Hiatus Byeatus

On holiday until August 1st.

Hope you tune back in for some steamin' fresh faeces.
(I hereby swear and promise not to accost any of you with travel stories)

tot ziens!

Henry David Thoreau Born July 12th 1817

Thoreau's Cove, Walden Pond, Concord Massachusetts between 1900 - 1910

Henry David Thoreau


Writer, philosopher, and naturalist Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12, in Concord, Massachusetts.
Associated with the Concord-based literary movement called New England Transcendentalism, he embraced the Transcendentalist belief in the universality of creation and the primacy of personal insight and experience. Thoreau's advocacy of simple, principled living remains compelling, while his writings on the relationship between people and the environment helped define the nature essay.


After graduating from Harvard in 1837, Thoreau held a series of odd jobs. Encouraged by Concord neighbour and friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, he started publishing essays, poems, and reviews in the transcendentalist magazine The Dial.


His essay "Natural History of Massachusetts" (1842) revealed his talent for writing about nature.


From 1845 to 1847, Thoreau lived in a cabin on the edge of Walden Pond, a small glacial lake near Concord.


Guided by the maxim "Simplify, simplify," he strictly limited his expenditures, his possessions, and his contact with others. His goal: "To live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach."



"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it…"
Henry David Thoreau,"Where I Lived, and What I Lived for" from Walden: or, Life in the Woods.


Walden: or, Life in the Woods chronicles his experiment in self-sufficiency. In a series of loosely-connected essays, Thoreau takes American individualism to new heights, while offering a biting critique of society's increasingly materialistic value system.


During his time at Walden, Thoreau spent a night in jail for refusing to pay his poll tax.


He withheld the tax to protest the existence of slavery and what he saw as an imperialistic war on Mexico. Released after a relative paid the tax, he wrote "Civeil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government") to explain why private conscience can constitute a higher law than civil authority. "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly," he argued, "the true place for a just man is also a prison." Thoreau continued to be a vocal and active opponent of slavery. In addition to aiding runaway slaves, in 1859 he staunchly and publicly defended abolitionist John Brown.

When his writing failed to win money or acclaim, he became a surveyor to support himself. As a result, Thoreau's later years increasingly were spent outdoors, observing and writing about nature. His seminal essay, "Succession of Forest Trees," describes the vital ecology of the woodlands, highlighting the role of birds and animals in seed dispersal. Republished posthumously in Excursions

, Thoreau's essay makes the forward-looking suggestion that forest management systems mirror existing woodland ecology.

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions," Thoreau reminds us, "perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

Considered something of a failure by the small town merchants and farmers of Concord, Thoreau died at home on May 6, 1862. His place in American letters is secure, however, as many continue to find inspiration in his work and his example.

Bavaria attempt to cream Hitler on this day

Photo: Berchtesgaden, in Bavaria

Hitler is paid a visit by his would-be assassin on this day in 1944.

Count Claus von Stauffenberg, a German army officer, transports a bomb to Adolf Hitler's headquarters in Berchtesgaden, in Bavaria, with the intention of assassinating the Fuhrer.
As the war started to turn against the Germans, and the atrocities being committed at Hitler's behest grew, a growing numbers of Germans-within the military and without-began conspiring to assassinate their leader. As the masses were unlikely to turn on the man in whose hands they had hitherto placed their lives and future, it was up to men close to Hitler, German officers, to dispatch him. Leadership of the plot fell to Claus von Stauffenberg, newly promoted to colonel and chief of staff to the commander of the army reserve, which gave him access to Hitler's headquarters at Berchtesgaden and Rastenburg.

Stauffenberg traveled to Berchtesgaden on July 3 and received at the hands of a fellow army officer, Major-General Helmuth Stieff, a bomb with a silent fuse that was small enough to be hidden in a briefcase.

On July 11, Stauffenberg was summoned to Berchtesgaden to report to Hitler on the current military situation. The plan was to use the bomb on July 15, but at the last minute, Hitler was called away to his headquarters at Rastenburg, in East Prussia.

Stauffenberg was asked to follow him there. On July 16, a meeting took place between Stauffenberg and Colonel Caesar von Hofacker, another conspirator, in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. Hofacker informed Stauffenberg that German defenses had collapsed at Normandy, and the tide had turned against them in the West.

The assassination attempt was postponed until July 20, at Rastsenburg.

Anticipating the inevitable defeat and blaming the Fuher for the German reversals in Russia a team of top Nazi generals that included the famous Field Marshal Edwin Rommel conspired to kill Hitler. The plot codenamed as Operation Valkyrie meant to assassinate the Furher and, simultaneously, to seize the General Headquarters in Berlin.The plotters hoped that without Hitler they would be able to negotiate peace and avoid complete destruction of the German state. On July 20th 1944 Count Claus von Stauffenburg, a Colonel, planted a satchel carrying a bomb in a meeting room in an ill fated assassination attempt on Hitler at the dictator's Wolf's Lair retreat.

The bomb went off killing and wounding several people. Much to the plotter's dismay Adolf Hitler survived the blast getting away with just a few scratches. In a crackdown that immediately insued, an estimated 7,000 people were arrested and dozens were tortured and executed, among them one Field Marshal and 20 Generals. 49 Generals committed suicide to avoid execution. The families of the executed plotters also paid a heavy price for being close to those who dared try and kill Hitler.

July 10th Berne Convention

Berne Convention signatory countries represented in blue

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement about copyright, which was first adopted in Berne, Switzerland July 10th, 1886.

The Berne Convention was developed at the instigation of Victor Hugo as the Association Litteraire et Artistique Internationale. Thus it was influenced by the French "right of the author" (droit d'auteur), which contrasts with the Anglo-Saxon concept of "copyright" which only dealt with economic concerns.

Before the Berne Convention, national copyright laws usually only applied for works created within each country. Consequently, a work published in United Kingdom (UK) by a British national would be covered by copyright there, but could be copied and sold by anyone in France; likewise, a work published in France by a French national would be covered by copyright there, but could be copied and sold by anyone in the UK.
The Berne Convention followed in the footsteps of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property 1883, which in the same way had created a framework for international integration of the other kinds of intellectual property: patents, trademarks and industrial designs.

Like the Paris Convention, the Berne Convention set up a bureau to handle administrative tasks. In 1893, these two small bureaus merged and became the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property (best known by its French acronym BIRPI), situated in Berne. In 1960, BIRPI moved to Geneva, to be closer to the United Nations and other international organizations in that city. In 1967 it became the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and in 1974 became an organization within the United Nations.

Since almost all nations are members of the world Trade Organization, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights requires non-members to accept almost all of the conditions of the Berne Convention.

As of April 2007, there are 163 countries that are parties to the Berne Convention.

The Berne Convention states that all works except photographic and cinematographic shall be copyrighted for at least 50 years after the author's death, but parties are free to provide longer terms, as the European Union did with the 1993 Directive on harmonising the term of copyright protection. For photography, the Berne Convention sets a minimum term of 25 years from the year the photograph was created, and for cinematography the minimum is 50 years after first showing, or 50 years after creation if it hasn't been shown within 50 years after the creation. Countries under the older revisions of the treaty may choose to provide their own protection terms, and certain types of works (such as phonorecords and motion pictures) may be provided shorter terms.

Argentina Celebrates it's 192nd year Independent of Spanish Rule

The Independence of Argentina was declared on July 9th 1816 by the Congress of Tucuman.

One of the places that tourists visit the most is the North of Argentina.

This sector consists of the provinces of Santiago del Estero, Tucuman, Catamarca, Salta and Jujuy.Each one of them has its own geopraphical stamp with big contrasts: mountains, valleys and canyons, exuberant jungles, wild terrains and the astounding puna, that awes the visitor looking for an encounter with nature and authentic lands.

The Quebrada de Humahuaca, or Humahuaca canyon, is a treasure in Jujuy declared Patrimony of Humanity by UNESCO in 2003, in the Cultural Landscape category.

This is a culture that dates back more than ten thousand years, with different native ethnics that make up the ancestry of those who nowadays maintain the thousands of years old languages and customs.

The Quebrada de Humahuaca is 15 kms long, going from north to south along the Rio Grande basin, flanked by the vast puna to the west, and to the east, by exceptionally beautiful landscapes in which colors invade your senses amid this wonderful atmosphere of silence and changing tones, with a scattering of typical little villages with shy but warm hosts that offer services to their visitors.

Photo: Humahuaca Canyon

Paris Celebrated it's 2,000th Birthday in 1951

July 8, 1951
Paris celebrates it's 2,000th birthday
On this day in 1951, Paris, the capital city of France, celebrates turning 2,000 years old. In fact, a few more candles would've technically been required on the birthday cake, as the City of Lights was most likely founded around 250 B.C.
The history of Paris can be traced back to a Gallic tribe known as the Parisii, who sometime around 250 B.C. settled an island (known today as Ile de la Cite) in the Seine River, which runs through present-day Paris. By 52 B.C., Julius Caesar and the Romans had taken over the area, which eventually became Christianized and known as Lutetia, Latin for "midwater dwelling." The settlement later spread to both the left and right banks of the Seine and the name Lutetia was replaced with "Paris." In 987 A.D., Paris became the capital of France. As the city grew, the Left Bank earned a reputation as the intellectual district while the Right Bank became known for business.
During the French Renaissance period, from the late 15th century to the early 17th century, Paris became a center of art, architecture and science. In the mid-1800s, Napoleon III hired civic planner Georges-Eugene Hausmann to modernize Paris. Hausmann's designs gave the city wide, tree-lined boulevards, large public parks, a new sewer system and other public works projects. The city continued to develop as an important hub for the arts and culture. In the 1860s, an artistic movement known as French Impression emerged, featuring the work of a group of Paris-based artists that included Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Gustav Mahler, Bohemian composer born on July 7th 1860 - 1911

Gustav Mahler was born into a German-speaking, Jewish family in Kalischt, Bohemia, then the Austrian Empire, today the Czech Republic, the second of fourteen children, of whom only six survived infancy. His parents soon moved to Jjilhava in German Iglau, Moravia, today the Czech Republic

In Mahler's day Vienna was one of the world’s biggest cities and the capital of a great empire in Central Europe. It was home to a lively artistic and intellectual scene. It was home to famous painters such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele.

Mahler knew many of these intellectuals and artists.

In 1897, Mahler, then thirty-seven, was offered the directorship of the Vienna Opera, the most prestigious musical position in the Austria Empire. This was an 'Imperial' post, and under Austro-Hungarian law, no such posts could be occupied by Jews. Mahler, who was never a devout or practising Jew, had, in preparation, converted to Roman Catholicism.

Mahler's own music aroused considerable opposition from music critics, who tended to hear his symphonies as 'potpourris' in which themes from "disparate" periods and traditions were indiscriminately mingled. Mahler's juxtaposition of material from both "high" and "low" cultures, as well as his mixing of different ethnic traditions, outraged conservative critics at a time when workers' mass organizations were growing rapidly, and clashes between Germans, Czechs, Hungarians and Jews in Austro-Hungary were creating anxiety and instability.

The final impetus for Mahler's departure from the Vienna Opera was a generous offer from the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Having signed a contract to conduct the long-established New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Mahler and his family travelled to America. At this time, he completed his Das Lied con der Erde (The Song of the Earth), and his Symphony No. 9, which would be his last completed work. I

n February 1911, during a long and demanding concert season in New York, Mahler fell seriously ill with a streptococcal blood infection, and conducted his last concert in a fever (the programme included the world premiere of Ferruccio Busoni's (Berceuse élégiaque). Returning to Europe, he was taken to Paris, where a new serum had recently been developed. He did not respond, however, and was taken back to Vienna at his request. He died there from his infection on May 18th 1911 at the age of 50, leaving his Symphony No. 10 unfinished.
The real art of conducting consists in transitions.

"A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything". Gustav Mahler

Photo: Mahler conducting the Beethoven 9th

Historic Amnesia

July 6th 1609 - Bohemia is granted Freedom of Religion.

Bohemia enjoyed religious freedom between 1436 and 1620, and became one of the most liberal countries of the Christian world during that period of time. In 1609, Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II who made Prague again the capital of the Empire at the time, himself a Roman Catholic, was moved by the Bohemian nobility to publish Maiestas Rudolphina, which confirmed the older Confessio Bohemica of 1575.

Freedom of Religion is the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It is generally recognized to also include the freedom to change religion or to not follow any religion. Freedom of religion is considered by many in many nations and people to be a fundamental human right.

In 1558 the Transylvanian Diet of Turda declared free practice of both the Catholic and Lutheran religions, but prohibited Calvanism. Ten years later, in 1568, the Diet extended the freedom to all religions, declaring that "It is not allowed to anybody to intimidate anybody with captivity or expelling for his religion". The Edict of Turda is considered by mostly Hungarian historians as the first legal guarantee of religious freedom in the Christian Europe.

The first full religious freedom law (which wasn't just a tolerance as in other countries) what had "act rank" created by Edict of Turda in Transylvania, and accepted by Hungarian Székely and saxon part of the diet.


July 6th 1939 - The Holocaust: The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany are closed.

July 6th 1942 - Frank, Anne(lies Marie) (1929–1945) Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family take refuge from the Nazis by hiding in the "secret Annexe" attic above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

During the German occupation of Amsterdam in World War II, they and two other families remained in a sealed off room, protected by Dutch sympathizers 1942–1944, when betrayal resulted in their deportation and Anne's death in Belsen concentration camp. Her diary of her time in hiding was published in 1947. Previously suppressed portions of her diary were published in 1989. The house in which the family took refuge is preserved as a museum. Her diary has sold 20 million copies in more than 50 languages and has been made into a play and a film publicizing the fate of millions.

Today in Berlin

A man has been arrested after tearing the head off a wax figure of Adolf Hitler at a newly opened branch of Madame Tussauds in Berlin.
The 41-year-old man was held after attacking the waxwork, only hours after the attraction opened on Saturday July 5th.
The inclusion of Hitler in the exhibition has aroused controversy in a country where Nazi symbols are banned.
But the exhibition's organisers said they could hardly depict German history without portraying Hitler.
They said the waxwork depicted Hitler in the hours before his suicide, a defeated figure slumped in his bunker as the Red Army reached Berlin.
The Fuhrer was positioned behind a table, which was supposed to prevent visitors posing with the statue - or damaging it.
Natalie Ruoss, of Madame Tussauds, said: "We did surveys while we were planning the exhibition on the street with Berliners and with tourists, and the result was quite clear that Hitler is one of the figures that they want to see.
"Seeing as we are portraying the history of Germany we could hardly have left him out... we want to show the reality."

The attacker was only the second visitor to enter the exhibition, according to one report.

"Erasing him from history is not going to bring the perished ones back, it's not going to heal the damage that he did, the crimes that he did. That would be counter-productive," he said.
The waxwork museum also includes other German historical figures like Otto von Bismarck, Karl Marx, Beethoven, Bach and Einstein.

Independence Day

The Declaration of Arbroath was a declaration of Scottish Independence, and set out to confirm Scotland's status as an independent, sovereign state and its use of military action when unjustly attacked.

The Declaration made a number of much-debated rhetorical points: that Scotland had always been independent, indeed for longer than England; that Edward I of England had unjustly attacked Scotland and perpetrated atrocities; that Robert the Bruce had delivered the Scottish nation from this peril; and, most controversially, that the independence of Scotland was the prerogative of the Scots people, rather than the King of Scots. In fact it stated that the nobility would choose someone else to be king if the current one did anything to threaten Scotland's independence.

In Scotland it is the 'people' that are sovereign, rather than the monarch or parliament, as in England.

Excerpt from Declaration of Arbroath

...'for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself'.

The stirring rhetoric of the Declaration has made it famous both in Scotland and internationally, and it has been suggested that it had some influence on the drafters of the United States Declaration of Independence.

More recently: 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence

The 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence was an act of the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government Assembly of Kosovo, adopted on February 17th 2008, which declared Kosovo to be independent from Serbia.

It was the second Declaration of Independence by Kosovo's Albanian-dominated political institutions, the first having been proclaimed on September 7th 1990.

Serbia intends to seek international validation and support for its stance that the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence is illegal at the gathering of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, in September 2008.

Kosovars decided to unilaterally proclaim the Republic of Kosovo, obligating themselves in the process to follow the Ahtisaari plan's provisions in full. As of mid-April 2008, this has largely been the case, with the new Republic adopting a constitution written by local and international scholars protecting minority rights and providing for a representative government with guaranteed ethnic representation, which law is to take effect on June 15th 2008.

On Feb 17th, 2008, the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government Assembly of Kosovo declared independence, to mixed International reactions.

Photo: Independence Pass

Stone of Destiny

July 3rd, 1996
British Prime Minister John Major announced, after 700 years, the Stone of Scone [pronounced 'scoon'] - the ancient symbol of Scottish kings - was to be finally removed from London's Westminster Abbey and rightfully returned to Scotland.

Since the time of Kenneth MacAlpin, the first King of Scots at around 847, Scottish monarchs were seated upon the stone during their Coronation ceremony. At this time the stone was situated at Scone, a few miles north of Perth in Scotland.

The ancient coronation stone weighs in at approximately 336 pounds, but on Christmas Day 1950, a group of four Scottish students (Ian Hamilton, Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson and Alan Stuart) managed to steal the Stone from Westminster Abbey and attempt to return it to Scotland themselves.

Magic what a few pints will do.


But in the process of removing it from the Abbey, they broke it into two pieces.

A major search for the stone had been ordered by the British Government, but proved unsuccessful.

After hiding the greater part of the stone in Kent for a few weeks, they risked the road blocks on the border and returned to Scotland with this piece, which they had hidden in the back of a borrowed car, along with a new accomplice Johnny Josselyn. The smaller piece was similarly brought north a little while later.

The stone's "custodians" left it on the altar of Arbroath Abbey, on April 11th 1951. Arbroath being a poignant place to plunk it...as Arbroath was the place where Scotland drafted and presented their Declaration of Independence (which is heavily borrowed from by the writers of America's Constitution) and was signed by Nobility in the 14th Century.


The Stone was then passed to a senior Glasgow politician who arranged for it to be professionally repaired by Glaswegian stonemason Robert Gray.

The Stone of Destiny was then returned to Westminster, which was in turn, returned back to Scotland, after the turning of 700 years, but is now all snuggled into it's rightful place in Edinburgh's comfy Castle on the land where it belongs.

On This Day In 1937

July 2nd 1937:

The Lockheed aircraft carrying legendary American aviator Amelia Earhart and her copilot Frederick Noonan was reported missing on this day in 1937.

In 1928, the 30-year-old Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1932 she became the first female pilot to cross it solo.

In 1937, she set off around the world, but she disappeared near the end of her global journey somewhere between New Guinea and Howland Island in the remote South Pacific. Radio operators picked up a signal that she was low on fuel--the last the world ever heard from maverick aviator.

During Christmas vacation in 1917, she visited her sister in Toronto. World War I had been raging and Earhart saw the returning wounded soldiers. After receiving training as a nurses's aide from the Red Cross, she began work with the Volunteer Aid Department at Spadina Military Hospital. When the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic reached Toronto, Earhart was engaged in arduous nursing duties, including many night shifts, at the Spadina Military Hospital.

Earhart visited an air fair in conjunction with the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. One of the highlights of the day was an air show put on by a World War I "ace". The pilot overhead spotted Earhart and her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and dived at them. "I am sure he said to himself, 'Watch me make them scamper,'"Earhart later said. Earhart characteristically stood her ground, swept by a mixture of fear and exhilaration. As the aircraft came close, something inside her awakened. "I did not understand it at the time," she said, "but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by".

Born July 24th 1897 in Atchison Kansas. Missing July 2nd 1937. Declared deceased January 5th 1939.

From Sea to Sea

July 1st is Canada Day, formerly known as Dominion Day, and is a glorious civic holiday where everything shuts down and plentiful pints of beer is had by people everywhere.

I am cheating here, I took the day off along with everyone else and have tinkered with the date of this post in order to keep the chronological flow going. Which means, I'm falling behind. And am trying to think of my next post for what is actually today, not the day it says it is, while I post this post.

So lemme think while I post...

Canada turned 141....though who are we kidding, the land itself is as old as all the other land on this earth - but narrow-minded pettiness must be humoured.

Canada is the second largest country in the world—after Russia—and largest on the continent. [by total area including its waters, and by land area - it is fourth].

Canada has the longest coastline in the world: 243,000 kilometres.

Canada's mainland is ringed with a huge archipelago with some of the world's largest islands.

Canada by far has more lakes than any other country and possesses a large amount of the world's freshwater.

Canada's population density is 3.5 people per square kilometre (9.1/ sq mi), and is lowest in the world.

Canada's 2006's records showed a total population of 31,612,897 million. [an increase of 5.4% since 2001 due to an increase in immigration]

But it's damn hot at the height of our Canadian summers and damn cold in the depths of our Canadian winters.

A Mari usque ad Mare