This is in addition to the much longer December 1st calendar post at: durhamspark.blogspot.com/2023/12/some-events-and-anniversaries-in-late.html and the shorter durhamspark.blogspot.com/2023/12/additional-events-and-anniversaries-in.html
[There will be an NC rally and march for Palestine Saturday, December 23rd at 2pm from Blount Square in Raleigh. There was a rally in Moore Square December 18th at 8am supporting a meeting that morning with Deborah Ross, to demand a ceasefire resolution – send a letter at: actionnetwork.org/letters/email-to-deborah-ross/ ]
[The Chicken Hut, at 3019 Fayetteville Street in Durham, is offering 1000 free lunches, its 2nd annual Christmas lunch giveaway, Friday, December 22nd, starting at 11am; in 2022 500 meals were given away: see Triangle on the Cheap – triangleonthecheap.com/chicken-hut-durham/ and www.facebook.com/CHUTDURHAM/posts/pfbid02LbGhGTJ18LtywsEvTLnTETGh7k3J3oFo223j2aEtkrrDDsApegeAwqhoLbcP1pDgl ]
The media is still covering the war in Palestine, but after the ceasefire there isn't much urgency and whatever Israel does is fine and framed in their favor. It's as if one ceasefire solved all of the humanitarian issues. The Biden administration might have stepped up criticism of Israeli policies, but the war isn't the main news or a concern. Did the Biden administration tell the media to turn away, or are they 'tired' of covering it? The US government seems to think that there isn't and wasn't already a very deep well of anger in Palestine. Why would Palestinians prefer to work with the people brutally bombing them, and the country backing Israel's war, to the various Palestinian resistance forces? Bombing didn't overthrow governments during WWII, etc. "Pro-Palestinian" university actions are now being categorically referred to as "anti-Semitism" on NPR after the ceasefire and Congressional hearings. There is little to no questioning of Israeli allegations, backed up by the Biden administration [12/22: NPR and the BBC are both pro-war, imperialist news outlets, but the BBC seems to be taking a harder position on Israel's actions in mid-late December and its coverage is more detailed and at the moment, despite the positions of the British government and "anti-Semitism" having been used to weaken or purge Jeremy Corbyn and other leftists in the Labour Party].
NPR at least noted the Democratic Party's gerrymandering in New York.
[Around Sunday, December 10th, or maybe it was the 17th Mara Laisson or Mary Louise Kelly (sic?) was on at 8am to claim that Republican opposition to Ukraine funding is motivated by Trump's alleged "animus" against Ukraine and inexplicable friendliness towards Russia, and Republicans being afraid of angering ngTrump. I don't remember any other explanations being offered. There can't possibly be a good reason to want to oppose more funding or a non-rightist position against the US-Russia proxy war in Ukraine.]
[Around the same time, maybe it was on the December 10th episode of NPR's Planet Money, there was a comment that building more housing is the obvious solution to the alleged lack of affordable housing, but I don't remember the subject of the story overall. Again the evening of December 27th there was an argument, maybe on Marketplace, about cheaper rents 'trickling down' with more luxury apartment construction (today's Chapel Hill?). A recent issue of Triangle Free Press had an article from the Common Dreams website arguing that housing problems aren't due to a lack of building, and a lot of construction has been going on in Durham, for many years.]
More ignorant rhetoric, once more common among Republicans, appears on NPR – Todd Zwilick (sic?) of Vice, who tal[k]s like an operative of the Democratic Party, was hosting 1A's Friday news review and another guy said something like the "new communism" under capitalist Putin. It might have been that morning that the editor of The Atlantic – a magazine frequently mentioned on NPR – very improbably claimed on Morning Edition that the media shouldn't be abd isn't part of "the Resistance" (to Trump) and will criticize Biden too (usually they cover for the Democrats and neoliberalism in general; neoliberalism and covering over British imperialism in Ireland with Rick Steves and Fintan O'Toole in the morning on the 10th).
In the evening on the 13th the framing was – "far right" Republicans are just "anti-FBI" or whatever, while supposed "progressive Democrats" in Congress care about civil liberties, regarding surveillance abroad that might also catch US citizen communications – yet NPR admits that the FBI violated the law that it wants renewed. NPR doesn't find anything sinister in the Biden administration's efforts to censor and suppress online speech. The Republican impeachment efforts also aren't news, though Hunter Biden's comments were quoted on NPR for the first time that I know of on the 13th. The Iowa and New Hampshire votes in January also aren't news, in case Biden loses there, and is that why they brought up New Hampshire's Vermin Supreme? Biden claims that Trump forced him to seek a second term. WUNC's Due South will fearmonger about Nikki Haley on the 14th and Haley, Trump, DeSantis, and "Genocide Joe" are awful choices.
Were impeachment proceedings against Biden, over corruption but not including the wars in Palestine and Ukraine, economic warfare against the people of Afghanistan and other countries, and violation of the 1st Amendment, put in to motion late on December 13th?
December 14th something on the BBC about Israel assassinating or arresting artists and journalists and earlier a woman in the Knesset for ~National Unity, about how Israel is doing the Palestinians a favor by bombing them, since Hamas will be removed!
public.substack.com/p/secret-government-censorship-sold
The Redwood City Seed Company in Redwood City, California is going out of business at the end if the year: ecoseeds.com/
Some meteor showers in December and January:
The Geminids November 19 – December 24, peaking December 13 – 14 (right now, if it is still clear... which it is; Gemini is high in the west and Arcturus is in the trees east); the Ursids December 13 – 24, peaking December 21 – 22; and the Quadrantids December 26 – January 16, peaking January 3 – 4: amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/
Asteroid Vesta is visible crossing the very top of Orion (an upraised "hand?") and into Taurus this month, with binoculars, .
The 8th annual NC Chinese Lantern Festival November 17, 2023 – January 14, 2024: www.boothamphitheatre.com/events-tickets/events/chinese-lantern-festival
The NC Botanical Garden's Darwin Day Lecture 2024 will be Monday, February 12th 7-8pm – "Using science-fiction depictions to learn real-world evolution concepts" with Mohamed Noor, a professor of biology, interim vice provost at Duke, and a consultant for Star Trek series: reg.learningstream.com/reg/event_page.aspx?ek=0005-0014-e26d3b3d83b74d57b1592ecafa675cba
The NCBG will be closed December 23rd to January 1st, except for the natural area trails, Coker Arboretum on the main UNC Campus, etc.
There will be events for Saving Our Savannas: Stories of the Longleaf Pine over six months, starting in January.
The African-American Legacy in Gardening and Horticulture Symposium March 30th:
Hayti Heritage Center
804 Old Fayetteville Street, Durham NC 27701
March 30, 2024, 10 a.m.
Free and Open to the Public
[The Revolutionary War Battle of Kings Mountain between pro and anti-British American militia forces was October 7, 1780 in South Carolina, near Kings Mountain, NC.]
Georgian Bolshevik Sergo Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze October 24, 1886 Ghoresha, now in the western central area of the Republic of Georgia – February 18, 1937 Moscow, interred in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.
The People's State of Bavaria November 8, 1918, during the German Revolution, gave way to the Bavarian Soviet or Council Republic April 6, 1919 – May 3, 1919.
November 9, 1978 and afterward UFO sightings at oil facilities in Kuwait – Phenomenon: Forty Years of Flying Saucers, edited by John Spencer and Hilary Evans, 1988.
I thought it was around May, but my notes seem to say that it was November 15, 1996 when the partly cloudy sky was full of sundogs, various arcs, and other atmospheric optical phenomena around noon in Durham. Maybe there were also contrails, but it was the most spectacular and varied display that I've seen. These ice crystal-based effects would be more likely in November than May, though they can be seen throughout the year. They are common at the beginning of the year. I might have seen a faint sundog in some icy clouds ecember 13th and I saw a halo around the Moon in late November 2023. Haloes often appear around the Moon before January snow storms, etc. In the midday or afternoon on a summer day in a recent year I saw a rainbow-like circumzenithal arc high in the sky [March 6, 2021, apparently, and there was another halo or arc January 10, 2017, both around 2:15pm] . I haven't seen a rainbow in a while, though I've looked during thunderstorms and showers with sunlight visible.
Winston Churchill, at the time the First Lord of the Admiralty, is supposed to have made the first known government statement about a UFO sighting, November 27 [21?], 1912, regarding a buzzing object seen that October in Sheerness, Kent, at the southeast corner of the UK [flares had been lit for a landing, etc.] [...] – the government knew about the object, they didn't know what it was, but don't worry about it: Beyond Explanation? The Paranormal Experiences of Famous People by Jenny Randles, 1985. [People, including a Lieutenant Raymond Fitzmaurice, had reported hearing and/or seeing an aircraft, often thought to be a German Zeppelin, starting around 6:45pm on October 14, 1912, later called the Sheerness Incident. November 21st member of Parliament Joynson-Nicks asked Churchill whether the UK had airships "equivalent in size and power...capable of travelling at the rate of sixty miles an hour," and Churchill said no. A December 6th meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence indicates that Churchill did think a Zeppelin had been over Sheerness. There were more reports December 3rd, January 4th, January 18th, etc., apparently ceasing in early March 1913. The media in Germany and later British media ridiculed and denounced the reports: UFOs and Alien Contact: Two Centuries of Mystery by sociologist Robert E Bartholomew and psychologist George S Howard, 1998.]
The French Montgolfier brothers first flew in a hot air balloon December 14, 1782 (?) and the first free flight was November 21, 1783 (year?) near the Bois de Boulongne park in Paris. There is a Portugese claim from the eary 1700's. Another Frenchman made a flight December 1, 1783 and a woman flew in Sweden in June 1784: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgolfier_brothers I think it has been suggested that people in the pre-Columbian Andes could have built hot air balloons, that they had the materials, but there isn't evidence that they actually did so.
There is uncertainty about how the Aztec and Gregorian calendars should line up; the month of of Panquetzaliztli (Raising of the Banners) might have been November 30th-December 9th: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81nquetzaliztli , December 6 - December 25, or November 9 - 28: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_calendar ; In The Aztecs (1992) Richard F Townsend gives the dates November 21 to December 10th. The following month is Atemoztli (Descent of Water).
Two pilots in an F-89 fighter are supposed to have intercepted a radar-indicated UFO over Lake Superior November 25, 1953 and the aircraft and pilots were never seen again. In a separate incident the programming of one or more ICBMs is supposed to have been tampered with, but wouldn't the US government keep this classified?
Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic / Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic March 12, 1922 – December 5, 1936
Flight 19, a training flight of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers out of Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale was lost off Florida December 5, 1945, as was a Navy flying boat searching for the other planes.
Hanukkah began in the evening on Thursday, December 7th and ends Friday, December 15th.
[The 250th anniversary of the 1773 Boston Tea Party was December 16th. There was a Philadelphia Tea Party later that month, around December 25-27th.]
Abkhazia became a treaty republic within (?) the Georgian SSR December 16, 1921 (or in March?) and an autonomous soviet socialist republic within the Georgian SSR February 19, 1931.
The Wright Flyer aircraft first flew December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk, on the northern coast of North Carolina.
[Alex Saab, held by the US government (surely legitimately) was released around December 20, 2023, just in time for his birthday December 21st: afgj.org/free-alex-saab and freealexsaab.org/ Is this really only about freeing prisoners the USA wants released and the Venezuelan presidential election deal?]
Living Coelacanths were caught first off South Africa December 22, 1938, again December 20, 1952 off Comoros, a video was recorded November 22, 2019 off South Africa, etc. – Living Fossil: the Story of the Coelacanth by Keith S Thomson, 1991 and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latimeria
"Big birds" or "un pajarissimo" (=?) were reported seen in San Benito, at the southern tip of Texas, around 5:15am on December 28, 1975, and in nearby Harlingen January 1, 1976, etc. – Weird America: A Guide to Places of Mystery in the United States, by Jim Brandon, 1978. Something to look for in coastal south Texas besides Canopus, tropical wildlife, and a glimpse of Mexico over the Rio Grande or a trip across the border.
The Rendlesham Forest Incident was December 26 and 28, 1980 in Suffolk, UK.
Wild foods, etc. author Euell Theophilus Gibbons September 8, 1911 Clarksville, Texas – December 29, 1975 Sunbury, Pennsylvania.
The Cash-Landrum UFO with helicopters sighting was December 29, 1980 near Houston (Dayton?), Texas, and was followed by radiation sickness among the witnesses and an unsuccessful attempt to sue the US government: Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us by Jim Marrs, 1997
The Communist Party of Germany was founded December 30, 1918 – January 1, 1919
The San Luis Obispo, California December 30, 1946 "batlike" UFO sighting by Ella Young [seen over Morro Bay around sunset].
Early on December 31, 1933 one of the northern Scandinavian ghost or phantom aircraft of the 30's-40's was seen at a relatively close distance, about 400 meters, over a railroad station in Sorsele, Sweden. Rockets appeared by 1939 – Phenomenon: Forty Years of Flying Saucers, edited by John Spencer and Hilary Evans, 1988. During and after WWII there were also the military reports of foo fighters and 'counterfeit' aircraft: Our Haunted Planet by John A Keel, 1971, etc. Skeptical UFOs and Alien Contact: Two Centuries of Mystery by sociologist Robert E Bartholomew and psychologist George S Howard, 1998, mentions the December 14, 1909 to January 19, 1910 New England airship "hoax" and other airship and phantom aircraft flaps in the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and Scandinavia from 1896 to 1946, at which point the 'modern' UFO era began, but there are a many similarities and in 2023 were are again looking for hostile "airships" in a period reminiscent of the lead up to WWI or WWII.
Spartacist / January uprising January 5 – 12, 1919 in Berlin during the German Revolution, which began October 29, 1918, according to Wikipedia.
A conical red UFO "with a green tail" was reportedly seen January 9, 1948 in or near Clinton, NC the county seat of Sampson County: Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us by Jim Marrs, 1997.
A small black cuba [cube], possibly radioactive, possibly having fallen from the sky, was found in an icy duck pond belonging to William McCarthy in Wakefield, New Hampshire Monday, January 10, 1977 and recovered, with secrecy, by State and/or Federal officials: Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us by Jim Marrs, 1997.
Supposed to be the first Abkhazian female pilot, and a veteran of WWII, Meri Hafizovna Avidzba was born January 24, 1917 and passed away April 12, 1986.
[Workers at the Monaghan Lunatic Asylum, now called Saint Davnet's Hospital, declared the first of several Irish soviets, January 29 – February 4, 1919: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_soviets ]
[The Bremen Soviet Republic/Bremen Council Republic in Germany was declared January 10, 1919 and was toppled February 2nd, but it had apparently begun November 14, 1918: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremen_Soviet_Republic ]
February 23, 1942 a Japanese submarine shelled a Bankline Oil Company refinery in Goleta, California, not far north of Santa Barbara, and the great and deadly phantom L.A. air raid was early on February 25th: Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us by Jim Marrs, 1997.
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