Peru was “not a war of conquest or glory, but entirely of opinion; it was a war of new and liberal principles against prejudice, bigotry, and tyranny.

San Martin crosses the Andes — San Martin Crosses the Andes

San Martín said he had no territorial ambitions in Peru, or even to wish them independence if the people were not for it.

All that I wish is, that this country should be managed by itself, and by itself alone. As to the manner in which it is to be governed, that belongs not at all to me. I propose simply to give the people the means of declaring themselves independent, and of establishing a suitable form of government; after which I shall consider that I have done enough, and leave them.

A year later, on this day in 1821, the General stood in the great square in Lima, unfurled the new flag of independent Peru, and announced:

“From this moment, Peru is free and independent, by the general wish of the people, and by the justice of her cause, which may God defend. Viva la patria! Viva la libertad! Viva la independencia!“

The General was made Protector of Peru, but Spanish forces continued to battle San Martín’s troops, and Peruvian independence was far from assured. General Simón Bolívar, who had defeated the Spanish in Gran Colombia (today’s Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador), entered Peru from the north. The two great Liberators of South America met in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on July 26, 1822, to discuss the fate of the continent.

Much has been written about, and hardly anything is known about, what happened between Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín at their only meeting. There were no witnesses other than the two men themselves. But after the interview, San Martín–true to his word–resigned his position as Protector and returned to Argentina, leaving Bolívar to defeat the Spanish in Peru.

guayaqui - San Martin and Simon Bolivar — San Martin and Simon Bolivar

San Martín’s wife died the following year. Distraught by her death and the civil wars wreaking havoc in Argentina, José de San Martín took his daughter Mercedes and moved to France, where he lived until his death in 1850.

: Jose de San Martin

Bolívar was deigned Dictator of Peru in 1824, the same year he drove out the Spanish for good. The southern part of Peru became Bolivia in his honor.

Spain officially recognized Peru’s independence in 1879.

Emancipation of South America – William Pilling

Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as told in the Lives of their Liberators – William Spence Robertson

July 27, 2011July 26, 2011

Cross Atlantic Communication Day

July 27

Today’s a good day to reach out and call (or Skype) that friend across the Pond. It’s Cross Atlantic Communication Day, marking the anniversary of the first sustained working telegraph cable between Europe and the Americas.

Before 1866, it took ten days for a message to cross the Atlantic by ship. An early form of the telegraph had been used in Germany as early as 1809, but it wasn’t until the 1830’s that related crucial innovations made the invention commercially viable.

Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke patented the first commercial telegraph in the UK in 1837. That same year inventor Samuel Morse developed a telegraph system in the US, using the language that would come to dominate the wires: Morse Code. In 1844 the U.S. installed a telegraph wire from Washington DC to Baltimore, whereupon Morse relayed its first now-famous message: “What hath God wrought?”

The idea of trans-Atlantic cable connecting Europe and the Americas appealed to several luminaries, but it’s generally seen as the brain-child of entrepreneur Cyrus Field, who raised the cash and made the first attempt in 1857. The 1,700m miles of cable was too big for any one ship to carry, so two were employed, the USS Niagara and the HMS Agamemnon. The two ships met up in the middle of the Atlantic, their two wires were spliced together, and they headed out in opposite directions, laying cable as they went. The cables broke multiple times, and the mission was eventually abandoned. The following summer, after several trials of errors, they set out again, and this time completed the mission, connecting a spliced cable from Newfoundland to Ireland.

On August 16, 1858, the first trans-Atlantic telegraph message was sent: “Glory to God in the highest; on earth, peace and good will toward men.” Followed by messages of goodwill and congratulations by Queen Victoria and President Buchanan.

“May the Atlantic telegraph, under the blessing of heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world.” — President James Buchanan

The two countries celebrated, but over the next few weeks the connection deteriorated, and finally gave out.

No one tried again for several years, and a Civil War engulfed the States. But in 1865, Cyrus Field tried again. Now there had been built one ship large enough to carry the whole cable: the Great Eastern, which was four times larger than any other ship in existence. Captain by Sir James Anderson, the Great Eastern traveled from Ireland to Newfoundland laying cable as it went. After over 1,000 miles the cable snapped, and the mission was abandoned.

The mission finally succeeded the following year when the Great Eastern lay another, more durable cable between the two coasts. The first sustained trans-Atlantic telegraph cable was completed on this day, July 27, 1866.

“It is a great work, a glory to our age and nation, and the men who have achieved it deserve to be honoured among the benefactors of their race.” — The Times, July 28, 1866

[The predecessor of the electric telegraph dated back to 1746, and it wasn’t used to send messages. French monk and scientist Jean-Antoine Nollet had 200 of his brethren stand around in a mile-round circle holding an iron wire and proceeded to shock them all, observing that the monks felt the shock at roughly the same time.]