Tuesday, October 04, 2022

Some events and anniversaries at the end of summer 2022 into winter

More items will be added over coming weeks.


NASA launched the uncrewed Artemis 1 rocket to the vicinity of the Moon November 16th.  Ordinarily I would be supportive and it is a great technological accomplishment, though NASA is already supposed to know how to send humans to the Moon, but this also seems like part of a US attempt to seize space resources for "Western" corporate enrichment.  There was a discussion of the related US-backed Artemis Accords on a BBC program earlier this year that gave that impression, though the guests supported the Accords.  There are alternative treaties such as the 1979 Moon Treaty.  Maybe WW3 or 4 will start over resources on the Moon or near-Earth orbit asteriods.  At least Artemis l isn't a corporate-owned and operated space taxi.


Around Friday, November 18th there was a story on NPR about water-quality problems in Lake Mattamuskeet, the largest natural lake in North Carolina, on the peninsula between Pamlico and Albemarle sounds, and near the Alligator River, in the Tidewater region.  The Lake is near sea level and only a few feet deep and was drained in the early 20th century.  I think I once went up a tower at the old pumping facillity, reportedly once having the largest capacity in the world.  I had not heard of this issue, but it seems like some connections were left out.  The report said that there is an algae problem, connected to the loss of submerged aquatic vegetation ("SAV") and the high population of non-native common carp.  Native bluegill sunfish will be stocked in the spring to eat carp eggs and there will be a program to actively remove carp, with the meat potentially being used in pet food.  Apparently there were similar problems in the 40's and 50's and carp removal improved water quality.  Based on a court decision from around the same time nearby farmers have the right to drain their low-lying fields into the Lake.  The reporter specifically mentioned a 2-foot gar and bowfin, ancient and large predatory fish that can tolerate low oxygen levels.  Do they prey on the carp, though people might prefer to fish for bass, bluegills, and other sunfish?  Common carp were originally introduced in North America for human consumption, but are now considered poor quality fish.  Other species of Eurasian carp have been introduced to consume aquatic vegetation, and are now a problem.  If there are alligators, they would presumably eat common carp, as would otters.  I think I've seen the remains of large carp eaten by otters in this area, where they are also abundant.  No explicit connection was made between fertilizer and agri-chemical-laden runoff draining into the shallow Lake and eutrophication, etc., though there is a plan to build an artificial wetland to filter incoming water.  Is the problem primarily the carp, or are they more of a symptom, and why was this left?  Farmland is already being lost in coastal NC due to rising sea levels and salt infiltration, and I wonder how long these coastanatural and human landmarks I have seen willast.


Stop US Wars:  Next Step -->>  MLK Week of Actions - January 13 - 22


The United National Antiwar Coalition is calling for another week of action in the New Year.  To endorse the call or to announce an event, contact:  UNACpeace at gmail



Anti-war week of action in October 


For the United National Antiwar Coalition's week of action, Back to the Streets, October 15-23, Workers World Party-Durham will hold an event at 310 New Bern Avenue in Raleigh Saturday, October 22nd at 12pm [co-sponsored by the Communist Party USA - Greensboro / Raleigh Club, Muslims for Social Justice, NC Green Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation - Carolinas, and Raleigh DSA].   Actions are being organized throughout the US and in other countries and there will be a UNAC webinar, "The US, NATO, and the New Manifest Destiny," October 17th at 8pm EDT:  unac.notowar.net/back-to-the-streets-october-15-23/ 





The NC Division of Water Quality has a Cape Fear River basin residents' survey here.


Some articles


Capitalism and imperialism seek a beachhead in space in this decade, or it could merely be a fantasy of the rich; NASA's new Moon rocket might be test launched this month:  


newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/privatized-universe


The peace encampment across from the White House since 1981, mentioned in my post about the Women's March on the Pentagon in fall 2018:  covertactionmagazine.com/2022/08/12/meet-the-man-jesse-ventura-called-the-bravest-man-in-washington/



The Democratic Party funds and promotes the right of the Republican party, after Hillary Clinton wanted to run against Trump and then lost: 



 www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/26/the-democratic-party-is-a-fifth-column-for-right-wing-lunacy/



The Ukrainian parliament has apparently increased the pay its members receive:  



www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/08/ukrainian-parliament-votes-give-raise-thanks-us-taxpayers-country-bans-free-speech-targets-information-terrorists/


This article by 2020 Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins covers what is going on in NC and other states, through legal and other means, to remove third parties and independent candidates from ballots and some recent history.  It is apparently not very difficult for independent candidates to get on ballots in the UK, India, Canada, and Germany, while some US states have electoral rules like Russia's - or even more restrictive.  It raises the question of what should be done if a view held by many people is banned from electoral politics.  The NC Green Party followed the law, but then had to turn to the courts to force the Democrats in the State Board of Elections to grant the party state recognition and ballot access this summer, and there is still time for the Democrats to use underhanded means to influence the election this November.



www.counterpunch.org/2022/07/15/the-democrats-third-party-massacres/    



The repression and criminalization of left parties and views in Ukraine



Some articles from the British newspaper Morning Star on the banning of a number of left opposition parties by the USA-EU installed government in Ukraine following the 2014 coup and the denunciation (via chatbot) and criminal prosecution of people for alleged activities such as online speech, collaboration with Russia, or for spying for Russia or Belarus.  It could be asked whether the alleged 'average' Ukrainians quoted in the mainstream media are speaking freely, besides the issue of who "Western" journalists deem fit to talk to and where they report from; and what does it mean if "collaboration" is common?  I haven't heard the "Western" media ask how alleged "collaborators" are treated.  Recently an NPR correspondent was talking to a Ukrainian official about how they would go in and round up "collaborators" before civilians could return, without any questions about how these people are being identified or treated.



Communist Party of Ukraine banned and all its assets seized by the state



Woman jailed for five years in Ukraine for posting communist symbols on social media


NPR's information warfare for the US government


Back from broadcasting US imperialist propaganda from Ukraine, on Morning Edition Sunday, September 18th NPR's White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez said something like the Venezuelans flown to Martha's Vineyard "are fleeing communism," and that many or most of the migrants at the border are from Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela.  The Democratic Party flavor of neoliberalism lauds immigrants once they get here, but strangles them economically and plots coups and violence in their home countries.  Immigrants who don't turn themselves in at the border are funnelled into the desert Southwest where many die and it has been made illegal to offer them water or other life-saving assistance and the government actively destroys supply stations.  Others drown in the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo del Norte.   


Judging from NPR's Here and Now Tuesday, September 20th around 1pm, the Biden administration said something like the majority of immigrants at the Southern border are "fleeing failed communist regimes," so Republican state governments should support the migrants, and Robin Young and other staff at supposedly high-brow NPR aren't going to "push-back" on that incorrect labelling of Venezuela.


On NPR's Fresh Air Thursday, August 18th host Terry Gross interviewed Robert Draper about his article in the New York Times Magazine, "The Arizona Republican Party's Anti-Democracy Experiment," and the way"far right" Republicans call opponents "communist" and praise Joe McCarthy came up.  Gross referred to "a communist country, Russia" supporting these Republicans online and next Draper implied that President Putin is a communist ("...the one great promoter of that ideology...").  Earlier Gross said "...communism in America doesn't seem to me like a particularly real threat.  Who supports communism in America?"  The online transcript was later corrected regarding capitalist Russia, and around the weekend of August 20th more was added, that Gross "meant to say that Putin was the head of the KGB during the communist era" which doesn't seem to be true either.  Putin could be called an anti-communist.  At some point a third correction was added, that Putin was only "a KGB officer."  Other people noticed these false claims:  www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/25/npr-host-and-nyt-guest-stress-that-russia-is-communist-while-vilifying-uninformed-republicans/   Also at consortiumnews.com/2022/08/25/the-fact-checking-liberal-media/ 



In the interview Draper also said that Arizona Republicans tried to get "Democrats" to vote for Green candidates, implying that the Democratic Party owns anyone who has ever voted for one of its candidates or is in a generally pro-Democrat demographic.



On August 24th Dave Davies interviewed Michael Beckley about the book he and Hal Brands, both senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote about the threat posed by "peaking" China.  There was actually mention of US imperialism, probably referring to a century ago, but they ignored what the US has done to create the possibility of an inter-imperialist war at one or both ends of Eurasia.  There was also mention of Modi's India as one of the "democratic powers" forming a "military barrier" around China.  The far away was also mentioned UK.  China is a scary threat, in economic decline (it isn't the USA that is in decline and desperate to hold on to its power)and might lash out, and it has nothing to do with the US openly seeking to repress China or the generadynamics of the capitalist system wherever it exists:  www.npr.org/2022/08/24/1119214761/danger-zone-author-warns-of-growing-tension-between-china-and-the-u-s 


[The week of November there were more anti-China interviews.  I think Gordon Guthrie Chang was on Here and Now pushing a hawkish view of China and Thursday, November 17th Dave Davies interviewed reasonable-sounding reporter Dexter Filkins of The New Yorker about his recent article on the Taiwan issue, which had some true information about the history, but portrayed the situation as Xi's China causing a crisis, unreasonably claiming "democratic," "self-governing" Taiwan and building up its military, while the USA is an innocent party.  Small, "democratic" Israel is also innocent in the Middle East, but for some reason Taiwan doesn't have a "warrior" culture like that of the Israelis.  It sounded like Taiwan no more foresees a war than Ukraine did last fall, as reported by the mainstream media.  Nancy Pelosi did nothing wrong, she was just shoring up her legacy as an imperialist.  Allegedly China has the largest army and navy in the world, and the US isn't trying to surround China.  There was talk of "freedom of navigation" through the Taiwan Strait and the waters around China, backed by treaties, through which a massive amount of trade travels, much of it probably to or from China itself I think it was mentioned that China is a signatory - but it was left unsaid that the US government hasn't signed, and would probably react badly if the apparently huge Chinese navy started doing "freedom of navigation" exercises in the Western Hemisphere.  


In related news, are the new anti-China micro-chip production export controls, imposed October 7, 2022, the anniversary of the start of the Afghanistan War in 2001, similar to the resource embargoes that led to the Pacific theatre of WWII?  More recently Tom Clancy and others imagined a Soviet oil crisis leading to a US-Soviet world war in the late 20th century.  Biden seems to be out doing Trump in effectively sinking US-China relations and there is no more talk of anti-Asian hate crimes in the mainstream media.]


The August 27th episode of WNYC's On the Media discussed Russian media.  A segment with someone from BBC Monitoring blamed Russian media for using exactly the same tactics as NPR and other "Western" media, such as delegitimizing state enemies.  Russian media is accused of delegitimizing Ukraine, but NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro, now working for the NYT, habitually referred to "Qaddafi forces" during the Libya War; NPR ridiculously oscillated between Syrian "regime" and "government" ever few weeks or days, and now sometimes even calls China a "regime;" China is governed by the "CCP," when the preferred abbreviation is CPC; until recent years Myanmar was usually referred to as Burma, also the name used when the country was a British colony;etc.   I'm sure NPR must have referred to "Saddam loyalists" around 2003, Iraqi or allegedly Iran-backed "insurgents" and "terrorists;" and further back there were the "Viet Cong."  Given how pro-war NPR is today, I wonder how it covered the late Vietnam War when it was founded.  Many journalists and media companies enthusiastically backed the "War on Terror" and its continuation under Obama or were afraid to say otherwise, they didn't refrain from backing Trump administration warmongering, and today they enthusiastically back Biden's proxy war with Russia over Ukraine, the planned cold to hot war with China, the overthrow of governments targeted by the US, etc.  The link is:  www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/russian-state-tvs-false-narratives-on-the-media 


At the end there was an interview with Russian-American journalist Anastasiia Carter, who basically said she that had to be deprogrammed (not her wording) after growing up with Russian propaganda and reprogrammed with US propaganda, and that done, she can now work as a mainstream journalist in this country:  www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/escaping-kremlins-propaganda-machine1-on-the-media  She is stilworking on convincing her parents back in Russia to believe US narratives.  If someone, such as Carter, accuses part of the Russian government of committing terrorism against its citizens, the US media doesn't bat an eye, but they claim the US government lacks both the will and ability to carry out false flag attacks and keep them secret, though terrorist acts have been suggested by the military and deadly experiments have been carried out on Americans without consent.  The mainstream media avoids such talk and in my experience the primary education system rarely talks about recent decades in history classes, maybe not even the Vietnam or Korean wars.  High US government officials have suggested assassinating dissidents.  Carter is probably too young to remember Russia's deep economic and political crisis around the 90's, which resulted in many unnecessary deaths and misery in the former Soviet states, and allowed the US to have its way as the dominant superpower or hyperpower, for example in Iraq and Yugoslavia, resulting in further unnecessary civilian deaths, especially in Iraq.  Even in 2011 Russia was unable or unwilling to stop the US and EU aggression against Libya, but it did stand up over Syria, so the government survived and foreign powers only occupy part of the country.  I'm not claiming that Russia is anti-imperialist, but the USA and its allies and satellites are having more trouble dominating the world these days.  "Western" worlrule isn't as great as the mainstream media portrays it, and the US and EU don't act on global issues like climate change.  Putin has probably been deeply influenced by the struggles of the USSR and Russia, even if he is a 'capitalist roader' and imperialist.


On some other show Masha Gessen spoke about the unimaginative Soviet elite, who believed in historical determinism - but untirecently Americans thought "free market" capitalism, "liberademocracy," and world subservience to the US government and superior American culture in an English-speaking Pax Americana or an "American Century" was the end of history.  The media frequently talks about how McDonald's opened branches in the former USSR, and has now left Russia and Ukraine.  Many still think the greater Pacific is an "American Lake," and intend to fight China over it.  Biden recently said that the US will go to war if China attacks Taiwan, but his statement was overshadowed by British news.


There was also Steve Inskeep's apparent glee at the assassination of journalist Darya Dugina on Morning Edition, probably on Monday, August 22nd.  There would be a very different reaction if the US mainstream media were targeted over the Iraq War.


[Except in the context of the Vietnam War, the US media avoids noting that there are such things as US anti-war views, organizations, events, and maybe even an anti-war movement, but when Russia announced something like a draft there was suddenly talk of Russian "anti-war" feeling and actions, including the use of deadly violence (I think there was just a major "mass shooting" in Russia in mid-October, possibly related to the war in Ukraine, and earlier there was a school shooting, also dropped from the news, which might have demonstrated that 'otherized' Russia and the USA have similar sociaproblems, leading to "gun violence").  Now the word has just as suddenly vanished from the media.  Maybe they don't want to give people the idea that they can oppose wars and militarism in the "West."  In recent years it has also been very striking how the locaNPR station WUNC highlights protests it seems to agree with, presumably increasing the turnout, while it rarely even mentioned larger anti-war demonstrations.  There was talk of Republican 'isolationist' views during the Trump administration, but US anti-war feeling allegedly doesn't exist, the US isn't involved in any wars since withdrawing its soldiers from Afghanistan, and issues like the vast military and "intelligence community" spending, nuclear weapon issues, the continuing legacy of the torture programs, etc aren't anything to be concerned about.  The mainstream media probably doesn't believe in something like MMT or Modern Monetary Theory, so where is the money to deal with increasingly apparent climate change, etc supposed to come from?  Dominating the world like an empire is expensive and now the US government wants to fight Russia and China simultaneously. 


What might be called isolationist views were only lauded on NPR a few years ago when Iranian protesters wanted to abandon their government's Middle Eastern allies, a view that would aid US and Israeli foreign policy.  Military support for the governments of Haiti and Saudi Arabia is being criticized now, in mid-October, when it suits those in power in the US and Canada.  


[11/27 - Turkey just bombed Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan, not for the first time, but NPR gave more attention and condemnation to bombing by Iran in Iraqi Kurdistan.  Today it was reported that a Turkish airstrike killed Syrian soldiers at an outpost in Kurdistan.  The US is still bombing Iraq and both the US and Israel bomb Syria.  Turkey and the US both occupy parts of Syria and are accused of stealing oil, while sanctions are being used to inhibit Syria's post-war recovery.]


Information on Durham's new ShotSpotter project


ShotSpotter, a private system that uses acoustic sensors to detect and locate what are thought to be gunshots, is being installed in an area of downtown Durham, with operation expected to begin September 15th.  It is also being used in some other parts of NC.  




Events



Keep Space for Peace Week will be October 1 - 8:  space4peace.org


The Friends of the JC Raulston Arboretum's Annual Plant Distribution was October 1st.  There are also spring and fall plant sales and like the NC Botanical Garden there is a small ongoing sale.  There might be a sale at Duke Gardens


The annual Celebrate Fuquay-Varina was cancelled this year:  www.celebratefv.com/


Holly Springs' annual Bass Lake Nature Festival was scheduled for October 1st, but was cancelled due to Hurricane Ian:  www.hollyspringsnc.us/350/Bass-Lake-Day


Take A Child Outside (TACO) Week was in late September 24-30th 


The Ellerbe Creek Bioblitz 2022! will be September 30 - October 9th and people can participate solo or in groups, and naturalist experience is not required.  There will also be organized hikes at ECWA preserves and Durham parks in the Ellerbe Creek basin:  keepdurhambeautiful.org/events

The annual Durham Big Sweep trash cleanup is happening throughout October:  keepdurhambeautiful.org/big-sweep


Into the Fairy Hill: Classic Folktales from the Scottish Highlands will be October 4th 6 - 7pm at the NC Botanical Garden online and in-person; free with registration: ncbg.unc.edu/learn/adult-programs/


There will be a Carolina Public Humanities program Productive and Counterproductive Police Reform October 5th 4:30 - 6pm:   humanities.unc.edu/event/productive-and-counterproductive-police-reform/ 


The Fall 2022 Shakkori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance will be October 6 - 9 in Chatham County:  www.shakorihillsgrassroots.org


The annuaUNCC Botanical Gardens' Fall Plant Sale will be October 6 - 8th:  gardens.charlotte.edu/fall-plant-sale/


Chapel Hill-based Camellia Forest Nursery's annual Fall Fest open house will be September 30 - October 2, 7-9, November 4 - 6, and 11 - 13; there will be other open houses in February, March, and April:  camforest.com/pages/open-house and Fall Tea for All will be October 30th, 10am - 4pm (tea comes from the leaves of Camellia sinensis) :  camforest.com/collections/workshops/products/fall-tea-for-all


Chapel Hill's annual Festifall Arts Market and More will be held on three days, October 8, 15, and 22 in 2022:  www.chapelhillfestifall.com


SOA Watch's annual On the Line:  Border Convening will be October 8 - 9 in Nogales, Arizona and Sonora, Mexico:






The Haw River Assembly will hold a Jordan Lake Paddle October 8th.


There will be a Carolina Public Humanities program Edible North Carolina:  Exploring our State's Food Cultures October 8th 10:30am - 1:30pm:  humanities.unc.edu/event/edible-north-carolina-exploring-our-states-food-cultures/


Duke Gardens' Harvest Festival will be Sunday, October 9th 1 -4pm:  gardens.duke.edu/self-discovery-story-circle


Kids in Nature Day will be October 9th 2 - 5pm at Shelter 4 of Reedy Creek Park in Charlotte.


The 2022 NC State Fair will be October 10 - 23 and is currently hiring seasonal staff:  www.ncstatefair.org  The NCGP, STN, and other organizations have had booths there in the past.


Native Gardens at Playmakers Repertory Company will be in Chapel HilOctober 12 - 30:  playmakersrep.org/show/native-gardens-3/


Wing Haven Garden's annual plant sale will be October 12 - 15th in Charlotte:  winghavengardens.org/happenings-plants-sales


The first West End Poetry Festival was held in Carrboro Octiber 14 - 15:  westendpoetryfestival.org


The United National Antiwar Coalition is calling for an anti-war week of action October 15 - 22:  unac.notowar.net/register-your-action-no-to-u-s-wars/  [There will be an event in Raleigh October 22nd; see above]


Anime USA 2022 will be October  14 - 16 in Arlington, Virginia: animeusa.org/  Edward Snowden is supposed to have been a congoer once.


Anime Weekend Atlanta will be October 27 - 30th:  awa-con.com/


The National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation is marked every October 22nd:  revcom.us/en


There will be a Zoom talk on conserving rare plants in the Uwharrie Mountains October 27th 12 - 1pm:  ncbg.unc.edu/learn/adult-programs/


Halloween will of course be Monday, October 31st.  Large crowds gather, or used to, on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, but the town wanted to reduce the numbers long before the lingering coronavirus.


The 80th AnnuaNC Gourd Arts and Crafts Festival will be at the NC State Fairgrounds in Raleigh November 5 - 6th.


The NCBG's annual Jenny Elder Finch Memorial Lecture will be November 6th, 5:30 - 6:30, in-person and online:  ncbg.unc.edu/learn/adult-programs/


Abundance NC's 7th annual Death Faire will be Saturday, November 5th ~10am - 7:30pm, tickets are required, from $22.22 dollars:  abundancenc.org/10847-2/  It will be at The Plant, 220 Lorax Lane, Pittsboro.


There will be a general election November 8th [with Democratic, Green, Libertarian, Republican, and maybe other candidates running for local, State, and Federal offices]:  www.ncsbe.gov/voting/upcoming-election


The Haw River Assembly will hold an Advocacy Training at the NC Botanical Garden Wednesday, November 9th.


Leave the Leaves November 10 12 - 1pm online and in-person at the NCBG:  ncbg.unc.edu/learn/adult-programs


Workers World Party - Durham is organizing an online Zoom class / discussion on the Marxist concept of imperialism Thursday, November 10th at 6:30pm EST 


The Orange County Artist Guild's 28th annual Studio Tour is November 5 - 6th and 12 - 13th:  www.ocagnc.org/


The annual Durham Pottery Tour will also be November 12 -13th:  durhampotterytour.com/


The Haw River Assembly's annual membership meeting will be held at the Seaforth access' picnic shelter at Jordan Lake State Recreation Area the afternoon of Sunday, November 13th 12 - 4pm, with lunch and the opportunity to paddle www.hawriver.org 


There will be two meetings and there is an online survey regarding Pittsboro's Land Use Plan Update.  The meetings will be Tuesday, November 15th at 3 and 6pm at 65 East Chatham Street, Pittsboro, and are open to those who live beyond the town limits:  pittsboronc.gov/387/Land-Use-Plan-Update 


There will be a showing of Angel of Alabama, about Branda Hampton's campaign against PFAS pollution, and a panel of women waterprotectors, including HRA's Emily Sutton,  Thursday, November 17th at 6pm in NCSU's Parks Shop Auditorium. 


7 Directions of Service will hold a Rights of Nature / River Convening / Community Information Session, in part on upcoming legislation, Friday, December 16th at 5:30pm in Saxapahaw; more meetings are planned early next year in Chatham, Forysth, and Guilford counties:  actionnetwork.org/events/rights-of-natureriver-convening 


The 17th annuaCarrboro Film Fest will be November 18 - 20th:  www.carrborofilm.org


The NC Museum of History is holding its 27th Annual American Indian Heritage Celebration Saturday, November 19th:  www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/aihc-2022


7 Directions of Service will hold a free event, Truthsgiving 2022, Sunday, November 20th 3 - 5pm in the Saxapahaw Amphitheater, with indigenous-centered storytelling, panels, performances, art, and food:  7directionsofservice.com/


The Chatham Artist Guild's 2022 30th Annual Studio Tour will be December 3 - 4 and 10 - 11th:  chathamartistsguild.org/studio-tour/


Tell Governor Cooper: No More Death Row! march and rally Saturday, December 10th 12 - 2pm.  The march will be from Central Prison to the Governor's Mansion, in Raleigh:  nccadp.org/events/


Library booksales



The Friends of the Durham Library's Books Among Friends has a new location, at 3825 South Roxboro Road, #131, zipcode 27713.  There are satellite sales at each library.  For more information and the membership form, see:  fodlnc.org/book-sales/   The Friends of the Durham Library's online store is at:  shopfodlnc.org  [There wi
ll be an in-person sale November 10 - 11th.]

The Friends of the Chatham County Library had a booksale in late September:  www.friendsccl.org/  [There will be in-person sales March 30 - April 1 and September 21 - 23, 2023.]


The Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library has an online store at:  friendschpl.org/online-book-store and there will be an in-person sale December 2-4, 2022:   friendschpl.org/FCHPLevents


The Friends of the Lee County Libraries has sales at open libraries:  library.leecountync.gov/friends


There is a sale every Monday 2-4pm at the Warren County Memorial Library:  www.wcmlibrary.org/friends-of-the-library-book-sale/


Granville County:  granville.lib.nc.us/friends-of-the-library/ and www.facebook.com/FriendsOfTheGranvillePublicLibrarySystem/


Person County:  www.personcountync.gov/departments-services/departments-i-z/library/friends-of-the-library-1603  


Vance:  www.facebook.com/friendsperrymemoriallibrary/  


Moore County:  www.facebook.com/moorecountylibrary/


Caswell:  www.caswellcountync.gov/blog/categories/library-programs


Alamance County:  www.facebook.com/AlamanceLibraries , www.alamance-nc.com/library


The Friends of the High Point Library:  www.highpointnc.gov/927/Friends and www.facebook.com/HighPointPublicLibrary/


Forsyth:  www.facebook.com/groups/105298719513537 , www.forsyth.cc/library/   www.facebook.com/FCPublicLibrary ,  www.facebook.com/GSOLibrary  , library.greensboro-nc.gov


See also Book Sale Finder:  www.booksalefinder.com/NC.html




Calendar


The Soviet probe Zond 5 was the first spacecraft to travel around the Moon, and carried several plants and animals.  There was also a fake radio transmission, as if cosmonauts were onboard, to perturb the Americans.  The mission was September 14 - 2l, 1968.


The International Day of Peace is September 21st: www.un.org/en/events/peaceday/


The Northern Hemisphere fall equinox was Thursday, September 22nd in 2022.


In the Vela Incident on September 22, 1979 a possible nuclear test was detected in the Indian Ocean between South Africa and Antarctica.  It might have been a joint test by South Africa and Israel.  Israel is generally thought to have hundreds of nuclear weapons today and South Africa developed and then dismantled its nuclear weapons. 


There were huge demonstrations against the Iraq War September 24, 2005 across the USA and in Europe, but the US government evidently wasn't as scared as it was by the protests and unrest of 2020-2021.  

Copperheads get stuck on roads at night in the Triangle in late September and possibly into October if it is warm.


National Hunting and Fishing Day is September 24th.


The 
International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons is September 26th:  www.un.org/en/events/nuclearweaponelimination/  The USA, Russia, and other major nuclear powers demand that smaller countries completely and unilaterally denuclearize, and not develop rockets that could carry nuclear weapons, while they have thousands of nuclear weapons ready to destroy humanity and instead of beginning to get rid of them, they spend huge amounts to maintain their current weapons and develop new ones.  The USA is currently spending trillions of dollars refurbishing its nuclear stockpile.  The US also engages in nuclear proliferation, by giving other countries nuclear weapons and by shielding weapon development by its allies.  China apparently considers the US-Australia nuclear submarine deal another form of proliferation.


Iraq was falsely accused of developing nuclear weapons, and was invaded in 
late March 2003, killing many civilians and leading to sectarian conflict and the creation of ISIS, following years of punitive and murderous economic sanctions that wrecked the once relatively prosperous country.  


Libya gave up its weapons program and but was then attacked in March 2011, on the anniversary of the Iraq War, creating a "failed state" and a flood of migrants through Libya to the EU.  


Democrats and Republicans accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons and it is under severe pressure and faces war, despite not developing nuclear weapons while under threat from nuclear powers.  Iran agreed to abide by the JCPOA, which Trump unilaterally rendered void and Biden can't manage to restore it, though trading with Iran might reduce fuel costs and improve the Democrats' electoral prospects.  Iran has the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.  


The DPRK developed nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, and seems relatively safe from attack by the USA and other countries, though that is not only because of its nuclear status, and nuclear weapons give the US another justification for its Korean policies.  On the other hand, the US doesn't mind when its allies, such as the UK, Israel, India, develop nuclear weapons and even helps them.  Under Biden tensions are increasing again in Korea and East Asia, and DPR Korea has launched short range missles recently and at the beginning of October launched a long range missile over Japan for the first time in 5 years, leading the warmongering Japanese government to send a possibly unnecessary warning to residents of Hokkaido.  


British artist Edith Blackwell Holden was born September 26, 1871 in Kings Norton, Birmingham, England, in the UK; her illustrated nature journal of 1906 was published posthumously as The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady in 1977 and there was a TV film about her life.  


World Maritime Day is also September 26th:  www.un.org/en/events/maritimeday/


Toughie, the last known Rabbs' fringe-limbed treefrog, died September 26, 2016 at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  The species had been scientifically discovered in 2005 in a small area of cloud forest on the Pacific side of Panama.


The planet Jupiter reached opposition September 26, 2022, and also happens to be close to the Sun in its orbit now, so it is physically close to the Earth, at 367 million miles, the closest since October 8, 1963.  The next time will be October 7, 2129.  Jupiter is easy to see, a bright object visible for much of the night around the celestial equator in or near the otherwise very dim constellation Pisces, in the southern sky below the rectangle of Pegasus the Winged Horse.  Saturn is not as bright, further west in or near also dim Capricornus, with the relatively bright star Fomalhaut in Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish, in between.  There aren't many bright stars low in the south for much of the night at this time of year.  Mars is bright in or near Taurus, east of Jupiter.  Neptune reached opposition September 16th in Aquarius.  Asteriod 3 Juno, discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding September 1, 1804, is nearby and shines with the same low magnitude as Neptune, and reached opposition September 8th.  Uranus, a future destination for NASA probes, is in Aries and will reach opposition in November.  Venus might still be visible in the morning while the new Moon will be up in the evening.


The border between Colombia and Venezuela was reopened September 26th, after being closed due to the US and Colombian attempts to start a coup in Venezuela during the Trump years, not that the Biden administration doesn't want to overthrow the "communist" Bolivarian social-democrats.  Even Bernie Sanders on the left of the Democratic Party called Hugo Chavez a "communist dictator."  NPR previously blamed all of the border problems on Venezuelan 'authoritarianism,' rather than foreign powers led by the USA trying to impose a rightist puppet government on Venezuela, as Trump and Obama attempted with varying degrees of success in Cuba, Bolivia, and Honduras.


NASA attempted to move an asteriod, slightly, to test a method of "planetary defense" September 26th.  On the one hand, a large asteriod hitting the Earth would probably cause a mass extinction, but humans are currently causing a mass extinction and not very interested in stopping it.  Humanity probably couldn't have evolved without the extraterrestrial impact about 65 million years ago, or whatever caused the mass extinction that ended the age of the dinosaurs, an impact seeming to be the 'American,' Space Age theory.  What if we were unlucky and something much larger was hurtling towards the Earth?  I also recently read that if an alien civilization, perhaps upset by an intentional human signal, could fire off a weapon the size of a car, traveling near the speed of light, the force of the impact would devastate the Earth.  I'm not sure if the claim was that the Earth would be destroyed or just damaged.  There are natural forces that might send out rocky debris at high speed, though not near the speed of light.  At some point China or some other new superpower might claim to be Earth's defender from cosmic dangers and humanity's representative; there is already a Chinese science fiction genre.


Mohammad Najibullah, of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, was abducted from the UN compound in Kabul, tortured, and killed by the Taliban September 27, 1996.


World Tourism Day is September 27th:  www.un.org/en/observances/tourism-day 


September 28th is also the International Day for Universal Access to Information:  www.un.org/en/observances/information-access-day

Japanese leftist Fusako Shigenobu, recently released from prison, was born September 28, 1945 in Setagaya, Tokyo:  thefunambulist.net/magazine/decentering-the-us/fusako-shigenobu-an-open-ended-revolution  See also throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com/2022/06/17/reflecting-legacy-fusako-shigenobu/


World Rabies Day is September 28th:  www.who.int/rabies/WRD_landing_page/en/  I heard from a local licensed wildlife rehabilitator that vaccination against this almost universally fatal virus is offered by the Durham County Health Department, and immunity usually lasts a long time, but vaccination is expensive. 


September 28th is also the International Day for Universal Access to Information:  en.unesco.org/commemorations/accesstoinformationday


September 29th is the International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste Reduction:  www.un.org/en/observances/end-food-waste-day/ , begun in 2021.  This relates to hunger but also to the environment, because of the resources required to provide the food that is wasted and food waste decaying in landfills generates methane, a greenhouse gas more powerful than carbon dioxide.  Egregious examples can be seen in trash cans at day-use areas in popular NC state parks during a typical summer and I imagine waste is common at most of the many grocery and convenience stores in the Triangle.     

World Maritime Day is also September 29th:  www.un.org/en/observances/maritime-day

China's National Day was October 1st, commemorating the formal declaration of the People's Republic of China by Mao in Tiananmen Square, Beijing in 1949.

Trident II Plowshares

October 1, 1984 five people went into the General Dynamics Electric Boat Quonset Point factory in North Kingston, Rhode Island and damaged six Trident II nuclear missile tubes.  They also put blood and a Call to Conscience declaration on the tubes, put up a banner saying "Harvest of Hope - Swords into Plowshares, and left a pumpkin.  They were arrested after less than half an hour and originally charged with possession of burglary tools (a felony with up to 10 years imprisonment), malicious damage, and criminal trespass.  Their expert witnesses were qualified with the jury present, but their testimony was dismissed by the judge and a justification defense denied.  The five viewed pleading guilty to the malicious damage charge as consistent with nonviolence, so the prosecution dropped the possession of tools charge.  The trespass charge was dismissed.  October 18, 1985 they were given a year in jail and a fine of $500 dollars.  Four were freed after 6 months, while one protester was given an extra two months for refusing to tell the judge who drove them to Quonset Point.  The first plowshares action was September 9, 1980.  This account comes from Swords into Plowshares:  Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament, published in 1987.

The most recent referendum on Catalonian independence from Spain was October 1, 2017, and has been followed by Spanish government and rightist repression against Catalonian self-determination.  

October 1st is International Observe the Moon Night, which apparently began in 2009 or 2010 with NASA and astronomy groups:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Observe_the_Moon_Night

The Tlatelolco Massacre was October 2, 1968 in Mexico City's Plaza de las Tres Culturas.  On that day the Mexican government attacked a student demonstration, possibly killing hundreds and arresting more than 1000. 

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey October 2, 2018.  Among other roles, he was a columnist for the Washington Post.  The Khashoggi assassination motivated parts of the US government and establishment to denounce and attempt to punish the government of Saudi Arabia, while they say little about the brutal Saudi-led war in neighboring and poverty-stricken Yemen.  The US has materially aided the Saudi coalition's war under both Obama and Trump (and Biden?) and denounces alleged Iranian involvement, rather than the attacks by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others on the people of Yemen.  There have been proposals in Congress to end US-support for the war, but the Democrats, right and left aren't really interested in this:  www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/26/every-single-member-of-congress-is-willing-to-let-yemeni-children-die/  I think it was Gates during the Obama administration who said something about the Saudis wanting the US to fight to the last man against their rival Iran, and other countries want a US-Iran war.  The Biden administration hasn't restored the JCPOA and might be involved in the recent demonstrations in Iran, hoping to carry out a coup.  More about Saudi instability, adventurism, and attacks on neighboring countries:  www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/04/a-year-after-khashoggis-murder-saudi-arabia-is-lurching-toward-chaos/

The USS Connecticut, a nuclear-powered submarine capable of carrying nuclear weapons, reportedly  ran into something while operating in the South China Sea in 2021:  www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/03/cover-up-of-u-s-nuclear-sub-collision-in-south-china-sea-a-wake-up-call-for-east-asia-and-the-world/

The Second Italo-Ethiopian War began October 3, 1935.

Folk singer Woody Guthrie passed away October 3, 1967. 

The German Democratic Republic was absorbed by the Federal Republic October 3, 1990, and continuing economic and political marginalization of the former East Germany has led to electoral support for the "far right."  The previous "center right" prime minister and grew up in the GDR.   

The US repeatedly attacked a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan early on October 3, 2015, killing 12 staff, 10 patients (3 children), and wounding 37.  The US, NATO, and Afghanistan were all informed where the hospital was and the NATO command was called when the attack started:  progressive.org/dispatches/u.s.-airstrike-doctors-without-borders-hospital-war-crime/  Eleven days after the attack a US tank forcibly entered the hospital compound. The media loudly accuses unfavored countries of deliberately attacking hospitals and medical personnel, but this story quickly dropped out of the news.  In general when a government the US is hostile to allegedly commits a war crime, the media trumpets it as a planned atrocity that definitely happened, but when the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc. do something it is an understandable accident due to the fog of war and is swept under the rug. 

October 3rd is National Butterfly and Hummingbird Day, according to this website

World Habitat Day (human habitats) is October 3rd, with the theme:  www.un.org/en/observances/habitat-day

The USSR launched Sputnik 1 (Satellite 1 in Russian) October 4, 1957.  Explorer 1, the USA's first satellite, was launched February l, 1958.

October 4, 1993 tanks fired on the Russian parliament (the White House) and soldiers occupied the building, allowing President Boris Yeltsin to extralegally dissolve the legislative bodies in a crisis that had begun September 21st.  Official statistics say 147 people were killed, including non-Russians, and 437 wounded in fighting between pro-Yeltsin and pro-parliament forces.  

Mark Anthony Stroman shot three Muslim and Hindu South Asian immigrants in and around Dallas, Texas September 16 and 21 and October 4, 2001, blaming them for the 9/11 attacks.  Stroman reformed while in prison but was executed July 20, 2011.  Rais Bhuiyan, a Bangladeshi-American Muslim and the only person shot who survived, forgave Stroman and tried to prevent the execution.

World Space Week is October 4th - 10th:  www.un.org/en/observances/world-space-week

World Teachers' Day is October 5th:   en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldteachersday

October 5, 2021 a US Marine Corps F-35B practiced taking off and landing from the Japanese destroyer Izumo, which looks suspiciously like an aircraft carrier and is Japan's largest warship since WWII.  Assassinated Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe worked to unfetter Japanese imperialism from the constitutional restrictions imposed by the US after WWII and increase military spending:  www.counterpunch.org/2022/07/15/the-real-shinzo-abe-he-was-no-peacemaker/ , www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/01/abe-and-the-re-militarization-of-japan/ and  www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/29/whitewashing-at-shinzo-abes-state-funeral/  

The German Democratic Republic was founded October 7, 1949.  The Federal Republic of Germany had been founded May 23rd, formally dividing the country.

The US invasion of Afghanistan began October 7, 2001.

October 7th is World Cotton Day, proposed by Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mali in 2019: www.un.org/en/observances/cotton-day

Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, best known for his role in the 1959 Cuban Revolution, was executed in Bolivia October 9, 1967, with CIA involvement.

World Migratory Bird Day is marked October 8th and again inMay :  www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/ 

October 9th is also World Post Day, celebrating the founding of the Universal Postal Union in 1874, called into question under Trump (while Congress did its part to financially damage the US Postal Service).  For more information see:  en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldteachersday

October 10th is World Mental Health Day:  www.who.int/campaigns/world-mental-health-day  There was a student protest at UNC-Chapel Hill after recent deaths and suicide attempts in 2021.

The Republic of China's National Day is October 10th, commemorating the beginning of the Wuchang Uprising in 1911, part of the Xinhai or Chinese Revolution, overthrowing the last Qing emperor and establishing a republic under President Sun Yat-sen.

Party Foundation Day is October 10th in the DPRK, commemorating the 1945 founding of a predecessor to today's Workers' Party of Korea:  www.naenara.com.kp/en/event/?part=20151010/

According to Wikipedia, October 10th is also Vietnam's Capital Liberation Day and Cuban Independence Day, commemorating the Grito de Yara at the beginning of the Ten Years' War in 1868.  It took two more wars before Spanish rule was successfully overthrown in 1898, followed by a few years of direct occupation and decades of subservience to the USA. 

The Outer Space Treaty, banning the placement of nuclear weapons in space, military activities on the Moon, claims of sovereignty over celestial bodies, etc., came into effect October 10, 1967.  The US is now trying to create alleged rules or norms to cover US and other "Western" economic exploitation, expropriation,  privatization, and seizure of bodies such as the Moon, competing with China and Russia, among the other peoples of the world with an interest in what goes on in space.

Pakistani physicist and metallurgical engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan, often abbreviated AQ Khan, passed away October 10, 2021 due to the coronavirus.  He was a key figure in Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons and was accused of giving nuclear technology to the DPRK, Iran, and Libya.  Under the non-proliferation treaty countries such as Iran have the right to develop peaceful nuclear technology, and the US and other "Western" countries have assisted their allies in developing nuclear and other "weapons of mass destruction" or looked the other way.  Under the NPT the nuclear weapons states are supposed to disarm, but the USA is spending a huge amount to upgrade and improve its nuclear arsenal and discussing starting wars against Russia and/or China.  While nuclear-powered submarines are not nuclear weapons, there have also been concerns about the US and UK giving this technology to Australia, and questions of whether French conventional submarines would have been the more effective weapon for Australia.  

According to School of the Americas Watch,  October 10th is the anniversary of Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz firing 16 shots into Mexico, killing 16-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodríguez, similar to what the Israeli military does to Palestinians.  

The Carolina Classic Fair ( carolinaclassicfair.com/ ) will be September 30th - October 9th -10th in Winston-Salem, and might include political tabling.  

The International Day of the Girl Child is October 11th:  www.un.org/en/observances/girl-child-day 

Indigenous Peoples' Day first became a Federal holiday in 2021, marked on October 11th [10th]. 

UNC-Chapel Hill's Tar Heel Service Day / University Day is around October 12th [there were events October 7 - 16th in 2022 -  alumni.unc.edu/things-to-do/volunteer/tar-heel-service-day/ ].  A cornerstone was placed October 12, 1793, making UNC one of the oldest public universities in the country.

Día de la Raza, similar to the USA's Columbus Day [October 10th in 2022], is October 12th in Mexico.  Columbus reached the New World October 12, 1492 according to the Julian Calendar; Wikipedia says this would be October 21st under the modern Gregorian calendar.

Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara, president of Burkina Faso and known as "Africa's Che Guevara," was assassinated in a military coup October 15, 1987.  The coup placed his former colleague Blaise Compaoré in power until he was himself overthrown October 31, 2014 after trying to amend the constitution for re-election.  Recently Burkina Faso tried 14 people over the coup, including Compaoré, but he was in absentia.  Sankara was born December 21, 1949 in what was then Upper Volta, a French colony.  There is an article at:    www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/20/the-trial-of-thomas-sankaras-killers/ 

The International Day of Rural Women is October 15th:  www.un.org/en/observances/disaster-reduction-day 


The Crimean War began October 16, 1853.


Albanian revolutionary, partisan, and statesman Enver Halil Hoxha was born October 16, 1908 in Gjirokaster, in southern Albania.  His works are available from or posted for free on Red Star Publishers, The November 8th Publishing House, marx2mao.commarxists.orgrevolutionarydemocracy.org, [enverhoxha.info  , www.enver-hoxha.net/ (these two are multi-lingual), www.enverhoxha.ru/ (in Russian),] [neodemocracy.blogspot.com,] probably expensively sold on Amazon, etc.


The Cuban Missile Crisis was October 16 - 28th, 1962, and came close to sparking a nuclear war.  Among other narrow misses, it was later revealed that a Soviet submarine low on air, being harassed with depth charges, and unaware of whether a war had begun came close to launching a nuclear torpedo, and one dissenting officer (Vasily Arkhipov) might have single-handedly prevented a nuclear world war.  To end the crisis, Soviet nuclear weapons were withdrawn from Cuba, the US quietly removed its nuclear missiles placed near the USSR, and the US promised not to invade Cuba again.  Other things were done to reduce tensions in coming years, but now the US is abandoning arms control treaties, trying to overthrow the Cuban government (and the governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua), and is refurbishing old nuclear weapons and developing new ones to threaten Russia and China (as welas non-nuclear countries), though the superpowers are all now more or less in agreement about capitalism.  

The threat of nuclear war was a non-issue for the mainstream "Western" media for decades until Biden told them to cover it in October 2022, it was barely mentioned even when the media highlighted prominent voices calling for NATO to impose a non-fly zone in Ukraine and earlier in Syria, which would have meant going to war with Russia.  On the other hand, maybe the media was irresponsibly pushing these views, for some reason, knowing that they would not be carried out.  From what I have heard, the media admits the horror of nuclear weapon use, but the US isn't brutal for having used them against Japan, the US hasn't threatened anyone with its vast nuclear arsenal, and 'all options are on the table' is only a inhuman threat coming from a country other than the USA.

George W Bush signed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq October 16, 2002, which had been passed by Congress, with the help of Joe Biden, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.   

World Food Day is October 16th:  www.fao.org/world-food-day/en

Liberal Russian performance artist Petr Pavlensky set fire to a Bank of France office on the Place de Bastille in Paris October 17, 2017 (the act was called "Lightning"), though his family had just been granted asylum in France earlier that year after fleeing Russia over sexual assault charges, which sounds similiar to the attack on Julian Assange, but he isn't supported by the mainstream media.  November 10, 2013 Pavlensky nailed himself by the scrotum, while nude, to Moscow's Red Square  [11/27 This is apparently a relatively common practice among prisoners in Russia -  www.newsru.com/russia/10nov2013/pavlensky.html , and easier than cutting one's innards or setting one's self on fire in protest]

Alex Saab, detained by Cape Verde as he returned from a diplomatic mission to Iran for Venezuela, was extradited to the USA October 16, 2021 and is being held in Miami:  afgj.org/free-alex-saab  The Venezuelan government ended negotiations with its opponents in Mexico at the time over the extradition.  The US government apparently hopes to extract information about how Venezuela has weathered the US economic and dipomatic (and sometimes shadowy "kinetic") "regime change" campaign against the country.  There is talk about US citizens allegedly arrested for political reasons by other countries, but the US government of course never does such things.

The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is October 17th:  www.un.org/en/observances/day-for-eradicating-poverty

Up to 300 Algerian protesters, peacefully demonstrating against the Algerian War (November 1, 1954 - 1962), were killed by French police in the Paris Massacre of 1961, on October 17th.  The related Charonne Massacre happened February 8, 1962, when the police killed nine trade unionists demonstrating against a French terrorist group.  Only in recent years has France admitted that torture was systematic during the war, and even French citizens were tortured and killed extrajudicially. 

The Million Worker March was October 17, 2004 in Washington, DC.  Thousands participated (and there were one or more buses from the Triangle and elsewhere in North Carolina) and while there were not actually one million people there, according to the Wikipedia article the endorsing unions represented about 3.5 million workers. 

National Opossum Day is apparently also October 17th, celebrating and raising awareness of the USA's last marsupial, a possibly misunderstood beneficial animal frequently hit on roads during the winter.  Being a marsupial, a female possum could have young in her pouch or riding on her back, and even if the mother is killed, the babies might be able to be saved by a wildlife rehabilitator.  Various people who should know have informed me that opossums either can't get rabies or are very unlikely to, so a good Samaritan is unlikely to get infected helping injured opossums, though it would still be best to wear gloves, wash afterward, etc.  Unfortunately a few species are barred by law from rehabilitation in North Carolina because of the danger of rabies, but opossums are not on that list and I have handled injured opossums without any problems.  I'm surprised that none used their teeth or claws.  In mid-October I have been seeing opossums going to a nearby persimmon tree most nights.

UK propaganda broadcaster the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) was founded October 18, 1922, as the private British Broadcasting Company.  

 Nature writer Edwin Way Teale passed away October 18, 1980.  He was born June 2, 1899 in Joliet, Illinois.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA limiting Iran's nuclear activities was adopted October 18, 2015.  October 13, 2017 Trump accused Iran of violating the nuclear deal, leading to US withdrawal and sabotage of the agreement, which other governments were trying to continue. 

Colin Powell died due to coronavirus October 18, 2021.  When Powell and John Negroponte appeared before the UN February 5, 2003 to justify invading Iraq a full-sized tapestry of Picasso's painting Guernica was temporarily covered up.

Samora Machel, president of Mozambique, was killed in a suspicious plane crash October 19, 1986, resulting in the country turning away from socialist construction. 


Niche Gardens, a pioneering native plant nursery a few miles southwest of Carrboro went out of business October 18, 2019.  Besides the retail nursery there were display gardens.  NCSU graduate Kim Hawks founded Niche Gardens on Dawson Road in 1986, when native plant gardening was more unusual.  The nursery was also a pioneer in selling plants online.  

Pioneering local native plant nursery Niche Gardens, located a few miles southwest of Carrboro since 1986, closed for good October 18, 2019, just in time to miss the coronavirus crisis. 

The Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 was signed October 19th, formally restoring peace between the two countries.

The first interstellar object, 'Oumuamua, thought to be a natural object, though some have suggested that it could be artificial, was discovered October 19, 2017, and there has been discussion of sending a probe after it.

Libyan leader Qaddafi was killed brutally and without trial October 20, 2011, after having given up Libya's nuclear weapons program, such as it was, and opening up to the US and EU imperialists.  Hillary Clinton laughed watching the video.  This is the model being offered to the DPRK if it unilaterally "denuclearizes."       

Christopher Columbus first encountered the New World early on October 21, 1492 [using the modern Gregorian calendar]; apparently October 12th is the date under the old Julian calendar. 

Tens of thousands of demonstrators (maybe 50,000) participated in the March on the Pentagon October 21st, 1967, protesting the Vietnam War.  

American journalist and revolutionary John Reed was born October 22, 1887 in Portland, Oregon.  He wrote Ten Days That Shook the World, a first-hand account of the Great October Socialist Revolution, and he is one of three Americans honored with burial in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

The National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation is marked every October 22nd:  revcom.us/en

Disarmament Week is October 24th - 30th:  www.un.org/en/events/disarmamentweek/  It begins with United Nations Day, when the UN was founded:  www.un.org/en/observances/disarmament-week  October 24th is also World Development Information Day:  www.un.org/en/observances/development-information-day  

The DC sniper spree ended with the arrest of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo October 24, 2002 near Myersville, Maryland.

Global Media and Information Literacy Week is October 24th - 31st:  www.un.org/en/observances/media-information-literacy-week

The USA under Reagan and a few forces from neighboring countries attacked the Caribbean nation of Grenada October 25 - 29, 1983 with some US losses, but killing more Grenadan soldiers, civilians, and Cubans, as well as injuring Soviet citizens and many others.  

The US anti-war organization United for Peace and Justice was founded October 25, 2002:  www.unitedforpeace.org/about/get-involved/history/

The USA PATRIOT Act was passed by the Senate October 25, 2002 and later renewed under Bush and Obama.  Soon afterward the national Bill of Rights Defense Committee was created, with very active chapters in Durham and Orange counties among others; in 2015 it merged with the Defending Dissent Foundation to create Defending Rights and Dissent, which is active today:  www.rightsanddissent.org/about/  A related group is NC Stop Torture Now:  ncstn.org which is also still active.

There were also large demonstrations against the Iraq War October 25, 2003.

The World Day for Audiovisual Heritage is October 27th, as we see how impermanent our audiovisual heritage, software, and data are:  www.un.org/en/observances/international-days-and-weeks

Catalonia declared independence from Spain October 27, 2017, but Spain maintained used force to stay in control of the region.

The Día de los Muertos / Day of the Dead Le Jour / La Fete des Morts ) is November 1-2nd (Wikipedia says it is October 31st - November 2, and possibly also November 6th in places, but US calendars usually say it is only November 2nd) and Halloween was Monday, October 31, 2022.  According to Wikipedia the Celtic harvest festival Samhain was the evening of October 31st through November 1st. 

Catholicism and many Protestant churches commemorate All Saints' Day ( La Toussaint) on November 1st and Catholicism commemorates All Souls' Day November 2nd.  October 31st to November 2nd is also known as Allhallowtide, Hallowtide, Hallowmas season, and Allsaintstide

World Cities Day is October 31st, with the theme this year of "Act Local to Go Global:"  www.un.org/en/observances/cities-day

Italian pilot Giulio Gavotti carried out the first known aerial bombardment using an airplane November 1, 1911, bombing two Ottoman Turkish bases in Libya during the short Italo-Turkish War a few years before WWI.  Apparently the Ottomans argued that this was illegal under the Hague Convention of 1899, which banned bombardment by balloon.  Balloons had been used for reconnaissance during the wars following the French Revolution and in the US Civil War, while Germany used giant zeppelins to bomb the UK during WWI.  In the decades leading up to WWI there were reports of mystery airships around the world.      

The war for Algerian independence from France began November 1, 1954 and lasted until March 19, 1962.  The Battle of Algiers is a well-known film on the national liberation war, banned in France for years.   

November 1, 1991 Yeltsin was given the power to issue decrees regarding the economy even if they violated the law.

November 2, 1917, during WWI, the UK issued the Balfour Declaration, promising support for Zionist goals in Palestine, at the time part of the Ottoman Empire, one of the Central powers. 

The Greensboro Massacre was November 3, 1979.  KKK and American Nazi Party members fired on a "Death to the Klan" demonstration organized by the now disbanded Communist Workers' Party, killing 5 people and wounding others.  Some police were present and the local police and Federal agencies had infiltrated the KKK and neo-Nazi groups.  For more information see:   www.greensboromassacrelessonstoday.org/ 

November 3rd is Culture Day (Bunka no Hi) in Japan, celebrating the arts, culture, and scholarship; the Apollo 11 astronauts are among the recipients of the Order of Culture presented on this day.  The post-war Japanese constitution, which the ruling rightist Liberal Democratic Party wants to amend, was announced November 3, 1946.  November 3rd had already been a holiday, commemorating the birth of Emperor Meiji, who ruled 1867-1912, during the Meiji Revolution or Restoration that created modern capitalist/imperialist Japan.

Musician and recording engineer Malachi Ritscher burned himself to death in condemnation of the Iraq War November 3, 2006 near the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago. His final statement is included in:  chicago.indymedia.org/archive/newswire/display/74806/index.php and he wrote his own obituary at:  www.savagesound.com/gallery100.htm

The USSR intervened in Hungary November 4, 1956

Syndicalist French writer Georges Sorel was born November 3, 1847 in Cherbourg, France.  His most influential work is probably Reflections on Violence, published in 1908. 

The USSR launched Sputnik 2 Nobember 3, 1957.

British working class democratic reformer Thomas Hardy (not the famous author) was acquitted of High Treason on Guy Fawkes Day (November 5th) 1794, but at a high personal cost.  Subsequently the other arrested radicals were also acquitted or prosecution was dropped.  Who could vote or otherwise participate in British bourgeois democracy was very restricted until well into the 20th century.  For more information see an article in Monthly Review:  monthlyreview.org/2019/11/01/the-trial-of-thomas-hardy/ and Thomas Hardy's Wikipedia entry:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy_(political_reformer)


Eugene V Debs, a founder of the Industrial Workers of the World and presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America, was born November 5, 1855.  He was imprisoned for advocating draft resistance during WWI, and sentenced to a decade in prison and loss of suffrage November 18, 1918, but ran for president again in 1920, from a Federal prison in Atlanta.  President Harding commuted his sentence in 1921 and he died in 1926.  

Daylight Saving Time ended early Sunday, November 6th in the USA, Canada, parts of Mexico, and in other neighboring countries, and earlier in the UK and many European countries.  The Federal government seems to control US time standards, but local governments can opt out, though few do so, despite regular complaints. 

November 7th is the 105th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution in the former Russian Empire in 1917.

According to Wikipedia French Catalonia's national day is November 7th while Spanish Catalonia's is September 11th.

The NATO military exercise Able Archer 83, held November 7 - 11, 1983 and simulating a conventional war becoming nuclear (Ukraine now or Taiwan soon?), might have brought the world close to a real world war during the tense early 80's.  An Able Archer used to be held every year.

Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes and Mexica leader Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin first met around November 8, 1519, as a Spanish and allied Indian force entered the capital Tenochtitlan peacefully.  They were chased out and came close to total defeat in La Noche Triste in the summer of 1520.

The Communist Party of Albania (later renamed the Party of Labor of Albania) was founded November 8, 1941 through a merger of groups.  At the time Albania was occupied by Fascist Italy.   

Old Bolshevik Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov passed away November 8, 1986. 

There was a totalunar eclipse shortly before dawn as seen from North Carolina on Tuesday, November 8, 2022:  spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2022/11/total-lunar-eclipse-early-tue-morning-w.html  I forgot that it was coming up, so I didn't note it here in time, but I happened to see it anyway.

November 11 is Armistice Day, marking the truce that (more or less) ended World War I in 1918.  In the USA Armistice Day has became the more pro-war Veterans Day.  The 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada.

Business interests and the local American Legion attacked an IWW hall in Centralia, Washington November 11, 1919, using an Armistice Day parade as cover, resulting in several deaths on each side.  Wesley Everest, a logger and International Workers of the World member, was taken from jail and lynched later that day.  Only the IWW and supporters were prosecuted and convicted of crimes.  Other attacks preceded the events of Armistice Day, including an attack on an IWW hall during a Red Cross parade April 30, 1918.  For a more detailed account see:  www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/11/class-war-violence-centralia-1919/  The US left was heavily repressed, by legal and illegal means, at the time, for example see:  www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/07/what-you-dont-have-and-why/ , though organizing continued and the CPUSA was powerful in the 30's and the anti-war and other popular movements were influential during the Cold War.

American novelist Kurt Vonnegut was born November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis.  See for example:  thedailyvonnegut.com/ and blogs.cofc.edu/vonnegut/vonneguts-life/

Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was born November 11, 1945 in La Libertad.  

November 11, 1975 Governor-General Sir John Kerr, representing Queen Elizabeth II, removed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam of the Australian Labor Party, and installed a member of the Liberal Party.  There were allegations of US involvement, allegedly to prevent the Labor Party from closing US military bases in Australia. 

Sun Yat-sen, a founder of the Republic of China, created by the Revolution of 1911, was born November 12, 1866.

Silo Pruning Hooks

November 12, 1984 four people entered a Minuteman II ICBM silo operated out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Knob Noster, Missouri.  Using a jackhammer and air compressor, they damaged the silo's lid, offered Eucharist and left Christian and Native American condemnations of the US government and mainstream Christianity over nuclear war.  An hour later they were arrested by military security authorized to kill and were held in preventive detention without bail.  In a Federal jury trial they were convicted of destruction of government property, conspiracy, intent to damage the national defense, and trespass.  They were sentenced to 8 to 18 years in jail, 3 to 5 years of probation, and each had to pay the government $2932.80.  A few months later the 18 year sentence was reduced to 12 years, but when the others appealed they were denied.

Indonesian soldiers killed hundreds of supporters of East Timorese independence in the Santa Cruz or Dili Massacre, November 12, 1991.  A citizen of New Zealand was also killed.  The events were witnessed by American journalists Amy Goodman (now host of Democracy Now!) and Allan Nairn, who were attacked by soldiers while acting as human shields, fracturing Nairn's skull.  Max Stahl secretly recorded the massacre, and Australia went as far as strip-searching the camera crew to seize the footage, but failed to prevent its release.

Kabul was captured from the Taliban November 13-14, 2001 during the US invasion of Afghanistan.

American civilian pilot Eugene Burton Ely carried out the first takeoff from a ship, the USS Birmingham, November 14, 1910.  He also carred out the first landing on a ship, the USS Pennsylvania, January 18, 1911.  Ely wanted to join the US Navy, but it didn't have an air corps at the time and then he was killed in a crash October 19, 1911 in Macon, Georgia, just prior to his 25th birthday.  This paved the way for naval aviation and aircraft carriers, which had a role in WWI but were more important in WWII.  It has been argued that aircraft carriers are much less decisive today, for example China probably has the capability to sink US carriers at a distance, though China is also building aircraft carriers.  Aircraft have also been launched from other ship types, such as battleships, if I'm not mistaken including the USS North Carolina, now on display in Wilmington, and even submarines during WWII.

The German air force bombed the city of Coventry, England, UK multiple times during WWII, but the largest and most damaging air raid was the night of November 14 - 15th in 1940.  515 Luftwaffe bombers, using both explosive and incendiary bombs, virtually destroyed the downtown area and its medieval buildings, destroyed thousands of homes, and damaged 2/3rds of the city's buildings, as well as killing about 568 people and wounding many more.  Some have suggested that the UK knew the attack was coming but did not give a warning so that the German military would not find out that its encryption had been broken.  Coventry had military value because of its industries, but it also might have been targeted for its cultural value, as revenge for the bombing of Munich a few days earlier.  The British used the attack as a pretext to start indiscriminately bombing or firebombing German cities, and later the US Air Force developed these techniques further, culminating in attacks such as the firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945 and the devastation of an entire city with a single nuclear bomb.  

Plowshares Number Four

November 14, 1982 seven people entered the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut.  Three hammered and put blood on several of the USS Georgia submarine's ICBM hatches.  Four others hammered and put blood on parts in the south storage yard.  They were soon placed under arrest.  In a jury trial they were not able to make a justification defense and were convicted of criminal mischief, conspiracy, and criminal trespass, and sentenced to two months to a year in prison.

Japan's traditional coming of age festival 7-5-3 or Shichi-Go-San is on or around November 15th. 

Buran (Russian for snowstorm or blizzard), the USSR's answer to the US Space Shuttle program, first orbited the Earth November 15, 1988, without a crew, and was the first spaceplane to fly without a crew and then land without human control.  The destruction of the USSR ended funding for the Buran program and the only existing orbiter was destroyed in a hangar collapse May 12, 2002.  The Space Shuttle program lasted longer but was found to have drawbacks, so the shuttles now sit in museums and have been replaced by more conventional rockets.  For years American astronauts could only reach space riding Russian rockets (launched from Kazakhstan), and now they ride corporate private rockets.  

US anti-war organization CODEPINK was founded November 17, 2002.

The French Yellow Vest protest movement (Mouvement des gilets jaunes) began November 17, 2018.  

Russian revolutionary Mikhail Kalinin was born November 19, 1875 and was head of state of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and later of the entire USSR and a member of the CPSU's Politburo.  The Baltic port city of Kӧnigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad after his death June 3, 1946.  The city and its surrounding territory was formerly in East Prussia, seized from Germany in WWII, and is now a Russian enclave encircled by NATO and EU states. 

November 20th is Mexico's Revolution Day (Día de la Revolución), a national holiday marking the beginning of the Mexican Revolution in 1910.   

The Indians of All Tribes occupied Alcatraz Island November 20, 1969 to June 11, 1971.

The Nepalese Civil War ended November 21, 2006 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord between the government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

Old Bolshevik Lazar Kaganovich was born November 22, 1893 in what is now northern Ukraine and came from a Jewish family.  He served in various capacities in the Soviet government, including work on the Moscow Metro, membership in the Politburo, etc., but was sidelined under Khrushchev and died July 25, 1991.

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated November 22, 1963 in Dallas. 

Japan's Labor Thanksgiving Day or Kinrou Kansha no Hi based on the old Niiname-sai harvest festival, is November 23rd, or on the following day if the 23rd is a Sunday; International Workers' Day/May 1st is also a prominent in Japan.

Griffiss Plowshares

November 24, 1983 (Thanksgiving Day) seven people entered Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York and proceeded to hammer and put blood on a B-52 bomber modified to carry cruise missiles and on some B-52 engines.  They left a statement condemning Griffiss and the US government for nuclear war preparation and condemned the violation of constitutional rights and punishment of acts of conscience under what they called the state religion of "nuclearism."  No one came to arrest them for hours, so they searched for the guards themselves.  This was the first Federal trial of Plowshares activists.  A justification defense and expert testimony were barred.  The jury found them innocent of sabotage but convicted them of conspiracy and destruction of government property, with prison sentences of two to three years and an appeal was denied.  This account and the others in this post come from Swords Into Plowshares:  Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament, edited by Arthur J Laffin and Anne Montgomery, and published in 1987.  There have been more recent actions. 

The last known Labrador duck was a male killed in the fall of 1875 off Long Island, now preserved in Washington, DC.  Another specimen was supposed to have been killed December 2, 1878 in Elmira, New York, but the remains have since been lost:  web.archive.org/web/20150215071011/http://www.petermaas.nl/extinct/speciesinfo/labradorduck.htm


Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky was born November 23 or 24 in what is now Poltava, Ukraine.  He was appointed as the USSR's ambassador to Spain but passed away December 26, 1933 in France.  In 1932 he represented the USSR at the League of Nations.   


November 24, 2015 a Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M that had allegedly briefly crossed over Turkish airspace from Syria, the first time a Russian or Soviet aircraft had been destroyed by a NATO country's military since the Korean War (in 1953).  There are conflicting accounts of whether the Su-24 entered Turkey, where it was fired upon, and whether the F-16 entered Syria, but the Su-24 crashed in Syria, which had invited the Russian military's presence, unlike the US and Turkish forces occupying parts of Syria.  The two Russians inside ejected, but the pilot was hit by Syrian rebel gunfire before landing and was killed, a violation of Protocol I of the Geneva Convention.  According to the Wikipedia article the rebels might have been Turkmen and Turks led by a Turkish citizen and member of the Grey Wolves.  Later a Russian helicopter looking for the crew was forced to land due to rebel gunfire and a naval infantryman was killed.

Japanese writer and rightist Yukio Mishima (Kimitake Hiraoka) committed seppuku (hara-kiri) at the Camp Ichigaya military base in Tokyo November 25, 1970. 


Fidel Castro, retired at the time, passed away November 25, 2016, outlasting numerous US administrations that tried to assassinate him or overturn the Cuban revolution.


The modern US Thanksgiving holiday began under President Lincoln November 26, 1863 (the last Thursday that November), during the Civil War, though there had been previous thanksgiving days around that time.  It has also been called the National Day of Mourning and Unthanksgiving Day because of the associations with colonialism.  Thanksgiving eclipsed Evacuation Day, commemorating the November 25, 1783 evacuation of the last of the defeated British army, through New York City.  Thanksgiving is followed by the unofficial Black Friday commercial holiday (also Native American Heritage Day since 2008), or Buy Nothing Day.  There is also Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday to continue the spending/donation.  

Marxist philosopher and writer Friedrich Engels was born November 28, 1820 in what is now Wuppertal, Germany.  His writings can be found online at:  redstarpublishers.orgmarx2mao.commarxists.orgneodemocracy.blogspot.cometc.

Albania has two national days, November 28, 1912, when Albania gained independence from the Ottoman Empire, and November 29, 1944, when Albanian partisans drove out the German occupiers.  Subsequently the Albanians were unique in liberating their own country and then helping to liberate neighboring Yugoslavia.  For a British account of the Albanian independence days as marked in 2021 in Gjirokaster, in southern Albania, Enver Hoxha's hometown, see:  michaelharrison.org.uk/2021/12/independence-day-29th-november-2021-in-gjirokaster/ ]  

The Natchez and other indigenous groups rebelled against French colonialism in the lower Mississippi Valley, starting November 29, 1729.  Other indigenous nations fought on the side of the French.  The governor feared that a wider Indian and possibly slave rebellion was planned, so he ordered a force of African slaves to massacre the peaceful Chaouacha tribe living near New Orleans, for which he was apparently criticized at the time.  Ultimately the Natchez were driven out of their homeland or enslaved by the French, but still exist as a people. 

Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov was born November 29, 1856 and was upheld as a founder of the Russian Marxist movement, but was an opponent of the Bolsheviks.  For more information see marxists.org, etc.

In the Sand Creek Massacre, starting November 29, 1864, Federal soldiers attacked peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians camped along Big Sandy Creek in what is now Colorado (where the government had requested that they gather, displaying a US flag and a white flag), killing about 230 Indians, predominantly women, children, and elders, as well as committing torture and mutilation, before leaving the area December 1st.  Some soldiers refused to attack the village, but the perpetrators received little punishment and no criminal prosecution (from Wikipedia as well as www.nps.gov/sand/learn/historyculture/index.htm ).

The Federal People's Republic of Yugosalvia was declared November 29, 1945, and the 29th was the country's national day until 2002; the name was changed to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1963, becoming the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992, the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro or Serbia and Montenegro February 4, 2003, and in June 2006 Montenegro and Serbia separated and the idea of a South Slavic union ended.  

November 29th is also International Jaguar Day www.internationaljaguarday.org/ ); long ago these big cats  might have included the Appalachian mountains in their vast range while today a border wall along an arbitrary boundary dividing the continent could finish the job of exterminating the USA's few remaining jaguars, as well as other species ( www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/jaguar/ ; www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2019/jaguar-04-24-2019.php ; biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/trump-bulldozes-new-wall-through-wildlife-refuge-jaguar-country-2019-10-31/ ) . 

Mark Twain (Samuel L Clemens), acclaimed author as well as vice president of the American Anti-Imperialist League, was born November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri.

The Winter War between the USSR and Finland began November 30, 1939. 

The People's Republic of Southern Yemen (South Yemen) gained independence from the UK November 30, 1967.  North Yemen had been independent since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after WWI. 

November 30, 1981 the Reagan administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Cooperation, making Israel a strategic partner of the US.  The partnership was suspended after Israel annexed the Golan Heights December 14th, but it came back into force in 1983.  This is described in Fifty Years of Israel by Donald Neff, published in 1998.  This could bring to mind the way Democrats in the House of Representatives proclaim Ukraine a vital partner and the proposal to absorb the Republic of Georgia into NATO, both increasing the likelihood of bloodshed between the USA and Russia.  More recently, the US military now began training with the Israelis in territory held by Israel.  

In 2022 the US media constantly denounces Russia for illegally seizing territory from Ukraine by force - but it is rarely if at all mentioned as a great problem when Israel extends sovereignty over territory seized from its neighbors and is rewarded by the US, such as with the new embassy; the UK takes Indian Ocean islands from Mauritius for the US military; the US holds parts of Cuba and Syria (with Turkey) against the wishes of those countries and the US created a border across Korea; NATO redrew borders in the Balkans by force; and there is the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the issue of Kashmir.  There are some differences, but these examples are at least similar to what Russia is accused of doing.  The UK and Portugal eventually had to return their colonies in China, though there is still the issue of Taiwan.

Tens of thousands of people, many anarchists, protested the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999 in Seattle November 30th - December 1st, sometimes called the Battle of Seattle and N30.  It was a major event of the anti-globalization movement, later overshadowed by the need for anti-war organizing after 9/11.  There was a lot of organizing against sweatshops and globalization at UNC-Chapel Hill around then, by groups such as Students for Economic Justice (later called Demand Economic Justice), and some concessions were gained from the administration.  The Battle of Seattle also featured things like the black bloc, heavy police repression, bans on protesting, etc. seen in many large protests in the early 2000's. 

China's Chang'e 3 spacecraft carried out a soft landing on the Moon December 14, 2013, the first such landing since the USSR's Luna 24 in 1976 and making China the third country to carry out such a lunar landing.  A rover, Yutu, was deployed.  


The Moon Treaty was signed December 18, 1979, but not by any of the powers capable of human spaceflight.  The Outer Space Treaty was created January 27, 1967 and came into effect October 10th that year.


Alex Saab was born December 21, 1971 in Barranquilla, Colombia.


The Northern Hemisphere's winter solstice will be [Thursday] December 22nd [[Wednesday] 21st] in 2022.


The James Webb Space Telescope was launched December 25, 2021 from the EU's equatorial spaceport in French Guiana, in eastern South America.


The USSR launched Luna 1, the first spacecraft to approach the Moon and the first in a heliocentric orbit, January 2, 1958.  The next year Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to land on the Moon or any celestial body, and Luna 3launched October 4, 1959, was the first spacecraft to image the lunar far side.


China's Chang'e 4 was the first spacecraft to carry out a soft landing on the lunar far side and deployed a rover, Yutu-2.  Besides scientific instruments, the lander also carried a Lunar Micro Ecosystem experiment.  The mission was launched December 7, 2018 and the landing was January 3, 2019.   This mission was the first time the US and Chinese space programs were allowed to cooperate, following the April 2011 Wolf Amendment.  Cooperation is probably even less likely with Obama's "Pivot to Asia" and Trump-Biden warmongering. 


According to the website Prisoner Solidarity, Tsutomu Shirosaki might be released from prison in Japan February 20, 2027:  prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/tsutomu-shirosaki



No comments: