IRAN (PERSIA)

A WEEK: To an American reader, who, by the advantage of his position,can see over that strip of Atlantic coast to Asia and the Pacific, who,as it were, sees the shore slope upward over the Alps to the HimmalehMountains, the comparatively recent literature of Europe often appearspartial and clannish, and, notwithstanding the limited range of hisown sympathies and studies, the European writer who presumes that heis speaking for the world, is perceived by him to speak only for thatcorner of it which he inhabits. One of the rarest of England’s scholarsand critics, in his classification of the worthies of the world,betrays the narrowness of his European culture and the exclusivenessof his reading. None of her children has done justice to the poets andphilosophers of Persia or of India. They have even been better knownto her merchant scholars than to her poets and thinkers by profession.You may look in vain through English poetry for a single memorableverse inspired by these themes. Nor is Germany to be excepted, thoughher philological industry is indirectly serving the cause ofphilosophy and poetry. Even Goethe wanted that universality of geniuswhich could have appreciated the philosophy of India, if he had morenearly approached it. His genius was more practical, dwelling much morein the regions of the understanding, and was less native tocontemplation than the genius of those sages.

GOETHE

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

PERSIA

INDIA

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The Maya would be making astronomical inscriptions and constructions in Central America, until circa 8,000 BCE.

A marked bone from this time (or as late as 6,500 BCE) has been found in Zaire that probably was used as a record of months and lunar phases.

Goats and sheep were domesticated in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. As wool would not be made into cloth for another 4,000 years, and as milk would not be a digestible food until after the weaning mechanism had disintegrated, this domestication was presumably for the purpose of providing a steady supply of yummy meat, plus hides. Emmer wheat and barley were cultivated in Canaan. They were yummy as well. Yummy yummy in the human tummy.

9,000 BCE

ASTRONOMY

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Assyrians recorded that before their gods created the earth, they had been drinking a wine made from sesame seeds.

A map depicting the Mesopotamian city of Lagash was carved into a stone tablet held in the lap of a Sumerian god.

Donkey-mounted couriers begin carrying written messages about Iraq and Iran. Originally, these imperial messengers, called angaros in Persian and angelos, or angels, in Greek, had no scheduled routes or relay stations. Instead they would count on getting replacement mounts from the areas through which they traveled. This procedure would sometimes led to conflict with locals. (The government paid local leaders to provide the post riders with grooms, shelter, watering facilities, and substantial numbers of mounts. Since nothing happens perfectly, sometimes the post riders were reduced to taking what they needed.) A modified system in which the kings kept their own postal herds worked better, and by the 13th Century the Mongols would have relay stations linking every major town between the Yellow and Black Seas.

Eastern Mediterranean smiths began beating meteoric iron into sacred knives and medallions. Meteoric iron has continued to be made into aristocratic weapons into historic times, Indonesian krisses being the most famous examples. As about 2,000 meteorites fall on earth during the typical year, meteoric iron is found throughout the world. While the Ka’bah in Mecca is probably the world’s most famous iron meteorite, the largest would be found near Grootfontein, Namibia, in 1920 — a 60-65 ton block of iron shale measuring about 9 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 3-1/4 feet thick.

Friezes on the walls of a tomb in Saqqara, Egypt show youths wrestling. Other friezes on the same tombs also show boys in light tunics boxing with bare fists and fencing with papyrus stalks (perhaps in the context of playing soldier).

ESSENCE IS BLUR. SPECIFICITY, THE OPPOSITE OF ESSENCE,

IS OF THE NATURE OF TRUTH.

2,300 BCE

PLANTS

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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Before this point in time, peach, which was known as “the prune of Persia” (Prunus persica) and apricot, which was known as “the prune of Armenia” (Prunus armeniaca) had been mentioned in Chinese literature. It is supposed that Prunus armeniaca was transported to Greece by Alexander the Great. We have evidence that the Greeks would be consuming this “prune of Persia” by 332 BCE. Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) would note the persica fruit in Rome circa 50 BCE, and by 1571 the Spanish would have introduced 3 types of it into Mexico.

Soon alfalfa would be domesticated in Iran.

2,000 BCE

PLANTS

PLANTS

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The Persian prophet Zarathushtra Spitama founded the 1st huge religion (cf. “Huge Religion”): Zoroastrianism. According to its sacred book, the Zend Avesta, he was born in Azerbaijan (northern Iran) and had a vision from Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord), who appointed him to preach the truth.

630 BCE

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Zoroaster began telling his message of cosmic conflict between Ahura Mazda (God of Light) and Ahriman (principle of evil). According to the Zoroastrian prophecy, man has the power to choose between these personified forces of good and evil. The end of the world will come when the forces of light triumph, and saved souls rejoice in victory. This dualism evolved religion from polytheism (many gods) towards monotheism (one god) in the Middle East. Zoroaster’s preaching became the guiding light of Persian civilization. Once Alexander the Great conquered Persia Zoroastrianism faded in its home country, but survived in India as the basis of the Parsi religion, which is active today.

The sacred book Zend-Avesta of Zoroaster contains a description of TB, and instructions for its treatment with pine oil and rose oil.

It seems to be Zoroastrianism that, historically, originated the supremely dangerous weapon of religiosity, purity, according to which those who can think of themselves as “pure” may privilege themselves over those who can in one manner or other be seen to be “impure” — and destroy them relentlessly and ruthlessly. Again and again we deploy this useful weapon.

A WEEK: The anecdotes of modern astronomy affect me in the sameway as do those faint revelations of the Real which are vouchsafedto men from time to time, or rather from eternity to eternity.When I remember the history of that faint light in our firmament,which we call Venus, which ancient men regarded, and which mostmodern men still regard, as a bright spark attached to a hollowsphere revolving about our earth, but which we have discovered tobe another world, in itself, — how Copernicus, reasoning long andpatiently about the matter, predicted confidently concerning it,before yet the telescope had been invented, that if ever men cameto see it more clearly than they did then, they would discoverthat it had phases like our moon, and that within a century afterhis death the telescope was invented, and that predictionverified, by Galileo, — I am not without hope that we may, evenhere and now obtain some accurate information concerning thatOTHER WORLD which the instinct of mankind has so long predicted.Indeed, all that we call science, as well as all that we callpoetry, is a particle of such information, accurate as far as itgoes, though it be but to the confines of the truth. If we canreason so accurately, and with such wonderful confirmation of ourreasoning, respecting so-called material objects and eventsinfinitely removed beyond the range of our natural vision, so thatthe mind hesitates to trust its calculations even when they areconfirmed by observation, why may not our speculations penetrateas far into the immaterial starry system, of which the former isbut the outward and visible type? Surely, we are provided withsenses as well fitted to penetrate the spaces of the real, thesubstantial, the eternal, as these outward are to penetrate thematerial universe. Veias, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates, Christ,Shakespeare, Swedenborg, — these are some of our astronomers.

ASTRONOMY

NICOLAS COPERNICUS

GALILEO GALILEI

VENUS

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

ZOROASTER

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“HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE” BEING A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN TIME (JUST AS THE PERSPECTIVE IN A PAINTING IS A VIEW

FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN SPACE), TO “LOOK AT THE COURSE OF HISTORY MORE GENERALLY” WOULD BE TO SACRIFICE PERSPECTIVE ALTOGETHER. THIS IS FANTASY-LAND, YOU’RE FOOLING YOURSELF. THERE CANNOT BE ANY SUCH THINGIE, AS SUCH A PERSPECTIVE.

ZOROASTER

MILLENNIALISM

The People of A Week “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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circa 628 BCE: According to a story written in the 6th Century CE that said that “The Old Camel Man” lived 258 years before Alexander, the Persian prophet Zoroaster flourishes in Azerbaijan and Afghanistan. Still, while the dating is suspect, the religion is clearly ancient. It also featured powerful invisible gods pitted against equally powerful foes called satans (“adversaries”) and described those gods as speaking to men from burning bushes. (Natural gas fires are common throughout the Middle East and southern Russia.) Zoroastrian priests were interested in astrology and divination, and the Greek word for those priests, “Magi,” means “foreign wizards who are skilled in spells.”

628 BCE

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Cyaxares the Great declared himself King of the Medes.

Mesopotamia would, until 539 BCE, be ruled by the Chaldean Empire.

625 BCE

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At about this point Zarathushtra Spitama, born circa 630, was establishing his Persian system of dualisms now known as Zoroastrianism.

553 BCE

ZOROASTER

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Zarathushtra Spitama, born circa 630, died.

The Achaemenid Empire was founded by Cyrus the Great (“Cyrus” is pronounced koo-rosh; you can think of this Koorosh as I do, as an upscale department store in beautiful downtown Tehran).

550 BCE

ZOROASTER

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circa 590-529 BCE: The king of Persia, Cyrus the Great, founded the Achaemenid Persian empire. Cyrus, at 1st a Persian vassal-king, conquered Media and consolidated his rule over Iran. He subjugated Lydia by defeating Croesus in battle in 456 BCE. With allies among the city priesthood of Babylon, Cyrus entered that city without a fight. Once he’d conquered the Babylonian Empire, he brought Palestine into the Persian Empire, at which time Cyrus allowed the Jews to go back home from their Babylonian Captivity. Cyrus then wrested much of Central Asia to his rule. He borrowed customs from the peoples he subjugated, thereby shaping Achaemenid arts and civilization. Cyrus would be killed during an campaign against the Scythians.

590 BCE

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539 BCE: Cyrus of Persia made himself great by capturing Babylon, freeing thousands of slaves, and issuing a declaration of human rights that would later be discovered inscribed into an object referred to as the “Cyrus Cylinder.”

Until 100 BCE, the mathematical astronomy of the Neo-Babylonian, Persian and Seleucid Periods. The largest and most highly developed part of the theoretical astronomy of the Seleucid period is devoted to the computation of the new moons. The science of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian period had the following typical features:

• Systematic, dated and recorded observations of eclipses and lunar and planetary phenomena. • Calculation of periods. • Prediction of eclipses. • Division of the Zodiac into 12 signs of 30 degrees each. • Rise of horoscope astrology. • Development of mathematical astronomy.

Significant achievements of this period:

• Determination of accurate periods for the sun, the moon, and the planets. • Calculation of the motion of the sun, the moon, and the planets, of eclipse magnitudes and other

lunar and planetary phenomena. (These calculations were based upon an admirable mathematical theory.)

Certain lunar measurements were being made with regularity:

• When observing just after New Moon on the evening of first visibility of the crescent, the time between the setting of the sun and the setting of the moon on the evening of the first visibility of the crescent.

• When observing just before and after Full Moon, the time between the last setting of the moon before sunrise and sunrise, the time between the last rising of the moon before sunset and sunset, the time between sunrise and the first setting of the moon after sunrise, and the time between sunset and the first rising of the moon after sunset.

• When observing on the day of last visibility of the moon in the morning, the time between the rising of the moon and sunrise on the morning of last visibility of the moon just before New Moon.

539 BCE

ANCIENT CALCULATION

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Persia conquered Egypt.

Æschylus was born in this year (or perhaps in the following one), the son of a landowner of Eleusis in Attica.

525 BCE

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

WALDEN: Those who have not learned to read the ancient classicsin the language in which they were written must have a veryimperfect knowledge of the history of the human race; for it isremarkable that no transcript of them has ever been made into anymodern tongue, unless our civilization itself may be regarded assuch a transcript. Homer has never yet been printed in English,nor Æschylus, nor Virgil even, works as refined, as solidly done,and as beautiful almost as the morning itself; for later writers,say what we will of their genius, have rarely, if ever, equalledthe elaborate beauty and finish and the life-long and heroicliterary labors of the ancients.

HOMER

ÆSCHYLUSÆ VIRGIL

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Revolt of Egypt from Persia.

404 BCE

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June 28:Alexander was born.

During this year Philomelus of Phocis was seizing Delphi and the Sacred War was breaking out.

356 BCE

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Alexander of Macedon intruded into Asia.

334 BCE

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At Issus, Alexander defeated the army of Persia and took control of the western half of the Persian empire.

333 BCE

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At the Battle of Gaugamela (Arbela), Alexander defeated King Darius of Persia and took control of the whole Persian Empire as well as all of Greece. From this point onward Alexander would be destroying the power of Persia and establishing an empire which would temporarily stretch from Macedonia to Egypt, and to the Indus River:

331 BCE

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“Brilliant generalship in itself is a frightening thing— the very idea that the thought processes of a singlebrain of a Hannibal or a Scipio can play themselves outin the destruction of thousands of young men in anafternoon.”

— Victor Davis Hanson, CARNAGE AND CULTURE:LANDMARK BATTLES IN THE RISE OF WESTERN POWER(NY: Doubleday, 2001)

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“Alexander deserves the glory which he has enjoyed forso many centuries and among all nations, but what if hehad been beaten at Arbela, having the Euphrates, theTigris, and the deserts in his rear, without any strongplaces of refuge, nine hundred leagues fromMacedonia!”—Napoleon.

“Asia beheld with astonishment and awe theuninterrupted progress of a hero, the sweep of whoseconquests was as wide and rapid as that of her ownbarbaric kings, or the Scythian or Chaldaean hordes;but, far unlike the transient whirlwinds of Asiaticwarfare, the advance of the Macedonian leader was noless deliberate than rapid: at every step the Greekpower took root, and the language and the civilizationof Greece were planted from the shores of the Aegean tothe banks of the Indus, from the Caspian and the greatHyrcanian plain to the cataracts of the Nile; to existactually for nearly a thousand years, and in theireffects to endure for ever.”-Arnold.

A long and not uninstructive list might be made out ofillustrious men, whose characters have been vindicated duringrecent times from aspersions which for centuries had been thrownon them. The spirit of modern inquiry, and the tendency of modernscholarship, both of which are often said to be solely negativeand destructive, have, in truth, restored to splendor, andalmost created anew, far more than they have assailed withcensure, or dismissed from consideration as unreal. The truthof many a brilliant narrative of brilliant exploits has of lateyears been triumphantly demonstrated; and the shallowness of theskeptical scoffs with which little minds have carped at thegreat minds of antiquity, has been in many instances decisivelyexposed. The laws, the politics, and the lines of action adoptedor recommended by eminent men and powerful nations have beenexamined with keener investigation, and considered with morecomprehensive judgment, than formerly were brought to bear onthese subjects. The result has been at least as often favorableas unfavorable to the persons and the states so scrutinized; andmany an oft-repeated slander against both measures and men hasthus been silenced, we may hope for ever.The veracity of Herodotus, the pure patriotism of Pericles, ofDemosthenes, and of the Gracchi, the wisdom of Cleisthenes andof Licinius as constitutional reformers, may be mentioned asfacts which recent writers have cleared from unjust suspicionand censure. And it might be easily shown that the defensivetendency which distinguishes the present and recent besthistorians of Germany, France, and England, has been equallymanifested in the spirit in which they have treated the heroesof thought and the heroes of action, who lived during what weterm the Middle Ages, and whom it was so long the fashion tosneer at or neglect.The name of the victor of Arbela has led to these reflections;

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for, although the rapidity and extent of Alexander’s conquestshave through all ages challenged admiration and amazement, thegrandeur of genius, which he displayed in his schemes ofcommerce, civilization, and of comprehensive union and unityamongst nations, has, until lately, been comparativelyunhonored. This long-continued depreciation was of early date.The ancient rhetoricians—a class of babblers, a school for liesand scandal, as Niebuhr justly termed them-chose, among thestock themes for their commonplaces, the character and exploitsof Alexander. They had their followers in every age; and untila very recent period, all who wished to “point a moral or adorna tale,” about unreasoning ambition, extravagant pride, and theformidable frenzies of free will when leagued with free power,have never failed to blazon forth the so-called madman ofMacedonia as one of the most glaring examples. Without doubt,many of these writers adopted with implicit credence traditionalideas, and supposed, with uninquiring philanthropy, that inblackening Alexander, they were doing humanity good service. Butalso, without doubt, many of his assailants, like those of othergreat men, have been mainly instigated by “that strongest of allantipathies, the antipathy of a second-rate mind to a first-rateone,” and by the envy which talent too often bears to genius.Arrian, who wrote his history of Alexander, when Hadrian wasemperor of the Roman world, and when the spirit of declamationand dogmatism was at its full height, but who was himself, unlikethe dreaming pedants of the schools, a statesman and a soldierof practical and proved ability, well rebuked the malevolentaspersions which he heard continually thrown upon the memory ofthe great conqueror of the East. He truly says, “Let the man whospeaks evil of Alexander not merely bring forward those passagesof Alexander’s life which were really evil, but let him collectand review all the actions of’ Alexander, and then let himthoroughly consider first who and what manner of man he himselfis, and what has been his own career; and then let him considerwho and what manner of man Alexander was, and to what an eminenceof human grandeur he arrived. Let him consider that Alexanderwas a king, and the undisputed lord of the two continents; andthat his name is renowned throughout the whole earth. Let theevil-speaker against Alexander bear all this in mind, and thenlet him reflect on his own insignificance, the pettiness of hisown circumstances and affairs, and the blunders that he makesabout these, paltry and trifling as they are. Let him then askhimself whether he is a fit person to censure and revile such aman as Alexander. I believe that there was in his time no nationof men, no city, nay, no single individual, with whomAlexander’s name had not become a familiar word. I thereforehold that such a man, who was like no ordinary mortal, was notborn into the world without some special providence.”’And one of the most distinguished soldiers and writers of ourown nation, Sir Walter Raleigh, though he failed to estimatejustly the full merits of Alexander, has expressed his sense ofthe grandeur of the part played in the world by “The GreatEmathian Conqueror” in language that well deserves quotation:—

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“So much hath the spirit of some one man excelled as it hathundertaken and effected the alteration of the greatest statesand commonweals, the erection of monarchies, the conquest ofkingdoms and empires, guided handfuls of men against multitudesof equal bodily strength, contrived victories beyond all hopeand discourse of reason, converted the fearful passions of hisown followers into magnanimity, and the velour of his enemiesinto cowardice; such spirits have been stirred up in sundry agesof the world, and in divers parts thereof, to erect and castdown again, to establish and to destroy, and to bring all things,persons, and states, to the same certain ends, which theinfinite spirit of the Universal, piercing, moving, andgoverning all things, hath ordained. Certainly, the things thatthis king did were marvelous, and would hardly have beenundertaken by any one else: and though his father had determinedto have invaded the Lesser Asia, it is like that he would havecontented himself with some part thereof, and not havediscovered the river of Indus, as this man did.” (The HistoryOf the World by Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight, p: 625.)A higher authority than either Arrian or Raleigh may now bereferred to by those who wish to know the real merit of Alexanderas a general, and how far the commonplace assertions are true,that his successes were the mere results of fortunate rashnessand unreasoning pugnacity. Napoleon selected Alexander as oneof the seven greatest generals whose noble deeds history hashanded down to us, and from the study of whose campaigns theprinciples of war are to be learned. The critique of the greatestconqueror of modern times on the military career of the greatconqueror of the old world, is no less graphic than true.“Alexander crossed the Dardanelles, 334 BC, with an army ofabout forty thousand men, of which one-eighth was cavalry; heforced the passage of the Granicus in opposition to an army underMemnon, the Greek, who commanded for Darius on the coast of Asia,and he spent the whole of the year 333 in establishing his powerin Asia Minor. He was seconded by the Greek colonists, who dwelton the borders of the Black Sea, and on the Mediterranean, andin Sammy, Effuses, Tarsus, Millets, etc. The kings of Persialeft their provinces and towns to be governed according to theirown particular laws. Their empire was a union of confederatedstates, and did not form one nation; this facilitated itsconquest. As Alexander only wished for the throne of themonarch, he easily effected the change, by respecting thecustoms, manners, and laws of the people, who experienced nochange in their condition.“In the year 332, he met with Darius at the head of sixtythousand men, who had taken up a position near Tarsus, on thebanks of the Issus, in the province of Cilicia. He defeated him,entered Syria, took Damascus, which contained all the riches ofthe Great King, and laid siege to Tyre. This superb metropolisof the commerce of the world detained him nine months. He tookGaza after a siege of two months; crossed the Desert in sevendays; entered Pelusium and Memphis, and founded Alexandria. Inless than two years, after two battles and four or five sieges,

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the coasts of the Black Sea from Phasis to Byzantium, those ofthe Mediterranean as far as Alexandria, all Asia Minor, Syriaand Egypt, had submitted to his arms.“In 331, he repassed the Desert, encamped Tyre, recrossed Syria,entered Damascus, passed the Euphrates and Tigris, and defeatedDarius on the field of Arbela, when he was at the head of a stillstronger army than that which he commanded on the Issus, andBabylon opened her gates to him. In 330, he overran Susa, andtook that city, Persepolis, and Pasargada, which contained thetomb of Cyrus. In 329, he directed his course northward, enteredEcbatana, and extended his conquests to the coasts of theCaspian, punished Bessus, the cowardly assassin of Darius,penetrated into Scythia, and subdued the Scythians. In 328, heforced the passage of the Oxus, received sixteen thousandrecruits from Macedonia, and reduced the neighboring people tosubjection. In 327, he crossed the Indus, vanquished Porus in apitched battle, took him prisoner, and treated him as a king.He contemplated passing the Ganges, but his army refused. Hesailed down the Indus, in the year 326, with eight hundredvessels; having arrived at the ocean, he sent Nearchus with afleet to run along the coasts of the Indian Ocean and the PersianGulf, as far as the mouth of the Euphrates. In 325, he took sixtydays in crossing from Gedrosia, entered Keramania, returned toPasargada, Persepolis, and Susa, and married Statira, thedaughter of Darius. In 524, he marched once more to the north,passed Ecbatana, and terminated his career at Babylon.” (SeeCount Montholon’s Memoirs of Napoleon.)

The enduring importance of Alexander’s conquests is to beestimated not by the duration of his own life and empire, oreven by the duration of the kingdoms which his generals afterhis death formed out of the fragments of that mighty dominion.In every region of the world that he traversed, Alexanderplanted Greek settlements, and founded cities, in thepopulations of which the Greek element at once asserted itspredominance. Among his successors, the Seleucidae and thePtolemies imitated their great captain in blending schemes ofcivilization, of commercial intercourse, and of literary andscientific research with all their enterprises of militaryaggrandizement, and with all their systems of civiladministration. Such was the ascendancy of the Greek genius, sowonderfully comprehensive and assimilating was the cultivationwhich it introduced, that, within thirty years after Alexandercrossed the Hellespont, the language, the literature, and thearts of Hellas, enforced and promoted by the arms of semi-Hellenic Macedon, predominated in every country from the shoresof that sea, to the Indian waters. Even sullen Egyptacknowledged the intellectual supremacy of Greece; and thelanguage of Pericles and Plato became the language of thestatesmen and the sages who dwelt in the mysterious land of thepyramids and the Sphinx. It is not to be supposed that thisvictory of the Greek tongue was so complete as to exterminatethe Coptic, the Syrian, the Armenian, the Persian, or the othernative languages of the numerous nations and tribes between the

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Aegean, the Iaxertes, the Indus, and the Nile; they survived asprovincial dialects. Each probably was in use as the vulgartongue of its own district. But every person with the slightestpretense to education spoke Greek. Greek was universally theState language, and the exclusive language of all literature andscience. It formed also for the merchant, the trader, and thetraveler, as well as for the courtier, the government official,and the soldier, the organ of intercommunication among themyriad’s of mankind inhabiting these large portions of the OldWorld. Throughout Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, the Helleniccharacter that was thus imparted, remained in full vigor downto the time of the Mahometan conquests. The infinite value ofthis to humanity in the highest and holiest point of view, hasoften been pointed out; and the workings of the finger ofProvidence have been gratefully recognized by those who haveobserved how the early growth and progress of Christianity, wereaided by that diffusion of the Greek language and civilizationthroughout Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, which had been causedby the Macedonian conquest of the East.In Upper Asia, beyond the Euphrates, the direct and materialinfluence of Greek ascendancy was more short-lived. Yet, duringthe existence of the Hellenic kingdoms in these regions,especially of the Greek kingdom of Bactria, the modern Bokhara,very important effects were produced on the intellectualtendencies and tastes of the inhabitants of those countries andof the adjacent ones, by the animating contact of the Grecianspirit. Much of Hindoo science and philosophy, much of theliterature of the later Persian kingdom of the Arsacidae, eitheroriginated from, or was largely modified by, Grecian influences.So, also, the learning and science of the Arabians were in a farless degree the result of original invention and genius, thanthe reproduction, in an altered form, of the Greek philosophyand the Greek lore, acquired by the Saracenic conquerorstogether with their acquisition of the provinces which Alexanderhad subjugated nearly a thousand years before the armeddisciples of Mahomet commenced their career in the East. It iswell known that Western Europe in the Middle Ages drew itsphilosophy, its arts, and its science, principally from Arabianteachers. And thus we see how the intellectual influence ofancient Greece, poured on the Eastern world by Alexander’svictories, and then brought back to bear on Medieval Europe bythe spread of the Saracenic powers, has exerted its action onthe elements of modern civilization by this powerful, thoughindirect channel, as well as by the more obvious effects of theremnants of classic civilization which survived in Italy, Gaul,Britain, and Spain, after the irruption of the Germanicnations.’These considerations invest the Macedonian triumphs m the Eastwith never-dying interest, such as the most showy and sanguinarysuccesses of mere “low ambition and the pride of kings,” howeverthey may dazzle for a moment, can never retain with posterity.Whether the old Persian empire, which Cyrus founded, could havesurvived much longer than it did, even if Darius had been

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victorious at Arbela, may safely be disputed. That ancientdominion, like the Turkish at the present time, labored underevery cause of decay and dissolution. The satraps, like themodern pashas, continually rebelled against the central power,and Egypt in particular, was almost always in a state ofinsurrection against its nominal sovereign. There was no longerany effective central control, or any internal principle ofunity fused through the huge mass of the empire, and binding ittogether. Persia was evidently about to fall; but, had it notbeen for Alexander’s invasion of Asia, she would most probablyhave fallen beneath some other oriental power, as Media andBabylon had formerly fallen before herself, and as, in aftertimes, the Parthian supremacy gave way to the revived ascendancyof Persia in the East, under the scepters of the Arsacidae. Arevolution that merely substituted one Eastern power for anotherwould have been utterly barren and unprofitable to mankind.Alexander’s victory at Arbela not only overthrew an orientaldynasty, but established European rulers in its stead. It brokethe monotony of the Eastern world by the impression of Westernenergy and superior civilization; even as England’s presentmission is to break up the mental and moral stagnation of Indiaand Cathy, by pouring upon and through them the impulsivecurrent of Anglo-Saxon commerce and conquest.Arbela, the city which has furnished its name to the decisivebattle that gave Asia to Alexander, lies more than twenty milesfrom the actual scene of conflict. The little village then namedGaugamela is close to the spot where the armies met, but hasceded the honor of naming the battle to its more euphoniousneighbor. Guatemala is situate in one of the wide plains thatlie between the Tigris and the mountains of Kurdistan. A fewundulating hillocks diversify the surface of this sandy track;but the ground is generally level, and admirably qualified forthe evolutions of cavalry, and also calculated to give thelarger of two armies the full advantage of numericalsuperiority. The Persian king (who, before he came to thethrone, had proved his personal valor as a soldier, and his skillas a general), had wisely selected this region for the third anddecisive encounter between his forces and the invaders. Theprevious defeats of his troops, however severe they had been,were not looked on as irreparable. The Granicus had been foughtby his generals rashly and without mutual concert. And, thoughDarius himself had commanded and been beaten at Issus, thatdefeat might be attributed to the disadvantageous nature of theground; where, cooped up between the mountains, the river, andthe sea, the numbers of the Persians confused and clogged alikethe general’s skill and the soldiers’ prowess, so that theirvery strength became their weakness. Here, on the broad plainsKurdistan, there was scope for Asia’s largest host to array itslines, to wheel, to skirmish, to condense or expand itssquadrons, to maneuver and to charge at will. Should Alexanderand his scanty band dare to plunge into that living sea of war,their destruction seemed inevitable.Darius felt, however, the critical nature to himself as well as

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to his adversary of the coming encounter. He could not hope toreceive the consequences of a third overthrow. The great citiesof Mesopotamia and Upper Asia, the central provinces of thePersian empire, were certain to be at the mercy of the victor.Darius knew also the Asiatic character well enough to be awarehow it yields to the prestige of success, and the apparent careerof destiny. He felt that the diadem was now either to be firmlyreplaced on his own brow; or to be irrevocably transferred tothe head of his European conqueror. He, therefore, during thelong interval left him after the battle of Issus, whileAlexander was subjugating Syria and Egypt, assiduously busiedhimself in selecting the best troops which his vast empiresupplied, and in training his varied forces to act together withsome uniformity of discipline and system.The hardy mountaineers of Afghanistan, Bokhara, Khiva, andTibet, were then, as at present, far different from thegenerality of Asiatics in warlike spirit and endurance. Fromthese districts Darius collected large bodies of admirableinfantry; and the countries of the modern Kurds and Turkomanssupplied, as they do now, squadrons of horsemen, strong,skillful, bold, and trained to a life of constant activity andwarfare. It is not uninteresting to notice that the ancestorsof our own late enemies, the Sikhs, served as allies of Dariusagainst the Macedonians. They are spoken of in Arrian as Indianswho dwelt near Bactria. They were attached to the troops of thatsatrapy, and their cavalry was one of the most formidable forcesin the whole Persian army.Besides these picked troops, contingents also came in from thenumerous other provinces that yet obeyed the Great King.Altogether, the horse are said to have been forty thousand, thescythe-bearing chariots two hundred, and the armed elephantsfifteen in number.The amount of the infantry is uncertain; but the knowledge whichboth ancient and modern times supply of the usual character oforiental armies, and of their populations of camp-followers, maywarrant us in believing that many myriad’s were prepared tofight, or to encumber those who fought for the last Darius.The position of the Persian king near Mesopotamia was chosenwith great military skill. It was certain that Alexander on hisreturn from Egypt must march northward along the Syrian coast,before he attacked the central provinces of the Persian empire.A direct eastward march from the lower part of Palestine acrossthe great Syrian Desert was then, as now, utterly impracticable.Marching eastward from Syria, Alexander would, on crossing the

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Euphrates, arrive at the vast Mesopotamian plains.

The wealthy capitals of the empire, Babylon, Susa, andPersepolis, would then lie to his south; and if he marched downthrough Mesopotamia to attack them, Darius might reasonably hopeto follow the Macedonians with his immense force of cavalry, andwithout even risking a pitched battle, to harass and finallyoverwhelm them. We may remember that three centuries afterwardsa Roman army under Crassus was thus actually destroyed by theOriental archers and horsemen in these very plains; and that theancestors of the Parthians who thus vanquished the Romanlegions, served by thousands under King Darius. If, on the

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contrary, Alexander should defer his march against Babylon, andfirst seek an encounter with the Persian army the country oneach side of the Tigris in this latitude was highly advantageousfor such an army as Darius commanded; and he had close in hisrear the mountainous districts of northern Media, where hehimself had in early life been satrap, where he had acquiredreputation as a soldier and a general, and where he justlyexpected to find loyalty to his person and a safe refuge in caseof defeat.

(Milford’s remarks on the strategy of Darius in his lastcampaign are very just. After having been unduly admired as anhistorian, Milford is now unduly neglected. His partiality, andhis deficiency in scholarship have been exposed sufficiently tomake him no longer a dangerous guide as to Greek politics; whilethe clearness and brilliancy of his narrative, and the strongcommon sense of his remarks (where his party prejudices do notinterfere) must always make his volumes valuable all well asentertaining.)

His great antagonist came on across the Euphrates against him,at the head of an army which Arrian, copying from the journalsof Macedonian officers, states to have consisted of fortythousand foot, and seven thousand horse. In studying thecampaigns of Alexander, we possess the peculiar advantage ofderiving our information from two of Alexander’s generals ofdivision, who bore an important part in all his enterprises.Aristobulus and Ptolemy (who afterwards became king of Egypt)kept regular journals of the military events which theywitnessed; and these journals were in the possession of Arrian,when he drew up his history of Alexander’s expedition. The highcharacter of Arrian for integrity makes us confident that heused them fairly, and his comments on the occasionaldiscrepancies between the two Macedonian narratives prove thathe used them sensibly. He frequently quotes the very words ofhis authorities: and his history thus acquires a charm such asvery few ancient or modern military narratives possess. Theanecdotes and expressions which he records, we fairly believeto be genuine, and not to be the coinage of a rhetorician, likethose in Curtius. In fact, in reading Arrian, we read GeneralAristobulus and General Ptolemy on the campaigns of theMacedonians; and it is like reading General Jomini or GeneralFoy on the campaigns of the French.The estimate which we find in Arrian of the strength ofAlexander’s army, seems reasonable, when we take into accountboth the losses which he had sustained, and the reinforcementswhich he had received since he left Europe. Indeed, toEnglishmen, who know with what mere handfuls of men our owngenerals have, at Plassy, at Assaye, at Meeanee, and otherIndian battles, routed large hosts of Asiatics, the disparityof numbers that we read of in the victories won by theMacedonians over the Persians, presents nothing incredible. Thearmy which Alexander now led, was wholly composed of veterantroops in the highest possible state of equipment and

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discipline, enthusiastically devoted to their leader, and fullof confidence in his military genius and his victorious destiny.The celebrated Macedonian phalanx formed the main strength ofhis infantry. This force had been raised and organized by hisfather Philip, who on his accession to the Macedonian throneneeded a numerous and quickly-formed army, and who bylengthening the spear of the ordinary Greek phalanx;, andincreasing the depth of the files, brought the tactic of armedmasses to the greatest efficiency of which it was capable withsuch materials as he possessed. He formed his men sixteen deep,and. placed in their grasp the sarissa, as the Macedonian pikewas called, which was four-and-twenty feet in length, and whencouched for action, reached eighteen feet in front of thesoldier: so that, as a space of about two feet was allowedbetween the ranks, the spears of the five files behind himprojected in advance of each front rank man. The phalangitesoldier was fully equipped in the defensive armor of the regularGreek infantry. And thus the phalanx presented a ponderous andbristling mess, which, as long as its order was kept compact,was sure to bear down all opposition. The defects of such anorganization are obvious, and were proved in after years, whenthe Macedonians were opposed to the Roman legions. But it isclear that, under Alexander, the phalanx was not the cumbrousunwieldy body which it was at Cynoscephalae and Pydna. His menwere veterans; and he could obtain from them an accuracy ofmovement and steadiness of evolution, such as probably therecruits of his father would only have floundered in attempting,and such as certainly were impracticable in the phalanx whenhandled by his successors: especially as under them it ceasedto be a standing force, and became only a militia. UnderAlexander the phalanx consisted of an aggregate of eighteenthousand men, who were divided into six brigades of threethousand each. These were again subdivided into regiments andcompanies; and the men were carefully trained to wheel, to faceabout, to take more ground, or to close up, as the emergenciesof the battle required. Alexander also arrayed, in the intervalsof the regiments of his phalangites, troops armed in a differentmanner which could prevent their line from being pierced, andtheir companies taken in flank, when the nature of the groundprevented a close formation; and which could be withdrawn, whena favorable opportunity arrived for closing up the phalanx orany of its brigades for a charge, or when it was necessary toprepare to receive cavalry.Besides the phalanx, Alexander had a considerable force ofinfantry who were called shield-bearers: they were not soheavily armed as the phalangites, or as was the case with theGreek regular infantry in general; but they were equipped forclose fight, as well as for skirmishing, and were far superiorto the ordinary irregular troops of Greek warfare. They wereabout six thousand strong. Besides these, he had several bodiesof Greek regular infantry: and he had archers, slingers, andjavelin-men, who fought also with broadsword and target. Thesewere principally supplied to him by the highlanders of Illyria

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and Thracia. The main strength of his cavalry consisted in twochosen corps of cuirassiers, one Macedonian, and one Thessalian,each of which was about fifteen hundred strong: They wereprovided with long lances and heavy swords, and horse as wellas man was fully equipped with defensive armor. Other regimentsof regular cavalry were less heavily armed, and there wereseveral bodies of light horsemen, whom Alexander’s conquests inEgypt and Syria had enabled him to mount superbly.A little before the end of August, Alexander crossed theEuphrates at Thapsacus, a small corps of Persian cavalry underMazaeus retiring before him. Alexander was too prudent to marchdown through the Mesopotamian deserts, and continued to advanceeastward with the intention of passing the Tigris, and then, ifhe was unable to find Darius and bring him to action, of marchingsouthward on the left side of that river along the skirts of amountainous district, where his men would suffer less from heatand thirst, and where provisions would be more abundant.Darius, finding that his adversary was not to be enticed intothe march through Mesopotamia against his capital, determinedto remain on the battle-ground, which he had chosen on the leftof the Tigris; where, if his enemy met a defeat or a check, thedestruction of the invaders would be certain with two suchrivers as the Euphrates and the Tigris in their rear. The Persianking availed himself to the utmost of every advantage in hispower. He caused a large space of ground to be carefully leveledfor the operation of his scythe-armed chariots; and he depositedhis military stores in the strong town of Arbela, about twentymiles in his rear. The rhetoricians of after ages have loved todescribe Darius Codomannus as a second Xerxes in ostentation andimbecility; but a fair examination of his generalship in thishis last campaign, shows that he was worthy of bearing the samename as his great predecessor, the royal son of Hystaspes.On learning that Darius was with a large army on the left of theTigris Alexander hurried forward and crossed that river withoutopposition. He was at first unable to procure any certainintelligence of the precise position of the enemy, and aftergiving his army a short interval of rest, he marched for fourdays down the left bank of the river. A moralist may pause uponthe fact, that Alexander must in this march have passed withina few miles of the remains of Nineveh, the great city of theprimeval conquerors of the human race. Neither the Macedonianking nor any of his followers knew what those vast mounds hadonce been. They had already become nameless masses of grass-grown ruins; and it is only within the last few years that theintellectual energy of one of our own countrymen has rescuedNineveh from its long centuries of oblivion.On the fourth day of Alexander’s southward march, his advancedguard reported that a body of the enemy’s cavalry was in sight.He instantly formed his army in order for battle, and directingthem to advance steadily, he rode forward at the head of somesquadrons of cavalry, and charged the Persian horse whom hefound before him. This was a mere reconnoitering party, and theybroke and fled immediately; but the Macedonians made some

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prisoners, and from them Alexander found that Darius was postedonly a few miles off, and learned the strength of the army thathe had with him. On receiving this news, Alexander halted, andgave his men repose for four days, so that they should go intoaction fresh and vigorous. He also fortified his camp, anddeposited in it all his military stores, and all his sick anddisabled soldiers; intending to advance upon the enemy with theserviceable part of his army perfectly unencumbered. After thishalt, he moved forward. while it was yet dark, with the intentionof reaching the enemy, and attacking them at break of day. Abouthalf-way between the camps there were some undulations of theground, which concealed the two armies from each other’s view.But, on Alexander arriving at their summit, he saw by the earlylight, the Persian host arrayed before him; and he probably alsoobserved traces of some engineering operation having beencarried on along part of the ground in front of them. Not knowingthat these marks had been caused by the Persians having leveledthe ground for the free use of their war-chariots, Alexandersuspected that hidden pitfalls had been prepared with a view ofdisordering the approach of his cavalry. He summoned a councilof war forthwith. Some of the officers were for attackinginstantly at all hazards, but the more prudent opinion ofParmenio prevailed, and it was determined not to advance farthertill the battle-ground had been carefully surveyed.Alexander halted his army on the heights; and taking with himsome light-armed infantry and some cavalry, he passed part ofthe day in reconnoitering the enemy, and observing the natureof the ground which he had to fight on. Darius wisely refrainedfrom moving from his position to attack the Macedonians on theeminences which they occupied, and the two armies remained untilnight without molesting each other.On Alexander’s return to his head-quarters, he summoned hisgenerals and superior officers together and telling them thathe well knew that their zeal wanted no exhortation, he besoughtthem to do their utmost in encouraging and instructing thosewhom each commanded, to do their best in the next day’s battle.They were to remind them that they were now not going to fightfor a province, as they had hitherto fought, hut they were aboutto decide by their swords the dominion of all Asia. Each officerought to impress this upon his subalterns, and they should urgeit on their men. Their natural courage required no long wordsto excite its ardor: but they should be reminded of the paramountimportance of steadiness in action. The silence in the ranksmust be unbroken as long as silence was proper; but when thetime came for the charge, the shout and the cheer must be fullof terror for the foe. The officers were to be alert in receivingand communicating orders; and every one was to act, as if hefelt that the whole result of the battle depended on his ownsingle good conduct.Having thus briefly instructed his generals, Alexander orderedthat the army should sup and take their rest for the night.Darkness had closed over the tents of the Macedonians, whenAlexander’s veteran general, Parmenio, came to him, and proposed

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that they should make a night attack on the Persians. The Kingis said to have answered, that he scorned to filch a victory,and that Alexander must conquer openly and fairly, Arrian justlyremarks that Alexander’s resolution was as wise as it wasspirited. Besides the confusion and uncertainty which areinseparable from night engagements, the value of Alexander’svictory would have been impaired, it gained under circumstanceswhich might supply the enemy with any excuse for his defeat, andencourage him to renew the contest. It was necessary forAlexander not only to beat Darius, but to gain such a victoryas should leave his rival without apology for defeat, andwithout hope of recovery.The Persians, in fact, expected, and were prepared to meet anight attack. Such was the apprehension that Darius entertainedof it, that he formed his troops at evening in order of battle,and kept them under arms all night. The effect of this was, thatthe morning found them jaded and dispirited, while it broughttheir adversaries all fresh and vigorous against them.The written order of battle, which Darius himself caused to bedrawn up, fell into the hands of the Macedonians after theengagement, and Aristobulus copied it into his journal. We thuspossess, through Arrian, unusually authentic information as tothe composition and arrangement of the Persian army. On theextreme left were the Bactrian, Daan, and Arachosian cavalry.Next to these Darius placed the troops from Persia proper, bothhorse and foot. Then came the Susians, and next to these theCadusians. These forces made up the left wing. Darius’s ownstation was in the center. This was composed of the Indians, theCarians the Mardian archers, and the division of Persians whowere distinguished by the golden apples that formed knobs oftheir spears. Here also were stationed the body-guard of thePersian nobility. Besides these, there were in the center,formed in deep order, the Uxian and Babylonian troops, and thesoldiers from the Red Sea. The brigade of Greek mercenaries,whom Darius had in his service, and who were alone consideredfit to stand in the charge of the Macedonian phalanx, was drawnup on either side of the royal chariot. The right wing wascomposed of the Coelosyrians, and Mesopotamians, the Medes, theParthians, the Sacians, the Tapurians, Hyrcanians, Albanians,and Sacesinae. In advance of the line on the left wing wereplaced the Scythian cavalry, with a thousand of the Bactrianhorse, and a hundred scythe-armed chariots. The elephants andfifty scythe-armed chariots were ranged in front of the center;and fifty more chariots, with the Armenian and Cappadociancavalry, were drawn up in advance of the right wing.Thus arrayed, the great host of King Darius passed the night,that to many thousands of them was the last of their existence.The morning of the first of October, (The battle was foughteleven days after an eclipse of the moon, which gives the meansof fixing the precise date.) two thousand one hundred andeighty-two years ago, dawned slowly to their wearied watching,and they could hear the note of the Macedonian trumpet soundingto arms, and could see King Alexander’s forces descend from

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their tents on the heights, and form in order of battle on theplain.There was deep need of skill, as well as of valor, on Alexander’sside; and few battle-fields have witnessed more consummategeneralship than was now displayed by the Macedonian king. Therewere no natural barriers by which he could protect his flanks;and not only was he certain to be overlapped on either wing bythe vast lines of the Persian army, but there was imminent riskof their circling round him and charging him in the rear, whilehe advanced against their center. He formed, therefore, a secondor reserve line, which was to wheel round, if required, or todetach troops to either flank, as the enemy’s movements mightnecessitate: and thus, with their whole army ready at any momentto be thrown into one vast hollow square, the Macedoniansadvanced in two lines against the enemy, Alexander himselfleading on the right wing, and the renowned phalanx forming thecenter, while Parmenio commanded on the left.Such was the general nature of the disposition which, Alexandermade of his army. But we have in Arrian the details of theposition of each brigade and regiment; and as we know that thesedetails were taken from the journals of Macedonian generals, itis interesting to examine them, and to read the names andstations of King Alexander’s generals and colonels in this thegreatest of his battles.The eight troops of the royal horse-guards formed the right ofAlexander’s line. Their captains were Cleitus (whose regimentwas on the extreme right, the post of peculiar danger),Glaucias, Ariston, Sopolis, Heracleides, Demetrias, Meleager,and Hegelochus. Philotas was general of the whole division. Thencame the: shield-bearing infantry: Nicanor was their general.Then came the phalanx in six brigades. Coenus’s brigade was onthe right, and nearest to the shieldbearers; next to this stoodthe brigade of Perdiccas, then Meleager’s, then Polysperchon’s;and then the brigade of Amynias, but which was now commanded bySimmias, as Amynias had been sent to Macedonia to levy recruits.Then came the infantry of the left wing, under the command ofCraterus. Next to Craterus’s infantry were placed the cavalryregiments of the allies, with Eriguius for their general. TheThessalian cavalry, commanded by Philippus, were next, and heldthe extreme left of the whole army. The whole left wing wasentrusted to the command of Parmenio, who had round his personthe Pharsalian troop of cavalry, which was the strongest andbest amid all the Thessalian horse regiments.The center of the second line was occupied by a body ofphalangite infantry, formed of companies, which were drafted forthis purpose from each of the brigades of their phalanx. Theofficers in command of this corps were ordered to be ready toface about, if the enemy should succeed in gaining the rear ofthe army. On the right of this reserve of infantry, in the secondline, and behind the royal horse-guards, Alexander placed halfthe Agrian light-armed infantry under Attalus, and with themBrison’s body of Macedonian archers, and Cleander’s regiment offoot. He also placed in this part of his army Menidas’s squadron

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of cavalry, and Aretes’s and Ariston’s light horse. Menidas wasordered to watch if the enemy’s cavalry tried to turn the flank,and, if they did so, to charge them before they wheeledcompletely round, and so take them in flank themselves. Asimilar force was arranged on the left of the second line forthe same purpose. The Thracian infantry of Sitalces was placedthere, and Coeranus’s regiment of the cavalry of the Greekallies, and Agathon’s troops of the Odrysian irregular horse.The extreme left of the second line in this quarter was held byAndromachus’s cavalry. A division of Thracian infantry was leftin guard of the camp. In advance of the right wing and centerwas scattered a number of light-armed troops, of javelin-men andbow-men, with the intention of warding off the charge of thearmed chariots. (Kleber’s arrangement of his troops at thebattle of Heliopolis, where, with ten thousand Europeans, he hadto encounter eighty thousand Asiatics in an open plain, is worthcomparing with Alexander’s tactics at Arbela.)Conspicuous by the brilliancy of his armor, and by the chosenband of officers who were round his person, Alexander took hisown station, as his custom was, in the right wing, at the headof his cavalry: and when all better armed than the horsemen underMenidas and Ariston; and the loss at first was heaviest on theMacedonian side. But still the European cavalry stood the chargeof the Asiatics, and at last, by their superior discipline, andby acting in squadrons that supported each other, instead offighting in a confused mass like the barbarians, (The bestexplanation of this may be found in Napoleon’s account of thecavalry fights between the French and the Mamelukes.-”TwoMamelukes were able to make head against three Frenchmen,because they were better armed. better mounted, and bettertrained; they had two pair of pistols, a blunderbuss, a carbine,helmet with a visor. and a coat of mail, they had several:horses, and several attendants on foot. One hundred cuirassiers,however, were not afraid of one hundred Mamelukes; three hundredcould beat an equal number, and one thousand could easily putto the rout fifteen hundred, so great is the influence oftactics, order, and evolution’s! Leclerc and Lasalle presentedtheir men to the Mamelukes in several lines. When the Arabs wereon the point of overwhelming the first, the second came to itsassistance on the right and left; the Mamelukes then halted andwheeled, in order to turn the wings of this new line; this momentwas always seized upon to charge them, and they were uniformlybroken.” Montholon’s History of Captivity of Napoleon. VolumeIV. P. 70.) the Macedonians broke their adversaries, and drovethem off the field.Darius now directed the scythe-armed chariots to be drivenagainst Alexander’s horse guards and the phalanx; and theseformidable vehicles were accordingly sent rattling across theplain, against the Macedonian line. When we remember the alarmwhich the war-chariots of the Britons created among Caesar’slegions, we shall not be prone to deride this arm of ancientwarfare as always useless. The object of the chariots was tocreate unsteadiness in the ranks against which they were driven,

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and squadrons of cavalry followed close upon them, to profit bysuch disorder. But the Asiatic chariots were renderedineffective at Arbela by the light armed troops whom Alexanderhad specially appointed for the service, and who, wounding thehorses and drivers with their missile weapons, and runningalongside so as to cut the traces or seize the reins, marred theintended charge; and the few chariots that reached the phalanx,passed harmlessly through the intervals which the spearmenopened for them, and were easily captured in the rear.A mass of the Asiatic cavalry was now, for the second time,collected against Alexander’s extreme right, and moved round it,with the view of gaining the flank of his army. At the criticalmoment, Aretes, with his horsemen from Alexander’s second line,dashed on the Persian squadrons when their own flanks wereexposed by this evolution. While Alexander thus met and baffledall the flanking attacks of the enemy with troops brought upfrom his second line, he kept his own horse guards and the restof the front line of his wing fresh, and ready to take advantageof the first opportunity for striking a decisive blow. This sooncame. A large body of horse, who were posted on the Persian leftvying nearest to the center, quitted their station, and rode offto help their comrades in the cavalry fight, that still was goingon at the extreme right of Alexander’s wing against thedetachments from his second line. This made a huge gap in thePersian array, and into this space Alexander instantly dashedwith his guard; and then pressing towards his left, he soon beganto make havoc in the left flank of the Persian center. Theshield-bearing infantry now charged also among the reelingmasses of the Asiatics; and five of the brigades of the phalanx,with the irresistible might of their sarissas, bore down theGreek mercenaries of Darius, and dug their way through thePersian center. In the early part of the battle, Darius hadshowed skill and energy; and he now for some time encouraged hismen, by voice and example, to keep firm. But the lances ofAlexander’s cavalry, and the pikes of the phalanx now gleamednearer and nearer to him. His charioteer was struck down by ajavelin at his side; and at last Darius’s nerve failed him; and,descending from his chariot, he mounted on a fleet horse: andgalloped from the plain, regardless of the state of the battlein other parts of the field, where matters were going on muchmore favorably for his cause, and where his presence might havedone much towards gaining a victory.Alexander’s operations with his right and centre had exposed hisleft to an immensely preponderating force of the enemy. Parmeniokept out of action as long as possible; but Mazaeus, whocommanded the Persian right wing, advanced against him,completely outflank him, and pressed him severely withreiterated charges by superior numbers. Seeing the distress ofParmenio’s wing, Simmias, who commanded the sixth brigade of thephalanx, which was next to the left wing, did not advance withthe other brigades in the great charge upon the Persian center,but kept back to cover Parmenio’s troops on their right flank;as otherwise they would have been completely surrounded and cut

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off from the rest of the Macedonian army. By so, doing, Silllmiashad unavoidably opened a gap in the Macedonian left center; anda large column of Indian and Persian horse, from the Persianright center, had galloped forward through this interval, andright through the troops of the Macedonian second line. Insteadof then wheeling round upon Parmenio, or upon the rear ofAlexander’s conquering wing, the Indian and Persian cavalry rodestraight on to the Macedonian camp, overpowered the Thracianswho were left in charge of it, and began to plunder. This wasstopped by the phalangite troops of the second line, who, afterthe enemy’s horsemen had rushed by them, faced about, countermarched upon the camp, killed many of the Indians and Persiansin the act of plundering, and forced the rest to ride off again.Just at this crisis, Alexander had been recalled from hispursuit of Darius, by tidings of the distress of Parmenio, andof his inability to bear up any longer against the hot attacksof Mazaeus. Taking his horse guards with him, Alexander rodetowards the part of the field where his left wing was fighting;but on his way thither he encountered the Persian and Indiancavalry, on their return from his camp.These men now saw that their only chance of safety was to cuttheir way through; and in one huge column they chargeddesperately upon the Macedonians. There was here a close hand-to-hand fight, which lasted some time, and sixty of the royalhorse guards fell, and three generals, who fought close toAlexander’s side, were wounded. At length the Macedoniandiscipline and velour again prevailed, and a large number of thePersian and Indian horsemen were cut down, some few onlysucceeded in breaking through and riding away. Relieved of theseobstinate enemies, Alexander again formed his horse guards, andled them towards Parmenio; but by this time that general alsowas victorious. Probably the news of Darius’s flight had reachedMazaeus, and had damped the ardor of the Persian right wing;while the tidings of their comrades’ success must haveproportionally encouraged the Macedonian forces under Parmenio.His Thessalian cavalry particularly distinguished themselves bytheir gallantry and persevering good conduct: and by the timethat Alexander had ridden up to Parmenio, the whole Persian armywas in full flight from the field.It was of the deepest importance to Alexander to secure theperson of Darius, and he now urged on the pursuit. The riverLycus was between the field of battle and the city of Arbela,whither the fugitives directed their course, and the passage ofthis river was even more destructive to the Persians than theswords and spears of the Macedonians had been in the engagement.(I purposely omit any statement of the loss in the battle. Thereis a palpable error of the transcribers in the numbers which wefind in our present manuscripts of Arrian; and Curtius is of noauthority.) The narrow bridge was soon choked up by the flying thousands whorushed towards it, and vast numbers of the Persians threwthemselves, or were hurried by others, into the rapid stream,and perished in its waters. Darius had crossed it, and had ridden

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on through Arbela without halting. Alexander reached that cityon the next day, and made himself master of all Darius’s treasureand stores; but the Persian king, unfortunately for himself, hadfled too fast for his conqueror: he, had only escaped to perishby the treachery of his Bactrian satrap, Bessus.A few days after the battle, Alexander entered Babylon, “theoldest seat of earthly empire” then in existence, as itsacknowledged lord and master. There were yet some campaigns ofhis brief and bright career to be accomplished. Central Asia wasyet to witness the march of his phalanx. He was yet to effectthat conquest of Afghanistan in which England since has failed.His generalship, as well as his valor, were yet to be signalizedon the banks of the Hydaspes, and the field of Chillianwallah;and he was yet to precede the Queen of England in annexing thePunjab to the dominions of an European sovereign. But the crisisof his career was reached; the great object of his mission wasaccomplished; and the ancient Persian empire, which once menacedall the nations of the earth with subjection, was irreparablycrushed, when Alexander had won his crowning victory at Arbela.

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After circumnavigating Great Britain, Pytheus of Massalia (Marseilles) discovered his “Ultima Thule” (modern Iceland or possibly Norway). His two original texts having been lost to antiquity, so we know of his explorations only through enthusiastic criticism by Strabo and Polybius. He would be ridiculed for claiming to have seen a “midnight sun.”

Nine centuries later, translations of these reports would inspire Irish monks to sail toward the Fairy Islands, or Faeroes, in cockleshell skin boats.

The Alexandrian conquests introduced Babylonian and Egyptian astrology into the Hellenic world, and Hellenic astrology into the Indo-Iranian world. It would be the process of the blending of the philosophies and religions of these different cultures that would lie behind much of the scholarship of the Hellenistic era.

Etruscan bronze statuettes from this period depict mixed-gender wrestling (males nude, females in thigh-length pleated tunics).

330 BCE

THE FROZEN NORTH

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After defeating Darius and taking Persepolis, Alexander fought his way through Bactriana, taking the chief city of that province, Bactra or Zariaspa (now known as Balkh), and there spending the winter. Crossing the Oxus, he would advance the following spring to Marakanda (now known as Samarkand) to replace the loss of horses which he had sustained in crossing the Caucasus, to obtain supplies in the valley of Sogd, and to enforce the submission of Transoxiana. The northern limit of this march was presumably reached in modern Uskand, or Aderkand, a village on the Iaxartes River near the end of the Ferganah district. Turning again south, he would hope to conquer India, till at length, marching in a line apparently nearly parallel with the Kabul river, he would arrive at the celebrated rock Aornos on the right bank of the Indus River at some distance from Attock (this may be what is now Akora).

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June 13: Alexander of Macedon died mysteriously at age 32 in Babylon.

On his death becoming known throughout Greece, the Assembly of Athens declared war against his successor Antipon and attempted to free the southern Greek city states from Macedonian rule. The return of some of Alexander’s veterans from Asia would enable Antipater to prevail over them. Aristotle was again perceived as anti-Athenian, pro-Macedonian. A charge of “impiety” (disbelief in the established gods) was leveled against him, the same charge that had been used against Socrates in 399 BCE, and he is said to have declared that he would not let the Athenians “sin twice against philosophy.” He abandoned Athens to voluntary exile in the city of Chalcis, accompanied by his companion Herpyllis, probably his slave, the woman who was likely the

323 BCE

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mother of his son Nicomachus and with whom he had lived after the death of his wife.

During this year Diogenes of Sinope, the cynic who lived in a tub in Athens, also died. Some say he died on the same day as Alexander.

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The master of the world was 33 and the master of himself 90. (At one point, asked about the evil of death, he had responded sensibly by asking as a counter-question — in what sense might something be said to be harmful to us, if in its very presence we are necessarily oblivious to it?)

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During the 3d Century BCE, in India, rishi Krishna Dvaipayana (known by that name on account of his dark complexion and his origin on an island in the Yamuna River) decided upon a division of scholarly labor. He divided the primordial single Veda into four sub-Vedas and assigned each of these four portions to a particular other rishi scholar. The four portions into which he divided the primordial single Veda were the Rigveda, a collection of 1,028 Vedic Sanskrit hymns and 10,600 verses organized into ten books, the Yajurveda, containing the formulas to be recited by an officiating priest, the Samaveda, containing in 1,549 stanzas the formulas to be sung, and the Atharvaveda, a collection of spells and incantations, apotropaic charms, and 760 speculative hymns. The Rigveda he assigned to rishi Paila, the Yajurveda he assigned to rishi Vaisampayana, the Samaveda he assigned to rishi Jaimini, and the Atharvaveda he assigned to rishi Sumantu. Because of this decision he would come to be known as the Veda Vyasa, or “Splitter of the Vedas.”

At about this point a Korean people ancestral to the Japanese were introducing southern Chinese wet-rice agriculture into the Japanese home islands. Meanwhile Iranians were introducing wet-rice agriculture into Egypt and Syria.

People living near Lake Turkana in northwestern Kenya placed basalt pillars so that they were aligned with the constellations.

The Carthaginian navy’s quinquireme warships, with five banks of oars, relied upon galley slaves owned by the government. There were privately owned plantations in Libya that held agricultural work forces of up to 20,000 enslaved laborers.

At this point pipes were being made out of lead sheeting in lengths of 10 feet or more. This was done by bending the sheet around a wood mandrel and then joining the edges of the resultant tube by soldering with an alloy of lead and tin. Such pipes could be used to distribute water, and we note that the pipe sizes took their names, not from the internal diameter of the resulting channel, but from the width of that flat sheet of lead before it was shaped (we can rest assured that, although our histories inform us that it was the classical Greeks who were doing this, this was too much like work and actually it was the slaves of the classical Greeks who were doing this for them).During the 3rd Century BCE, the Hebrew scriptures would be being rendered into Greek by 72 “clean room” translators working simultaneously but independently in Alexandria, Egypt, creating what became known as

300 BCE

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the LXX (SEPTUAGINT). The ancient Hebrew tappauch used in the GENESIS story of Eden for the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was an indiscriminate term for the various familiar fruits such as orange,

peach, quince, and apricot. When tappauch was rendered as malus, that Latin term was also a generic category, designating merely that the raw edible in question was a fruit which grew on a tree. It wouldn’t be until after the first English translations of the BIBLE that the term would begin to get more specific, let alone to specify a Northern fruit then unknown in the Levant, and in the time of King James I when Eve was made to take a bite out of an apple, the term “apple” still included among other things pears. During Thoreau’s florut, apples and pears were still being lumped together, in the genus Pyrus, the apple being Pyrus malus, although, because the stems of the pistils of the pear are free and separate at the base, the apple is now assigned its own genus, Malus. In effect, although the distinction between a species and a genus is hardly more precisely defined now than it was then, since Thoreau botanists have raised the term Malus from species rank to genus rank. This splitting tendency is recent, against a lumping tendency of very long standing.This trajectory of the Old-World apples spreading through the Levant had little to do with the trajectory of New-World apples. Each of the seven native American species of apple is a smallish tree with smallish fruit, green and sour and commonly termed a crabapple, and, since only one of our seven species is a West Coast species, it seems plausible that these little green dudes were survivors of an earlier configuration in which some

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northern landmass was adjacent to what is now the eastern seaboard of the North American continent.

If you have driven through western Pennsylvania in lateMay, you have seen the beautiful masses of pink flowersof Malus coronaria dotting the hills, or farther west,from Minnesota down the Mississippi Valley, those ofM. ioensis. These are our natives, which must have comemany centuries ago from Siberia to Alaska and down, orperhaps even more remotely down from some more easternnorth land mass, when the Greenland area was semi-tropical. There are several species in the easternUnited States, only one in the West, and this mightindicate the more eastern origin. They are beautifulsmall trees, more or less round headed in shape, likehawthorns, and their flowers are large, but they areall pink. There is none of the color range of theEuropean-Asiatic crabapples. The fruit is green,rather large for a crabapple, and not attractive on thetree. The early settlers used it for jelly. TheAmerican crabapples all blossom about two weeks laterthan their Oriental relatives.... so far as I can findout they have never hybridized with any of the Orientalspecies.

— Lape, Fred. APPLES & MAN. “WILD APPLES” NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold,1979, pages 110-11.

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There were revolts against the Romans in southern Mesopotamia. In the north of Mesopotamia, the Parthians

1ST CENTURY BCE

116 CE

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attacked the Romans. The Emperor Trajan partially burnt the Mesopotamian city “Seleucia on the Tigris.”

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Trajan conquered the rival empire of Parthia (center in northeastern Iran), extending the Roman Empire.

Sixtus (Xystus) I (?116-125), a Roman likely of Greek extraction, was listed as the Papa of Paulist Rome. The actual dates of his reign are unknown. He is believed to be the son of a Paulist priest. The Jews again revolted as did the peoples of the newly acquired territories. Both were suppressed with great severity.

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Mani (216 CE-276), a Persian, would come to regard himself as the successor of Jesus, and would combine elements of Christianity, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism. He would be martyred by Zoroastrian priests. He would leave writings in Syriac but only Old Coptic or Greek translations would survive. This religious sect would come to refer to itself as Manichaeism. St. Augustine would be for a time an adherent of this sect. The sect would by the 14th century die out.

216 CE

ZOROASTER

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Ephraem the Syrian, also an Edessene, in 240 CE said that Mani (216 CE-276 CE), a Persian, claimed as heralds of his message Hermes of Egypt, Plato the Greek, and Jesus who appeared in Judaea. Mani thus created the sect “Manichaeism,” so-named after him. He believed he was the successor of Jesus, but also combined elements from Buddhism and Iran’s fire-glorifying Zoroastrianism. This creed would spread from North Africa to China but would die out during the 14th century. Their belief called for freeing the good (light) trapped in human bodies that they regarded as inherently evil, or dark. He would die in prison in Iran in 276 CE, at the hands of the Zoroastrians.

240 CE

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The Emperor Valerian was captured by Shapur I, the Sassanid king of Persia, after a stunning defeat at Edessa, and would die in disgrace in captivity under torture. This Shapur styled himself “King of Kings of Iran and Non-Iran.” Gallienus became the sole emperor (although emperor wannabees of course appeared in outlying parts of the empire).

Sometime between 260 CE and 268 CE, Plotinus would sell his buddy the emperor Gallienus on the idea of founding an intentional community in Campania, to be denominated Platonopolis. The inhabitants of this new city were to lead lives according to the dictates of Plato. This agenda would, however, be strongly opposed by imperial counselors, and unfortunately would come to nothing.

260 CE

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NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project peine forte et dure

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3D CENTURY

200 CE

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Avesta (Zoroastrian texts back to 1, 000 BCE) were compiled in Persia.

4TH CENTURY

350 CE

ZOROASTER

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On the Japanese islands, the Yamato culture, modeled after China, ruled from Kyushu to the Kinai plain, centered around the town of Naniwa in the Yamato plain (Osaka). Korean monks introduce the Chinese syllabary into Japan.

At about this point Chinese Buddhists described “the five elemental configurations,” or ping an hsing. These were moving meditations designed to merge the psychological and physical aspects of the human existence, and their practice was particularly associated with the T’ien Ta’i school of Buddhism.

The Chinese learned to make weapons-grade steel. Their process involved mixing different grades of cast and wrought iron.

The Indian poet Vatsayana writes the Kama Sutra, or “Aphorisms on Love.” While the poet’s frank descriptions of erotic activity are sometimes claimed to have Roman or Taoist roots, his emphasis on acrobatic love between consenting adults of the opposite sex was clearly a local invention. The Kama Sutra is mentioned partly because it taught Indian courtesans that the way to captivate men included “practice with sword, single-stick, quarter-staff, and bow and arrow,”1 partly because its arcane breathing methods subsequently got tangled up with martial art practice, and mainly because it helped create the concept of romantic love between men and women, an idea the Arabs borrowed in the eighth century and the Normans took to Europe in the eleventh.

Indian merchants divide their cannabis into bhang (marijuana) and ganja (hashish). Their wrestlers then ate bhang mixed with almonds as a way of curbing their strength-sapping sexual desires. Arguments about the perils of drug abuse aside, I think that the Indian gurus had it wrong. That is, to my mind a fighter’s abstinence from sex is less important to his chances of winning than his abstinence from love, as love has a way of satisfying that hunger in a fighter’s soul, while sex is simply sex.

Turkish astrologers living in Afghanistan combined Babylonian and Iranian lunar calculations with Greek zodiac lore to create the Vedic religious calendar.

The Polynesian kings of Samoa began building heavily fortified villages on top of hills. These included hill-top defenses made from logs and packed earth, and were at the time among the most sophisticated on earth.

5TH CENTURY

400 CE

1. The 4th-Century Indians divided their weapons into distinct classes (like 18th-Century Europeans, they liked to classify things). Throwing weapons included missiles thrown by machines, by hand, and by magic spells, while hand-held weapons included swords, spears, knives, and body parts. In total, Indian scholars identified over 130 thirty different kinds of weapons!

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At about this point, PLACITA PHILOSOPHORUM, a compendium of opinions on the antique European philosophers.

At about this point the oldest continuously burning Zoroastrian flame in the world was lighted, at the Ateshkadè (fire temple) at Yazd in Iran. The Indian wrestling practice of doing thousands of dand, or dipping push-ups, each day may have begun with Zoroastrian genuflections to the sun, the supreme flame; the equivalent Brahmin genuflection was termed surya namaskar and even Sikh scriptures indicate that there is virtue in performing the dand.

At about this point, the flowering of Mayan city culture in southern Mexico.

470 CE

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The Byzantine emperor Justinian (that is, Caesar Flavius Justinianus) ordered that after almost 9 centuries of operation, the Academy of Plato outside Athens shut down its operation as inherently “Paganistic.” He suppressed all non-Christian worship and forbade the teaching of Neoplatonic philosophy and numerology in Athens and Alexandria. Anyone refusing to become Christian would be ineligible to hold a government post, and forfeit all property. Many scholars would flee to Syria or Iran to continue their astrological and scientific inquiries. This was “orthodoxy,” a newly coined notion enabling the privileging of the righteous over the unrighteous based on the existing notion “heterodoxy.” Everybody, don’t be a fool, just get with the program! From this year into the year 534 CE Justinian would be introducing a CODEX IUSTINIANUS and a CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS (a compilation of Roman law by Tribonian).

6TH CENTURY

529 CE

SELFPRIVILEGING

DAMNED PAGANS

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From this year until 687 CE, warfare between the emperors of Constantinople and the kings of Persia was going to be just continuous and chronic.

At about this point the T’ien T’ai school of Master Chih introduced Theravada Buddhist moving meditations into China. Known as the Tendai school in Japan, Master Chih’s school was noted for its enthusiastic use of the sudden realization method of enlightenment. The master’s name indicates that he was a Scythian — which would have meant that he was a Turk or Afghan.

570 CE

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During the 7th century of its existence, the Christian Church would give rise to the doctrine known as “monotheletism” — to wit, that Christ had one person and one nature. However, this would be being replaced in some areas by Islam, which would eventually take over the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, and North Africa. The more Eastern portion of the Christian domain would upholds marriage for priests. Britain would be completely evangelized, and Christianity would spread into the Frisians.

Isidore appointed an archbishop of Seville.

Mohammed was part owner of a shop in Mecca, trading in plant products such as myrrh, frankincense, and spices.

“According to legend, Mohammed was curedof narcolepsy with coffee.”

— Wolfgang Schivelbusch, TASTES OF PARADISE:A SOCIAL HISTORY OF SPICES, STIMULANTS, ANDINTOXICANTS. NY: Pantheon Books, 1992,page 17.2

Muslim teachings would allow the use of cannabis while proscribing the use of alcohol.

7TH CENTURY

600 CE

2. Schivelbusch points out that this legend is a dubious one, since Mohammed died in AD 694; although coffee was in use as medicine “as early as the 10th century” its popularity as a beverage in Islam dates to “certainly no earlier than the 15th century” (nevertheless, might we not recommend this as a form of argumentative outreach, to the Pope?).

Plant Name PlaceSpinach Spinacia oeracea Iran

PLANTS

OTHERS

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There was at that time a square old temple in Mecca, the Ka’bah, full of idols.

In one of its corners a black-metal meteorite had been set. Eventually people would be telling each other that this heavenly stone had been given by Gabriel to Abraham. They would be kissing it and touching it. It would be worn hollow by centuries of constant frottage.

“Are not the stones in Hodge’s wall as good asthe aerolite at Mecca—is not our broad back-door

stone as good as any corner stone in heaven?”

― Henry Thoreau

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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August: For 6 days people were offing one another on a plain near the Yarmuk River southeast of the Sea of Galilee. By the end of this bloodbath the Saracens under Omar I, 2d Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, had defeated the East Roman-Byzantine empire under Emperor Heraclius, and would be able to take possession of Syria/Persia/Egypt in a Holy War, bringing an end to the Sassanid dynasty and beginning an Islamic rule over an Arab Empire and, incidentally, quite intercepting the Pax Romana:

636 CE

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The death of Caliph Mu’awiya and the accession of Calif Yazid led to the martyrdom of Hadrat Hussain (the third Shiite imam, al-Hussein ibn ’Ali), only surviving grandson of the prophet Mohammed, under a shower of arrows. To commemorate his martyrdom, the Shiites would in 1109 CE institute a 40-day period of mourning. Even today, the mourning for this tragedy of the mudflats3 at Kerbala in Iraq, which was assisted by a contingent of French troops (ever after depicted as spotted demons in western uniform), is the big event of the year in Iran, causing troops of the faithful to take to the streets stripped to the waist while lashing their own shoulders and backs with barbed whips that flick droplets of blood in every direction, and slashing their own scalps with knives in such manner as to create a picturesque pour of blood down their faces. If you should happen to witness a procession like this heading out of a mosque and coming down the street toward you, as I have, and hear them chanting “Ya Hussein!” — try to bear in mind, as I did, that discretion is a virtue greatly to be preferred over courage.

680 CE

3. When a Shi’ite genuflects during prayers, he knocks his forehead not against his prayer carpet but against a small tablet taken from this Iraqi mudflat. To raise a dark bruise on one’s forehead in such a manner is a pronounced mark of piety.

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Stela 14, at Piedras Negras in what is now the central lowlands of Guatemala.

In what is now Armenia, a region of Turkey, the Abbasid Caliph Abdullah al-Mansur obliged the military governor Yazid ibn Usayd al-Sulami to make peace, and as witness to this take a royal Khazar as his bride. He chose a daughter of Khagan Baghatur, the Khazar leader, but then she died, perhaps in childbirth. When her attendants returned to their home, they spread the interesting notion that maybe some Arab faction had poisoned her, and in consequence (what goes around comes around) the Khazar general Ras Tarkhan went on a plundering expedition into what is now northwestern Iran.

Meanwhile, Arab and Persian raiders were sacking the city of Guangzhou.

In what has since become Italy, King Desiderius of the Lombards captured Spoleto and Benevento.

In the English game of chairs, Sigeric succeeded Swithred as king of Essex. Meanwhile, in Japan, the end of the reign of the Empress Kōken.

8TH CENTURY

758 CE

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JAPANESE EMPERORS

758CE-764CE Junnin

764CE-770CE Shotoku

770CE-781CE Konin

781CE-806CE Kammu

806CE-824CE Heizei

823CE-842CE Saga

833CE-840CE Junna

833CE-850CE Nimmyo

850CE-858CE Montoku

858CE-876CE Seiwa

877CE-884CE Yozei

884CE-887CE Koko

887CE-897CE Uda

897CE-930CE Daigo

930CE-946CE Suzaku

946CE-967CE Murakami

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Tahir ibn Husayn, an Iranian general under the Abbasid Caliphate, declared the establishment of the independent Tahirid Dynasty.

9TH CENTURY

821 CE

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Ya’qub-i Laith Saffari founded the Saffarid dynasty.

King Charles the Bald granted land on the Loire River at Chablis to the Chapter of St. Martin at Tours for a vineyard. Since the Loire connects to the Seine, this “Chablis” wine would become well-known in Paris.

867 CE

PLANTS

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CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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Two Oxford moneyers struck coins signed “MO OX URBIS.”

At about this point Polynesian fishermen were 1st visiting the islands of New Zealand. They were not yet Maori, as that culture would not appear on North Island for another 4 centuries, or on South Island for another 6 centuries (the Maori culture seems to have developed only after they shifted from bird hunting to farming).

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi of Rey, Iran died. He had been able to distill from various sources rude hydrocarbon compounds that could be burned. In his Kitab al-Asrar االسرار (Book of Secrets) he had designated his distillate “naft abyad” (today we term this substance kerosene and use it for jet fuel).

925 CE

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The Twelfth Imam of the Shi’ites went into occultation — Davosdah-Imam Shi’ite Muslims believe that he did not die but merely disappeared into a cave from which at the end of time he would reappear as an Ayatollah and resume his leadership of the Faithful. And, they believe, in the meanwhile, he would materialize himself from time to time in such manner that the truthfully faithful would be able to catch a precious momentary glimpse of him out of the corner of their eye. (Thus, when the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini announced that he was going to return from France to the Mehrabad international airport outside Tehran at the completion of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, many of the faithful expected that he would not be getting off an IranAir jetliner like an ordinary human being, but would instead be materializing himself among the worshipers in the crowd waiting at that airport.)

NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

940 CE

HERE COME DA JUDGE!

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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\

Mardavij founded the Ziyarid dynasty.

10TH CENTURY

928 CE

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934 CE: The Shi’ite Buyid dynasty was founded.

934 CE

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Eilmer of Malmesbury, a monk, strapped wings to his hands and feet and leaped from the 80-foot west tower of his abbey, breaking both legs at the end of his 200-meter glide and acquiring several significant items of information about heavier-than-air flight: the importance of flight insurance, the fact that the pilot always arrives 1st at the scene of any accident, the need for a long runway, etc.

The poet Ferdowsi finished writing the epic poem “Shahnameh,” a touchstone of the modern Persian language.

11TH CENTURY

1010 CE

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May 15, Monday: Traditional date of birth of the Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet Omar Khayyam (Ghiyath al-Din Abu’l-Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim Al-Nisaburi Khayyámi غياث الدين ابو الفتح عمر بن ابراهيم خيام in Nishapur, the provincial capital of Khurasan in northeastern Iran, a town at an altitude of 3,920 ,(نيشابوريfeet. There appears to be no evidence whatever that he was born on this traditional date. It is, presumably, a pious fabrication committed by someone sometime. We think actually he was born in about 1038 to 1048, most likely 1044 — but hey, what does it matter? “Khayyam” means the tent-maker, and although generally he is considered as a Persian, it has also been suggested that he could have belonged to a tribe of Arab origin that settled in Persia. Little is known about his early life except that he was educated at Nishapur and lived there and at Samarqand for most of his life. He was a contemporary of Nidham al-Mulk Tusi. He would be the 1st to be able to solve some cubic equations, to wit, equations of degree three with the unknown raised to the third power and eventually would be recognized as the only person we know of, who was recognizably both a poet and a mathematician. Although patronage opportunities would be available to him, and although he would visit the great centers of learning in Samarqand, Bukhara, Balkh, and Isphahan in order to study and to interact with other scholars, he preferred a calm life devoted to inquiry and did not avail himself of the shah’s court. While at Samarqand he was patronized by a dignitary, Abu Tahir.

1048 CE

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Omar Khayyam was 24 when he wrote his pioneering treatise on algebra — so it would have been in about this year. The MAQALAT FI AL-JABR WA AL-MUQABILA classified many algebraic equations based on their complexity and recognized 13 different forms of cubic equation. It pioneered a geometrical approach to solving equations which involved an selection of proper conics, which is to say, the mathematician was able to solve cubic equations by intersecting a parabola with a circle. This was the first mathematical treatise to develop the binomial expansion when the exponent is a positive integer. Al-Khayyam has been considered to be the first to find the binomial theorem and determine binomial coefficients. He extended Euclid’s work giving a new definition of ratios and included the multiplication of ratios. He contributed to the theory of parallel lines. Although he referred in this Algebra book to another of his works, on what we now know as Pascal’s triangle, this other mathematical treatise is now unfortunately lost. (Ten books and thirty monographs have survived. These include four books on mathematics, one on algebra, one on geometry, three on physics, and three on metaphysics.)

1068 CE

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As astronomer to the Saljuq Sultan, Malikshah Jalal al-Din, Omar Khayyam was one of a group that was assigned to reform the solar calendar used for revenue collections and various administrative matters. To accomplish this task, a new observatory would be constructed at Ray, Iran.

1074 CE

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March 15: As astronomer to the Saljuq Sultan, Malikshah Jalal al-Din, Omar Khayyam had been one of a group that had been assigned in 1074 to reform the solar calendar used for revenue collections and various administrative matters. A new observatory had been constructed at Ray. This day’s date marked the beginning of the so-called Jalalian or Seljuk era in accordance with their new method of solar calculation. This “Al-Tarikh-al-Jalali” calendar was more accurate than the Julian Calendar and almost as accurate as the Gregorian intercalation system which the West would embrace in DATE, in that it is accurate to within one day in 3,770 years whereas the Gregorian error amounts to 1 day in 3,330 years. Specifically, this group of scholars measured the length of the year to eleven decimal places, as 365.24219858156 days. (This is not a fixed thing, but can and does exhibit real variance from epoch to epoch due to various peculiarities of the planets and satellites of our solar system, the length of the solar year in the 19th Century having been 365.242196 days but in our own era having become, at this point, 365.242190 days.)

1079 CE

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Omar Khayyam developed a method for accurate determination of specific gravity.

Omar Khayyam authored treatises in metaphysics, RISALA DAR WUJUD and NAURUZ-NAMAH. (10 books and 30 monographs have survived. These include 4 books on mathematics, 1 on algebra, 1 on geometry, 3 on physics, and 3 on metaphysics.)

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Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Philip II of France, and King Richard I of England led a 3d Crusade. Teutonic Knights destroyed several cities of the Middle East. As a result of the conflict, the safety of both Christian and Muslim unarmed pilgrims would be guaranteed throughout the Levant.Laws of Richard I (Coeur de Lion) concerning Crusaders who were to go by sea.

“The only lesson of history is that there are no lessons of history.”— A.J.P. Taylor

End of the reign of Henry Plantagenet, who had reigned as Henry II, King of England since 1154. Beginning of the reign of Richard the Lionhearted (Coeur de Lion) as Richard I (until 1199 CE, although he never would learn to speak English). As he would return from the 3d Crusade in 1192 CE after slaughtering at one point a group of 3,000 Muslim captives (with no mercy either for their wives or for their children), he would be captured by King Leopold of Austria, would be ransomed 2 years later, and would then do battle with King Philip II of France.

12TH CENTURY

1189 CE

READ THE FULL TEXT

PERSIA IRAN

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December 4, Friday:Although this is the traditional date of death of the Persian astronomer, mathematician, and poet Omar Khayyam in Nishapur, Iran, it is likely that he was already deceased by 1125 CE.

1131 CE

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The Mongol conquest of Khwarezmia began after 2 diplomatic missions to Khwarezm sent by Genghis Khan were massacred. In 1220 and 1221, Bukhara, Samarkand, Herat, Tus and Nishapur were razed, and the entire populations slaughtered. Shah Muhammad II of Khwarezm fled; he died on an island off the Caspian coast.

13TH CENTURY

1219

PERSIA IRAN

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By this year at the latest, Genoese traders had established themselves in Tabriz in Persia.4

It was in about this period that German law began to prevent Jews and commoners from entering aristocratic tournaments.

The Venetian traveler Marco Polo describes a Mongol princess named Ai-yaruk, or “Bright Moon,” who refused to get married until she met a man that could throw her. Mongol wrestling is jacket wrestling. The contestants wear boots, trousers, and short embroidered jackets. While there are some leg-throws, the style emphasizes upper body strength more than technique, and the ideal stance is one where the wrestler holds his body like a lion and his arms like an eagle’s wings. While the immediate purpose of the bout is to force the other player to kneel or to touch the ground with his buttocks or elbows, the ulterior motive is to gain reputation and/or property. (Princess Ai-yaruk, for instance, reportedly won thousands of horses during her bouts with luckless suitors.) The Mongols were often poor losers, too. Therefore their matches sometimes degenerated into drunken brawls, with the two sides fighting using milk beaters and other improvised weapons. Other martial sports practiced by the Mongols included horse racing and archery. Because size and weight mattered greatly during long-distance horse races, the winning jockeys were generally children, some aged as young as 4 years. People of all ages and both genders competed in the archery events, which featured shooting at rodents’ heads from marks set at 180 and 300 yards.

1280

4. Refer to J.R.S. Phillips’s THE MEDIEVAL EXPANSION OF EUROPE (Oxford/NY: Oxford UP, 1988).

PERSIA IRAN

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In China, the Ming dynasty5 was initiated when Chinese warlord Chu Yüan-chang seized Peking from the Mongols and established himself as the Hung-wu (“Extensive and Martial”) emperor.6

Chu had been an orphan, raised at a Buddhist monastery in northern China. Chinese panegyrists would begin to attribute to all Buddhist monks nearly supernatural fighting prowess. Many 19th-Century secret societies would be asserting that the Hung-wu emperor had been their First Ancestor — which is why to this day some of these groups still use the character “Hung” from “Hung-wu” as part of the names of their senior members.

14TH CENTURY

1368

5. Ming means “Brilliant,” and the allusion was to the Indo-Iranian or Zoroastrian deity Mazda, King of Light. The suggestion in this name was that the millennium had arrived.6. This dynasty would persist until April 1644, when the Mongols would retake Beijing.

PERSIA IRAN

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South Indian merchants introduce Indo/Iranian equestrian games into Indonesia. Variations of these games are still played during planting festivals held on Sumba, Flores, and Java. The game played on Sumba in the 1990s, for instance, the players carry long spears and gallop about circular runways trying to knock one another off their mounts. Women and children watch the matches and they cheer and clap loudly for their favorites. As for how the game was played in pre-modern times, a Dutch merchant named Veth would watch a tournament at Mataram, on the island of Lombok, in 1666. The game started with the riders galloping around the field to the accompaniment of gamelan music. After that, the players charged one another. All players were careful to make sure that the prince was never unhorsed, and young players never seriously challenged older players. The reason was not solely fear nor undue respect. Instead, it was also that the Indonesians lacked a tradition of games that pitted force against force in which there could be only one winner.

15TH CENTURY

1420

PERSIA IRAN

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Shah Isma’il I made Shi’ism the paramount Islamic faith in Azerbaijan and Iran. Isma’il was an avid physical culturalist and the modern Zour Khaneh, (Iranian academies of physical training) owe much to his patronage. The traditional Iranian gymnasium had high domed ceilings and stamped earth floors, and was designed to resemble a mosque or religious shrine. The Iranian training featured whirling dances accompanied by bells, drums, and chants. (This probably reflects Dervish practice, as Dervishes were often military chaplains.) Weight-lifting and juggling heavy clubs were a regular part of the training regimen. Accessories included kabadeh, iron bows weighing between 25 and 50 pounds, mil, mace-like wooden clubs weighing between 10 and 100 pounds, and seng, horseshoe-shaped wooden shields weighing 100 pounds or more. The Iranian athletes also wrestled. Why? Because, in the words of a modern wrestling chant, “In wrestling according to the rules, one prepares himself for war.” Indian influence was obvious, as the wrestlers trained using hundreds of dipping pushups, and massaged and bathed using dust and oil following training.Turkish influence was apparent, too, as the wrestlers wore leather pantaloons and wrestled from standing positions. (Modern Iranian wrestling, with its swimming motions, probably dates to the 17th Century.)

16TH CENTURY

1500

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Ismail I established himself in Tabriz and declared himself the king (Shah) of Iran.

Motives have always been mixed, sides have always been blurred. Within 10 years of the initial Crusade a battle had been fought between two Muslim chieftains in Syria, each of whom had been supported by allied Frankish troops. Power politics supplemented religion, and that was when things were working well. Sometimes religion had overcome sense, leading to worse outcomes, as when the 2d Crusade had squandered its resources in an attack on Damascus — its Muslim ruler had been a tacit ally of the Franks but local Franks had been unable to talk sense into the kings from Europe who were leading this Crusade. “Personal” religious animosities had largely disappeared among the Franks living in “Outre-mer” — when a Muslim visitor to 12th-century Jerusalem found himself being harassed by a Knight Templar, this dude was chased away by other Templars, who apologized to the Muslim for their comrade’s rudeness!

However, Reynald of Chatillon had triggered the collapse of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 1180s by making repeated attacks on Muslim settlements and caravans in violation of the Kingdom’s treaty with Saladin. The notorious 4th Crusade was bribed by Venice to sack the rival merchant city of Zara in Dalmatia, and later used the excuse of a dispute with the Byzantine authorities to sack Constantinople.

Louis IX of France led two Crusades; one in 1254, which after a disastrous attempt to conquer Egypt and secure the southern flank of the Holy Land, ended with a bout of skirmishing around the Crusader stronghold of Acre. A 2d Crusade in 1270 went against the Muslims of Tunisia. For his pious valor, Louis was canonized as St. Louis.

One Crusade would be entirely devoid both of sentiment and of blood. The German Emperor Frederick II was a notorious free-thinker but, ordered by the Pope to go on Crusade, was unable to hold back. When he reached Palestine in 1212, he negotiated to regain Jerusalem with no fighting. Muslim and Christian enthusiasts were almost equally disgusted by this absence of bloodshed. There would be a wholesale massacre of non-Christians in Jerusalem when the city was captured.

1501

PERSIA IRAN

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The Ottoman Turks invaded Iran (the Iranians were Shiites, therefore infidel).

August 23,: Battle of Chaldiran: The Ottoman Empire inflicted a severe defeat on a numerically inferior Persian force, opening the northwestern Iranian Plateau to their occupation.

September 7,: The Ottoman sultan entered Tabriz (a mutiny in the Ottoman army would oblige the sultan to withdraw).

1514

PERSIA IRAN

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August: 50,000 Iranian cavalry deployed against the invading Turks. The Ottoman Janissaries wait in their trenches, supported by artillery chained wheel-to-wheel. During the battle, Shah Ismail was wounded, and the Iranian army retreated. The Turks then captured Ismail’s capital at Tabriz, but were unable to hold it because the Janissaries demanded to return home. The near catastrophe revealed the importance of firearms to Shah Ismail, who would subsequently import Turkish gunners and cannon for his own forces.

1515

PERSIA IRAN

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May 23, Monday,: Ismail died. He was succeeded by his son Tahmasp I.

1524

PERSIA IRAN

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Babur’s son Humayun, who had been living in exile in Iran, conquered Kabul (the Mughul style dates to his return from Iran). To celebrate the victory, wrestling matches were held, in which Humayun himself participated, and 3-year old Akbar was circumcised (little Akbar was of course in no condition to wrestle during the party, but tradition says that as a terrible 2-year-old he had girt up his loins, rolled up his sleeves, and successfully grappled with an older cousin during a struggle over possession of a toy drum).

1545

PERSIA IRAN

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it would be this year’s ORACULA MAGICA of Ludovicus Tiletanus (Paris).

1563

A WEEK: The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous,for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time.The cunning mind travels further back than Zoroaster eachinstant, and comes quite down to the present with its revelation.The utmost thrift and industry of thinking give no man any stockin life; his credit with the inner world is no better, his capitalno larger. He must try his fortune again to-day as yesterday. Allquestions rely on the present for their solution. Time measuresnothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed,but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, letthe occasion say it. All the world is forward to prompt him whogets up to live without his creed in his pocket.

ZOROASTER

PERSIUS

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

PERSIA IRAN

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February 11, Tuesday (1577, Old Style): The ascendancy of Sultan Mohammad Khodābandeh over Persia.

1578

PERSIA IRAN

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October : The reign of Shah Abbas the Great, who would consolidate and expand the territories of Persia to 1629.

1587

PERSIA IRAN

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May 21, Thursday: The Treaty of Istanbul was signed between Iran and the Ottoman Empire, under which Iran ceded the Caucasus and western Iranian territories, for several years.

1590

PERSIA IRAN

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it would be this year’s ZOROASTER ET EJUS 320 ORACULA CHALDAICA, by Franciscus Patricius.

1593

“WALKING”: My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desireto bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennialand constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge,but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higherknowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grandsurprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all thatwe called Knowledge before — a discovery that there are morethings in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot know inany higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenelyand with impunity in the face of the sun: ,— “You will not perceive that as perceiving a particular thing,”say the Chaldean Oracles.

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

PERSIA IRAN

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A WEEK: It is remarkable that Homer and a few Hebrews are the mostOriental names which modern Europe, whose literature has taken its risesince the decline of the Persian, has admitted into her list ofWorthies, and perhaps the worthiest of mankind, and the fathers ofmodern thinking, — for the contemplations of those Indian sages haveinfluenced, and still influence, the intellectual development ofmankind, — whose works even yet survive in wonderful completeness, are,for the most part, not recognized as ever having existed. If the lionshad been the painters it would have been otherwise. In every one’syouthful dreams philosophy is still vaguely but inseparably, and withsingular truth, associated with the East, nor do after years discoverits local habitation in the Western world. In comparison with thephilosophers of the East, we may say that modern Europe has yet givenbirth to none. Beside the vast and cosmogonal philosophy of theBhagvat-Geeta, even our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully greenand practical merely. Some of these sublime sentences, as the Chaldaeanoracles of Zoroaster, still surviving after a thousand revolutions andtranslations, alone make us doubt if the poetic form and dress are nottransitory, and not essential to the most effective and enduringexpression of thought. Ex oriente lux may still be the motto ofscholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East allthe light which it is destined to receive thence.It would be worthy of the age to print together the collectedScriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese, theHindoos, the Persians, the Hebrews, and others, as the Scripture ofmankind. The New Testament is still, perhaps, too much on the lips andin the hearts of men to be called a Scripture in this sense. Such ajuxtaposition and comparison might help to liberalize the faith of men.This is a work which Time will surely edit, reserved to crown thelabors of the printing-press. This would be the Bible, or Book ofBooks, which let the missionaries carry to the uttermost parts of theearth.

XENOPHANES

ÆSOP

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

ZOROASTER

PERSIA IRAN

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it would be Fred. Morellus’s ZOROASTRIS ORACULA (about 100 verses) of this year.

1597

PERSIA IRAN

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At about this point Shah Abbas the Great began to raise a standing Iranian army consisting of musket-armed infantry, European-trained artillerists, and Afghan light cavalry, for the purpose of defeating the Ottoman Turks.

1598

PERSIA IRAN

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it would be Julianus the Theurgist’s ORACULA MAGICA ZOROASTRIS CUM SCHOLIIS PLETHONIS ET PSELLI NUNC PRIMUM EDITI [sic]: e Bibliotheca regia / studio Johannis Opsopoei. (Parisiis: [s.n.], 1599) (this includes COMMENTARIES OF PLETHO AND PSELLUS in Latin) of this year.

1599

PERSIA IRAN

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it

17TH CENTURY

1600

PERSIA IRAN

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would be Otto Heurnius’s BARBARICÆ PHILOSOPHIÆ ANTIQUITATUM (in two volumes) of this year.

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

“WALKING”: My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desireto bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennialand constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge,but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higherknowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grandsurprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all thatwe called Knowledge before — a discovery that there are morethings in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot know inany higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenelyand with impunity in the face of the sun: ,— “You will not perceive that as perceiving a particular thing,”say the Chaldean Oracles.

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

PERSIA IRAN

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November: A Persian army besieged a Kurdish fortress, DimDim, on the banks of Lake Urmia.

Galileo Galilei turned his latest device, capable of 20X magnification, skyward.

Was it this new device which enabled him, in this year, to observe changing spots on the face of the sun and thus disprove the contention of the Aristotelians of his day that that heavenly body is unchangingly free of “imperfection”? (Independently, from Holland, Johann Fabricus was making this same observation in this same year.)

1609

PERSIA IRAN

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A WEEK: The anecdotes of modern astronomy affect me in the sameway as do those faint revelations of the Real which are vouchsafedto men from time to time, or rather from eternity to eternity.When I remember the history of that faint light in our firmament,which we call Venus, which ancient men regarded, and which mostmodern men still regard, as a bright spark attached to a hollowsphere revolving about our earth, but which we have discovered tobe another world, in itself, — how Copernicus, reasoning long andpatiently about the matter, predicted confidently concerning it,before yet the telescope had been invented, that if ever men cameto see it more clearly than they did then, they would discoverthat it had phases like our moon, and that within a century afterhis death the telescope was invented, and that predictionverified, by Galileo, — I am not without hope that we may, evenhere and now obtain some accurate information concerning thatOTHER WORLD which the instinct of mankind has so long predicted.Indeed, all that we call science, as well as all that we callpoetry, is a particle of such information, accurate as far as itgoes, though it be but to the confines of the truth. If we canreason so accurately, and with such wonderful confirmation of ourreasoning, respecting so-called material objects and eventsinfinitely removed beyond the range of our natural vision, so thatthe mind hesitates to trust its calculations even when they areconfirmed by observation, why may not our speculations penetrateas far into the immaterial starry system, of which the former isbut the outward and visible type? Surely, we are provided withsenses as well fitted to penetrate the spaces of the real, thesubstantial, the eternal, as these outward are to penetrate thematerial universe. Veias, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates, Christ,Shakespeare, Swedenborg, — these are some of our astronomers.

ASTRONOMY

NICOLAS COPERNICUS

GALILEO GALILEI

VENUS

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

ZOROASTER

PERSIA IRAN

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Summer: The pre-Islamic fortress on Mount Dimdim fell to Persia besiegers and its occupants were massacred.

1610

PERSIA IRAN

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January 19, Monday (1628, Old Style): Shah Abbas the Great of Persia died. A grandson succeeded as Shah Safi I.

1629

PERSIA IRAN

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In solving cubics in LA GÉOMÉTRIE, René Descartes applied the approach that had been used by the astronomer and poet Omar Khayyam during the 12th Century. (Although this was not worth a lot of money, it was worthy of recognition, as below.)

Also, by the way, Descartes’s DISCOURS DE LA METHODE.

THE AGE OF REASON WAS A PIPE DREAM, OR AT BEST A PROJECT.ACTUALLY, HUMANS HAVE ALMOST NO CLUE WHAT THEY ARE DOING, WHILE CREDITING THEIR OWN LIES ABOUT WHY THEY ARE DOING IT.

1637

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

PERSIA IRAN

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May 17, Friday: The Treaty of Zuhab was signed between Persia and the Ottoman Empire, decisively partitioning the Caucasus (the greater part of it remaining Iranian) and establishing what is now the mountainous Kurdish border zone between Iran, Turkey, and Iraq.

1639

PERSIA IRAN

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May 15, Sunday: Shah Safi I had died on May 12th and was succeeded by Shah Abbas II of Persia.

1642

PERSIA IRAN

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it would be this year’s THE CHALDAICK ORACLES OF ZOROASTER AND HIS FOLLOWERS WITH THE EXPOSITIONS OF PLETHO AND PSELLUS. Edited and translated to English by Thomas Stanley. Printed for Thomas Dring, London.

http://www.esotericarchives.com/oracle/oraclesj.htm

1661

PERSIA IRAN

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Yoruba priests are described as attempting to divine the future by throwing cowry shells on specially designed boards. The divination was called ifa. The boards and the procedures were similar to those used by the Indo-Iranians when they had created chess boards a thousand years earlier.

1662

PERSIA IRAN

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October 26, Friday (Old Style): Shah Abbas II of Persia died. He would be succeeded by Shah Suleiman I.

1666

PERSIA IRAN

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September 1, 3, 4, and 5: THE TRYAL OF WILLIAM PENN & WILLIAM MEAD FOR CAUSING A TUMOLT, ETC. 1670. (This edition Boston: Marshall Jones, 1919) would prove significant in the development of free speech. This record of the transcript was made by Friend William Penn, who also listed himself as the “Observer”:

This case would give rise to a fakelore always prevalent among Quakers, that they have accomplished an improvement in the law, by establishing a legal principle of jury nullification:

THE TRYAL of WILLIAM PENN and WILLIAM MEAD, at the Sessions held at the Old Baily in London,

the 1st, 3d, 4th, and 5th of September, 1670.

Done by themselves.

Reprinted Boston: Marshall Jones Co., 1919. PRESENT

SAM. STARLING, Mayor.

THO. HOWEL, Recorder.

1670

PERSIA IRAN

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THO. BLOODWORTH, Alderm.

WILLIAM PEAK, Alderm.

JOHN ROBINSON, Alderm.

RICHARD FORD, Alderman.

JOSEPH SHELDEN, Alderman.

JOHN SMITH and JAMES EDWARDS, Sheriffs.

RICHARD BROWNE.

CRYER. O yes, Thomas Veer, Edward Bushel, John Hammond, Charles Milson, Gregory Walklet, John Brightman, William Plumstead, Henry Henley, Thomas Damask, Henry Michel, William Lever, John Baily.

The Form of the OATH.

“You shall well and truly Try, and true “Deliverance make betwixt our Sovereign Lord the King, and the Prisoners at the Bar, according to your Evidence. So help you God.”

That William Penn, Gent. and William Mead, late of London, Linnen-Draper, with divers other Persons to the Jurors unknown, to the Number of 300, the 14th Day of August, in the 22d Year of the King, about Eleven of the Clock in the Forenoon, the same Day, with Force and Arms, &c. in the Parish of St. Bennet Gracechurch in Bridge-Ward, London, in the Street called Gracechurch-Street, unlawfully and tumultuously did Assemble and Congregate themselves together, to the Disturbance of the Peace of the said Lord the King: And the aforesaid William Penn and William Mead, together with other Persons to the Jurors aforesaid unknown, then and there so Assembled and Congregated together; the aforesaid William Penn, by Agreement between him and William Mead before made, and by Abetment of the aforesaid William Mead, then and there, in the open Street, did take upon himself to Preach and Speak, and then and there did Preach and Speak unto the aforesaid William Mead, and other Persons there, in the Street aforesaid, being Assembled and Congregated together, by Reason whereof a great Concourse and Tumult of People in the Street aforesaid, then and there, a long time did remain and continue, in contempt of the said Lord the King, and of his Law, to the great Disturbance of his Peace; to the great Terror and Disturbance of many of his Leige People and Subjects, to the ill Example of all others in the like Case Offenders, and against the Peace of the said Lord the King, his Crown and Dignity.

What say you, William Penn and William Mead, are you Guilty, as you stand indicted, in Manner and Form, as aforesaid, or Not Guilty?

PENN. It is impossible, that we should be able to remember the Indictment verbatim, and therefore we desire a Copy of it, as is customary in the like Occasions.

RECORDER. You must first plead to the Indictment, before you can have a Copy of it.

PEN. I am unacquainted with the Formality of the Law, and therefore, before I shall answer directly, I request two Things of the Court. First, that no Advantage may be taken against me, nor I deprived of any Benefit, which I might otherwise have received. Secondly, that you will promise me a fair hearing, and liberty of making my Defence.

COURT. No Advantage shall be taken against you; you shall have Liberty; you shall be heard.

PEN. Then I plead Not guilty in Manner and Form.

CLERK. What sayest thou, William Mead, art thou Guilty in Manner and Form, as thou standest indicted, or Not guilty?

MEAD. I shall desire the same Liberty as is promised William Penn.

COURT. You shall have it.

PERSIA IRAN

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MEAD. Then I plead Not guilty in Manner and Form.

The Court adjourn’d until the Afternoon.

CRYER. O Yes, etc.

CLER. Bring William Penn and William Mead to the Bar.

OBSERV. The said Prisoners were brought, but were set aside, and other Business prosecuted. Where we cannot choose but observe, that it was the constant and unkind Practices of the Court to the Prisoners, to make them wait upon the Trials of Felons and Murderers, thereby designing, in all probability, both to affront and tire them.

After five Hours Attendance, the Court broke up and adjourned to the third Instant.

The third of September 1670, the Court sate.

CRYER. O Yes, etc.

CLER. Bring William Penn and William Mead to the Bar.

MAYOR. Sirrah, who bid you put off their Hats. Put on their Hats again.

OBSER. Whereupon one of the Officers putting the Prisoners Hats upon their heads (pursuant to the Order of the court) brought them to the Bar.

RECORD. Do you know where you are?

PEN. Yes.

RECORD. Do not it is the King’s Court?

PEN. I know it to be a Court, and I suppose it to be the King’s Court.

RECORD. Do you not know there is Respect due to the Court?

PEN. Yes.

RECORD. Why do you not pay it then?

PEN. I do so.

RECORD. Why do you not pull off your Hat then?

PEN. Because I do not believe that to be any Respect.

RECORD. Well, the Court sets forty Marks a piece upon your Heads, as a Fine for your Contempt of the Court.

PEN. I desire it might be observed, that we came into the Court with our Hats off (that is, taken off) and if they have been put on since, it was by Order from the Bench; and therefore not we, but the Bench should be fined.

MEAD. I have a Question to ask the Recorder. Am I fined also?

RECORD. Yes.

MEAD. I desire the Jury, and all People to take notice of this Injustice of the Recorder; who spake to me to pull off my Hat? and yet hath he put a Fine upon my Head. O fear the Lord, and dread his Power, and yield to the Guidance of his Holy Spirit, for he is not far from every one of you.

The Jury sworn again. OBSER. J. Robinson, Lieutenant of the Tower, disingenuously objected against —- Bushel, as if he had not kiss’d the Book, and therefore would have him sworn again; tho’ indeed it was on purpose to have made use of his Tenderness of Conscience in avoiding reiterated Oaths, to have put him by his being a Jury-man, apprehending him to be a Person not fit to answer their Arbitrary Ends.

PERSIA IRAN

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The Clerk read the Indictment, as aforesaid.

CLERK. Cryer, Call James Cook into the Court, give him his Oath.

CLERK. James Cook, lay your Hand upon the Book.

The Evidence you shall give to the Court, betwixt our Sovereign the King, and the prisoners at the Bar, shall be the Truth, and the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth. So help you God.

COOK. I was sent for, from the Exchange, to go and disperse a Meeting in Gracechurch-Street, where I saw Mr. Penn speaking to the People, but I could not hear what he said, because of the Noise; I endeavoured to make way to take him, but I could not get to him for the Crowd of People; upon which Capt. Mead came to me, about the Kennel of the Street, and desired me to let him go on; for when he had done, he would bring Mr. Penn to me.

COURT. What Number do you think might be there?

COOK. About three or four Hundred People.

COURT. Call Richard Read, give him his Oath.

READ being sworn was ask’d, what do you know concerning the Prisoners at the Bar?

READ. My Lord, I went to Gracechurch Street, where I found a great Crowd of People, and I heard Mr. Penn preach to them; and I saw Capt. Mead speaking to Lieutenant Cook, but what he said, I could not tell.

MEAD. What did William Penn say?

READ. There was such a great Noise, that I could not tell what he said.

MEAD. Jury, observe this Evidence, He saith he heard him Preach, and yet faith, he doth not know what he said.

Jury, take notice, he swears now a clean contrary thing to what he swore me in Gracechurch-Street, and yet swore before the Mayor, when I was committed, that he did not see me there. I appeal to the Mayor himself, if this be not true. But no Answer was given.

COURT. What Number do you think might be there?

READ. About four or five hundred.

PENN. I desire to know of him what Day it was?

READ. The 14th Day of August.

PEN. Did he speak to me, or let me know he was there; for I am very sure I never saw him.

CLER. Cryer, call ——- ——- into the Court.

CLER. Give him his Oath.

——-. My Lord, I saw a great Number of People, and Mr. Penn I suppose was speaking; I see him make a Motion with his Hands, and heard some Noise, but could not understand what he said. But for Capt. Mead, I did not see him there.

REC. What say you, Mr. Mead, were you there?

MEAD. It is a Maxim in your own Law, Nemo tenetur accusare seipsum, which if it be not true Latin, I am sure it is true English, That no Man is bound to accuse himself: And why dost thou offer to ensnare me with such a Question? Doth not this shew thy Malice? Is this like unto a Judge, that ought to be Counsel for the Prisoner at the Bar?

REC. Sir, hold your Tongue, I did not go about to ensnare you.

PEN. I desire we may come more close to the Point, and that Silence be commanded in the Court.

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HDT WHAT? INDEX

CRY. O yes, all manner of Persons keep Silence upon Pain of Imprisonment — Silence Court.

PEN. We confess our selves to be so far from recanting, or declining to vindicate the Assembling of our selves to Preach, Pray, or Worship the Eternal, Holy, Just God, that we declare to all the World, that we do believe it to be our indispensable Duty, to meet incessantly upon so good an Account; nor shall all the Powers upon Earth be able to divert us from reverencing and adoring our God who made it.

BROWN. You are not here for worshipping God, but for breaking the Law; you do yourselves a great deal of Wrong in going on in that Discourse.

PEN. I affirm I have broken no Law, nor am I guilty of the Indictment that is laid to my Charge; and to the End the Bench, the Jury, and my self, with these that hear us, may have a more direct Understanding of this Procedure, I desire you would let me know by what Law it is you prosecute me, and upon what Law you ground my Indictment.

REC. Upon the Common Law.

PEN. Where is that Common Law?

REC. You must not think that I am able to run up so many Years, and over so many adjudged Cases, which we call Common Law, to answer your Curiosity.

PEN. This Answer I am sure is very short of my Question, for if it be Common, it should not be so hard to produce.

REC. Sir, will you plead to your Indictment?

PEN. Shall I, plead to an Indictment that hath no Foundation in Law? If it contain that Law you say I have broken, why should you decline to produce that Law, since it will be impossible for the Jury to determine, or agree to bring in their Verdict, who have not the Law produced, by which they should measure the Truth of this Indictment, and the Guilt, or contrary of my Fact?

REC. You are a sawcy Fellow, speak to the Indictment.

PEN. I say, it is my place to speak to Matter of Law; I am arraign’d a Prisoner; my Liberty, which is next to Life it self, is now concerned: You are many Mouths and Ears against me, and if I must not be allowed to make the best of my Case, it is hard. I say again, unless you shew me, and the People, the Law you ground your Indictment upon, I shall take it for granted your Proceedings are meerly Arbitrary.

OBSER. At this time several upon the Bench urged hard upon the Prisoner to bear him down.

REC. The Question is, whether you are guilty of this Indictment?

PEN. The Question is not whether I am guilty of this Indictment, but whether this Indictment be legal. It is too general and imperfect an Answer, to say it is the. Common Law, unless we knew both where, and what it is: For where there is no Law, there is no Transgression; and that Law which is not in being, is so far from being Common, that it is no Law at all.

REC. You are an impertinent Fellow, will you teach the Court what Law is? It’s Lex non scripta, that which many have studied thirty or forty Years to know, and would you have me to tell you in a Moment?

PEN. Certainly, if the Common Law be so hard to be understood, it’s far from being very Common; but if the Lord Cook, in his Institutes, be of any Consideration, he tells us, That Common Law is Common Right, and that Common Right is the Great Charter-Privileges: Confirmed 9 Hen. 3. 29. 25, Edw. I. i. 2, Edw. 3. 8, Cook Instit. 2 p. 56.

REC. Sir, you are a troublesome Fellow, and it is not for the Honour of the Court to suffer you to go on.

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HDT WHAT? INDEX

PEN. I have asked but one Question, and you have not answer’d me; tho’ the Rights and Privileges of every Englishman be concerned in it.

REC. If I should suffer you to ask Questions till to Morrow Morning, you would be never the wiser.

PEN. That is according as the Answers are.

REC. Sir, we must not stand to hear you talk all Night.

PEN. I design no Affront to the Court, but to be heard in my just Plea: And I must plainly tell you, that if you will deny me Oyer of that Law, which you suggest I have broken, you do at once deny me an acknowledged Right, and evidence to the whole World your Resolution to sacrifice the Privileges of Englishmen to your sinister and Arbitrary Designs.

REC. Take him away. My Lord, if you take not some Course with this pestilent Fellow, to stop his Mouth, We shall not be able to do any thing to Night.

MAYOR. Take him away, take him away, turn him into the Bale-dock.

PEN. These are but so many vain Exclamations; is this Justice or true Judgment? Must I therefore be taken away because I plead for the Fundamental Laws of England? However, this I leave upon your Consciences, who are of the Jury (and my sole Judges) that if these Ancient Fundamental Laws, which relate to Liberty and Property, and (are not limited to particular Persuasions in Matters of Religion) must not be indispensibly maintained and observed. Who can say he hath Right to the Coat upon his Back? Certainly our Liberties are openly to be invaded, our Wives to be ravished, our Children slaved, our Families ruined, and our Estates led away in Triumph, by every sturdy Beggar and malicious Informer, as their Trophies, but our (pretended) Forfeits for Conscience sake. The Lord of Heaven and Earth will be Judge between us in this Matter. REC. Be silent there.

REC. Be silent there.

PEN. I am not to be silent in a Case wherein I am so much concerned, and not only my self, but many ten thousand Families besides.

OBSER. They having rudely haled him into the Bale-dock, William Mead they left in Court, who spake as followeth.

MEAD. You Men of the Jury, here I do now stand, to answer to an Indictment against me, which is a Bundle of Stuff, full of Lyes and Falshoods; for therein I am accused, that I met Vi & armis, illicite & tumultuose: Time was, when I had Freedom to use a carnal Weapon, and then I thought I feared no Man; but now I fear the Living God, and dare not make use thereof, nor hurt any Man; nor do I know I demeaned my self as a tumultuous Person: I say, I am a peaceable Man, therefore it is a very proper Question what William Penn demanded in this Case, An Oyer of the Law, in which our Indictment is grounded.

REC. I have made Answer to that already.

MEAD. Turning his Face to the Jury, saith, you Men of the Jury, who are my Judges, if the Recorder will not tell you what makes a Riot, a Rout, or an unlawful Assembly, Cook, he that once they called the Lord Cook, tells us what makes a Riot, a Rout, and an unlawful Assembly — A Riot is when three, or more, are met together to beat a Man, or to enter forcibly into another Man’s Land, to cut down his Grass, his Wood, or break down his Pales.

OBSER. Here the Recorder interrupted him, and said, I thank you Sir, that you will tell me what the Law is, scornfully pulling off his Hat.

MEAD. Thou mayst put on thy Hat, I have never a Free for thee now.

BROWN. He talks at random, one while an Independent, another while some other Religion, and now a Quaker, and next a Papist.

MEAD. Turpe est doctori cum culpa redarguit ad ipsum.

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MAY. You deserve to have your Tongue cut out.

REC. If you discourse on this Manner, I shall take Occasion against you.

MEAD. Thou didst promise me, I should have fair Liberty to be heard; why may I not have the Privilege of an Englishman? I am an Englishman, and you might be ashamed of this dealing.

REC. I look upon you to be an Enemy to the Laws of England, which ought to be observed and kept, nor are you worthy of such Privileges, as others have.

MEAD. The Lord is Judge between me and thee in this Matter.

OBSER. Upon which they took him away into the Bale-dock, and the Recorder proceeded to give the Jury their Charge, as followeth.

REC. You have heard what the Indictment is. It is for preaching to the People, and drawing a tumultuous Company after them, and Mr. Penn was speaking; if they should not be disturbed, you see they will go on; there are three or four Witnesses that have proved this, that he did preach there; that Mr. Mead did allow of it; after this, you have heard by substantial Witnesses what is said against them: Now we are upon the Matter of Fact, which you are to keep to, and observe, as what hath been fully sworn, at your Peril.

OBSER. The Prisoners were put out of the Court into the Bale-dock, and the Charge given to the Jury in their Absence, at which W.P. with a very raised Voice, it being a considerable distance from the Bench, spake.

PEN. I appeal to the Jury, who are Judges, and this great Assembly, the Proceedings of the Court are not most Arbitrary, and void of all Law, in offering to give the Jury their Charge in the Absence of the Prisoners; I say, it is directly opposite to, and destructive of, the undoubted Right of every English Prisoner, as Cook in the 2 Instit. 29. on the Chap. of Magna Charta, speaks.

OBSER. The Recorder being thus unexpectedly lash’d for his extrajudicial Procedure, said, with an inraged Smile.

REC. Why, ye are present, you do hear, do you not?

PEN: No thanks to the Court, that commanded me into the Bale-dock; and you of the Jury take notice, that I have not been heard, neither can you legally depart the Court, before I have been fully heard, having at least ten or twelve material Points to offer, in order to invalid their Indictment.

REC. Pull that Fellow down, pull him down.

MEAD. Are these according to the Rights and Privileges of Englishmen, that we should not be heard, but turned into the Bale-dock, for making our Defence, and the Jury to have their Charge given them in our Absence; I say these are barbarous and unjust Proceedings.

REC. Take them away into the Hole: To hear them talk all Night, as they would, that I think doth not become the Honour of the Court, and I think you (i.e. the Jury) your selves would be tired out, and not have Patience to hear them.

OBSER. The Jury were commanded up to agree upon their Verdict, the Prisoners remaining in the stinking Hole. After an Hour and half’s time eight came down agreed, but four remained above; the Court sent an Officer for them, and they accordingly came down. The Bench used many unworthy Threats to the four that dissented; and, the Recorder, addressing himself to Bushel, said, Sir, You are the Cause of this Disturbance, and manifestly shew your self an Abettor of Faction; I shall set a Mark upon you, Sir.

J. ROBINSON. Mr. Bushel, I have known you near this fourteen Years; you have thrust your self upon this Jury, because you think there is some Service for you. I tell you, you deserve to be indicted more than any Man that hath been brought to the Bar this Day.

BUSHEL. No, Sir John, there were threescore before me, and I would willingly have got off, but could not.

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BLOODW. I said, when I saw Mr. Bushel, what I see is come to pass, for I knew he would never yield. Mr. Bushel, we know what you are.

MAY. Sirrah, you are an impudent Fellow, I will put a Mark upon you.

OBSER. They used much menacing Language, and behaved themselves very imperiously to the Jury, as Persons not more void of Justice than sober Education: After this barbarous Usage, they sent them to consider of bringing in their Verdict, and after some considerable time they returned to the Court. Silence was call’d for, and the Jury call’d by their Names.

CLER. Are you agreed upon your Verdict?

JURY. Yes.

CLER. Who shall speak for you?

JURY. Our Fore-man.

CLER. Look upon the Prisoners at the Bar. How say you? Is William Penn Guilty of the Matter whereof he stands indicted in Manner and Form, or Not Guilty?

FORE-M. Guilty of Speaking in Gracechurch-Street.

COURT. Is that all?

FORE-M. That is all I have in Commission.

REC. You had as good say nothing.

MAY. Was it not an unlawful Assembly? You mean he was speaking to a Tumult of People there?

FORE-M. My Lord, This is all I had in Commission.

OBSER. Here some of the Jury seemed to buckle to the Questions of the Court; upon which, Bushel, Hammond, and some others, opposed themselves, and said, they allowed of no such Word, as an unlawful Assembly in their Verdict; at which the Recorder, Mayor, Robinson and Bloodworth took great occasion to villifie them with most opprobrious Language; and this Verdict not serving their Turns, the Recorder express’d himself thus.

REC. The Law of England will not allow you to part till you have given in your Verdict.

JURY. We have given in our Verdict, and we can give in no other.

REC. Gentlemen, you have not given in your Verdict, and you had as good say nothing; therefore go and consider it once more, that we may make an end of this troublesome Business.

JURY. We desire we may have Pen, Ink and Paper.

OBSER. The Court adjourn’d for half an Hour; which being expired, the Court returns, and the Jury not long after.

The Prisoners were brought to the Bar, and the Jury’s Names called over.

CLER. Are you agreed of your Verdict?

JUR. Yes.

CLER. Who shall speak for you?

JUR. Our Fore-man.

CLER. What say you, look upon the Prisoners: Is William Penn Guilty in Manner and Form, as he stands indicted, or Not Guilty?

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FORE-M. Here is our verdict, holding forth a piece of Paper to the Clerk of the Peace, We the Jurors, hereafter named, do find William Penn to be Guilty of Speaking or Preaching to an Assembly, met together in Gracechurch-Street, the 14th of August last, 1670. And that William Mead is Not guilty of the said Indictment.

Fore-m, Thomas Veer,

Edward Bushel,

John Hammond,

Henry Henley,

Henry Michel,

John Brightman,

Charles Milson,

Gregory Walklet,

John Baily,

William Lever,

James Damask,

Wm. Plumsted.

OBSER. This both Mayor and Recorder resented as so high a rate, that they exceeded the Bounds of all Reason and Civility.

MAY. What will you be led by such a silly Fellow as Bushel? an impudent canting Fellow? I warrant you, you shall come no more upon Juries in haste: You are a Fore-man indeed, addressing himself to the Fore-man, I thought you had understood your Place better.

PEN. My Jury, who are my Judges, ought not to be thus menaced; their Verdict should be free, and not compelled; the Bench ought to wait upon them, but not forestall them. I do desire that Justice may be done me, and that the Arbitrary Resolves of the Bench may not be made the Measure of my Jury’s Verdict.

REC. Stop that prating Fellow’s Mouth, or put him out of the Court.

MAY. You have heard that he preach’d, that he gathered a Company of tumultuous People, and that they do not only disobey the Martial Power, but Civil also.

PEN. It is a great Mistake; we did not make the Tumult, but they that interrupted us: The Jury cannot be so ignorant, as to think, that we met there, with a Design to disturb the Civil Peace, since (1st.) we were by Force of Arms kept out of our lawful House, and met as near it in the Street, as their soldiers would give us leave; and (2dly.) because it was no new thing (nor with the Circumstances expres’d in the Indictment) but what was usual and customary with us; ’t is very well known that we are a peaceable People, and cannot offer Violence to any Man.

OBSER. The Court being ready to break up, and willing to huddle the Prisoners to their Goal, and the Jury to their Chamber, Penn spoke as follows:

PEN. The Agreement of Twelve Men is a Verdict in Law, and such a one being given by the Jury, I require the Clerk of the Peace to record it, as he will answer it at his Peril. And if the Jury bring in another Verdict contradictory to this, I affirm they are perjur’d Men in Law. And looking upon the Jury, said, You are Englishmen, mind your Privilege, give not away your Right.

BUSH, etc. Nor will we ever do it.

OBSER. One of the Jury-men pleaded Indisposition of Body, and therefore desired to be dismist.

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HDT WHAT? INDEX

MAY. You are as strong as any of them; starve with them; and hold your Principles.

REC. Gentlemen, You must be contented with your hard Fate, let your Patience overcome it; for the Court is resolved to have a Verdict, and that before you can be dismist.

JURY. We are agreed, we are agreed, we are agreed.

OBSER. The Court swore several Persons, to keep the Jury all Night without Meat, Drink, Fire, or any other Accomodation; they had not so much as a Chamberpot, tho’ desired.

CRY. O Yes, etc.

OBSER. The Court adjourns till Seven of the Clock next Morning (being the 4th Instant, vulgarly call’d Sunday) at which time the Prisoners were brought to the Bar: The Court sat, and the Jury called to bring in their Verdict.

CRY. O Yes, etc. —- Silence in the Court, upon pain of Imprisonment.

The Jury’s Names called over.

CLER. Are you agreed upon your Verdict?

JUR. Yes.

CLER. Who shall speak for you?

JUR. Our Fore-man.

CLER. What say you? Look upon the Prisoners at the Bar. Is William Penn Guilty of the Matter whereof he stands indicted, in Manner and Form as aforesaid, or Not guilty?

FORE-M. William Penn is guilty of Speaking in Gracechurch-Street.

MAY. To an unlawful Assembly?

BUSH. No, my Lord, we give no other Verdict than what we gave last Night; we have no other Verdict to give.

MAY. You are a factious Fellow, I ’11 take a Course with you.

BLOOD. I knew Mr. Bushel would not yield.

BUSH. Sir Thomas I have done according to my Conscience.

MAY. That Conscience of yours would cut my Throat.

BUSH. No, my Lord, it never shall.

MAY. But I will cut yours so soon as I can.

REC. He has inspired the Jury; he has the Spirit of Divination, methinks I feel him. I will have a positive Verdict, or you shall starve for it.

PEN. I desire to ask the Recorder one Question, Do you allow of the Verdict given of William Mead?

REC. It cannot be a Verdict, because you were indicted for a Conspiracy, and one being found Not guilty, and not the other, it could not be a Verdict.

PEN. If Not guilty be not a Verdict, then you make of the Jury and Magna Charta but a meer Nose of Wax.

MEAD. How! is Not guilty no Verdict?

REC. No, ’tis no Verdict.

PEN. I affirm, that the Consent of a Jury is a Verdict in Law; and if William Mead be Not guilty, it consequently follows, that I am clear, since you have indicted us of a Conspiracy, and I could not possibly conspire alone.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

OBSER. There were many Passages, that could not be taken, which past between the Jury and the Court. The Jury went up again, having received a fresh Charge from the Bench, if possible to extort an unjust Verdict.

CRY. O Yes, etc. Silence in the Court.

COUR. Call over the Jury. Which was done.

CLER. What say you? Is William Penn Guilty of the Matter whereof he stands indicted, in Manner and Form aforesaid, or Not Guilty?

FORE-MAN. Guilty of speaking in Grace-church-Street.

REC. What is this to the Purpose? I say, I will have a Verdict. And speaking to Edw. Bushel, said, You are a factious Fellow; I will set a Mark upon you; and whilst I have anything to do in the City, I will have an eye upon you.

MAY. Have you no more Wit than to be led by such a pitiful Fellow? I will cut his Nose.

PEN. It is intolerable that my Jury should be thus menaced: Is this according to the Fundamental Laws? Are not they my proper Judges by the great Charter of England? What hope is there of ever having Justice done, when Juries are threatened, and their Verdicts rejected? I am concerned to speak and grieved to see such Arbitrary Proceedings. Did not the Lieutenant of the Tower render one of them worse than a Felon? And do you not plainly seem to condemn such for factious Fellows, who answer not your Ends? Unhappy are those Juries, who are threatened to be fined, and starved, and ruined, if they give not in Verdicts contrary to their Consciences.

REC. My Lord, you must take a Course with that same Fellow.

MAY. Stop his Mouth; Jaylor, bring Fetters, and stake him to the Ground.

PEN. Do your Pleasure, I matter not your Fetters.

REC. Till now I never understood the Reason of the Policy and Prudence of the Spaniards, in suffering the Inquisition among them: And certainly it will never be well with us, till something like unto the Spanish Inquisition be in England.

OBSER. The Jury being required to go together to find another Verdict, and steadfastly refusing it (saying they could give no other Verdict than what was already given) the Recorder in great Passion was running off the Bench, with these Words in his Mouth, I protest I will sit here no longer to hear these Things; at which the Mayor calling, Stay, stay, he returned, and directed himself unto the Jury, and spoke as followeth:

REC. Gentlemen, we shall not be at this trade always with you; you will find the next Sessions of Parliament there will be a Law made, that those that will not conform shall not have the Protection of the Law. Mr. Lee, draw up another Verdict, that they may bring it in special.

LEE. I cannot tell how to do it.

JUR. We ought not to be return’d, having all agreed, and set our Hands to the Verdict.

REC. Your Verdict is nothing, you play upon the Court; I say you shall go together, and bring in another Verdict, or you shall starve; and I will have you charted about the City, as in Edward the Third’s time.

FORE-M. We have given in our Verdict, and all agreed to it; and if we give in another, it will be a Force upon us to save our Lives.

MAY. Take them up.

OFFIC. My Lord, they will not go up.

OBSER. The Mayor spoke to the Sheriff, and he came off of his seat, and said.

SHER. Come, Gentlemen, you must go up; you see I am commanded to make you go.

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OBSER. Upon which the Jury went up; and several sworn to keep them without any Accommodation, as aforesaid, till they brought in their Verdict.

CRY. O yes, etc. The Court adjourns till to Morrow Morning, at seven of the Clock.

OBSER. The Prisoners were remanded to Newgate, where they remained till next Morning, and then were brought unto the Court, which being sat, they proceeded as followeth.

CRY. O yes, etc. Silence in the Court, upon pain of Imprisonment.

CLER. Set William Penn and William Mead to the Bar. Gentlemen of the Jury, answer to your Names: Tho. Veer, Edw. Bushel, John Hammond, Henry Henly, Henry Michell, John Brightman, Charles Milson, Gregory Walklet, John Baily, William Leavet, James Damask, William Plumstead. Are you all agreed of your Verdict?

JUR. Yes.

CLER. Who shall speak for you?

JUR. Our Fore-man.

CLER. Look upon the Prisoners. What say you? Is William Penn Guilty of the Matter whereof he stands indicted, in Manner and Form, etc., or Not Guilty?

FORE-MAN. Here is our Verdict in Writing, and our Hands subscribed.

OBSER. The Clerk took the paper, but was stopt by the Recorder from reading of it; and he commanded to ask for a positive Verdict.

FORE-MAN. That is our Verdict; we have subscribed to it.

CLER. How say you? Is William Penn Guilty, &c., or Not Guilty?

FORE-MAN. Not guilty.

CLER. How say you? Is William Mead Guilty, &c., or Not Guilty?

FORE-MAN. Not guilty.

CLER. Then hearken to your Verdict; you say that William Penn is Not Guilty in Manner and Form as he stands indicted; you say that William Mead is Not guilty in Manner and Form as he stands indicted, and so you say all?

JUR. Yes, we do so.

OBSER. The Bench being unsatisfied with the Verdict, commanded that every Person should distinctly answer to their Names, and give in their Verdict, which they unanimously did, in saying, Not Guilty, to the great Satisfaction of the Assembly.

REC. I am sorry, Gentlemen, you have followed your own Judgments and Opinions, rather than the good and wholsome Advice, which was given you; God keep my Life out of your Hands; but for this the Court Fines you forty Mark a Man; and Imprisonment till paid. At which Penn stept up towards the Bench, and said:

PEN. I demand my Liberty, being freed by the Jury.

MAY. No, you are in for your Fines.

PEN. Fines, for what?

MAY. For contempt of the Court.

PEN. I ask, if it be according to the Fundamental Laws of England, that any English-Man should be Fined or Amerced, but by the Judgment of his Peers or Jury; since it expressly contradicts the fourteenth and twenty-ninth Chap. of the great Charter of England, which say, No Free-Man ought to be amerced, but by the Oath of good and Lawful Men of the Vicinage.

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HDT WHAT? INDEX

REC. Take him away, Take him away, take him out of the Court.

PEN. I can never urge the Fundamental Laws of England, but you cry, Take him away, take him away. But it is no wonder, Since the Spanish Inquisition hath so great a place in the Recorder’s Heart. God Almighty, who is just, will judge you all for these things.

ORSER. They haled the Prisoners into the Bale-dock, and from thence sent them to

Newgate, for Non-payment of their Fines; and so were their Jury.

[End of transcript.]

Appendix:

(Several letters of William Penn from Newgate Prison to his father, William Penn the Admiral, taken from another source.)

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5th of 7th month, 1670.

Dear Father,

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Because I cannot come, I write. These are to let thee know that this morning about sever we were remanded to the sessions. The jury, after two nights and two days being locked up, came down and offered their former verdict; but that being refused as not positive, they explained themselves by pronouncing the prisoners Not Guilty. Upon this the bench were amazed, and the whole court so satisfied they made a kind of hymn. But that the Mayor, Recorder, and Robinson might add to their malice, they fined us for not pulling off our hats, and have kept us prisoners for the money — an injurious trifle, which will blow over, as we shall bring it to the Common Pleas, because it was against law, as not sessed by a jury.

How great a dissatisfactions their actions have begot may reasonably be conjectured by the bare mention of them.

1st. — That the jury was about six times rejected in their verdict; and besides illegal menaces, were kept two days and two nights without bed, tobacco, provisions, etc.

2nd. — That a session should be held on the first day of the week.

3rd. — That the jury, the only judges by law, should be fined forty marks each for the verdict they brought in, and to be prisoners till they have paid it. However, their verdict for us is accepted, because they dare not deny it.

This is the substance. The particular circumstances I shall personally relate, if the Lord will. I am more concerned at thy distemper and the pains that attend it, than at my own mere imprisonment, which works for the best.

I am, dear father,

Thy obedient son,

William Penn.

Newgate, 6th, 7th mo., 1670.

Dear Father,

I desire thee not to be troubled at my present confinement; I could scarce suffer on a better account, nor by a worse hand, and the will of God be done. It is more grievous and uneasy to me that that should be so heavily exercised, God Almighty knows, than any world confinement. I am cleared by the jury, and they are here in my place, and resolved to lie till they get out by law. Every six hours they demand their freedom, by advice of counsel.

They (the court) have so overshot themselves, that the generality of people much detest them. I entreat thee not to purchase my liberty. They will repent them of their proceedings. I am now a prisoners notoriously against law. I desire in fervent prayer the Lord God to strengthen and support thee, and to anchor thy mind in thoughts of the immutable blessed state which is over all perishing concerns.

I am, dear father,

Thy obedient son,

William Penn.

Newgate, 7th September, 1670.

Dear Father,

I am truly grieved to hear of thy present illness.

If God in His holy will did see meet that I should be freed, I could heartily embrace it; yet, considering I cannot be free but upon such terms as strengthen their arbitrary and base proceedings, I rather choose to suffer nay hardship, and I am persuaded some clearer way will suddenly be found to obtain my liberty; which is no way so desirable to me as on the account of being with thee.

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I am not without hope that the Lord will sanctify the endeavours of thy physician unto a cure, and them much of my solicitude will be at an end. My present restraint is so far from being humour, that I would rather perish then release myself by an indirect course, or to satiate their revengeful, avaricious appetites. The advantage of such freedom would fall very short of the trouble of accepting it. Solace thy mind in the thoughts of better things, dear father. Let not this wicked world disturb thy mind, and whatever shall come to pass, I hope in all conditions to approve myself thy obedient son,

William Penn.

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THE INTRIGUING DOCTRINE OF

Julius J. Marke Distinguished Research Professor of Law,

St. John’s University; Professor of Law Emeritus, New York University

Jury nullification, despite the role it played in the O.J. Simpson trial, has had a long and meaningful tradition. In that context, the Seventeenth Century trial of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, and Bushell’s Case which arose from it, played a dramatically inspiring role. Prior to Penn’s trial, judges could require juries in criminal trials to render a verdict not only on the facts in issue, but as well, on the applicable law. Questions of law involved in criminal cases, judges then maintained, were not so complicated as to excuse jurors from reaching a verdict. Judges used many methods to force a jury to do as they charged. A jury could be locked up, without water, food, heat, tobacco, or light, until it returned a unanimous verdict or one the judge directed. Judges could also levy a fine against members of the jury if they brought in a contrary or “corrupt” verdict and even impose imprisonment until the fine was paid. Penn was placed on trial in the Old Bailey Court in 1670 for the crime of “tumultuous assembly,” because he preached a sermon in Grace Church Street in violation of the “Conventicle Act” which prohibited any meeting for worship other than those of the Church of England. The Court ordered the jury to find Penn guilty, for if they found the Quakers had met at all, the very meeting by itself was unlawful. The jury, however, found that the meeting had taken place, but refused to find the law had been violated. Penn, at the time, was only 26 years old, and had to conduct his own defense, as accused persons in criminal cases in those days were not allowed counsel to represent them. The trial is a dramatic example of the cavalier methods used by judges at the time. The jury consisted of twelve ordinary middle-class men selected at random from the jury rolls of the City of London. The ten judges who heard the case included the Lord Mayor, the Recorder (a Magistrate), and other representatives of government who were motivated to enforce the “Conventicle Act.” As we read the transcript of the trial (which Penn published in 1670 as the Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties, Asserted in the Trial of William Penn and William Mead ... Against The Most Arbitrary Procedure Of That Court.), Penn’s logic and legal acumen must be admired. He baited the judges so skillfully on the role of the Common law, that they in turn tired to heckle and bully him. Finally, completely frustrated, they ordered that he be locked up in the bale dock. The bale dock was a locked cage, recessed below the floor level, located at the very end of the courtroom. There he could be heard but not seen by the jury. When the jury returned a verdict of “guilty of speaking in Grace Church Street,” the Lord Mayor shouted out, “was it not an unlawful assembly? You mean he was speaking to a tumult of people there?” The jury refused to so find. The Recorder then angrily responded “Gentlemen, you shall not be dismissed till you bring in a verdict which the court will accept. You shall be locked up, without meat, drink, fire and tobacco. You shall not think thus to abuse the court. We will have a verdict by the help of God or you shall starve for it.”

JURY NULLIFICATION

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Penn objected: “My jury, who are my judges, ought not to be thus menaced. Their verdict should be free-not forced. The agreement of twelve men is a verdict in law ... and if, after this, the jury brings in another verdict, contrary to this, I affirm they are perjured men.” At this point while Penn was still talking, the soldiers started to push the jury back to the jury room and then occurred one of the most inspiring incidents in the annals of English jurisprudence. Penn called out: “Ye are Englishmen, mind your privilege, give not away your right.” And the jury replied., “Nor will we ever do it.” The jury was kept for two days and nights, without food, water, and heat, but refused to change its verdict. Finally the court ended the trial abruptly, fining each juror forty marks and committing them to imprisonment until they paid their fines. Bushell, the foreman, and the other jurors obtained a writ of habeas corpus from the Court of Common Pleas. Releasing them from their imprisonment, Chief Justice Sir John Vaughan held “...for if it be demanded what is the fact? The judge cannot answer it: if it be asked, what is the law in this case, the jury cannot answer it.” Although the judgment was later reversed on appeal because the Court of Common Pleas did not have jurisdiction in criminal matters, Bushell’s Case established the right of trial juries to decide cases according to their convictions. Andrew Hamilton, one of the foremost attorneys in the Colonies, used the case with telling effect as a precedent in Peter Zenger’s trial in 1735 in New York, which established freedom of the press. Zenger was accused of publishing a seditious libel in his newspaper defaming the Governor General of the Province of New York. Though the Court ruled that the truth of a seditious libel could not be set up as a defense as a matter of law, Hamilton insisted, based on Bushell’s Case, that it is for the jury to determine whether Zenger’s comments were true. “The right of the jury,” he argued, “to find such a verdict in their conscience do think is agreeable to their evidence, is supported by the authority of Bushell’s Case beyond any doubt....” The jury followed his advice, and despite the judge’s charge to the contrary, acquitted Zenger. Bushell’s Case gave a new meaning to the jury system in that it made the jury an equal to the executive and legislative branches of the government in the enforcement of criminal law. In this context, it is recognized as the power of the jury to nullify the law by reflecting in their verdict the “Conscience of the Community,” and is considered “one of the most potent forces in the criminal law.” As brought out by Professor A.D. Leipold, in his article “Rethinking Jury Nullification,” (82 Va.L.Rev. 253, March 1996) “Nullification occurs when the defendant’s guilt is clear beyond a reasonable doubt, but the jury based on its own sense of justice or fairness, decides to acquit [against the evidence, the judge’s legal instructions and a legislative definition of culpable conduct]. In terms of raw power, nullification has few parallels: rarely can a public entity, make such a critical decision with no obligation to justify its action and with no recourse for the aggrieved party.” Jury nullification has been praised, in that the acquittal reflects a democratic process by which the jury can interpose its own moral or political judgment in defiance of an unpopular expression of governmental action. By the same process however, it has been denounced as an act of anarchy. In addition to the Simpson Case, jury nullification has played a significant role in other recent high profile cases, in which despite the obvious evidence that the defendant committed the crime charged yet the jury disregarded the evidence and acquitted in whole or part. For example, those involving Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry

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(although the Mayor was videotaped smoking cocaine, the jury convicted Barry of only one misdemeanor count of drug possession, acquitted on another and deadlocked on the remaining twelve charges); Dr. Jack Kevorkian (although the evidence was uncontroverted that Kevorkian had assisted in the suicide of the deceased, in violation of Michigan law, still the jury acquitted him); and Oliver North, (a former White House aid, was acquitted of 9 of the 12 charges against him, in that he lied to Congress, obstructed justice by diverting funds in the sale of arms to Iran and money to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, despite the judge’s charge that his claim that he acted on the orders of superiors, was not a defense, still the jury convicted him only on the charges that he acted alone). In his book, “A Crime of Self Defense” (1996), Prof. George Fletcher, thoughtfully adds: “Although jury nullification seems to stand in conflict with the rule of law [still] careful reflection underscores the power of the jury not to defeat the law, but to perfect the law, to realize the law’s inherent values!”

ESSENCE IS BLUR. SPECIFICITY, THE OPPOSITE OF ESSENCE,

IS OF THE NATURE OF TRUTH.

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it would be Servatus Gallæus’s SIBULLIAKOI CHRESMOI of this year, which contained a version of THE CHALDÆAN ORACLES.

1688

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it would be Jacobus Marthanus’s version containing the Commentary of Gemistus Pletho, of this year.

1689

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May/June: (Dhu’l-Hijjah AH 1111) On the following screen is the decree of manumission issued by the Safavid Shah Sultan Husayn of Iran by which he set free his slave girl named Khush-manzar. It is a manuscript in the Persian language on cream paper, pasted upon a separate panel of paper with ownership inscriptions and seal marks, and mounted in green and pink border on a blue album page (folio 13 x 8 inches; text 5 7/8 x 4 inches). The decree contains the king’s seal impression and a note in his own hand to the right of the seal (the note on the left is the legalization by the theologian Jamal al-Din Muhammad al-Khwansari, with his seal impression).

18TH CENTURY

1700

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it would be Thomas Stanley’s THE HISTORY OF THE CHALDAIC PHILOSOPHY (contains the Latin of Patricius, and

1701

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the Commentaries of Pletho and Psellus in English) of this year.

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

“WALKING”: My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desireto bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennialand constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge,but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higherknowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grandsurprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all thatwe called Knowledge before — a discovery that there are morethings in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot know inany higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenelyand with impunity in the face of the sun: ,— “You will not perceive that as perceiving a particular thing,”say the Chaldean Oracles.

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it would be Johannes Alb. Fabricius’s BIBLIOTHECA GRÆCA (quotes the Oracles), which was being published from 1705 to 1707.

1705

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April 21, day (Old Style): Mirwais Khan Hotak, the leader of the Ghilzai clan and mayor of Kandahar, by killing the Persian-appointed governor George XI of Kartli, made himself King of Persia.

1709

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July: A Russian military expedition sailed to prevent the territories in disintegrating neighboring Safavid Iran from falling into the hands of the Ottomans.

1722

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September 12, Thursday (Old Style): Treaty of Saint Petersburg: An envoy of the Shah of Persia signed a peace treaty ceding the cities of Derbent and Baku and the provinces of Shirvan, Guilan, Mazandaran, and Astrabad to the Russian Empire.

1723

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A shipload of immigrants from Silesia settled in Pennsylvania, introducing there the Crocus Sativa that produces saffron.

An article in Newsweek has reminded me of a problem that has been repeatedly rearing its ugly head, to wit,

“Austin, you don’t know nearly enough about the influence ofdrugs on the lives of the people you are studying.”

Kendall Hamilton reported in this article on the designer drugs of history, that laudanum had been a tincture of opium and saffron. Was this a principle reason for the cultivation of the Crocus sativus? I have been studying how the reputation of religious dissenters such as the Quakers, for probity and plain dealing, was turned to good use not only in the manufacture and merchandising of fine chocolate, as in Cadbury, but also in the manufacture and merchandising of reliable designer drugs, as in Black Drop and many other preparations. And if the Crocus sativus fields around Saffron Walden in England were significantly used in this drug business, then there was perhaps an involvement of Huguenot religious refugees from France similar, say, to today’s newspapers and the “minority Christian farmers” of the Bekka Valley in the Lebanon, with their machineguns and their rockets and their primary cash crop of hashish. Or, at least, that was what first sprang to my mind when I read in my Newsweek of laudanum consisting not only of opium but also of saffron. In the 19th Century, the best opium was coming from Turkey, but the Greek independence movement of the 1820s closed the port of Smyrna and that led to new opium fields first in Bengal and then also in Burma, and of course in Persia. Saffron has always been very expensive (costing considerably more than 19th Century opium) because of the complexity of its cultivation. The saffron colored robes of the buddhist monks from some opium growing areas (e.g. Thailand) might be relevant here. While I was in the Middle East, the Shah’s twin sister was getting arrested with suitcases full of Iranian opium in Switzerland, and claiming diplomatic immunity. I kept running across case after case of dope stuff having to do with historic Persia. For an instance of the curious stuff which I am convinced remains to be discovered, I’ve found out that the turquoise used by Navajo silversmiths was, from an exceedingly early date, almost exclusively imported from Persian mines. Well before the lands in the American southwest became divided up into states, well back into the days of the 1st stagecoaches, white traders were going down there and essentially obsoleting the local sources of inferior turquoise with very superior, easily portable gemstone from Persia. They were also carrying in color-fast artificial dies such as the latest coal-tar derivatives from Germany, to replace the non-color-fast dies made from local species of plants, so that it was at a very early point that the native weaving began to make this crossover. In general, what I think we haven’t been paying adequate attention to is that there is an entire range of commodities which spread very rapidly, because 1.) their usefulness is obvious to everyone, as in the case of saffron or opium or turquoise or color-fast dies and mordants, and because 2.) they were just absolutely easy to transport, being something that maybe one person could carry along in his saddlebag wrapped in a greasy cloth. I would suspect that the discoveries we are going to make are on the order of back when we were discovering, say, that a particular species of bird that disappeared from New England in the autumns was doing this disappearing act every year because it was flying to say Bermuda for the winter, and had just as much of a life in Bermuda as in Connecticut.Chemistry handbooks and encyclopaedias mention saffron only as a coloring agent (e.g. for liquors, in former centuries for cloth) and as substance to make perfumes from, making no mention of any drug effects. However, by checking saffron (azafra’n) in a dictionary we can find that it has been considered to be a stimulant, and in medaeval herbals one can find also that:

1734

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• According to ancient legend, a Greek girl, partaking of saffron for an entire week, could not resist a lover. The reputation of saffron as an aphrodisiac has not wholly disappeared although it is now used largely as a condiment in food. According to WEDECK’S DICTIONARY OF APHRODISIACS. (NY: Philosophical Library, 1961, pages 212-13), “A concoction consisting of saffron, orange blossoms, dried dates, anise, wild carrots, and egg yolk, boiled in clear water into which honey and the blood of two freshly killed doves have been poured, is recommended by Arabs as a sexual inducement.”

• According to THE MEDICAL FORMULARY OR AQRABADHIN OF AL-KINDI as translated by Martin Levey (Madison WI: U of Wisconsin P, 1966, pages 275-76) saffron is credited in different parts of the world with helping in problems of the eyes, stomach, hysteric depressions, and “in pessaries and cataplasms for the uterus and other organs.”

• The article “Laudanum” in the ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA indicates that this tincture, first produced by Paracelsus, contained many ingredients –presumably the list of ingredients would have been a trade secret of every provider– including saffron but always among these ingredients was opium. It seems plausible that the powers ascribed to saffron were transferred to the one ingredient in the popular mind, from the other ingredient.

• According to the DICTIONNAIRE UNIVERSEL DE LA VIE PRATIQUE, red. G. Beleze, Hachette 1876, page1225, at the end of its article on “Opium,”

Le Laudanum liquide de Sydenham s’obtient en faisant macerer,pendant douze or quinze jours, au soleil, dans un demi-litre devin d’Espagne ou de Malaga, 8 gr. d’opium, 4 gr. de safran, 4gr. de cannelle et 4 gr. de girofle; on passe et on filtre. Vingtgouttes de ce liquide contiennent 5 centigr. d’opium endissolution. Il est tonique et calmant : on le administre a ladose de quelques gouttes. Pris a plus forte dose, iloccasionnerait l’empoissonnement.

Also, on pages 1585/86, in its article on “Safran,”

(Econ.domestiq.) Il est employe comme assaiconnement dansquelques preparations culinaires, et principalement dans lacuisine meriodionale. Il sert aussi a colorer certaines pates,telles que la vermicelle, des cremes, des gateaux, le beurreetc. Enfin, il entre dans la composition de quelques liqueursde table. Dans tout les cas c’est une substance stimulante donton ne doit faire usage qu’a petites doses.(Medicine domest.) Les stigmates du safran sont employes enmedicine comme antispasmodiques excitants. C’est un stimulantinoffensiv, a la dose d’un ou deux decigrammes en infusion dansune tasse d’eau bouillante.

ESSENCES ARE FUZZY, GENERIC, CONCEPTUAL;ARISTOTLE WAS RIGHT WHEN HE INSISTED THAT ALL TRUTH IS

SPECIFIC AND PARTICULAR (AND WRONG WHEN HE CHARACTERIZED

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TRUTH AS A GENERALIZATION).

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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Nadir Shah of Persia invaded India, sacking Delhi and carting off the Peacock Throne of the Moghul emperors, along with vast wealth. He was able to loot the Sea of Light “Darya-E-Noor” diamond (a pinkish stone in the crown jewel collection of Iran which was last viewed by the public in 1992 in an exhibition at the Central Bank of Iran). When they pillaged the city of Delhi his troops failed to find the Mountain of Light “Kohinoor” diamond — because the conquered Mogul emperor had it secreted inside his turban.7 The conqueror allegedly invited the defeated emperor to dinner and insisted that according to oriental custom, as a sign of their future solidarity, they exchange turbans. Allegedly, when Nadir Shah of Persia unrolled the turban and saw this 186-carat diamond, he exclaimed in the Urdu language “Koh-i-nor,” meaning “mountain of light.” He took the big rock back to Persia with him, where his successors, with no better way to spend their lives, would be able to fight bitterly over it.

1739

7. Had the conquered emperor been a woman rather than a man this story would now be being told a little differently — but never mind.

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WALDEN: White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surfaceof the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed,and small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carriedoff by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads ofemperors; but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and oursuccessors forever, we disregard them, and run after the diamondof Kohinoor. They are too pure to have a market value; theycontain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how muchmore transparent than our characters, are they! We never learnedmeanness of them. How much fairer than the pool before thefarmer’s door, in which his ducks swim! Hither the clean wildducks come. Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her.The birds with their plumage and their notes are in harmony withthe flowers, but what youth or maiden conspires with the wildluxuriant beauty of Nature? She flourishes most alone, far fromthe towns where they reside. Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth.

LAKES OF LIGHT

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September 4, Thursday (Old Style): The Treaty of Kerden was signed between the Ottoman Empire and Iran, reaffirming the border drawn in the Treaty of Zuhab and allowing Iranian pilgrims to visit Mecca.

1746

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April 19, Wednesday: People were trying to kill each other at Lexington, and then people were trying to kill each other at Concord.

The Reverend Asa Dunbar recorded of this day in his journal that: “Hostilities commenced at Concord & Lexington.” The day that would be remembered as “Patriots Day” because folks perceived was a one-day reprieve from the obtrusive Old Testament commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” and from the intrusive new New Testament commandment “Love thine enemy.”8 For 24 hours, apparently, the operating rule would be not the Ten Commandments (portrayed here as they have been presented on a T-shirt), not the Golden Rule, but a

much more intriguing “Thou shalt lay waste thine enemy.” The Bedford Minutemen, for instance, bore with them a banner emblazoned with the motto of the Dukes of Kent, “Conquer or die.”

[next screen]

1775

8. A POP ESSAY QUESTION. In terms of the above, define and provide synonyms for the term “patriot”: ____________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________.

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

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WALDEN: I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. Oneday when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps,I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger,nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with oneanother. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggledand wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Lookingfarther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered withsuch combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a warbetween two races of ants, the red always pitted against theblack, and frequently two reds ones to one black. The legions ofthese Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard,and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, bothred and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed,the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging;internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and theblack imperialists on the other. On every side they were engagedin deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, andhuman soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple thatwere fast locked in each other’s embraces, in a little sunnyvalley amid the chips, now at noon-day prepared to fight till thesun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion hadfastened himself like a vice to his adversary’s front, and throughall the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased tognaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already causedthe other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashedhim from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer,had already divested him of several of his members. They foughtwith more pertinacity than bull-dogs. Neither manifested theleast disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was Conquer or die.... I should not have wondered by this timeto find that they had their respective musical bands stationed onsome eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, toexcite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myselfexcited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you thinkof it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not thefight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history ofAmerica, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whetherfor the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroismdisplayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz orDresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots’ side,and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick,–“Fire! for God’s sake fire!”– and thousands shared the fate ofDavis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have nodoubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as ourancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; andthe results of this battle will be as important and memorable tothose whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, atleast.

ISAAC DAVIS

ABNER HOSMER

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This all came about because the army that had been camped on Boston Common, early that morning, embarked to cross the Charles River estuary with muffled oarlocks at the point which is now the corner of Boylston and Charles streets (this part of the estuary long since filled in and the intersection now sports a statue of Edgar Allan Poe). The “two lantern” signal from the steeple of one or another Boston church (we don’t actually know which one, perhaps the Congregational church of which Revere was a member, or the nearby Anglican church in the North End) meant that the soldiers were crossing the Charles River (Quinobequin) and being marched through Cambridge, not that they were coming by sea, and the “one lantern” signal would have meant that the soldiers were being marching down Boston Neck, through Roxbury. The two lanterns which were used had been made in the workshops of Paul Revere or Rivière.9 General Thomas Gage had sent an army detail to dismantle the steeple of the Old West Church, to ensure that it could not be used for any such signaling.

As the Army marched up the Charlestown road from the Boston ferry landing, it would have passed a specimen of local justice: an old set of chains with human bones inside them, dating to an incident of September 1755. This had been an African slave, Mark, who had been left to rot after throttling, disemboweling and beheading upon suspicion of having poisoned, or of having attempted to poison, his American owner, Captain John Codman. (Keep this cage in mind, when you are tempted to suspect that what these indignant colonials had

9. This Huguenot silversmith received the warning signal from the church steeple while still in Boston and only afterward departed from the city on his errand, rather than seeing the signal from the opposite shore as has commonly been fantasized.

SLAVERY

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decided to fight for was freedom and justice for all.)

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One of the men who were marching to unite with the Lexington militia, had slept the previous night in this house:

He was Francis Nurse, a great grandson of Goodwife Rebecca Towne Nurse who had been hanged in Salem as a witch and then, when the witch fervor had died down, been reinstated postmortem into her church.

The Lexington militia had assembled too early, in response to the riders coming out of Boston such as Revere, and when the army column had not showed up by 2AM they decided to disperse and get some sleep. Shortly before daybreak there were some 70 of them on the Lexington green, and they spread out in two lines to face

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the oncoming troops. Major John Pitcairn of the Marines called out to the army troops that they were not to

fire but were to surround these militiamen and then take away their weapons, and Captain John Parker of the militia (ancestor of the Reverend Theodore Parker of Thoreau’s day, carrying his Charleville musket) called

out to the militiamen that they were not to fire, but were to disperse. At that point there was a gunshot, origins unclear, and the army troops broke ranks and began to fire at the 27 militiamen. It would be pointless to inquire who fired, as in such a situation at the instant that it occurs nobody has any idea where the round came from or where it went and therefore everyone becomes terrified and presumes that he is being fired upon and proceeds to fire as rapidly as possible at anyone who appears to be holding a weapon. As Parker stated it, the result was that the army killed “eight of our party, with out receiving any provocation therefor from us.”

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After this killing, and presumably after the army had collected the militia’s weapons,10 neighbors were

allowed to come forward to tend the wounded and remove the corpses, while the army got itself back into a column, fired off one massive victory volley to clear their weapons, and marched on toward Concord. Major John Buttrick sent Captain Reuben Brown on horseback down Lexington Road toward Boston to report the firing in Lexington. Captain Brown would ride more than 100 miles to the coast and back, while the soldiers were looting his liveries and setting his barn on fire (neither the barn nor the house would be destroyed).

As the redcoat drums rumbled like thunder through the town’s streets, a panic-stricken 18-year-old named Harry Gould was being consoled by the Reverend William Emerson. In Concord, while destroying what few military stores they could get their hands on, the army also set afire the liberty pole in front of the courthouse. The scene would be re-imagined and painted by Amos Doolittle and then a famous lithograph would be made

10. Likewise, we do not refer here to the militia as “the Americans” and the army as “the British,” since that is a later conceptual framework and anyhow would have been false to the actual constitution of these bodies of armed men. There were in fact many Americans in the paid colonial army, and I know of at least one Brit who was assembled with the Minutemen militia — before the battle we know that he put aside his rifle for awhile and went down the hill to chat up various Redcoats. This was a struggle of a militia faction of British subjects in America, the separatist faction, versus an army faction of British subjects in America, the loyalist faction, similar to the struggle during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 between the Imperial Iranian Air Force cadets and warrant officers, adherents of the religious faction in Iranian politics, versus the Imperial Iranian Ground Forces brigades, controlled by officers adherent to the secular faction in Iranian politics. It is significant, then, using this more accurate terminology, that rather than attempt to seize “the militia’s” stores and withdraw with them to Boston, “the army” was attempting to destroy those military stores in place. This means that, going into this action, “the army” was already regarding its withdrawal to Boston to be the difficult part of the day’s military operation, because, had they seized and relocated these military stores, “the army” could have made use of them itself — the military may upon occasion become wanton in the destruction of civilian properties, just as it may upon occasion rape, but military stores are never destroyed in place without at least one damned good reason. The major military stores available to “the militia” were being stockpiled in Worcester rather than in Concord, because it was more of a march from Boston for “the army” and was therefore safer. Had “the army” succeeded in its withdrawal from Concord, of course, it would have marched to Worcester to destroy the bulk of the stores in the possession of “the militia,” in order to force “the militia” to return once again to the political faction favored by the officers of “the army.”

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of this famous painting by Smith:

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Sparks from the liberty pole, however, ignited the courthouse roof, and while that fire was extinguished without great harm to the structure, the smoke from this fire caused the some 400 militiamen assembled in safety on the rise on the opposite side of the Concord River to presume that it was the army’s intention to burn their dissident town to the ground. In a column of pairs they approached the Old North Bridge, on the Concord side of which were three army companies. The army made some attempt to render the bridge impassible by removing planks, and then fired a volley which killed the militia Captain Isaac David and Abner Hosmer, in the front rank of the Acton minutemen as their drummer, whose face was half shot away.11 It was then that

Major John Buttrick called out “Fire, fellow soldiers, for God’s sake, fire.” Thus it came to be that here the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard ’round the world.12

Not counting those who were wounded but would survive, three redcoats of the Light Infantry Company, 4th Regiment fell in the responding volley, Thomas Smith, Patrick Gray, and James Hall. One went down

11. When Deacon Jonathan Hosmer inspected Private Abner Hosmer’s faceless corpse, he found a breastpin his son had received for his 21st birthday.12. A footnote to Waldo Emerson’s famed line “Here the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard ’round the world”: A publication of the Boeing Corporation would eventually declare that with the employees of the Boeing Corporation on the job, making Minuteman ICBMs, it was quite a bit less likely that “some future poet” would be forced to “modify the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson” into “Here the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot reaching ’round the world.”

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evidently with a bullet through the head and two would die of bodily wounds. Two would be buried by colonials where they had fallen next to the Bridge, and one would be buried in Concord center by the army (somewhere “in the ragged curb where that road wound around the side of the hill,” a gravesite now evidently disturbed during later centuries of construction activity). Through the affair Acton’s fifer, Luther Blanchard, and the drummer Francis Barker, were performing a lively Jacobin tune, “The White Cockade.”13 According to the Reverend William Emerson, the Reverend Waldo Emerson’s grandfather, who was watching from an upstairs window at the Old Manse as these people shot off muskets at each other out at the North Bridge, one or the other of the seriously wounded soldiers was then struck, as he attempted to rise, on the head with a hatchet.

Ammi White was a private in Captain David Brown’s company of militia. Captain Brown14 had his home near the Old North Bridge and in 1770 had been paid by the town of Concord to care for the causeway and wall associated with that bridge. As the redcoats fell back from the firing, Colonel Barrett’s militia unit advanced a short distance. According to reconstructions of what happened, the gravely wounded British soldier, between the retreating and the advancing lines, was attempting to rise when he was chopped down with a small hatchet by militiaman White, “not under the feelings of humanity.” He “barbarously broke his skull,” he “uplifted his axe, and dealt the wounded soldier a fierce and fatal blow upon the head,” with Thomas Thorp of Acton nearby but unable or unwilling to intercede:

The Reverend William Emerson acknowledged the fact of an ax blow and acknowledged also that the soldier languished for hours before expiring, but would insist that neither scalp nor ears were removed. When the redcoats returned from Barrett’s farm and were grossing out at the sight of the wound on the head of their fallen comrade, they told one another the story that the American militia had scalped him as if they were red savages

13. Major Francis Faulkner led a company, the “Acton Patriots.”14. Captain David Brown of Concord (1732-1802) kept a diary of Bunker Hill action in 1775.

This one circumstance has borne more fruit for me, than all that history tells us of the fight.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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(the usual story, things like this typically are done to innocent white people by vicious persons of color). Five soldiers would testify to having themselves seen the wounded man with the skin over his eyes cut and also the top part of his ears cut off. There was not only misunderstanding, there was a considerable Fake Facts exaggeration: A rumor would begin to circulate that the dying soldier’s eyes had been gouged out. Ensign Jeremy Lister later would write tendentiously and falsely that “4 men...killd who afterwards scalp’d their eyes goug’d their noses and ears cut of, such barbarity execut’d upon the Corps could scarcely be paralleled by the most uncivilised savages.” The army would be forced to abandon its dead and wounded that hot day, with soldiers falling not only from bullets but also from sunstroke, and the citizens of Concord would need to dig a hole and inter two of the bodies where they lay (there being no particular reason for the extra labor of transporting these dead bodies anywhere else prior to interment), and one of the wounded soldiers, Samuel Lee of the 10th Regiment, left behind, eventually would become a Concord citizen. The commander of the Concord column, LTC Smith, reported to his superiors Lord Percy and General Gage that “after the bridge was quitted, they scalped and otherwise ill-treated one or two of the men who were either killed or severely wounded.” General Gage would summarize this as: “... one scalped, his head much mangled and his ears cut off, though not quite dead ... a sight which struck the soldiers with horror.” In Concord, stories would be generated that the person who had used the hatchet had been merely a wood-chopping chore boy of the Emersons, or had been Frank, the Emersons’ slave (the usual story, blame everything on some nearby flunky or on some handy person of color) — but in fact there had been no such chore boy and black Frank’s activities on that date had been well vouched for by members of the Emerson family.

Here is the story per D. Michael Ryan:

Various explanations for the cause of this deed were advanced.The culprit was “half-witted”; excused only by excitement andinexperience; startled by the soldier and acted out of fear; actingto end the soldier’s suffering. Extreme claims noted that the victimwas trying to drown himself in a water puddle and begged someone tokill him; had thrust at the American with his bayonet; or was anescaping prisoner. None of these theories have a basis in fact andhad such mitigating circumstances existed, would certainly have beenmentioned by the Reverend William Emerson. While the Britishpublicized the incident, Americans chose to ignore it possibly due toembarrassment, fear of reprisals, failure to appreciate itsimportance or a notion that it would blot a historic cause. Provincialauthorities hesitated to confirm that the act had occurred but inresponse to a Boston story insured that the burial detail testifiedthat “neither of those persons (2 dead soldiers buried at the bridge)were scalped nor their ears cut off.” Concord historians Ripley [??]and Lemuel Shattuck ignored the incident completely while well intothe 19th Century, British historians continued to write of thescalping and ear cutting episode. A long guarded secret was the nameof the young culprit who tradition acknowledges as Ammi White.... TheBritish troops returning to Boston would remember the “scalping” withfear, anger and a sense of revenge. This, together with civilianhostility in Boston and the tactics of the colonials along the retreatroute, considered cowardly, would lead to army reprisals andatrocities (house burnings, killing of unarmed men, bayoneting ofwounded and dead colonials, etc.) especially in the village ofMenotomy. Lord Percy’s relief column had been informed of the“scalping” and General Gage would later use the story to offsetatrocity charges leveled against his troops.

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In a much later timeframe Waldo Emerson would declaim at this famed bridge that “Here once the embattled farmers stood / and fired the shot heard round the world” for the freedom of white people, and would sagely say nothing about the alleged offing of a defenseless, critically wounded man with a hatchet. And then at an even later date Henry Thoreau would be refused an audience in Concord, and would declare in Framingham, Massachusetts that “The inhabitants of Concord are not prepared to stand by one of their own bridges” for the freedom of black people. (That was in 1854 in his speech “Slavery in Massachusetts,” but Thoreau would be preparing this sentiment as early as 1851.)

After some two hours more in Concord, the army began its disastrous withdrawal to Lexington, where its remnants were reinforced by the 1st Brigade under Sir Hugh Percy.

In his SACRED GROUND,15 Edward Linenthal has presented an extended treatment of dissidence in the Concord context in effect with one hand tied behind his back. That is, he does this while accomplishing the feat of not once bringing in the name of Thoreau. Picking up on the Emersonian description of the fallen farmer

15. Linenthal, Edward Tabor. SACRED GROUND: AMERICANS AND THEIR BATTLEFIELDS. Urbana IL: U of Illinois P, 1991

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minutemen of April 19, 1775 as having acted “from the simplest instincts,”16 Linenthal states that:

The fifer boy of the Concord Minutemen was the son of Major John Buttrick, 15 years of age. The side drum he used would belong to the son of Colonel James Barrett, Nathan Barrett, until it would fall apart and the town would need to purchase a new one. One source alleges that a severe earthquake shook Concord.17 March and early April having been extraordinarily warm, the apple trees around Concord were in bloom by April 19th, and the soldiers being marched through Lexington toward Concord suffered heat prostration.Later, when Lafayette would visit Concord as part of a triumphal tour, tiny Mary Moody Emerson would approach him to let him know that she had been “‘in arms’ at the Concord fight” — she having been a newborn during that period.

16. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. A HISTORICAL DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF CONCORD, 12 SEPTEMBER 1835 ON THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN. Boston MA: W.B. Clarke, 1835.

17. Such an earthquake is not listed on the comprehensive scientific list of known New England earthquakes, which has no entries between August 15, 1772 and February 7, 1776. –Presumably some historian has misunderstood a casual comment on the order of “the earth certainly shook that day.”

These instinctive warriors were ceremoniously perceived as men whoseNew England origins nurtured republican principles that protectedthem from the moral pollution of old-world warriors. Consequently,the minuteman became a powerful cultural model for generations ofAmericans at war and at peace: from Billy Yank and Johnny Reb in theCivil War to the doughboys of World War I and the GI’s of World WarII; from the right-wing Minutemen of the 1960s to a more recenttransformation into the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile.Patriotic rhetoric portrayed the minutemen as Christ-like saviors,and citizens of Lexington and Concord were proud that these new-worldwarriors drank from the wellsprings of liberty which, they believed,ran especially deep in their towns.... Beyond the ever-present threatof failing to measure up to the principles embodied by the minutemen,the specter of defilement appeared in other ways. Beginning inrancorous debate in the 1820s, a number of citizens of Lexington andConcord claimed that their town was the authentic birthplace of thenation. Each was accused of falsifying the national creation story byrefusing to grant this sacred status to the other.... If the encounteron Lexington Green was not a battle but a massacre, were the martyredminutemen really the first models of how Americans die in war or justfurther examples of colonial victims? And if they were only victims,could that affect popular perception of the potency of theirsacrifice?... On occasion, what some people perceived as defilement,others viewed as creative attempts to redefine the meaning of theevents of April 19, 1775. Both the Vietnam Veterans Against the Warand the Peoples Bicentennial Commission understood Lexington andConcord to be sacred ground when they held separate protests on theBattle Green and at the North Bridge in the mid-1970s. In their view,the purpose of protest was not desecration of a sacred spot, for theybelieved the real defilement had been perpetrated by a new class ofAmerican Tories who had severed the link between revolutionary warprinciples (especially the principle of dissent) and contemporaryAmerican life. Each group believed that its protest would spark therecovery of the American revolutionary tradition, which was viewed ascrucial to the resuscitation of authentic American values that hadfallen into disrepair because of public apathy.

OLD NORTH BRIDGE

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When word of approaching British troops was received, Captain Charles Miles had mustered his company near the Wright Tavern.18 Included with the muster roll we can discover a handwritten note by Sergeant David Hartwell, “Concord, April 19th 1775, then the battel begune....”

On the high ground above North Bridge where the colonial force reformed, Captain Miles then joined the officers’ conference. When it was decided to march into Town, the story is, the lead was initially offered to a Concord captain but this man said he “should rather not go.” Since it was Captain Miles who was in command of the senior minute company, and would not be in the lead, it is speculated that he might have been the one to have said this. Captain Isaac Davis’s Acton company then led the march to the Bridge and while the position of other units is uncertain, several accounts have placed Miles’s company either second or third in line. Years later, the Reverend Ezra Ripley noted that when Captain Miles was asked his feelings when marching on the

18. The Wright Tavern is called that because Amos Wright was renting the building from its owner Samuel Swan and keeping tavern there when first the local militia gathered there and then Army officers Lt. Col. Smith and Maj. Pitcairn used it as their headquarters. In such a quarrel the businessman of course would sell drinks to all comers.

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Battle Bridge on April 19, 1775, he responded “that he went to the service of the day with the same seriousness and acknowledgment of God which he carried to church. During the fighting it was though that this reluctant captain had been killed, but he had only been somewhat wounded and would be able to continue to direct his company during the chasing of the Regulars back to Charlestown.

We don’t have the names of the army casualties of this glorious day, only those of the militia and of bystanders. The numerical estimate of General Gage’s intelligence officer was that about 25 of the soldiers had been killed and almost 150 wounded; the estimate by a soldier, John Pope, was that 90 soldiers had been killed and 181 wounded; the estimate by Ensign De Berniere was that 73 soldiers had been killed, 174 wounded, and 25 were missing in action; — and General Gage reported to his superior officer that 65 of his soldiers had been killed, 180 wounded, and 27 were missing in action.

Presumably what we would discover, if we had the names of the army casualties, would be that a significant number of them had been Americans who had enlisted in the army.

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Here are the names of the militia casualties and the civilian casualties including an unarmed 14-year-old bystander (that’s termed “collateral damage”):

Town Killed Wounded Missing

Acton Isaac DavisJames HaywardAbner Hosmer

Luther Blanchard

(would die this year of wound)

Bedford Captain Jonathan Wilson Job Lane

Beverly Reuben Kenyme Nathaniel ClevesWilliam Dodge IIISamuel Woodbury

Billerica Timothy BlanchardJohn Nichols

Brookline Isaac Gardner

Cambridge John HicksWilliam MarcyMoses RichardsonJames RussellJason WinshipJabez Wyman

Samuel Whittemore Samuel Frost Seth Russell

Charlestown Edward BarberJames Miller

Chelmsford Oliver BarronAaron Chamberlain

Concord Nathan BarrettJonas BrownCaptain Charles MilesGeorge MinotAbel Prescott, Jr.

Danvers Samuel CookBenjamin DelandEbenezer GolwaitHenry JacobsPerley PutnamGeorge SouthwickJothan Webb

Nathan PutnamDennis Wallace

Joseph Bell

Dedham Elias Haven Israel Everett

Framingham Daniel Hemminway

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Lexington John BrownSamuel HadleyCaleb HarringtonJonathan Harrington, Jr.Jonas ParkerJedidiah MunroeRobert MunroeIsaac MuzzyJohn RaymondNathaniel Wyman

Francis BrownJoseph ComeePrince EstabrookNathaniel FarmerEbenezer Munroe, Jr.Jedidiah MunroeSolomon PierceJohn RobbinsJohn TiddThomas Winship

Lynn William FlintThomas HadleyAbednego RamsdellDaniel Townsend

Joseph FeltTimothy Monroe

Josiah Breed

Medford Henry PutnamWilliam Holly

Needham John BaconNathaniel ChamberlainAmos MillsElisha MillsJonathan Parker

Eleazer KingsburyXxxxx Tolman

Newton Noah Wiswell

Roxbury Elijah Seaver

Salem Benjamin Pierce

Stow Daniel Conant Daniel Conant

Sudbury Deacon Josiah HaynesAsahael ReedThomas Bent

Joshua Haynes, Jr.

Watertown Joseph Coolidge

Woburn Daniel ThompsonAsahel Porter

Jacob BaconXxxxx JohnsonGeorge Reed

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Here is an example of what we don’t know. When we somewhat belatedly erected this grave marker, in the Year of Our Lord 2000, we presumed that the slain army soldier was a Brit although he may very well have been simply one of the Americans who had enlisted not in what was at that time our militia but in what was at that time our army:

Dr. Charles Russell, son of the Hon. James Russell, born inCharlestown, graduated at Harvard College, 1757, and inheritedhis uncle Chambers’s estate in Lincoln, where he resided as aphysician. He married Miss Elizabeth Vassall of Cambridge, andfrom his father-in-law he contracted opinions opposed to themeasures of the people in the revolution, and left Lincoln onthe 19th of April, 1775, and went to Martinique, in the West-Indies, where he died.... Dr. Joseph Adams was also unfriendlyto the revolution, and went to England, where he died.19

19. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy(On or about November 11, 1837 Henry David Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study.)

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When Timothy Dwight would write of his 1795 travels, while speaking of his passing through Concord he would give a small amount of attention to the bucolic details of the place:

But then he would devote a good deal of his attention to this locale’s belligerent status as the site of this notorious squabble.

Concord was purchased of the Indians and incorporatedin 1635. Three persons only are known to have beenkilled within the limits of this township by thesavages, although it was the first settlement made inNew England so far from the shore. From Boston it isdistant nineteen miles, from Williams’ in Marlboro,fifteen.

The soil of this township is various. The highergrounds have loam mixed with gravel. The plains aresandy, light but warm, and friendly to rye and maize,of which considerable quantities are carried tomarket. Pastures are visibly few and indifferent.Along the river, which is named from this town and runsthrough the middle of it, lie extensive and richmeadows. Hemp and flax grow here luxuriantly. Two acresare said to have yielded in one instance one thousandpounds of flax. Few fruits are seen except apples, andthese plainly do not abound as in most other parts ofthe country.

The face of this township is generally a plain. A hillof no great height ascends at a small distance from theriver on the eastern side and pursues a coursenorthward, parallel with that of the river. Betweenthis hill and the river lies the principal street.Another containing a considerable number of housesabuts upon it, perpendicularly from the western side.

The houses in Concord are generally well built, andwith the outbuildings and fences make a goodappearance. The public buildings are the church,courthouse, and jail, all of them neat.

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Concord will be long remembered as having been, partially, thescene of the first military action in the Revolutionary War, andthe object of an expedition, the first in that chain of eventswhich terminated in the separation of the British colonies fromtheir mother country. A traveler on this spot, particularly anAmerican traveler, will irresistibly recall to his mind an eventof this magnitude, and cannot fail of being deeply affected bya comparison of so small a beginning with so mighty an issue. Inother circumstances, the expedition to Concord and the contestwhich ensued would have been merely little tales of wonder andwoe, chiefly recited by the parents of the neighborhood to theircircles at the fireside, commanding a momentary attention ofchildhood, and calling forth the tear of sorrow from the eyes ofthose who were intimately connected with the sufferers. Now, thesame events preface the history of a nation and the beginning ofan empire, and are themes of disquisition and astonishment tothe civilized world. From the plains of Concord will henceforthbe dated a change in human affairs, an alteration in the balanceof human power, and a new direction to the course of humanimprovement. Man, from the events which have occurred here, willin some respects assume a new character, and experience in somerespects a new destiny.

General Gage, to whom was committed one of the most unfortunatetrusts ever allotted to an individual, having obtainedinformation that a considerable quantity of arms and militarystores was by order of the Provincial Congress deposited in thistown,1 sent Lieut. Col. Smith and Major Pitcairn at the head ofeight hundred grenadiers and light infantry, with orders tomarch to Concord and destroy the deposit. The troops wereaccordingly embarked from the common in Boston, and landed onthe opposite shore in Cambridge at a place called Phipps’s farm.Thence they marched by the shortest route to this town.

1.The whole amount of the warlike stores in the province of Massachusetts as they appear on a return, April 14, 1775, is contained in the following list.

Firearms 21,549Pounds of powder 17,441Pounds of ball 22,191No. of flints 144,699No. of bayonets 10,103No. of pouches 11,979

The whole of the town stocksFirearms 68Pounds of powder 357 1/2Pounds of ball 66,78No. of flints 100,531

Duke’s county and Nantucket were not included in this list.

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DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

The salubrity of Concord violates the most received medicaltheories concerning such diseases as are supposed to begenerated by stagnant waters. I know of no stream whichapproaches nearer to a state of stagnation than Concord River.Yet diseases of this class are seldom, or never, found here.The cause I shall not pretend to assign.

Within these thirteen years the baptisms in Concord amountedto 395,. Three fourths only of those who were born are supposedto have been baptized. The number of births, therefore, wasabout 527.

Concord contains a single congregation. The whole number ofinhabitants in 1790, as has been observed, was 1,590. In 1800,it contained 227 dwelling houses, and 1,679 inhabitants; andin 1810, 1,633.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The People of Walden: Waldo Emerson

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February 29, Friday: Samuel Smith, charged with the stealing of sheep and with counterfeiting, had attempted to simplify the problems in his life by escaping from prison but had been “ſoon overtaken, brought back, put into Irons, and confin’d in the Dungeon, and there kept ’till April [1788] ; at which Time, I had my Trial, and was convicted of the above-mentioned Crime, for which I was fined, ſet in the Pillory, and had my Ears cropped.”20

“HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE” BEING A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN TIME (JUST AS THE PERSPECTIVE IN A PAINTING IS A VIEW

FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN SPACE), TO “LOOK AT THE COURSE OF HISTORY MORE GENERALLY” WOULD BE TO SACRIFICE PERSPECTIVE ALTOGETHER. THIS IS FANTASY-LAND, YOU’RE FOOLING YOURSELF. THERE CANNOT BE ANY SUCH THINGIE, AS SUCH A PERSPECTIVE.

1788

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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September 11, Friday: Battle of Krtsanisi: The Persian army demolished the armed forces of Kartl-Kakheti, captured Tbilisi, and reconquered eastern Georgia.

20. According to a survey conducted by the Boston-based research and advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights in southern Iran as reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March 2004, under Sadaam Hussein from 1991 to 2003 men who avoided Iraqi military service had their external ears surgically removed. Here is one such person whose appearance might be comparable to the Massachusetts burglar Samuel Smith:

1795

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After this work was completed, the troops advanced to the bridgein order to disperse the Americans. Major Buttrick, of Concord,who commanded the militia, being ignorant of the tragedy atLexington, had directed his men not to begin the fire.1 As headvanced with his party, the light infantry began to pull up thebridge; and, as he approached, fired, and killed two Americans oneof them a Captain Davis, of Acton, in the neighborhood.2 The firewas instantly returned, and the troops were compelled to retreat.Several of them were killed, several wounded, and a few takenprisoners.

The party was pursued; and, after they had rejoined the main body,the whole retired with the utmost expedition. On their way toLexington they were continually harassed by an irregular and notill-directed fire from the buildings and walls on their route.Every moment increased the number of their assailants and theirown fatigue, distress, and danger. Upon the first intelligencethat the Americans had betaken themselves to arms, General Gagesent a second detachment to the relief of Lieutenant Colonel Smithunder the command of Lord Percy.3 It amounted to nine hundred menand marched from Boston with two fieldpieces, their music playingthe tune of Yankee Doodle to insult the Americans. As they werepassing through Roxbury, a young man who was making himself merryon the occasion being asked, as is said, by his lordship, why helaughed so heartily, replied “To think how you will dance by andby to Chevy Chase.”

This detachment joined their friends at Lexington, where the wholebody rested for a short time, and with their fieldpieces kept theAmericans at a distance. The neighboring country was now in arms,and moving both to attack the enemy and to intercept their retreat.The troops, therefore speedily recommenced their march. From bothsides of the road issued a continual fire, directed often byexcellent marksmen, and particularly dangerous to the officers.Major Pitcairn thought it prudent to quit his horse and losehimself among the soldiery. Everywhere the retreating army waspursued and flanked. Their enemies descended from every new hilland poured through every new valley. Perplexed by a mode offighting to which they were strangers, and from which neither theirvalor, nor their discipline furnished any security; exhausted byfatigue, and without a hope of succor; the troops wisely withdrewfrom impending destruction with the utmost celerity.

1.John Buttrick (1715-1791) was a leader of the Concord militia in action on April 19, 1775.2.Isaac Davis (1745-1775), who led the Acton minute men against the British on the Concord bridge, was killed in the first volley.3.Hugh Percy, Duke of Northumberland (1742-1817), apparently disapproved of the war with the American colonies although he entered military service against them.

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In their retreat, however, they set fire to several houses,plundered whatever pleased their fancy or gratified theiravarice, and killed several unarmed persons: particularly twoold men, whose hoary locks pleaded for compassion in vain. BunkerHill, which they reached about sunset, was the first place ofsafety and repose in their march. The next day they returned toBoston.

In this expedition the British had sixty-five killed, and onehundred and eighty wounded, and twenty-eight made prisoners: twohundred and seventy-three. Among the wounded were fifteenofficers, one of them Lieutenant Colonel Smith. Of the Americans,fifty were killed, thirty-four wounded, and four missing:eighty-eight. Several gentlemen of reputation fell in thisconflict, and were regarded as martyrs in the cause of freedomand their country.

Such was the issue of this memorable day, and such thecommencement of the Revolutionary War in the United States.

Whatever opinions may be adopted concerning the controversybetween the British government and the colonies by those who comeafter us, every man of sober, candid reflection must confess thatvery gross and very unfortunate errors existed in the measuresadopted, both in Great Britain and America, toward the colonies.In both countries information was drawn and received almostsolely from those who espoused the system of the reigningadministration. It hardly needs to be observed that deceptionand mischief were the necessary consequence. An opinion also wasboldly advanced, sedulously adopted, and extensively diffusedthat the Americans were mere blusterers and poltroons. In theBritish Parliament, Colonel Grant declared, with equal folly andinsolence, that at the head of five hundred, or perhaps (asnumerals are easily misprinted) of five thousand men, he wouldundertake to march from one end of the British settlements tothe other, in spite of all American opposition.1 This declarationwould almost of itself have converted a nation of real cowardsinto soldiers. Why it should be believed that the descendants ofEnglishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen were cowards, especially bytheir brethren descended from the same ancestors, I shall nottake upon me to explain. The difficulties and hazards attendantupon a war conducted at the distance of three thousand miles fromthe source of control and supplies were certainly not realizedby the British cabinet. As little did they realize thedisposition or the circumstances of the Americans.

1.Probably Dwight refers to James Grant (1720-1806), member of Parliament at different times, a military man who went to America with reinforcements under Howe and became a general.

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General Gage’s principal advisers were of two classes, both veryunhappily fitted to give him useful advice. One class wascomposed of Britons, utterly unacquainted with the state of thecountry, unwarrantably relying on their own prowess, andfoolishly presuming on the supposed pusillanimity of thecolonists. The other class was composed of colonists who hadembarked their all in British measures, were generally deceivedthemselves, and were strongly prompted by every motive to deceivehim. When the expedition to Concord was planned, it is probablethat neither General Gage, nor his advisers, expected the leastattempt at resistance. This opinion was bandied through the wholeparty in Boston. At the same time were continually circulatedfulsome panegyrics on the bravery of the British troops. Sillyjests and contemptible sneers were also reiterated concerningthe dastardly character of the colonists. All these were spread,felt, and remembered. The expedition to Concord refuted them all.

Concord, as has been observed, lies almost equally on both sidesof the river to which it gives its name. The surface of thetownship is generally level and low, and the river remarkablysluggish. From these facts a traveler would naturally concludethat Concord must be unhealthy. The following statement willhowever prove this conclusion to be unsound.

In the year 1790, the township contained 1,590 inhabitants. Ofthese, seventy-five were seventy years of age, or upward.

From the year 1779 to 1791 inclusive, a period of thirteen years,222 persons died. The greatest number in a single year wastwenty-five, the least ten. The average number was seventeen. Ofthese, fifty-nine were more than seventy, thirty others more thaneighty, and eight more than ninety, amounting in the whole toninety-seven (out of 222) who passed the limit of seventy years.It is presumed, a more remarkable instance of health andlongevity cannot be produced. Almost 7/17 of the whole numberdeceased have during this period reached the boundary of humanlife. It is scarcely to be imagined that even here a similar listwill be furnished a second time. Yet the Rev. Mr. Ripley,minister of Concord, who kept this register, informed me thatthe state of health during this period did not, so far as he hadobserved, differ very materially from what was common.1

1.Ezra Ripley (1751-1841), Harvard 1776, became pastor of the First Church in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1778. There he founded what was perhaps the first temperance society in the country. He was the stepfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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An expedition of this nature had for some time been expected.Certain intelligence of it had been obtained the precedingafternoon by Dr. Warren, who afterwards fell in the battle ofBreed’s Hill,1 and was forwarded by him with the utmost celerityto the intervening towns, particularly to Lexington, where were atthat time Mr. Hancock and Mr. Adams, both afterwards governors ofMassachusetts.2 As these gentlemen were supposed to be theprincipal objects of the expedition, the expresses who carried theintelligence (Col. Paul Revere and Mr. William Dawes) werepeculiarly directed to them.3 They reached Lexington, which is fourmiles from Concord, in such season that Messrs. Hancock and Adamsmade their escape.4 Here, however, the expresses were stopped bythe British as they were advancing toward Concord; but Dr.Prescott, a young gentleman to whom they had communicated theirmessage, escaped and alarmed the inhabitants of Concord.5

The British troops reached Lexington at five o’clock in themorning. Here they found about seventy militia and forty unarmedspectators by the side of the church. Major Pitcairn rode up tothem and cried out with vehemence, “Disperse you rebels; throw downyour arms, and disperse.” As this command was not immediatelyobeyed, he discharged a pistol and ordered his soldiers to fireupon the inhabitants. The soldiers fired, and the people instantlyfled. The soldiers, however, continued to fire at individuals. Thisat length provoked a return, and several were killed on both sides.Still the troops continued their march toward Concord, where theyarrived early in the morning. For the purpose of defense, theinhabitants had drawn themselves up in a kind of order; but, upondiscovering the number of the enemy withdrew over the North Bridge,half a mile below the church, where they waited for reinforcements.The soldiers then broke open and scattered about sixty barrels offlour, disabled two twenty-four pounders, destroyed the carriagesof about twenty cannon, and threw five hundred pounds of ball intothe river and neighboring wells. The principal part of the stores,however, was not discovered.

1.Joseph Warren (1741-1755), Harvard 1759, an excellent physician in Boston, became deeply involved in Revolutionary politics. Early in 1775, he gave up his profession to enter the army. He became president pro tempore of the Provincial Congress and was elected a major general four days before his death.2.John Hancock (1737-1793), Harvard 1754, adopted by his rich uncle Thomas, joined his successful mercantile firm. The famous Revolutionary patriot was treasurer of Harvard College, 1773-1777, president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, and first governor of Massachusetts in the new republic, 1780-1785. His successor was Samuel Adams (1722-1803), Harvard 1740, better remembered for his incendiary role as one of the “Sons of Liberty” in the Revolution. As lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1789, acting governor in 1793, and elected governor, 1794-1798, this turbulent man showed little understanding of the problems of the state or of the nation.3.See Colonel Revere’s letters to the corresponding secretary of the Mass. Hist. Society….4.Revolutionary patriot Paul Revere (1735-1818), a silversmith, was the official courier for the massachusetts Provincial Assembly as well as an effective political cartoonist and the acknowledged leader of Boston’s artisans. William Dawes (1745-1799) was one of the two men chosen to spread the alarm if the British troops should move to raid the military stores deposited in Concord.5.Samuel Prescott (1751-c. 1777) completed the famous midnight ride after Paul Revere was captured, but died later in a prison in Halifax.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

April: The tsarina of Russia launched a military expedition to punish Persia for its incursion into Kartl-Kakheti, which had been a Russian protectorate.

1796

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

The Shahanshah of Iran, Fat’h. -‘Ali Shah Qajar, 26 years of age, having read completely through the 18 volumes of the 3d edition of the ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, extended his royal title to include “Most Formidable Lord and Master of the Encyclopædia Britannica.”

1797

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

The Turkish Sultan Selim III (or, more likely, one of his servants) shot an arrow, wind-assisted, for a record 972 yards (routine maximum range for a war arrow shot from a Turkish bow was around 350 yards, about a hundred yards farther than an English longbow). The strength required to string and draw a bow with the necessary 160-pound pull would have been developed by practicing with heavy iron weapons of the kind that are even now being twirled by the strongmen of the Iranian “Zour Khaneh.” This ancient shot is still far and away the record for a shot made with a bow not made of fiberglass (the best verified modern shot by longbow is a 391-yard record achieved by Cherokee archer Harold Hill in 1928).

The engineers accompanying Bonaparte in Egypt had been ordered by the Directoire to dig a “Suez Canal” across the isthmus. Bonaparte put J.-B. Le Père in charge of carrying out a survey. Laplace’s opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, Le Père insisted (correctly) that this was a disaster waiting to happen because the level of the Red Sea was higher than that of the Mediterranean and therefore the waters would flow rapidly northward.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.

LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

The Alien Enemy Act of the US Congress legalized summary arrest and imprisonment of citizens of foreign powers at war with the United States of America.21 This 1798 act is not so strange, in a nation which permitted human slavery. This 1798 act would prove useful 143 years later, in 1942 after we had unlegalized our slavery, when Peru desired to get rid of its Japanese-Peruvian citizens.22 Basing its actions on the principle that the Government of Japan, like many national governments, recognizes the jus sanguinis “you belong to us until you die” concept of citizenship23 and basing its actions on the white Peruvian government’s desire to rid itself of as many non-white citizens as possible (since these little yellow people might conceivably ally themselves with the despised Peruvian Indians whom the Peruvian government desired to oppress), the US government officials pretended to believe the self-serving lies they were told by their Peruvian contacts: that these Japanese in Peru were a group of patriotic males of military years who had already served in the Japanese armed forces and were probably reserve officers in disguise –working in their Peruvian cover occupations such as chicken ranch laborers and bazaar shopkeepers making the equivalent of $9.60 per week and waiting to provide military intelligence to Jap subs offshore– the Japanese-Peruvians were rounded up and shipped to the United States. The Immigration and Naturalization Service intentionally refrained from issuing visas so that the presence of these people in the USA, although they were being brought here to be held in our concentration camp, would

1798

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

PERSIA IRAN

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be de facto illegal and undocumented. When these people were brought to the ships in Peru, their baggage was confiscated and they were strip-searched and any excess cash on their persons was “confiscated.” When a ship would arrive in the port of San Diego CA from Peru, the INS would rent a special blacked-out train and transport its prisoners to a former CCC camp in Kenedy TX which had been converted into a concentration

camp by the addition of watchtowers and barbed wire fences. During their years in camp the prisoners could work for $0.10 an hour. Camp records indicate that it cost us about $0.36 a day to feed our prisoners.24 This program continued through 1943 and 1944, as shipload after shipload of people were kidnapped in Peru and brought under guard to the port of San Diego. In 1946 all these Mongoloids were officially cleared any suspicion of having been alien enemies, but of course Peru refused to discuss the possibility of taking them back and of course Japan was not of interest and of course the US Government, wary of assuming an obligation, refused to give its kidnapped hostages any documentation of their status here. Their status was changed from “alien enemy” to “nonresident alien” and so of course anything they could earn over $1.40 per day was subject to a 30% federal withholding tax.25 –And it all began in 1798, a period during which slavery made a whole lot of sense to a whole lot of free Americans.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.

21. This act is to be found on page 577 of UNITED STATES STATUTES AT LARGE, Volume I (Boston MA: Little, Brown, 1861). We don’t have to make any secret of this stuff, it just hides in plain sight.22. Today we note, interestingly, that Peru has a Japanese-Peruvian President. That probably means there is no race hatred there.23. I came across this concept of citizenship in regard to Iranian-Americans. It is a scheme according to which there can be no such thing as a citizen’s renunciation of citizenship and according to which there can be no such thing as a person with joint citizenship. During the regime of our friend the Shahanshah Pahlavi, our friend sent SAVAK assassination squads to the USA from time to time to murder American citizens on American soil and our FBI wasn’t interested. The enemies the Shah was having murdered had been born in Iran, and as far as our ally the Government of Iran was concerned that meant these people were Iranian citizens which made it impossible for them to be US citizens — and so you see why we didn’t consider that this was any of our business.24. I once had a friend, Hans Theodore Zink, who had been born a US citizen but had been taken to Germany by his parents, and had taken the first opportunity he could find to desert from the German Army at the age of 18 and surrender to the American Army in Europe, and who finished out the war as the Geneva Convention representative at one of these concentration camps. After WWII, since as well as being a US citizen by birth and as well as being utterly innocent of any wrongdoing he was also a white man, it was easy for him to obtain papers.25. Necessarily, all this info is sketchy and does not do justice to the details of the various experiences, which are elaborate. I’m just trying here to give a general picture of a government of a democracy, in which nobody gives a good God Damn for anyone’s rights. You can read C. Harvey Gardiner’s PAWNS IN A TRIANGLE OF HATE: THE PERUVIAN JAPANESE AND THE UNITED STATES (Seattle WA: U of Washington P, 1981) for yourself, if this sort of material is of interest to you.

WORLD WAR II

PERSIA IRAN

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LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

PERSIA IRAN

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At the beginning of the Russo-Persian War (until 1813), Russian forces attacked the Persian settlement of Ganja.

19TH CENTURY

1804

PERSIA IRAN

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it would be this year’s THE CHALDÆAN ORACLES by Thomas Taylor in The Monthly Magazine, and published independently, 1806. [Thomas “the Platonist” Taylor, born on May 15, 1758, lived in London to his death on November 1, 1835. After attending St. Paul’s school, he relocated to Sheerness and spent several years with a relative who worked on the docks. He studied for the dissenting ministry until an imprudent marriage and its financial obligations closed this path to him. He became a schoolmaster, then a clerk in Lubbock’s banking-house, and from 1798 to 1806 functioned as assistant secretary to a society for the encouragement of arts, manufactures, and commerce, until finally, with the patronage of the duke of Norfolk and of a Mr. Meredith (a retired tradesman of literary tastes), he was able to devote himself to the study of Neoplatonism. He made translations in whole or part of the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Proclus, Pausanias, Porphyry, Ocellus Lucanus, and the Orphic hymns, which were uniformly received unfavorably –almost contemptuously– by his audience, for their defects in scholarship and for the translator’s industry so much in excess of his critical

1806

PERSIA IRAN

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faculty.]

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

PERSIA IRAN

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A WEEK: It is remarkable that Homer and a few Hebrews are the mostOriental names which modern Europe, whose literature has taken its risesince the decline of the Persian, has admitted into her list ofWorthies, and perhaps the worthiest of mankind, and the fathers ofmodern thinking, — for the contemplations of those Indian sages haveinfluenced, and still influence, the intellectual development ofmankind, — whose works even yet survive in wonderful completeness, are,for the most part, not recognized as ever having existed. If the lionshad been the painters it would have been otherwise. In every one’syouthful dreams philosophy is still vaguely but inseparably, and withsingular truth, associated with the East, nor do after years discoverits local habitation in the Western world. In comparison with thephilosophers of the East, we may say that modern Europe has yet givenbirth to none. Beside the vast and cosmogonal philosophy of theBhagvat-Geeta, even our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully greenand practical merely. Some of these sublime sentences, as the Chaldaeanoracles of Zoroaster, still surviving after a thousand revolutions andtranslations, alone make us doubt if the poetic form and dress are nottransitory, and not essential to the most effective and enduringexpression of thought. Ex oriente lux may still be the motto ofscholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East allthe light which it is destined to receive thence.It would be worthy of the age to print together the collectedScriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese, theHindoos, the Persians, the Hebrews, and others, as the Scripture ofmankind. The New Testament is still, perhaps, too much on the lips andin the hearts of men to be called a Scripture in this sense. Such ajuxtaposition and comparison might help to liberalize the faith of men.This is a work which Time will surely edit, reserved to crown thelabors of the printing-press. This would be the Bible, or Book ofBooks, which let the missionaries carry to the uttermost parts of theearth.

XENOPHANES

ÆSOP

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

ZOROASTER

A WEEK: The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous,for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time.The cunning mind travels further back than Zoroaster eachinstant, and comes quite down to the present with its revelation.The utmost thrift and industry of thinking give no man any stockin life; his credit with the inner world is no better, his capitalno larger. He must try his fortune again to-day as yesterday. Allquestions rely on the present for their solution. Time measuresnothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed,but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, letthe occasion say it. All the world is forward to prompt him whogets up to live without his creed in his pocket.

ZOROASTER

PERSIUS

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

PERSIA IRAN

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March 31, Friday: In the Cossack village of Sorochyntsi in Russia’s Ukraine, Nikolai Gogol was born, and in Suffolk, England near Woodbridge, Edward J. Fitzgerald was born.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

6 day 31 of 3 M 1809 / Our friend E Thornton appointed a meeting at the 4th hour this Afternoon for the inhabitance of the Town, from which I have just return’d & may say that it was a time of rejoicing to me finding the current of Gospel communication to flow thro’ him copiously to the people & with good Authority

1809

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

PERSIA IRAN

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With the scrub forest cover largely chopped away on the dune belts around Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod by earlier generations of intrusives, a program began of planting beach grass and pitch pine seedlings, in an attempt to stabilize the dunes and avoid Provincetown being smothered under the sands. (This program continued until 1830; the forest thus created is, for the present, protected by law. The transitory political stability of the US for the period 1810-1992 has meant that this forest has not yet met the fate of, for instance, the pine seedlings planted in the barren Alborz Mountains north of Tehran at the dictate of the late Shah of Iran.)

1810

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

October 24, Sunday: In Prague, incidental music for Das österreichische Feldlager, a play by Schmidt after Schiller, by Carl Maria von Weber, was performed for the initial time.

From this day until November 5th, Persia and Russia would be negotiating the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813 that would end of the Russo/Persian War, by Persia (Iran) surrendering to Russia all its North Caucasian and swaths of its Transcaucasian territories, north of the Aras River, comprising modern-day Dagestan, eastern Georgia, and most of the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

1st day 24 of 10 M / In our Forenoon Meeting D Buffum was concerned in a very lively testimony, in the Afternoon we were silent. & both Meetings were unsettled seasons to my mind.-

1813

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

The British accomplished the treaty with Iran (Persia) known as the Definitive Treaty.

1814

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

In the Persian/Arabian Gulf, a peace treaty ended piracy and would lead to a century and a half of British supremacy.

1820

PERSIA IRAN

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Since Waldo Emerson began reading Alexander von Humboldt, and referring to him in his JOURNAL, at this point, it seems likely that he had been told of this explorer and author by his professor Edward Everett while at Harvard College.

Emerson would come to own many of Humboldt’s books and it is likely that it was in these volumes that Henry Thoreau first encountered the explorer (he would by 1853 have studied Humboldt’s major works).

Publication, in this year, by the firm of W. Allason etc., in London, of a new edition of the dozen volumes of Edward Gibbon’s THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (this is the edition that

1821

PERSIA IRAN

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would find its way into the personal library of Emerson).

At the end of the journal entries for 1820 and 1821, Emerson listed his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Cudworth (containing many quotations from the Neo-Platonists); Zendavesta (apud Gibbon).”

http://www.sacred-texts.com/zor/

GIBBON, DECLINE & FALL IGIBBON, DECLINE & FALL IIGIBBON, DECLINE & FALL IIIGIBBON, DECLINE & FALL IVGIBBON, DECLINE & FALL VGIBBON, DECLINE & FALL VIGIBBON, DECLINE & FALL VIIGIBBON, DECLINE & FALL VIIIGIBBON, DECLINE & FALL IXGIBBON, DECLINE & FALL XGIBBON, DECLINE & FALL XIGIBBON, DECLINE & FALL XII

ZOROASTER

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

As he completed his senior year, Waldo wrote a Bowdoin Prize essay “The Present State of Ethical Philosophy.” From this year into 1825, having acquired the status of college graduate, he would be teaching school.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

At the end of the journal entries for this year, Waldo Emerson listed his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Zoroaster (?); Arabian Nights; Sir William Jones, To Narayena.”

The Moresby Treaty restricted the Zanzibar slave trade to within limits which excluded Iran and India as destinations.

1822

IRAN

INDIA

INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster? –Perhaps it would be this year’s BIBLIOTECA CLASSICA LATINA (A. Lemaire, Volume 124, Paris).

1823

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

“WALKING”: My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desireto bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennialand constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge,but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higherknowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grandsurprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all thatwe called Knowledge before — a discovery that there are morethings in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot know inany higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenelyand with impunity in the face of the sun: ,— “You will not perceive that as perceiving a particular thing,”say the Chaldean Oracles.

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

PERSIA IRAN

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English translation of the GOLESTAN of Mosleh Od-Din Sa’di, of 1258, had begun in 1774 with some selections by Stephen Sulivan. In 1805 a translation which also offered the original text had been published in Calcutta by James Dumoulin. In 1806 Francis Gladwin had provided a prose translation, which had been published in England in 1808. This was followed in this year by a prose translation by James Ross which was based on the Gentius edition.

Waldo Emerson would read the GOLESTAN in translation in 1843. Henry Thoreau would know it by 1847, quoting from it twice in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS and in his remarks on philanthropy in WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS. In 1852 prose and verse translations would be offered by Edward Backhouse Eastwick. In 1865 Emerson would pen a preface for the Boston edition of Francis Gladwin’s 1806 translation, in which he would introduce the work as one of the world’s sacred books.

In 1899 prose and verse translations would be offered by Edwin Arnold. Here is the passage that Henry Thoreau would extrapolate in WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS as it was presented at this point in James Ross’s volume:

CXXIThey asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees whichthe Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they callnone azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit;what mystery is there in this? He replied: Each has itsappropriate produce and appointed season, during the continuanceof which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dryand withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed,being always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, orreligious independents:— “Fix not thy heart on what istransitory; for the Dijlah, or Tygris, will continue to flowthrough Baghdad after the race of Khalifs is extinct. If thyhand has plenty, be liberal as the date-tree; but if it affords

SUFISM

SA’DI IN ENGLISH PROSE

PERSIA IRAN

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nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress.”

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

WALDEN: Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavorto become one of the worthies of the world.I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz,that “They asked a wise man, saying; Of the many celebrated treeswhich the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, theycall none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears nofruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied; Each has itsappropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuanceof which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absencedry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypressexposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are theazads, or religious independents. –Fix not thy heart on thatwhich is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue toflow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct:if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if itaffords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like thecypress.”

CYPRESS

ANDROMEDA

MOSLEH OD-DIN SA’DI

PERSIA IRAN

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This Ross translation of 1823 seems to have created something of a controversy. The tempest in a teapot has to do with Ross’s parsing of the Farsi term “azad” as designating “religious independents.” In an Islamic context, such an interpretation would seem to point either toward the Sufi sect of mystic worshipers who are not universally in good repute, or else toward, that non-starter, irreligion. Peter Borst has inquired about this, of Professor Richard Jeffrey Newman of Nassau Community College, author of SELECTIONS FROM SAADI’S GULISTAN and of SELECTIONS FROM SAADI’S BUSTAN, both of which are available for purchase by way of the internet at <http://www.richardjnewman.com/publications/gulistan.htm>.

Professor Newman pointed out in response that although Sa’di obviously did have great sympathy for these mystics, their philosophy, way of life, etc., and although the Sufis do claim Sa’di as one of their sheikhs, there is a real question about whether he affiliated himself in this way. “At least one translation I have read [of the BUSTAN] is ripe with such interpolations because the translator wanted to make clear what he saw as the hidden religious meaning of Saadi’s text. I once gave a talk about my translation at a local Iranian mosque and was treated afterward to a long lecture about how Sa’di was really Shiite rather than Sunni, and that if you looked carefully enough you could find coded evidence of this throughout the text.” Here is Professor Newman’s own very recent rendition of the segment in question:

They asked a sage, “Of all the beautiful trees that God created,only the cypress, which bears no fruit, is called ‘free.’Why is that?”The sage replied, “Every other tree bears fruit according to theseasons, which means it is sometimes beautiful and sometimesbare. The cypress, however, because it bears no fruit, is alwaysfresh, and it is freshness we respond to when we call a livingthing free.”

Do not value too much what will not last:The Khalifs of Baghdad will be long deadand still the Tigris will flow. If possible,choose the date tree’s generosity.If not, take the cypress as your model.

Immediately, however, our Iranian friend Alireza Taghdarreh has pointed out to us that there is a translation error in the 1st line as Sa’di simply does not describe, in the Persian original, all trees as beautiful — rather than deploy the adjective “beautiful” in regard to the trees that bear fruits, he deploys merely the adjectives “famed” and “fruitful.”

There is a very delicate point here: these trees receive theirranks for what they have but Sarv (cypress) is beautiful and

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Azad in our culture for what it is. So my translation of thefirst sentence would be: “They asked a sage, ‘Of all the famedand fruitful trees God almighty has created....’” In general Ithink the word “beautiful” ruins the whole story if it is usedthere. Look at the trees which bear fruits and just compare themwith cypress and then see for yourself where exactly you canfind beauty.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Ever since the 14th Century, Turkey had been impressing the sons of Christian families into a special yeni chéri or “new army” branch of its armed forces. The size of this special religiously and ethnically segregated brigade of “janissaries” had reached 135,000, and it had become politically powerful, and it had become obnoxious to Muslims. The Sultan therefore had his faithful Muslim officers surround this Christian brigade with Muslim formations of overwhelming size, and after a brief struggle all 135,000 were slaughtered.26

1825

26. The same sort of thing would happen at the conclusion of the Iran/Iraq war in our contemporary era. Iran had placed liberal secular young men in a special formation, and had placed this special formation in charge of a given sector of the frontier for the duration of the long war against Iraq. But at the end of the war, faced with the specter of having to reincorporate these liberal secular men into the revolution of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, the religious leadership decided to trick them, disarm them, charge them with treason for not having behaved with sufficient martyr spirit (that is, basically, the treason of still being alive at the end of the war), and machine-gun them right there in the positions they had defended for nine years on the Iraqi border. But this only involved a slaughter of some 10,000, order of magnitude, not 135,000, and when the matter was reported in the Western press, it sank without a bubble because, of course — these men had no Western constituency.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Edward J. Fitzgerald matriculated at Cambridge University.

July 16, Sunday: As part of the Russo-Persian War of 1826-1828), the Persian army invaded territories recently annexed by Russia.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

1st day 16th of 7th M 1826 / In our Morning Meeting our frd D Buffum was engaged in a lively testimony — “Go Fourth for this time & at some more convenient season I will call for thee” was his opening - from which he took occasion to remark on the Power of God which convicted & convinced Felex, & the danger of putting off the work of the souls salvation to a more convenient season -In the Afternoon Father Rodman was lively & pertinent in Testimony. — Cousin Henry Gould set most of the evening with us.—

1826

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

PERSIA IRAN

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PERSIA IRAN

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What would Emerson and Thoreau be reading that had been attributed to the ancient Zoroaster?–Perhaps it would be Isaac Preston Cory’s ANCIENT FRAGMENTS, published in London during this year.

1828

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

“WALKING”: My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desireto bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennialand constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge,but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higherknowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grandsurprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all thatwe called Knowledge before — a discovery that there are morethings in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot know inany higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenelyand with impunity in the face of the sun: ,— “You will not perceive that as perceiving a particular thing,”say the Chaldean Oracles.

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

February 21, Thursday: A printing press arrived at the headquarters of the Cherokee council in Echota, Georgia.

Facing the possibility of a Russian conquest of Tehran and with Tabriz already occupied, Persia signed the Treaty of Turkmenchay with Russia; decisive and final cession of the last Caucasian territories of Iran comprising modern-day Armenia, the remainder of the Azerbaijan Republic that was still in Iranian hands, and Igdir (modern-day Turkey).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

5th day 21st of 2nd M / Very Rainy, small Meeting & silent - no buisness in the Preparative Meeting, tho’ the womens side a request from Hannah Brayton for membership was forwarded to the Moy [Monthly] Meeting — Put a letter & several pamphlets on board the Packet for John S Gould. -

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Edward J. Fitzgerald graduated from Cambridge University.

At the end of the journal entries for this year, Waldo Emerson listed his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Plotinus; Confucius, Zoroaster, and Mahabarat, (apud DeGérando).”27 In his journal for the year, Waldo had noted that the Golden Rule, so markedly a part of Christianity, actually was to be ascribed to Confucius, and that THE FOUR BOOKS contained “promising definitions” of Nature, Law, and Instruction.

1830

27. M. DeGérando. HISTOIRE COMPARÉE DES SYSTÈMES DE PHILOSOPHIE. Four volumes, Paris, 1822

THOREAU AND CHINA

PERSIA IRAN

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At the end of the journal entries for this year, Waldo Emerson listed his readings in Oriental materials during the period: “Zoroaster, Zend-Avesta, apud Histoire de l’Académie des Inscriptions; Cousin (containing remarks on Oriental philosophy).”

http://www.sacred-texts.com/zor/

1832

PERSIA IRAN

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At Harvard College, Professor Cornelius Conway Felton became Eliot Professor of Greek Literature and had David Henry Thoreau as one of his pupils. Professor Felton was positioning an essay in the North American Review in defense the teaching and study of classical mythology, especially Greek mythology, which evidently was considered in need of a defense as it seemed to be encouraging lewdness. For Professor Felton, expurgation of the classic texts to delete titillating stuff did not represent a problem of suppression and censorship, but rather represented the correction of a problem of debasement and inauthenticity, because it was inconceivable that there could have been any actual “food for the passions” in originary authentic works of classicism, or, at least, in works of Greek classicism.

No, for if you credit Professor Felton’s reconstruction of European history, these dead white men could never have been guilty of worshiping at “altars of indecency and wantonness.”

1834

To the scholar we would say, then, expurgate yourHoraces and your Ovids, till not an obscene thoughtshall stain their pages; and you may be sure thatnothing will be lost in your enquiries respecting theclassic religion.

WALDEN: There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but notphilosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was onceadmirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to havesubtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdomas to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity,independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of theproblems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. Thesuccess of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to livemerely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and arein no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why domen degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is thenature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are wesure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopheris in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. Heis not fed, sheltered clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries.How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat bybetter methods than other men?

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Hanging being a piece of public theater, however, it was sometimes required of a condemned man in this modern decent society that he attire himself in his shroud (a long white linen or cotton garment with open back and long sleeves) prior to the placement of the hood and the noose. Local taverns would sometimes hire “watchers” to keep around-the-clock guard upon a condemned man, not to prevent his escape of course but to ensure that he would not cheat them of their profits from the alcohol-imbibing throng of men come to witness a hanging. No way would such an important participant in an expected ceremony be allowed to off himself in private in advance. When a condemned man was reprieved at the last moment, as indeed sometimes happened, this might incite the disappointed throng to riot, for although we have few records for such items as the shroud and the death watch, we know that this sort of riot is actually what did result from a reprieve in Pembroke MA in this year.28

The lenience of Harvard President Reverend John T. Kirkland had been succeeded by the strictness of President Josiah Quincy, Sr., the former mayor who was attempting to deal with student rebellion as he had once dealt with mobs attempting to tear down Boston’s whorehouses: by repression. Students at Harvard were rioting over living conditions and the entire Sophomore class was being not merely expelled but hauled before a court.

28. In this year Pennsylvania became the first state to move executions away from the public eye and carry them out only within prison enclosures.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Records of faculty meetings from this period show that in the shifting minority of professors who opposed and attempted to moderate Quincy’s crackdowns, Professor Charles Follen was alone in constancy of opposition.29 Freshman David Henry Thoreau evidently made himself scarce during the tearing of shutters off windows and the building of bonfires in front of doorways and his only contribution to the rebellion was a comment he appears to have made in Dr. Beck’s examination room –apparently sarcastically– “Our offense was rank.”30

One midnight during the great Harvard Rebellion Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar lay on his back in the belfry of Harvard Hall and sawed off the tongue of the bell that summoned the students to morning chapel. Fortunately he was not caught destroying property, or perhaps later he would not have been able to become Attorney

29. Professor Karl Follen’s brother Paul Follen was at this point emigrating to the United States, and would settle in Missouri. We’ll allow you three guesses as to what is about to happen to Professor Follen himself.30. At Harvard at this time, the offense of “grouping” in Harvard Yard, that is, students assembling for some purpose not condoned by the faculty (such as, for instance, free speech), was grounds for being asked to “take up one’s connexions,” that is, grounds for permanent expulsion from college. (Such rules are of course not limited to the Harvard of the 19th Century: my own memories are of smelling tear gas on the steps of Widener Library as I came away from my carrel and found out that there had been a “Pogo Riot” in which the police had rioted and cleared the intersection in front of the student bookstore of passersby in 1960-1961, and then of being vomit gassed by U.S. Marine guards on the street outside our embassy in Tehran, Iran in 1978 for the offense of attempting to obtain entry thereto as a US citizen in an Iran in which soldiers were authorized to kill anyone “assembling” in any public place in a group larger than two persons.)

(shutters awaiting the arrival of students)

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

General of the United States of America:

It need only be added to this, that the student who was first scholar in the Harvard College class of 1835, a class that included Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, and who was chosen to replace H.G.O. Blake, who was that class’s fourth scholar, as the class Orator, Charles Chauncy Shackford, after graduation went out to Concord and became a schoolteacher and romanced the local lasses, before going on to study law, and becoming a minister in 1841, and eventually becoming a professor at Cornell University. At Cornell, he would be their professor of rhetoric and literature, and, incidentally, would make himself one of the pioneers in the field now known as Comparative Literature.

Of his college life little remains to say. In hisJunior and Senior years he attracted the attention ofEdward Tyrrell Channing, then the valued Professor ofRhetoric and Oratory, and received the highest marksfor English Composition. He also won the second Bowdoinprize for an essay, and at the Exhibition in his Senioryear had, as his part, the English oration, taking ashis subject “Reverence.” His part at Commencement whenhe graduated was an English oration on “The ChristianPhilosophy; its Political Application.” Only fifty-twoof his class received degrees at Commencement [80 hadentered this class of 1835, and Richard Henry Dana, Jr.had been forced to drop out on account of his eyes],largely a result of the “Rebellion,” but five more wereallowed their Bachelor’s degree years later. RockwoodHoar was third scholar. The refined and attractiveHarrison Gray Otis Blake of Worcester, later Thoreau’snear friend, was chosen Orator by a large majority, buthis modesty made him decline, and Charles C. Shackford,later a minister, and a professor at CornellUniversity, was then chosen. Blake, however, gave theLatin Salutatory. Benjamin Davis Winslow was the Poet.Hoar was chosen a member of the Class Committee.

WORCESTER

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

PERSIA IRAN

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Some 1687 work by a Jesuit missionary in China, Father Couplet, was recycled by William Gowan, a printer of New-York, as “The Morals of Confucius” in a volume entitled THE PHENIX: A COLLECTION OF OLD AND RARE FRAGMENTS, VIZ. THE MORALS OF CONFUCIUS, THE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER; THE ORACLES OF ZOROASTER, THE FOUNDER OF THE RELIGION OF THE PERSIAN MAGI; SANCHONIATHO’S HISTORY OF THE CREATION; THE VOYAGES OF HANNO ROUND THE COAST OF AFRICA, FIVE HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE CHRIST; KING HIEMPSAL’S HISTORY OF THE AFRICAN SETTLEMENTS, TRANSLATED FROM THE PUNIC BOOKS; AND THE CHOICE SAYINGS OF PUBLIUS SYRUS.31

For Zoroaster’s Chaldean Oracles, refer to:

http://www.hermetic.com/texts/chaldean.html

1835

31. According to Lyman V. Cady, this is one of the works which would be utilized by Henry Thoreau as a source for the quotes of Confucius in WALDEN. A copy is to be noted, in the inventory taken of Bronson Alcott’s library at the point of his death. This volume contains a “Life of Confucius,” an “Introductory Dissertation” on the System of Morals, a “The Morals of Confucius” that has been translated from Chinese by R.F. Incorcetta and Father Couplet, a note on the writings of Confucius from Sir Henry Ellis’s AMHERST’S EMBASSY TO CHINA, and “The Chinese Sacred Edicts. In Sixteen Maxims.”

LIGHT FROM CHINA

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

PERSIA IRAN

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A WEEK: It is remarkable that Homer and a few Hebrews are the mostOriental names which modern Europe, whose literature has taken its risesince the decline of the Persian, has admitted into her list ofWorthies, and perhaps the worthiest of mankind, and the fathers ofmodern thinking, — for the contemplations of those Indian sages haveinfluenced, and still influence, the intellectual development ofmankind, — whose works even yet survive in wonderful completeness, are,for the most part, not recognized as ever having existed. If the lionshad been the painters it would have been otherwise. In every one’syouthful dreams philosophy is still vaguely but inseparably, and withsingular truth, associated with the East, nor do after years discoverits local habitation in the Western world. In comparison with thephilosophers of the East, we may say that modern Europe has yet givenbirth to none. Beside the vast and cosmogonal philosophy of theBhagvat-Geeta, even our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully greenand practical merely. Some of these sublime sentences, as the Chaldaeanoracles of Zoroaster, still surviving after a thousand revolutions andtranslations, alone make us doubt if the poetic form and dress are nottransitory, and not essential to the most effective and enduringexpression of thought. Ex oriente lux may still be the motto ofscholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East allthe light which it is destined to receive thence.It would be worthy of the age to print together the collectedScriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese, theHindoos, the Persians, the Hebrews, and others, as the Scripture ofmankind. The New Testament is still, perhaps, too much on the lips andin the hearts of men to be called a Scripture in this sense. Such ajuxtaposition and comparison might help to liberalize the faith of men.This is a work which Time will surely edit, reserved to crown thelabors of the printing-press. This would be the Bible, or Book ofBooks, which let the missionaries carry to the uttermost parts of theearth.

XENOPHANES

ÆSOP

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

ZOROASTER

A WEEK: The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous,for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time.The cunning mind travels further back than Zoroaster eachinstant, and comes quite down to the present with its revelation.The utmost thrift and industry of thinking give no man any stockin life; his credit with the inner world is no better, his capitalno larger. He must try his fortune again to-day as yesterday. Allquestions rely on the present for their solution. Time measuresnothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed,but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, letthe occasion say it. All the world is forward to prompt him whogets up to live without his creed in his pocket.

ZOROASTER

PERSIUS

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

PERSIA IRAN

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The firm of H.D. Robinson in New-York (No. 94 Chatham street) put out an anonymous volume titled THE MORAL SAYINGS OF CONFUCIUS, A CHINESE PHILOSOPHER, WHO LIVED ABOUT SIX HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE THE CHRISTIAN ERA; AND WHOSE MORAL PRECEPTS HAVE LEFT A LASTING IMPRESSION UPON THE CHINESE NATION.32

The soldier comforted himself with this reflection. “A soldierhas lost his buckler, but a soldier of our camp has found it;he will use it.” “It had been much better spoken,” repliesConfucius, “if he had said, ‘A man has lost his buckler, but aman has found it.’” [The text reads as follows: “A soldier ofthe kingdom of Ci,” said they unto him, “lost his buckler; andhaving a long time sought after it in vain, he at last comfortshimself upon the loss he had sustained, with this reflection:‘A soldier has lost his buckler, but a soldier of our camp hasfound it; he will use it.’” “It had been much better spoken,”replies Confucius, “if he had said, ‘A man has lost his buckler,but a man will find it;’” thereby intimating that we ought tohave an affection for all the men of the world.]

We may note that Thoreau would refer to this soldier who lost his buckler at the end of the 8th chapter of WALDEN,

and to the basin of King Tam in the 2nd chapter of WALDEN:

We must not here forget a remarkable thing which Cemcu relates,touching a basin wherein King Tam used to bathe and wash himself.He says, that these excellent words were there engraved — “Washthyself; renew thyself continually; renew thyself every day;renew thyself from day to day.”

32. “The Life and Morals of Confucius, a Chinese Philosopher ... being one of the Choicest pieces of Learning and Morality Remaining of that Nation” is merely a new edition, edited by Josephus Tela in 1818, of the originary French treatise of the ANALECTS in Latin that had been put out in 1691 in English as THE MORALS OF CONFUCIUS, A CHINESE PHILOSOPHER. Tela’s English translation had appeared in the January 1, 1818 issue of THE PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY: BEING A CURIOUS COLLECTION OF THE MOST RARE AND VALUABLE PRINTED WORKS AND MANUSCRIPTS, BOTH ANCIENT AND MODERN, WHICH TREAT SOLELY OF MORAL, METAPHYSICAL, THEOLOGICAL, HISTORICAL, AND PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRIES AFTER TRUTH.

WALDEN: I was never molested by any person but those whorepresented the state. I had no lock nor bolt but for the deskwhich held my papers, not even a nail to put over my latch orwindows. I never fastened my door night or day, though I was tobe absent several days; not even when the next fall I spent afortnight in the woods of Maine. And yet my house was morerespected than if it had been surrounded by a file of soldiers.The tired rambler could rest and warm himself by my fire, theliterary amuse himself with the few books on my table, or thecurious, by opening my closet door, see what was left of mydinner, and what prospect I had of a supper. Yet, though manypeople of every class came this way to the pond, I sufferedno serious inconvenience from these sources, and I never missedany thing but one small book, a volume of Homer, which perhapswas improperly gilded and this I trust a soldier of our camp hasfound by this time. I am convinced, that if all men were to liveas simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown.These take place only in communities where some have got more thanis sufficient while others have not enough.

PERSIA IRAN

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WALDEN: Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my lifeof equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I gotup early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise,and one of the best things which I did. They say that characterswere engraven on the bathing tub of king Tching-thang to thiseffect: “Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, andagain, and forever again.” I can understand that. Morning bringsback the heroic ages.

THE GREAT BATHTUB HOAX

AURORA

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

PERSIA IRAN

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October: An article on “Ancient Persian Poetry” appeared in the Foreign Quarterly Review (18:119-158) from which Thoreau would copy into his Miscellaneous Extracts notebook in 1837. This article contained the poem “Wamik and Asra,” or “The Glowing and the Blowing,” said to be the most ancient Persian romantic poem. The hero and heroine of this poem personify the principles, respectively, of heat and vegetation, which is to say, the vivifying energy of heaven and the correspondent productiveness of earth.

1836

ANCIENT PERSIAN POETRY

PERSIA IRAN

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Edward J. Fitzgerald returned from Cambridge University to Woodbridge in Suffolk, living at Boulge.

1837

PERSIA IRAN

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In this year the British government disassociated the East India Company from obligations into which it had entered, to maintain the temples of India. Forget your promises, that’s an order!

The Reverend William Adam abandoned India and joined his family in the United States. He would further journey from Boston to London, to attend the initial meeting of an antislavery group, the British India Society.

James Robert Ballantyne’s A GRAMMAR OF THE HINDUSTANI LANGUAGE (Edinburgh).

Monier Williams matriculated at King’s College School, Balliol College of Oxford University.

At the end of the journal entries for this year, Waldo Emerson listed his readings in Oriental materials during the period: “Hermes Trismegistus; Synesius; Proclus; Thomas Taylor; Institutes of Menu; Sir William Jones, Translations of Asiatic Poetry; Buddha. Zoroaster; Confucius.”

Again Emerson copied extracts from the Confucian canon into his journals, extracts such as “Action, such as Confucius describes the speech of God.”

1838

EMERSON AND CHINA

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

January 8, Monday: Henry C. Wright confided to his journal the thought that we are each of us now to be as Adam was, “solely under God’s dominion.” Government was only “as necessary as human wickedness — no more so.” By annulling all allegiances other than to God we can “change this field of blood into a paradise of love.”

(That’s exactly the same sort of thing that the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would, in a later timeframe, propose as the basis for the new Islamic Republic of Iran. “Instead of a man on a white horse,” he would opinion, “let’s have a man in a white turban.”)

The Canadian insurrectionists seized the steamer Ann and headed for Gibraltar, Michigan. Governor Stevens T. Mason of Michigan pursued them with 200 militiamen in two other steamers. A detachment of 100 Canadian militiamen followed in the steamer Alliance. Governor Mason met with the leaders of the insurrection at Gibraltar, but the captured steamer Ann continued on to near Fort Malden on the Canadian shore.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

The Reverend Theodore Parker’s “Cudworth’s INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM” appeared in The Christian Examiner. (Waldo Emerson had the Thomas Birch edition of 1820 in his library.)

Republication of Joseph-Héliodore-Sagesse-Vertu Garcin de Tassy’s 1826 DOCTRINES ET DEVOIRS DE LA RELIGION MUSELMANE.

At the end of the journal entries for this year, Emerson listed his readings in Oriental materials during the period: “Buddha; Vedas; Sir William Jones; Zoroaster; Koran; Ockley, History of the Saracens.”

1840

CUDWORTH’S SYSTEM, ICUDWORTH’S SYSTEM, IICUDWORTH’S SYSTEM, III

CHALDÆAN ORACLES

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

March: Waldo Emerson wrote Margaret Fuller and listed Ellery Channing among possible contributors to THE DIAL. Having no response to his letter to Channing, he tried to contact the poet with the famous name through their mutual friend Ward, and, Channing having abandoned his fields in Illinois without raising a crop, Emerson even paid a visit to Channing’s father’s house in hopes of discovering Channing there. (Channing had gone to visit at Brook Farm33 and had then returned toward the West.)

Thoreau composed the 1st version of what would become his essay on the Roman satirist Aulus Persius Flaccus, “AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS,” “first printed paper of consequence,” for July’s issue of THE DIAL.

This paper turned two tricks of interest. First, Henry Thoreau espoused an attitude of moving away from creedal closedness, associating creedal closedness with immodesty and openness with modesty rather than vice versa and developing that attitude out of comments such as Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque humilesque susurros / Tollere de templis; et aperto vivere voto:

Second, Thoreau perversely insisted on translating ex tempore in its literal etymological sense “out of time” ignoring what had become the primary sense of the phrase: “haphazard,” “improvised.” Thoreau mobilized this phrase to summon people to live not in time but in eternity:34

33. [How could that be? Did the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education already exist in 1840, when they did not solicit Thoreau to join until March 3, 1841?]

34. EARLY ESSAYS AND MISCELLANIES 126.

THE DIAL, JULY 1840

“AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS”: It is not easy for every one to take murmursand low Whispers out of the temple –et aperto vivere voto– andlive with open vow,

“AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS”: The life of a wise man is most of allextemporaneous, for he lives out of an eternity that includes alltime. He is a child each moment, and reflects wisdom. The fardarting thought of the child’s mind tarries not for thedevelopment of manhood; it lightens itself, and needs not drawdown lightning from the clouds. When we bask in a single ray fromthe mind of Zoroaster, we see how all subsequent time has been anidler, and has no apology for itself. But the cunning mind travelsfarther back than Zoroaster each instant, and comes quite down tothe present with its revelation. All the thrift and industry ofthinking give no man any stock in life; his credit with the innerworld is no better, his capital no larger. He must try his fortuneagain to-day as yesterday. All questions rely on the present fortheir solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The word thatis written may be postponed, but not that on the lip. If this iswhat the occasion says, let the occasion say it. From a realsympathy, all the world is forward to prompt him who gets up tolive without his creed in his pocket.

ZOROASTER

PERSIUS

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

The force of the essay, then, was to provide Thoreau an opportunity to preach his own doctrines by satirizing a minor Roman satirist, and he admits as much: “As long as there is satire, the poet is, as it were, particeps criminis.” Young Henry is of course that poet, that accessory to the crime.

TIME AND ETERNITY

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

July 1, Wednesday: William Silsbee was ordained a Unitarian minister in Walpole, New Hampshire (he would serve at churches in Northampton and in Melrose, Massachusetts, and from 1867 to 1887 would pastor a church in Trenton, New York).

Publication of THE DIAL: A MAGAZINE FOR LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION (Volume I, Number 1, July 1840), a journal of Transcendentalist thought named in honor of the sundial, began at this point and continued into 1844:

“The name speaks of faith in Nature and in Progress.” – The Reverend James Freeman Clarke

This initial issue of THE DIAL included Henry Thoreau’s essay on the Roman satirist Aulus Persius Flaccus, which has been termed his “first printed paper of consequence.”

“AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS”: The life of a wise man is most of allextemporaneous, for he lives out of an eternity that includes alltime. He is a child each moment, and reflects wisdom. The fardarting thought of the child’s mind tarries not for thedevelopment of manhood; it lightens itself, and needs not drawdown lightning from the clouds. When we bask in a single ray fromthe mind of Zoroaster, we see how all subsequent time has been anidler, and has no apology for itself. But the cunning mind travelsfarther back than Zoroaster each instant, and comes quite down tothe present with its revelation. All the thrift and industry ofthinking give no man any stock in life; his credit with the innerworld is no better, his capital no larger. He must try his fortuneagain to-day as yesterday. All questions rely on the present fortheir solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The word thatis written may be postponed, but not that on the lip. If this iswhat the occasion says, let the occasion say it. From a realsympathy, all the world is forward to prompt him who gets up tolive without his creed in his pocket.

ZOROASTER

PERSIUS

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Thoreau would later recycle this paper on the satirist Persius with 28 minor modifications into the “Thursday” chapter of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS:

Thoreau’s effort turned two tricks of interest. First, he espoused an attitude of turning away from creedal closedness, associating creedal closedness with immodesty and openness with modesty rather than vice versa and developing that attitude out of comments such as Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque humilesque susurros / Tollere de templis; et aperto vivere voto which translates as “It’s not easy to take murmurs and low whispers out of the temple and live with open vow.” Second, Thoreau perversely insisted on translating ex tempore in its literal etymological sense “out of time” ignoring what had become the primary sense of the phrase: “haphazard,” “improvised.” Thoreau mobilized this phrase to summon people to live not in time but in eternity: “The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, for he lives out of an eternity that includes all time. He is a child of each moment, and reflects wisdom.… He must try his fortune again to-day as yesterday. All questions rely on the present for their solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed, but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, let the occasion say it. From a real sympathy, all the world is forward to prompt him who gets up to live without his creed in his pocket.”

35 The force of the essay, then, was to provide Thoreau an opportunity to preach his own doctrines by

satirizing a minor Roman satirist, and he admits as much: “As long as there is satire, the poet is, as it were, particeps criminis.” Thoreau is of course that poet, that accessory to the crime. Robert D. Richardson, Jr. points out that Thoreau ignored a trope in Persius that had been admired by John

35. EARLY ESSAYS AND MISCELLANIES 126.

THE DIAL, JULY 1840

A WEEK: The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous,for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time.The cunning mind travels further back than Zoroaster eachinstant, and comes quite down to the present with its revelation.The utmost thrift and industry of thinking give no man any stockin life; his credit with the inner world is no better, his capitalno larger. He must try his fortune again to-day as yesterday. Allquestions rely on the present for their solution. Time measuresnothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed,but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, letthe occasion say it. All the world is forward to prompt him whogets up to live without his creed in his pocket.

ZOROASTER

PERSIUS

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Dryden, in order to do quite different things with this material:

I would point out here that those who are familiar with the poetry of the West Coast poet of place, Robinson Jeffers (and I presume Richardson to be as innocent of knowledge of Jeffers as was Jeffers of knowledge of Thoreau), rather than see a linkage to the spirit of a poet who worshiped the Young Italy of Benito Mussolini, will choose to perceive a more direct linkage to Jeffers’s stance of “inhumanism.” But to go on in Richardson’s comment about the “Aulus Persius Flaccus” essay:

(Well, first we have Thoreau being like a later poet who was renowned for his personal as well as his political craziness, and then we have Thoreau being an Emerson impersonator, interpreting things through the lens of the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. That’s about par for the course, on the Richardson agenda.)

With the cool effrontery of an Ezra Pound, Thoreau declares thatthere are perhaps twenty good lines in Persius, of permanent asopposed to historical interest. Ignoring the elegant shipwrecktrope Dryden so admired in the sixth satire, Thoreau gives themain weight of his essay to a careful reading of seven of thoselines. Two lines,

permit Thoreau to insist on the distinction between the “man oftrue religion” who finds his open temple in the whole universe,and the “jealous privacy” of those who try to “carry on a secretcommerce with the gods” whose hiding place is in some building.The distinction is between the open religion of the fields andwoods, and the secret, closed religion of the churches.

It is not easy for every one to take murmurs and low Whispers out of the temple –et aperto vivere voto– and live with open vow,

EZRA POUND

Thoreau’s best point takes a rebuke from the third satire againstthe casual life, against living ex tempore, and neatly convertsit into a Thoreauvian paradox. Taking ex tempore literally,Thoreau discards its sense of offhand improvisation and takes itas a summons to live outside time, to live more fully than ourordinary consciousness of chronological time permits.

Interpreting Persius through the lens of Emerson’s “History,”Thoreau contends that

Thoreau’s Persius has gone beyond Stoicism to transcendentalism,insisting on open religious feelings as opposed to closedinstitutional dogmatic creeds, and on a passionate articulationof the absolute value of the present moment.

The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time.

All questions rely on the present for their solution. Time measures nothing but itself.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

This initial issue also contained some material from Charles Chauncy Emerson:

The reason why Homer is to me like a dewy morning is because Itoo lived while Troy was, and sailed in the hollow ships of theGrecians to sack the devoted town. The rosy-fingered dawn as itcrimsoned the tops of Ida, the broad seashore dotted with tents,the Trojan host in their painted armor, and the rushing chariotsof Diomede and Idomeneua, all these I too saw: my ghost animatedthe frame of some nameless Argive.... We forget that we havebeen drugged with the sleepy bowl of the Present. But when alively chord in the soul is struck, when the windows for a momentare unbarred, the long and varied past is recovered. Werecognize it all. We are no more brief, ignoble creatures; weseize our immortality, and bind together the related parts ofour secular being.

— Notes from the Journal of a Scholar, The Dial, I, p. 14

This initial issue also contained on page 123 the poem by Ellen Sturgis Hooper “I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty” from which Thoreau would quote a large part as the conclusion of his “House-Warming” chapter:36

36. Would she be married to Concord’s Harry Hooper, and would he possibly be related to the signer of the Declaration of Independence who lived in the south after attending Boston’s Latin School?

PERSIA IRAN

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It is to be noted, as an exercise in becoming aware of how much our attitudes toward copyright have changed, that in the original edition the last line, indicating that the poem was by a Mrs. Hooper, did not appear.

The poem as it had been published in THE DIAL had been entitled “The Wood Fire.” It would appear that Thoreau had intended to quote even more of the poem, and that seven beginning lines had been suppressed in

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

WALDEN: The next winter I used a small cooking-stove for economy,since I did not own the forest; but it did not keep fire so wellas the open fire-place. Cooking was then, for the most part, nolonger a poetic, but merely a chemic process. It will soon beforgotten, in these days of stoves, that we used to roast potatoesin the ashes, after the Indian fashion. The stove not only tookup room and scented the house, but it concealed the fire, and feltas if I had lost a companion. You can always see a face in thefire. The laborer, looking into it at evening, purifies histhoughts of the dross and earthiness which they have accumulatedduring the day. But I could no longer sit and look into the fire,and the pertinent words of a poet recurred to me with new force.–

“Never, bright flame, may be denied to meThy dear, life imaging, close sympathy.What but my hopes shot upward e’er so bright?What by my fortunes sunk so low in night?Why art thou banished from our hearth and hall,Thou who art welcomed and beloved by all?Was thy existence then too fancifulFor our life’s common light, who are so dull?Did thy bright gleam mysterious converse holdWith our congenial souls? secrets too bold?Well, we are safe and strong, for now we sitBeside a hearth where no dim shadows flit,Where nothing cheers nor saddens, but a fireWarms feet and hands – nor does to more aspireBy whose compact utilitarian heapThe present may sit down and go to sleep,Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked,And with us by the unequal light of the old wood fire talked.”

Mrs. Hooper

ELLEN STURGIS HOOPER

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the process of shortening the WALDEN manuscript for publication:

“When I am glad or gay,Let me walk forth into the briliant sun,And with congenial rays be shone upon:When I am sad, or thought-bewitched would be,Let me glide forth in moonlight’s mystery.But never, while I live this changeful life,This Past and Future with all wonders rife,Never, bright flame, may be denied to me,Thy dear, life imaging, close sympathy.What but my hopes shot upward e’er so bright?What by my fortunes sunk so low in night?Why art thou banished from our hearth and hall,Thou who art welcomed and beloved by all?Was thy existence then too fancifulFor our life’s common light, who are so dull?Did thy bright gleam mysterious converse holdWith our congenial souls? secrets too bold?Well, we are safe and strong, for now we sitBeside a hearth where no dim shadows flit,Where nothing cheers nor saddens, but a fireWarms feet and hands – nor does to more aspireBy whose compact utilitarian heapThe present may sit down and go to sleep,Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked,And with us by the unequal light of the old wood fire talked.”

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Thoreau’s poem “Sympathy,” or “To a gentle boy” also appeared in this 1st issue of THE DIAL.

The title of the journal came from a phrase that Bronson Alcott had been planning to use for his next year’s diary,

and the “dial” in question was a garden sundial.37 For purposes of this publication Bronson strove to emulate the selections from his writings that Waldo Emerson had excerpted at the end of the small volume NATURE, attempted, that is, to cast his wisdom in the form of epigrams or “Orphic Sayings” which, even if they were unchewable, at least could be fitted into one’s mouth. In the timeframe in which these were being created, Alcott was reading Hesiod (he had in his personal library HESIOD’S WORKS, TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK,

Sophia Peabody (Hawthorne)’s Illustration for the 1st Edition of

“To a Gentle Boy” in TWICE-TOLD TALES

DIAL ON TIME THINE OWN ETERNITY

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BY MR. T[HOMAS] COOKE, SECOND EDITION, 1740), Dr. Henry More, the Reverend Professor Ralph Cudworth, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. When these were finally published, they were the only transcendental material to appear in THE DIAL, of 24 pieces, that would bear the full name of the author rather than be offered anonymously or bear merely the author’s initials. It was as if the other transcendentalist writers associated with THE DIAL were saying to their readers, “Look, this is A. Bronson Alcott here, you’ve got to make allowances.” Here is one of the easier and more pithy examples:

Some of these things, however, ran on and on without making any sense at all, and here is one that was seized upon by the popular press and mocked as a “Gastric Saying”:

Well, I won’t quote the whole thing. Was Alcott a disregarded Hegelian who had never heard of Hegel?

37. The name, of course, carried metaphysical freight. For instance, in his 1836 essay NATURE Emerson had quoted the following from Emanuel Swedenborg — the Swedish religious mentor whom he would later characterize, in REPRESENTATIVE MEN, as the type of “the mystic”:

And in December 1839, Emerson had written in his journal:

The visible world and the relation of its parts, is thedial plate of the invisible.

SWEDENBORGIANISM

I say how the world looks to me without reference to Blair’s Rhetoric or Johnson’s Lives. And I call my thoughts The Present Age, because I use no will in the matter, but honestly record such impressions as things make. So transform I myself into a Dial, and my shadow will tell where the sun is.

Prudence is the footprint of Wisdom.

The popular genesis is historical. It is written tosense not to the soul. Two principles, diverse andalien, interchange the Godhead and sway the world byturns. God is dual, Spirit is derivative. Identityhalts in diversity. Unity is actual merely....

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Wouldn’t this be a better world if G.W.F. Hegel also had been ignored? Go figure.38The initial issue included

a poem by Christopher Pearse Cranch, “To the Aurora Borealis”:

Arctic fount of holiest light, Springing through the winter night,Spreading far behind yon hill,When the earth lies dark and still,Rippling o'er the stars, as streamsO'er pebbled beds in sunny gleams;O for names, thou vision fair,To express thy splendours rare!

Blush upon the cheek of night,Posthumous, unearthly light,Dream of the deep sunken sun,Beautiful, sleep-walking one,Sister of the moonlight pale,Star-obscuring meteor veil,Spread by heaven's watching vestals;Sender of the gleamy crystalsDarting on their arrowy course

From their glittering polar source,Upward where the air doth freezeRound the sister Pleiades;--

Beautiful and rare Aurora,In the heavens thou art their Flora,Night-blooming Cereus of the sky,Rose of amaranthine dye,Hyacinth of purple light,Or their Lily clad in white!

Who can name thy wondrous essence,Thou electric phosphorescence?Lonely apparition fire!Seeker of the starry choir!Restless roamer of the sky,

38. July 1840, The Dial, “Orphic Sayings,” xvii.

Americans of Thoreau’s day accepted as axiomatic theLockean-Jeffersonian principle that governments derivetheir just powers from the consent of the governed, andThoreau did not challenge this axiom. But he appliedit in an unorthodox way. The unit that gives consent,he asserts, is not the majority but the individual.The reason, he explains, is that consent is a moraljudgment, for which each individual is accountable tohis own conscience. The majority, on the other hand,is not a moral entity and its right to rule not a moralentitlement. As Bronson Alcott, who set Thoreau theexample of resistance to civil government, aptly putit, “In the theocracy of the soul majorities do notrule.” The alleged right of the majority to rule,Thoreau declared, is based merely on the assumptionthat “they are physically the strongest.”

DANIEL WALKER HOWE

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Who hath won thy mystery?Mortal science hath not ranWith thee through the Empyrean,Where the constellations clusterFlower-like on thy branching lustre.

After all the glare and toil,And the daylight's fretful coil,Thou dost come so milt and still,Hearts with love and peace to fill;As when after revelryWith a talking company,Where the blaze of many lightsFell on fools and parasites,One by one the guests have gone,And we find ourselves alone;Only one sweet maiden near,With a sweet voice low and clear,Whispering music in our ear,--So thou talkest to the earthAfter daylight's weary mirth.Is not human fantasy,Wild Aurora, likest thee,Blossoming in nightly dreams,Like thy shifting meteor-gleams?

Thoreau’s own copy of this issue of THE DIAL is now at Southern Illinois University. It exhibits his subsequent pencil corrections.

Aulus Persius Flaccus

IF you have imagined what a divine work is spread out for thepoet, and approach this author too, in the hope of finding thefield at length fairly entered on, you will hardly dissent fromthe words of the prologue,

“Ipse semipaganus Ad sacra Vatum carmen affero nostrum.”

Here is none of the interior dignity of Virgil, nor the eleganceand fire of Horace, nor will any Sibyl be needed to remind you,that from those older Greek poets, there is a sad descent toPersius. Scarcely can you distinguish one harmonious sound, amidthis unmusical bickering with the follies of men.One sees how music has its place in thought, but hardly as yetin language. When the Muse arrives, we wait for her to remouldlanguage, and impart to it her own rhythm. Hitherto the versegroans and labors with its load, but goes not forward blithely,singing by the way. The best ode may be parodied, indeed isitself a parody, and has a poor and trivial sound, like a manstepping on the rounds of a ladder. Homer, and Shakspeare, andMilton, and Marvel, and Wordsworth, are but the rustling ofleaves and crackling of twigs in the forest, and not yet thesound of any bird. The Muse has never lifted up her voice tosing. Most of all satire will not be sung. A Juvenal or Persiusdo not marry music to their verse, but are measured faultfindersat best; stand but just outside the faults they condemn, and soare concerned rather about the monster they have escaped, than

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the fair prospect before them. Let them live on an age, not asecular one, and they will have travelled out of his shadow andharm's way, and found other objects to ponder.As long as there is nature, the poet is, as it were, particepscriminis. One sees not but he had best let bad take care ofitself, and have to do only with what is beyond suspicion. Ifyou light on the least vestige of truth, and it is the weightof the whole body still which stamps the faintest trace, aneternity will not suffice to extol it, while no evil is so huge,but you grudge to bestow on it a moment of hate. Truth neverturns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is theseverest correction. Horace would not have written satire sowell, if he had not been inspired by it, as by a passion, andfondly cherished his vein. In his odes, the love always exceedsthe hate, so that the severest satire still sings itself, andthe poet is satisfied, though the folly be not corrected.A sort of necessary order in the development of Genius is, first,Complaint; second, Plaint; third, Love. Complaint, which is thecondition of Persius, lies not in the province of poetry. Erelong the enjoyment of a superior good would have changed hisdisgust into regret. We can never have much sympathy with thecomplainer; for after searching nature through, we conclude hemust be both plaintiff and defendant too, and so had best cometo a settlement without a hearing.I know not but it would be truer to say, that the highest strainof the muse is essentially plaintive. The saint’s are stilltears of joy.But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is theseverest satire; as impersonal as nature herself, and like thesighs of her winds in the woods, which convey ever a slightreproof to the hearer. The greater the genius, the keener theedge of the satire.Hence have we to do only with the rare and fragmentary traits,which least belong to Persius, or, rather, are the properestutterance of his muse; since that which he says best at any timeis what he can best say at all times. The Spectators and Ramblershave not failed to cull some quotable sentences from this gardentoo, so pleasant is it to meet even the most familiar truths ina new dress, when, if our neighbor had said it, we should havepassed it by as hackneyed. Out of these six satires, you mayperhaps select some twenty lines, which fit so well as manythoughts, that they will recur to the scholar almost as readilyas a natural image; though when translated into familiarlanguage, they lose that insular emphasis, which fitted them forquotation. Such lines as the following no translation can rendercommonplace. Contrasting the man of true religion with those,that, with jealous privacy, would fain carry on a secretcommerce with the gods, he says, —

“Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque humilesqueTollere susurros de templis; et aperto vivere voto.”

To the virtuous man, the universe is the only sanctum sanctorum,and the penetralia of the temple are the broad noon of hisexistence. Why should he betake himself to a subterranean crypt,

[“nature” should read “satire”]

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as if it were the only holy ground in all the world he had leftunprofaned? The obedient soul would only the more discover andfamiliarize things, and escape more and more into light and air,as having henceforth done with secrecy, so that the universeshall not seem open enough for it. At length, is it neglectfuleven of that silence which is consistent with true modesty, butby its independence of all confidence in its disclosures, makesthat which it imparts so private to the hearer, that it becomesthe care of the whole world that modesty be not infringed.To the man who cherishes a secret in his breast, there is a stillgreater secret unexplored. Our most indifferent acts may bematter for secrecy, but whatever we do with the utmosttruthfulness and integrity, by virtue of its pureness, must betransparent as light.In the third satire he asks,

“Est aliquid quò tendis, et in quod dirigis arcum?An passim sequeris corvos, testâve, lutove,Securus quò per ferat, atque ex tempore vivis?”

Language seems to have justice done it, but is obviously crampedand narrowed in its significance, when any meanness isdescribed. The truest construction is not put upon it. What mayreadily be fashioned into a rule of wisdom, is here thrown inthe teeth of the sluggard, and constitutes the front of hisoffence. Universally, the innocent man will come forth from thesharpest inquisition and lecturings, the combined din of reproofand commendation, with a faint sound of eulogy in his ears. Ourvices lie ever in the direction of our virtues, and in theirbest estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.Falsehood never attains to the dignity of entire falseness, butis only an inferior sort of truth; if it were more thoroughlyfalse, it would incur danger of becoming true.

“Securus quò pes ferat, atque ex tempore vivit,

is then the motto of a wise man. For first, as the subtlediscernment of the language would have taught us, with all hisnegligence he is still secure; but the sluggard, notwithstandinghis heedlessness, is insecure.The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, for helives out of an eternity that includes all time. He is a childeach moment and reflects wisdom. The far darting thought of thechild's mind tarries not for the development of manhood; itlightens itself, and needs not draw down lightning from theclouds. When we bask in a single ray from the mind of Zoroaster,we see how all subsequent time has been an idler, and has noapology for itself. But the cunning mind travels farther backthan Zoroaster each instant, and comes quite down to the presentwith its revelation. All the thrift and industry of thinkinggive no man any stock in life; his credit with the inner worldis no better, his capital no larger. He must try his fortuneagain today as yesterday. All questions rely on the present fortheir solution. Time measures nothing but itself: The word thatis written may be postponed, but not that on the life. If thisis what the occasion says, let the occasion say it. From a real

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sympathy, all the world is forward to prompt him who gets up tolive without his creed in his pocket.In the fifth satire, which is the best, I find,

“Stat contrà ratio, et recretam garrit in aurem.Ne liceat facere id, quod quis vitiabit agendo.”

Only they who do not see how anything might be better done areforward to try their hand on it. Even the master workman mustbe encouraged by the reflection, that his awkwardness will beincompetent to do that harm, to which his skill may fail to dojustice. Here is no apology for neglecting to do many thingsfrom a sense of our incapacity, — for what deed does not fallmaimed and imperfect from our hands? — but only a warning tobungle less.The satires of Persius are the farthest possible from inspired;evidently a chosen, not imposed subject. Perhaps I have givenhim credit for more earnestness than is apparent; but certainit is, that that which alone we can call Persius, which isforever independent and consistent, was in earnest, and sosanctions the sober consideration of all. The artist and hiswork are not to be separated. The most wilfully foolish mancannot stand aloof from his folly, but the deed and the doertogether make ever one sober fact. The buffoon may not bribe youto laugh always at his grimaces; they shall sculpture themselvesin Egyptian granite, to stand heavy as the pyramids on the groundof his character.

T.

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At the end of the journal entries for this year, Waldo Emerson would list his readings in Oriental materials during the period: “Plotinus; HERMES TRISMEGISTUS; Porphyry, ON ABSTINENCE FROM ANIMAL FOOD (Taylor’s translation); Iamblichus, LIFE OF PYTHAGORAS; Synesius; Proclus; Olympiadorus; VISHNU SARNA; Zoroaster; Confucius; Saadi; Hafiz.” Here is an example of the sort of record he had made of Confucius:

Chang Tsoo and Kee Neih retired from the state to the fields onaccount of misrule, and showed their displeasure at Confuciuswho remained in the world. Confucius sighed and said, I cannotassociate with birds and beasts. If I follow not man, whom shallI follow? If the world were in possession of right principles,I should not seek to change it.

December: Henry Thoreau copied two poems by Vincent Bourne, “Hymn” and “On the Feast of Pentecost,” from MISCELLANEOUS POEMS: CONSISTING OF ORIGINALS AND TRANSLATIONS (London: W. Ginger, 1772) into his

1841

EMERSON AND CHINA

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1st Commonplace Book.

He copied an anonymous poem “Upon a Small Building in Gothic Taste” from a set of volumes edited by Robert Dodsley and printed for J. Dodsley in Pall Mall in 1775, entitled A COLLECTION OF POEMS IN SIX VOLUMES. BY SEVERAL HANDS.

He copied from a compilation in the library of Waldo Emerson, John Gilchrist’s A COLLECTION OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SCOTTISH BALLADS, TALES, AND SONGS, WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. IN TWO VOLUMES (Edinburgh: Printed by Gilchrist & Heriot, Printers, Leith for William Blackwood:

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

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and Baldwin, Craddock, & Joy, Paternoster-row, London).

From this month into the following March, Thoreau would be reading in the 8 volumes of the 1829 Oxford edition of THE WORKS OF SIR WALTER RALEGH, KT., NOW FIRST COLLECTED: TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED THE LIVES OF THE AUTHOR BY OLDYS AND BIRCH. It appears that after studying the first 7 volumes in the Harvard Alcove (for instance, THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD in Volume II), on December 10th he withdrew Volume VIII for home study. From that last volume he would derive an Ovid quote which eventually he would situate in the early pages of his WALDEN ms:

For his interest in Sir Walter during this period, refer to his Journal, I, 314, 318ff., 332-334.

St. Augustine noteth that Zoroaster was said to have laughed athis birth, when all other children weep; which presaged thegreat knowledge which afterward he attained unto.

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

WALDEN: It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha created menby throwing stones over their heads behind them:–

Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum,Et documenta damus quâ simus origine nati.

Or, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way,–

“From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring painand care,

Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are.”

So much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle, throwingthe stones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where theyfell.

WALTER RALEIGH

OVID

DEUCALION

PYRRHA

AUGUSTINE

ZOROASTER

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SECT. V.That man is, as it were, a little world: with a digression touching our mortality.MAN, thus compounded and formed by God, was an abstract or model, or brief story of the universal: in whom God concluded the creation and work of the world, and whom he made the last and most excellent of his creatures, being internally endued with a divine understanding, by which he might contemplate and serve his Creator, after whose image he was formed, and endued with the powers and faculties of reason and other abilities, that thereby also he might govern and rule the world, and all other God’s creatures therein. And whereas God created three sorts of living natures, to wit, angelical, rational, and brutal; giving to angels an intellectual, and to beasts a sensual nature, he vouchsafed unto man both the intellectual of angels, the sensitive of beasts, and the proper rational belong unto man, and therefore, saith Gregory Nazianzene, Homo est utriusque naturae vinculum; “Man is the bond and chain which tieth together both natures;” and because in the little frame of man’s body there is a representation of the universal, and (by allusion) a kind of participation of all the parts thereof, therefore was man called microcosmos, or the little world. Deus igitur hominem factum, velut alterum quendam mundum, in brevi magnum, atque exiguo totum, in terris statuit; “God therefore placed in the earth the man whom he had made, as it were another world, the great and large world in the small and little world.” For out of earth and dust was formed the flesh of man, and therefore heavy and lumpish; the bones of his body we may compare to the hard rocks and stones, and therefore strong and durable; of which Ovid: Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum,Et documenta damus qua simus origiae nati.From thence our kind hard-hearted is,Enduring pain and care,Approving, that our bodies ofA stony nature are.

His blood, which disperseth itself by the branches of veins through all the body, may be resembled to those waters which are carried by brooks and rivers over all the earth; his breath to the air; his natural heat to the enclosed warmth which the earth hath in itself, which, stirred up by the heat of the sun, assisteth nature in the speedier procreation of those varieties which the earth bringeth forth; our radical moisture, oil, or balsamum, (whereon the natural heat feedeth and is maintained,) is resembled to the fat and fertility of the earth; the hairs of man’s body, which adorns, or overshadows it, to the grass, which covereth the upper face and skin of the earth; our generative power, to nature, which produceth all things; our determination, to the light, wandering, and unstable clouds, carried every where with uncertain winds.; our eyes to the light of the sun and moon; and the beauty of our youth, to the flowers of the spring, which, either in a very short time, or with the sun’s heat, dry up and wither away, or the fierce puffs of wind blow them from the stalks; the thoughts of our mind, to the motion of angels; and our pure understanding, (formerly called mens, and that which always looketh upwards,) to those intellectual natures which are always present with God; and, lastly, our immortal souls (while they are righteous) are by God himself beautified with the title of his own image and similitude. And although, in respect of God, there is no man just, or good, or righteous, (for, sin angelis deprehensa est stultitia, “Behold, he “found folly in his angels,” saith Job;) yet, with such a kind of difference as there is between the substance and the shadow, there may be found a goodness in man; which God being pleased to accept, hath therefore called man the image and similitude of his own righteousness. In this also is the little world of man compared, and made more like the universal, (man being the measure of all things; “Homo est mensura omnium rerum,” saith Aristotle and Pythagoras,) that the four complexions resemble the four elements, and the seven ages of man the seven planets; whereof our infancy is compared to the moon, in which we seem only to live and grow, as plants; the second age to Mercury, wherein we are taught and instructed; our third age to Venus, the days of love, desire, and vanity; the fourth to the sun, the strong, flourishing, and beautiful age of man’s life; the fifth to Mars, in which we seek honour and victory, and in which our thoughts travel to ambitious ends; the sixth age is ascribed to Jupiter, in which we begin to take account of our times,

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judge of ourselves, and grow to the perfection of our understanding; the last and seventh to Saturn, wherein our days are sad, and overcast, and in which we find by dear and lamentable experience, and by the loss which can never be repaired, that of all our vain passions and affections past, the sorrow only abideth; our attendants are sicknesses and variable infirmities; and by how much the more we are accompanied with plenty, by so much the more greedily is our end desired, whom when time hath made unsociable to others, we become a burden to ourselves: being of no other use, than to hold the riches we have from our successors. In this time it is, when (as aforesaid) we, for the most part, and never before, prepare for our eternal habitation, which we pass on unto with many sighs, groans, and sad thoughts, and in the end, by the workmanship of death, finish the sorrowful business of a wretched life; towards which we always travel both sleeping and waking; neither have those beloved companions of honour and riches any power at all to hold us any one day by the glorious promise of entertainments; but by what crooked path soever we walk, the same leadeth on directly to the house of death, whose doors lie open at all hours and to all persons.For this tide of man’s life, after it once turneth and declineth, ever runneth with a perpetual ebb and falling stream, but never floweth again; our leaf once fallen, springeth no more; neither doth the sun or the summer adorn us again, with the garments of new leaves and flowers.

Redditur arboribus florens revirentibus aetas:Ergo non homini, quod fuit ante, redit.To which I give this sense.The plants and trees made poor and oldBy winter envious,The spring-time bounteousCovers again from shame and cold:But never man repair’d againHis youth and beauty lost,Though art, and care, and cost,Do promise nature’s help in vain.

And of which Catullus, Epigram 53Soles occidere et redire possunt:Nobis com semel occidit bgrevis lux,Nox est perpetua una dormienda.

The sun may set and rise:But we contrarywiseSleep after our short lightOne everlasting night.

For if there were any bating place, or rest, in the course or race of man’s life, then, according to the doctrine of the Academics, the same might also perpetually be maintained; but as there is a continuance of motion in natural living things, and as the sap and juice, wherein the life of plants is preserved, doth evermore ascend or descend; so it is with the life of man, which is always either increasing towards ripeness and perfection, or declining and decreasing towards rottenness and dissolution.

Thoreau’s penciled note: “There is an undefinable flowing musical sweetness and rhythm — lie the rippling flow flow of rivers, in his prose hardly to be matched in any prose or verse.”

“Recte quidem bonum definierunt, quod omnia expetunt; Rightly have some men defined good or goodness, to be that which all things desire.”

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[“History of the World,” Bk. II, ch. III, WORKS, III, 110]

How the Greeks viewed their danger from the tide of Philip.“And, indeed, it was not in their philosophy to consider that all great alterations are, storm-like, sudden and violent; and that it is then overlate to repair the decayed and broken banks when great rivers are once swollen, fast running, and enraged. No; the Greeks did rather employ themselves in breaking down those defences which stood between them and this inundation, than seek to rampart and reinforce their own fields; which, by the level of reason, they might have found to have lain under it.”

[“History of the World,” Bk. IV, ch. I, WORKS, V, 280.]

The prospect of the Roman period.“By this which we have already set down, is seen the beginning and end of the three first monarchies of the world; whereof the founders and erectors thought that they never would have ended. That of Rome, which made the fourth, was also at this time almost at the highest. We have left it flourishing in the middle of the field, having rooted up or cut down all that keep it from the eyes and admiration of the world. But, after some continuance, it shall begin to lose the beauty it had; the storms of ambition shall beat her great boughs and branches one against another; her leaves shall fall off; her limbs wither; and a rab[b]le of barbarian nations enter the field and cut her down.”

[“History of the World,” Bk. V, ch. VI, WORKS, VII, 898.]

[Copied into the Literary Note-Book at the Library of Congress, pages 2-4 and 130-141:]

“[To make soldiers serviceable consisteth in good choice and good discipline; the one at this day little regarded:] Emunt militem, non legunt. Liv.”

[“The Cabinet-Council,” WORKS, VIII, 71.]

“[Abstinence is also fit for all soldiers; for thereby guided they refrain from violence and insolency; by that rule also they are informed to govern themselves civilly in the country where they serve, and likewise in their lodgings; never taking any thing from the owner, nor committing any outrage:] Vivant cum provincialibus jure civili, nec insolescat animus qui se sensit armatum.”

[“The Cabinet-Council,” WORKS, VIII, 74.]

“To the perfections of men three things are necessarily required; nature, nurture, and use:” [“The Cabinet-Council,” WORKS, VIII, 86.]

“Whose desireth to know what will be hereafter, let him think of what is past; for the world hath ever been in a circular revolution; whatsoever is now was heretofore; and things past or present are no other than such as shall be again; Redit orbis in orbem.

[“The Cabinet-Council,” WORKS, VIII, 102.]

“Men for the most do use rather to judge by their eyes than by their hands; for every one may see, but few can certainly know.”? Machiavel –

[“The Cabinet-Council,” WORKS, VIII, 104-105.]

“It hath been long observed, and is a rule which rarely faileth, that he shall be ever suspected of the prince in possession, whom men account worthy to be a prince in reversion.” Ralegh

[“The Cabinet-Council,” WORKS, VIII, 112.]

He calls astrology “star-learning”.

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[“The Cabinet-Council,” WORKS, VIII, 112.]

“We labour hard to publish our abilities and conceal our infirmities: and our inquiry into ourselves is so slight and partial, that few men are really what they appear to themselves to be.”

[“Discourse of War,” WORKS, VIII, 282.]

“And when we say we are fallen into bad times, we mean no otherwise but that we are fallen amongst a wicked generation of men. For the sun, the mediate vivifying cause of all things here below, and constant measurer of time, keeps its steady course. The condition of the public grows worse, as men grow more wicked; for in all ages, as the morals of men were depraved, and vice increased, the commonwealth declined.”

[“Discourse of War,” WORKS, VIII, 282.]

“Delores omnes ex amore animi erga corpus nascuntur” – Plato. [Kenneth Walter Cameron has been unable to locate this in Raleigh’s WORKS]

“But no senate nor civil assembly can be under such natural impulses to honor and justice as single persons — [i.e., ...] For a majority is nobody when that majority is separated, and a collective body can have no synteresis, or divine ray, which is in the mind of every man, never assenting to evil, but upbraiding and tormenting him when he does it: but the honor and conscience that lies in the majority is too thin and diffusive to be efficacious; for a number can do a great wrong, and call it right, and not one of that majority blush for it. – This must be the reason why a Roman senate should act with less spirit and less honor than a single Roman would do.” Discourse of War in General.

[WORKS, VIII, 282.]

“The ordinary theme and argument of history is war;” Beginning of Raleigh’s “Discource &c”[“A Discourse of the Original and Fundamental Cause of War,” WORKS, VIII, 253]

“And it is more plain there is not in nature a point of stability to be found; every thing either ascends or declines: when wars are ended abroad, sedition begins at home, and when men are freed from fighting for necessity, they quarrel through ambition.”

[“A Discourse of the Original and Fundamental Cause of War,” WORKS, VIII, 293]

“We must look a long way back to find the Romans giving laws to nations, and their consuls bringing kings and princes bound in chains to Rome in triumph; to see men go to Greece for wisdom, or Orphir for gold; when now nothing remains but a poor paper remembrance of their former condition.”

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We may note in the lengthy extracts above that there is a significant reference from “Discourse of War in General” to one of Thoreau’s main political themes, the “majority of one,” which Thoreau extracted as follows:

It was in the course of this 1841 reading, also, that Thoreau became aware that Raleigh had opposed astrology by insisting that “the souls of men loving and fearing God, receive influence from that divine light it self, whereof the suns clarity, and that of the stars, is by Plato called but a shadow. Lumen est umbra Dei, Deus est lumen luminus; Light is the shadow of God’s brightness, who is the light of light.” This is of course material which he would rework in his Draft F for the conclusion to WALDEN, as “The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us.”

But no senate nor civil assembly can be under suchnatural impulses to honor and justice as single persons— [i.e., ...] For a majority is nobody when thatmajority is separated, and a collective body can haveno synteresis, or divine ray, which is in the mind ofevery man, never assenting to evil, but upbraiding andtormenting him when he does it: but the honor andconscience that lies in the majority is too thin anddiffusive to be efficacious; for a number can do agreat wrong, and call it right, and not one of thatmajority blush for it. — This must be the reason why aRoman senate should act with less spirit and less honorthan a single Roman would do.

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This is from the 2d draft of Thoreau’s essay on Sir Walter:

But alas! What is truth? That which we know not — What is Beauty?That which we see not — What is heroism? That which we are not.It is in vain to hang out flags on a day of rejoicing, freshbunting bright and whole, better the soiled and torn remnantwhich has been borne in the wars. We have considered a fairspecimen of an English man in the 16th century but it behoovesus to be fairer specimens of American men in the 19th. The Godshave given man no constant gift but the power and liberty to actgreatly.How many wait for health and warm weather to be heroic and noble!We are apt to think there is a kind of virtue, which need notbe heroic and brave — but in fact virtue is the deed of thebravest — and only the hardy souls venture upon it — for it dealswith what we have no experience; — and alone does the rudepioneer work of the world. In winter is its campaign — and itnever goes into quarters. “Sit not down,” said Sir ThomasBrowne, “in the popular seats and common level of virtues, butendeavor to make them heroical. Offer not only peace offeringsbut holocausts unto God.”

WALDEN: I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this;but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of timecan never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes isdarkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. Thereis more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

“JOHN” (BULL)

“JONATHAN”

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

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April 8, Saturday: Earlier, if we may presume from the following otherwise somewhat inaccurate passage on page 212 of SALEM IS MY DWELLING PLACE: A BIOGRAPHY OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE / BY EDWIN HAVILAND MILLER, Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne had obtained pleasure from Henry Thoreau’s music box:39

However, by this date, with his wife absent, when Hawthorne listened to Thoreau’s music box, he found that it and THE DIAL were sopophorics. And Waldo Emerson visited “with a sunbeam in his face,” and was complaining tiresomely about the owner of the music box, about having

Thoreau may not have been a man who bored easily, but Hawthorne certainly was. He had quickly wearied of playing the music box that Thoreau had been listening to repeatedly:

1843

39. An interesting fact is that in the limited and circumspect erotic vocabulary of the 19th Century, the wife was, at this time in her journal, comparing their marital shenanigans to the Thousand and One Nights cycle of Iranian literature as transformed into carefully distanced English pornography by various adventurers, while the husband was, at this time in his journal, comparing them to the scriptural seven-veils dance of Salome before Herod Antipas for the head of John the Baptist.

On her good days she [Sophia Hawthorne] like Hawthornetraveled back in time and danced “before him to themusic of the musical box” given to them by Thoreau.

suffered some inconveniency from his experience of Mr.Thoreau as an inmate. It may well be that such a sturdyand uncompromising person is fitter to meetoccasionally in the open air, than to have as apermanent guest at table and fireside.

its peculiar sweetness has evaporated, and I am prettysure that I should throw it out of the window, were Idoomed to hear it long and often. It has not aninfinite soul.

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At the end of the journal entries for this year, Waldo Emerson would list his readings in Oriental materials during the period: “Plotinus; Proclus; Thomas Taylor’s translations; Zoroaster (?), Chaldæan Oracles.”At some point during this year Emerson would jot in his journal (Volume VIII, page 516): “Connais les cérémonies. Si tu en pénètres le sens, tu gouverneras un royaume avec le même facilité que tu regards dans ta main. — Confucius.”

35-year-old Edward J. Fitzgerald met Edward Byles Cowell, an 18-year-old who had at the age of 15 in a public library come across THE WORKS OF SIR WILLIAM JONES and who had taught himself Persian grammar — young Cowell would introduce Fitzgerald as well to Persian studies.

1844

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At the end of the journal entries for this year, Emerson would list his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Zoroaster; Hafiz; Von Hammer Purgstall, Translations of Hafiz; Chodzko, Specimens of Ancient Persian Poetry.”

1846

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The 5 volumes of Doctor James Cowles Prichard’s project of RESEARCHES AS TO THE PHYSICAL HISTORY OF MAN finally were complete.

During this year Waldo Emerson contributed the following deeply profound thought about our human trajectory to his journal:

At the end of the journal entries for this year, Waldo listed his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Plotinus; Synesius; Proclus; Institutes of Menu; Bhagavat Geeta; Vishnu Purana; Confucius; Zoroaster; Saadi; Hafiz; Firdusi; Ferradeddin.”

1847

It is not determined of man whether he came up or down: Cherubim or Chimpanzee.

The culture of the Imagination, how imperiously demanded, how doggedly denied. There are books which move the sea and the land, and which are the realities of which you have heard in the fables of Cornelius Agrippa and Michael Scott.

Sweetness of reading: Montaigne, Froissart; Chaucer.

Ancient: the three Banquets [Plato, Xenophon, Plutarch].

Oriental reading: [HE FORGOT TO FILL THIS OUT]

Grand reading: Plato; Synesius; Dante; Vita Nuova; Timæus (weather, river of sleep); Cudworth; Stanley.

All-reading: Account of Madame de Staël’s rule; Rabelais; Diderot, Marguerite Aretin.

English reading: Clarendon; Bacon; Milton; Johnson; Northcote.

Manuals: Bacon’s Essays; Ben Jonson; Ford; Beaumont and Fletcher.

Favorites: Sully; Walpole; Evelyn; Walton; Burton; White’s Selborne; Aubrey; Bartram’s Travels; French Gai Science, Fabliaux.

Tonic books: Life of Michael Angelo; Gibbon; Goethe; Coleridge.

Novels: Manzoni.

Of Translation: Mitchell.

Importers: Cousin; De Staël; Southey.

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Emerson also incidentally mentioned in his journal for this year someone he had been reading, Charles Kraitsir, mentioning all the languages in his head. A few pages later he included something that Kraitsir had written, that “All the languages should be studied abreast.”

English translation of the GOLESTAN of Mosleh Od-Din Sa’di, of 1258, had begun in 1774 with some selections by Stephen Sulivan. In 1805 a translation which also offered the original text had been published in Calcutta by James Dumoulin. In 1806 Francis Gladwin had provided a prose translation. This had been followed in 1823 by a prose translation by James Ross which was based on the Gentius edition. In 1843 Waldo Emerson had read the GOLESTAN in translation. By this point Henry Thoreau knew it; he would quote from it twice in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS and in his remarks on philanthropy in WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS.

In 1852 prose and verse translations would be offered by Edward Backhouse Eastwick. In 1865 Emerson would pen a preface for the Boston edition of Francis Gladwin’s 1806 translation, in which he would introduce the work as one of the world’s sacred books. In 1899 prose and verse translations would be offered by Edwin Arnold. Peter Borst has accessed a version which displays the original Persian, prepared in 1863, with an introduction in English which includes the following remark:

[An] edition was reprinted and translated into English byGladwin. A far superior edition, containing both text andtranslation, was published at Calcutta by James Dumoulin, in1805; and more recently an amusing, if not altogether anaccurate, translation has been given by J. Ross, Esq.

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

WALDEN: Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavorto become one of the worthies of the world.I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz,that “They asked a wise man, saying; Of the many celebrated treeswhich the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, theycall none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears nofruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied; Each has itsappropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuanceof which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absencedry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypressexposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are theazads, or religious independents. –Fix not thy heart on thatwhich is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue toflow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct:if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if itaffords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like thecypress.”

CYPRESS

ANDROMEDA

MOSLEH OD-DIN SA’DI

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This 1863 editor provided a glossary of the terms used, in which we find:

In the Farsi original, one can clearly make out two uses of “Azad” and one of “Azadgan”:

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However, Alireza Taghdarreh points out to us that a Western interpretation of this Farsi term which made it stand for “religious freedom” would be very much in error. To be Azad in Sa’di’s sense means that one does not degrade others before oneself nor oneself before others. This poet once ordered his belly to remain empty and then reassured his back, “Now you can stay straight and do not have to bend before anyone.” When someone suggested he accept some sugar now and pay later, his reply was “I know I can be patient and not eat your sugar, but how can I know that you will not lose patience with me and humiliate me for your money? There is no sweetness in sugar followed by bitter words.” Professor Mo’in’s Persian-to-Persian dictionary, which is an ultimate source in Iran, provides the following:

Azade: Adj. Plural: Azadgan (in Pahlavi, a language spoken 2,000 years ago in Persia: azatak).1. One who is not a slave or servant. Free. Opposite: Slave, servant. 2. One who has been freed. 3. Noble, gentle descent.

“Azad” is the single form of the category word “Azadgan” which indicates those of integrity and high character who are free from the attitudes of servitude. In Iran “Azade” (pronounce the last “e” as in “bed” and put the stress on “de”: ah-zah-DEH) is used as a given name for girls. One describes one’s daughter as “free” in the same manner in which one might describe her as “lovely” or “humble” — these are positive words. However, a suggestion of religious freedom would make it very inappropriate for one to assign such a name to one’s daughter. The reason for this is clear. Islam being, at its core, submission to the will of Allah, it necessitates a faith and a faithfulness that would stand as the very antithesis to “religious freedom.” The KOR’AN emphasizes that “There must be no force or reluctance in the religion.” The purpose of one’s freedom from all that is unworthy is to enable one’s entire submission to that which is alone worthy. No one is compelled to turn to Allah and yet no one is free from Allah. (No Farsi-to-Farsi dictionary, Alireza points out, would suggest there to be such a connotation. He also points out acerbically that just as only a fool would consult an English-to-Farsi translating dictionary to discover the exact and true definition of a word of the English language, only such a person would ever consult a Farsi-to-English translating dictionary to discover the definition of a Persian term.) Mosleh Od-Din Sa’di had been a Sunni Muslim and nevertheless his writings are adored by Shi’a Muslims. For him to have made any such “religious freedom” suggestion as this in this particular context would have made the story he was telling unusable in his Moslem context.

In a volume by the Reverend Edward Sell, B.D., M.R.A.S., fellow of the University of Madras, THE FAITH OF ISLÁM (2d Edition Revised and Enlarged, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co. Ltd, Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road, 1896), we find the S.úfí movement described as divided into a large number of religious orders known as Darwíshes who live in Takyas or monasteries:

Page 118: They are divided into two great classes, the Ba Shara‘(with the Law) Darwíshes, and the Be Sharta‘ (without the Law).The former profess to rule their conduct according to the lawof Islám, and are called the Sálik, travellers on the path(t¨aríqat) to heaven; the latter, though they call themselves

Muslims, do not conform to the law, and are called Ázád (free),or Majzúb (abstracted), a term which signifies theirrenunciation of all worldly cares and pursuits. The latter donot even pay attention to the namáz or other observances ofIslám. What little hope there is of these professedly religiousmen working any reform in Islám will be seen from the followingaccount of their doctrines....

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The Reverend Sell goes on to explain that for his purposes, since such people are interested only in their own personal spiritual peak experiences, he could not expect to get anything generally helpful out of them.

I’ve found an interesting usage of this “Azad” term in a volume of reminiscences by a medical missionary to Turkey, Dr. Clarence Douglas Ussher, M.D., AN AMERICAN PHYSICIAN IN TURKEY / A NARRATIVE OF ADVENTURES IN PEACE AND IN WAR (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1917). It appears that Dr. Ussher the medical missionary is not himself personally actually getting out of any actual Turkish prison; instead he is merely deploying this term “Azad” as part of an extended Christian-missionary parable:

Pages 175-6: “Then I would go out of prison, as they did onLiberty Day when Abdul Hamid was deposed and all the prisonswere thrown open; every man was free; men who were sentenced tobe hanged, those who were imprisoned for life, or were confined,hopeless, for debt, rushed into the street shouting, ‘Azad!Azad!’ (Free! Free!) It would be joy to me to tell every onethat I was free and who set me free....” “This,” I said, “is asI understand Christianity. God is the King. Jesus Christ, hisson, paid my debt and yours, too, yours just as much as mine.I believe it and know I am free; if you will believe it, it willmean as much to you as it does to me.”

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At the end of the journal entries for this year, Emerson would list his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Jamblichus; Heliodorus; Sidonius Apollinaris; Thomas Taylor; Meghaduta; Vishnu Purana; Zoroaster; Hafiz; Mahomet.”

1848

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February 19, Monday: In Concord, Massachusetts, a birth record: “Emma Antoinette Hosmer, daughter of John & Mary E.H. Feb’y 19, 1849”

Henry Thoreau was written to by Nathaniel Hawthorne in Salem.

My dear Thoreau,The managers request that you will lecture before the Salem Lyceum on Wednesday evening after next — that is to say, on the 28th inst. May we depend on you? Please to answer immediately, if conve-nient.Mr Alcott delighted my wife and me, the other evening, by announc-ing that you had a book in press. I rejoice at it, and nothing doubt of such success as will be worth having. Should your manuscripts all be in the printers' hands, I suppose you can reclaim one of them, for a single evening's use, to be returned the next morning; — or per-haps that Indian lecture, which you mentioned to me, is in a state of forwardness. Either that, or a continuation of the Walden experi-ment (or, indeed, anything else,) will be acceptable.We shall expect you at 14, Mall-street.

Very truly Yours,Nathl Hawthorne.

19 of 2 mo 1849: Bernard Barton died. Lucy Barton allied with Edward J. Fitzgerald to produce a selection of her father’s materials, POEMS AND LETTERS OF BERNARD BARTON, SELECTED BY LUCY BARTON, WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE BY EDWARD FITZGERALD (this was long before Fitzgerald had even so much as heard of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam).

1849

CONCORD TOWN RECORDS

“THE QUAKER POET”

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September 2, Saturday: “Opened one of my snapping turtle’s eggs [sic??]. The young alive, but not very lively, with shell dark grayish black; yolk as big as a hazelnut; tail curled round and is considerably longer than the shell, and slender; three ridges on the back, one at edges of plates on each side of dorsal, which is very prominent. There is only the trace of a dorsal ridge in the old. Eye open.” Tortoise Eggs

In the afternoon Henry Thoreau went to the Purple Utricularia Shore on Fair Haven Bay (Gleason 102/ K7).

Review of WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS under the heading “Literature” in the New-York Churchman, 4:1-4.

1854

TIMELINE OF WALDEN

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[Walden; or, Life in the Woods is] The book of a humourist—a man of humours rather than of humour— and a lover ofnature. Mr. THOREAU, living at Concord, is known amongliterary circles by his association with the good companyof EMERSON and HAWTHORNE, and by his production of a booka few years since, “A Week on the Concord and MerrimackRivers,” which, with some unpleasant peculiarities of itsschool, savouring greatly of a species of irreverentegotism, contained many close and faithful observations ofnature, and many shrewd reflections on life. Every man hashis humour, though from the present pressure and overlayingof society it is not always easy to discover it. Mr. THOREAUbrings his out into prominent relief. It is the stoicaffectation of a lover of personal freedom, with a grudgeagainst civilization for its restrictions. He looks uponall the trappings of society, of Church and State, ofconventional usages, cities and towns, even clothes andhouses, as so many impediments to the free growth of theunfettered man. The only concession he seems disposed tomake to the social state is to work for it a sufficientlylong time,—in his case it is a very short time,—to securehonestly a portion of the spoils adequate to keep body andsoul in company, that the former, strengthened by toil, mayenjoy a vigourous sense of existence, and the latter befree to watch its own motions and imbibe the simplethoughts of primitive poetry and philosophy. In all ourmodern reading, unlike as the situation and circumstancesare, and different as Mr. THOREAU is from DIOGENES in manyrespects, we have not met with so complete a suggestion ofwhat used to be considered, by the vulgar at least, aphilosopher. He realizes the popular notion of animpracticable, a man who rails at society and is disposedto submit to as few of its trammels as possible, and whohas the credit of resources within himself which themajority of people do not possess, and, in fact, do notmuch care for. The world is very ready to give the title,for it is of very little mercantile value, and the worldcan afford to part with it. On his part, the philosophercan return the compliment. He says to the hard workersabout him, my friends, you are all wrong, shortening yourlives in toil and vanities, working for that which does notprofit, and reaping an endless harvest of failure anddismay. Ninety-seven out of every hundred merchants, hecontinues, according to an old calculation, fail inbusiness, and it is pretty safe to put down the other threeas rogues. As in merchandize, [sic] so in farming. Peopleare toiling with real pain after imaginary pleasure. Thetrue secret of life is to ask for little; to live on theminimum.

ZOROASTER

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Mr. THOREAU has made the experiment. Entering manhoodwith a good education and a vigourous frame, he has, aftervarious attempts, come to the conclusion, recorded in hisbook, that, after all, “the occupation of a day labourerwas the most independent of any, especially as itrequired only thirty or forty days in a year to supportone.” School-keeping he had tried; but that, as a trade,was a failure. There was no love in it, and it did notgratify the mind; beside, it was expensive:—he was“obliged to dress and train, not to say think and believeaccordingly, and time was lost in the bargain.” Trade wasstill worse. It was tried, but the experimentalist forfreedom found “it would take ten years to get underway inthat, and that then he should probably be on his way tothe devil.” He was “actually afraid that he might by thattime be doing what is called a good business.” At onetime, when he was looking about to see what he could dofor a living, some sad experience in conforming to thewishes of friends being fresh in his mind to tax hisingenuity, “he thought often and seriously of pickinghuckleberries”; which indeed would not be a very self-sacrificing occupation, and certainly has its agreeablefeatures. The difficulty is, the season of huckleberriesis short, the demand limited, and it requires so littlecapital of head or pocket that,—if it would pay,—it wouldsoon be overstocked. We fear it would not be adequate tothe support of a family in respectability, and that if itcould be generally adopted, much of what is valuable inthe present system of society, school-houses, churches,lyceums, architecture, opera, and generally all costlythings, would go by the board. However this may be, formore than five years Mr. THOREAU supported himself byabout six weeks’ labor of his hands per annum; and theconclusion to which he came was “a conviction both byfaith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on thisearth is not a hardship, but a pastime, if we will livesimply and wisely, as the pursuits of the simpler nationsare still the sports of the more artificial,” which is apoint in illustration exceedingly well made, and isreally a poetical defence of the author’s theory. Headds, “It is not necessary that a man should earn hisliving by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easierthan I do.” Mr. THOREAU is thus at war with the politicaleconomy of the age. It is his doctrine that the fewerwants man has the better; while in reality civilizationis the spur of many wants. To give a man a new want is togive him a new pleasure and conquer his habitual rust andidleness.

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The greater his needs and acquisitions, the greater hissafety; since he may fall back from one advance post toanother, as he is pressed by misfortune, and still keepthe main citadel untouched. He may give up his couch andstill keep his gig; resign his Madeira and retain at leasthis small beer; if he fails as an orator he may beeloquent in the parlor or the school-room; a condemnedpoet may cut down into a profitable prose-writer; thebankrupt citizen may become a proud villager. He has, byhis devotion to luxury, the fostering of his spiritualappetites, his deference to the standards set up abouthim, interposed a long series of steps, which he maygradually descend, before he touches the bottom one, ofstarvation. As a general thing in the world, the peoplewho aim at most get most. The philosophical negation keepsno account in the bank and starves. Nay, it keeps robbingitself till from him that hath not is taken away even thatwhich he hath. In the woods, on the edge of a fine pond,aloof from markets and amusements, our author begins todoubt even of his favourite and ultimate resource offishing. Life and reality seem oozing out of his feeblegrasp, and he holds to the world only by the slenderfilament of a metaphysical whim. Says he in his chapteron the “higher laws”:

[Reprints “Higher Laws,” pages 213.33-214.35.] With the preparation in his experiences which we havealluded to, Mr. THOREAU, in the spring of 1845, borrowedan axe, and set forth to level a few trees, for the siteof a house, on the edge of Walden pond, in a wood nearConcord. He did not own the land, but was permitted toenjoy it. He dropped a few pines and hewed timbers, andfor boards bought out the shanty of JAMES COLLINS, anIrishman who worked on the Fitchburg railroad, for thesum of four dollars, twenty-five cents. From hisallusion, he was assisted, we presume, in the raising, byEMERSON and other friendly literary celebrities of theregion. Starting early in the spring, long before winterhe had secured, with the labour of his hands, “a tightshingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteenlong, and eight feet posts, with a garret and a closet,a large window on each side, two trap doors, one door atthe end and a brick fire-place opposite.” The exact costof the house is given:

[Reprints “Economy,” page 49.3-26.]

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The rest of the account is curious, and will show “uponwhat meats CAESAR fed,” that he has interested the worldso greatly in his housekeeping:

[Reprints “Economy,” pages 58.33-60.32.] He had nothing further to do after his “family baking,”which, the family consisting of a unit, could not havebeen large or have come round very often, than to read,think and observe. HOMER was his favourite book; thethinking was unlimited, and the observation that of a manwith an instinctive tact for the wonders of naturalhistory. On this last point we cannot give the author toohigh praise. He has a rare felicity of sight anddescription, which IZAAK WALTON would have approved of andALEXANDER WILSON envied. To many of his moral speculationswe could take exceptions. He carries his opposition tosociety too far. A self-pleasing man should have a moreliberal indulgence for the necessities of others, andsomething more cheerful to tell the world than of itsmiseries. We should be sorry to think this a true pictureof the “industrial classes”:

[Reprints “Economy,” pages 6.25-7.35.]And again:

[Reprints “Economy,” pages 37.17-38.11 and 38.27-32.] We are all wrong, it seems, and had better go back tosavage life. The “lendings” of society and civilizationare all impediments. The railroad is a humbug, the post-office an absurdity, for there are really no letters worthreading, it is “a penny for your thoughts”: all “mud andslush of opinion and prejudice and tradition and delusionand appearance,—alluvion which covers the globe, throughParis and London, through New York and Boston and Concord,through Church and State, through poetry, philosophy, andreligion.” Rising to transcendental emotion, our authorexclaims,

[Reprints “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,”page 98.19-30.]

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This excessive love of individuality and these constantFourth-of-July declarations of independence, look verywell on paper, but they will not bear the test of apractical examination. We say excessive, for there is nodoubt there is such a thing as a neglect of a propercultivation of a man’s isolated, individual self. In manythings “the world is too much with us”; the soul needsretirement, sequestration, repose. We are slaves to idleexpenses, and “walk in a vain show.” “Poor Richard” mightcome among us with profit and tell us how dearly we arepaying for the whistle, and show us how much richer wemight become, not by acquiring more but by wanting less.But let us look at Mr. THOREAU’s contempt for the labouringof the harassed farmer. We may admit that the yoke is onhis shoulder, as well as on the neck of his patient ox; butwhere is the condition of life which has not its yoke ofsome fashion or other? We cannot all be philosophers, oraffect the pleasures of a hermit life in the wilderness.Even “the mean and sneaking fellows,” whom THOREAU, in thekindness of his sublimated philanthropy, so tenderlydescribes, have their little compensations of pleasure andsatisfaction, and no doubt frequently pitied the recluseof Walden at his lone habitation in the wood. His pleasure,stretched out on a piece of damp turf, displacing with hisframe huge shoals of insect life, and gazing intently onspace in an arduous endeavour to think that he is thinking;this sort of enjoyment would be simple misery to the“swinkt hedger,” the poor unthinking clown, who

like a lackey, from the rise to set,Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all nightSleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn,Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse;And follows so the ever-running year,With profitable labour, to his grave.

The man of toil, with all his woes, has probably the commonpermanent consolation of humanity, he does not toil always,and with the sterile harvest of his fields he reaps, too,some bounties of friendly countenances in his little sphereof society, the treasures, perhaps, of wife and children;and though he is sublimely unconscious of Eddas andZendavestas, he can read his Bible—the best book which anysage has in his library—and learn from it that there is afelicity in labouring patiently and cheerfully in one’svocation, and doing one’s duty in that state of life inwhich it has pleased GOD to call us. Retiring fromcivilized life, in a vain attempt to escape its ills, mustbe the casual chance experiment of the few, and those fewwill hardly prosecute the work with any great degree ofconsistency.

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There is not so much of this as in his previous book, TheWeek on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, but a little ofthis nonsense is quite too much: for example, “Our mannershave been corrupted by communication with the saints. Ourhymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of GOD andenduring Him forever. One would say that even the prophetsand redeemers had rather consoled the fears than confirmedthe hopes of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple andirrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life, anymemorable praise of GOD.” If we may credit the quotationsof the writer of this unhappy passage, he enjoys aprivileged literary intimacy with CONFUCIUS; if it wouldnot be taken as an impertinence, we should like to ask ifhe has ever perused the Psalms of DAVID. The fact is, thatthe great discoveries and revelations of Mr. THOREAU’ssolitude turn out to be very familiar affairs after all.Wriggle as he may among his scraps of SHEIK SADI and theVISHNU PURANA, he will find it difficult to bring forwardanything of a sacred character, or illustrating human life,which is not included with tenfold more effect in the Bible.His aphorisms from these old oriental sources arefrequently very happy; but it is the most pitifulaffectation to use them as he occasionally does. Humour isnot the author’s highest faculty, but we may suspect theexercise at least of an ingenious pleasantry, when hetreats us to this significant quotation. “Says the poet MîrCamar Uddîn Mast, ‘Being seated to run through the regionof the spiritual world, I have had this advantage in books.To be intoxicated by a single glass of wine; I haveexperienced this pleasure when I have drunk the liquor ofthe esoteric doctrines.’”

We may, after all, be looking at this matter too seriously.The author, in spite of his sarcasm and denunciations, isonly playing the part of an individual humourist. He knowsas much as any one how much he is indebted to civilization;and is only taking a view of life dramatically, as an on-looker for the moment. In this view he carries out thehumour admirably. A book was published some years since,entitled “The Hermit in London,” which, though it was quitesuccessful, had not half the humour or philosophicalamusement of this volume. Who but a man who had projectedhimself as it were into another state of being could see soclearly the humours of the village life.

THE VILLAGE.

[Reprints “The Village,” pages 167.22-168.33.]

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Even Mr. THOREAU, who loves the society of lizards andmosquitos, and can eat an acorn with as much zest as anyman, cuts the pleasing connection after awhile, and hastensback to civilization, to secure the admiration of the veryvicious public whose unprofitable heart-aches and barrenpursuits he had, for the moment, abandoned. Why was not Mr.THOREAU satisfied with carving his elegies on the bark oftrees, mingling his philosophic ejaculations with the wildlaugh of the loon, or swelling the brimming flood of WaldenPond with his sympathetic tears? We hold that in publishinghe has given up the whole argument. Seriously, he cannotexpect many people to follow his example; comically, hisexperience is published as a curiosity, a piece ofquaintness, an affectation for the simple amusement of awicked world.

Look where the author’s principles would carry him were weto listen to his suggestions, and follow this instinct ofour nature for idleness and the wilderness. This day, ifany, would be a favourable one for putting this experimentin operation. It is sleepy, heavily laden mid August, witha sultry temperature, and we are writing, surrounded bybricks and mortar, in a city which strangers are just nowavoiding on suspicion of the lugubrious pestilence lurkingin its atmosphere. We should certainly, on his showing,neither stay here to earn money to buy his book, or earnmoney by reviewing it: yet these are duties which hechallenges us to perform, and one or other of which someconsiderable number of people must execute; or there willbe no sale of “Walden,” and the philosophic soul of THOREAUwill be shaken at Concord, and the face of FIELDS, mostbeneficent of publishers, will lengthen, and when theauthor presents himself in Washington street to receive hissix months’ profits, the results will be small, and,instead of cash, he will be entertained with that mostbitter of all receptions for an author, when his publisherstake to analyzing his book—a critical proceeding which theynever think of attempting unless the book is a failure;when one partner will say it was the too much Zoroaster,and infidelity in it which killed it; another will doubtwhether the public cares very much about the infinitesimalsof insect life, or is disposed to be imaginative onmosquitos, and a third, taking up the “Barclays of Boston,”will venture the suggestion that Mr. THOREAU had better,after all, emigrate to Beacon street and write a book thatwill sell like that. From this fearful fate, we say, maythis author be preserved! Yet he will owe it to the tendermercies and degraded toil of the civilization he despises,if he is.

We are not disposed to throw any unnecessary obstacles inthe way of this author, but The Churchman would be recklessof its duty if it were not to ask the question why Mr.THOREAU so frequently throws doubt over and suggests aspirit of disaffection to the sacred Scriptures.

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There is some geniality in this, as there is in the sketchof the Homeric or Paphlagonian man who came along fromCanada, who is thus introduced.

A CHARACTER.

[Reprints “Visitors,” pages 144.13-145.36.] We could add to these pleasant extracts many of thenatural history observations, which, as we have said, arethe writer’s forte. The agriculture, the woods, the life ofthe pond, are all eminently well described. He wasfortunate one day to witness that remarkable sight, abattle between two forces of red and black ants, of whicha rather poetical account, rivalling the combats of Turksand Russians, was once given by a M. HANHART, animprovement upon HUBER which LEIGH HUNT has pleasantlycommented upon and the original of which may be found inthe Edinburgh Journal of Science for 1828.

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Review of WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS in the New-York Home Journal, 2:1.

Review of WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS in Concord, New Hampshire State Capital Reporter, page 2, column 5.

Walden is the history of a year passed on the shoresof a quiet New England lake. It abounds in pleasantpictures of forest life, enlivened by such incidentsand adventures as befal[l] a contemplative dweller inthe woods. Incidents which, unimportant in themselves,go to make up the life of almost hermit-like retiracywhich our author labours to depict. The seasons haveeach their novelty and charm, and the ever-varyingaspect of the lake furnishes an endless theme forreflection and comment. No utterance of nature is voidand trivial when listened to and sympathized with inthe spirit that inspires the recluse of Walden Pond.The water-fowl come with the glowing leaves of autumn,and sport on the waters of the lake, and wing their waysouthward, to return in the spring; the wild pigeonswheel along the mountains, and the jay screams amongthe shrubs in the clearing; the red squirrel scampersand chatters over the roof, and the large-eyed hareburrows under the floor of the hut where the author,regardless of seasons, (or rather kindly regardingeach,) lives a sort of half dreamy, half active life—part philosopher, part hunter, and husbandsman. Thereis a wealth of pure sentiment, and a graphic minutenessof narrative and description in this work, that rendersit, beyond doubt, among the most delightful of books.As a companion for a country ramble, or a book for cityreading, where rural longings make up for realities,we have seldom met a better.

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We may presume that this very perceptive but anonymous review must have been composed by the editor of the paper, Cyrus Barton.

The following appears on an inside cover page of the manuscript journal volume that ends with this day’s entry (no facsimiles of these prior manuscript pages have as yet been made available on the internet): “My faults are: — Paradoxes, — saying just the opposite, — a style which may be imitated.”

Sept. 2. The second still, misty, mizzling and rainy day. We all lie abed late. Now many more sparrowsin the yard, larger than chip-birds and showing ashy under sides as they fly. A part the same as yesterday’s. Arethey Savannahs, or bay-wings, or both? I see but the slightest touch of white in the tail of any. Those clear ashybeneath are cinereous about the shoulders above. A tree sparrow too? though I do not see the spot. [Heard a faintwarble from one the next afternoon at about 6P.M. on apple trees.]Opened one of my snapping turtle’s eggs. The young alive, but not very lively, with shell dark grayish-black;yolk as big as a hazelnut; tail curled round and is considerably longer than the shell, and slender; three ridges

“WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS.” This work, written by HENRYD. THOREAU, and published by MESSRS. TICKNOR & FIELDS, ofBoston, a few weeks since, is one of sterling literarymerit. It has the merit of originality. The author does hisown thinking, and uses his own style of expression,which is appropriate, vigorous and beautiful. “Walden”has in it the essential elements of a grand Poem oflife spent in the solitude of forests and besidebeautiful waters. It is a poem in all except therythmical [sic] arrangement of its words. The authorwrites in the fullness of the inspiration of genius,and has stored every page of his work with thoughts, aswell as words. A pond of water, a bean-field, and a fightbetween two species of ants in a door-yard, would notbe reckoned by the heedless world as matters of muchimportance, but the thinking, observing and poeticmind of the author of “Walden,” seems much in them, andhas found in them themes for pages of most fascinatingdescription. We have wondered at the acuteness ofobservation manifested by the writer, who seemed to seeand hear everything in the world of nature around him, andwhich faculty seems equalled by his powers ofexpressing, with intelligibility, his ideas thusobtained by observation. The scene of this work is inthe woods of Concord, Mass., upon the shores of WaldenPond, where, for two years and upwards, the authordwelt in a house built by his own hands, supportinghimself by his own labor, and who chose this retiracythat he might the better commune with Nature in her ownsolitary retreats. This work will bear reading —indeed, we doubt, if many will be able by a singleperusal to gain a full conception of its beauties. Itcan be found at any of the bookstores here, we presume.

[Transcript]

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on back, one at edges of plates on each side of dorsal, which is very prominent. There is only the trace of a dorsalridge in the old. Eye open. [Vide next page.]

P.M. — By boat to Purple Utricularia Shore.Still and cloudy, all shut in, but no rain. The flags are turned yellow along the river, quite an autumnal scene,with commonly a strip of green left in their centres. The sparganium not changed. The pontederias, half of them,are brown and crisp. Of pads, only the white lily are conspicuous. The button-bushes are generally yellowing,i.e., are of an autumnal yellowish green. The black willows are decidedly crisped and yellowish. The interruptedfern begins to yellow. The autumnal dandelion is conspicuous on the shore. How handsome ripe grapes with thebloom on them! This rubbed off, they show purple or black. I find some quite sweet which have ripened on arock. They are a noble fruit to the eye. The waxwork is fairly yellow on all hands. Now is the time to gather it.Ivy leaves on some plants are yellow, scarlet, and dull-red besides green.I see white lilies wide open at 2.30 P.M. They are half open even at 5 P.M. in many places this moist cloudy dayand thus late in their season. Still a few pontederias also. I see dogsbane still in flower. The Bidens Beck-ii isoftenest eaten (?) off just below the blossom. Saw what I think must be a solitary wood (?) duck. Started itseveral times, driving it before me up the river, getting within twenty rods. It uttered a shrill quacking each time.Bathed at Hubbard’s. The water is surprisingly cold on account of the cool weather and rain, but especially sincethe rain of yesterday morning. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm againprobably.To my great surprise I find this morning (September 3d) that the little unhatched turtle, which I thought wassickly and dying, and left out on the grass in the rain yesterday morn, thinking it would be quite dead in a fewminutes - I find the shell alone and the turtle a foot or two off vigorously crawling, with neck outstretched(holding up its head and looking round like an old one) and feet surmounting every obstacle. It climbs up thenearly perpendicular side of a basket with the yolk attached. They thus not only continue to live after they aredead, but begin to live before they are alive!Are those large rigid green clusters the dried fertile flowers of the black ash? The keys are formed and appearripe.The moderate mizzling rain of yesterday and to-day is the first (excepting the slight shower in the eve of the26th ult.) since that moderate one of August 4th. Yet this brings down leaves, cools the rivers and ponds, andbrings back ducks and other migratory birds. I see two or three large plump sparrows hopping along on thebutton-bushes and eating the rnikania blossoms, sometimes perching on the lower mossy stems and uttering afaint chip, with crown distinctly divided by a light line and another light line over eye, light throat and vent,ashy (?) breast and beneath, without spot. Is it not the white-throated sparrow?Observed a large clam at the Bath Place, where they have not gone down, — apparently quite old, with a sortof wart-like protuberances, as if the shell were worn into hollows while the harder parts were prominent. Theshell, where worn, green, the end shaggy with a kind of moss or alga. A sort of Aster longifolius, some days byMill Brook on Lowell road, but with not long, loose, green-tipped scales, i.e. not squarrose. Call this A.tenuifolius for present. (It may be carneus.)Two-leaved Solomon's-seal berries red.I have not allowed enough probably for the smoke mixed with the haze in the late drought. The fires in woodsand meadows have been remarkably numerous and extensive all over the country, the earth and vegetation havebeen so dry, especially along railroads and on mountains and pine plains. Some meadows are said to have beenburned three feet deep! On some mountains it burns all the soil down to the rock. It catches from the locomotive,from sportsmen’s wadding, and from burning brush and peat meadows. In all villages they smell smoke,especially at night. On Lake Champlain, the pilots of steamboats could hardly see their course, and manycomplained that the smoke made their eyes smart and affected their throats. Bears, it is said, have in someinstances been compelled to migrate.

THE ACTUAL JOURNAL

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March 27, Tuesday: His first treatise a huge success, Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR set out to write a second treatise, ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE, demonstrating, by recourse to human reason alone, the true value of the True Church. His intended audience was those persons who had fallen back on simple nature, and his starting point was the Transcendentalist principle that human nature naturally aspires to God. To Orestes Augustus Brownson, he wrote that he would demonstrate “how the dogmas of the Church answer in a way, to the demands of the intellect, as the sacraments do to the wants of the heart.” But this second treatise which Father Thomas was here outlining would not appear until 1857.

Crude hydrocarbon compounds had been being distilled from various sources since the process was 1st described during the 9th century by Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi (854-925 CE) of Rey, Iran. In his Kitab al-Asrar االسرار (Book of Secrets) he had termed the substance “naft abyad.” At this point Abraham Pineo Gesner of Nova Scotia obtained a patent for kerosene, a liquid fuel also known as paraffin, lamp oil, and coal oil refined by his process since 1846 from coal, bitumen and oil shale. The advantage of this fuel was that it was cheaper than, and burned cleaner than, whale oil or other usual substances (it is now used as jet fuel).

At 6 AM Henry Thoreau went to Island (Gleason 73/F6) below Nawshawtuct Hill. In the afternoon he went to Hubbard’s Close (Gleason G8) and down Mill Brook (Gleason F7).

Mar 27th 6 1/2 Am to Island.The ducks sleep these nights in the shallowest water which does not freeze—& there may be found early in themorning— I think that they prefer that part of the shore which is permanently covered.Snow last evening—about 1 inch deep—& now it fair & somewhat warmer— Again I see the tracks of rabbitssquirrels &c— It wwould [sic] be a good time this forenoon to examine the tracks of woodchucks & see whatthey are about.

P. m. to Hub’s Close & down brook.Measured a black oak just sawed down— 23 inches in diameter on the ground—& 54 rings. It had grown twiceas much on the east side as on the west. The fringilla Linaria still here. Saw a wood tortoise in the brook. Amsurprised to see the cowslip so forward showing so much green in E. Hub’s swamp in the brook—where it issheltered from the wind. The already expanded leaves rise above the water— If this is a spring growth–[^written in pencil: “yas”] it is the most forward herb I have seen—not excepting the as forward as thecelandine.Saw my frog-hawk—(C. saw it about a week ago) Prob. F fuscus or sharp-shinned though not well describedby Wilson. Slate-colored—beating the bush—blak tips to wings & white rump. {notation in pencil: “No it is thehen-harrier”}

1855

[Transcript]

THE ACTUAL JOURNAL

THE ACTUAL JOURNAL

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The Unitarian Reverend Charles Henry Appleton Dall, never a Transcendentalist, preached his Christology to his Calcutta audience as a series of lectures entitled “Some Gospel Principles.” In the lecture “Christian Liberty” he stressed the significance to religious history of dissents by such reformers as the Reverends Henry Ware, Joseph Tuckerman, William Ellery Channing, and Noah Worcester. Invoking a name well known to his audience, that of the Hindu founder of the Brahmo Samaj, Rammohan Roy, he made the tactical mistake of comparing Roy with Jesus — this would be found offensive not only to the orthodox Christians back home who would hear of it, but also to Debendranath Tagore, whose instant response was that “he would not hear the name of Jesus spoken in the Samaj.”

James Robert Ballantyne’s translation of the initial part of THE MAHÁBHÁSHYA (PATANJALI’S GREAT COMMENTARY ON PÁNINI’S FAMOUS GRAMMAR), WITH COMMENTARIES and A SYNOPSIS OF SCIENCE IN SANSKRIT AND ENGLISH, RECONCILED WITH THE TRUTHS TO BE FOUND IN THE NYÂYA PHILOSOPHY (Mirzapore).

Edward Byles Cowell graduated from Oxford University. Before departing for his new post in India he came across in the Bodleian Library the Ouseley manuscript of the RUBAIYAT of Omar Khayyám and dispatched a copy to Edward J. Fitzgerald.

1856

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March: Edward Byles Cowell discovered in the library of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta a manuscript of Persian quatrains by Omar Khayyám, and had a copy made and sent it to Edward J. Fitzgerald in England.

1857

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Father Jean-Jacques Pouech described fossil eggshell fragments that would eventually be identified as the eggs of a dinosaur.

An exceptionally well-preserved birdlike dinosaur skeleton was discovered in Bavaria that would be identified as Compsognathus, “dainty jaw.”

With funding from the Massachusetts legislature, the opening of Professor Louis Agassiz’s Museum of Comparative Zoology (FANFARE, APPLAUSE). But Harvard College’s department of natural history was under the control of Professor Asa Gray.

In this year Professor Gray published his idea that the north American and Eurasian floras had at one time been homogeneous. He proposed that Pleistocene glaciation had separated the floras, and during this period of separation, through evolution (a new concept he had learned through personal correspondence with Charles Darwin), the species had become distinct. Gray would become Darwin’s leading advocate in US debates.

1859

THE SCIENCE OF 1859

BOTANY

OUR MOST RECENT GLACIATION

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Meanwhile, at the end of this year, Darwin was publishing his ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION, OR THE PRESERVATION OF FAVORED SPECIES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. As explained by Darwin, evolution is a simple change in the overall character of a population of either plants or animals. Gradual change over countless generations can lead to origination of a population sufficiently different to be called a new species. The impact of Darwin’s work has been significant in all areas of biology, including the search for natural relationships of plants and interpretations of plant adaptations and ecology.

This year would mark the publication not only of the above science but also of Edward J. Fitzgerald’s very free “translation” known as THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM. Did Henry Thoreau have an opportunity to read the following?

Into this Universe, and Why not knowing,Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:And out of it, as Wind along the WasteI know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

BIOLOGY

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This version of the “quatrains” or rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam would attract little attention until it was discovered by other artists and literary figures, such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in 1860. The original verses from which Fitzgerald had drawn his inspiration consist of a collection of isolated and separate “quatrains” or robái which resemble the Japanese haiku in function, if not in form. This robái form which is the only form of poetry attributed to Khayyám has remained popular in Persian poetry and nearly every poet who has ever written in Farsi –there happen to have been one whole lot of poets who have written in Farsi– has written some at one time or another.40

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40. Fitzgerald’s RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM, THE ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA. TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE (London: Bernard Quaritch, Castle Street, Leicester Square. G. Norman, Printer, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London. Small quarto. Brown paper wrappers, 75 quatrains, 22 notes). By way of contrast, here is the most recent publication of these quatrains, by Ali Taghdarreh, done in 2008:

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OMAR KHAYYAM,

THE ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA.

BY

EDWARD J. FITZGERALD

(1859; REVISED IN 1868, 1872, AND 1879)

Omar Khayyam was born at Naishapur in Khorassan in the latterhalf of our Eleventh, and died within the First Quarter of ourTwelfth Century. The Slender Story of his Life is curiouslytwined about that of two other very considerable Figures intheir Time and Country: one of whom tells the Story of all Three.This was Nizam ul Mulk, Vizier to Alp Arslan the Son, and MalikShah the Grandson, of Toghrul Beg the Tartar, who had wrestedPersia from the feeble Successor of Mahmud the Great, andfounded that Seljukian Dynasty which finally roused Europe intothe Crusades. This Nizam ul Mulk, in his Wasiyat –or Testament–which he wrote and left as a Memorial for future Statesmen —relates the following, as quoted in the Calcutta Review, No. 59,from Mirkhond’s HISTORY OF THE ASSASSINS.

One of the greatest of the wise men of Khorassan was theImam Mowaffak of Naishapur, a man highly honored andreverenced, — may God rejoice his soul; his illustriousyears exceeded eighty-five, and it was the universalbelief that every boy who read the Koran or studied thetraditions in his presence, would assuredly attain tohonor and happiness. For this cause did my father sendme from Tus to Naishapur with Abd-us-samad, the doctorof law, that I might employ myself in study and learningunder the guidance of that illustrious teacher. Towardsme he ever turned an eye of favor and kindness, and ashis pupil I felt for him extreme affection and devotion,so that I passed four years in his service. When I firstcame there, I found two other pupils of mine own agenewly arrived, Hakim Omar Khayyam, and the ill-fated BenSabbah. Both were endowed with sharpness of wit and thehighest natural powers; and we three formed a closefriendship together. When the Imam rose from hislectures, they used to join me, and we repeated to eachother the lessons we had heard. Now Omar was a native

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of Naishapur, while Hasan Ben Sabbah’s father was oneAli, a man of austere life and practise, but hereticalin his creed and doctrine. One day Hasan said to me andto Khayyam, “It is a universal belief that the pupilsof the Imam Mowaffak will attain to fortune. Now, evenif we all do not attain thereto, without doubt one ofus will; what then shall be our mutual pledge and bond?”We answered, “Be it what you please.” “Well,” he said,“let us make a vow, that to whomsoever this fortunefalls, he shall share it equally with the rest, andreserve no pre-eminence for himself.” “Be it so,” weboth replied, and on those terms we mutually pledged ourwords. Years rolled on, and I went from Khorassan toTransoxiana, and wandered to Ghazni and Cabul; and whenI returned, I was invested with office, and rose to beadministrator of affairs during the Sultanate of SultanAlp Arslan.

He goes on to state, that years passed by, and both his oldschool-friends found him out, and came and claimed a share inhis good fortune, according to the school-day vow. The Vizierwas generous and kept his word. Hasan demanded a place in thegovernment, which the Sultan granted at the Vizier’s request;but discontented with a gradual rise, he plunged into the mazeof intrigue of an oriental court, and, failing in a base attemptto supplant his benefactor, he was disgraced and fell. Aftermany mishaps and wanderings, Hasan became the head of thePersian sect of the Ismailians, a party of fanatics who had longmurmured in obscurity, but rose to an evil eminence under theguidance of his strong and evil will. In A.D. 1090, he seizedthe castle of Alamut, in the province of Rudbar, which lies inthe mountainous tract south of the Caspian Sea; and it was fromthis mountain home he obtained that evil celebrity among theCrusaders as the OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS, and spread terrorthrough the Mohammedan world; and it is yet disputed where theword Assassin, which they have left in the language of modernEurope as their dark memorial, is derived from the hashish, oropiate of hemp-leaves (the Indian bhang), with which theymaddened themselves to the sullen pitch of oriental desperation,or from the name of the founder of the dynasty, whom we haveseen in his quiet collegiate days, at Naishapur. One of thecountless victims of the Assassin’s dagger was Nizam ul Mulkhimself, the old school-boy friend.41

Omar Khayyam also came to the Vizier to claim his share; but notto ask for title or office. “The greatest boon you can conferon me,” he said, “is to let me live in a corner under the shadowof your fortune, to spread wide the advantages of Science, andpray for your long life and prosperity.” The Vizier tells us,that when he found Omar was really sincere in his refusal, hepressed him no further, but granted him a yearly pension of 1200

41. Some of Omar’s Rubaiyat warn us of the danger of Greatness, the instability of Fortune, and while advocating Charity to all Men, recommending us to be too intimate with none. Attar makes Nizam-ul-Mulk use the very words of his friend Omar [Rub. xxviii.], “When Nizam-ul-Mulk was in the Agony (of Death) he said, ‘Oh God! I am passing away in the hand of the wind.’”

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mithkals of gold from the treasury of Naishapur.

At Naishapur thus lived and died Omar Khayyam, “busied,” addsthe Vizier, “in winning knowledge of every kind, and especiallyin Astronomy, wherein he attained to a very high pre-eminence.Under the Sultanate of Malik Shah, he came to Merv, and obtainedgreat praise for his proficiency in science, and the Sultanshowered favors upon him.”

When the Malik Shah determined to reform the calendar, Omar wasone of the eight learned men employed to do it; the result wasthe Jalali era (so called from Jalal-ud-din, one of the king’snames) — “a computation of time,” says Gibbon, “which surpassesthe Julian, and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian style.”He is also the author of some astronomical tables, entitled“Ziji-Malikshahi,” and the French have lately republished andtranslated an Arabic Treatise of his on Algebra.

His Takhallus or poetical name (Khayyam) signifies a Tent-maker,and he is said to have at one time exercised that trade, perhapsbefore Nizam-ul-Mulk’s generosity raised him to independence.Many Persian poets similarly derive their names from theiroccupations; thus we have Attar, “a druggist,” Assar, “an oilpresser,” etc.42 Omar himself alludes to his name in thefollowing whimsical lines: —

“’Khayyam, who stitched the tents of science,Has fallen in grief’s furnace and been suddenly burned;The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life,And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing!’

We have only one more anecdote to give of his Life, and thatrelates to the close; it is told in the anonymous preface whichis sometimes prefixed to his poems; it has been printed in thePersian in the Appendix to Hyde’s VETERUM PERSARUM RELIGIO, p. 499;and D’Herbelot alludes to it in his BIBLIOTHEQUE, under Khiam.43 —

It is written in the chronicles of the ancients thatthis King of the Wise, Omar Khayyam, died at Naishapurin the year of the Hegira, 517 (A.D. 1123); in sciencehe was unrivaled, — the very paragon of his age. KhwajahNizami of Samarcand, who was one of his pupils, relatesthe following story: “I often used to hold conversationswith my teacher, Omar Khayyam, in a garden; and one dayhe said to me, ‘My tomb shall be in a spot where thenorth wind may scatter roses over it.’ I wondered at thewords he spake, but I knew that his were no idle words.44

Years after, when I chanced to revisit Naishapur, I wentto his final resting-place, and lo! it was just outsidea garden, and trees laden with fruit stretched theirboughs over the garden wall, and dropped their flowersupon his tomb, so that the stone was hidden under them.”

42. Though all these, like our Smiths, Archers, Millers, Fletchers, etc., may simply retain the Surname of an hereditary calling.43.“Philosophe Musulman qui a vecu en Odeur de Saintete dans sa Religion, vers la Fin du premier et le Commencement du second Siecle,” no part of which, except the “Philosophe,” can apply to our Khayyam.

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Thus far –without fear of Trespass– from the Calcutta Review.The writer of it, on reading in India this story of Omar’s Grave,was reminded, he says, of Cicero’s ACCOUNT OF FINDING ARCHIMEDES’ TOMBAT SYRACUSE, buried in grass and weeds. I think Thorwaldsendesired to have roses grow over him; a wish religiouslyfulfilled for him to the present day, I believe. However, toreturn to Omar.

Though the Sultan “shower’d Favors upon him,” Omar’s EpicureanAudacity of Thought and Speech caused him to be regarded askancein his own Time and Country. He is said to have been especiallyhated and dreaded by the Sufis, whose Practise he ridiculed, andwhose Faith amounts to little more than his own, when stript ofthe Mysticism and formal recognition of Islamism under whichOmar would not hide. Their Poets, including Hafiz, who are (withthe exception of Firdausi) the most considerable in Persia,borrowed largely, indeed, of Omar’s material, but turning it toa mystical Use more convenient to Themselves and the People theyaddressed; a People quite as quick of Doubt as of Belief; askeen of Bodily sense as of Intellectual; and delighting in acloudy composition of both, in which they could floatluxuriously between Heaven and Earth, and this World and theNext, on the wings of a poetical expression, that might serveindifferently for either. Omar was too honest of Heart as wellof Head for this. Having failed (however mistakenly) of findingany Providence but Destiny, and any World but This, he set aboutmaking the most of it; preferring rather to soothe the Soulthrough the Senses into Acquiescence with Things as he saw them,than to perplex it with vain disquietude after what they mightbe. It has been seen, however, that his Worldly Ambition was notexorbitant; and he very likely takes a humorous or perversepleasure in exalting the gratification of Sense above that ofthe Intellect, in which he must have taken great delight,although it failed to answer the Questions in which he, in commonwith all men, was most vitally interested.

For whatever Reason, however, Omar as before said, has neverbeen popular in his own Country, and therefore has been butscantily transmitted abroad. The MSS. of his Poems, mutilatedbeyond the average Casualties of Oriental Transcription, are sorare in the East as scarce to have reacht Westward at all, inspite of all the acquisitions of Arms and Science. There is nocopy at the India House, none at the Bibliotheque Nationale ofParis. We know but of one in England: No. 140 of the OuseleyMSS. at the Bodleian, written at Shiraz, A.D. 1460. Thiscontains but 158 Rubaiyat. One in the Asiatic Society’s Library

44. The Rashness of the Words, according to D’Herbelot, consisted in being so opposed to those in the Koran: “No Man knows where he shall die.” –This story of Omar reminds me of another so naturally –and when one remembers how wide of his humble mark the noble sailor aimed –so pathetically told by Captain Cook –not by Doctor Hawkworth –in his Second Voyage (i. 374). When leaving Ulietea, “Oreo’s last request was for me to return. When he saw he could not obtain that promise, he asked the name of my Marai (burying-place). As strange a question as this was, I hesitated not a moment to tell him ‘Stepney’; the parish in which I live when in London. I was made to repeat it several times over till they could pronounce it; and then ‘Stepney Marai no Toote’ was echoed through an hundred mouths at once. I afterwards found the same question had been put to Mr. Forster by a man on shore; but he gave a different, and indeed more proper answer, by saying, ‘No man who used the sea could say where he should be buried.’”

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at Calcutta (of which we have a Copy), contains (and yetincomplete) 516, though swelled to that by all kinds ofRepetition and Corruption. So Von Hammer speaks of his Copy ascontaining about 200, while Dr. Sprenger catalogues the LucknowMS. at double that number.45 The Scribes, too, of the Oxford andCalcutta MSS. seem to do their Work under a sort of Protest;each beginning with a Tetrastich (whether genuine or not), takenout of its alphabetical order; the Oxford with one of Apology;the Calcutta with one of Expostulation, supposed (says a Noticeprefixed to the MS.) to have arisen from a Dream, in which Omar’smother asked about his future fate. It may be rendered thus: —

“O Thou who burn’st in Heart for those who burnIn Hell, whose fires thyself shall feed in turn,How long be crying, ‘Mercy on them, God!’Why, who art Thou to teach, and He to learn?”

The Bodleian Quatrain pleads Pantheism by way of Justification.

“If I myself upon a looser CreedHave loosely strung the Jewel of Good deed,Let this one thing for my Atonement plead:That One for Two I never did misread.”

The Reviewer,46 to whom I owe the Particulars of Omar’s Life,concludes his Review by comparing him with Lucretius, both asto natural Temper and Genius, and as acted upon by theCircumstances in which he lived. Both indeed were men of subtle,strong, and cultivated Intellect, fine Imagination, and Heartspassionate for Truth and Justice; who justly revolted from theirCountry’s false Religion, and false, or foolish, Devotion to it;but who fell short of replacing what they subverted by suchbetter Hope as others, with no better Revelation to guide them,had yet made a Law to themselves. Lucretius indeed, with suchmaterial as Epicurus furnished, satisfied himself with thetheory of a vast machine fortuitously constructed, and actingby a Law that implied no Legislator; and so composing himselfinto a Stoical rather than Epicurean severity of Attitude, satdown to contemplate the mechanical drama of the Universe whichhe was part Actor in; himself and all about him (as in his ownsublime description of the Roman Theater) discolored with thelurid reflex of the Curtain suspended between the Spectator andthe Sun. Omar, more desperate, or more careless of any socomplicated System as resulted in nothing but hopelessNecessity, flung his own Genius and Learning with a bitter orhumorous jest into the general Ruin which their insufficientglimpses only served to reveal; and, pretending sensualpleasure, as the serious purpose of Life, only diverted himselfwith speculative problems of Deity, Destiny, Matter and Spirit,Good and Evil, and other such questions, easier to start thanto run down, and the pursuit of which becomes a very weary sportat last!

45. “Since this paper was written” (adds the Reviewer in a note), “we have met with a Copy of a very rare Edition, printed at Calcutta in 1836. This contains 438 Tetrastichs, with an Appendix containing 54 others not found in some MSS.”46. Professor Cowell.

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With regard to the present Translation. The original Rubaiyat(as, missing an Arabic Guttural, these Tetrastichs are moremusically called) are independent Stanzas, consisting each offour Lines of equal, though varied, Prosody; sometimes allrhyming, but oftener (as here imitated) the third line a blank.Somewhat as in the Greek Alcaic, where the penultimate lineseems to lift and suspend the Wave that falls over in the last.As usual with such kind of Oriental Verse, the Rubaiyat followone another according to Alphabetic Rhyme — a strange successionof Grave and Gay. Those here selected are strung into somethingof an Eclogue, with perhaps a less than equal proportion of the“Drink and make-merry,” which (genuine or not) recurs over-frequently in the Original. Either way, the Result is sadenough: saddest perhaps when most ostentatiously merry: more aptto move Sorrow than Anger toward the old Tentmaker, who, aftervainly endeavoring to unshackle his Steps from Destiny, and tocatch some authentic Glimpse of TO-MORROW, fell back upon TO-DAY (which has outlasted so many To-morrows!) as the only Groundhe had got to stand upon, however momentarily slipping fromunder his Feet.

Edward J. Fitzgerald47

47. Actually I took this from the 3d Edition, not of 1859 but of 1872.

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At the end of the journal entries for this year, Emerson would list his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Plotinus; Euclid of Alexandria; Upanishad; Zoroaster; Hafiz; Arabian Nights; Abd-el-Kader; Narrative of the Earl of Elgin’s Mission to China.”

The journals of Waldo Emerson for this year as assembled by his son Edward Emerson in 1904-1914 would instance the following contents: “The winter’s lecturing. A railroad panorama. Carlyle’s relatives in Canada. The hump-backed driver tells of his horses. Arctic drives in Michigan. Medical dicta, Bigelow, Holmes, Samuel Jackson. Nature’s mirror. Illusion. Aunt Mary on Everett’s shortcoming, and on solitude. Manners, travel. Concord’s rescue of Sanborn. Our vicious government. Cassius M. Clay and Wendell Phillips. Books, should free us; make thieves. Thoreau’s criticism of Agassiz. Religious traditions giving way; Christianity must be realized. Praise of Theodore Parker. Death. A venial affectation. Sympathy. Pairs. Age. Friendship. Plutarch invaluable. God tires of kings. September walk with Channing. Bluebirds. A dangerous speaker. Flu-man sentiment’s appeal. Alcott’s gifts. Imagination. Henry James on civilization, Louis Napoleon, science. Greek ideals, Beauty. Believing poets. The hero and the pace of the country; Napoleon. Point of view makes the critic. Subjects. Michel Angelo. Memorabilia of Philosophy from Plato, Berkeley, Socrates (Tennyson), Plotinus (the Dance), doctrine of Nirvana, Heracleitus, Aristotle. Man’s incessant need of a simile. Valued tales. Lincoln’s election. Dedication of Agassiz Museum. The first stereopticon. A strange tribute. Conduct of Life published, Carlyle’s letter. Reading.”

1860

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1st pirated edition of Edward J. Fitzgerald’s RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM, THE ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA. RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE (Madras, India).

February 21, Friday: Captain Nathaniel Gordon had asked President Abraham Lincoln to commute his death sentence for having been caught slavetrading off the coast of Africa, but the president, although he had allowed the convicted slaver about two weeks to put his affairs in order, had refused on February 4th to commute the sentence. On this date, at about 3AM, the keepers of the prisoner noticed that their charge had suddenly been seized by convulsions. At first they imagined that he was trying to strangle himself, but when the prison physician Dr. Simmons was summoned, and stimulants administered, it became clear that he had taken some sort of poison. His body was becoming rigid and his pulse could barely be felt. Drs. James R. Wood and Hodgman appeared, and by means of brandy and the use of a stomach-pump, they were able to resuscitate the captain to the point at which he was able to speak. He asked that a lock of his hair and a ring from his hand be sent to his beloved wife, and the guards promised that they would comply with this request. The doctors surmised that the poison he had taken had probably been strychnine, administered by means of one of the cigars that he had been allowed to smoke so copiously the night before.

Although the hanging had been scheduled for 2:30PM, due to prisoner’s condition it was rescheduled for noon. When informed of this, the prisoner protested that he was supposing he had two more hours to live. By this point, however, he had been plied with so much clear whiskey by the attending physicians, that he could barely stand. Placed in a chair to be carried to the gallows with the black sack on the top of his head like a cap, he finally was able to ambulate toward the courtyard of the Tombs prison48 with the assistance of the marshals. They escorted the seacaptain to a very special gallows known as the “upright jerker,” set up in the courtyard at ground level. There was to be no platform and no drop. Instead, an experimental arrangement of counterweights and pulleys had been arranged, which in the illustration below you can see in the wooden box at the end of the horizontal beam. The idea was to spare any pain to this very special American businessman

1862

48. This prison was a curious location for such an event, as slavetrading was legally defined as a type of piracy and pirates had always been hanged in the locale where the Maritime Code had jurisdiction, that is to say, on mud flats between the low-water and the high-water mark. However, bear in mind that it was not by chance that the city of New-York was selected as the city of execution for such a crime, for that port had been for some years the principal port of the world for the fitting out of negrero vessels, doing even more such business than the ports of Portland and Boston, so that, during eighteen months in the 1859-1860 timeframe, a total of 85 such slavers had been fitted out in New York harbor.

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being executed, by ensuring that he would not dangle and strangle in the manner in which so many common criminals met their fates. The sudden jerk upward was intended to guarantee the instant snapping of the neck.49 U.S. Marines surrounded the courtyard as depicted, ready for any rescue attempt. The condemned man commented “Well, a man can’t die but once; I’m not afraid.” After US Marshal Robert Murray, representing the federal government, had read the sentence, the condemned man was asked if he had any final statements, and he proclaimed “I have done nothing wrong” before the black hood was drawn down over his head and the noose adjusted around his neck. When he was jerked upward by the apparatus, Gordon became the one and only American to be executed for engaging in the international slave trade — which had since 1820 ostensibly been a capital crime:

The body would be retrieved by a friend and buried in an unmarked grave in Brooklyn.

THE EXECUTION OF GORDON, THE SLAVE-TRADER Not the least important among the changes which are taking placein the current of national policy and public opinion isevidenced by the fact that on Friday, 21st February, in thiscity, Nathaniel Gordon was hung for being engaged in the slave-trade. For forty years the slave-trade has been pronouncedpiracy by law, and to engage in it has been a capital offense.But the sympathy of the Government and its officials has beenso often on the side of the criminal, and it seemed so absurd

49. This attempt at humane execution was one of America’s first. The “upright jerker” was used in a total of 5 executions and, although it did succeed in the case of Gordon, it would not prove to be more effective in the snapping of necks than the garden-variety “drop” technique. On June 18, 1895 the warden of the Connecticut State Prison at Wethersfield would obtain US Patent #541409 for the device, but the only place in which this technique of execution has continued to be used is the Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran is of course not paying royalties on this US patent). When the electric chair would come along in a considerably later timeframe, the intent would be, not humanity, but a demonstration of the power of electricity, and, for Westinghouse, potentially a demonstration that the alternating-current system sponsored by Edison was far more deadly and dangerous than the direct-current system sponsored by Westinghouse. –And humane execution by painless gas chamber would not begin until the following century.

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to hang a man for doing at sea that which, in half the Union,is done daily without censure on land, that no one has ever beenpunished under the Act. The Administration of Mr. Lincoln hasturned over a new leaf in this respect. Henceforth the slave-trade will be abandoned to the British and their friends. Thehanging of Gordon is an event in the history of our country.He was probably the most successful and one of the worst of theindividuals engaged in the trade. A native of Maine, he hadengaged in the business many years since, and had always eludedjustice. The particular voyage which proved fatal to him wasundertaken in 1860. The following summary of the case we takefrom the Times:It was in evidence (given by Lieutenant Henry D. Todd, U.S.N.)that the ship Erie was first discovered by the United Statessteamer Mohican, on the morning of the 8th day of August, 1860;that she was then about fifty miles outside of the River Congo,on the West Coast of Africa, standing to the northward, with allsail set; that she was flying the American flag, and that a gunfrom the Mohican brought her to.It was shown by Lieutenant Todd that he went on board himselfabout noon, and took command of the prize. He found on board ofthe Erie, which our readers will remember was but 500 tonsburden, eight hundred and ninety-seven (897) negroes, men,women, and children, ranging from the age of six months to fortyyears. They were half children, one-fourth men, and one-fourthwomen, and so crowded when on the main deck that one couldscarcely put his foot down without stepping on them. The stenchfrom the hold was fearful, and the filth and dirt upon theirpersons indescribably offensive.At first he of course knew nothing about them, and until Gordonshowed him, he was unable to stow them or feed them -- finallyhe learned how, but they were stowed so closely that during theentire voyage they appeared to be in great agony. The detailsare sickening, but as fair exponents of the result of this closestowing, we will but mention that running sores and cutaneousdiseases of the most painful as well as contagious characterinfected the entire load. Decency was unthought of; privacy wassimply impossible — nastiness and wretchedness reigned supreme.From such a state of affairs we are not surprised to learn that,during the passage of fifteen days, twenty-nine of the sufferersdied, and were thrown overboard.It was proved by one of the seamen that he, with others, shippedon the Erie, believing her to be bound upon a legitimate voyage,and that, when at sea they suspected, from the nature of thecargo, that all was not right, which suspicion they mentionedto the Captain (Gordon), who satisfied them by saying that hewas on a lawful voyage, that they had shipped as sailors, andwould do better to return to their duties than to talk to him.Subsequently they were told that they had shipped on a slaver,and that for every negro safely landed they should receive adollar.The negroes were taken on board the ship on the 7th day ofAugust, 1860, and the entire operation of launching and

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unloading nearly nine hundred negroes, occupied but threequarters of an hour, or less time than a sensible man wouldrequire for his dinner. As the poor creatures came over the sideGordon would take them by the arm, and shove them here or there,as the case might be, and if by chance their persons were coveredfrom entire exposure by a strip of rag, he would, with his knife,cut it off, fling it overboard, and send the wretch naked withhis fellows.Several of the crew testified, all agreeing that Gordon actedas Captain; that he engaged them; that he ordered them; that hepromised them the $1 per capita; that he superintended thebringing on board the negroes; and that he was, in fact, themaster-spirit of the entire enterprise.For this crime Gordon was arrested, tried, and, mainly throughthe energy of District-Attorney Smith, convicted, and sentencedto death. Immense exertions were made by his friends and theslave-trading interest to procure a pardon, or at least acommutation of his sentence, from President Lincoln, but withoutavail. He was sentenced to die on 21st.

W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: The long and open agitation for thereopening of the slave-trade, together with the fact that theSouth had been more or less familiar with violations of the lawssince 1808, led to such a remarkable increase of illicit trafficand actual importations in the decade 1850-1860, that themovement may almost be termed a reopening of the slave-trade.In the foreign slave-trade our own officers continue to report“how shamefully our flag has been used;”50 and British officerswrite “that at least one half of the successful part of the slavetrade is carried on under the American flag,” and this because“the number of American cruisers on the station is so small, inproportion to the immense extent of the slave-dealing coast.”51

The fitting out of slavers became a flourishing business in theUnited States, and centred at New York City. “Few of ourreaders,” writes a periodical of the day, “are aware of theextent to which this infernal traffic is carried on, by vesselsclearing from New York, and in close alliance with ourlegitimate trade; and that down-town merchants of wealth andrespectability are extensively engaged in buying and sellingAfrican Negroes, and have been, with comparatively littleinterruption, for an indefinite number of years.”52 Anotherperiodical says: “The number of persons engaged in the slave-trade, and the amount of capital embarked in it, exceed ourpowers of calculation. The city of New York has been until oflate [1862] the principal port of the world for this infamouscommerce; although the cities of Portland and Boston are onlysecond to her in that distinction. Slave dealers added largelyto the wealth of our commercial metropolis; they contributedliberally to the treasuries of political organizations, and

50. Gregory to the Secretary of the Navy, June 8, 1850: SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31 Congress, 1st session, XIV. No. 66, page 2. Cf. SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31 Congress, 2d session, II. No. 6.51. Cumming to Commodore Fanshawe, Feb. 22, 1850: SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31 Congress, 1st session, XIV. No. 66, page 8.52. New York Journal of Commerce, 1857; quoted in 24TH REPORT OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, page 56.

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their bank accounts were largely depleted to carry elections inNew Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.”53 During eighteenmonths of the years 1859-1860 eighty-five slavers are reportedto have been fitted out in New York harbor,54 and these alonetransported from 30,000 to 60,000 slaves annually.55 The UnitedStates deputy marshal of that district declared in 1856 that thebusiness of fitting out slavers “was never prosecuted withgreater energy than at present. The occasional interposition ofthe legal authorities exercises no apparent influence for itssuppression. It is seldom that one or more vessels cannot bedesignated at the wharves, respecting which there is evidencethat she is either in or has been concerned in the Traffic.”56

On the coast of Africa “it is a well-known fact that most of theSlave ships which visit the river are sent from New York and NewOrleans.”57

The absence of United States war-ships at the Brazilian stationenabled American smugglers to run in cargoes, in spite of theprohibitory law. One cargo of five hundred slaves was landed in1852, and the Correio Mercantil regrets “that it was the flagof the United States which covered this act of piracy, sustainedby citizens of that great nation.”58 When the Brazil tradedeclined, the illicit Cuban trade greatly increased, and theBritish consul reported: “Almost all the slave expeditions forsome time past have been fitted out in the United States, chieflyat New York.”59

53. “The Slave-Trade in New York,” in the Continental Monthly, January 1862, page 87.54. New York Evening Post; quoted in Lalor, CYCLOPÆDIA, III. 733.55. Lalor, CYCLOPÆDIA, III. 733; quoted from a New York paper.56. FRIENDS’ APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE COLOURED RACES (1858), Appendix, page 41; quoted from the Journal of Commerce.57. 26TH REPORT OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, pages 53-4; quoted from the African correspondent of the Boston Journal. From April, 1857, to May, 1858, twenty-one of twenty-two slavers which were seized by British cruisers proved to be American, from New York, Boston, and New Orleans. Cf. 25TH REPORT OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, page 122. De Bow estimated in 1856 that forty slavers cleared annually from Eastern harbors, clearing yearly $17,000,000: De Bow’s Review, XXII. 430-1.58. SENATE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 33d Congress, 1st session, VIII. No. 47, page 13.59. HOUSE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 34th Congress, 1st session, XII. No. 105, page 38.

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Mrs. Virginia Young Roberts returned from China to America with her two children, and took up residence in St. Louis, Missouri.

At the end of the journal entries for this year, Emerson would list his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Vedas; Vishnu Purana; Zertusht (Zoroaster); Confucius; Mahomet.”

In a speech praising the Emancipation Proclamation, Emerson would present President Abraham Lincoln as the model of the Chinese virtuous sovereign, overcoming timorous councils of prudence in order to declare righteously for the rule of justice:

Against all timorous councils, he had the courage to seize themoment; and such was his position, and such the felicityattending the action, that he has replaced government in thegood graces of mankind. “Better is virtue in the sovereign thanplenty in the season,” say the Chinese. ’Tis wonderful whatpower is, and how ill it is used, and how its ill use makes lifemean, and the sunshine dark.

(That oratorical remark supposed, we notice now, that someone had out of prudence been urging the President not to proclaim such an emancipation, when in historic fact Lincoln’s advisers were urging him to enact this necessary martial law measure as a method for winning the war, and when in historic fact it had been Lincoln who had been holding back from any such adventure in righteousness. In other words, Emerson here had his historical reconstruction exactly bass-ackwards.)

1865

US CIVIL WAR

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December 18, Monday: As the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 had not even ostensibly ended slavery in America, having been a mere temporary Civil War martial law measure applying only to a restricted group with a restricted geographical area, at this point a XIIIth Amendment to the federal Constitution was proclaimed by Secretary of State William H. Seward to have been adopted, granting to the US Congress whatever authority it required to eventually enact legislation as part of Reconstruction to outlaw and proscribe the practices of human enslavement in the United States of America, thus effectively denying under our separation-of-powers doctrine as well as under our expressio-unius-est-exclusio-alterius60 legal principle such authority to the executive and judicial branches of the government.61 This amendment rendered the Emancipation Proclamation, therefore, unconstitutional.62 If it had not ceased its effectiveness prior to this date, it ceased it as of this date. There could never again be such an executive pronouncement. Actual enslavements would continue, of course, for there would be no penalty for failing to inform one’s slave (as happened for instance in regions of East Texas), and as persons would still be being for many decades bought and sold openly in such venues as the Los Angeles market.

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shallhave been duly convicted,63 shall exist within theUnited States, or any place subject to theirjurisdiction.64

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce thisarticle by appropriate legislation.65

60. One of the bedrock understandings of American law has ever been the legal principle that anytime one and only one thing is expressly mentioned in an enactment, implicitly all other things are being excluded: “expressio unius est exclusio alterius.”61. This was not legislation outlawing slavery, but permission to enact such legislation. Actually, the federal congress would never get around to this. As far as our federal government is concerned, human enslavement is just as legal in 1997 as it had been in 1797. The only function possessed by the words of the amendment as above is to intercept and prevent our thought.62. The Emancipation Proclamation had set up an elaborate procedure by which slaves who performed work for the federal army would receive a manumission document, but the Executive branch of the federal government had never in fact implemented any such freedom program, and therefore no such documents had ever been granted. Had the administrative procedure actually been implemented, and had such administrative freedom documents actually been granted, they would have been granted by the Executive branch of the federal government and would therefore at this point have been rendered null and void by this XIIIth Amendment, since it assigned such power exclusively to the Legislative branch of the federal government.63. We may note that even had this amendment been implemented by a positive federal criminal statute (which it to date has not since the constructs deployed, “slavery” and “involuntary servitude,” have never been defined either by statutory definition or as a result of the piling up of case law and precedent), there can never be any federal prohibition of enslavement that is accomplished by duly constituted authority after due process of law when said enslavement is ostensibly a punishment for crime.64. We may note that the federal government is specifically not empowered here to punish the crimes of US citizens, if these crimes are committed in, say, Guatemala. Thus if a US citizen commits child molestation in Guatemala and Guatemala law permits child molestation, the US citizen cannot be prosecuted in a US court, and likewise, if a US citizen enslaves another US citizen while present not in the United States of America or Guam or Puerto Rico, but instead in, say, the Shah’s Iran, since Iran is allegedly not a place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, that enslavement of one US citizen by another would be perfectly OK according to our constitution.65. The states of the south were allowed back into the federal union before any such law was enacted, and allowing them back into the federal union so altered the voting parameters of the federal congress that subsequent enactment of any such federal criminal statute against human enslavement became quite impossible.

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I need for you to notice how different the wording of this first clause was, from what would be the wording of the first clause of the XIXth Amendment in 1920 when it would extend the voting privilege to American adult female citizens not guilty of crime: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” One would have supposed that this XIIIth amendment extending the rights of citizenship to Americans of color would have been similarly worded, one would have supposed that such an amendment would have been declaring something as emphatic and noteworthy as “The rights of citizens of the United States shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” But no, words that positive and emphatic were not employed. Instead, a carefully entirely negative wording was employed. Was this the fault of some Washington clerk unfamiliar with the English language? No. Weasel words were deliberately being chosen, to pull the wool over your eyes.

Thus even to this date in the 21st Century, despite everything that has been said about our having “outlawed slavery,” there is no federal criminality attached to the enslavement of humans, nor has there ever come to be any formal legal definition of what it is that enslavement or involuntary servitude might consist in.66

Nowhere, for instance specifically, nowhere in the series of federal enactments that are known to the general public as “Fugitive Slave Laws” (that is only a popular name, and does not appear in the actual legislation as written) will you find any mention of slavery. It’s not there. Such federal legislation speaks only of “persons bound to service,” a pot category which primarily includes apprentices and other contract laborers, with –wink wink, nudge nudge– runaway slaves merely “understood” to be implicitly included.

Please make careful note of the fact that the proscription of a thing we term “slavery” in the XIIIth Amendment to the US Constitution as of 1865 happens actually to be the very first reference to any such construct as “slave” or “slavery” or “enslavement” in the entire corpus of federal legislation and jurisprudence — at no

66. There is a specific disqualification in regard to a topic near and dear to many a heart, to wit, the military draft. Since the military draft was in existence prior to this XIIIth Amendment, and since the amendment does not specifically outlaw the military draft, it has always been presumed in our courts that the military draft cannot be construed to amount to either enslavement or involuntary servitude. —It is a well established, standard, even non-controversial judicial parameter, that an existing practice that is well known to legislators is simply not prohibited by their legislation, unless in their legislation they specifically mention it as prohibited.

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prior point had such a construct been formally and officially “written down on paper” as part of our structure of laws at the federal level. One might have supposed that, having written such a term into our foundational document, the Constitution of the United States of America, by way of a formal amendment, and, having stipulated in Clause 2 of that Amendment XIII that the federal legislature was empowered to enact such laws as to make this proscription effective, then the very first thing which we would have accomplished was, we would have arrived at a formal definition of this construct “slavery” and of this construct “involuntary servitude.” We would have enacted legislation stating precisely what constituted this construct “slavery” and precisely what constituted this construct “involuntary servitude” which had just been proscribed. –But, we didn’t do that. It’s precisely what we did not do. Instead what we did was, we extended the previous “gag rule,” which had quite prevented debate on the subject in the US House of Representatives for a number of decades, making this “gag rule” apply to our entire national life. Whatever we did at the federal level, whatever we did at the state level, whatever we did at the local level, there was one thing we might never do: no one could in the future legitimately deploy such a construct as “slavery” to describe any official doing. This gag rule effectively made it impossible for any of us in the United States of America to know whether or not slavery had effectively been ended. Very frequently I hear citizens claiming that we have “outlawed slavery.” To understand what they mean, it would seem necessary to parse this interesting term “outlawed” which arises so frequently in such a context. What does such a term mean to such a speaker, when in point of fact no US citizen has ever been punished, or sentenced, or found guilty, or prosecuted, or arraigned, or even so much as taken under arrest, charged with a crime of enslavement? One very well known usage came while President Ronald Reagan was preparing for one of his neato Saturday radio broadcasts from his ranch in California, while the technicians were doing what they call a “voice check” to make sure that all the mikes were turned on and all the wire connections snug. Reagan said into an open mike, that is, one which turned out to be on the air nationwide: “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I have signed legislation to outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” I gather that at a minimum, what must be meant by this construct “outlawed slavery” in the common belief “We must have outlawed slavery” is that we must have criminalized such a thing as one citizen of the US enslaving another citizen of the US while on US soil. To criminalize some conduct, it is necessary to define an offense of enslavement and make that offense be prohibited behavior under the US criminal code. It seems most interesting to me that the US Congress, despite the permissions given to it in 1865 in the 2d clause of the XIIIth Amendment to the federal constitution, the implementation clause, has never done anything even remotely approaching that. Our legal system literally has no awareness of slavery. No federal judge has ever taken any situation whatever, and interpreted that situation as being a proscribed situation of enslavement. No federal judge could ever take any such situation whatever, and interpret it as a proscribed enslavement. The groundwork for this simply is not present, simply has not been put into place. There’s no there there. I would think that it would be one prime objective of our public educational system, to make certain that all Americans are well aware of such a fact as this one, that although there are federal laws against kidnapping which proscribe and punish a violent taking from one place to another, and that although there are federal laws against murder which proscribe and punish an unjustified taking of human life, there are no federal laws against an enslavement even when it takes place on US soil, so long as said enslavement 1.) does not deprive its victim of life itself, thus constituting in addition murder, and so long as 2.) this is not initiated by a violent removal of the person from one place to another, thus constituting in addition kidnapping. –Would you disagree?

Why do you suppose it would be that the XIIIth Amendment contained the interesting limiting clause “within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” making it inapplicable in locations outside the United States which are not subject to our jurisdiction? The reason is, the only limitations on the power of the federal government of the USA that are contained in the Constitution as its foundational document are those limiting its power in internal affairs, that is to say, in relation to the pre-existent state governments, and in relation to the specified individual rights of citizens. Thus, when this amendment was added to the Constitution, granting to the federal congress a new authority to

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enact legislation against human enslavement within the territories of the respective states of the federal union, but not granting the federal congress power to enact such legislation against the enslavement of American citizens abroad, this was because any such granting of power would have added to the authorities of the legislative arm by subtracting from those of the executive. The amendment did not need to reassign a power already inhering perfectly in the legislative branch of the federal government. Not only did the federal government already possess complete authority to take action in regard to any discovered cases of enslavement of American citizens abroad, it had already in at least one circumstance exercised that authority.67

Before the civil war and this amendment to the US Constitution, the American whites had arranged that although there would be slavery in the USA, it would not apply to them, merely to somebody other than them. They arranged for their own safety by implementing a color convention, in accordance with which any degree of blackness of skin was going to equate to slavery. This led initially to Americans with only the lightest tinge of color being defined as vulnerable to enslavement, and culminated, in the Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court, with the declaration that no person of color had ever had (historically, of course, this was a factual falsehood), had, or would ever have any citizenship rights which any white American citizen would be obliged to respect. The XIIIth Amendment did not change this “even one drop” concept. Just as before the amendment, slavery and negritude were equated. However, after the amendment, this worked to the disadvantage of the whites, rather than to their advantage, for the federal government now insists that what laws exist against enslavement can be considered to protect only persons of color: since slavery is something which only happens to persons of color, therefore, whatever happens to a white person in life, whatever victimizations they suffer, it cannot be considered that they are enslaved.

Well, but Friend John Greenleaf Whittier was very, very impressed by the bells pealing on this day, and wrote the following poem of praise to God:

Laus Deo

It is done!Clang of bell and roar of gunSend the tidings up and down. How the belfries rock and reel! How the great guns, peal on peal,Fling the joy from town to town!

Ring, O bells! Every stroke exulting tellsOf the burial hour of crime. Loud and long, that all may hear, Ring for every listening earOf Eternity and Time!

Let us kneel: God’s own voice is in that peal,And this spot is holy ground. Lord, forgive us! What are we That our eyes this glory see,That our ears have heard this sound!

67. We were so eager to get hostile that we actually dispatched a punitive naval expedition from New-York harbor on May 20, 1815 to retrieve or take vengeance for a supposed American supposedly enslaved by the “Barbary pirates” of the north coast of

Africa, without first having made sure what the man’s name really was, or that he actually was an American citizen, or even that indeed he had been enslaved. Even today our historians aren’t sure of the man in question’s name or nationality, or of whether he was anything other than a manipulative homosexual lover of a local bey. As in the case of our recent attack on Iraq, we perceived no need to allow any facts to get in our way.

SLAVERY

PEONAGE

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For the Lord On the whirlwind is abroad;In the earthquake He has spoken; He has smitten with His thunder The iron walls asunder,And the gates of brass are broken!

Loud and long Lift the old exulting song;Sing with Miriam by the sea, He has cast the mighty down; Horse and rider sink and drown;‘He hath triumphed gloriously!’

Did we dare, In our agony of prayer,Ask for more than He has done? When was ever His right hand Over any time or landStretched as now beneath the sun?

How they pale, Ancient myth and song and tale,In this wonder of our days When the cruel rod of war Blossoms white with righteous law,And the wrath of man is praise!

Blotted out! All within and all aboutShall a fresher life begin; Freer breathe the universe As it rolls its heavy curseOn the dead and buried sin!

It is done! In the circuit of the sunShall the sound thereof go forth. It shall bid the sad rejoice, It shall give the dumb a voice,It shall belt with joy the earth!

Ring and swing, Bells of joy! On morning’s wingSound the song of praise abroad! With a sound of broken chains Tell the nations that He reigns,Who alone is Lord and God!

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At the end of the journal entries for this year, Waldo Emerson would list his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Vedas; Hafiz; Mahomet; Zoroaster (?), Chaldæan Oracles.”

1866

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2d version of THE RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM by Bernard Quaritch in London (again anonymously).

1868

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At the end of the journal entries for this year, Waldo Emerson listed his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Proclus; Zoroaster; the Dabistan.”

1869

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1st American edition of Edward J. Fitzgerald’s RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM, THE ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA. RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE (plus, his 2d version in a limited private printing).

1870

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Edward J. Fitzgerald’s RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM, THE ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA. RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE (2d Edition. London: Bernard Quarkch, Piccadilly. John Childs and Sons, Printers. Quarto. Paper wrappers, 110 quatrains, 25 notes).

Also a newly revised version of RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM, THE ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA. RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE (London: Bernard Quaritch, Piccadilly. Quarto, half Roxburghe, maroon cloth. 101 quatrains).

At the end of the journal entries for this year, Emerson would list his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Zend-Avesta; Saadi; Sir William Jones, To Narayena; Arab Ballad.”Emerson’s “Poetry and Imagination”:

THE perception of matter is made the common sense, and for cause.This was the cradle, this the go-cart, of the human child. Wemust learn the homely laws of fire and water; we must feed, wash,plant, build, These are ends of necessity, and first in the orderof Nature. Poverty, frost, famine, disease, debt, are thebeadles and guardsmen that hold us to common sense. Theintellect, yielded up to itself, cannot supersede this tyrannicnecessity. The restraining grace of common sense is the mark ofall the valid minds, —of Æsop, Aristotle, Alfred, Luther,Shakspeare, Cervantes, Franklin, Napoleon. The common sensewhich does not meddle with the absolute, but takes things attheir word,—things as they appear,— believes in the existenceof matter, not because we can touch it or conceive of it, butbecause it agrees with ourselves, and the universe does not jestwith us, but is in earnest, is the house of health and life. Inspite of all the joys of poets and the joys of saints, the mostimaginative and abstracted person never makes with impunity theleast mistake in this particular,—never tries to kindle his ovenwith water, nor carries a torch into a powder-mill. Nor seizeshis wild charger by the tail. We should nor pardon the blunderin another, nor endure it in ourselves.But whilst we deal with this as finality, early hints are giventhat we are not to stay here, that we must be making ready togo,—a warning that this magnificent hotel and conveniency wecall Nature is not final. First innuendoes, then broad hints,then smart taps are given, suggesting that nothing stands stillin Nature but death; that the creation is on wheels, in transit,always passing into something else, streaming into somethinghigher; that matter is not what it appears:—that chemistry canblow it all into gas. Faraday, the most exact of naturalphilosophers taught that when we should arrive at the monads,or primordial elements (the supposed little cubes or prisms ofwhich all matter was built up), we should not find cubes, orprisms, or atoms, at all but spherules of force. It was whisperedthat the globes of the universe were precipitates of something

1872

ZOROASTER

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more subtle; nay, somewhat was murmured in our ear that dwindledastronomy into a toy:—that too was no finality; onlyprovisional, a makeshift: that under chemistry was power andpurpose: power and purpose ride on matter to the last atom. Itwas steeped in thought, did everywhere express thought; that,as great conquerors have burned their ships when once they werelanded on the wished-for shore, so the noble house of Nature weinhabit has temporary uses, and we can afford to leave it oneday. The ends of all are moral, and therefore the beginnings aresuch. Thin or solid, everything is in flight. I believe thisconviction makes the charm of chemistry.—that we have the sameavoirdupois matter in an alembic without a vestige of the oldform; and in animal transformation not less, as in grub and fly,in egg and bird, in embryo and man; everything undressing andstealing away from its old into new form and nothing fast butthose invisible cords which we call laws, on which all is strung.Then we see that things wear different names and faces but belongto one family: that the secret cords or laws show their well-known virtue through every variety, be it animal, or plant, orplanet, and the interest is gradually transferred from the formsto the lurking method.This hint, however conveyed, upsets our politics, trade,customs, marriages, nay, the common sense side of religion andliterature which are all founded on low nature,—on the clearestand most economical mode of administering the material world,considered as final, The admission, never so covertly that thisis a makeshift, sets the dullest brain in ferment: our littlesir, from his first tottering steps, as soon as he can crow,does not like to be practised upon, suspects that some one is“doing” him, and at this alarm everything is compromised;gunpowder is laid under every man’s breakfast-table.But whilst the man is startled by this closer inspection of thelaws of matter, his attention is called to the independentaction of the mind; its strange suggestions and laws; a certaintyranny which springs up in his own thoughts, which have anorder, method and beliefs of their own, very different from theorder which this common sense uses.Suppose there were in the ocean certain strong currents whichdrove a ship, caught in them, with a force that no skill ofsailing with the best wind, and no strength of oars, or sail,.or steam, could make any head against, any more than against thecurrent of Niagara. Such currents, so tyrannical, exist: inthoughts, those finest and subtlest of all waters, that as soononce thought begins, it refuses to remember whose brain itbelongs to; what country, tradition or religion; and goeswhirling off—swim we merrily—in a direction self-chosen, by lawof thought and not by law of kitchen clock or county committee.It has its own polarity. One of these vortices or self-directions of thought is the impulse to search resemblance,affinity, identity, in all its objects, and hence our science,from its rudest to its most refined theories.The electric word pronounced by John Hunter a hundred years ago,arrested and progressive development, indicating the way upward

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from the invisible protoplasm to the highest organisms, gave thepoetic key to Natural Science, of which the theories of GeoffroySaint-Hilaire, of Oken, of Goethe, of Agassiz and Owen andDarwin in zoölogy and botany, are the fruits, a hint whose poweris not yet exhausted, showing unity and perfect order inphysics.The hardest chemist, the severest analyzer, scornful of all butdryest fact, is forced to keep the poetic curve of Nature, andhis result is like a myth of Theocritus. All multiplicity rushesto be resolved into unity. Anatomy, osteology, exhibit arrestedor progressive ascent in each kind; the lower pointing to thehigher forms, the higher to the highest, from the fluid in anelastic sack from radiate, mollusk, articulate, vertebrate, upto man; as if the whole animal world were only a Hunterian museumto exhibit the genesis of mankind.Identity by law, perfect order in physics, perfect parallelismbetween the laws of Nature and the laws of thought exist. Inbotany we have the like, the poetic perception ofmetamorphosis.— that the: same vegetable point or eye which isthe unit of the plant can be transformed at pleasure into everypart, as bract, leaf, petal, stamen, pistil or seed.In geology, what a useful hint was given to the early inquirerson seeing in the possession of Professor Playfair a bough of afossil tree which was perfect woo; at one end and perfect mineralcoal at the other. Natural objects, if individually describedand out of connection, are not yet known, since they are reallyparts of a symmetrical universe, like words of a sentence; andif their true order is found, the poet can read their divinesignificance orderly as in a BIBLE. Each animal or vegetable formremembers the next inferior and predicts the next higher.There is one animal, one plant, one matter and one force. Thelaws of light and of heat translate each other;—so do the lawsof sound and of color; and so galvanism, electricity andmagnetism are varied forms of the selfsame energy. While thestudent ponders this immense unity, he observes that all thingsin Nature, the animals, the mountain, the river, the seasons,wood, iron, stone, vapor, have a mysterious relation to histhoughts and his life; their growths, decays, quality and useso curiously resemble himself, in parts and in wholes, that heis compelled to speak by means of them. His words and histhoughts are framed by their help. Every noun is an image. Naturegives him, sometimes in a flattered likeness, sometimes incaricature, a copy of every humor and shade in his character andmind. The world is an immense picture-book of every passage inhuman life. Every object he beholds is the mask of a man.

“The privates of man’s heartThey speken and sound in his earAs the’ they loud winds were;”

for the universe is full of their echoes.Every correspondence we observe in mind and matter suggests asubstance older and deeper than either of these old nobilities.We see the law gleaming through, like the sense of a half-

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translated ode of Hafiz. The poet who plays with it with mostboldness best justifies himself; is most profound and mostdevout. Passion adds eyes; is a magnifying-glass. Sonnets oflovers are mad enough, but are valuable to the philosopher, asare prayers of saints, for their potent symbolism.Science was false by being unpoetical. It assumed to explain areptile or mollusk, and isolated it,—which is hunting for lifein graveyards. Reptile or mollusk or man or angel only existsin system, in relation. The metaphysician, the poet, only seeseach animal form as an inevitable step in the path of thecreating mind. The Indian, the hunter, the boy with his pets,have sweeter knowledge of these than the savant. We usesemblances of logic until experience puts us in possession ofreal logic. The poet knows the missing link by the joy it gives.The poet gives us the eminent experiences only,—a god steppingfrom peak to peak, nor planting his foot but on a mountain.Science does not know its debt to imagination. Goethe did notbelieve that a great naturalist could exist without thisfaculty. He was himself conscious of its help, which made him aprophet among the doctors. From this vision he gave brave hintsto the zoölogist, the botanist and the optician.

Poetry.—The primary use of a fact Is low; the secondary use, asit is a figure or illustration of my thought, is the real worth.First the fact; second its impression, or what I think of it.Hence Nature was called “a kind of adulterated reason.” Seas,forests, metals, diamonds and fossils interest the eye, but ’tis only with some preparatory or predicting charm. Their valueto the intellect appears only when I hear their meaning madeplain in the spiritual truth they cover. The mind, penetratedwith its sentiment or its thought, projects it outward onwhatever it beholds. The lover sees reminders of his mistressin every beautiful object; the saint, an argument for devotionin every natural process; and the facility with which Naturelends itself to the thoughts of man, the aptness with which ariver, a flower, a bird, fire, day or night, can express hisfortunes, is as if the world were only a disguised man, and,with a change of form, rendered to him all his experience. Wecannot utter a sentence in sprightly conversation without asimilitude. Note our incessant use of the word like, like fire,like a rock, like thunder, like a bee, “like a year without aspring.” Conversation is not permitted without tropes; nothingbut great weight in things can afford a quite literal speech.It is ever enlivened by inversion and trope. God himself doesnot speak prose, but communicates with us by hints, omens,inference and dark resemblances in objects lying all around us.Nothing so marks a man as imaginative expressions. A figurativestatement arrests attention, and is remembered and repeated. Howoften has a phrase of this kind made a reputation. Pythagoras’sGolden Sayings were such, and Socrates’s, and Mirabeau’s, andBurke’s, and Bonaparte’s. Genius thus makes the transfer fromone part of Nature to a remote part, and betrays the rhymes andechoes that pole makes with pole. Imaginative minds cling totheir images, and do not wish them rashly rendered into prose

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reality, as children resent your showing them that their dollCinderella is nothing but pine wood and rags; and my youngscholar does not wish to know what the leopard, the wolf, orLucia, signify in Dante’s Inferno, but prefers to keep theirveils on. Mark the delight of an audience in an image. When somefamiliar truth or fact appears in a new dress, mounted as on afine horse, equipped with a grand pair of ballooning wings, wecannot enough testify our surprise and pleasure. It is like thenew virtue shown in some unprized old property, as when a boyfinds that his pocket-knife will attract steel filings and takeup a needle; or when the old horse-block in the yard is foundto be a Torso Hercules of the Phidian age. Vivacity of expressionmay indicate this high gift, even when the thought is of no greatscope, as when Michael Angelo, praising the terra cottas, said,“If this earth were to become marble, woe to the antiques!” Ahappy symbol is a sort of evidence that your thought is just. Ihad rather have a good symbol of my thought, or a good analogy,than the suffrage of Kant or Plate. If you agree with me, or ifLocke or Montesquieu agree, I may yet be wrong; but if the elm-tree thinks the same thing, if running water, if burning coal,if crystals, if alkalies, in their several fashions say what Isay, it must be true. Thus a good symbol is the best argument,and is a missionary to persuade thousands. The Vedas, the Edda,the Koran, are each remembered by their happiest figure. Thereis no more welcome gift to men than a new symbol. That satiates,transports, converts them. They assimilate themselves to it,deal with it in all ways, and it will last a hundred years. Thencomes a new genius, and brings another. Thus the Greek mythologycalled the sea “the tear of Saturn.” The return of the soul toGod was described as “a flask of water broken in the sea.” SaintJohn gave us the Christian figure of “souls washed in the bloodof Christ.” The aged Michael Angelo indicates his perpetualstudy as in boyhood,— “I carry my satchel still.” Machiaveldescribed the papacy as “a stone inserted in the body of Italyto keep the wound open.” To the Parliament debating how to taxAmerica, Burke exclaimed, “Shear the wolf.” Our Kentuckianorator said of his dissent from his companion, “I showed him theback of my hand.” And our proverb of the courteous soldier reads:“An iron hand in a velvet glove.”This belief that the higher use of the material world is tofurnish us types or pictures to express the thoughts of the mind,is carried to its logical extreme by the Hindoos, who, followingBuddha, have made it the central doctrine of their religion thatwhat we call Nature, the external world, has no real existence,— is only phenomenal. Youth, age, property, condition, events,persons, —self, even, — are successive maias (deceptions)through which Vishnu mocks and instructs the soul. I thinkHindoo books the best gymnastics for the mind, as showingtreatment. All European libraries might almost be read withoutthe swing of this gigantic arm being suspected. But theseOrientals deal with worlds and pebbles freely.For the value of a trope is that the hearer is one: and indeedNature itself is a vast trope, and ail particular natures are

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tropes. As the bird alights on the bough, then plunges into theair again, so the thoughts of God pause but for a moment in anyform. All thinking is analogizing, and it is the use of life tolearn metonymy. The endless passing of one element into newforms, the incessant metamorphosis, explains the rank which theimagination holds in our catalogue of mental powers. Theimagination is the reader of these forms. The poet accounts allproductions and changes of Nature as the nouns of language, usesthem representatively, too well pleased with their ulterior tovalue much their primary meaning. Every new object so seen givesa shock of agreeable surprise. The impressions on theimagination make the great days of life: the book, the landscapeor the personality which did not stay on the surface of the eyeor ear but penetrated to the inward sense, agitates us, and isnot forgotten. Walking, working or talking, the sole questionis how many strokes are drawn quite through from matter tospirit; for whenever you enunciate a natural law you discoverthat you have enunciated a law of the mind. Chemistry, geology,hydraulics, are secondary science. The atomic theory is only aninterior process produced, as geometers say, or the effect of aforegone metaphysical theory. Swedenborg saw gravity to be onlyan external of the irresistible attractions of affection andfaith. Mountains and oceans we think we understand; — yes, solong as they are contented to be such, and are safe with thegeologist, — but when they are melted in Promethean alembics andcome out men, and then, melted again, come out words, withoutany abatement, but with an exaltation of power!In poetry we say we require the miracle. The bee flies among theflowers, and gets mint and marjoram, and generates a newproduct, which is not mint and marjoram, but honey; the chemistmixes hydrogen and oxygen to yield a new product, which is notthese, but water; and the poet listens to conversation andbeholds all objects in Nature, to give back, not them, but a newand transcendent whole.Poetry is the perpetual endeavor to express the spirit of thething, to pass the brute body and search the life and reasonwhich causes it to exist; — to see that the object is alwaysflowing away, whilst the spirit or necessity which causes itsubsists. Its essential mark is that it betrays in every wordinstant activity of mind, shown in new uses of every fact andimage, in preternatural quickness or perception of relations.All its words are poems. It is a presence of mind that gives amiraculous command of all means of uttering the thought andfeeling of the moment. The poet squanders on the hour an amountof life that would more than furnish the seventy years of theman that stands next him.The term “genius,” when used with emphasis, implies imagination;use of symbols, figurative speech. A deep insight will always,like Nature, ultimate its thought in a thing. As soon as a manmasters a principle and sees his facts in relation to it, fields,waters, skies, offer to clothe his thoughts in images. Then allmen understand him; Parthian, Mede, Chinese, Spaniard and Indianhear their own tongue. For he can now find symbols of universal

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significance, which are readily rendered into any dialect; as apainter, a sculptor, a musician, can in their several waysexpress the same sentiment of anger, or love, or religion.The thoughts are few, the forms many; the large vocabulary ormany-colored coat of the indigent unity. The savans are chattyand vain, but hold them hard to principle and definition, andthey become mute and near-sighted. What is motion? what isbeauty! what is matter! what is life! what is force? Push themhard and they will not be loquacious. They will come to Plato,Procleus and Swedenborg. The invisible and imponderable is thesole fact. “Why changes not the violet earth into musk?” Whatis the term of the ever-flowing metamorphosis? I do not knowwhat are the stoppages, but I see that a devouring unity changesall into that which changes not.The act of imagination is ever attended by pure delight. Itinfuses a certain volatility and intoxication into all Nature.It has a flute which sets the atoms of our frame in a dance. Ourindeterminate size is a delicious secret which it reveals to us.The mountains begin to dislimn, and float in the air. In thepresence and conversation of a true poet, teeming with imagesto express his enlarging thought, his person, his form, growslarger to our fascinated eyes. And thus begins that deificationwhich all nations have made of their heroes in every kind, —saints, poets, lawgivers and warriors.

Imagination. — Whilst common sense looks at things or visibleNature as real and final facts, poetry, or the imagination whichdictates it, is a second sight, looking through these, and usingthem as types or words for thoughts which they signify. Or isthis belief a metaphysical whim of modern times, and quite toorefined? On the contrary, it is as old as the human mind. Ourbest definition of poetry is one of the oldest sentences, andclaims to come down to us from the Chaldean Zoroaster, who wroteit thus: “Poets are standing transporters, whose employmentconsists in speaking to the Father and to matter; in producingapparent imitations of unapparent natures, and inscribing thingsunapparent in the apparent fabrication of the world;” in otherwords, the world exists for thought: it is to make appear thingswhich hide: mountains, crystals, plants, animals, are seen; thatwhich makes them is not seen: these, then, are “apparent copiesof unapparent natures.” Bacon expressed the same sense in hisdefinition, “Poetry accommodates the shows of things to thedesires of the mind;” and Swedenborg, when he said, “There isnothing existing in human thought, even though relating to themost mysterious tenet of faith, but has combined with it anatural and sensuous image.” And again: “Names, countries,nations, and the like are not at all known to those who are inheaven; they have no idea of such things, but of the realitiessignified thereby.” A symbol always stimulates the intellect;therefore is poetry ever the best reading. The very design ofimagination is to domesticate us in another, in a celestialnature.This power is in the image because this power is in Nature. Itso affects, because it so is. All that is wondrous in Swedenborg

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is not his invention, but his extraordinary perception; — thathe was necessitated so to see. The world realizes the mind.Better than images is seen through them. The selection of theimage is no more arbitrary than the power and significance ofthe image. The selection must follow fate. Poetry, if perfected,is the only verity; is the speech of man after the real, and notafter the apparent.Or shall we say that the imagination exists by sharing theethereal currents? The poet contemplates the central identity,sees it undulate and roll this way and that with divine flowings,through remotest things; and, following it, can detect essentialresemblances in natures never before compared. He can class themso audaciously because he is sensible of the sweep of thecelestial stream, from which nothing is exempt. His own body isa fleeing apparition, — his personality as fugitive as the tropehe employs. In certain hours we can almost pass our hand throughour own body. I think the use or value of poetry to be thesuggestion it affords of the flux or fugaciousness of the poet.The mind delights in measuring itself thus with matter, withhistory, and flouting both. A thought, any thought, pressed,followed, opened, dwarfs matter, custom, and all but itself. Butthis second sight does not necessarily impair the primary orcommon sense. Pindar, and Dante, yes, and the gray and timewornsentences of Zoroaster, may all be parsed, though we do not parsethem. The poet has a logic, though it be subtile. He observeshigher laws than he transgresses. “Poetry must first be goodsense, though it is something better.”This union of first and second sight reads Nature to the end ofdelight and of moral use. Men are imaginative, but notoverpowered by it to the extent of confounding its suggestionswith external facts. We live in both spheres, and must not mixthem. Genius certifies its entire possession of its thought, bytranslating it into a fact which perfectly represents it, andis hereby education, Charles James Fox thought “Poetry the greatrefreshment of the human mind, the only thing, after all; thatmen first found out they had minds, by making and tastingpoetry.”Man runs about restless and in pain when his condition or theobjects about him do not fully match his thought. He wishes tobe rich, to be old, to be young, that things may obey him. Inthe ocean, in fire, in the sky, in the forest, he finds factsadequate and as large as he. As his thoughts are deeper than hecan fathom, so also are these. It is easier to read Sanscrit,to decipher the arrow-head character, than to interpret thesefamiliar sights. It is even much to name them, Thus Thomson’sSeasons and the best parts of many old and many new poets aresimply enumerations by a person who felt the beauty of the commonsights and sounds, without any attempt to draw a moral or affixa meaning.The poet discovers that what men value as substances have ahigher value as symbols; that Nature is the immense shadow ofman. A man’s action is only a picture-book of his creed. He doesafter what he believes. Your condition, your employment, is the

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fable of you. The world is thoroughly anthropomorphized, as ifit had passed through the body and mind of man, and taken hismould and form. Indeed, good poetry is always personification,and heightens every species of force in Nature by giving it ahuman volition. We are advertised that there is nothing to whichman is not related; that every thing is convertible into everyother. The staff in his hand is the radius vector of the sun.The chemistry of this is the chemistry of that. Whatever one actwe do, whatever one thing we learn, we are doing and learningall things, — marching in the direction of universal power.Every healthy mind is a true Alexander or Sesostris, building auniversal monarchy.The senses imprison us, and we help them with metres as limitary,— with a pair of scales and a foot-rule and a clock. How longit took to find out what a day was, or what this sun, that makesdays! It cost thousands of years only to make the motion of theearth suspected. Slowly, by comparing thousands of observations,there dawned on some mind a theory of the sun, — and we foundthe astronomical fact. But the astronomy is in the mind: thesenses affirm that the earth stands still and the sun moves. Thesenses collect the surface facts of matter. The intellect actson these brute reports, and obtains from them results which arethe essence or intellectual form of the experiences. Itcompares, distributes, generalizes and uplifts them into its ownsphere. It knows that these transfigured results are not thebrute experiences, just as souls in heaven are not the red bodiesthey once animated. Many transfigurations have befallen them.The atoms of the body were once nebulae, then rock, then loam,then corn, then chyme, then chyle, then blood; and now thebeholding and co-energizing mind sees the same refining andascent to the third, the seventh or the tenth power of the dailyaccidents which the senses report, and which make the rawmaterial of knowledge. It was sensation; when memory came, itwas experience; when mind acted, it was knowledge; when mindacted on it as knowledge, it was thought.This metonymy, or seeing the same sense in things so diverse,gives a pure pleasure. Every one of a million times we find acharm in the metamorphosis. It makes us dance and sing. All menare so far poets. When people tell me they do not relish poetry,and bring me Shelley, or Aikin’s Poets, or I know not whatvolumes of rhymed English, to show that it has no charm, I amquite of their mind. But this dislike of the books only provestheir liking of poetry. For they relish Æsop, — cannot forgethim, or not use him; bring them Homer’s Iliad, and they likethat; or the Cid, and that rings well; read to them from Chaucer,and they reckon him an honest fellow. Lear and Macbeth andRichard III. they know pretty well without guide. Give themRobin Hood’s ballads or Griselda, or Sir Andrew Barton, or SirPatrick Spens, or Chevy Chase, or Tam O’Shanter, and they likethese well enough. They like to see statues; they like to namethe stars; they like to talk and hear of Jove, Apollo, Minerva,Venus and the Nine. See how tenacious we are of the old names.They like poetry without knowing it as such. They like to go to

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the theatre and be made to weep; to Faneuil Hall, and be taughtby Otis, Webster, or Kossuth, or Phillips, what great heartsthey have, what tears, what new possible enlargements to theirnarrow horizons. They like to see sunsets on the hills or on alake shore. Now a cow does not gaze at the rainbow, or show oraffect any interest in the landscape, or a peacock, or the songof thrushes.Nature is the true idealist. When she serves us best, when, onrare days, she speaks to the imagination, we feel that the hugeheaven and earth are but a web drawn around us, that the light,skies and mountains are but the painted vicissitudes of thesoul. Who has heard our hymn in the churches without acceptingthe truth,—

“As o’er our heads the seasons roll, And soothe with change of bliss the soul?”

Of course, when we describe man as poet, and credit him with thetriumphs of the art, we speak of the potential or ideal man,—not found now in any one person. You must go through a city ora nation, and find one faculty here, one there, to build thetrue poet withal. Yet all men know the portrait when it is drawn,and it is part of religion to believe its possible incarnation,He is the healthy, the wise, the fundamental, the manly man,seer of the secret; against all the appearance he sees andreports the truth, namely that the soul generates matter. Andpoetry is the only verity,—the expression of a sound mindspeaking after the ideal, and not after the apparent. As a powerit is the perception of the symbolic character of things, andthe treating them as representative: as a talent it is a magnetictenaciousness of an image, and by the treatment demonstratingthat this pigment of thought is as palpable and objective to thepoet as is the ground on which he stands, or the walls of housesabout him. And this power appears in Dante and Shakspeare. Insome individuals this insight or second sight has anextraordinary reach which compels our wonder, as in Behmen,Swedenborg and William Blake the painter.William Blake, whose abnormal genius, Wordsworth said,interested him more than the conversation of Scott or of Byron,writes thus: “He who does not imagine in stronger and betterlineaments and in stronger and better light than his perishingmortal eye can see, does not imagine at all. The painter of thiswork asserts that all his imaginations appear to him infinitelymore perfect and more minutely organized than anything seen byhis mortal eye....I assert for myself that I do not behold theoutward creation, and that to me it would be a hindrance, andnot action. I question not my corporeal eye any more than I wouldquestion a window concerning a sight. I look through it, and notwith it.”

It is a problem of metaphysics to define the province of Fancyand Imagination. The words are often used, and the thingsconfounded. Imagination respects the cause. It is the vision ofan inspired soul reading arguments and affirmations in allNature of that which it is driven to say. But as soon as this

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soul is released a little from its passion, and at leisure playswith the resemblances and types, for amusement, and not for itsmoral end, we call its action Fancy. Lear, mad with hisaffliction, thinks every man who suffers must have the likecause with his own. “What, have his daughters brought him tothis pass!” But when, his attention being diverted, his mindrests from this thought, he becomes fanciful with Tom, playingwith the superficial resemblances of objects. Bunyan, in painfor his soul, wrote Pilgrim’s Progress; Quarles, after he wasquite cool, wrote Emblems.Imagination is central; fancy, superficial. Fancy relates tosurface, in which a great part of life lies. The lover is rightlysaid to fancy the hair, eyes, complexion of the maid. Fancy isa wilful, imagination a spontaneous act; fancy, a play as withdolls and puppets which we choose to call men and women;imagination, a perception and affirming of a real relationbetween a thought and some material fact. Fancy amuses;imagination expands and exalts us. Imagination uses an organicclassification. Fancy joins by accidental resemblance,surprises and amuses the idle, but is silent in the presence ofgreat passion and action. Fancy aggregates; imaginationanimates. Fancy is related to color; imagination, to form. Fancypaints; imagination sculptures.

Veracity.—I do not wish, therefore, to find that my poet is notpartaker of the feast he spreads, or that he would kindle oramuse me with that which does not kindle or amuse him. He mustbelieve in his poetry. Homer, Milton, Hafiz, Herbert,Swedenborg, Wordsworth, are heartily enamoured of their sweetthoughts. Moreover, they know that this correspondence of thingsto thoughts is far deeper than they can penetrate,—defyingadequate expression; that it is elemental, or in the core ofthings. Veracity therefore is that which we require in poets,—that they shall say how it was with them, and not what might besaid. And the fault of our popular poetry is that it is notsincere.“What news!” asks man of man everywhere. The only teller of newsis the poet. When he sings, the world listens with the assurancethat now a secret of God is to be spoken. The right poetic moodis or makes a more complete sensibility, piercing the outwardfact to the meaning of the fact; shows a sharper insight: andthe perception creates the strong expression of it as the manwho sees his way walks in it.It is a rule in eloquence, that the moment the orator losescommand of his audience, the audience commands him. So inpoetry, the master rushes to deliver his thought, and the wordsand images fly to him to express it; whilst colder moods areforced to respect the ways of saying it, and insinuate, or, asit were, muffle the fact to suit the poverty or caprice of theirexpression, so that they only hint the matter, or allude to it,being unable to fuse and mould their words and images to fluidobedience. See how Shakspeare grapples at once with the mainproblem of the tragedy, as in Lear and Macbeth, and the openingof the Merchant of Venice.

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All writings must be in a degree exoteric written to a humanshould or would, instead of to the fatal is: this holds even ofthe bravest and sincerest writers. Every writer is a skater, andmust go partly where he would, and partly where the skates carryhim; or a sailor, who can only land where sails can be blown.And yet it is to be added that high poetry exceeds the fact, orNature itself, just as skates allow the good skater far moregrace than his best walking would show, or sails more thanriding. The poet writes from a real experience, the amateurfeigns one. Of course one draws the bow with his fingers and theother with the strength of his body; one speaks with his lipsand the other with a chest voice. Talent amuses, but if yourverse has not a necessary and autobiographic basis, though underwhatever gay poetic veils, it shall not waste my time.For poetry is faith. To the poet the world is virgin soil; allis practicable; the men are ready for virtue; it is always timeto do right. He is a true re-commencer, or Adam in the gardenagain. He affirms the applicability of the ideal law to thismoment and the present knot of affairs. Parties, lawyers and menof the world will invariably dispute such an application, asromantic and dangerous: they admit the general truth, but theyand their affair always constitute a case in bar of the statute.Free trade, they concede, is vary well as a principle, but itis never quite the time for its adoption without prejudicingactual interests. Chastity, they admit, is very well,—but thenthink of Mirabeau’s passion and temperament! Eternal laws arevery well, which admit no violation,—but so extreme were thetimes and manners of mankind, that you must admit miracles, forthe times constituted a case. Of course, we know what you say,that legends are found in all tribes,—but this legend isdifferent. And so throughout; the poet affirms the laws, prosebusies itself with exceptions,— with the local and individual.l require that the poem should impress me so that after I haveshut the book it shall recall me to itself, or that passagesshould. And inestimable is the criticism of memory as acorrective to first impressions. We are dazzled at first by newwords and brilliancy of color, which occupy the fancy anddeceive the judgment. But all this is easily forgotten. Later,the thought, the happy image which expressed it and which was atrue experience of the poet, recurs to mind, and sends me backin search of the book. And I wish that the poet should foreseethis habit of readers, and omit all but the important passages;Shakspeare is made up of important passages, like Damascus steelmade up of old nails. Homer has his own,—

“One omen is best, to fight for one’s country;”

and again, -

“They heal their griefs, for curable are the hearts of thenoble.”

Write, that I may know you. Style betrays you, as your eyes do.We detect at once by it whether the writer has a firm grasp onhis fact or thought,— exists at the moment for that alone, or

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whether he has one eye apologizing, deprecatory, turned on hisreader. In proportion always to his possession of his thoughtis his defiance of his readers. There is no choice of words forhim who clearly sees the truth. That provides him with the bestword.Great design belongs to a poem, and is better than any skill ofexecution,— but how rare! I find it in the poems of Wordsworth,— Laodamia, and the Ode to Dion, and the plan of The Recluse.We want design, and do not forgive the bards if they have onlythe art of enamelling. We want an architect, and they bring usan upholsterer.If your subject do not appear to you the flower of the world atthis moment, you have not rightly chosen it. No matter what itis, grand or gay, national or private, if it has a naturalprominence to you, work away until you come to the heart of it:then it will, though it were a sparrow or a spider-web, as fullyrepresent the central law and draw all tragic or joyfulillustration, as if it were the book of Genesis or the book ofDoom. The subject — we must so often say it — is indifferent.Any word, every word in language, every circumstance, becomespoetic in the hands of a higher thought,The test or measure of poetic genius Is the power to read thepoetry of affairs, — to fuse the circumstance of today: not touse Scott’s antique superstitions, or Shakspeare’s, but toconvert those of the nineteenth century and of the existingnations into universal symbols. ’T is easy to repaint themythology of the Creeks, or of the Catholic Church, the feudalcastle, the crusade, the martyrdoms of medieval Europe: but topoint out where the same creative force is now working in ourown houses and public assemblies; to convert the vivid energiesacting at this hour in New York and Chicago and San Franciscointo universal symbols, requires a subtile and commandingthought. ’T is boyish in Swedenborg to cumber himself with thedead scurf of Hebrew antiquity, as if the Divine creative energyhad fainted in his own century. American life storms about usdaily, and is slow to find a tongue. This contemporary insightis transubstantiation, the conversion of daily bread into theholiest symbols; and every man would be a poet if hisintellectual digestion were perfect. The test of the poet is thepower to take the passing day, with its news, its cares, itsfears, as he shares them, and hold it up to a divine reason,till he sees it to have a purpose and beauty, and to be relatedto astronomy and history and the eternal order of the world.Then the dry twig blossoms in his hand. He is calmed andelevated.The use of “occasional poems” is to give leave to originality.Every one delights in the felicity frequently shown in ourdrawing-rooms. In a game-party or picnic poem each writer isreleased from the solemn rhythmic traditions which alarm andsuffocate his fancy, and the result is that one of the partnersoffers a poem in a new style that hints at a new literature. Yetthe writer holds it cheap, and could do the like all day. On thestage, the farce is commonly far better given than the tragedy,

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as the stock actors understand the farce, and do not understandthe tragedy. The writer in the parlor has more presence of mind,more wit and fancy, more play of thought, on the incidents thatoccur at table or about the house, than in the politics ofGermany or Rome. Many of the fine poems of Herrick; Jonson andtheir contemporaries had this casual origin.l know there is entertainment and room for talent in the artist’sselection of ancient or remote subjects; as when the poet goesto India, or to Rome, or to Persia, for his fable. But I believenobody knows better than he that herein he consults his easerather than his strength or his desire. He is very well convincedthat the great moments of life are those in which his own house,his own body, the tritest and nearest ways and words and thingshave been illuminated into prophets and teachers. What else isit to be a poet! What are his garland and singing-robes! Whatbut a sensibility so keen that the scent of an elder-blow or thetimber-yard and corporation-works of a nest of pismires is eventenough for him, — all emblems and personal appeals to him. Hiswreath and robe is to do what he enjoys; emancipation from othermen’s questions, and glad study of his own; escape from thegossip and routine of society, and the allowed right andpractice of making better. He does not give his hand, but insign of giving his heart; he is not affable with all, but silent,uncommitted or in love, as his heart leads him. There is nosubject that does not belong to him, politics, economy,manufactures and stock-brokerage, as much as sunsets and souls;only, these things, placed in their true order, are poetry;displaced, or put in kitchen order, they are unpoetic. Malthusis the right organ of the English proprietors; but we shall neverunderstand political economy until Burns or Béranger or somepoet shall teach it in songs, and he will not teachMalthusianism.Poetry is the gay science. The trait and test of the poet isthat he builds, adds and affirms. The critic destroys: the poetsays nothing but what helps somebody; let others be distractedwith cares, he is exempt. All their pleasures are tinged withpain. All his pains are edged with pleasure. The gladness heimparts he shares. As one of the old Minnesinger sung,—

“Oft have I heard, and now believe it true,Whom man delights in, God delights in too.”

Poetry is the consolidation of mortal men. They live cabined,cribbed, confined in a narrow and trivial lot,—in wants, pains,anxieties and superstitions, in profligate politics, in personalanimosities, in mean employments,—and victims of these; and thenobler powers untried, unknown. A poet comes who lifts the veil;gives them glimpses of the laws of the universe; shows them thecircumstance as illusion; shows that Nature is only a languageto express the laws, which are grand and beautiful;-and letsthem, by his songs, into some of the realities. Socrates, theIndian teachers of the Maia, the Bibles of the nations,Shakspeare, Milton, Hafiz, Ossian, the Welsh Bards;—these alldeal with Nature and history as means and symbols, and not as

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ends. With such guides they begin to see that what they hadcalled pictures are realities, and the mean life is pictures.And this is achieved by words; for it is a few oracles spokenby perceiving men that are the texts on which religions andstates are founded. And this perception has at once its moralsequence. Ben Jonson said, “The principal end of poetry is toinform men in the just reason of living.”Creation.—But there is a third step which poetry takes, andwhich seems higher than the others, namely, creation, or ideastaking forms of their own,— when the poet invents the fable, andinvents the language which his heroes speak. He reads in theword or action of the man its yet untold results. His inspirationis power to carry out and complete the metamorphosis, which, inthe imperfect kinds arrested for ages, in the perfecter proceedsrapidly in the same individual. For poetry is science, and thepoet a truer logician. Men in the courts or in the street thinkthemselves logical and the poet whimsical. Do they think thereis chance or wilfulness in what he sees and tells? To be sure,we demand of him what he demands of himself,— veracity, firstof all. But with that, he is the lawgiver, as being an exactreporter of the essential law. He knows that he did not make histhought,—no, his thought made him, and made the sun and thestars. Is the solar system good art and architecture? the samewise achievement is in the human brain also, can you only wileit from interference and marring. We cannot look at works of artbut they teach us how near man is to creating. Michael Angelois largely filed with the Creator that made and makes men. Howmuch of the original craft remains in him, and he a mortal man!In him and the like perfecter brains the instinct is resistless,knows the right way, is melodious, and at all points divine, Thereason we set so high a value on any poetry,—as often on a lineor a phrase as on a poem,—is that it is a new work of Nature,as a man is. It must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.But a new verse comes once in a hundred years; therefore Pindar,Hafiz, Dante, speak so proudly of what seems to the clown ajingle.The writer, like the priest, must be exempted from secularlabor. His work needs a frolic health; he must be at the top ofhis condition. In that prosperity he is sometimes caught up intoa perception of means and materials, of feats and fine arts, offairy machineries and funds of power hitherto utterly unknownto him, whereby he can transfer his visions to mortal canvas,or reduce them into iambic or trochaic, into lyric or heroicrhyme. These successes are not less admirable and astonishingto the poet than they are to his audience. He has seen somethingwhich all the mathematics and the best industry could neverbring him unto. Now at this rare elevation above his usualsphere, he has come into new circulations, the marrow of theworld is in his bones, the opulence of forms begins to pour intohis intellect, and he is permitted to dip his brush into the oldpaint-pot with which birds, flowers, the human cheek, the livingrock, the broad landscape, the ocean and the eternal sky werepainted.

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These fine fruits of judgment, poesy and sentiment, when oncetheir hour is struck, and the world is ripe for them, know aswell as coarser how to feed and replenish themselves, andmaintain their stock alive, and multiply; for roses and violetsrenew their race like oaks, and flights of painted moths are asold as the Alleghanies. The balance of the world is kept, anddewdrop and haze and the pencil of light are as long-lived aschaos and darkness.Our science is always abreast of our self-knowledge. Poetrybegins, or all becomes poetry, when we look from the centreoutward, and are using all as if the mind made it. That only canwe see which we are, and which we make. The weaver sees gingham;the broker sees the stock-list; the politician, the ward andcounty votes; the poet sees the horizon, and the shores of matterlying on the sky, the interaction of the elements,—- the largeeffect of laws which correspond to the inward laws which heknows, and so are but a kind of extension of himself. “Theattractions are proportional to the destinies.” Events or thingsare only the fulfilment of the prediction of the faculties.Better men saw heavens and earths; saw noble instruments ofnoble souls. We see railroads, mills and banks, and we pity thepoverty of these dreaming Buddhists. There was as much creativeforce then as now, but it made globes and astronomic heavens,instead of broadcloth and wine-glasses.The poet is enamoured of thoughts and laws. These know theirway, and, guided by them, he is ascending from an interest invisible things to an interest in that which they signify, andfrom the part of a: spectator to the part of a maker. And aseverything streams and advances, as every faculty and everydesire is procreant, and every perception is a destiny, thereis no limit to his hope. “Anything, child, that the mind covers,from the milk of a cocoa to the throne of the three worlds, thoumayest obtain, by keeping the law of thy members and the law ofthy mind.” It suggests that there is higher poetry than we writeor read.Rightly, poetry is organic. We cannot know things by words andwriting, but only by taking a central position in the universeand living in its forms. We sink to rise:—

“None any work can frame, Unless himself become the same.”

All the parts and forms of Nature are the expression orproduction of divine faculties, and the same are in us. And thefascination of genius for us is this awful nearness to Nature’screations.I have heard that the Germans think the creator of Trim and UncleToby, though he never wrote a verse, a greater poet than Cowper,and that Goldsmith’s title to the name is not from his DesertedVillage, but derived from the Vicar of Wakefield. Betterexamples are Shakspeare’s Ariel, his Caliban and his fairies inthe Midsummer Night’s Dream. Barthold Niebuhr said well, “Thereis little merit in inventing a happy idea or attractivesituation, so long as it is only the author’s voice which we

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hear. As a being whom we have called into life by magic arts,as soon as it has received existence acts independently of themaster’s impulse, so the poet creates his persons, and thenwatches and relates what they do and say. Such creation ispoetry, in the literal sense of the term, and its possibilityis an unfathomable enigma. The gushing fulness of speech belongsto the poet, and it flows from the lips of each of his magicbeings in the thoughts and words peculiar to its nature.”This force of representation so plants his figures before himthat he treats them as real; talks to them as if they were bodilythere; puts words in their mouth such as they should have spoken,and is affected by them as by persons. Vast is the differencebetween writing clean verses for magazines, and creating thesenew persons and situations,—new language with emphasis andreality. The humor of Falstaff, the terror of Macbeth, have eachtheir swarm of fit thoughts and images, as if Shakspeare hadknown and reported the men, instead of inventing them at hisdesk. This power appears not only in the outline or portrait ofhis actors, but also in the bearing and behavior and style ofeach individual. Ben Jonson told Drummond that “Sidney did notkeep a decorum in making every one speak as well as himself.”We all have one key to this miracle the poet, and the dunce hasexperiences that may explain Shakspeare to him, —one key,namely, dreams. In dreams we are true poets; we create thepersons of the drama; we give them appropriate figures, faces,costume; they are perfect in their organs, attitude, manners:moreover they speak after their own characters, not ours;—theyspeak to us, and we listen with surprise to what: they say.Indeed, I doubt if the best poet has yet written any five-actplay that can compare in thoroughness of invention with thisunwritten play in fifty acts, composed by the dullest snorer onthe floor of the watch-house.Melody, Rhyme, Form.—Music and rhyme are among the earliestpleasures of the child, and, in the history of literature,poetry precedes prose. Every one may see, as he rides on thehighway through an uninteresting landscape, how a little waterinstantly relieves the monotony: no matter what objects are nearit,—a gray rock, a grass-patch, an alder-bush, or a stake,—theybecome beautiful by being reflected. It is rhyme to the eye, andexplains the charm of rhyme to the ear. Shadows please us asstill finer rhymes. Architecture gives the like pleasure by therepetition of equal parts in a colonnade, in a row of windows,or in wings; gardens by the symmetric contrasts of the beds andwalks. In society you have this figure in a bridal company, wherea choir of white-robed maidens give the charm of living statues;in a funeral procession, where all wear black; in a regiment ofsoldiers in uniform.The universality of this taste is proved by our habit of castingour facts into rhyme to remember when better, as so many proverbsmay show. Who would hold the order of the almanac so fast butfor the ding-dong,—

“Thirty days hath September,” etc.:—

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or of the Zodiac, but for

“The Ram, the Bull, the heavenly Twins,” etc.?

We are lovers of rhyme and return, period and musicalreflection. The babe is lulled to sleep by the nurse’s song.Sailors can work better for their yo-heave-o. Soldiers can marchbetter and fight better for the drum and trumpet. Metre beginswith pulse-beat, and the length of lines in songs and poems isdetermined by the inhalation and exhalation of the lungs. If Youhum or whistle the rhythm of the common English metres, —of thedecasyllabic quatrain, or the octosyllabic with alternatesexisyllabic, or other rhythms,—you can easily believe thesemetres to be organic, derived from the human pulse, and to betherefore not proper to one nation, but to mankind. I think youwill also find a charm heroic, plaintive, pathetic, in thesecadences, and be at once set on searching for the words that canrightly fill these vacant beats. Young people like rhyme, drum-beat, tune, things in pairs and alternatives; and, in higherdegrees, we know the instant power of music upon ourtemperaments to change our mood, and gives us its own; and humanpassion, seizing these constitutional tunes, aims to fill themwith appropriate words, or marry music to thought, believing,as we believe of all marriage, that matches are made in heaven,and that for every thought its proper melody or rhyme exists,though the odds are immense against our finding it, and onlygenius can rightly say the banns.Another form of rhyme is iterations of phrase,

“At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet hebowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.”

The fact is made conspicuous, nay, colossal, by this simplerhetoric:—

“They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shallwax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, andthey shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shallhave no end.

Milton delights in these iterations:—

“Though fallen on evil days, On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues.

“Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud Turn forth its silver lining on the night? I did not err, there does a sable cloudTurn forth its silver lining on the night.” Comus.

“A little onward lend thy guiding hand, To these dark steps a little farther on Samson.

So in our songs and ballads the refrain skilfully used, andderiving some novelty or better sense in each of many verses:—

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“Busk thee, husk thee, my bonny bonny bride, Busk thee, husk thee, my winsome marrow. Hamilton.

Of course rhyme soars and refines with the growth of the mind.The boy liked the drum, the people liked an overpoweringjewsharp tune. Later they like to transfer that rhyme to life,and to detect a melody as prompt and perfect in their dailyaffairs. Omen and coincidence show the rhythmical structure ofman; hence the taste for signs, sortilege, prophecy andfulfilment, anniversaries, etc. By and by, when they apprehendreal rhymes, namely, the correspondence of parts in Nature,—acidand alkali, body and mind, man and maid, character and history,action and reaction,—they do not longer value rattles and ding-dongs, or barbaric word-jingle. Astronomy, Botany, Chemistry,Hydraulics and the elemental forces have their own periods andreturns, their own grand strains of harmony not less exact upto the primeval apothegm that “there is nothing on earth whichis not in the heavens in a heavenly form, and nothing in theheavens which is not on the earth in an earthly form.” Theyfurnish the poet with grander pairs and alternations, and willrequire an equal expansion in his metres.There is under the seeming poverty of metres an infinitevariety, as every artist knows. A right ode (however nearly itmay adopt conventional metre, as the Spenserian, or the heroicblank verse, or one of the fixed lyric metres) will by anysprightliness be at once lifted out of conventionality, and willmodify the metre. Every good poem that I know I recall by itsrhythm also. Rhyme is a pretty good measure of the latitude andopulence of a writer. If unskilful, he is at once detected bythe poverty of his chimes. A small, well-worn, sprucely brushedvocabulary serves him. Now try Spenser, Marlowe, Chapman, andsee how wide they fly for weapons, and how rich and lavish theirprofusion. In their rhythm is no manufacture, but a vortex, ormusical tornado, which, falling on words and the experience ofa learned mind, whirls these materials into the same grand orderas planets and moons obey, and seasons, and monsoons.There are also prose poets. Thomas Taylor, the Platonist, forinstance, is really a better man of imagination, a better poet,or perhaps I should say a better feeder to a poet, than any manbetween Milton and Wordsworth. Thomas Moore had the magnanimityto say, “If Burke and Bacon were not poets (measured lines notbeing necessary to constitute one), he did not know what poetrymeant.” And every good reader will easily recall expressions orpassages in works of pure science which have given him the samepleasure which he seeks in professed poets. Richard Owen, theeminent paleontologist said:—

“All hitherto observed causes of extirpation point either tocontinuous slowly operating geologic changes, or to no greatersudden cause than the, so to speak, spectral appearance ofmankind on a limited tract of land not before inhabited.”

St. Augustine complains to God of his friends offering him thebooks of the philosophers:—

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“And these were the dishes in which they brought to me, beinghungry, the Sun and the Moon instead of Thee.”

It would not be easy to refuse to Sir Thomas Browne’s Fragmenton Mummies the claim of poetry:—

“Of their living habitations they made little account,conceiving of them but as hospitia, or inns, while they adornedthe sepulchres of the dead, and, planting thereon lasting bases,defied the crumbling touches of time, and the misty vaporousnessof oblivion. Yet all were but Babel vanities. Time sadlyovercometh all things, and is now dominant and sitteth upon aSphinx, and looketh unto Memphis and old Thebes, while hissister Oblivion reclineth semi-somnous on a pyramid, gloriouslytriumphing, making puzzles of Titanian erections, and turningold glories into dreams. History sinketh beneath her cloud. Thetraveller as he paceth through those deserts asketh of her, Whobuilded them? and she mumbleth something, but what it is heheareth not.”

Rhyme, being a kind of music, shares this advantage with music,that it has a privilege of speaking truth which all Philistiais unable to challenge. Music is the poor man’s Parnassus. Withthe first note of the flute or horn, or the first strain of asong, we quit the world of common sense and launch on the seaof ideas and emotions: we pour contempt on the prose you somagnify; yet the sturdiest Philistine is silent. The likeallowance is the prescriptive right of poetry. You shall notspeak ideal truth in prose uncontradicted: you may in verse. Thebest thoughts run into the best words: imaginative andaffectionate thoughts into music and metre. We ask for food andfire, we talk of our work, our tools and material necessities,in prose; that is, without any elevation or aim at beauty; butwhen we rise into the world of thought, and think of these thingsonly for what they signify, speech refines into order andharmony. I know what you say of mediæval barbarism andsleighbell rhyme, but we have not done with music, no, nor withrhyme, nor must console ourselves with prose poets so long asboys whistle and girls sing.Let Poetry then pass, if it will, into music and rhyme. That isthe form which itself puts on. We do not enclose watches inwooden, but in crystal cases, and rhyme is the transparent framethat allows almost the pure architecture of thought to becomevisible to the mental eye. Substance is much, but so are modeand form much. The poet, like a delighted boy, brings you heapsof rainbow-bubbles, opaline, air-borne, spherical as the world,instead of a few drops of soap and water, Victor Hugo says well,“An idea steeped in verse becomes suddenly more incisive andmore brilliant: the iron becomes steel.” Lord Bacon, we aretold, “loved not to see poesy go on other feet than poeticaldactyls and spondees;” and Ben Jonson said that “Donne, for notkeeping of accent, deserved hanging.”Poetry being an attempt to express, not the common sense, — asthe avoirdupois of the hero, or his structure in feet and inches,—but the beauty and soul in his aspect as it shines to fancy and

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feeling; and so of all other objects in Nature; runs into fable,personifies every fact: — “the clouds clapped their hands,” —“the hills skipped,” — “the sky spoke.” This is the substance,and this treatment always attempts a metrical grace. Outside ofthe nursery the beginning of literature is the prayers of apeople, and they are always hymns, poetic,—-the mind allowingitself range, and therewith is ever a corresponding freedom inthe style, which becomes lyrical. The prayers of nations arerhythmic, have iterations and alliterations like the marriage-service and burial-service in our liturgies,Poetry will never be a simple means, as when history orphilosophy is rhymed, or laureate odes on state occasions arewritten. Itself must be its own end, or it is nothing. Thedifference between poetry and stock poetry is this, that in thelatter the rhythm is given and the sense adapted to it; whilein the former the sense dictates the rhythm. I might even saythat the rhyme is there in the theme, thought and imagethemselves. Ask the fact for the form. For a verse is not avehicle to carry a sentence as a jewel is carried in a case: theverse must be alive, and inseparable from its contents, as thesoul of man inspires and directs the body, and we measure theinspiration by the music. In reading prose, I am sensitive assoon as a sentence drags; but in poetry, as soon as one worddrags. Ever as the thought mounts, the expression mounts. ’T iscumulative also: the poem is made up of lines each of which fillsthe ear of the poet in its turn, so that mere synthesis producesa work quite superhuman.Indeed, the masters sometimes rise above themselves to strainswhich charm their readers, and which neither any competitorcould outdo, nor the bard himself again equal. Try this strainof Beaumont and Fletcher:—

“Hence, all ye vain delights, As short as are the nights In which you spend your folly! There’s naught in this life sweet, If men were wise to see ’t, But only melancholy. Oh! sweetest melancholy! Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes, A sigh that piercing mortifies, A look that’s fastened to the ground, A tongue chained up without a sound; Fountain-heads and pathless groves, Places which pale Passion loves, Midnight walks, when all the fowls Are warmly housed, save bats and owls: A midnight bell, a passing groan, These are the sounds we feed upon, Then stretch our bones in a still, gloomy valley.Nothing’s so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.”

Keats disclosed by certain lines in his Hyperion this inwardskill: and Coleridge showed at least his love and appetency for

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it. It appears in Ben Jonson’s songs, including certainly TheFaery beam upon you, etc., Waller’s Go, Lovely Rose! Herbert’sVirtue and Easter, and Lovelace’s lines To Althea and ToLucasta, and Collins’s Ode to Evening, all but the last verse,which is academical. Perhaps this dainty style of poetry is notproducible to-day, any more than a right Gothic cathedral. Itbelonged to a time and taste which is not in the world.As the imagination is not a talent of some men but is the healthof every man, so also is this joy of musical expression. I knowthe pride of mathematicians and materialists, but they cannotconceal from me their capital want. The critic, the philosopher,is a failed poet. Gray avows that “he thinks even a bad verseas good a thing or better than the best observation that wasever made on it.” I honor the naturalist; I honor the geometer,but he has before him higher power and happiness than he knows.Yet we will leave to the masters their own forms. Newton may bepermitted to call Terence a playbook, and to wonder at thefrivolous taste for rhymers: he only predicts, one would say, agrander poetry: he only shows that he is not yet reached; thatthe poetry which satisfies more youthful souls is not such to amind like his, accustomed to grander harmonies:—this being achild’s whistle to his ear; that the music must rise to a loftierstrain, up to Händel, up to Beethoven, up to the thorough-baseof the seashore, up to the largeness of astronomy: at last thatgreat heart will hear in the music beats like its own; the wavesof melody will wash and float him also, and set him into concertand harmony.Bards and Trouveurs.—The metallic force of primitive words makesthe superiority of the remains of the rude ages. It costs theearly bard little talent to chant more impressively than thelater, more cultivated poets. His advantage is that his wordsare things, each the lucky sound which described the fact, andwe listen to him as we do to the Indian, or the hunter, or miner,each of whom represents his facts as accurately as the cry ofthe wolf or the eagle tells of the forest or the air theyinhabit. The original force, the direct smell of the earth orthe sea, is in these ancient poems, the Sagas of the North, theNibelungen Lied, the songs and ballads of the English andScotch.I find or fancy more true poetry, the love of the vast and theideal, in the Welsh and bardic fragments of Taliessin and hissuccessors, than in many volumes of British Classics. Anintrepid magniloquence appears in all the bards, as:—

“The whole ocean flamed as one wound.” King Regnar Lodbrok.

“God himself cannot procure good for the wicked.” Welsh Triad

A favorable specimen is Taliessin’s vocation of the Wind at thedoor of Castle Teganwy:—

“Discover thou what it is,- -he strong creature from before the flood,

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Without flesh, without bone, without head, without feet, It will neither be younger nor older than at the beginning; It has no fear, nor the rude wants of created things. Great God! how the sea whitens when it comes!It is in ·the field, it is in the wood, Without hand, without foot, Without age, without season, It is always of the same age with the ages of ages, And of equal breadth with the surface of the earth. It was not born, it sees not, And is not seen; it does not come when desired: It has no form, it bears no burden.For it is void of sin. It makes no perturbation in the place where God wills it, On the sea, on the land.”

In one of his poems he asks:—

“Is there but one course to the wind? But one to the water of the sea? Is there but one spark in the fire of boundless energy!”

He says of his hero, Cunedda,—

“He will assimilate, he will agree with the deep and theshallow.”

To another,—

“When I lapse to a sinful word, May neither you, nor others hear.”

Of an enemy,—

“The cauldron of the sea was bordered round by his land, but itwould not boil the food of a coward.”

To an exile on an island he says,—

“The heavy blue chain of the sea didst thou, O just man, endure.”

Another bard in like tone says,—

“I am possessed of songs such as no son of man can repeat; oneof them is called the ‘Helper’; it will help thee at thy needin sickness, grief, and all adversities. I know a song which Ineed only to sing when men have loaded me with bonds: when Ising it, my chains fall in pieces and I walk forth at liberty,”

The Norsemen have no less faith in poetry and its power, whenthey describe it thus:—

“Odin spoke everything in rhyme. He and his temple-gods werecalled song-smiths. He could make his enemies in battle blindor deaf, and their weapons so blunt that they could not more cutthan a willow-twig. Odin taught these arts in runes or songs,which are called incantations.”

The Crusades brought out the genius of France, in the twelfth

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century, when Pierre d’Auvergne said,—

“I will sing a new song which resounds in my breast: never wasa song good or beautiful which resembled any other.”

And Pens de Capdeuil declares,—

“Since the air renews itself and softens, so must my heart renewitself, and what buds in it buds and grows outside of it.”

There is in every poem a height which attracts more than otherparts, and is best remembered. Thus, in Morte d’Arthur, Iremember nothing so well as Sir Gawain’s parley with Merlin inhis wonderful prison:

“After the disappearance of Merlin from King Arthur’s court hewas seriously missed, and many knights set out in search of him.Among others was Sir Gawain, who pursued his search till it wastime to return to the court. He came into the forest ofBroceliande, lamenting as he went along. Presently he heard thevoice of one groaning on his right hand; looking that way, hecould see nothing save a kind of smoke which seemed like air,and through which he could not pass; and this impediment madehim so wrathful that it deprived him of speech. Presently heheard a voice which said, ‘Gawain, Gawain, be not out of heartfor everything which must happen will come to pass.’ And whenhe heard the voice thus called him by his right name, he replied,‘Who can this be who hath spoken to me?’ ‘How,’ said the voice,‘Sir Gawain, know you me not?’ You were wont to know me well,but thus things are interwoven and thus the proverb says true,‘Leave the court and the court will leave you.’ So is it withme. Whilst I served King Arthur, I was well known by you and byother barons, but because I have left the court, I am known nolonger, and put in forgetfulness, which I ought not to be iffaith reigned in the world.’ When Sir Gawain heard the voicewhich spoke to him thus, he thought it was Merlin, and heanswered, ‘Sir, certes I ought to know you well, for many timesI have heard your words. I pray you appear before me so that Imay be able to recognize you.’ ‘Ah, sir,’ said Merlin, ‘you willnever see me more, and that grieves me, but I cannot remedy it,and when you shall have departed from this place, I shallnevermore speak to you nor to any other person, save only mymistress; for never other person will be able to discover thisplace for anything which may befall; neither shall I ever go outfrom hence, for in the world there is no such strong tower asthis wherein I am confined; and it is neither of wood, nor ofiron, nor of stone, but of air, without anything else; and madeby enchantment so strong that it can never be demolished whilethe world lasts; neither can I go out, nor can any one come in,save she who hath enclosed me here and who keeps me company whenit pleaseth her: she cometh when she listeth, for her will ishere.” ‘How, Merlin, my good friend,’ said Sir Gawain, ‘are yourestrained so strongly that you cannot deliver yourself nor makeyourself visible unto me; how can this happen, seeing that youare the wisest man in the world?’ ‘Rather,’ said Merlin, ‘thegreatest fool: for I well knew that all this would befall me,

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and I have been fool enough to love another more than myself,for I taught my mistress that whereby she hath imprisoned me insuch a manner that none can set me free.’ ‘Certes, Merlin,’replied Sir Gawain, ‘of that I am right sorrowful, and so willKing Arthur, my uncle, be, when he shall know it, as one who ismaking search after you throughout all countries.’ ‘Well,’ saidMerlin, ‘it must be borne, for never will he see me, nor I him;neither will any one speak with me again after you, it would bevain to attempt it; for you yourself, when you have turned away,will never be able to find the place: but salute for me the kingand the queen and all the barons, and tell them of my condition.You will find the king at Carduel in Wales; and when you arrivethere you will find there all the companions who departed withyou, and who at this day will return. Now then go in the nameof God, who will protect and save the King Arthur, and the realmof Logres, and you also, as the best knights who are in theworld.’ With that Sir Gawain departed joyful and sorrowful;joyful because of what Merlin had assured him should happen tohim, and sorrowful that Merlin had thus been lost.”

Morals.—-We are sometimes apprised that there is a mental powerand creation more excellent than anything which is commonlycalled philosophy and literature; that the high poets, thatHomer, Milton, Shakspeare, do not fully content us. How rarelythey offer us the heavenly bread! The most they have done is tointoxicate us once and again with its taste. They have touchedthis heaven and retain afterwards some sparkle of it: theybetray their belief that such discourse is possible. There issomething—our brothers on this or that side of the sea do notknow it or own it; the eminent scholars of England, historiansand reviewers, romancers and poet included, might deny andblaspheme it,—which is setting us and them aside and the wholeworld also, and planting itself. To true poetry we shall sitdown as the result and justification of the age in which itappears, and think lightly of histories and statutes. None ofyour parlor or piano verse, none of your carpet poets, who arecontent to amuse, will satisfy us. Power, new power, is the goodwhich the soul Seeks. The poetic gift we want, as the health andsupremacy of man, —not rhymes and sonneteering, not book-makingand book-selling; surely not cold spying and authorship.Is not poetry the little chamber in the brain where is generatedthe explosive force which, by gentle shocks, sets in action theintellectual world? Bring us the bards who shall sing all ourold ideas out of our heads, and new ones in; men-making poets;poetry which, like the verses inscribed on Balder’s columns inBreidablik, is capable of restoring the dead to life —poetrylike that verse of Saadi, which the angels testified “met theapprobation of Allah in Heaven;” poetry which finds its rhymesand cadences in the rhymes and iterations of Nature, and is thegift to men of new images and symbols, each the ensign and oracleof an age; that shall assimilate men to it, mould itself intoreligions and mythologies, and impart its quality to centuries;—poetry which tastes the world and reports of it, upbuilding theworld again in the thought;—

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“Not with tickling rhymes, But high and noble matter such as flies From brains entranced, and filled with ecstasies.”

Poetry must be affirmative. It is the piety of the intellect.“Thus saith the Lord,” should begin the song. The poet who shalluse Nature as his hieroglyphic must have an adequate message toconvey thereby.· Therefore when we speak of the Poet in any highsense, we are driven to such examples as Zoroaster and Plato,St. John and Menu, with their moral burdens. The Muse shall bethe counterpart of Nature, and equally rich. I find her not oftenin books. We know Nature and figure her exuberant, tranquil,magnificent in her fertility, coherent; so that every creationis omen of every other. She is not proud of the sea, of thestars, of space or time, or man or woman. All her kinds sharethe attributes of the selectest extremes. But in currentliterature I do not find her. Literature warps away from life,though at first it seems to bind it. In the world of letters howfew commanding oracles! Homer did what he could; Pindar,Æschylus, and the Greek Gnomic poets and the tragedians. Dantewas faithful when not carried away by his fierce hatreds. Butin so many alcoves of English poetry I can count only nine orten authors who are still inspirers and lawgivers to their race.The supreme value of poetry is to educate us to a height beyonditself, or which it rarely reaches;—the subduing mankind toorder and virtue. He is the true Orpheus who writes his ode, notwith syllables, but men. “In poetry,” said Goethe, “only thereally great and pure advance us, and this exists as a secondnature, either elevating us to itself, or rejecting us.” Thepoet must let Humanity sit with the Muse in his head, as thecharioteer sits with the hero in the Iliad. “Show me,” saidSarona in the novel, “one wicked man who has written poetry, andI will show you where his poetry is not poetry: or rather, Iwill show you in his poetry no poetry at all.”l have heard that there is a hope which precedes and must precedeall science of the visible or the invisible world; and thatscience is the realization of that hope in either region. I countthe genius of Swedenborg and Wordsworth as the agents of a reformin philosophy, the bringing poetry back to Nature,— to themarrying of Nature and mind, undoing the old divorce in whichpoetry had been famished and false, and Nature had beensuspected and pagan. The philosophy which a nation receives,rules its religion, poetry, politics, arts, trades and wholehistory. A good poem —say Shakspeare’s Macbeth, or Hamlet, orthe Tempest—goes about the world offering itself to reasonablemen, who read it with joy and carry it to their reasonableneighbors. Thus it draws to it the wise and generous souls,confirming their secret thoughts, and, through their sympathy,really publishing itself. It affects the characters of itsreaders by formulating their opinions and feelings, andinevitably prompting their daily action. If they build ships,they write “Ariel” or “Prospero” or “Ophelia” on the ship’sstern, and impart a tenderness and mystery to matters of fact.The ballad and romance work on the hearts of boys, who recite

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the rhymes to their hoops or their skates if alone, and theseheroic songs or lines are remembered and determine manypractical choices which they make later. Do you think Burns hashad no influence on the life of men and women in Scotland,—hasopened no eyes and ears to the face of Nature and the dignityof man and the charm and excellence of woman!We are a little civil, it must be owned, to Homer and Æschylus,to Dante and Shakspeare, and give them the benefit of the largestinterpretation. We must be a little strict also, and askwhether, if we sit down at home, and do not go to Hamlet, Hamletwill come to us? whether we shall find our tragedy written inhis,—our hopes, wants, pains, disgraces, described to the life,—and the way opened to the paradise which ever in the best hourbeckons us? But our overpraise and idealization of famousmasters is not in its origin a poor Boswellism, but an impatienceof mediocrity. The praise we now give to our heroes we shallunsay when we make larger demands. How fast we outgrow the booksof the nursery,— then those that satisfied our youth. What weonce admired as poetry has long since come to be a sound of tinpans; and many of our later books we have outgrown. Perhaps Homerand Milton will be tin pans yet. Better not to be easily pleased.The poet should rejoice if he has taught us to despise his song;if he has so moved us as to lift us,—to open the eye of theintellect to see farther and better.In proportion as a man’s life comes into union with truth, histhoughts approach to a parallelism with the currents of naturallaws, so that he easily expresses his meaning by naturalsymbols, or uses the ecstatic or poetic speech. By successivestates of mind all the facts of Nature are for the first timeinterpreted. In proportion as his life departs from thissimplicity, he uses circumlocution,—by many words hoping tosuggest what he cannot say. Vexatious to find poets, who are byexcellence the thinking and feeling of the world, deficient intruth of intellect and of affection. Then is conscienceunfaithful, and thought unwise. To know the merit of Shakspeare,read Faust. I find Faust a little too modern and intelligible.We can find such a fabric at several mills, though a littleinferior. Faust abounds in the disagreeable. The vice isprurient, learned, Parisian. In the presence of Jove, Priapusmay be allowed as an offset, but here he is an equal hero. Theegotism, the wit, is calculated. The book is undeniably writtenby a master, and stands unhappily related to the whole modernworld: but it is a very disagreeable chapter of literature, andaccuses the author as well as the times. Shakspeare could nodoubt have been disagreeable, had he less genius, and ifugliness had attracted him. In short, our English nature andgenius has made the worst critics of Goethe,—

“We, who speak the tongue That Shakspeare spake, the faith and manners hold Which Milton held.”

It is not style or rhymes, or a new image more or less thatimports, but sanity; that life should not be mean; that life

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should be an image in every part beautiful; that the oldforgotten splendors of the universe should glow again for us; —that we should lose our wit, but gain our reason. And when lifeis· true to the poles of Nature, the streams of truth will rollthrough us in song.

Transcendency —In a cotillion some persons dance and othersawait their turn when the music and the figure come to them. Inthe dance of God there is not one of the chorus but can and willbegin to spin, monumental as he now looks, whenever the musicand figure reach his place and duty. O celestial Bacchus! drivethem mad, — this multitude of vagabonds, hungry for eloquence,hungry for poetry, starving for symbols, perishing for want ofelectricity to vitalize this too much pasture, and in the longdelay indemnifying themselves with the false wine of alcohol,of politics or of money.Every man may be, and at some time a man is, lifted to a platformwhence he looks beyond sense to moral and spiritual truth, andin that mood deals sovereignly with matter, and strings wordslike beads upon his thought. The success with which this is donecan alone determine how genuine is the inspiration. The poet israre because he must be exquisitely vital and sympathetic, and,at the same time, immovably centred. In good society, nay, amongthe angels in heaven, is not everything spoken in fine parable,and not so servilely as it befell to the sense? All issymbolized. Facts are not foreign, as they seem, but related.Wait a little and we see the return of the remote hyperboliccurve. The solid men complain that the idealist leaves out thefundamental facts; the poet complains that the solid men leaveout the sky. To every plant there are two powers; one shootsdown as rootlet, and one upward as tree. You must have eyes ofscience to see in the seed its nodes; you must have the vivacityof the poet to perceive in the thought its futurities. The poetis representative, — whole man, diamond-merchant, symbolizer,emancipator; in him the world projects a scribe’s hand andwrites the adequate genesis. The nature of things is flowing, ametamorphosis. The free spirit sympathizes not only with theactual form, but with the power or possible forms; but forobvious municipal or parietal uses God has given us a bias or arest on to-day’s forms. Hence the shudder of Joy with which ineach clear moment we recognize the metamorphosis, because it isalways a conquest, a surprise from the heart of things. One wouldsay of the force in the works of Nature, all depends on thebattery. If it give one shock, we shall get to the fish form,and stop; if two shocks, to the bird; if three, to the quadruped;if four, to the man. Power of generalizing differences men. Thenumber of successive saltations the nimble thought can make,measures the difference between the highest and lowest ofmankind. The habit of saliency, of not pausing but going on, isa sort of importation or domestication of the Divine effort ina man. After the largest circle has been drawn, a larger can bedrawn around it. The problem of the poet is to unite freedomwith precision; to give the pleasure of color, and be not lessthe most powerful of sculptors. Music seems to you sufficient,

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or the subtle and delicate scent of lavender; but Dante was freeimagination, — all wings, — yet he wrote like Euclid. And markthe equality of Shakspeare to the comic, the tender and sweet,and to the grand and terrible. A little more or less skill inwhistling is of no account. See those weary pentameter tales ofDryden and others. Turnpike is one thing and blue sky another.Let the poet, of all men, stop with his inspiration. Theinexorable rule in the muses’ court, either inspiration orsilence, compels the bard to report only his supreme moments.It teaches the enormous force of a few words, and in proportionto the inspiration checks loquacity. Much that we call poetryis but polite verse. The high poetry which shall thrill andagitate mankind, restore youth and health, dissipate the dreamsunder which men reel and stagger, and bring in the new thoughts,the sanity and heroic aims of nations, is deeper hid and longerpostponed than was America or Australia, or the finding of steamor of the galvanic battery. We must not conclude against poetryfrom the defects of poets. They are, in our experience, men ofevery degree of skill, — some of them only once or twicereceivers of an inspiration, and presently falling back on a lowlife. The drop of ichor that tingles in their veins has not yetrefined their blood and cannot lift the whole man to thedigestion and function of ichor, — that is, to god-like nature.Time will be when ichor shall be their blood, when what are nowglimpses and aspirations shall be the routine of the day. Yeteven partial ascents to poetry and ideas are forerunners, andannounce the dawn. In the mire of the sensual life, theirreligion, their poets, their admiration of heroes andbenefactors, even their novel and newspaper, nay, theirsuperstitions also, are hosts of ideals, — a cordage of ropesthat hold them up out of the slough. Poetry is inestimable as alonely faith, a lonely protest in the uproar of atheism.But so many men are ill-born or ill-bred, — the brains are somarred, so imperfectly formed, unheroically, brains of the sonsof fallen men, that the doctrine is imperfectly received. Oneman sees a spark or shimmer of the truth and reports it, and hissaying becomes a legend or golden proverb for ages, and othermen report as much, but none wholly and well. Poems! — we haveno poem. Whenever that angel shall be organized and appear onearth, the Iliad will be reckoned a poor ballad-grinding. Idoubt never the riches of Nature, the gifts of the future, theimmense wealth of the mind. O yes, poets we shall have,mythology, symbols, religion, of our own. We too shall know howto take up all this industry and empire, this Westerncivilization, into thought, as easily as men did when arts werefew; but not by holding it high, but by holding it low. Theintellect uses and is not used, — uses London and Paris andBerlin, East and West, to its end. The only heart that can helpus is one that draws, not from our society, but from itself, acounterpoise to society. What if we find partiality and meannessin us.? The grandeur of our life exists in spite of us, — allover and under and within us, in what of us is inevitable andabove our control. Men are facts as well as persons, and the

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involuntary part of their life is so much as to fill the mindand leave them no countenance to say aught of what is so trivialas their selfish thinking and doing. Sooner or later that whichis now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shalladd a richer strain to the song.

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1st published American edition of RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM, THE ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA. RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE, based on Edward J. Fitzgerald’s 3d version of 1872.

1878

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Edward J. Fitzgerald’s RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM AND THE SÁLAMÁN AND ABSÁL OF JÁMI. RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE (4th version, together with his reduced translation of the Salaman and Absal story by Jami. Bernard Quaritch, 15 Piccadilly, London. Fcap. 4to, half Roxburghe. 101 quatrains).

1879

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September 21, Wednesday: In the Treaty of Akhal, Persia officially recognized Russia’s annexation of Turkmenistan.

1881

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Friedrich Nietzsche. ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA, EIN BUCH FÜR ALLE UND KEINEN; 1961, THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA, tr. R.J. Hollingdale, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982c (1883-1885)

1883

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1st illustrated edition of Edward J. Fitzgerald’s THE RUBAIYAT, published by Houghton Mifflin in Boston.

1884

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May 3, Monday: At the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company factory in Chicago, 176 policemen attempted to intervene in a fight between employees who were striking for an 8-hour workday and “scab” strikebreakers, and two of the crowd of 200 employees were killed.

1886

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May 4, Tuesday: Queen Victoria officially opened the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in Royal Albert Hall, London. Ode for the Opening of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition by Arthur Sullivan to words of Tennyson was performed for the initial time.

Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter received 3 patents to cover improvements on their graphophone (this would be the first practical phonograph).

During a protest rally at Haymarket Square in Chicago, about the police killings of the previous day, someone lobbed a bomb and the police opened fire. Many people were injured and there were at least 10 killed, including policemen. Eight of the activists would be singled out for prosecution and convicted of inciting to riot through “inflammatory speeches and publications.” One of the accused men would comment sarcastically to the trial judge that they ought to hang his wife and children with him — since in attending the Haymarket speeches these innocents had been doing exactly as much as he had. Four of these thought-criminals would be hanged, and another would commit suicide while awaiting hanging.

Lysander Spooner would write about these martyred workers in Boston’s anarchist magazine Liberty.

After passions had cooled and it had come to be recognized that no link had been established between them and the unknown person who had thrown the bomb, the three still surviving eventually would receive full

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pardons!

When the four men would be hanged, they would be hanged inside all-enveloping white shrouds with hoods, and short ropes would be used so that when they fell their necks would not snap. They were intended to hang there jerking, swinging from side to side and dying slowly by strangulation.

Those who know something about this sort of thing (I do, since I was trapped inside the Khomeini Revolution in Iran in 1977-1979) know that there is always the possibility of reverse responsibility, or what is known as a “false flag” maneuver. That is to say, just as it turned out to be SAVAK, the Shahanshah’s secret police, who were responsible for the Rex Theater tragedy in Abadan in which so many innocent families were burned to death rather than the fundamentalist revolutionaries who were the prime suspects at the time, so also, in the case of the Haymarket incident, it is at least theoretically possible that it was a policeman who threw the dynamite that set off the incident, in an attempt to make the Chicago anarchists more culpable and therefore more vulnerable to police action. That possibility should at least have been the cause to some investigation, and most definitely it was not.

Since we have suicide bombers today and most of them seem to be Muslim, there is a detail of these 19th-

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Century circumstances to which we now should be paying careful attention. It is that in this American labor situation is the origin of the idea of the suicide bomber despite the fact that there were zero Muslims on the scene. Nitroglycerin had been around since the 1840s, and Alfred Nobel had figured out a way to make the substance stable enough to be carried and handled by mixing it with an inert filler material. It was being speculated that if every worker had a few pounds of dynamite in his pocket, every worker would be being treated with respect: dynamite as the great equalizer. In this year, therefore, the wife of Albert Parsons, an anarchist, suggested that since there were always unfortunates who were contemplating drowning themselves, there was a better course that might be made available to them: they be rendered useful to society, and make their deaths meaningful, by becoming suicide bombers. By their death as a sacrifice they could make themselves a force of protest on behalf of justice in an otherwise out-of-all-control labor situation. Perhaps, if enough workers could be persuaded to make themselves suicide bombers, killing themselves in conjunction with the police and capitalists who were oppressing them, she speculated, it would be possible to get the average workweek down from 60 hours to, say, 48 — so that laborers could have some time to feel the sunshine and smell the flowers:

We want to feel the sunshineWe want to smell the flowers;We’re sure God has willed it,And we mean to have eight hours.

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LETTERS AND LITERARY REMAINS OF Edward Fitzgerald, edited by William Aldis Wright in 3 volumes. London: Macmillan and Co., and New York (this contained the 5th version of his THE RUBAIYAT).

1889

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June 23, Tuesday: Armenian resistance at Van ended with a peace brokered by the British Consul. The Turks promised them safe passage if they would leave Ottoman territory. After about 1,000 fighters had left for Iran, they would be set upon at Karahisar mountain by Turkish troops and only 35 would survive. Although only 400 Armenians were killed in the 9 days of fighting in Van, the surrounding villages were destroyed by the Turks and Armenian dead would be thus estimated at approximately 20,000.

A “William Tell Bank” was patented by Russell Frisbie of Cromwell, Connecticut:

To operate this bank, one pulls the gun’s hammer back and inserts a coin in the slot on the top of the gunbarrel. In doing this, the head of William Tell lowers as if he is taking careful aim. When one presses the right arm of the boy down, this brings a yellow apple to the top of his head. For optional sound effects, a paper explosive cap of the type used in play cap pistols may be placed inside the gun barrel. To deposit the coin in the bank, one presses on the father’s right foot. The head of the father recoils backward and the cap explodes as the coin knocks the apple from the son’s head and the coin, entering the aperture, strikes against a bell inside.68

1896

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This brightly colored and immensely popular iron toy savings bank was initially distributed as a promotional item by the local bank of Cromwell, Connecticut.

68. An actual 400+ grain “quarrel” or “bolt” discharged from an actual 700-pound draw military crossbow would reach a velocity of 130-140 feet per second. That’s not as fast as a speeding bullet, but plenty fast enough to put a part in your son’s hair. (Modern fiberglass crossbows can achieve 200 feet per second. Neither modern nor ancient crossbows can be dry-snapped without a quarrel as they may very well tear themselves into flying fragments.) Here is an actual quarrel from a 15th-Century German crossbow:

WALDEN: While these things go up other things come down. Warnedby the whizzing sound, I look up from my book and see some tallpine, hewn on far northern hills, which has winged its way overthe Green Mountains and the Connecticut, shot like an arrowthrough the township within ten minutes, and scarce another eyebeholds it; going

“to be the mastOf some great ammiral.”

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This toy taught generations of little children that they needed to trust their parents –really really trust them– or perhaps, it taught them that on the one hand there were human relations, that was one matter, and on the other hand, there was money, another matter entirely. (We have all of us been educated thus as sons of Tell.)

(People still play around with this legend. For instance, on January 16, 2001, at a circus performance in Paris,

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

WALDEN: Far through unfrequented woods on the confines of towns,where once only the hunter penetrated by day, in the darkest nightdart these bright saloons without the knowledge of theirinhabitants; this moment stopping at some brilliant station-housein town or city, where a social crowd is gathered, the next inthe Dismal Swamp, scaring the owl and fox. The startings andarrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village day. Theygo and come with such regularity and precision, and their whistlecan be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them,and thus one well conducted institution regulates a wholecountry. Have not men improved somewhat in punctuality since therailroad was invented? Do they not talk and think faster in thedepot than they did in the stage-office? There is somethingelectrifying in the atmosphere of the former place. I have beenastonished at the miracles it has wrought; that some of myneighbors, who, I should have prophesied, once for all, wouldnever get to Boston by so prompt a conveyance, were on hand whenthe bell rang. To do things “railroad fashion” is now the by-word;and it is worth the while to be warned so often and so sincerelyby any power to get off its track. There is no stopping to readthe riot act, no firing over the heads of the mob, in this case.We have constructed a fate, an Atropos, that never turns aside.(Let that be the name of your engine.) Men are advertised that ata certain hour and minute these bolts will be shot towardparticular points of the compass; yet it interferes with no man’sbusiness, and the children go to school on the other track.We live the steadier for it. We are all educated thus to be sonsof Tell. The air is full of invisible bolts. Every path but yourown is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.

WILLIAM TELL

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Mme Cathy Jamet has been shot in the face by a crossbow arrow fired by her husband M Alain Jamet.)

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Publication of Edward J. Fitzgerald’s version of Attar’s CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS, together with a version of Salaman and Absal.

1899

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May 17, Thursday: British forces at Mafeking, South Africa, were relieved after a Boer siege of 217 days.

Boxers destroyed 3 villages near Peking, killing 61 Chinese Christians.

Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, who would become the Ayatollah religious leader of the Shi’ites, was born (of course, per his very name, in Khomein, Iran).

THE TASK OF THE HISTORIAN IS TO CREATE HINDSIGHT WHILE INTERCEPTING ANY ILLUSION OF FORESIGHT. NOTHING A HUMAN CAN

SEE CAN EVER BE SEEN AS IF THROUGH THE EYE OF GOD. THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO’S CENTER OF THE AMERICAN WEST HAS AS ITS OFFICIAL MOTTO “TURNING HINDSIGHT INTO FORESIGHT” —

WHICH INDICATES THAT ONLY PANDERERS ARE WELCOME THERE.IN A BOOK THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT HISTORY, ISSUED BY

RANDOM HOUSE IN 2016, I FIND THE PHRASE “LOOKED UPON FROM THE BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF HISTORY, ....” ONLY A MERE STORYTELLER,

NEVER A HISTORIAN, COULD HAVE PENNED SUCH A PHRASE — BECAUSE NO BIRD HAS EVER FLOWN OVER HISTORY.

20TH CENTURY

1900

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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Publication of a definitive edition of Edward J. Fitzgerald’s LETTERS AND LITERARY REMAINS, with details of all editions of his translation of the RUBAIYAT.

1903

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The Anglo-Russian Entente concerning the integrity and independence of Persia.

1907

READ THE FULL TEXT

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February 28, Friday: A couple of bombs were thrown at a carriage carrying Shah Mohammed Ali in Tehran. Some guards were killed but the Shah was unhurt.

1908

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July 12, Monday: Joey Faye, comedian of “Joey Faye’s Follies,” was born on Henry Thoreau’s birthday in New York City, and the 16th Amendment to the federal Constitution was confirmed, granting to the national government the power to tax incomes.

Liberal forces retook Tehran.

1909

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August 19, Saturday: Anton Webern sent Arnold Schoenberg something of a mash note, “I believe that the disciples of Jesus Christ could not have felt more deeply for their Lord than we for you.”

The Potsdam Agreement had it that Russia would support the German project for a Baghdad Railroad, and would in return receive a free hand in Persia (Iran).

1911

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May 2, Sunday: 6AM. Germans and Austro-Hungarians began a massive offensive against the Russians. Bombardment began all along the line stretching from the Carpathian Mountains to the Vistula River. German troops captured Gorlice southeast of Krakow.

In Barcelona, 2 works for cello and piano by Enrique Granados were performed for the initial time: “Madrigal” and “Trova.”

British South Africa troops under General Botha captured Otymbingue in German Southwest Africa.

Halil Pasha’s forces, defeated by the Russian Army in the Caucasus and in northern Iran, retreated to Van, Bitlis, and Mush — where they participated in the massacre of Armenians.

3,000 English and French civilians were taken into custody in Constantinople.

1915

WORLD WAR I

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Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini’s father Seyyed Mostafa Hendi had been murdered during Ruhollah’s infancy. When his mother Hajieh Agha Khanum and his aunt Sahebeth died during this year, his brother Seyed Mourteza was made the head of the family.

1918

IRAN

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The attorney Clarence Darrow provided a critical essay for a new edition of Edward J. Fitzgerald’s translation of the quatrains of Omar Khayyam.

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was born in Tehran.

1919

IRAN

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Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini went to Sultanabad for his education.

1920

IRAN

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Reza Khan, a military officer in Persia’s Cossack Brigade, successfully staged a coup against the government of the Qajar Dynasty and designated himself Shah of Persia. He immediately launched an ambitious campaign to gain support for himself by modernizing the nation. Among other schemes he hoped to develop a national public education system, build a national railroad system, and improve health care.

George Washington Carver appeared before the US Congress’s Ways and Means Committee to promote a protective tariff on peanuts, a valuable food resource.

February 21, Monday: The Red Army moved into Dushanbe.

Without a functioning government in Tehran, Brigadier General Reza Khan engineered a coup and seized power.

A conference of the wartime allies opened in London to discuss Greek claims in Anatolia.

At the invitation of Sergei Diaghilev, Igor Stravinsky met Vera de Bosset Sudeikina, a married Russian woman, in Paris. They hit it off immediately and would soon begin an affair.

1921

PLANTS

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For the following period of years Harry S Truman would be attending the Kansas City School of Law (apparently he would not ever sit for the law exam).

Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini went to Qom to continue his education.

1923

IRAN

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September 10, Wednesday: From this day until Monday the 15th, US forces would yet again be needing to protect American lives and interests in Honduras during election hostilities.

The attorney Clarence Darrow quoted from Edward J. Fitzgerald’s translation of the quatrains of Omar Khayyam in the summation of his plea for mercy for the murderers Nathan Freudenthal Leopold, Jr. and Richard Albert Loeb before an Illinois judge:

I feel that I should apologize for the length of time I havetaken. This case may not be as important as I think it is, andI am sure I do not need to tell this court, or to tell my friendsthat I would fight just as hard for the poor as for the rich.If I should succeed, my greatest reward and my greatest hopewill be that for the countless unfortunates who must tread thesame road in blind childhood that these poor boys have trod—thatI have done something to help human understanding, to temperjustice with mercy, to overcome hate with love.I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persianpoet, Omar Khayyam. It appealed to me as the highest that I canvision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in thehearts of all.

“So I be written in the Book of Love,“I do not care about that Book above.“Erase my name or write it as you will,“So I be written in the Book of Love.”

They were then sentenced to life in prison plus 99 years for the kidnapping and murder of Robert Franks (Loeb would be killed by a fellow prisoner in 1936, and after 33 years of imprisonment Leopold would be paroled in 1958, dying at the age of 66 in 1971).

Muslims massacred Hindus in Kohat, Northwest Frontier Province, India.

1924

US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

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When Ahmad Shah, the Qajar dynasty’s final ruler, was deposed while visiting France, an assembly voted to accept Reza Khan (who had adopted as a new family name “Pahlavi”) as Persia’s new Shah.

March 31, Tuesday: Antti Agaton Tulenheimo replaced Lauri Johannes Ingman as prime minister of Finland.

The solar Hijri calendar was adopted in Iran.

1925

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Reza Khan Pahlavi was crowned, marking the initiation of a “Pahlavi Dynasty.” This new Shah’s eldest son, who was something like 6 years old, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was simultaneously designated to be the crown prince.

At the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy, Turandot, a dramma lirico by Giacomo Puccini to words of Adami and Simoni, after Gozzi and Schiller, was performed for the initial time, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Duce Benito Mussolini was not present, because Toscanini has refused to include the Fascist anthem La Giovinezza. During the performance, after the death of Liù, the conductor stopped the orchestra, turned to the audience, and announced “at this point, the master put down his pen.” There was a long silence. Then, from the balcony came the shout “Viva Puccini!” followed by a long ovation (the “completed” version by Franco Alfano would be heard at the 2d performance, on April 27th).

1926

IRAN

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September 7, Monday: The 2d Round Table Conference on India opened in London, attended by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as the sole representative of the Indian National Congress.

Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi left the Niavaran Palace primary school in Tehran, Iran for the Institut Le Rosey boarding school in Rolle, in the Canton of Vaud, Switzerland — this planet’s most expensive and exclusive private school.

Olivier Messiaen was offered the position of organist at L’Eglise de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris (he would, of course, accept).

1931

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December 25, Tuesday: Reza Khan Pahlavi had fallen under the spell of Hitler and Nazism and had embraced the conceit that he was descended from the original Aryans adored by the Nazis, and therefore a leader of a master race of the whitest of white human beings (it wasn’t just that he had the crowniest crown of all, adorned with the most jeweliest jewels of all, or that he had the most throniest throne of all, the famed “Peacock Throne.”) Also, coincidentally, he was hoping for the German Reich to reduce the petro/political domination of the British in the Middle East. A Nazi banker, Dr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, President of the National Bank (Reichsbank), was at the time on a visit to Persia, while Germany had fallen under the spell of a racial fever and was deliberately cultivating good relations with nations that it considered to be likewise of “Aryan” blood. German friends of the Persian ambassador to the government of Adolf Hitler persuaded him that, as of the advent of Reza Shah Pahlavi, Persia had turned a new leaf in its history and freed itself from the pernicious influences of Britain and Russia, whose interventions in Persian affairs had under the Qajars practically crippled the nation. On this Christmas day the Persian Ministry for Foreign Affairs posted a circular memorandum to all diplomatic missions in Tehran with which it had relations, requesting that as of March 21, 1935, Now Ruz, Iranian following new year’s day, they begin to substitute the appropriate terms “Iran” and “Iranian” in all official correspondence and conversation in place of the previously customary “Persia” and “Persian.” Reza Shah Pahlavi instructed His Majesty’s Minister in Tehran to sponsor this new nomenclature, to signal to the world that the population of Persia was of the ancient honored Aryan race of the very whitest of all very white people, “Iran” being a direct cognate of and derivative of “Aryan.” The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent out a circular to all foreign embassies in Tehran, requesting that the country thenceforth be denominated “Iran.” Diplomatic courtesy obliged, and the name “Iran” became the default terminology in official correspondence and in news items.

1934

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1935

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A movie was made, starring Basil Rathbone, of the last days of Pompeii.

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This was the year during which Nylon fibers, polyethylene plastic, and sulfa drug therapy were introduced.

Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi lost his virginity to a maid at the Le Rosey boarding school in Switzerland (which makes it seem unlikely that he had any physically sexual relationship with the flamboyantly homosexual young gardener and poet there, Ernest Perron, who had become his fast friend). Finishing primary school and returning to Iran, his daddy enrolled him in the Tehran military school from which he would graduate in 1938.

March 21, Thursday: As of Now Ruz, Persia became Iran, homeland of the white people.

Still hobbled by the accident of last September, Vaura Honegger moved in with her husband Arthur in Paris (this would was the 1st time they had cohabitated during their 9 years of marriage).

Concertino de printemps op.135 for violin and orchestra by Darius Milhaud was performed for the initial time, in Paris, conducted by the composer.

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The 1st Volkswagen was assembled by hand with an air-cooled rear engine in Nazi Germany, and the cornerstone of a new factory was put into position. This people’s car would not go into production for another decade — but eventually, delayed somewhat by a major war, some 18,000,000 would be being driven around.

Having learned how to don a uniform, Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was allowed to graduate from his Tehran military school (in order to point up its special relationship with the real white people, which is to say, the Aryans, his nation of Iran was no longer being referred to as “Persia”).

Time Magazine made Führer Adolf Hitler its “Man of the Year” and wrote an appreciative profile of Der Führer. There was a special performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in honor of Hitler’s birthday. In Britain, the editor of the London Times, Geoffrey Dawson, had no doubt that an Anglo/German deal was vital for world peace. Hitler was presenting his invasions as defensive and humanitarian operations that were being necessitated by the threat posed to the 3rd Reich at home or to ethnic Germans abroad by evil locals in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, etc. Gertrude Stein had been plumping for Hitler to be the recipient. “I say that Hitler ought to have the peace prize, because he is removing all the elements of contest and of struggle from Germany,” she had written in the New York Times Magazine during May 1934. “By driving out the Jews and the democratic and left element, he is driving out everything that conduces to activity. That means peace.... By suppressing Jews ... he was ending struggle in Germany.”

The Nobel Peace Prize committee’s “Short List” for the gold medal was headed by Führer Adolf Hitler as civilization’s bulwark against Bolshevism — and by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as the East’s proper response to Western imperialism — but in the end the good folks in Norway would “chicken out” and award their humongous prize less controversially, to the Nansen International Office for Refugees (Office International Nansen pour les Réfugiés), a soon-to-be-dispensed-with agency of the League of Nations.

Pearl “John Hedges” Sydenstricker Buck also received a Nobel.

Germany annexed Austria. Immediately, the University of Vienna was purged of all Jewish and liberal associates. Assistant Professor Dr. Hans Asperger, who had since 1934 made himself familiar with German trends in child psychiatry, became more confident in diagnosing the social shortcomings of children who

1938

ALFRED NOBEL

CHINA

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appeared to lack social connection in their embracing community — such as for instance teenage boys who appeared unenthusiastic about the prospect of being able to join righteous collective Reich activities like Hitler Youth. Were they not on the spectrum he defined as autistic psychopathy syndrome? The Assistant Professor warned that although some high-functioning individuals would be able to contribute to society, on the other hand there might well be “less favorable cases” who would as adults “roam the streets.” Would it not be better to dispose of this sort of person immediately and benevolently, rather than allow them an opportunity to grow into “grotesque and dilapidated” criminal adults? In fact dozens of children evaluated by this Assistant Professor would be murdered in their beds at Am Spiegelgrund in Vienna beginning in July 1939, by “mercy killing” (Gnadentod) night nurses bearing syringes loaded with helpful euthanasia injections, as part of Hitler’s “T4” eugenics (Rassenhygiene) program.

Führer Hitler wasn’t the only guy who was doing national unity and the suppression of internal dissent during this period. When, a few years later, German troops would occupy the town of Vinnitsa in Russia, they would find any number of mass graves full of the corpses of Kulaks, small landowners, each one shot in the neck as an “enemy of the people” for not having embraced the collectivization policies of Iosef Vissarionovich Dzugashvili, known as “Stalin.” Local Ukrainians would tell them that from 1938 until their arrival the trucks had been coming and going day and night, bringing these Kulaks from NKVD prisons.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s LISTEN! THE WIND. Charles Lindbergh’s Grosskreuz Des Ordens Vom Deutschenadler, presented to him by Hermann Goering at the suggestion of Führer Hitler.

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May: Josef Mengele was admitted to the SS. A neat man, he would look great in the uniform.

Princess Fawzia of Egypt and Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran became engaged (before their wedding they would be allowed to glimpse each other, once).

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March 15, Wednesday: 3:55AM. After initially collapsing in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin due to the stress of it all, President Emil Hácha of Czechoslovakia had recovered sufficiently that he was able to place his signature upon a communique, putting his nation in the hands of Führer Adolf Hitler.

4:30AM. President Emil Hácha of Czechoslovakia broadcast a radio message urging his people to remain calm.

Later in the morning, German troops and the Führer himself rolled into Bohemia and Moravia.

Hungary, at German insistence, took Ruthenia in heavy fighting against armed citizens. By nightfall the German army had occupied Prague.

Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Her Sultanic Highness Princess Fawzia bint Fuad, who had likewise been educated in Switzerland and who looked something like Hedy Lamarr, or maybe something like Vivien Leigh, had the 1st of their 2 wedding ceremonies, the one in Egypt. This was to be a political marriage in the sense that somebody who was at least nominally a Shi’ite Muslim who was a member of a royal family of Iran was getting married with somebody who was at least nominally a Sunni Muslim who was a member of a royal family of Egypt. The bride’s brother King Farouk I took the newlyweds out for a tour of the Great Pyramids, which are so near to the city of Cairo that they might well be described as within that city.

Two Symphonic Interludes from Macbeth by Ernest Bloch was performed for the initial time, in Bournemouth.

April 21, Friday: Sarah Person Duke Gardens was dedicated at Duke University as a tribute from Mary Duke Biddle to her mother, the wife of Benjamin Newton Duke.

From this day until April 23d, Duke University would be celebrating the centennial of its founding as an educational institution. Delegates from nearly 400 colleges and scholarly societies would be in attendance. Speakers would include the presidents of Princeton University in New Jersey and Brown University in Rhode Island. The highlight of the celebration would be an address by Eduard Benes, exiled president of Czechoslovakia, who would speak about European politics on the very eve of World War II.

From this day until April 24th, Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Her Sultanic Highness Princess Fawzia bint Fuad would be having the 2d of their 2 wedding ceremonies, the one at the Marble Palace of

1939

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Tehran, Iran (yes, the proceedings were so elaborate that they would consume an entire weekend).

A favorable review of the performance of April 19tn in the Rochester Times Union brought the name of Ulysses Kay to the public for the 1st time.

The 7th movement of Les Illuminations op.18 for voice and strings by Benjamin Britten to words of Rimbaud was performed for the initial time, at Queen’s College, Birmingham.

Incidental music to Aristophanes’ play “The Birds” was performed for the initial time, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, directed by the composer Leonard Bernstein in his conducting debut.

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Concord’s “Great Elm,” or “Whipping Post Elm,” or “Town House Elm,” or as it had been known by Henry Thoreau, “Jones Elm,” ravaged by insects and damaged as it had been by the hurricane of 1938, was cut back to a standing trunk (which itself would be turned into kindling during the following spring).

Swami Govinda Tirtha’s THE NECTAR OF GRACE: OMAR KHAYYAM’S LIFE AND WORKS (Kitabistan, Allahabad).

During the early 1940s we know that, in Europe, the poet Ezra Pound, despite his virulent antisemitism,69 despite his affection for Hitler and Mussolini, despite his growing respect for Nazism and Fascism, in fact had been rereading Thoreau with enthusiasm!

Maybe he was being influenced? –Maybe enough contact might have brought this man back from his delusions? –Tugged him back from the rabid brink? Maybe, but we’ll never know — for this didn’t have a chance to happen. In this year, when Pound applied for permission to return to the USA, he got rebuffed by the federal government. “Get lost,” he was told in effect, “for we don’t need you.” Until 1943 therefore the

1941

69. “... my worst mistake was the stupid suburban anti-Semitic prejudice, all along that spoiled everything ... I found after seventy years that I was not a lunatic but a moron ... I should have been able to do better ....” In early 1941, what Pound was fulminating against over the radio was “usury,” the loaning of money at interest, as a cause of war throughout history. In his consideration, understanding the issue of usury was central to understanding history: “Until you know who has lent what to whom, you know nothing whatever of politics, you know nothing whatever of history, you know nothing of international wrangles.”

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poet would be broadcasting pro-fascist propaganda in English on Rome radio.

Was this man unredeemable? Was the Jones Elm a goner? Did we chop them up unnecessarily? –Does this Pound thingie amount to one of the great missed opportunities in our history? Was the publication of that volume on Khayyam’s poetry by Swami Tirtha the sole event of lasting significance during this eventful year?

August 21, Thursday: Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran: Three Soviet armies invaded Iran from the north.

Germans took Chudovo, cutting the railway between Leningrad and Moscow.

German troops took Kherson at the mouth of the Dnieper River.

Australian troops besieged in Tobruk (Tubruq) for 4 months were removed, and replaced with fresh British troops.

In Sabac, Yugoslavia, Germans shot down Jews and Serbs in the street in reprisal for partisan attacks. Other Jews were detained, and obliged to hang these corpses from lampposts.

A young French communist killed a German officer-cadet in a Paris metro station. This was the initial act of resistance in Paris, and 150 randomly selected Frenchmen would pay with their lives.

August 25, Monday: Although Reza Khan Pahlavi had declared Iran as neutral during World War II, Iran’s British-controlled oil interests were being largely maintained by German engineers and technicians, and the Shah was refusing to expel German citizens upon request by Britain. Great Britain and the USSR therefore presented an ultimatum, requiring the Iranians to accept Allied “protection.” Simultaneously, British and Indian forces attacked from Iraq into southern Iran, capturing the Abadan oil refinery, Khorramshahr, and Ahwaz. In northern Iran, the Soviets bombed Tabriz.

British, Canadian, and Norwegian commandos raided Spitsbergen, destroying raw materials and liberating 2,000 Soviet civilians and 50 French POWs.

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August 26, Tuesday: Allied troops took control of the Abadan area. Soviet troops entered Tabriz and bombed Tehran.

German forces captured Dnepropetrovsk.

Unaware that Führer Adolf Hitler has ended the policy of euthanasia, Pastor Bernard Lichtenburg, Provost of St. Hedwig’s Roman Catholic Church in Berlin, wrote to the Reich’s chief medical officer protesting the euthanasia program. He would be arrested and would die at Dachau.

The Ship Warrants Act was invoked by Executive Order. This act empowered President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to direct Maritime Commission to establish cargo handling, ship repair, and maintenance priorities for merchant ships.

August 27, Wednesday: British and Indian forces reached Eslamabad, Iran. The British took Shahabad. The Iranian government resigned.

The Soviets began the evacuation of 23,000 troops from Tallinn.

Former French Prime Minister Pierre Laval and Marcel Déat, editor of the Paris newspaper L’Oeuvre, were shot and wounded near Versailles by Paul Colette, a young member of the Resistance.

Japan protested shipment of United States goods to Vladivostok through Japanese waters.

August 28, Thursday: The Supply, Priorities, and Allocations Board was established.

Iranian forces surrendered to the British and Indians at Kermanshah. Reza Khan Pahlavi was forced to abdicate in favor of his son Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. A new government under Mohammad Ali Khan Forughi took power.

Because of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalin dissolves the Autonomous Republic of the Volga Germans and sent all ethnic Germans east. Harry Schnittke, however, the father of Alfred Schnittke, proved that he was a German Jew, and his family was therefore allowed to remain in Engels (Boronsk).

Finnish forces captured Viipuri (Vyborg), northwest of Leningrad.

German troops took Tallinn.

Soviet soldiers destroy the Zaporozhe dam on the Dnieper.

Acting Governor Charles Poletti of New York banned an exhibit on birth control at the state fair in Syracuse. A law described characterized educating the public about birth control as an activity “detrimental to the state.”

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September: British and Soviet forces occupied western Iran and Reza Khan Pahlavi was forced out of power.

Action Group A, consisting of around 800 soldiers under the command of SS General Otto Ohlendorf, would be operating during this month on the Russian southern front. The Sicherheitsdienst office would claim, in its formal report to Führer Adolf Hitler, that during the 2d half of the month, in the area around Nikolaev inclusive of the town of Cherson, they had been able to round up and execute a total of 35,782 Soviet citizens, mostly Jews.

September 9, Tuesday: Iran accepted a British/Soviet armistice. Iran agreed to terms of the occupying Allied forces. They would close all diplomatic missions of Germany, Italy and their allies and turn over all German nationals to the British or Russians. British and Russian occupation zones were set up. Allies would control roads, airports, and communication.

The US Naval Coast Frontier Forces were formed.

A division of Spanish fascist volunteers arrived at Leningrad to help the Germans.

September 14, Sunday: Iran ordered departure of Axis diplomats.

September 16, Tuesday: German forces completed the surrounding and capturing of 600,000 Red Army troops east of Kiev.

German troops captured Pushkin, a suburb of Leningrad.

S.S. troops and Ukrainian militia murdered several hundred Jews at Uman.

Roger J. Williams of the University of Texas announced to a symposium in Chicago that he has discovered a new member of the Vitamin B group, called folic acid.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi seated himself for the 1st time on the Peacock Throne of Iran.

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September 17, Wednesday: For the 1st time, the United States Navy escorted an eastbound British trans-Atlantic convoy.

Anglo/Soviet invasion of Iran: Great Britain and Soviet armed forces met in Tehran and set up a joint occupation. As these foreign troops were arriving, Shahanshah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi took an oath before the Parliament to uphold the constitution.

Dmitri Shostakovich spoke on Leningrad radio to bolster the morale of the city. He arrived at the studio only at the last minute, having needed to take refuge along the way from German artillery. “All of us were now standing militant watch. As a native of Leningrad who has never abandoned the city of my birth, I feel all the tension of this situation most keenly. My life and work were completely bound up with Leningrad.” This evening, several musicians would gather at the Shostakovich apartment to hear him play through two completed movements of his Seventh Symphony. In the middle of this, as air raid sirens began, Shostakovich would escort his wife and children to an air raid shelter, but then he would return to complete his performance.

In San Francisco, Harry Partch paid 21 cents for the ferry to Berkeley, leaving $3.29 in his pocket, and in Berkeley boarded a freight train to Chicago, where a friend of a friend has offered him a place to stay. He would keep sketchy records of this trip — conversations, graffiti, place names. These would form the basis of US Highball.

September 18, Thursday: Incidental music to Machiavelli’s play La Mandragore by Arthur Honegger was performed for the initial time, in Théâtre Fontaine, Paris.

During the retreat of the Soviet army in the direction of Yeletsk, the soldiers came upon a small ravine between Chartsysk and Snizhy stations that was partly filled with the corpses of many teenagers, age range apparently from 14 to 16 years, all attired in the black uniform of the F.S.U. Trade and Craft School in Stalino (now Donets). The Soviet soldiers counted 370 corpses. It would eventually come out, what had happened. These were schoolchildren who had been being evacuated as the German army neared Stalino. After hiking nearly 60 kilometers they had become utterly exhausted. A detachment of the Russian political police, the NKVD, had arrived and machine-gunned them.70

70. No, you didn’t miss something — the callous Germans were not directly involved. This was Russians mowing down their own children.

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September 19, Friday: Cross-border clashes resumed between Ecuador and Peru.

In Germany, it was ordered that Jews six years old or older wear a yellow Star of David in public.

German forces entered Kiev, capturing 500,000 Red Army troops.

276 German planes attacked Leningrad, killing over 1,000 civilians.

September 20, Saturday: The German Army captured Kiev, the Ukrainian capital in the Soviet Union.

Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran restored the constitutional monarchy as the head of a war-neutral regime.

The Bulgarian government declared martial law.

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February 21, Sunday: Fanfares for the Red Army for brass by William Walton was performed for the initial time, in the Royal Albert Hall, London. On the same program was the premiere of A Solemn Fanfare for brass by Arnold Bax.

Music for MacNeice’s play Pericles by Benjamin Britten was performed for the initial time, over the airwaves of the BBC.

This being the 25th anniversary of the Red Army, King George VI of England, who happened to be a distant relative of Tsar Nikolai II, dedicated a sword of honor to the City of Stalingrad (Prime Minister Winston Churchill would dispose of this cutting edge of silliness by handing it off to General Secretary Stalin at the meeting at Tehran in November).

US Marines and Army troops occupied Mbanika and Pavuvu in the Russell Islands of the Solomon Islands northwest of Guadalcanal.

German forces began an offensive towards Kharkov.

German Submarine U-225 was sunk by US Coast Guard cutter Spencer (PG-36) in the North Atlantic, at 51 degrees 25 minutes North, 27 degrees 28 minutes West.

September 10, Sunday: The Red Army landed at Novorossiysk to furious German resistance.

Soviet troops captured Mariupol on the Sea of Azov and Volnovakha to the north as well as Barvenkovo, east of Dnepropetrovsk.

Iran declared war on Germany.

The Italian royal family and senior members of the government reached Brindisi, east of Naples on the Adriatic coast, to set up an anti-fascist administration.

The Italian fleet reached Malta and surrendered.

British troops occupied Castelrosso in the Dodecanese.

German troops entered Rome and disarmed all Italian forces in Italy and Greece.

1943

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November 28, Sunday: Germans surrounded a Soviet force at Korosten, northwest of Kiev, inflicting heavy losses.

Allied troops attacked in force across the Sangro River, Italy.

Heads of state President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Iosef Vissarionovich Dzugashvili (“Stalin”), had a VIP meet in Tehran, Iran. (They’d be birds of a feather plotting together, divvying up the spoils of war until December 1st.)

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November 30, Tuesday: String Quartet no.6 “Il quarteto brasileiro” by Heitor Villa-Lobos was performed for the initial time, in Rio de Janeiro.

German troops drove the Soviets out of Korosten, northwest of Kiev.

Fascist Italy ordered the deportation of all Jews and the complete expropriation of their property.

Prime Minister Badoglio of Free Italy announced in Naples that King Victor Emmanuel III was stripped of the titles “King of Albania” and “Emperor of Ethiopia.”

Destroyers bombarded Japanese positions on Empress Augusta Bay of Bougainville in the Solomon Islands.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reminisced with Iosef Vissarionovich Dzugashvili (“Stalin”) at Tehran that “if the Japanese had not attacked the US he doubted very much if it would have been possible to send any American forces to Europe.”

He made it sound almost as if he had been glad it had happened. –But he couldn’t have been glad for this loss of life, could he?

TeheranThe persons wane and fade, they fade out of meaning. Personal greatnessWas never more than a trick of the light, a halo of illusion: — but who are

these little smiling attendantsOn a world’s agony, meeting in Teheran to plot against whom what future?

The future is clear enough,In the firelight of burning cities and pain-light of that long battle-line,That monstrous ulcer reaching from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea,

slowly rodent westward: There will be RussiaAnd America; two powers alone in the world; two bulls in one pasture. And

what is unlucky Germany

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THE TEHERAN CONFERENCE

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Between these foreheads? Observe also

How rapidly civilization coarsens and decays; its better qualities, foresight,humaneness, disinterested

Respect for truth, die first; its worst will be last. — Oh well: The future!When man stinks, turn to God.

— Robinson Jeffers

December 1, Wednesday: Piano Sonata no.3 by Ernst Krenek was performed for the initial time, in Bridgman Hall, Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota, by the composer.

The US Naval Air Ferry Command was established.

The United States, Great Britain, and China issued a joint statement as a result of the Cairo Conference which had ended on November 26th. They had decided that they were going to strip Japan of any and all territories it had added to itself, since 1895.

The Tehran Conference attended by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Iosef Vissarionovich Dzugashvili (“Stalin”) ended (they had been meeting since November 28th).

December 6, Monday: Opus Americanum for orchestra by Darius Milhaud, composed to thank the country which took him in when he was a refugee, was performed for the initial time, in San Francisco.

The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union issued a joint statement as a result of the Tehran Conference that had ended on December 1st. They pledged themselves to the complete defeat of Germany and the setting up of an enduring and just peace.

General Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower, US Army, was named commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force for the invasion of Europe.

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July 26, Wednesday: Reza Khan Pahlavi died at the age of 66 in exile in Johannesburg, South Africa. Mummified in Egypt, he was eventually interred in a mausoleum near Tehran, Iran. He was reviled by Islamists as a despot, and an extremist mob led by Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq Givi Khalkhali would demolish his elaborate tomb in Rey near Tehran with sledgehammers during April 1980 but would be unable to locate the mummified corpse. A story would spring up, that when Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled he took his father’s body with him, but eventually this would be denied by Empress Farah Pahlavi. In April 2018 a mummified corpse would be discovered near that demolished tomb and re-interred, and Reza Shah’s grandson Reza Pahlavi would confirm (on the basis of whatever evidence) that this had in fact been the corpse of his grandfather.

Red Army forces took Narva, Estonia.

Soviet troops reached the Vistula River (Wista) west of Lublin, and took Deblin.

At Stalin’s direction, the Lublin government began to wield civil power over liberated areas of Poland.

United States naval vessels sunk:

• Submarine Golet (SS-361), Pacific Ocean area; reported as presumed lost• Submarine Robalo (SS-273), unknown cause, off western Palawan, Philippine Islands

Japanese submarine I-29 was sunk by submarine Sawfish (SS-276), Luzon Strait, Philippine Islands 20 degrees 10 minutes North, 121 degrees 50 minutes East

1944

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In his A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY, Bertrand Russell remarked that Omar Khayyam was the only person of whom he was aware, who had been both a poet and a mathematician.

March 1, Thursday: American forces captured Mönchengladbach and Neuss, west of Düsseldorf.

Iran declared war on Japan effective yesterday. Lebanon declared war on Germany and Japan effective today.

Aircraft from fast carrier task force (Vice Admiral M.A. Mitscher) attacked enemy ground installations, aircraft, and shipping in the Okinawa area, Ryukyu Islands.

Army troops supported by naval gunfire and Army aircraft landed on Lubang Island, Philippine Islands.

United States naval vessels damaged, Iwo Jima area:

• Destroyers Terry (DD-513) and Colhoun (DD-801), by coastal defense gun, 24 degrees 47 minutes North, 141 degrees 21 minutes East

• Attack transport Berrien (APA-62), by collision, 24 degrees 46 minutes North, 141 degrees 19 minutes East

Japanese naval vessel sunk: Torpedo boat Manazuru, by carrier-based aircraft, Ryukyu Islands area, 26 degrees 17 minutes North, 127 degrees 35 minutes East

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• Minelayer Tsubame, by carrier-based aircraft, Taiwan area, 24 degrees 23 minutes North, 124 degrees 12 minutes East

March 2, Friday: American soldiers reach the Rhine opposite Düsseldorf but find all bridges destroyed.

American troops captured Trier as well as Roermond and Venlo, east of Eindhoven.

American planes return to bombed Dresden.

Cruiser and destroyer task group (Rear Admiral F.E.M. Whiting) bombarded Japanese positions on Okino Daito Jima, Ryukyu Islands.

Destroyers bombarded the Japanese on Parece Vela Reef in the Philippine Sea.

United States naval vessels damaged, Iwo Jima area:

• Attack cargo ship Stokes (AKA-68), LST224, LST247, LST634, by collision, 24 degrees 46 minutes North, 141 degrees 19 minutes East

• LST642, by grounding, 24 degrees 46 minutes North, 141 degrees 19 minutes East

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May 30, Wednesday: French troops took over the parliament building in Damascus amidst continuing unrest. The Lebanese government asked for volunteers to fight the French.

Iran asked that the governments of the US, UK, and USSR remove their troops from their nation on the basis of the idea that the war was pretty much over.

Zoltán Kodály was elected as a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

La muse ménagère op.245 for piano by Darius Milhaud was performed for the initial time, over the airwaves of Radio-Bruxelles.

String Quartet no.7 by Heitor Villa-Lobos was performed for the initial time, in the Teatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro.

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Between January 1940 and May 1945 the FBI had investigated a total of 19,299 curious incidents of domestic destruction or of interference with production. In 2,282 of these incidents (which amounted sometimes to acts of spite, sometimes to carelessness, and sometimes to malicious mischief or the like) the impact had been determined to have risen to the level of a designation as sabotage — although, truth be told, not a single one of these incidents had exhibited any symptom of having been initiated or directed by any external enemy. They were of course just doing their job, for imagine the pressure that had been placed on ordinary working-stiff Americans to keep their noses to the grindstone while all this wartime suspiciousness had been rampant!

Japanese naval vessel sunk: Submarine I-12, by aircraft (VC-13) from escort carrier Anzio (CVE-57), Philippine Sea, 22 degrees 22 minutes North, 134 degrees 9 minutes East

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October 10, Wednesday: The British government revealed an agreement with the USSR for both countries to quit Iran by the following March 2d.

The Columbia Broadcasting System successfully tested broadcasting of television in color in New York.

The Headquarters of the Commander in Chief United States Fleet (Fleet Admiral E.J. King) was disestablished.

November 16, Friday: Tudeh, the Iranian Communist Party, began an uprising in Azerbaijan province (the Soviet Union was about to establish an “Azerbaijan People’s Government” in that province).

30 Germans were convicted and 14 acquitted by a British military court in Luneburg in connection with their activities at Belsen and Auschwitz. Eleven would be sentenced to death, one to life in prison and the rest to prison terms.

British troops seized all assets of the firm of Friedrich Krupp of Essen.

Two teams led by Glenn T. Seaborg announced the discovery of the new elements Americium and Curium.

Suite anglaise for violin and orchestra by Darius Milhaud was performed for the initial time, in Philadelphia.

Elégie op.251 for cello and piano by Darius Milhaud was performed for the initial time, in Town Hall, New York.

Billy Wilder’s film The Lost Weekend was released in the United States.

A constitution for UNESCO –the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization–was adopted in London (this was intended to become effective on November 4th, 1946).

December 16, Sunday: Former Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye, who was to have surrendered on this day to face war crimes charges, killed himself with poison in his Tokyo home.

A “National Government of Iranian Azerbaijan” was formed in Tabriz after government troops surrendered the city to leftist rebels.

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READ THE FULL TEXT

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January 22, Tuesday: The Soviet-backed Kurdish Republic of Mahabad declared its independence from Iran.

March 2, Saturday: British troops withdrew from Iran. The Soviet Union reneged on its prior agreement and although its troops did leave some regions, they remained in the northwest regions of that nation.

Arabs struck for 12 hours in Palestine over the deportation of Arab leaders to the Seychelles after their capture in Germany.

In Budapest, Hungary, former Hungarian Minister of Agriculture during the German occupation Count Fidel Palffy was hanged as a war criminal.

March 4, Monday: In anti-British rioting in Alexandria, Egypt, 19 were killed and 299 injured.

Leftist rioters in Tehran prevented the Parliament (Majlis) from sitting.

Sonatina canonica on “Capricci” of Nicolò Paganini for piano by Luigi Dallapiccola was performed for the initial time, in Perugia.

At Katowice in Poland, a Polish military court sentenced to death 5 officers of the underground National Armed Forces for having organized efforts, late in the war, to overthrow the Polish Government (11 others were sentenced to between 8 and 10 years in prison).

At the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, after 73 days, the prosecution rested its case.

1946

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March 6, Wednesday: With weapons, uniforms, vehicles and landing craft supplied by the United States, French troops came ashore at Haiphong to recolonize northern Indochina. 10 French soldiers were killed when Chinese troops fired on them “by mistake.”

Prime Minister Gavam of Iran personally protested to Stalin in Moscow about the continued presence of Soviet troops in Iran.

The US government ended wartime controls on many consumer items, including musical instruments and phonograph records.

The British government in Palestine announced that after 5 days of martial law, 25 “known terrorists” had been captured.

The House of Commons approved the British government’s plan for the independence of India. Opposition leader Winston Churchill ridiculed the bill, calling it “Operation Scuttle.”

March 7, Thursday: Police fired on rioters in New Delhi, India, who were objecting to the presence of US troops in a British victory parade, killing 6.

In Tehran, Iran, after a 3-day disruption, due to the presence of armed police the Parliament (Majlis) was able again to assemble.

The British and American governments made a joint announcement, that they had added up the enemy submarines that had sunk during World War II, and determined that 996 of them had sunk for various reasons. Germany had lost the greatest number, 781, while Japan had lost 130 and Italy 85 (this joint announcement did not attempt to explain why, in the last analysis, it was important to be specific in collecting statistics such as these).

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March 13, Wednesday: Malcolm Cowley wrote Kenneth Burke: “I’m working on Whitman, the old cocksucker. Very strange amalgam he made between cocksucking and democracy.”

Chinese Nationalist troops peacefully replaced Soviets in Mukden.

Formal negotiations began for a peace settlement between Dutch and Indonesian leaders.

Soviet troops reached Karaj, near Tehran.

Cetnik leader Dragoljub Mihajlovic was captured by Yugoslav authorities.

March 19, Tuesday: Nikolai Mikhailovich Shvernik replaced Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Iran appealed to the UN Security Council over the presence of Soviet troops in the country after the treaty date for their withdrawal, March 2d.

French Guiana, Réunion, Martinique and Guadeloupe became overseas departments of France.

May 9, Thursday: Peter Sculthorpe gave his first performance on the Australian mainland, playing some of his piano compositions in Melbourne.

King Vittorio Emmanuele III of Italy abdicated his throne in favor of his son Umberto II and immediately embarked to sail with his wife into exile in Egypt.

The Soviet Union withdrew from Iran.

WALT WHITMAN

HOMOSEXUALITY

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May 21, Tuesday: By this point, the Soviet evacuation of Iran was complete.

Almost two months after 400,000 coal miners had gone on strike, President Harry S Truman ordered the seizure of the coal mines.

At Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico there was another accidental criticality. Demonstrating his technique for the benefit of 7 visitors, Louis Slotin used a screwdriver to manually assemble a critical mass of plutonium. His hand slipped. He received an estimated dose of 1,000 rads (rad), or 10 grays (Gy) and would die on May 30th. The observers received doses as high as 166 rads but survived, although 3 of them would die within a few decades from conditions presumed to be radiation-related.71

CLOSE CALLS

August 21, 1945

At the Omega site in Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, Harry K. Dagh-lian, Jr. inadvertently creating a critical mass when he dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a plutonium core. Although he quickly removed the brick he had been fatally irradiated, and would die on September 15th.

May 21, 1946

At Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico there was another accidental criti-cality. Demonstrating his technique for the benefit of 7 visitors, Louis Slotin used a screwdriver to manually assemble a critical mass of plutonium. His hand slipped. He received an estimated dose of 1,000 rads (rad), or 10 grays (Gy) and would die on May 30th. The observers received doses as high as 166 rads but survived, although 3 of them would die within a few decades from conditions presumed to be radiation-related.

February 13, 1950

A B-36 was flying a simulated combat mission in a test of its ability to carry nuclear payloads, off the coast of British Columbia over the Pacific Ocean, from Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska to Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas, carrying a weapon that had a dummy warhead. The device contained conventional explosives and natural uranium but lacked the plutonium needed to create a nuclear explosion. They experienced mechanical problems and were forced to shut down 3 of 6 engines of the bomber at an altitude of 12,000 feet. Fearing that severe weather and icing would jeopardize an emergency landing, and aware the TNT might explode, they jettisoned the device over the Pacific Ocean at a height of 8,000 feet. The device’s high explosives detonated upon impact with a bright flash. All 16 crew mem-bers and a passenger parachuted and 12 would be subsequently recovered from Prin-cess Royal Island. The Pentagon’s summary report neglects to mention whether any of the natural uranium was later recovered.

TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

June 14, Friday: An agreement ended the standoff between the central government in Iran and the breakaway province of Azerbaijan.

The Italian government banished former King Umberto II and his male heirs from the country.

L’histoire de Babar, a melodrama for speaker and piano by Francis Poulenc to words of de Brunhoff, was performed for the initial time, in a radio broadcast from Paris, with the composer himself at the keyboard.

Bernard Baruch presented to the United Nations the Acheson/Lilienthal plan to internationalize the atom.

December 10, Tuesday: Iranian government troops invaded Azerbaijan Province.

December 11, Wednesday: Leader of the autonomous Azerbaijan Province Jaafar Pishevari ordered his troops to surrender to government forces. He departed Tabriz for the Soviet Union. Iran regained control over the territory of the Azerbaijan People's Government.

The United Nations General Assembly voted to create the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). John D. Rockefeller, Jr. offered to buy land on the East River in Manhattan for $8,500,000 and donate it to the UN for a permanent headquarters.

The Trust Territory of Tanganyika was created by the United Nations, and entrusted to Great Britain.

The Williams Storage cathode-ray tube was patented (this would be used in the first stored-program computer, the Manchester University Mark I).

December 13, Friday: The trust territories of British Cameroons and French Cameroun were created by the United Nations. A trust territory in Ruanda-Urundi was granted to Belgium. The French Togo Associated Territory and British Togoland were created as trust territories.

Tabriz was taken by Iranian government troops.

Three symphonic poems by Charles Koechlin were performed for the initial time, in Brussels: La méditation de Purun Bhagat op.159, La loi de la jungle op.175, and Les bandar-log op.176.

71. There have been in the nuclear industry, to date, some 70 such criticality excursions and some 21 resultant fatalities, but –so far at least– there hasn’t been a single atomic blast! Cross your fingers.

WALDEN: If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed byaccident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or onesteamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad,or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter,–we never need read of another. One is enough.

ATOM BOMB

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

December 15, Sunday: Iran conquered Mahabad.

The International Refugee Organization was created by the United Nations.

(this would be replaced in 1951 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).

READ THE FULL TEXT

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

February 21, Friday: Edwin Herbert Land demonstrated his new camera which would come to be known as the “Polaroid” (this would come to be capable of taking color photographs, in 1963).

Lord Inverchapel, British Ambassador in Washington DC, informed the US Department of State that the United Kingdom would no longer provide financial aid to shore up the governments of Greece and Turkey; further efforts to prevent Soviet shipping from using the Dardanelles would be at the cost of the United States of America. Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson would meet with Congressmen to explain his “domino theory” –that the leg bone was connected to the ankle bone– that if Greece and Turkey were allowed to fall, Communism would spread like cancer into Iran and then India. Not since the days of Rome and Carthage had human civilization experienced such a crisis! –The Congressmen would be greatly impressed at the sophistication of this sort of talk.

The American Friends Service Committee reported that it had completed a survey of what Friends did during World War II, and had found record of 5,953 Quaker men who had served in the military, of 654 such as Calhoun D. Geiger who had received 1-O classifications and served in the alternative Civilian Public Service program, of 713 who had received 1-A-O classifications and served within the military in noncombatant positions, and of 57 who had followed the Peace Testimony to the point of being imprisoned as conscientious objectors. In other words, in addition to Friend John R. Kellam and Friend Bayard Rustin, there had been a grand sum total of 55 others who had refused to assist the federal government in any capacity at all during the period in which that federal government had been engaging in warfare.

And, there had been 5,953 American Quakers who had disregarded their example while they had been sacrificing themselves to the federal penal system. –An overwhelming majority of American Quakers had been gun-carrying Quakers.

CONTINGENCYALTHOUGH VERY MANY OUTCOMES ARE OVERDETERMINED, WE TRUST

THAT SOMETIMES WE ACTUALLY MAKE REAL CHOICES. “THIS IS THE ONLY WAY, WE SAY, BUT THERE ARE AS MANY WAYS AS THERE CAN BE

1947

THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

DRAWN RADII FROM ONE CENTRE.”

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

November 17, Wednesday: Muluk Fawzia was no longer the Queen Consort of Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, but the Shahanshah pointed out that the dissolution of this marriage “cannot affect by any means the existing friendly relations between Egypt and Iran.” On this day, also Muluk Fawzia’s brother King Farouk of Egypt divorced his wife Farida for having failed to produce for him a son, providing him merely with a series of 3 daughters. After this Princess Muluk Fawzia would become the head of the Egyptian court, and would remarry.

The British House of Commons nationalized the iron and steel industry.

1948

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

February 4, Friday: An attempt on Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s life would result in an expansion of the Shah’s constitutional powers. What happened was that Nasser Fakhrarai (or Nasser Fakhr-Arai), allegedly a reporter/photographer for a religious newspaper opposed to secularism, Parcham-e Islam (The Banner of Islam, or Flag of Islam), pretending to be snapping a photograph on the steps of the Faculty of Law at the University of Tehran, fired 5 shots with a Belgian pistol that had been presented to him by a radical member of the Tudeh Party. Two shots touched the person of the Shah, knocking out some front teeth and making his lip bleed. The assassin had been stalking the Shah for some 3 years without having been able to get this close. The press card would turn out to be forged although the assassin actually was it would seem a religious fundamentalist. When on the 6th shot the bullet jammed in the barrel of the pistol, the assassin threw the pistol at the Shah. The Shah’s situation was described as not serious — he proceeded courageously to make a speech from his hospital bed to the nation of Iran. The would-be assassin was seriously worked over with the rifle butts of the Shah’s aides and the police, and then fatally shot. The uniform the Shah had been wearing would eventually be displayed in the basement of the Šahyād Āryāmehr Tower and elsewhere, blood and bullet holes and all. As the details of this incident began to assemble themselves post facto, the Shah would repeatedly recount a particular detail that had seized his imagination — that his potential assassin had been the lover of a daughter of a gardener at the British Embassy. The US Embassy would be much in favor of blaming this entirely on the Communists. Martial law would be declared and the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party would be outlawed.

In New York City, the film “John Loves Mary” premiered at the Strand Theatre. The film starred Ronald Reagan, as Best Friend, and, in her film debut, Patricia Neal, as Pretty Girl. (You know how these movies go.) Ronald Reagan was a returning GI and Patricia Neal the girl he had left behind. However, John brought back with him a cockney girl who had gotten married with him only for the Green Card, the plan being that they would divorce in Reno and she then wed her true love. There was a slight complication, her true love turning out to be already married. And so on and so forth.

July 27, Wednesday: Portugal ratified the North Atlantic Treaty.

Iran barred interference in state affairs by non-Muslim religious leaders.

1949

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

February 12, Monday: Chinese forces attacked in central Korea, capturing Hoengsong.

In Kochang, 187 alleged collaborators were executed by South Korea.

Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi got married a 2d time, with Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary at the Marble Palace in gorgeous top-of-the-slope Tehran, Iran (in Tehran, just in case you don’t know, everything flows downhill, from the palaces at the top of the slope to the hovels on the flatlands before the desert dust begins). She was another product of a Swiss finishing school (her diamond engagement ring had been more than 22 carats). There were some 2,000 guests at the wedding, including Aga Khan III, and the event featured an equestrian circus with a whole lot of bareback riding. The wedding gifts were all just utterly magnificent — even Joseph Stalin, who did not himself attend, sent along a nice present. She was so ill from typhus at the date of her wedding, that they needed to cut 26 feet off the 65-foot train of her wedding dress so she would be able to stand during the lengthy ceremony and reception.

Soraya would never get along well with Ernest Perron, her husband’s best friend and private secretary, and eventually, when he made a series of lewd remarks about their sex life, threw him out of the home.

The Shah is rumored to have been in the habit of presenting Soraya with a jewel every day. Although Soraya would turn out to be infertile, she would decline to allow the Shahanshah to take a 2d wife, and so in 1958 he would be obliged to divorce her. She would sell off her jewels to keep herself provided, and subsequent to the divorce would attempt to become a film actress, although this would not be very successful as, it appears, she couldn’t figure out how to act her way out of a wet paper bag.

March 7, Wednesday: UN troops in Korea launched operation “Ripper.” The 8th Army recrossed the Han River and established a bridgehead south of Seoul.

While attending a funeral in a Tehran mosque, Premier Ali Razmara of Iran was gunned down by Khalil Tahamsebi (Tahamsebi was captured).

Oscar Collazo, a Puerto Rican nationalist, was convicted of the murder of a Blair House guard. He was the surviving member of the 2-man hit team that had broken into Blair House in Washington DC and attempted to assassinate President Harry S Truman.

The Un-American Activities Committee of the US House of Representatives released a list of 624 organizations and 204 publications, cited as supposedly subversive.

March 8, Thursday: In the Majles (Iranian parliament), Mohammed Mossadeq attempted to nationalize the British-owned oil industry.

Tibetans in India reported that a compromise has been reached between Tibet and China. Tibet would be allowed internal autonomy while China would be granted control over Tibet’s borders.

1951

KOREAN WAR

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

March 20, Tuesday: On the eve of the Iranian New Year, just after the National Front bill for oil naturalization had been approved by the legislature (Majles), the Iranian Senate approved it as well.

April: Nationalist opponent Mohammad Mosaddeq achieved the position of Prime Minister, receiving the votes of nearly 90% of the representatives present. Although the Shah would oppose Mossadeq and remove him from power, he would regain power and the Shah would need to go on vacation.

April 12, Thursday: Variations for piano by Morton Feldman was performed for the initial time, for a dance by Merce Cunningham in Seattle.

Iranian troops fired on striking oil workers in Abadan. The workers had been protesting the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. 3 Britons and 8 Iranians were killed.

The Congress of Argentina voted to expropriate the opposition newspaper La Prensa.

Western Union reported that 125,000 telegrams have been delivered to President Harry S Truman in the White House, and to members of the federal Congress, in regard to the Douglas MacArthur firing.

April 21, day: The Parliament (Majles) of Iran ordered the nationalization of the oil industry.

Piano Sonata no.9 op.103 by Sergei Prokofiev was performed for the initial time, in Moscow.

Symphonie concertante (Symphony no.5) by Karl Amadeus Hartmann was performed for the initial time, in Stuttgart.

Aaron Copland conducted his In the Beginning in a concert on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, only kilometers away from the Syrian border.

April 24, Tuesday: Peter Sculthorpe graduated from Melbourne University.

17,000 workers at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. in Abadan, on strike for two weeks, returned to their jobs.

Radio Moscow announced the removal of I.P. Lebedev as chairman of the All-Union Fine Arts Committee and Alexander V. Solodovnikov as director of the Bolshoi Theater. The Bolshoi produced Herman Zhukovsky’s opera From All Our Hearts with the approval of the arts committee (it would later be denounced in Pravda).

April 29, Sunday: Mohammed Mossadegh became Prime Minister of Iran.

Diapason Concertino for tape by Pierre Schaeffer was performed for the initial time, over the airwaves of Radio France IV.

KOREAN WAR

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

April 30, Monday: Communist Chinese Forces and North Korean Forces withdrew for resupply and replacements.

The Iranian Parliament voted to nationalize the oil industry.

France required Czechoslovakia to close its consulate in Marseille.

May 16, Wednesday: Chinese forces counterattacked in several places along the line in Korea, most successfully in the east.

A mass execution of “counter-revolutionaries” took place in Shanghai.

Muslim extremist leader Abolghassem Rafiee, taken into custody, admitted to an assassination plot against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh.

Two Songs for baritone and piano by Thea Musgrave to words of Ezra Pound were performed for the first time, in Paris, with the composer at the keyboard.

May 22, Tuesday: 30,000 Iranians marched in Tehran against the UK and US and in favor of nationalization of the oil industry.

Songs About Spring, a cycle for soprano and piano by Dominick Argento to words of cummings, was performed for the initial time, at Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore, the composer at the keyboard.

May 25, Friday: Great Britain transferred 4,000 paratroopers to Cyprus to warn Iran not to molests British interests.

Trois liturgies joyeuses op.116 for chorus and orchestra by Florent Schmitt was performed for the initial time, in Paris.

Mizmor L’David for tenor, chorus and organ by David Diamond was performed for the initial time, in Park Avenue Synagogue, New York.

Piece for violin and piano by Morton Feldman was performed for the initial time, at the Artists’ Club, New York. Also premiered was Feldman’s Projection 4 for three flutes, trumpet, three cellos and two pianos.

May 26, Saturday: Great Britain and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. took their dispute with Iran to the International Court of Justice.

KOREAN WAR

KOREAN WAR

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

May 29, Tuesday: 100,000 Iranians marched in Tehran against the UK and US and for the nationalization of the oil industry.

David Michel Torino, an editor of the independent El Intransigente in Salta, Argentina, was arrested for “disrespect of the police.”

General Vo Nguyen Giap began yet another attempt to break through the De Lattre Line, this time in the Day River area southeast of Hanoi. French reinforcements, combined with air strikes and armed boat attacks, through June 18th, would result in another defeat for Giap with 10,000 killed and wounded. Among the French causalities, however, would be Bernard de Lattre, the only son of General De Lattre.

“A victory described in detail is indistinguishable from a defeat.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre

June 21, Thursday: UN forces captured Kaesong, the last area held by the Chinese south of the 38th Parallel.

Theodor Körner replaced Karl Renner as president of Austria.

Iran occupied British oil installations in Abadan as part of the nationalization of the oil industry. The Iranian Parliament gave Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh a vote of confidence.

Great Britain, France and the United States ended talks with the Soviet Union at the deputy foreign minister level. They had been going on since March 4th with no progress toward a foreign minister conference on peace.

June 28, Thursday: Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh appealed to President Harry S Truman for support in his nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.

A British warship arrived at Abadan to oversee the evacuation of 3,000 British employees of the Ango-Iranian Oil Co.

Archbishop József Grösz was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the government of Hungary and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Ferenc Vecer, a Paulician prior, was sentenced to death for having killed a Soviet soldier. 7 other defendants received sentences from 8 to 14 years.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

June 15, Friday: President Harry S Truman signed an India Emergency Food Aid Act, lending $190,000,000 to that nation to buy up to 2,000,000 tons of grain.

Korean truce negotiations resumed in Kaesong. The Chinese agreed to stop trying to make the site seem like a UN surrender. Reporters would now be admitted to the site.

Anti-US demonstrators rioted in Parliament Square, Tehran killing 4 and injuring 88, in protest against the arrival of US envoy Averell Harriman, who was in Iran to attempt to negotiate a settlement of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. dispute.

July 5, day: The opposing sides in Korea agreed to begin cease-fire negotiations.

The International Court of Justice granted a temporary injunction to Great Britain. It allowed the Ango-Iranian Oil Co. to continue operating while the court decided the issue of Iranian nationalization.

Bell Laboratories of Murray Hill, New Hampshire announced the invention of the junction transistor by Dr. William Shockley. This device will allow for the miniaturization of electronic control equipment, thus revolutionizing technology and culture.

Music of Changes part 1 for piano by John Cage was performed for the initial time, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Also premiered were Two Intermissions and Intermission 3 for piano by Morton Feldman.

August 2, day: A Polish minesweeper, commandeered by mutinous sailors, was sailed into the Swedish port of Ystad. A dozen of its sailors asked for political asylum.

US negotiator Averell Harriman concluded an agreement for a conference between representatives of Iran and Great Britain to solve the dispute over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.

August 6, day: Flooding from a typhoon causes 4,800 deaths in Manchuria.

Talks between Great Britain and Iran over the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company resumed in Tehran.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

August 22, day: Incidental music to Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing by Peter Sculthorpe was performed for the initial time, in Launceston, Tasmania.

After 18 days of meetings in Tehran, negotiations between Iran and Great Britain over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. collapsed.

The perjury conviction of William Remington was overturned by a federal court of appeals in New York. Once an official of the Commerce Department, Remington had been convicted of lying when he claimed that he had never been a communist.

President Juan Perón of Argentina announced he would run for reelection. His wife would be the vice-presidential candidate.

String Quartet no.18 by Darius Milhaud was performed for the initial time, in Aspen, Colorado.

August 23, day: China and North Korea broke off armistice negotiations, claiming a UN plane had attacked the Kaesong neutral zone. The UN denied any such attack.

As the British negotiating team headed home from Tehran, the British government announced that it was prepared to use force to maintain British control over the Abadan oil refinery.

Intermezzo for piano and orchestra by Vladimir Ussachevsky was performed for the initial time, at Bennington College, Vermont, conducted by Otto Luening.

September 5, day: The Papal Internuncio was expelled from China.

Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh announced that he would expel all British oil workers unless the British government resumed negotiations within 15 days.

The Medium, a film with music by Gian Carlo Menotti was shown for the initial time, in the Sutton Theater, New York.

September 10, day: Great Britain froze Iranian holdings of sterling in the country and outlawed exports to Iran.

September 25, Tuesday: The Iranian government dictated that all British technicians at the Abadan oil refinery be elsewhere by October 4th.

A sum total of 78 members of the Screen Writers Guild having been suspected of being Communists in 7 days of testimony before the House of Representatives’s Un-American Activities Committee in Los Angeles, the proceedings came to a close.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

September 27, Thursday: Iranian troops took over the British oil refinery in Abadan. All but 10 of the 300 British employees were forbidden to enter (one to hold the lightbulb and nine to turn the ladder).

The Bundestag of West Germany unanimously voted to offer restitution to surviving Jews for the “unspeakable crimes” perpetrated by the Nazis — the specific sums of money to be offered, and the specific survivors to be thus compensated, would be subject to later determination.

A Council of State was appointed to rule Great Britain while King George VI recovered from his operation of September 23d.

Senator Joseph R. McCarthy testified before the Senate Foreign Relations committee that Ambassador-at-Large Philip Jessup was associated with “Red-front organizations.”

November 13, Tuesday: 100,000 demonstrators in Cairo peacefully protested the presence of Great Britain in Egypt.

After 3 weeks of talks with Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in Washington, the US Department of State announced that it had failed to find any basis on which Anglo-Iranian negotiations might restart.

Aaron Copland delivered his 1st lecture as Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard University, on the eve of his 51st birthday. His six lectures would be published in 1952 as MUSIC AND IMAGINATION.

December 7, day: The offices of 9 newspapers in Tehran were attacked and ransacked by rioters.

Three Symphonic Essays for orchestra by Roy Harris was performed for the initial time, at the Juilliard School, New York.

December 8, day: 15 newspaper editors and 15 anti-Mossadegh members of the Iranian Parliament took refuge in the Parliament building in Tehran, fearing death at the hands of nationalist extremists. They would remain there until the 13th.

An article in Izvestia attacked Dmitri Shostakovich and his 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano as a backward step from the “realistic position” he had taken in 1948.

December 11, day: A session of the Iranian Parliament dissolved into fist fights between pro- and anti-Mossadegh legislators.

Dickinson Song Cycle for voice and piano by Otto Luening was performed publicly for the initial time, in Carnegie Recital Hall, New York. See August 21, 1951.

JUDAISM

NEO-NAZISM

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

January 21, Monday: Iran forced the closure of 3 British consulates in the country, claiming that they had interfered with Iranian internal affairs.

16 people were killed and more than 100 injured in clashes between French forces and Tunisian nationalists.

Rioting broke out after the arrest of Habib Bourguiba and other leaders of the New Constitution Party.

Canticle II “Abraham and Isaac” op.51 for alto, tenor and piano by Benjamin Britten to an anonymous medieval play, was performed for the initial time, in Albert Hall, Nottingham, the composer at the piano.

Francis Poulenc and Pierre Bernac began their 3d North American tour with a performance at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC.

Melodies passagères, a cycle for voice and piano by Samuel Barber to words of Rilke, was performed completely for the 1st time, in Washington DC.

March 16, day: The Nordic Council was established by Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

Negotiations in Tehran between the International Bank and Iran to operate the Iranian oil industry broke down.

Three Traditional Rhymes op.17 for voice, clarinet, bass clarinet, violin, and viola by Anton Webern to anonymous words, was performed completely for the initial time, in New York. On the same program was the 1st performance of Webern’s Three Songs on Poems by Hildegard Jone op.25 for voice and piano.

March 29, Saturday: Anti-US rioters attacked the US Information Service library in Tehran.

President Harry S Truman announced at a Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner that he would not be a candidate for reelection.

March 30, day: Tehran was placed under martial law following yesterday’s riots.

Moroccans rioted in Tangier on the 40th anniversary of the Treaty of Fez. They attacked businesses and the property of Europeans. Police fired on the mobs and 10 were killed, 150 injured.

Four leftists were executed by the Greek government, by firing squad.

April 20, Sunday: Iran announced that it had resumed the production of motor oil at its nationalized Abadan refinery.

1952

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

May 4, day: Iran sold its 1st oil since the nationalization of its oil industry.

Structures Ia for two pianos by Pierre Boulez was performed for the initial time, in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, by the composer and Olivier Messiaen. The hall was full, the audience uneasy. Some violence occured. Igor Stravinsky was present and was not impressed.

Evocations de Slovaquie for clarinet, viola and cello by Karel Husa was performed for the initial time, in Paris.

June 9, day: Over the next 3 days Iran would present its case in the Anglo/Iranian oil dispute before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

June 13, day: Over the next 4 days Great Britain would present its case in the Anglo/Iranian oil dispute before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

July 16, day: Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran was driven from office. He was replaced by Ahmad Qawan as-Saltana.

July 18, day: The Austrian Parliament adopted measures to restore civil and property rights to 28,000 ex-Nazis. They also voted to restore property rights to 6,000 more senior ex-Nazis.

When Iranian Prime Minister Ahmad Qawan as-Saltana announced he would settle the oil dispute with Great Britain, civil disturbances against his regime increased.

July 19, day: The Games of the Fifteenth Olympiad of the Modern Era opened in Helsinki.

The Iranian Army was called out to quell violence against Prime Minister Ahmad Qawan as-Saltana.

July 21, day: In the face of growing public unrest, Iranian Prime Minister Ahmad Qawan as-Saltana resigned.

Kreuzspiel no.1/7 for oboe, bass clarinet, piano and percussion by Karlheinz Stockhausen was performed live for the 1st time, in Darmstadt, conducted by the composer. Bruno Maderna played percussion. This had been broadcast over WDR during the previous December.

Exerzitien, part 2 of Enchiridion for piano by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, was performed for the 1st time, in Darmstadt.

España en el corazón for soprano, baritone, speaking chorus, chorus and orchestra by Luigi Nono to words of García Lorca and Neruda was performed for the initial time, in Darmstadt conducted by Bruno Maderna.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

July 22, day: Mohammed Mossadegh returned to power as prime minister of Iran, replacing Ahmad Qawan as-Saltana. Three days of rioting across the nation had caused 300-500 deaths.

The World Court in The Hague ruled in favor of Iran in the Anglo-Iranian oil dispute, saying that it had no jurisdiction over a case between a nation and a private corporation.

A new constitution for Poland, based on the 1936 Soviet constitution, went into effect. The country was renamed “Polish Peoples Republic.”

Pas d’action, a ballet by Hans Werner Henze, was performed for the initial time, in the Prinzregententheater, München. The composer would withdraw this work and use the music in Tancredi.

July 30, Wednesday: Noble titles were abolished in Egypt. Those in prison for lèse majesté were released.

The British Bank of Iran and the Middle East closed its doors in Tehran, offering that they would not be able to operate under new government restrictions.

August 11, Monday: The Iranian Parliament granted dictatorial powers to Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh for a period of 6 months.

King Talal ibn Abd Allah of Jordan was declared mentally unfit to rule and replaced by his son, Hussein I ibn Talal. He was to reign under a regency council until his 18th birthday during the following May.

Emperor Haile Selassie signed a new constitution which included the unification of Ethiopia with Eritrea.

George Mares resigned as the General Consul of Czechoslovakia in Montreal and was granted asylum in Canada.

August 13, Wednesday: Martial law was lifted in Tehran, but almost immediately struggle would resume between leftists and fascist nationalists.

Egyptian tanks and armored cars broke up a riot of 6,000 workers at the Kafr el Dawar cotton mills, with 8 killed and 567 arrested.

August 19, day: The headquarters of the Tudeh (Communist) Party in Tehran was set afire by members of the Sumka (fascist) Party. The arsonists battled the firemen who arrived to douse the flames.

Estancia, a ballet by Alberto Ginastera, was performed for the initial time, in the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

August 20, 1952 The Iranian government reimposed martial law in Tehran to stop street battles between members of the Tudeh (communist) and Sumka (fascist) parties.

August 21, 1952 A Constituent Assembly for Kashmir abolished the monarchy and proposed an elected chief of state. It accepted an agreement with New Delhi giving it near-independent status within India.

The wealthy of Iran were ordered by the government to pay 10 years of back taxes. (Traditionally, the wealthy in Iran had not been obliged to actually pay any taxes — this had just been part of being, you know, wealthy, influential, important, yada yada yada.)

October 16, Thursday: Viet Minh forces began an offensive against the French in the Ngialo Basin.

October 20, Monday: Viet Minh forces captured Giahoi from the French.

In Kenya, a Mau Mau uprising began, against white settlers.

Concertato for orchestra “Moby Dick” by Peter Mennin was performed for the initial time, in Erie, Pennsylvania.

October 22, Wednesday: Viet Minh forces captured Vanyen from the French.

Alleging that Great Britain had been interfering in Iranian affairs, Iran broke off diplomatic relations.

Great Britain granted internal self-government, with a constitution, to Sudan.

At least 110 Kenyans were arrested for Mau Mau activity, including Jomo Kenyatta, the President of the Kenya African Union.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

After Iran’s Prime Minister Mossadegh nationalized Iran’s oil industry, Britain pushed the US federal government to mount a coup, named Operation AJAX (“Use A-JAX, boom boom, pause, the foam-ing clean-ser, dah dah, pause, wash-es dirt, pause, right down the drain bu ba bu bu ba ba boom”). The CIA, led by Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson Kermit Roosevelt with some help from Norman Schwarzkopf’s father, overthrew Mossadegh. “The crushing of Iran’s first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the shah, who relied heavily on US aid and arms,” the Guardian would later note. In 1957, the CIA would create SAVAK (Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar), the Shah of Iran’s secret police force, which would routinely rely on torture — using the same interrogation techniques the CIA had imported from the Nazis. Nearly half a century later, the world would learn of the CIA’s network of detainment facilities and American-sanctioned torture.

January 19, day: The Iranian Parliament extended the decree powers of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh for one year.

Wonderful Town, a musical by Leonard Bernstein to words of Comden and Green after Fields and Chodorov, was performed for the initial time, in the Shubert Theater of New Haven, Connecticut.

February 15, day: An earthquake centered at Turud, Iran killed 1,100 people.

Woodwind Quintet by Hans Werner Henze was performed for the initial time, over the airwaves of Radio Bremen.

February 28, Saturday: At noon James Dewey Watson and Francis Harry Compton Crick went to the “Eagle,” a pub in Cambridge, England, to get some lunch and, according to what they would later falsely allege, announced to the regulars there “We have discovered the secret of life.”72

Following rumors that Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh was forcing Shahanshah Pahlavi to leave the nation, rioters in Tehran drove Mossadegh from his home.

A West German court granted a posthumous pardon to General Alfred Jodl, who had been hanged as a war criminal at Nürnberg.

In a ceremony in Ankara, Representatives of Greece, Turkey, and Yugoslavia signed a “treaty of friendship and collaboration.”

The Investigations Subcommittee of the US Senate, headed by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, opened televised hearings into alleged Communists in the Voice of America organization.

1953

72. On the basis of Chargaff’s chemical data (1950), and Wilkins’s and Franklin’s new X-ray diffraction photographs, they had become able to describe DNA’s double helix structure (they would share a Nobel prize in 1962).

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

March 1, Sunday: Iosef Vissarionovich Dzugashvili, who had been exposing an alleged Jewish doctors’ plot against his life, a plot allegedly supported by the US government, calling perhaps for the initiation of global nuclear war, collapsed after a dinner with his Kremlin buddies Lavrenti P. Beria, Georgi M. Malenkov, Nikita S. Krushchev, and Nikolai Bulganin at his dacha outside Moscow. Curiously, “Stalin” (Steel), despite his importance in the Soviet apparatus, would not receive immediate medical attention.

Rioting in Tehran intensified between supporters and opponents of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh.

Symphony no.8 for alto, chorus and orchestra by Henry Cowell was performed for the initial time, in Wilmington, Ohio.

Elliott Carter’s Elegy for string orchestra was performed for the initial time, in Cooper Union, New York.

March 3, Tuesday: Iranian government forces regained control of the streets in Tehran. Anti-Mossadegh leaders were arrested.

Explaining that the reduced-rate fares of Air France, British European, and Pan American bringing 500-800 refugee Germans a day to West Berlin were inadequate, the West German government asked the 3 western powers to provide free military transport flights.

Raymond Kaplan, an engineer for the Voice of America, hurled himself in the path of a truck in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His suicide note explained that he feared being interrogated by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, who would make him “the patsy for any mistakes … once the dogs are set on you, everything you have done since the beginning of time is suspect.”

April 6, Monday: Peace talks resumed at Panmunjom, Korea.

In a nationwide radio broadcast, Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh called for stripping all power from the Shah and making him a constitutional monarch.

At his 1st recording session with Capitol Records, Duke Ellington introduced “Satin Doll.”

April 7, Tuesday: Mobs supporting Prime Minister Mossadegh and the Shah battled in the streets of Tehran, Iran.

The UN General Assembly elected Dag Hammarskjöld as Secretary-General.

Mutability, a cycle for voice and piano to words of Orgel, was performed for the initial time, in the (old) John Hancock Building, Boston, with the composer Irving Fine himself at the keyboard.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

April 26, Sunday: Full plenary Korean armistice negotiation sessions resumed at Panmunjom.The first repatriations of 684 ill and wounded UN troops was completed.

Brigadier General Mahmud Afshartous, Chief of Iran’s National Police and a relative of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, was found dead near Tehran. Missing since April 20th, he was found to have been strangled. At least 20 people, some of high rank, were taken into custody.

Symphony no.1 by Charles Ives was performed for the initial time, in Washington, 55 years after it had been completed by the composer.

May 19, day: AP correspondent Marc Purdue was ordered to leave Iran by the government. He was accused of spreading “false and provocative news against the interests of Iran.”

Harvard University found 3 of its faculty members “guilty of misconduct” for invoking their rights under the 5th Amendement when testifying before Congressional committees about communism. They would not, however, be terminated.

Argentine government restrictions against 3 wire services were eased.

July 14, day: 27 supporters of Prime Minister Mossadegh resigned their seats in the Iranian Majlis. This reduced the membership to below a quorum, thus making it impossible for the body to meet, leaving Mossadegh in complete control of the nation. Huh!

A riot started by North African nationalists at the end of a Bastille Day demonstration in Paris killed 7 and injured 130.

August: Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup engineered by the British and American intelligence services. Fazlollah Zahedi is proclaimed as prime minister and the Shah returns. The Shah returns to Iran when Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi — with backing from the Central Intelligence Agency — overthrows Mossadeq in an August coup d’etat.

August 3, day: The 1st stage of nationwide balloting took place in Tehran and showed 99.9% of the voters were in favor of dissolution of the Majlis. Those voting for and against did so in separate places, and each voter was obliged to sign his ballot.

8 men identified as Communist Party leaders by the FBI were indicted in Philadelphia of conspiring to teach the overthrow of the US government.

KOREAN WAR

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

August 10, day: 99.9% of Iranian voters backed a plan to eliminate the Majlis (parliament). The voting was not secret, and voters were required to sign their ballots.

Parliamentary elections in Canada resulted in a loss of 22 seats for the Liberal Party of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. However, they still held a strong majority of seats.

August 16, 1953 The Shah of Iran dismissed Mohammed Mossadegh as prime minister. He refused to go and the palace guards who delivering this decree were taken into custody. The Shah fled to Iraq.

Moroccan nationalists supporting the recently deposed Sultan riot throughout the country. 36 were killed.

August 17, day: Hungary announced that 2 foreigners held for espionage had been freed: Edgar Sanders, a Briton, and Vincenzo Sciotto, an Italian.

Pro-Mossadegh mobs went through Tehran destroying statues of the Shah.

Giuseppe Pella replaced Alcide de Gasperi as prime minister of Italy.

French Prime Minister Laniel warned that he would not negotiate with unions that failed to return to work by the following day.

August 18, day: In Iran soldiers and police turned against the pro-Mossadegh mobs.

Voyage for piano by William Schuman was performed for the initial time, in Chicago.

August 19, day: Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran was removed from office a 2d time in an army coup engineered by the United States CIA. He was replaced by Fazlollah Zahedi. About 300 people were killed during this coup, including Foreign Minister Hossein Fatemi and Colonel Ezatollah Mumtaz.

Aaron Copland submitted an affadavit to the FBI, denying any past or present membership in the Communist Party.

PERSIA IRAN

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August 20, Thursday: Manfred Sakel, developer of insulin shock therapy for schizophrenia, addressed the World Federation for Mental Health in Vienna, denouncing the failure to differentiate between physiological and environmental causes of mental illness and the indiscriminate substitution of electric shock therapy for insulin shock therapy. Later, introduction of drug therapies would reduce the use of both types of shock therapy.73

Exaggerating just a smidgeon, the USSR bragged that it had set off a hydrogen bomb.

Former Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and 3 associates were arrested by Iranian authorities.

As armed Berbers converged on Rabat, French authorities to depose Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef. The Sultan and his sons were flown to Corsica.

Five members of the Communist Party were convicted in Pittsburgh of conspiring to advocate the overthrow of the US government.

The US Secretary of the Navy ordered the elimination of racial segregation among civilian employees of the Navy.Advance summaries of a new book by Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey of Indiana University revealed that nearly all American women had broken one or another sexual taboo. SEXUAL BEHAVIOR IN THE HUMAN FEMALE showed 50% of women engaged in premarital intercourse, while 26% of married women had extramarital affairs. Other findings indicated that American women were far more sexually active than generally believed (contrary to all reports, women get approximately as much sex as men do — duh). All over America people were beginning to reflect, “Everybody seems to be getting away with stuff except me.”

73. Street, W.R. A CHRONOLOGY OF NOTEWORTHY EVENTS IN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 1994

ATOM BOMB

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

March 9, Tuesday: In Iran, 3 days of voting began for the Majlis (legislature). The balloting featured gangs of thugs to patrol voting places and beat on hundreds of citizens whom they might perceive as anti-government. Police would assist in these beatings.

The French National Assembly voted to attempt a peace settlement for Indochina at the upcoming Geneva conference on the Far East.

On the floor of the US Senate, Republican Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont attacked Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy as “doing his best to shatter” the Republican Party. (Would this not amount to the very definition of a partisan attack? :-)

On the CBS television program “See it Now” commentator Edward R. Murrow launched an attack on Senator McCarthy by straightforwardly condemning him out of his own mouth by repetition of his own filmed words (what a low blow that must have seemed — the very concept of it, merely repeating to the voters what the man had actually said! :-).

August 5, day: Iran reached agreement with 8 western oil companies to reactivate the stalled oil industry in the nation.

An attempt was made on the life of Carlos Lacerda, editor of Tribuna da Imprensa of Rio de Janeiro. Lacerda was wounded by gunfire, but his companion, Air Force Major Rubens Florentino Vaz was killed by the assassins. Personal bodyguards of President Getulio Vargas were implicated in the crime.

Six Compositions for carillon by Gian Carlo Menotti were performed completely for the initial time, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Five of the six had been performed between October 16 and November 8, 1932. This was the 1st time they had been all performed together. Arabesque was apparently performed for the initial time.

November 10, day: French troops sealed the border between Algeria and Tunisia.

Hossein Fatemi, foreign minister in the Mossadegh government, was executed by firing squad in Tehran (he had been convicted of treason in the attempted overthrow of the Shah in 1953).

1954

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was unable to persuade Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Husayn Borujerdi to fully support his campaign against the Bahá’í sect.

February 24, Thursday: Leaders of Turkey and Iraq signed a mutual defense treaty in Baghdad. They called on Iran, Pakistan, the Arab League countries, the US, and the UK to join the pact. The result would be a Pact of Mutual Cooperation between the Kingdom of Iraq, the Republic of Turkey, the United Kingdom, the Dominion of Pakistan, and the Kingdom of Iran (to be known as the “Baghdad Pact”).

November 17, day: Zafar Ali Zolghadr fired a pistol at Iranian Prime Minister Hussein Ala in the Shah Mosque in Tehran, the explanation being that “Islamic rules were not being properly carried out.” The prime minister was slightly wounded in the neck and Zolghadr was subdued by the police.

November 18, day: The Iranian government issued orders for the “extermination” of the Fadayian Islam sect, which was blamed for the previous day’s assassination attempt.

November 22, Tuesday: At a meeting in Baghdad of the 5 members of the Baghdad Pact (Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, UK), the Middle East Treaty Organization was formed and a permanent headquarters was set up in that city.

First true fusion device test by the Soviet Union, having a yield of 1.6 megatons. The development had been lead by Andrei Sakharov.

November 23, Wednesday: The Cocos Islands became a territory of Australia.

Navab Savavi, leader of the Fadayian Islam sect, was arrested by Iranian authorities (the sect was being blamed for the assassination attempt of November 17th).

1955

IRAN

READ THE FULL TEXT

ATOM BOMB

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

According to the Federation of American Scientists, US and Israeli intelligence officers worked with Iran to set up SAVAK (Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar), an Iranian intelligence organization that would later be blamed for the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners and violent suppression of dissent.

In WINDS OF DOCTRINE, George Santayana wrote falsely of Waldo Emerson that he had been

a cheery, child-like soul, impervious to the evidence of evil.74

1957

74. It would turn out, this has been a tendentious presumption with legs.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

March 14, Friday: In Iran, Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was forced to divorce Shahbanou (Queen) Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary because she couldn’t have children, and wouldn’t allow him to take a 2d wife to produce the offspring needed in order to continue his royal line.

May 11, Sunday: Fighting continued between rebels and Indonesian troops in the Moluccas.

Khosrov Ruzbeh, leader of the Communist Party of Iran, was executed.

A reproduction of Waclaw Szymanowksi’s monument to Chopin was unveiled in Warsaw (the original had been destroyed by the Germans during World War II).

Police in Bogota, Colombia had to break up several anti-US demonstrations during a visit by Vice-President Richard Milhous Nixon.

1958

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

November 23, Monday: Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Farah Diba announced their engagement.

December 20, day: Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi got married with Farah Diba in a Yves Saint Laurent dress, wearing the Noor-ol-Ain diamond tiara. This was the groom’s 3d espousal and the bride’s 1st.

1959

IRAN

IRAN

PERSIA IRAN

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September 12, day: Walter Ulbricht was named Chairman of the Council of State, succeeding Wilhem Pieck.

On orders of Congolese President Kasavubu, Prime Minister Lumumba was arrested and taken to Camp Léopold II but was released after 3 hours. He leads a victory parade through Léopoldville.

Speaking in a televised address to Protestant clergy in Houston, presidential candidate Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy stated that he would never allow the Roman Catholic Church to dictate to him in matters of public policy.

During Hurricane Donna, all the residents of the Flanders Inn in Arlington, Vermont, including Carl Ruggles, were forced out into the storm by a fire followed by an explosion. Ruggles was taken in by the wife of the rector of St. James Episcopal Church. Most of his property and all of his music were saved.

The office of Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was given over to a College of Commissioners.

After 5 days of meetings in Baghdad, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was formed by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.

The Security Council refused to seat either rival delegation from the Congo. Soviet delegate Valerian Alyeksandrovich Zorin called Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld a “willing tool” of colonialists who had “taken under his trusteeship the stooges of Belgian aggression.”

Triptych for tenor and orchestra by Thea Musgrave to words of Chaucer, was performed for the initial time, in Royal Albert Hall, London.

October 31, day: Shahbanou Farah Pahlavi of Iran gave birth to Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi of Iran.

1960

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

March 30, Thursday: Katanga troops supported by white mercenaries, including many South Africans, attacked supporters of Antoine Gizenga in Manono.

Grand Ayatollah (marja') Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi died in the holy city of Qom, Iran at the age of 61. Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi would declare 3 days of mourning and attend his memorial service; Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini would emerge in 1963 as his successor.

September 14, Thursday: Katangan forces, led by white mercenaries, counterattacks against the UN in Elisabethville and Jadotville. They fail to move the UN but do considerable damage to the city.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was founded by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.

Dmitri Shostakovich was confirmed as a full member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at a meeting at the Union of Composers, Moscow, convened for that purpose.

1961

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

In THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS, a Berkeley physicist named Thomas Kuhn uses the word “paradigm” to describe the model problems and solutions that communities of practitioners used to define their science. New Age writers so quickly misappropriate and misuse the term that Professor Kuhn began to wish that he had deployed “exemplar” rather than “paradigm,” and to complain that he was fonder of his critics than of his fans.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini sent a telegram to Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the Prime Minister of Iran in the wake of election laws that according to the Ayatollah threatened the supremacy of Islamic sharia law. The Shahanshah was intending to allow Iranian Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Baha’is elected to municipal councils to take their oath of office while placing their hands on their own holy books rather than the Qur’an. The Ayatollah’s ruling was that only the Qur’an could be used for such ceremonies regardless of the religious affiliation of the office-holder. The Ayatollah also indicated to the Shahanshah that there was a rumor going around that adherence to Islamic sharia law was not in the future going to be a precondition for standing for public office, and that there was a rumor going around also that women were going to be granted the right to vote — all which was simply not ever going to pass muster. No way no how!

An expurgated version of Oscar Wilde’s “De Profundis,” written while in prison, had appeared in 1905. The suppressed portions had made their appearance in 1913. In this year a full version appeared as part of THE LETTERS OF OSCAR WILDE. Illinois became the 1st American state to revise its criminal code along the lines suggested in The Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute to omit from the list of criminal offenses oral genital contact, anal intercourse between consenting adults in private, and sexual acts with animals. Since that point Connecticut, New York, and Kansas have also made some revisions in this area but according to California Penal Code paragraph 286, “Sodomy-Punishment,”

Under Islamic sharia law, the penalty for bestiality is the same as for homosexuality, which is to say, execution. Bestiality had however been removed entirely from the list of criminal sexual offenses in Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Holland, and Russia, where such cases had come to be dealt with under indecency and animal cruelty regulations and were therefore unlikely to involve a prison sentence. In countries such as Great Britain which had not updated their paradigms, the penalty was normally still life imprisonment — but a legal precedent had been set to refrain from punishing a female who might have been a victim under coercion.

1962

Every person who is guilty of the infamous crime against nature,committed with mankind or with any animal, is punishableby imprisonment in the state prison of not less than one year.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

September 1, Saturday: Crosses were torched by the Ku Klux Klan in 14 Louisiana communities and the capital, Baton Rouge, as a protest against racial integration.

During the 1st week of September Soviet troops belonging to 4 elite armored brigades are believed to have begun arriving in Cuba (troops belonging to these combat groups would continue to embark through the 2d week of October). However, US intelligence would not become aware of the existence of these organized combat units in Cuba until the middle of the missile crisis, which is to say, on October 25th.

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake in northwest Iran, near Bou’in-Zahra in the Qazvin Province, killed 12,225 and destroyed 91 villages.

In a referendum in Singapore, voters overwhelmingly supported a proposition to merge with the Malayan Federation to become part of Malaysia, with limited autonomy. Out of 561,559 ballots cast, there were 397,626 in favor of making all Singapore residents Malaysian citizens, while allowing independence in matters of labor and education. Another 144,077 ballots were left blank as a protest.

Typhoon Wanda struck Hong Kong, killing 134 and injuring more than 200.

September 15, Saturday: Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Aram, and Soviet Union Ambassador Nikolai Pegov, signed an agreement providing that Iran would not allow any foreign nation to set up rocket bases on its soil.

In Paris a military court convicted of terrorism 27 members of the Organisation de l’armée secrète, a French conservative dissident paramilitary organization during the Algerian War.

The Poltava, a Soviet large-hatch cargo ship, docked at the port of Mariel, apparently carrying the 1st Soviet medium-range missiles to reach Cuba. American electronic intelligence detected that Soviet high-altitude surface-to-air missiles had become operational. It had been an SA-2 (or S-75) Dvina missile that had downed the U-2 spy plane flown by Francis Gary Powers in 1960, and therefore the weapons, located near the port of Mariel, were capable of stopping further American attempts to verify a missile buildup. During the following week US intelligence sources would report what appeared to be unloading of MRBMs at that port and the movement of a convoy of at least 8 MRBMs to San Cristóbal, where the initial Soviet missile site was constructed.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

The CIA, in collusion with Iraq’s Baath party, conducted its first “regime change” in Baghdad. Our buddy Saddam Hussein reportedly was involved in this coup to overthrow Iraq’s evil leader Abdel Karim Kassem.

Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi implemented his “White Revolution” (in Iran, original homeland of the Aryans, white more or less signifies good), an aggressive campaign of social and economic Westernization that would meet with intense popular opposition. Popular nationalist Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini delivered a speech critical of the Shahanshah’s White Revolution and was arrested. By the late 1960s the Shahanshah would be relying regularly on his SAVAK (Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar) organization to quell such dissidence.

March 12, Tuesday: Lee Harvey Oswald ordered a rifle from Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago.

Shahbanou Farah Pahlavi of Iran gave birth to Princess Farahnaz Pahlavi of Iran.

June 5, Wednesday: John Profumo, British State Secretary for War, resigned his cabinet post and seat in Parliament after admitting he had lied about his affair with Christine Keeler.

Shiites rioted in Tehran in opposition to a government plan to redistribute church land to peasants, and the granting of equal rights to women. The military dispersed the rioters and martial law was imposed. These riots and those in other cities killed 86 and injured 200.

A federal judge in Birmingham, Alabama ordered Governor George Wallace not to obstruct the admission of two black students to the University of Alabama.

Businesses in Winston-Salem, North Carolina agreed to desegregate.

1963

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

The Milton Bradley Company’s board game “Jeopardy.”

The Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was released from prison but, after another speech denouncing the Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was exiled from Iran.

A Yale University psychology professor named Stanley Milgram publishes experimental data showing that cruelty is usually a function of people obeying orders or reacting to peer pressure rather than a characteristic unique to sadists. Indeed, follow-on studies found that 60-80% of the populations studied would grudgingly engage in personally distasteful levels of violence whenever directly ordered to do so by someone in authority. As a rule, middle-aged males were more likely to disobey authority than adolescent males or females.

1964

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Toward stopping people from following the old road of feudal superstition, the Communist Chinese youth group called the Red Guard orchestrated attacks on traditional martial art instructors. Due to its reputation as a feudal martial art training site, the Red Guards pillaged the Shaolin Temple at Chang-shao and drove away the handful of remaining monks. Photographs taken by the Japanese visitors Tokiwa and Sekino show that the Shaolin Monastery was run-down by 1920. In 1927, it had burned during the Northern Expedition. A handful of very passive monks lived inside the ruins from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s. So it would appear that there was probably very little, if any, if any, martial art instruction at the Shaolin Monastery from 1927 to 1980.

The Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini relocated from Turkey to Najaf, Iraq.

January 21, Thursday: Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour of Iran was shot twice by Mohammed Bakarii, an Islamic extremist, as he entered the Parliament building in Tehran. Bakarii was arrested, along with others.

Indonesia formally withdrew from the United Nations, effective March 1st.

Fritz Weber, an official of the West German Ministry of Cultural Affairs, hanged himself in his jail cell in Kiel (he had been arrested January 11th on charges of participating in the murder of Jews during World War II).

January 26, Tuesday: 17-year-old Huynh Thi Yen Phi killed herself by self-immolation in Nhatrang, to protest the government of South Vietnamese Prime Minister Tran Van Huong.

Pursuant to the provisions of the Indian constitution, adopted precisely 15 years earlier, the official language of the nation changed from English to Hindi.

Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour of Iran died of the wounds he had suffered on January 21st. Shahanshah Pahlavi appointed Amir Abbas Hoveida to replace him.

34 black citizens were arrested while trying to register to vote in Selma, Alabama.

June 16, Wednesday: The 4 men who had conspired to assassinate Iranian Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour during the previous January were brought, in Tehran, before a firing squad.

The United States Department of Defense announced that an additional 21,000 troops would soon be dispatched to Vietnam.

The Dream, an opera by Ton de Leeuw to his own words after a Chinese legend translated by Henderson, was performed for the initial time, in Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam.

1965

IRAN

WORLD WAR II

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

April 28, day: Shahbanou Farah Pahlavi of Iran gave birth to Prince Ali Reza Pahlavi of Iran.

1966

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

October 26, Thursday: John Sidney McCain III was flying his A-4E on his 23d bombing mission, over Hanoi, when he was shot down by a missile. He was taken, seriously injured, to the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” POW facility. When his captors realized that they had in their hands a son of Admiral John Sidney McCain, Jr., and therefore a bargaining chip, they would begin to provide minimal needed medical attention.

Meanwhile, in a ceremony in Tehran that could only be characterized as lavish, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been on the throne of Iran since 1941, officially crowned himself the Shahanshah (Emperor of Iran) and designated his consort as his Shahbanou (Empress of Iran). There were almost as many jewels in evidence as at a Liberace concert, but there was this signal difference from a Liberace concert — absolutely no smirking was allowed.

String Quartet no.2 op.23 by Alexander Goehr was performed completely for the initial time, at Bristol University.

1967

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

August 31, Saturday: An earthquake in northeastern Iran killed 12,000 people.

The Czechoslovak Communist Party elected a new presidium. 16 of 18 members were reformers.

Five weeks after their plane had been hijacked by Arab terrorists, the remaining 5 passengers and 7 crewmembers were released by Algeria.

10 major news organizations (including 3 television networks) sent a letter of protest to Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago demanding an investigation into the actions of police during the Democratic convention. “Newsmen were repeatedly singled out by policemen and deliberately beaten and harassed. Cameras were broken and film destroyed. The obvious purpose was to discourage or prevent reporting of an important confrontation between police and demonstrators which the American public has the right to know about.”

“Psychologists Interested in the Study of Psychoanalysis,” founded at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco during this year’s convention of the American Psychological Association, would in 1979 become “APA Division 39 (Psychoanalysis).”

1968

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

September 9, Tuesday: Israeli forces attacked across the Gulf of Suez along a 30-kilometer strip south of El Hafayer, destroying 15 military sites such as radar stations and rocket launchers.

Artists demanding a greater voice in cultural policy occupied the Rembrandt Room of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (to respond to this, all Amsterdam museums would be shut up tight through September 12th).

Persephassa for 6 percussionists by Iannis Xenakis was performed for the initial time, in Persepolis, Iran.

September 25, Thursday: The Organization of the Islamic Conference is founded by Afghanistan, Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Pakistan, Palestinian representatives, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, and the Republic of Yemen.

A report submitted to the Council of Europe declared Greece to no longer be fit for membership in the council, derogating its current military regime as “undemocratic, illiberal, authoritarian and repressive.” This report refrained, however, from offering suggestions for personal hygiene.

1969

EGYPT

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Lyndon LaRouche, Jr. would during this decade become interested in the possible uses of lasers and other directed energy weapons against incoming nuclear warheads.

The Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini delivered lectures on Islamic government, lectures that were published in Iraq and would be smuggled into Iran.

March 27, Friday: Saigon government troops conducted a major 2-day sweep into Kandal Province, Cambodia, supported by US helicopter gunships.

In a military court in Athens, the trial of 34 people on charges of sedition began. Some of the defendants testified that they had been tortured to extract confessions.

Shahbanou Farah Pahlavi of Iran gave birth to Princess Leila Pahlavi of Iran.

November 12, Thursday: The cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich sent a letter to 4 Soviet newspapers defending Alyeksandr Solzhenitsyn. On this day he began a 36-hour general strike against the government in Argentina.

Although, secretly, President Richard Milhous Nixon had ordered our Central Intelligence Agency to ensure the defeat of Salvador Allende in the election for President of Chile, our CIA had failed in its task. On this date Allende, elected President of Chile. announced resumption of his nation’s diplomatic relations with Cuba.

This wasn’t a great day for France, but the day of the 2 funerals of Charles de Gaulle (the general had asked for a simple village service limited to family and local friends, but so many heads of state such as the Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran and President Richard Milhous Nixon wanted to attend, that they were obliged to stage in addition a ceremony at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris; the general had asked for a simple casket but in fact due to his extreme height his casket needed to cost $9 more than usual).

The Shahanshah delivered some remarks in French and our President delivered some words in English. As you can verify by watching this YouTube of the ceremonies, it is a mere canard to report the President as proclaiming “This is a great day for France” (in fact both the Shahanshah and the President succeeded in comporting themselves with complete decorum).

This wasn’t, however, a great day for America. The General Courts-Martial of Lieutenant William Calley convened in regard to allegations of the massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai began at Fort Benning, Georgia (Recruits marching there would chant a cadence: “Calley … Calley … He’s our man”).

DIEN BIEN PHU ⊃ MY LAI TED BUNDY

1970

PERSIA IRAN

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August 17, Tuesday: The trial of Captain Ernest L. Medina commenced, for alleged war crimes at My Lai.

Iran recognized the Peoples Republic of China.

August 26, Thursday: Persepolis for eight-track tape by Iannis Xenakis was performed for the initial time, amid the ruins of Persepolis, during Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s over-the-top celebration of 2,500 years of Persian monarchy (truly the man knew how to party hardy).

Tempus destruendi/Tempus aedificandi for chorus by Luigi Dallapiccola was performed completely for the first time, in Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.

1971

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For the past quarter-century, my family has had to shelter me because our government has been effectively preventing me from having any sort of gainful employment. How and why they have been doing this in my case make a very elaborate story, but the fact is that were it not for the assistance I have received from my children and from my relatives, I would have been sleeping under bridges for many many years now. —Because any time I receive any cash at all, the government steps in and says “No, that all belongs to us” and confiscates it. And this is not because of any wrong which I have committed, it is just that somehow back a quarter-century ago I got my name onto some sort of secret enemies list of people to be actioned against. (I don’t even know for sure how this happened: it may have been on the basis of that whistle-blowing phonecall I attempted to make to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — but I have no way to be certain about that.)

OK, this is the way it went down. As a man with a twisted spine, attempting to hold gainful employment in the 1960-1980 timeframe, I, Austin Meredith, had to accept substantially lower wages than if he had not been deformed. Well, I don’t know if you are aware of little facts like that, but it is, or it was, the case. If one is deformed, it becomes magically hard as hell to get an employer to provide a decent wage. There’s just not any competition among employers to hire the deformed. Anything they do for a person who is visibly deformed, no matter how low the wage they offer, amounts to a beneficence from them to that deformed person. They’re only doing it out of the goodness of their heart.

1972

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(Here is an illustration from a medical textbook, showing “exaggerated lumbar curve” as typical of lordosis:

What the medical textbook fails to point out is that this exaggerated lumbar curve, when it is not disabling, produces enormous muscular masses in the buttocks and calves as the growing body struggles to accommodate itself. And, of course, the medical textbook also fails to point out –it isn’t any of a medical doctor’s concern, as doctors treat illnesses rather than the effects of illnesses– that the primary liability for the patient is that these exaggerated muscular masses result in the most extreme social discrimination.)

So, in 1970 my family and I moved to California from Vermont, and then shortly after this move my wife filed for divorce. The divorce decision which went into effect in 1972 was of course to award custody of our 4 children to the wife. “Fathers don’t make good mothers,” quote unquote I kid you not.

SPLITSVILLE

1964 Eddie Fisher Elizabeth Taylor

1972 Ashley Edward Meredith María de los Angeles García Meredith

1974 Richard Burton Elizabeth Taylor

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When the judge took a look at my salary figures, he commented “Well, we don’t have much to work with, do we?” But he had this table of support payments that he was supposed to require, the table told him so much for alimony, minimum, the table told him so much for each child, minimum, and so on and so forth. So he issued his divorce order. He assigned me an obligation to pay, therefore, to my ex-wife, per month, in alimony and child support, more than my entire net salary after deductions for tax withholding and medical benefits. In addition, it was made impossible for me to obtain a 2d job at night, because I was being awarded split custody of our 4 children, and I needed to provide a place for them while they were with me, every Wednesday night and every weekend from Friday afternoon until Monday morning, plus every vacation and holiday. I protested: “Your honor, I cannot possibly pay more than my entire salary.” He made no response from the bench.

Immediately I became a obligate criminal (as most of California’s loose gold has already been picked out of its surface dirt), and so immediately I “fell behind” on my payments. Then there appeared a little problem on the horizon, that although the divorce paperwork instructed me to pay my ex-wife, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office was under the impression that I was supposed to send the check not to my ex but to them. Each month I made out a check in the full amount to “Mary Meredith,” and she cashed the check, and the signed and canceled check came back to me with my bank statement, and I saved those signed canceled checks along with the check stubs. Then after many months of this, the sheriffs office instituted legal proceedings against me, accusing me of never having made any alimony or child support payment since the date of the divorce. Of course, at this point in time I could not afford any legal representation, so when I went to Family Court, I asked for assistance. That was refused on the grounds that my gross income exceeded the limit, despite the fact that after payment and taxes I had no net income at all. I presented my check stubs and the signed, canceled checks to the “judge,” and that was the last I saw of them. He said that since they were not made out to the Sheriffs Department, they did not amount to payment. He told me that I would have to pay the full sum over again immediately, over and above meeting my ongoing obligations. When I objected that my ex-wife had received these moneys and that therefore it was her, not me, who owed the money to the Sheriffs Department, the “judge” said that private debts were a private matter and that I was free to pursue collecting that debt from my ex-wife, in separate proceedings in a small-claims court. He referred to me as “Perry Mason.”

So I went to a consultation with a fresh attorney, for $200, a Mr. Thomson, and he said to me, said he, you need to prevent garnishment because if your wages are garnished your firm will fire you: “Let’s make an irrevocable wage assignment of half your income, for the rest of your life. That way you’ll have the other half of your salary, to live on and to provide for your kids with.” So I went, “OK, sounds good.” I signed.

But then that wasn’t the way things came down! First the Sheriff’s office received half my salary by way of this irrevocable wage assignment, then they garnished and seized the other half. My rent, in a slum apartment, the cheapest that it was possible to get, was $130 per month. These two seizures operating in tandem left me with a takehome pay figure that I remember very distinctly. It was $73.92 per month.

I thought I ought to have received those canceled checks and check stubs back from the court, so I went to the

What is Intensification ?

What is Intensification ?

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courthouse and asked to see my trial record folder. The trial record folder had a single piece of paper in it, which was a court order that to save file space, my court documents had been photocopied and destroyed. So I went to the window for photocopied records, and they produced the reel of film in question, and I put it in the reader machine and scrolled down to my case number. The photocopy record consisted of that single document, that court order that in order to save file space, my court documents were to be photocopied and then destroyed. They had by mistake routinely photocopied merely that order, and then destroyed my payment documents, and I was shit outa luck!

So what did I do? I was a systems analyst for General Electric Nuclear Energy Division, and I had some friends there who appreciated the difficulty of the position into which I had been placed. So they pulled some strings, and fixed it up so that I could go over at night to GE’s GETR test reactor in Pleasanton, California, and do “jumper” work there at a very, very high rate of hourly pay, $50, and get my good pay immediately under the table in untracable cash so I would not need to pay federal or state income tax. In that way, maybe, I could keep my family going and keep square with this pushy sheriff. Now, jumper work in addition to being very, very well paid is, it seems, very, very dangerous. At the GETR I was required to do cobalt cleanup, intensely radioactive work, fully suited in a breathing apparatus and with lead blocks strapped onto the bottoms of my booties.

But this wasn’t enough. I wasn’t meeting the court’s requirements even with them taking virtually 100% of my net salary after tax withholding and medical benefit payments. So, I was called into court again, and threatened. For every month in which I did not pay the full amount required, plus something against the accumulating arrearages, in the future, I was sentenced to spend one week in the Santa Clara County prison. I was also placed under court order not to change my employment without the prior permission of the sheriff. So what would happen was, they would come by my place of employment on a Friday afternoon (General

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Electric Nuclear Energy Division, San Jose), once a month, and come into my office, and put me in handcuffs at my desk, and perp-walk me out the corporate door and off to jail. At the jail they would stripsearch me, do their cavity search, confiscate my wedding ring, and put me in an orange jumpsuit that couldn’t even approximately fit (on account of my deformity) — and then I would sit in jail for a week or so, and then they would let me out and I would go back to my apartment and shower and put on a business suit and go back to work — if I could get my old VW to start. For General Electric, of course, that became annoying although they did grasp the nature of my predicament. I was embarrassing them.

In addition, there was the attitude of the child welfare officers of Santa Clara County, who appeared in court to testify that with me expelled from the home, the number of square feet of air space per child was substantially increased, meaning that the well-being of the children had been enhanced by the father’s expulsion from the home. They had taken one look at my twisted spine and determined that it would be improper for any child ever to be exposed to such a defective father. How would it impact a child’s self-esteem, if the child were forced to reflect “I am the son or daughter of a problematic father, one with a physical disfigurement”? They determined that the fact that I needed to be with my children, as if I were the mother rather than the father, was evidence of my womanishness, my lack of manliness, which meant to them that it was their sovereign obligation to drive me away from the four children for their own well-being. The less exposure to such a problematic father, the better! How bad do we need to hurt this guy, for him to get the message?

Well, obviously the sort of embarrassing treatment that I was receiving was intended to be embarrassing. General Electric Corporation eventually became very hostile toward me. Maxim of the nuclear power industry: an employee who can’t be threatened is not to be trusted. Finally, the day after I attempted to make my whistle-blowing phonecall to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington DC, they escorted me over to Personnel and offered me a deal. They could have me prosecuted for having known for 10 days about this quality problem before attempting to contact the NRC, and the result would be a fine and years of prison time, or, perhaps, they would pretend like they were laying me off, after years and years of permanent employment with them, which 2d alternative would entitle me to a week’s pay per accumulated year of service — and they would hand me this money as a lump sum, and I could go on unemployment compensation, and the sheriff would not be able to attach this unemployment compensation, and then for a little while at least, I would have money for food if not for rent. Part of the deal was, I should learn to keep my damn mouth shut with the NRC. So, not having any 3d alternative, knowing full well that if I did not accept this they would merely fire me “for cause” in order to get rid of a monthly embarrassment, I accepted.

Well, that was a mistake. I went down to the Unemployment Compensation people and applied for my compensation and they gave me a monthly check for a few months, and then they said “We have this job for you. So, you are off of Unemployment Compensation. You have received your last free money from us, SOB!” The job was as a “Systems Analyst” for “ISIRAN” division of Honeywell Information Systems, in Tehran, Iran, epicenter of inefficiency. I was to be paid like $73,000 a year in salary and bankable perks, year after year, on contract. They said “If you accept this job, you are not unemployed and will receive no more money from us. If you refuse this job, you are not actively seeking work and will receive no more money from us. Either way, you have received your last free money from us, fellow!”

What is Intensification ?

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Well, that was scary, because I didn’t want to leave my little kiddies, they needed me, and besides, everybody knew that the Shah of Iran was a murderer and a torturer. Would I be safe? I dithered.

But then I was summoned to the office of the District Attorney in San Jose, and the man there who took me into his office to have me sign this Iran contract threatened that unless I did sign, he could create a false charge against me and send me to prison. “But you know very well that I haven’t committed any crime!” I protested, whereupon he responded that this was not what was important, what was important was that he could in fact create such a false charge and that he could in fact obtain such a conviction. So I signed his paperwork which allegedly was with “ISIRAN division of Honeywell Information Systems,” and went to the Post Office and applied for a passport, and kissed my four kiddies good-bye and got aboard an airplane for Iran.

When I disembarked at Mehrabad Airport, I was met by an ISIRAN man and he said “Show me your passport.” I handed it to him, and he didn’t bother to look at it. He just put it in his pocket and that was the last I saw of it. “We’ll keep it safe,” he said. The next day, at work, they informed me that the contract I had signed was a piece of shit, that Honeywell Information Systems was not involved, that what I had done was enlist as a warrant officer in the Imperial Iranian Ground Forces — and that I would do as I was told or be executed.

To make a long story short, there wasn’t any $73,000 a year. They didn’t pay me. I needed to work at night as an English teacher (TOEFL) to make money to live on in Tehran. And the US Embassy and Consulate in Tehran was in on this, up to their eyeballs. They knew exactly what my predicament was, and would do zero zip nothing for me. I even managed to make contact with a Secret Service man, and asked him to take a message back to Washington DC for me. He refused.

The consulate people said “We know they’re not paying you. However, that is a private matter. If, at the end of your contract, they won’t let you go, then we will be able to step in and get you back to the states.”

Finally, in the middle of the Iranian Revolution, I managed to make contact with the insurrectionaries and they

What is Intensification ?

What is Intensification ?

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helped me escape from Iran by way of Bulgaria or some asslicking Commie country like that. I made it as far as Copenhagen on my own and then walked into the US Embassy — and they helped me get the rest of the way home to California. When I walked into the Embassy they knew exactly who I was and what my story was. I didn’t have to explain a thing. I didn’t even have to prove who I was. They knew. So I got back to California, and I was this middle-aged guy with no business suit and no money, and I couldn’t even go for a job interview. And I was in terror that the Iranians (and their American buddies who had actually been the ones who had been holding me and working me without pay, named Paul Beckingham and Bud Walsczak) were going to track me down and kill me, on account of my having escaped from them. So I hid out in the National Forest for several years.

I would sneak down out of the woods once a month and see my kids. We did a whole lot of camping out, in a tent I bought at Goodwills and sewed back together. This photo is from an outing at Point Reyes National Seashore, and the big pot was for a bouillabaisse of various fish leftovers I had just picked up at the supermarket on our way up through San Francisco:

It was on the way back down the Junipero Serra Freeway toward San Jose in the fog, that we hit a deer and wrecked the front lid of this orange VW — we ate that deer for six months. Finally the kids were in real need, so terrified or not I had to come down out of the woods, and I reverse-engineered my resume down to something pitiful, and got myself a pseudojob as a “technical writer.” Using a false name and a false social security number. And I started to give my ex-wife a part of my pay every month, as much as I could afford. That was great until they caught me. Until they caught me, I was keeping my family going, and was not being abused. So, they charged me with criminal child neglect. The argument was that the money I had been giving to my ex-wife every month way back when, out of my paycheck, was money which I should have been giving instead to the sheriff, to pay Santa Clara County back for welfare that my kids might have been receiving. Any money given directly to my children, according to this Catch-22, amounted to money withheld from my children, which was of course a heinous criminal offense.

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And it turned out, there is no possible defense. No defense at all. When it comes to criminal child neglect, you can’t just go “Your honor, I was prevented from providing from my children, I was being held as a slave in a foreign country.” No, there are no excuses, there are no excuses whatever. If you say something like that, you are saying something that translates directly into “I’m guilty, your honor.” They sentenced me to prison. Well, but, then, when they had gotten to this point, they didn’t actually put me in prison, because it is too expensive to actually put people in prison when actually all you need to do is molest them:

Instead they put me on “3 years probation.” The terms of the probation were, I needed to pay the sheriff at least so much per month for 3 years, or more, needed to pay him whether or not I was employed, and if I could succeed in doing so, I could stay out of prison. But if I have to I skip any payment, or am late, then I must go to prison and serve the full term of 3 years. Furthermore, I was under the court’s injunction not to slip my children any more money. If I so should much as give them a birthday present or a Christmas present during this 3-year period, that would amount to money taken away from the sheriff and the Probation Officer was instructed to vacate my suspended sentence and send the officers to take me directly to prison to serve my full 3 years.

Well, those were the best 3 years of my life up to that point. One year I made better than $80,000. I worked multiple jobs, etc. It was because my Probation Officer was lazy. Actually, he more or less served as a shield for me! It was his laziness that kept the sheriff away from my door.

Then when the 3 years were over, I was an ex-convict — an ex-convict with 4 adult children. And it all started again.

The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s office took the position that the court case had meant nothing since it had only disposed of the criminal aspect of my case, and had done nothing to alter the civil or financial aspect. I owed the County something like a quarter of a million dollars, by their calculation, and when was I gonna pay up? Thus the following: I cannot have a job without the government stepping in and taking my entire paycheck. I cannot have a bank account without the government freezing and seizing it. I cannot own part of a home or a car without the sheriff showing up and applying seizure stickers. All my retirement and pension moneys had been forfeit. When I reached retirement age under Social Security, they mentioned, the top 65% of my Social Security checks would be forwarded direct to them and out of the remaining 35% I would be obligated to pay federal and state income taxes even on the 65% I had not in fact received. If any relative were to die and leave me an estate, that would be confiscated. If I were to die and leave my children anything, that would not be allowed to my children, but would be confiscated. If my new wife did not have a complete severance of estate, in a community-property state such as California her wages as a university professor

What is Intensification ?

NOBODY HOME

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would be garnishable and her retirement funds seizable. Every year they would seize the income tax refund she received from her salary withholding, simply because she was married to me. We constantly have to discuss the possibility that at some point in the future, she may need to file for divorce in order to separate herself from this constant persecution. I am not even to be permitted to hold a driver’s license. Economically, I am not even a 2d-class citizen, but am more or less a nonperson. It appears that I am going to remain such an economic nonperson for the remainder of my life. And for what? I haven’t done anything — except possibly I got put on some secret list somewhere sometime by somebody, for having wrong opinions or for being a threat to the nuclear power industry or some stupid thing like that. And there is no help for me, I am defenseless and without any protector, simply because everybody knows that this sort of thing does not go on in America, where we have a Bill of Rights.

The thing that concerns me in regard to our lack of laws against enslavement is, that there doesn’t seem to be any safety net in this society, which will hold individuals such as myself out of the clutches of groups which seek to persecute them. If there were laws against slavery, for instance, if there were a legal definition of the elements of enslavement, I might be able to show that under these circumstances I have been effectively enslaved. I might be able to demonstrate that each and every one of the essential elements of the crime of enslavement have obtained, for one excuse or another, in my particular instance. But no, I can’t demonstrate that, because in this society we have decided that slavery is to be nothing but an inapplicable metaphor.

Well, there you have it. That is the basis for my feeling that there just isn’t any safety net in America, no fundamental protections which will help us if someone in authority begins to abuse us without recourse. Essentially, in Iran, I was reduced to slavery (in that I could not leave, could not change employment, could not obtain salary, and was working at the threat of the loss of my life, and their was in addition the implicit threat contained in their comment “We know where your children are”). After I escaped from Iran, however, it was like “I owed my soul to the company store,” whatever. Things were set up in such a manner that I would be the victim of these people for the remainder of my life, always under the threat of some sort of confiscation. If there were actually a federal law against human enslavement (instead of what we do have, which is merely a Constitutional Amendment #13 enacted in 1865 granting to our federal congress the authority to someday enact a law against human enslavement or not, in accordance with its good judgment and in its own good time), I’d have something to appeal against! Since our federal congress has never in fact seen fit in its wisdom to define what human enslavement might be, I don’t.

But this is to get well ahead of the story of the events of the year 1972. In this year I was, among other things, having a struggle with Sears over bills that my ex-wife María de los Angeles García Meredith kept charging in my name. She had been in the habit of charging somewhere between $100 and $200 a month of catalog sales by telephone. This situation persisted through the long drawn-out divorce and, after the divorce became final, she was still charging on that Sears card of hers, in my name. I could not get her to surrender the card and I could not get her to discontinue charging. When the divorce became final I formally notified Sears to change the billable party on her credit card, from my name to her name — but they failed to do so. My ex-wife continued to charge somewhere between $100 and $200 per month of catalog sales by telephone, and they continued to send me, Ashley Edward Meredith, the ex-husband, her monthly statements and bills. When I objected they simply ignored me. When the divorce became final I had stopped paying these bills, of course — so they started to get nasty. About a year after the divorce I was forced into bankruptcy. To resolve the situation which had been created by their intransigence I included their bills in my bankruptcy papers. The

ASSLEY

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bankruptcy was granted and their bills were voided by the court. I filed these court papers with them. They refused to recognize the order of the bankruptcy court and continued to bill me and threaten me for the voided bills. Finally I cut a deal with them, or thought I had cut a deal with them. They agreed that if I would pay the portion of the bill that was for my children’s clothing and shoes, legitimate things of that nature, they would void the remainder of the bill, involving a series of items which were not clearly purchased for the benefit of my children. So I paid them that “children’s” portion of this bill despite the fact that it had already been voided by the bankruptcy court. They did not communicate with the bankruptcy judge in this matter, and they did not keep their promise. After I had paid in a lump sum per our new agreement, they continued to bill me for the remainder of these voided bills, despite 1.) the fact that they had promised not to do so and despite 2.) the fact that these bills had all been ordered voided by the bankruptcy court.75

April 10, Monday: An earthquake in southern Iran near Ghir killed more than 5,000.

Two urban guerrillas groups killed General Juan Carlos Sanchez in Rosario, Argentina.

Fiat executive Oberdan Sallustro, who had been kidnapped by urban guerrillas on March 21st, was found shot to death in a suburb of Buenos Aires.

Antiphony VI (Cogito) for string quartet, slides and tape by Kenneth Gaburo to words of Hommel was performed for the initial time.

A service in memory of Stefan Wolpe was held at The Riverside Funeral Home, Amsterdam Avenue, New York. Among the speakers were Milton Babbitt, John Cage, and Elliott Carter. Wolpe’s remains were cremated.

75. According to an article “The Sorry Side of Sears” in the February 22, 1999 issue of Newsweek, as recently as 1999 Sears officials were continuing to display this utter indifference to bankruptcy law and practice. (The columnist, John McCormick, however, had no idea whatever how long this practice had been in existence, and incautiously bought into a liability-limiting cover story they told him as if it amounted to true corporate contrition.)

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There was heavy B-52 bombardment, ranging 145 miles into North Vietnam, for the 1st time since 1967.

The Geneva Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention was signed by over 70 nations in London, Moscow, and Washington DC. This convention, when it would go into effect during 1975, would prohibit further research, development, and testing of biological weapons, agents and compounds — but there would be a wide open barn door for prophylactic and defensive research, development, and testing by which we could accomplish all the offensive weapons development that our hearts could possibly desire. Meanwhile the Pentagon would retain a Chemical and Biological Warfare unit, underfunded but waiting for the first excuse to spring back as a major program.

GERM WARFARE

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In the United States of America, enactment of a “War Powers Resolution” the ostensible or declared intent of which was to check the power of our President to commit the nation to armed conflict without the consent of the Congress (well, so much for “ostensible or declared intent,” as opposed to “actual consequences”). Bill Moyers would lament about this developing situation, in 1987, that: “We’ve turned the war powers of the United States over to, well we are never really sure who, or what they’re doing, or what it costs, or who is paying for it, the one thing that we are sure of is that this largely secret global war carried on with less and less accountability to democratic institutions, has become a way of life. And now we are faced with a question brand new in our history. Can we have the permanent warfare state and democracy too?”

Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was pursuing his goal of transforming Iran into a regional power, and therefore there were substantial increases in the nation’s petroleum revenue — a very large share of which always remained within the Shah’s governing and military apparatus rather than ever been glimpsed by the ordinary citizens (except of course for the daily bread ration and the artificially low cost of fuel).

March 20, Tuesday: A Japanese court found Chisso Corporation negligent in discharging methylmercury in its wastewater, causing over 2,200 victims of “Minamata disease” in 1956. They would be required to pay a total of ¥937,000,000 to victims and their survivors.

Approximately 100 Cambodians, including newspaper editors and opposition politicians, were arrested by the US-backed government.

Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi of Iran announced the nationalization of his nation’s oil industry.

A British White Paper called for an 80-member assembly in Northern Ireland with proportional representation and power shared by Protestants and Catholics. Moderates welcomed the proposals, but hard liners rejected it.

About 800 students who had gathered to press demands for greater civil liberties were forcibly evicted from Athens University by Greek police.

A strike by French air traffic controllers, begun February 20th, was suspended.

William Merriam, a vice-president of International Telephone and Telegraph, testified before a US Senate committee that ITT, together with the CIA, had worked against the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile.

Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray III informed the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities of the United States Senate that as instructed by Attorney General Richard Gordon Kleindienst he would refuse to answer any questions about the Watergate case.

1973

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July 31, Tuesday: All 249 Canadian members of the International Commission of Control and Supervision departed South Vietnam. The US announced that Iran has agreed to take their place.

Thailand reported that its troops had begun to withdraw from Laos.

Protestant hard liners disrupted the 1st meeting of the newly elected Northern Ireland legislative assembly, forcing it to adjourn.

August 29, Wednesday: 5 Iranians arrived in Saigon as Iran replaced Canada among the 5 nations in the International Commission of Control and Supervision.

Judge John Joseph Sirica ordered President Richard Milhous Nixon to hand over the Oval Office tapes being demanded by special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox (by himself listening to the materials, the judge was intending to determine whether Executive Privilege applied).

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June: Eric O’Dean and Ivan Henry were swept unexpectedly from rocks at Deep Valley, St. Helena.

A student uprising in Qum, Iran on the anniversary of the uprising of 15 Khurdad resulted in multiple deaths when a demonstration at the Fayziya madrasa was attacked by the commandos of Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and by a helicopter firing from the air; Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini declared these deaths a token of “freedom and liberation from the bonds of imperialism” (indeed, the Iranian Revolution would begin some two and a half years later, on an anniversary of this event).

March 2, Sunday: Divisiveness is weakness and weakness is intolerable. Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi decreed a unified 1-party Iranian state for at least the following 2 years, under a new organization that he was going to denominate “The National Resurrection Party.”

Four Soundscapes for orchestra by Gunther Schuller was performed for the initial time, in Poughkeepsie, New York, and was conducted by the composer.

1975

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March 21, Nowruz: As one of a series of pointless innovations that unnecessarily alienated many of his subjects, the grandiose Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi replaced the Islamic calendar with his own “imperial” version that began to count time at the origination of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia with the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus II the Great, taken as having occurred in 559 BCE, rather than at the hejira of the prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina or at the supposed birth of Jesus Christ or at the origin of Judaism. Overnight, therefore, at least for the nation of Iran, the year changed from 1355 to 2535. The shah did this merely so that the year 2500 would have fallen during 1941, the year on which he had begun his own hegemony over the nation. His subjects began to retail countless jokes such as “The Shah has decreed that effective immediately cars are to drive on the right side of the road, as they do in America. He says that if this works out well, in two weeks trucks will also begin to drive on the right side.”

1976

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During this year I was scheming to steal my 4 children away, and seek political asylum in Peru — a country in which, I creatively presumed, they would be able to recognize US political abuse when they saw it. I thought I could become maybe a business consultant in Lima, and help their businesses and manufacturing concerns to computerize. This was at the time my only alternative to the District Attorney’s office of Santa Clara County, which was forcing me to sign an employment contract that was at least ostensibly with a subsidiary of a reputable American corporation, Honeywell Information Systems, and be sent by them to Iran. I had my children’s 4 passports ready. When I went to the Peruvian consulate for their visas, however, I found that the Peruvian officials were devastatingly unconcerned. — I wasn’t rich and they weren’t interested. To have gotten such a seeking-political-asylum scheme going, it turned out, I would have had to be able to bribe them, bribe them bigtime.

The assistant DA was saying that if I did not sign his contract with ISIRAN, he would fake up some charges and send me to prison. The HIS contract specified that the education of my children would, as one of the contract’s benefits, be paid for in Tehran by the employing corporation. I transferred my escape scenario from Peru to Iran. (I had no idea before arriving in Tehran that the “contract” I was signing was a fraud, and that once the good folks at ISIRAN had taken possession of my US passport and locked it into their corporate safe, none of the salary and benefits enumerated on this piece of paper would ever be forthcoming.)

January-July: Journalists, intellectuals, lawyers, and political activists published a series of open letters criticizing the accumulation of power in the hands of Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran.

September 13, Tuesday: When 2 men with semiautomatic pistols waylaid a car carrying Princess Ashraf ol-Molouk Pahlavi, twin sister of Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, on a road near her summer residence at Juan les Pins as she was returning fro a night at the casino in Cannes, the Iranian businessman driving the car was wounded and a Lady-in-Waiting of the Princess was killed in a hail of 14 bullets, but the Princess and a 2d Iranian businessman were unharmed.

Leopold Stokowski died of a heart attack in Nether Wallop, Great Britain at the age of 95.

General Motors introduced the Oldsmobile 88, 1st US diesel-engine automobile.

October: A 10-night poetry festival organized by the Iranian writers’ association attracted thousands of participants to lectures criticizing the government, at the Goethe Institute in Tehran.

A news item relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: Radio Shack opened its 1st all-computer store, in Fort Worth, Texas.

1977

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October 23, Sunday: Sayyid Mostafa Khomeini, eldest son of exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, died in Najaf, Iraq of unknown causes at the age of 47. The elder Khomeini had been living in exile since 1963, when he had been arrested for leading protests against Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s modernization program. The usual Iranian rumor mill would spring into operation and there would be reports that he had died in police custody in the presence of members of the Iranian SAVAK (Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar) secret police — his father would declare him to have been a “martyr.”

November 15, Tuesday-16, Wednesday: During a visit to Washington DC, Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi welcome at President Jimmy Carter’s White House was disrupted by impolite Iranian students who for some unexplained reason were wearing paper sacks with eye-holes over their heads (and disrupted as well as by drifting tear gas used by the mounted police to disperse these impolite students). Two decoy helicopters landed on the Ellipse as the Shah was arriving by limousine. Jimmy apologized to Mo for the “air pollution.”

December 20, Tuesday: A devastating windstorm measuring up to 192 miles per hour blew from the Great Basin into the San Joaquin Valley of California, raising murky clouds of mustard-colored dirt to 5,000 feet that blotted out the sun. Windowpanes were sandblasted into milky translucence, and the glass thinned. The dust, carrying active spores of the soil pathogen Coccidioides immitis, would cover an area the size of Maine (this weather event would come to be identified as the “Tempest of Tehachepi”). –The result would be, in the first half of January, numerous severe cases of primary coccidioidomycosis, a disease that is potentially fatal.76

76. Fortunately I missed this, as the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office had just forced me –under threat of an admittedly bogus prosecution– to leave my home in the Sierra Nevada mountains and fly to Iran for what was supposedly a “Honeywell Information Systems” (it wasn’t) position as a “systems analyst” (it wasn’t) in Tehran for a salary of some $30,000 a year (much of it actually never paid) to be deposited for the benefit of my children in a Bank of America account in San Francisco (not a single dollar of which ever materialized).

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December 31, Saturday: Cambodia severed diplomatic relations with Vietnam after serious border fighting.

Hans Werner Henze suffered his 1st heart attack, in London.

Turkish Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel resigned after losing a confidence vote.

When a bomb exploded in a car carrying 2 members of the Syrian embassy in London, both were killed.

Ted Bundy escaped from jail in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He would travel through Denver, Chicago, and Michigan to Florida.

While on a brief visit to Iran aboard the Concorde, at a grand bash at the palace, President Jimmy Carter, as ever the gullible one, toasted Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, describing his regime as “an island of stability in one of the most troubled areas of the world.”

Donald John Trump, Jr. was born in Manhattan to Donald Trump’s initial spouse, Ivana Marie Zelníčková Trump. As a child, Donald Trump, Jr. would find a role model in his maternal grandfather, Miloš Zelníčková.

DIEN BIEN PHU ⊃ MY LAI TED BUNDY

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Iranians resorted to rioting, mass demonstrations, and strikes to protest the Shah’s authoritarian rule. In response, the Shah enforced martial law. “Black Friday” and massive strikes destabilized his regime. The Shah secured the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s deportation from Iraq and the Ayatollah ended up near Paris.

The world’s atomic testing continued:

The United States federal government enacted a “whistleblower protection” statute for nuclear whistleblowers like me. Only problem: this statute specified a 160-day statute of limitations on recoveries for having been so abused. If one had been abused for being a nuclear whistleblower more than 6 months earlier (as I had been fired the day after attempting to make a phonecall to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the GE Nuclear Energy Division in 1976), one still was left with no protection whatever. Even if I had been able to escape back to California in 1978 and file a claim rather than being trapped as I was by ISIRAN Information Systems–Iran without access to my passport, that claim would have been of no usefulness.

My father Benjamin Bearl Smith’s 1971 hardcover HOW TO USE THE MAGIC OF SELF-CYBERNETICS: PROGRAM THE REAL YOU THROUGH THE SCIENCE OF YOUR MIND TO REACH ALL YOUR GOALS had a 2d edition in Spanish as CÓMO UTILIZAR LA MAGIA DE LA AUTO-CIBERNÉTICA: UN METODO PARA PROGRAMAR SU VERDADERO “YO” POR MEDIO DE LA CIENCIA DE SU MENTE PARA LOGAR SUS METAS.

In Tehran during the Khomeini Revolution, I loved a young lady named Hamideh (this is the feminine form

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of the name “Muhammad,” derived from the Arabic for “to praise”). Curiously, in a Muslim country where for an infidel to pay attentions to any other Iranian young woman would have been problematic to say the very least, nobody objected to my paying attention to Hamideh. She had a notably dusky skin and her hair was very curly. Eventually she explained the situation. The reason why the Muslims did not offer to cut my infidel throat was, she was part black. By treating her like a human being I was bringing shame on America, and the revolutionaries were enjoying the spectacle of this Sag Amrikayi, me, behaving in such a disgraceful manner. One of Hamideh’s ancestors had been brought over from Africa to the very hot and humid oil town of Abadan in southern Iran, a real steambath of a place. She informed me that black female slaves had been highly prized by the Persians — because their skins were said to be cool to the touch. I stroked her skin, and was about to say “Doesn’t feel particularly cool to me.” She beat me to the punch by going “But we’re not in Abadan.”

January 6, day: Iranian newspaper Ettela’at published a front-page editorial disparaging Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, that reportedly had been authored in the royal court at the direction of Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

January 9, day: The main bazaar in Qom, where Iran’s largest seminaries were based, closed to protest the defamation of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini. Several thousand protestors attacked symbols of the monarchy; security forces killed at least 5.

February 18, Saturday: Two Palestinian terrorists entered the Hilton Hotel in Nicosia and gunned down Youssef el-Sebai, editor of the Egyptian daily Al Ahram. They then held 30 hostages in the hotel restaurant. They released 12 in return for safe conduct to Larnaca airport. At the airport, 7 more were released. The terrorists boarded a Cyprus Airways jet with the remaining 11 hostages and took off.

Consistent with Shia religious tradition, on the 40th day following the government suppression of Muslim demonstrations in Qom on January 9th, a suppression during which 6 had been killed, were held. A student protester and 5 others were killed and 125 injured in Tabriz, Iran during these 40th-day rioting/mourning ceremonies, provoking new cycles of 40th-day rioting/mourning ceremonies, and further military retaliatory violence.

March 26, Sunday: A week of anti-government rioting broke out throughout Iran.

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April: During this period a cycle of protests, repression, violence, and mourning was continuing in three dozen Iranian cities.

For some unexplained reason the United States of America terminated its neutron bomb project.77 –What, didn’t we need a neutron bomb?

A $4,085 check was posted by the federal government of the United States of America to the Treasurer General of the Republic of Cuba. The money represented this year’s rent for the US’s oldest overseas naval base, Guantánamo Bay, a 45-square-mile sliver on the southeast coast of the island originally acquired as a coaling station for US vessels and exceedingly unlike any other military installation in the world. This check would not be cashed by its addressee. No such check would ever again be cashed. Eventually even the postal address to which these checks continue to be mailed year after year would no longer be a deliverable Cuban postal address — and nevertheless the checks would be posted.

May 8, day: In Iran, Muslim extremists began 4 days of rioting in opposition to the policies of Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Carlos Chávez appeared as conductor for the final time, at the Interamerican Music Festival in the Kennedy Center, Washington DC, where his Concerto for trombone and orchestra was performed for the initial time. Also premiered was American Te Deum for vocal soloist, chorus and orchestra by Karel Husa, conducted by the composer.

June 7, Wednesday: When a federal grand jury in Miami indicted 22 labor union officials and shipping executives for kickbacks, embezzlement, and other illegal activities, the FBI’s UNIRAC undercover investigation became publicly known. Eventually more than 110 convictions would be recorded as the results of this undercover work, including the conviction of Anthony M. Scotto, longshoreman union leader and organized crime figure.

When Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi replaced General Nematollah Nassiri as head of SAVAK (Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar), one of the 1st moves made by his successor was to release 300 detained Iranian clerics.

July 20, day: Protests erupted in Mashhad, Iran after the death of a cleric in a road accident; a number of people were killed in the upheaval there and elsewhere.

August 9-10, day: The arrest of a cleric provoked riots in Isfahan, Iran, which quickly spread to Shiraz, Qazvin, Tabriz, Abadan, and Ahwaz. The Shiraz Art Festival was cancelled and an estimated 100 were killed. Martial law was declared in Isfahan.

77. Jimmy Carter would later indicate that it was his personal experience as a “jumper” after a nuclear accident that had been the deciding factor in this presidential decision.

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August 19, day: 377, 410, 430, 422, or more than 800 Iranians (depending on who you believe) died in a deliberately set fire at Cinema Rex in Abadan, Iran.

August 20, day: After unknown terrorists set fire to Cinema Rex in Abadan, Iran, the government blamed Muslim extremists while opponents blamed SAVAK (Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar). After the revolution a crazed marginal Islamist character, Hossein Takbalizadeh, would be found to have been involved, but the Revolutionary Tribunal of Rudsar would also execute Captain Monir Taheri on February 23d, 1979.

Palestinian terrorists attacked an El Al crew in London, killing a flight attendant and injuring 9. Seven of those injured were British civilians.

August 22, day: One of the leading figures on the African continent, President Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, dies of heart failure in Mombassa. He was succeeded by Daniel arap Moi.

Two days of anti-government riots break out in Abadan, Iran during mourning ceremonies for those who died in the August 20 fires.

Sandinista guerrillas seize the National Palace of Nicaragua and take 1,500 hostages. They demand $10,000,000, the release of all political prisoners, the broadcasting of messages and safe conduct out of the country.

August 27, day: Prime Minister Jamshid Amouzegar resigns; his successor, Jafar Sharif-Emami, undertakes reforms intended to assuage.

September 7, day: 100,000 people demonstrate in Tehran demanding the return of exiled religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

Bulgarian exile Georgi Markov was stabbed on a London street by a man using the tip of his umbrella. The umbrella contains poison. Markov becomes seriously ill.

September 8, day: The government of Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran had declared martial law. In Tehran, the following morning, security forces fired into a large crowd protesting the declaration in Tehran’s Jaleh Square, in front of its Majlis legislature building, and not less than 95 citizens were killed. Unofficial estimates placed the death toll at at least 250. The event would become known as “Black Friday.”

October 3, day: At Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s behest, the Iraqi government deports Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini. After he is denied entry to Kuwait, Khomeini travels to France and settles in Neuphle-le-Chateau, a Parisian suburb, where he benefits from far greater media access and attention.

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October 25, day: The Iranian government released 1,126 political prisoners on Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s birthday.

October 29, day: In an attempt to calm unrest, the Iranian government sacks or retires 34 members of Savak, the secret police.

In Sweet Music for mezzo-soprano, flute, viola and harp by William Schuman to words of Shakespeare was performed for the initial time, in New York.

October 31, day: 40,000 oil workers in Iran went on strike in opposition to the Shah.

The Tanzanian government announced that Ugandan forces had moved 32 km inside Tanzania to the Kagera River. Uganda claimed the river as its natural boundary.

November 1, Wednesday: Employees of Iran Air went on strike in opposition to the Shah.

President Jimmy Carter announced emergency actions to shore up the dollar. The New York Stock Exchange responded with its largest 1-day rise to date.

November 5, Sunday: A referendum in Austria resulted in a small majority to discontinue that nation’s initial nuclear power plant.

Winning a seat in Karnataka, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi returned to the Indian Parliament.

At the University of Tehran, Iranian troops fired into a student demonstration killing at least 3 (the government of Prime Minister Jaffar Sharif Emami would resign).

In Baghdad, a 4-day Arab League summit meeting concluded with an appeal to Egypt to cease and desist from making peace with Israel.

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November 6, Monday: Days after protests had swollen in Tehran on a religious holiday, efforts to broker a national unity government with the opposition collapsed, due to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini’s defiance. Prime Minister Sharif-Emami resigned, and was succeeded by a military government led by General Gholam Reza Azhari. Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi broadcast, on national television, a promise not to repeat past mistakes and to make amends, saying “I heard the voice of your revolution…. As Shah of Iran as well as an Iranian citizen, I cannot but approve your revolution.”

The New York Times and the New York Daily News resumed publication after an 88-day strike by pressmen.

“They Knew What They Wanted” for speaker, oboe, piano, percussion, and tape by Ernst Krenek to his own words was performed for the initial time, at the Manhattan School of Music, New York, and was directed by the composer.

November 13, day: Most Iranian oil workers began returning to work, returning the oil industry to near normalcy.

December 4, Monday: Dianne Feinstein became mayor of San Francisco after the assassination of Mayor Moscone.

The American space probe Venus Pioneer entered orbit around Venus.

Malaysia rescinded its ban on refugee boat people from Vietnam. 600 landed on this day.

In response to calls from the Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, thousands of Iranian workers struck or staged job actions to hasten the downfall of Shahanshah Pahlavi. These walkouts seriously reduced oil output.

Soviet conductor Kiril Kondrashin defected to the West in the Netherlands.

O caro m’é il sonno for chorus by Thea Musgrave to words of Michelangelo, was performed for the initial time, at the State College of Memphis, Tennessee.

December 6, day: Only a week after he publicly reaffirmed U.S. support for and “confidence in” Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, President Jimmy Carter publicly hedged in press statements, noting that “We personally prefer that the Shah maintain a major role, but that is a decision for the Iranian people to make.”

December 11, Monday (Ashura, 20th of Azar): Two days of anti-government rioting broke out in Isfahan, Iran. At least 50 were killed and 500 injured.

Guerrillas destroyed the central oil storage depot in Salisbury, Rhodesia, creating a massive fire.

Two-part Symphony for orchestra by Charles Wuorinen was performed for the initial time, in Alice Tully Hall, New York.

In late 1978 and early 1979 during the Iranian Revolution, I was trapped in Iran because the US Embassy and Consulate in Tehran were refusing to help me exit the country (well, that’s another story) and during Ashura –the humongous religious holiday on which columns of Shi’ites march through the streets whipping

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themselves across their backs with chains and hacking at their scalps, chanting, with blood flying everywhere– I was hiding out in a small village just to the west of Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport. A young revolutionary friend has offered me refuge in his family’s hovel. They were Mahdists, which is to say, they were waiting for the Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, the Mahdi, to materialize himself at Mehrabad Airport and bring history to an end. Basically, I gathered from the little Farsi that I understood, and from the “body language” that the family was split along gender lines, with the womenfolk arguing that the menfolk should kill me because I was an nekkhies, filthy, and the father of the family arguing that they couldn’t kill me as long as I was a guest in the home.I had made one serious mistake that I can identify, a mistake in my reading matter. When I arrived in the home, they had thoroughly gone through my backpack, looking at everything –interested in seeing what the ferangi was carrying around with him– and they had come upon the current issue of TIME Magazine, something that I had been given by an American who had just landed in Iran. Now, this was the Iran of Shahanshah Pahlavi, and foreign magazines were totally banned. I mean, really totally banned. So, these villagers were thrilled to be able to see the pictures in something from outside Iran, and my young friend who had brought me into his home was able to read English (more or less). He began to read aloud the various news articles in this TIME magazine to the family, translating. They had come to an article in this issue of TIME that was about Iran, and so it goes without saying that they were particularly interested in this particular article. They considered this article carefully word for word. The article told them that the Shahanshah had been selling Iranian oil, their oil, to Israel. Shahanshah Pahlavi, whom they detested, the Enemy of God, had been having dealings with Jews, there it was, right there in black and white! Their fingers poked at the magazine page, following along word after word. Dealings with Jews.They had also come across, in the bottom of my pack, a pocket knife with a two-inch pointed blade, and they had instantly “traded” this with me for one of their official, allowed village knives, a legal knife with its not more than half-inch non-pointed blade (that they had been using in the village to cut the throats of sheep).You have to bear in mind that the situation in Iran in early 1979 was tense. In a nearby town, human intestines had recently been strung from lamp-post to lamp-post. (The intestines had pertained to some local Shah supporters.) This particular village was built right up against the high concrete wall of one of the Shah’s massive political prisons. Everyone was living in fear of arrest and torture. And, these people were your ultimate antisemites.So in that context, when they interrogated me as to whether they were translating this article correctly from the English into Farsi, that they were understanding correctly that their oil was going to Jews, I was testifying that yes indeed, what the words meant was that Shahanshah Pahlavi had entered into a trade agreement with Israel. I said that I failed to see why they found this so troubling. I said it wasn’t as if the Shah, no matter how much they hated and feared him, had been giving away any of their oil, and pointed out that what the Shah was doing was, merely, that he was selling it on the open market, an arms-length financial transaction that did not indicate any love. Incautiously, I said that I failed to see why they were getting so excited about Jews — since we were all of us God’s children. –Well, I guess that kinda set them off.The teenage boy of the family had stuck my little pocketknife into his turban, open, and was swaggering around in an “I’ve got the biggest knife in the village” mode, and I was afraid that at any moment he would come along behind me to slit my throat. (Well, guess what, he didn’t.)At one point during this argument over my life, what I mean by “body language” is that they were throwing boiled potatoes at one another. Then the old lady of the family came rushing at me holding out with both hands at arm’s length an enormous gilt-bound volume. She was gesturing that I should accept the volume to look at it. I was wary of her toothless grin and kept backing away, putting my hands behind my back and shaking my head no, no, no. (Something from my childhood in the fundamentalist Indiana cornfields was warning me.) The father of the family grabbed his wife, who was ululating loudly, shoved her into the back room, and slammed the door. Eventually, everyone calmed down, and an oilcloth was spread on the floor, and we sat down around it and had supper — which turned out to consist of the boiled potatoes that they had been throwing, and nothing else. Eventually, with my hands still carefully behind my back, one of them opened their

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volume and held it up so that I could inspect it from a distance. This was, of course, the family’s Qur’an with their multi-generation record of births and deaths on the front flyleaf. I watched as they traced through the Arabic script for me, indicating the dates of birth of each of the current crop of kiddies, and pointing one by one at the kiddies. I was, of course, acting very polite.This grandma had been trying to force the issue. Had my unclean hand touched their family Qur’an they would have needed to have taken it to their mullah for it to be ritually burned in the mosque incinerator. My touching this book that was being pushed at me would have meant my death right there and then — if the men hadn’t done it the ululating women would’ve.I’m glad I lived to point the moral: a holy scripture is to a true believer what an accelerant is to a needy arsonist. I note that as of the year 2005, now that our troops have desecrated the Qur’an, we might as well just fold our tent in the middle of the night and silently sneak away. The Afghanistan thing, the Iraq thing, it’s over.I wound up feeling as if I were being baited, and kicking myself that I had made any communication at all with that group, and making a resolution that never again would I make such a mistake.(It is really difficult to talk about these issues at all, since we aren’t right in torturing people, and we aren’t right in flushing sacred scriptures down the crapper, while meanwhile they aren’t right either, in killing 17 people just because they found out that we’ve done this. When you try to talk about it, everyone thinks you are taking sides, when actually you are simply disgusted with the entire sordid mess from start to finish, and utterly disgusted with everyone on all sides who has gotten involved in such antics. In this context we may remind ourselves of a remark that Thoreau made in 1862 when somebody asked him, as he lay dying, what attitude he took toward the US civil war. He commented that he regretted nothing so much as that he had ever heard of such a thing. Ah, so. Likewise, I regret nothing so much as that I ever heard of some people flushing a sacred scripture down a toilet plus other people killing people because a sacred scripture had been flushed down a toilet.

December 14, day: 30 people were killed by anti-government rioting in 3 cities in Iran.

December 17, day: Meeting in the UAE, OPEC decided to end its 18-month price freeze and begin raising prices on January 1st.

Palestinian terrorists exploded a bomb on a Jerusalem bus, injuring 21 people.

IRA bombs exploded in 5 British cities.

National elections in Belgium took place resulting in slight changes in the party strength. The Socialist Party contested the election, broken up along language lines for the initial time.

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December 18, day: Iranian opponents to Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi staged a nationwide strike.

Dominica was admitted to the United Nations.

Archangel for bass trombone and string quartet by Charles Wuorinen was performed for the initial time, in Borden Auditorium, New York.

Triple Concerto for clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet and chamber orchestra by Donald Martino was performed for the initial time, at the Manhattan School of Music, New York.

December 23, day: Iranian security forces opened fire on a crowd in Meshed, killing 29 and injuring 30.

Spain abolished the death penalty, save for crimes committed in the military during war.

December 29, day: Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran appointed Shapour Bakhtiar, to form a civilian government as prime minister. A long-time nationalist politician and vocal critic of the Shah, he would 2 weeks later be confirmed by the parliament.

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Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran fled his country and the Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini returned from Iraq and France to Iran and came to power. Shortly, Iraq would invade Iran in an attempt to gain territory during the period in which Iran would be preoccupied with its own internal instability. That war would drag into an immensely costly and deadly WWI-style stalemate. Despite their very best efforts, Iraq’s poison gas would not seem to be doing the job against Iran’s mass army of fundamentalist hotheads. Eventually the Reagan administration, aware that Iraq needed to use Weapons of Mass Destruction against Iran, would authorize at least 40 shipments from the American Type Culture Collection, which is a large scientific institute housing cultures every known type of disease for scientific purposes, to our friend and ally Saddam Hussein, of weapons-specific biological agents.

I’ve lost track of the timeframe, so I will arbitrarily record at this point that toward the end of my period in Tehran as an “employee” of the corporation ISIRAN, I received a series of taunting phonecalls having to do with the whereabouts of my US passport. If I would go to this place, it would be given back to me. If I would go to that place, it would be given back to me. The last such phonecall told me to go to Evin Prison, at the top of Tehran near the mountains, and I would have my US passport given back to me. I went there in a taxi, and entered the mail room since it was the only access available to me. I stood around in the prison mailroom and demanded that I be given my passport back. Evin was, of course, as everyone knew, the place where the Shah’s SAVAK (Sazeman-e Ettelaat va Amniyat-e Keshvar) tortured its political prisoners. I was as loud and demanding as I dared, but finally I just had to go away. A few days later I received a summons by way of my boss Bud Walszak, or my boss’s boss Paul Beckingham, that I was to report to the top floor of the executive building of ISIRAN. When I reported there I was kept waiting for awhile on a hard office chair at the side of a corridor, and then a man in a suit summoned me into a room containing a desk and two chairs. We seated ourselves and he handed me my US passport. I asked him who he was and he responded that that was none of my business. “Are you SAVAK?” No response. “How did you locate my passport?” No response. “Why was I sent to the Evin torture prison, what was that about?” No response.

I had approximately zero Iranian rials. ISIRAN was of course not paying me my salary, or at least my American bosses had been withholding that salary from me and presumably putting it into their own pockets, and the Simin Institute classes by which I had been supporting myself through by teaching TOEFL at night were suspended due to the revolution and their management was not responding to my demands that I be paid my back salary. I then found out that merely having my US passport in my pocket again did not mean I would be able to go home. The US Embassy and Consulate refused to do anything to help me because I was “under contract” to a company linked to the Shah’s government, despite the fact that they were providing free and immediate flights home to American dependents and non-essential personnel. To exit the country I needed 3 additional stamps from the Iranians: an exit visa, a stamp certifying that my Iranian taxes had been paid, and a permit to leave my post at ISIRAN. When I would attempt to negotiate for these stamps, the Iranian officeholders who were to provide them declined to bargain with me for the 3 at once. First I would need to bargain for one of the stamps, and then after a suitable bribe price had been paid I could begin to bargain for the 2d of the stamps, and finally for the 3d. I never managed to obtain even the 1st one, of course, since I had no money, and eventually some Khomeini revolutionaries, taking pity at my plight, would arrange to smuggle me out of their country — why should they bother to kill an American who was so very eager to get the hell out of their faces?

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When I would get back home to California, I would be sleeping in unlocked cars on the street in San Jose but would be refused government assistance because I had “voluntarily quit” my previous employment in Iran working for the Shah’s forces. Then later I would be sentenced by the Santa Clara County Family Court to 3 years in prison for child neglect, for having failed to provide for my 4 children, and my lawyer would advise me that it was not any defense that I had been unable due to being held as a war slave in a foreign nation. He would point out to me “There are only two possible defenses, one being that you had not been ordered by the court to make the payments and the other being that you did pay them in full on time every time a payment of child support had been due and can now demonstrate this to have been the case.” My ex-wife brought our 4 children to be present in court to hear these authorities refer to their father as “the worst deadbeat dad in the history of the state of California.” (On the bright side, they didn’t actually put me in prison this time, this time they allowed me to get a job as a senior technical writer in Silicon Valley while I brought to their parole officer a set amount in child support and arrearages each month during the 3 years of my suspended sentence. On the dim side, the District Attorney’s office had a computer system that discounted any moneys obtained “involuntarily” in such manner that they never subtracted from the accumulating balance due –so at the satisfactory completion of my 3-year sentence they would be saying that I had come to owe far more than I had been said to owe at the beginning of that sentence –and their collections process could begin all over again with a fresh summons to appear for child neglect despite the fact that all 4 of my children had since become adults.)78

During this period I had an interesting conversation with my eldest daughter, Cara María Meredith, about the sort of advice she was receiving from a favorite teacher or counselor in her school. She told me (I really did not know whether to believe her or not, but for purposes of this conversation pretended to accept what she was saying at face value) that her mentor had suggested to her that perhaps what was wrong with her father was, that he felt overwhelmed by life. “He’s just an Indiana farm boy, faced with the challenge of living in today’s modern world. Presumably he feels inadequate.” I pointed out to Cara that although indeed her father had spent time on various Indiana farms during his childhood and adolescence, he had also lived for extended periods of time in major metropolitan areas of America, such as San Diego, California and the San Francisco Bay area. I pointed out that it would be difficult to imagine, of someone who was “just an Indiana farm boy,” that he had also, during his teenage years, hitchhiked to national capitals such as London, Paris, Rome, and Madrid. I pointed out to Cara that this mentor had not only never met me but also had not sighted me, and was perhaps entirely unaware that the parent she was so confidently but incautiously analyzing was a person who presented with a severe physical disfigurement, an offensively twisted spine that perhaps accounted for a whole lot in and of itself in terms of his having an unusual amount of difficulty in getting ahead in life.

January 4, Thursday: A civilian government under Shapur Bakhtiar was sworn in, in Iran.

In Reggio Calabria, 28 defendants were sentenced to a total of 207 years in the initial successful major prosecution of the Calabrian mafia.

The funeral for the military governor of Madrid turned into a fascist rally against the government.

The State of Ohio agreed to the settlement of a suit over the killings at Kent State University in 1970. They agreed to pay $600,000 to the parents of 4 students killed and to 9 students injured, as well as $75,000 for legal and other expenses. Governor James Rhodes and 27 National Guardsmen who were defendants in the case signed a statement that the killings “should not have occurred” (the statement contained no apology).

78. If you consider this incredible, you don’t know as much about the real world as you need to know.

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January 5, Friday: The Malaysian government refused to accept any more boat people from Vietnam.

Work stoppages in Iran slowly came to an end.

January 6, Saturday: 100,000 people demonstrated in Qom, Iran against the Bakhtiar government.

January 11, Thursday: 11 were killed in rioting in Shiraz, Iran.

January 12, Friday: In Paris, Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini formed the Revolutionary Council to coordinate the transition.

January 13, Saturday: Vietnamese forces were reported to have taken Sisophon and Siem Reap.

A 9-member regency council was formed to carry out the duties of Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi after he abandoned the nation. 100,000 people demonstrated peacefully in Tehran against the government.

3 Palestinian terrorists who attempted to take over a hotel in the Israeli town of Maalot were killed by Israeli soldiers.

Jubilatio for 4 percussionists by Sofia Gubaidulina was performed for the initial time, in Moscow.

January 16, Tuesday: Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, who had been in power since the US-led coup of 1953, exited a nation in general revolt against his rule, “vacationing” initially in Egypt. As he departed the Shah told Prime Minister Bakhtiar “I give Iran into your care, yours and God’s.”

Concerto for contrabassoon and orchestra by Gunther Schuller was performed for the initial time, at the Kennedy Center in Washington. On the same program was the premiere of the Symphony no.36 for flute and orchestra by Alan Hovhaness.

January 17, day: Undisciplined troops ran amok in Ahwaz, Iran and attacked anti-government protesters. Unofficial reports put the death toll at somewhere between 10 and 100.

Voters in Greenland approved home rule by a margin of 2 over 1.

PERSIA IRAN

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January 18, Thursday: There was rioting in Ahwaz and Dizful, Iran. At least 23 were killed and 80 injured.

Palestinian terrorists exploded a bomb in a Jerusalem marketplace, injuring 21.

Vietnamese forces retook Kompong Som from the Khmer Rouge.

Reflections of Emily for treble voices, piano, harp and percussion by Peter Mennin to words of Dickinson was performed for the initial time, in New York.

January 19, Friday: John N. Mitchell (former Attorney-General and Watergate figure) was released on parole from federal prison.

Hong Kong authorities temporarily accepted 3,383 boat people from Vietnam.

Israeli forces struck at Palestinian terrorist camps in Lebanon, killing 40.

A million people demonstrated in Tehran against the government of Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar and for the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

In a winter full of labor disputes, British truck drivers ended a strike after winning 17%-20% wage increases.

January 26, day: 100,000 anti-government protesters demonstrated in Tehran. They were fired on by troops, who killed not fewer than 20.

Serenade for Guitar with Optional Percussion by Lou Harrison was performed for the initial time, in Schenectady, New York.

January 28, Sunday: The Chinese Central Committee officially ended discrimination against children of landlords.

Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Deng Xiaopeng landed in Washington DC to begin a 9-day visit. This was the initial official visit to the United States of America of a high ranking official from the Peoples Republic.

Thousands of people once again took to the streets in Tehran, Iran. They threw stones at troops, who opened fire, killing at least 40 and injuring 400.

January 30, Tuesday: The Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini replaced Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shahanshah of Iran.

White voters in Rhodesia approved a new constitution calling for limited majority rule.

The United States government ordered the evacuation of all dependents and non-essential diplomatic personnel from Iran. They urged any other Americans still in Iran to leave the country.

TASS reported that 3 persons convicted of a 1977 Moscow subway bombing had been executed.

PERSIA IRAN

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February 1, Thursday: After 15 years of exile, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini returned, from France, to Iran. He said he would arrest Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar if he refused to resign. In a few days it would all be over (until of course it would begin again). After a referendum declaring the Islamic Republic, he would become Imam and Supreme Leader.

February 5, day: Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini named Mehdi Bazargan to head a provisional government of Iran in opposition to Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar.

Passacaglia ungherese for harpsichord by György Ligeti was performed for the initial time, in Lund, Sweden.

February 8, day: A million Iranians demonstrate in Tehran demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar.

The price of gold reaches a record $254 per ounce in reaction to the situation in Iran.

The United States ends military aid to Nicaragua indefinitely, reduces economic aid and reduces its diplomatic staff in the country.

February 9, day: Troops loyal to the Bakhtiar government attack air force cadets demonstrating at Dashan Tadeh Air Base in Tehran.

February 10, day: Thousands of pro-Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini demonstrators took to the streets in Tehran in support of the air force cadets. They erected barricades and demanded the resignation of the government.

President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan enacted the Hudood Ordinances. It enforced punishments for the crime of extramarital sexual relations. Women were guilty of this offense, even if raped, unless 4 men in good standing testified to the rape.

A Solo Requiem for soprano and two pianos by Milton Babbitt to words of Shakespeare, Hopkins, Meredith, Stramm, and Dryden was performed for the initial time, in New York.

February 11, day: In fighting between rival Iranian factions over the previous 3 days, 500 people were killed. The Iranian army announced its neutrality and withdrew to its barracks, prompting the resignation of Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar. Mehdi Bazargan became Prime Minister at the head of a provisional government.

IRAN

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February 14, Wednesday: Muslim extremists in Afghanistan kidnapped United States ambassador Adolph Dubs. When Afghan troops stormed the building in which he was being held, several kidnappers and the ambassador died in the gunfire.

Leftist guerrillas in Iran invaded the United States embassy in Tehran and took 100 hostages. After a few hours these hostages were freed by followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini on the order of Iran’s acting Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi.

A federal court in Washington DC found 3 Cuban exiles guilty in the 1976 murders of Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar, former Chilean ambassador to the US, and his aide.

February 16, day: Iranian radio reported the execution of General Nematollah Nassiri, head of Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s secret police, as well as 3 other generals.

Medley (Campfire on the ice) for piano by Ross Lee Finney was performed for the initial time, in Heeren Hall of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.

February 17, day: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi dissolved 9 state assemblies ruled by the opposition and announced new elections.

The US and Iran gave approval to a 5-member commission organized by UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim to investigate claims against the former Shah.

After 6 days of artillery duels between Lebanese Christians and Syrians, 60 residents of the village of Qnat were dead.

February 23, day: Soviet occupation forces closed the Afghan-Pakistan border to traffic.

50,000 citizens attended a rally in Tehran of the leftist Peoples Fedayeen.

The UN Commission on the former Shah landed in Tehran to begin work. Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini announced that the hostages would not be released until the new parliament was seated, probably in April.

Attorney General of El Salvador Mario Zamora Rivas was shot to death by conservative gunmen unhappy with reformers.

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In Memory of a Summer Day, part one of Child Alice for amplified soprano and orchestra by David Del Tredici was performed for the initial time, in Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis.

The Greek government imposed a price freeze in an attempt to stop inflation.

Less Than Two for two pianos, percussion and tape by Roger Reynolds was performed for the initial time, at the Library of Congress, Washington.

February 28, day: Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan threatened resignation if Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini’s Revolutionary Council continued to interfere with his government.

The white minority parliament of Rhodesia adjourned for the last time.

L’Autunno for five wind players by Hans Werner Henze was performed for the initial time, in Wigmore Hall, London.

March 7, day: Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini announced that women who work in government offices “must be clothed according to religious standards.”

Voyager 1 scientists announced the discovery of a ring around Jupiter.

Two Insect Pieces for oboe and piano by Benjamin Britten were performed for the initial time, at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, 44 years after they had been composed.

March 8, Thursday: Thousands of Iranian women began 5 days of marches in Tehran protesting restrictions on them newly imposed by the Islamic government.

President Jimmy Carter arrived in Cairo in an attempt to cement a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. Syrian President Hafez al-Assad denounced Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat because he had “stabbed the Arabs in the back.”

Voyager I revealed the existence of volcanoes on Io, one of the moons of Jupiter.

Jakob Lenz, a Kammeroper by Wolfgang Rihm to words of Fröhling after Büchner, was performed for the initial time, in the Staatstheater, Hamburg.

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March 13, day: 11 generals were executed in Tehran by the Revolutionary Council.

The European Monetary System officially went into effect. Only Great Britain had opted out of the system.

The West German federal prosecutor’s office reported that East German agents had infiltrated the opposition Christian Democratic Union. Some secretaries of high ranking members of the party had defected or been arrested.

March 16, day: Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini ordered a halt to executions after 60 former members of the government and military have been killed.

Leonide Massine died in Cologne at the age of 83.

An orchestral suite from the ballet Salomé by Peter Maxwell Davies was performed for the initial time, in Royal Festival Hall, London.

March 18, day: Kurds revolted against the new Iranian government. In fighting lasting over several days, 100 people would be killed.

March 23, Friday: The Kurdish regions of Iran quieted because the Iranian government promised to start taking their demands seriously.

Palestinian terrorists exploded a bomb in the main square of Jerusalem, killing 1 and injuring 14.

A federal court in Washington sentenced 2 Cuban exiles to life in prison for the 1976 murders of Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar, former Chilean ambassador to the US, and his aide.

March 25, day: The Iranian government granted Kurds limited autonomy.

Maddalena, an incomplete opera by Sergei Prokofiev after Lieven, orchestrated by Downes, was performed for the initial time, over the airwaves of the BBC, originating in London, 68 years after it was composed.

March 27, day: OPEC raised the base price for oil by 9% and allowed for surcharges.

In croce for cello and organ by Sofia Gubaidulina was performed for the initial time, in Kazan.

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March 31, Saturday: Vietnamese forces began a new offensive against the Khmer Rouge in northwest Cambodia.

A boat carrying 227 refugees from Vietnam capsized off Malaysia. 104 people are killed.

Results from a referendum in Iran showed 97% of voters in favor of an Islamic Republic over a monarchy.

Meeting in Baghdad, the Arab League voted to end all economic and diplomatic ties with Egypt because it had gone to peace with Israel.

The 11-day government of Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti lost a confidence vote and resigned.

April 1, day: Under the guidance of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, Iran declared itself a theocratic republic guided by Islamic principles, and a referendum was held to rebrand it as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

April 1, day: After a referendum, Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini declared an Islamic Republic in Iranian.

The last British troops left Malta. This ended 179 years of British military presence on the island.

April 7, day: Bangladeshi President Ziaur Rahman announced the end of martial law, imposed in 1975.

Executions of former officials resumed in Iran, beginning with former Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveida.

Sandinista forces took control of Esteli, Condega, El Sauce and Ocotal, Nicaragua.

April 13, Friday: By this date 119 former members of the government of the Shah of Iran had been executed including former Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveida and several other ministers.

Yusufu Lule took office as provisional President of Uganda.

Rhodesian commandos destroyed the home of guerrilla leader Joshua Nkomo in Lusaka, killing 10 of his guards.

The process to shut down the #2 reactor at Three Mile Island began. As it would proceed, radioactive iodine-131 would continue to leak from the plant.

April 23, day: Major General Mohammed Wali Qaraneh, former Iranian armed forces chief of staff, was shot to death near his home in Tehran. Although the killers were not known, there was evidence that he had been killed in retaliation for his role in putting down Kurdish nationalists. He was the 1st ally of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini to be assassinated.

Slow Fires of Autumn: Ukiyo-E II for flute and harp by George Rochberg was performed for the 1st time, in Alice Tully Hall, New York.

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May 1, 1979 The autonomous Republic of the Marshall Islands was created in the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

Ayatollah Morteza Motahari, a leading member of Iran’s Revolutionary Council, was shot and killed by an anti-clerical Islamic group.

Home rule went into effect in Greenland.

May 9, 1979 8,000 more Cambodians would cross into Thailand over the following couple of days.

Executions in Iran of members of the former government reached 200.

The United States and the USSR announced the completion of a draft Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty.

Uspud, a ballet chrétien by Erik Satie to a story by Contamine de Latour and Satie was performed for the initial time, at the Opéra-Comique, Paris.

May 13, 1979 Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali, head of the Islamic revolutionary courts in Iran, calls for the killing of the Shah, his wife, sister, brother and mother-in-law, all former prime ministers and several other officials.

May 25, Friday: Ayatollah Hasheimi Rafsanjani, an aide to Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, was shot and wounded by persons unknown in Tehran.

Israeli forces began their withdrawal from the Sinai by handing over El Arish to the Egyptians.

A Spanish general, 2 colonels, and their driver were killed by Basque separatists on a Madrid street.

Leftists peacefully ended their occupation of the Municipal Cathedral in San Salvador.

Immediately after Flight 191 took off from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, its #1 engine fell off its wing. The DC-10 dipped to the left and plunged, killing all 271 aboard and in addition 2 bystanders.

May 31, day: After 2 days of fighting between ethnic Arabs and government troops in Khurramshahr, Iran, 100-200 people were dead and 600 were injured.

A UN-brokered truce went into effect in southern Lebanon.

Bishop Abel Muzorewa took power as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.

Corsican separatists exploded 22 bombs in various locations throughout Paris. No one was injured.

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June 4, day: The Australian government banned oil drilling in the Great Barrier Reef until it could be shown that such drilling would not harm the reef.

Pope John Paul II arrived in the shrine city of Czestochowa and would stay for 3 days.

Iran refused to accept a new ambassador from the USA.

President John Vorster of South Africa resigned after a report was released charging him with a coverup of wrongdoing in the Department of Information.

A general strike in Managua closed 80% of businesses in the city. Sandinista forces took El Godoy airport in Léon.

Charles Joseph Clark replaced Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau as Prime Minister of Canada. He would be the youngest person to hold the office.

June 7, Thursday: The Iranian government nationalized all 37 private banks in the nation. They seized all assets of Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s family and supporters.

Pope John Paul II visited his native village, and the death camp at Auschwitz.

Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom held the 1st direct elections for the European Parliament.

President Jimmy Carter announced that trade sanctions on Zimbabwe-Rhodesia would not be lifted.

June 18, Monday: In the Hofburg of Vienna, Austria, United States President Jimmy Carter and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev signed the “SALT II” Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty.

A draft constitution for the Islamic Republic of Iran was announced.

Sandinista rebels named a 5-man junta to act as a provisional government.

Solstice of Light for tenor, chorus and organ by Peter Maxwell Davies was performed for the initial time, in St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney.

June 25, Monday: Thailand temporarily suspended expulsions of Cambodian refugees until a UN conference on the issue could be held.

The Iranian government nationalized all 12 insurance companies operating in the nation.

A bomb went off on a small bridge near Mons, Belgium, in an attempt to kill NATO Supreme Commander General Alexander Haig (he was uninjured).

ATOM BOMB

PERSIA IRAN

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July 5, day: The Iranian government announced the nationalization of all large industries still privately owned.

July 9, day: Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini declared a broad amnesty for those members of the previous government still left alive.

New laws enacted by the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in Chile broke up some labor unions and severely restricted those remaining.

The Voyager 2 spacecraft made its closest approach to Jupiter.

July 19, Thursday: A power-sharing agreement was reached between the Revolutionary Council of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini and the Iranian government of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan (this would last until November 6th and the Ayatollah would take over as permanent Supreme Leader on December 3d).

Pierre Werner replaced Gaston Thorn as Prime Minister of Luxembourg.

President Antonio Ramalho Eanes of Portugal named Maria de Lurdes Pintassilgo as interim prime minister until elections in the fall.

After 7 weeks of civil war and 10,000 deaths, Sandinista fighters entered Managua as National Guardsmen fled the country. A Government of National Reconstruction assumed power in the capital.

Supertankers, one flying a Greek flag and the other a Liberian flag, colliding off Tobago, dumped more than 1,000,000 barrels of oil into the Caribbean.

July 21, Saturday: At the end of a 2-day conference in Geneva, Vietnam indicated that it would attempt to stop the flow of refugees from its shores.

The total number of executions since the Islamic takeover in Iran reached 350.

July 23, day: The US began evacuating its diplomatic dependents from Kabul.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini banned the broadcast of all music on radio and television. He pointed out that it corrupted Iranian youth and was “no different from opium.”

The new British government announced its will sell 50% of shares in British Aerospace.

August 12, day: 3 days of serious rioting erupted in Tehran between supporters and opponents of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

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August 17, Friday: Highly enriched uranium from a nuclear fuel plant near Erwin, Tennessee contaminated some 1,000 people.

British Commonwealth heads of state, meeting in Lusaka adopted a statement calling for democratic change in Zimbabwe Rhodesia, including a constitutional conference including all parties.

Revolutionary guards occupied the offices of the Tehran daily Ayandegan. Its staff would be tried for counterrevolutionary activities.

August 20, day: Prime Minister Charan Singh of India resigned when it became apparent he was not going to survive a confidence vote.

The Iranian government closed 22 opposition newspapers.

September 4, Tuesday: Iranian government troops capture Mehabad, center of a Kurdish insurrection.

Iran ordered the Associated Press out of the country.

October 2, day: L. Bruce Laingen was appointed the new US ambassador to Iran. The post has been vacant since June.

October 14, day: The deposed Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran underwent gall bladder surgery in a New York City hospital.

October 18, day: Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini ordered an immediate halt to all executions.

Der Gesetz der Quadrille op.41 for middle voice and piano by Alexander Goehr to words of Kafka was performed for the initial time, in Norwich.

October 20, day: Kurdish rebels took control of Mehabad in heavy fighting with Iranian troops.

Roaratorio, an Irish Circus on Finnegan’s Wake by John Cage to words of Joyce, was performed for the initial time, in Donaueschingen. Today, Cage was awarded the Sczuka Prize.

Four works for chorus by Frank Bridge were performed for the initial time, at the London College of Music: The Bee to words of Tennyson, composed 1913, Hilli-ho! Hilli-ho! to words of Thomas Moore, composed in 1909, and O weary hearts to words of Longfellow, composed in 1909. This was the centennial year of the composer’s birth.

PERSIA IRAN

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November 4, Sunday: A mob of 500 armed Iranian students overran the United States embassy in Tehran, Iran taking approximately 90 hostages, including 65 Americans. 13 US Marines were among the Americans taken hostage; 52 of the hostages would be held for 444 days. The invaders demand the return of the former Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for trial. Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini applauded their actions.

Con Luigi Dallapiccola for percussion, 4 pick-ups, 3 ring modulators and loudspeakers by Luigi Nono was performed for the initial time, in Teatro alla Scala, Milan.

November 4, Sunday: Student protestors overran the US Embassy in Tehran, seizing its personnel as hostages.

November 5, Monday: The South Korean National Assembly met for the 1st time since the killing of President Park but could not conduct business because 70 opposition members refused to participate.

Iranians occupying the US embassy in Tehran released all Iranian employees of the embassy.

November 6, Tuesday: The government of Iranian Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan resigned in protest after Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini and his advisors supported the takeover of the American embassy. An Islamic Revolutionary Council took over.

Leftists left 2 government buildings in San Salvador and released their hostages, including 3 government ministers, after their demands were met.

November 7, Wednesday: When President Jimmy Carter sent emissaries with a personal note to Iran, to negotiate for release of the embassy hostages, they were refused entry.

November 9, Friday: The UN Security Council voted unanimously to call on Iran to return the US hostages immediately.

November 12, Monday: Süleyman Demirel replaced Mustafa Bülent Ecevit as Prime Minister of Turkey.

President Jimmy Carter suspended all oil purchases from Iran.

Mexico closed its embassy in Tehran and removed all staff.

November 14, Wednesday: President Jimmy Carter froze all Iranian government property and interests and property and interests of the Central Bank of Iran in the United States and in US firms overseas.

PERSIA IRAN

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November 20, Tuesday: Over the previous couple of days, 13 female and African-American hostages in the American embassy in Tehran were freed in a unilateral Iranian gesture. They were flown to a US air base in Wiesbaden, West Germany.

About 300 Islamic extremists took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca, apparently attempting to overthrow the Saudi Arabian government.

President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia put his army on a war footing in the face of continuous raids by Zimbabwe Rhodesia.

November 21, Wednesday: After Iran disseminated false information throughout the Muslim world that the United States was behind the attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca, a Pakistani mob attacked the American embassy in Islamabad, killing 4 and setting the building afire. 90 members of the embassy staff were rescued off the roof by Pakistani helicopters. United States missions were damaged in 4 other cities in Pakistan and demonstrations were held against American interests in Bangladesh, India, and Turkey.

November 22, Thursday: The hostage takers in Iran freed 5 non-US citizens from the embassy.

November 23, Friday: About 1,000 people attempted to storm the US and Soviet consulates in Calcutta but were held back by police using tear gas and clubs.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abolhasan Bani-Sadr said his nation was not going to pay any of its foreign debts.

Thomas McMahon was found guilty in a Dublin court in the murder of Earl Mountbatten. He was sentenced to life in prison. Francis McGirl was acquitted.

December 3, day: 2 days of voting in Iran was reported to have resulted in approval for a new Islamic constitution.

Puerto Rican nationalists attacked a bus carrying sailors to a United States Navy installation near San Juan. Two people were killed, ten injured.

Humoresk for organ and orchestra by William Bolcom was performed for the initial time, in Alice Tully Hall, New York.

At Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, 11 concertgoers variously aged 15 to 27 years were trampled and suffocated trying to get in to see The Who. Insufficient exits were available and a request by police to open more had been ignored.

PERSIA IRAN

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December 4, day: Saudi Arabian troops completed the recapture of the Grand Mosque in Mecca from Muslim extremists opposed to the Saudi regime. At least 130 had been killed and 200 injured in 15 days of fighting.

The UN Security Council voted unanimously to demand that Iran release the remaining US hostages.

December 7, day: Shariar Mustapha Chafik, the nephew of former Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran was killed in Paris by an unknown gunman.

The Anglican Church of South Africa voted to ignore the government’s apartheid policies.

Howard Hanson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

PERSIA IRAN

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January 4, day: Sunni and Shia Muslims battled in Qom, Linegh, and Tabriz, Iran until 43 were dead and 110 injured.

The United States instituted measures in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — it ended the sale of high technology equipment to the USSR, seriously curtailed grain sales, severely cut back on fishing privileges in US waters, delayed opening of new consular facilities, and postponed cultural exchanges. President Jimmy Carter mentioned the possibility of boycotting the Moscow Olympics.

January 12, day: Iranian officials executed 11 Azerbaijani rebels in Tabriz. This incited further violence in that city.

About 1,000 people met in Karlsruhe on this day and the following one to organize a new environmental party, to be termed “Die Grüne.”

January 14, day: Indira Gandhi returned to power in India after her party won a sweeping victory in parliamentary elections.

All American journalists were forced to leave Iran for the offense of having reported the recent violence in Tabriz.

The United Nations General Assembly voted to condemn the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by a tally of 104-18-18. They demanded the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.

January 25, Friday: Heavy fighting broke out near the Thai border, between Vietnamese forces and guerrillas of the former Cambodian government of Pol Pot.

Japan announced restrictions on sales of strategic materials to the USSR.

Presidential elections took place in Iran. They would be won by Finance Minister Abolhassan Bani-Sadr (within 18 months he would be impeached and flee the nation).

Israel completed the 2d stage of its withdrawal from the Sinai.

1980

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January 28, day: Japanese Army chief of staff Shigeto Nakana and 10 senior military officials resigned in the wake of the spy scandal that had been reported on January 18th.

With Canadian help, 6 American Embassy members were clandestinely flown out of Iran. They had been sheltered by the Canadian diplomats since they had escaped from the American embassy takeover on November 4th. The remaining 4 Canadian diplomats closed their embassy and departed from Tehran, pending an announcement of the escape that would be made on the following day.

Andrei Sakharov issued a statement from exile in Gorky demanding a public trial.

January 29, day: The Conference of Islamic States, meeting in Islamabad, condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the holding of US hostages by Iran.

A bomb exploded at the Syrian embassy in Paris shortly before the Syrian Foreign Minister arrived for an official visit: 1 killed, 8 injured.

Novelette for orchestra by Witold Lutoslawski was performed for the initial time, in Washington.

February 1, day: When Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini returned to Iran he was greeted by millions of people in the streets of Tehran.

February 4, day: When Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini appointed Mehdi Bazargan as the prime minister of an interim Iranian government, Bakhtiar insisted that he remained the head of the only legitimate Iranian government.

Abolhassan Bani-Sadr became President of Iran.

Libyan protesters sacked the French embassy in Tripoli and the French consulate in Benghazi. They set the embassy alight. The demonstrations (charged by France to be government organized) were apparently against French support of Tunisia. France recalled its diplomatic staff and ordered Libyan diplomats out of their country.

The USSR agreed to stop Aeroflot flights into Kennedy Airport in New York, because baggage handlers and maintenance personnel were refusing to service Soviet planes as their protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.

February 7, day: New Zealand closed its embassy in Tehran following a break-in, in which diplomatic records and valuables were stolen.

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HDT WHAT? INDEX

February 10, day: When Bakhtiar announced a nationwide curfew and martial law, Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini ordered his followers to ignore that curfew and rise up in a national revolution.

February 11, day: The armed forces of Iran declared neutrality, and any remnants of the Shah’s government collapsed. Bakhtiar immediately fled Iran for France (where he would be assassinated in 1991 by Iranian agents).

February 12, day: Pakistan and the USSR were the 1st countries to recognize the new government of Iran.

Rhodesian guerrillas shot down a civilian airliner shortly after takeoff from Kariba.

February 14, Wednesday: Muslim extremists in Afghanistan kidnapped United States ambassador Adolph Dubs. When Afghan troops stormed the building in which he was being held, several kidnappers and the ambassador died in the gunfire.

Leftist guerrillas in Iran invaded the United States embassy in Tehran and took 100 hostages. After a few hours these hostages were freed by followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini on the order of Iran’s acting Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi.

A federal court in Washington DC found 3 Cuban exiles guilty in the 1976 murders of Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar, former Chilean ambassador to the US, and his aide.

February 16, day: Iranian radio reported the execution of General Nematollah Nassiri, head of Shahanshah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s secret police, as well as 3 other generals.

Medley (Campfire on the ice) for piano by Ross Lee Finney was performed for the initial time, in Heeren Hall of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.

February 17, day: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi dissolved 9 state assemblies ruled by the opposition and announced new elections.

The US and Iran gave approval to a 5-member commission organized by UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim to investigate claims against the former Shah.

After 6 days of artillery duels between Lebanese Christians and Syrians, 60 residents of the village of Qnat were dead.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

February 23, day: Soviet occupation forces closed the Afghan-Pakistan border to traffic.

50,000 citizens attended a rally in Tehran of the leftist Peoples Fedayeen.

The UN Commission on the former Shah landed in Tehran to begin work. Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini announced that the hostages would not be released until the new parliament was seated, probably in April.

Attorney General of El Salvador Mario Zamora Rivas was shot to death by conservative gunmen unhappy with reformers.

In Memory of a Summer Day, part one of Child Alice for amplified soprano and orchestra by David Del Tredici was performed for the initial time, in Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis.

The Greek government imposed a price freeze in an attempt to stop inflation.

Less Than Two for two pianos, percussion and tape by Roger Reynolds was performed for the initial time, at the Library of Congress, Washington.

February 28, day: Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan threatened resignation if Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini’s Revolutionary Council continued to interfere with his government.

The white minority parliament of Rhodesia adjourned for the last time.

L’Autunno for five wind players by Hans Werner Henze was performed for the initial time, in Wigmore Hall, London.

March 7, Friday: US journalists began working in Iran for the initial time since they had been expelled in January.

Syrian troops began their scheduled withdrawal from Beirut.

March 8, Saturday: Tens of thousands of Iranian women protested in Tehran on International Women’s Day to oppose mandatory veiling. (See also: https://designyoutrust.com/2018/10/rare-photographs-document-iranian-women-protest-against-the-hijab-law-in-march-1979/)

March 10, Monday, 1980 Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini announced his support for those holding US hostages in Iran.

Opus 231 for violin and organ by Ernst Krenek was performed for the initial time, in Vienna.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

March 11, Tuesday: The UN commission investigating the hostage situation in Iran left the nation. They had been unable to meet the hostages. It had been the Draconian restrictions placed on them by the Iranian government that had led them to depart.

March 14, Friday: Iranians voted in parliamentary elections, with a 2d round to be held in May.

March 23, Sunday: Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, former Shahanshah of Iran, needing further hospital care, left his secure island refuge off the coast of Panama for permanent exile in Egypt.

Several world premieres took place in Alice Tully Hall, New York to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Da Capo Chamber Players founded by Joan Tower: Joan’s for flute, clarinet in A, violin, cello and piano by Charles Wuorinen, Private Game for clarinet and cello by Shulamit Ran, Scherzo by George Perle, Modern Love Waltz by Philip Glass, and Petroushskates by Joan Tower.

March 30, Sunday-31, Monday: Iranians participated in a national referendum on whether Iran should become an “Islamic Republic;” since the motion provided no alternatives, it received near-unanimous support.

April 7, day: Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini announced that the US hostages would remain under the control of the militants holding the embassy and not turned over to the Iranian government. The US Embassy compound in downtown Tehran would become a training ground for the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

President Jimmy Carter responded to the Ayatollah’s statement by formally severed diplomatic relations with Iran and ordering all Iranian diplomats out of the country, by midnight on the following night. He banned all exports to Iran. 250 Iranian military trainees were ordered out of the US by April 11th.

PLO terrorists took over a nursery at Kibbutz Misgau Am taking several children hostage. Israeli soldiers ended the raid. All 5 terrorists, 1 child, 1 Israeli soldier, and 1 civilian were killed.

Ihsan Sabri Caglayangil replaced Fahri Korutürk as president of Turkey.

April 8, day: Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini told the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Iranian Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghtbzadeh announces that his government intends to overthrow Sadam.

Astronomers Smith, Reitsema. Larson, and Fountain discover Telesto, a moon of Saturn.

De profundis for bayan by Sofia Gubaidulina was performed for the initial time, in Moscow.

April 10, day: European Community foreign ministers meeting in Lisbon refused to join the United States in concrete measures against Iran.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

April 15, day: 3 days of fighting between clients of Iran and Iraq began in Beirut. 53 people would be killed.

Jean-Paul Sartre died in Paris at the age of 74.

April 17, day: 90 years of colonial rule ended in Rhodesia as it became independent of Great Britain under the name “Zimbabwe.” Ceremonies in Salisbury were presided over by the Prince of Wales. The leaders of the new nation were President Canaan Banana and Prime Minister Robert Mugabe.

President Jimmy Carter announced new sanctions against Iran. All financial transfers between the two countries were ended. Travel by US citizens to Iran was banned, except for journalists. All imports from Iran were banned. All military equipment intended for Iran and impounded, would now be used by the US military or sold elsewhere.

April 22, Tuesday: Meeting in Luxembourg, the foreign ministers of the European Community voted to institute a gradual increase of diplomatic and economic sanctions against Iran.

The military junta that had seized power in Liberia executed 13 high-ranking members of the previous government.

The United States Olympic Committee voted to boycott the Moscow games in protest against the invasion of Afghanistan.

The Canadian government announced support for an Olympic boycott.

Barcarola for orchestra by Hans Werner Henze was performed for the initial time, in Zürich. The audience demanded that the final movement be repeated.

April 23, day: Iran expels all US journalists for a 2d time.

Corsican terrorists exploded 7 bombs in Paris and 2 in Nice. There were some slight injuries.

The Canadian government banned all military sales and export credits to Iran. They asked all Canadian firms to refrain from new export contracts with Iran. They also expelled an Iranian diplomat.

Symphony no.2 “St. Florian” for solo voices, chorus and orchestra by Alfred Schnittke to words of the Mass, was performed for the initial time, in Royal Festival Hall, London.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

April 24, Thursday: During Operation Eagle Claw, an effort to rescue the Tehran embassy hostages, 3 United States Marines and 5 other US military personnel were killed in a desert sandstorm helicopter accident.

The Japanese government asked large firms to not sign new contracts with Iran.

MMM, A Lullaby for Daisy Pauline for audience by Pauline Oliveros was performed for the 1st time, in Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

April 28, day: The US consulate in Shanghai was reopened 30 years after its closure.

Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned over the military mission to Iran.

April 30, day: Queen Juliana of the Netherlands abdicated her throne and was succeeded by her daughter Beatrix.

Arab Iranians took over the Iranian embassy in London, taking 20 hostages. They threatened to blow up the building unless 91 of their comrades in Iranian prisons were released.

April 26, Saturday: President Jimmy Carter reported the use of 6 US transport planes and 8 helicopters in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue American hostages being held in Iran.

April 28, Monday: Secretary of State Cyrus Vance announced that he had submitted his resignation to President Carter 4 days before the failed rescue operation in Iran had been launched.

May 5, day: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is established by a decree issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

Six days after Iranian Arabs took control of the Iranian embassy in London, British commandos assaulted the embassy. The attack began after a hostage was killed and his body thrown into the street. 5 hostage-takers were killed and 1 was captured. 19 hostages were freed.

May 8, day: Farrokhrou Parsa, the 1st woman member of Iran’s Parliament and Education Minister in the former government, was executed by firing squad.

Argentina announced it would boycott the Moscow Olympic Games. The Olympic Committees of New Zealand and Peru voted to attend.

The World Health Assembly announced the eradication of smallpox and recommended the end of vaccination.

US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

May 14, Wednesday: When Corsican separatists fired automatic weapons at the Iranian embassy in Paris, they injured 4 French policemen who were guarding the building.

President Jimmy Carter closed the open door to refugees from Cuba — in 3 weeks, 46,000 people had already arrived.

The orchestration of Steve Reich’s Variations for winds, strings and keyboards was performed for the initial time, in War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco.

May 18, day: China announced that it has successfully tested an ICBM.

Complete martial law was imposed in South Korea to deal with mounting nationwide anti-government demonstrations. Hundreds of opposition figures were arrested.

Meeting in Naples, the Foreign Ministers of the European Community imposed limited economic sanctions on Iran. All contracts signed since November 4 were canceled.

The Italian Football Federation banned the President of AC Milan, Felice Colombo, for life, and demoted the team to the 2d division, because of a betting scandal.

Mt. St. Helen’s in Washington state exploded. Ash was spewed 18,000 meters into the air and landed as far as 800 kilometers away. 26 people were killed, 46 were missing. The elevation of the mountain was reduced from 2,949 meters to about 2,500 meters and a crater was created 1.6 kilometers wide and 500 meters deep. Skies in eastern Washington were blackened.

May 21, Wednesday: Anti-government protesters took control of Gwangju, South Korea as a way to protest against the military coup that had occurred in their nation on December 12, 1979. By May 27th an unknown number of them (the military would maintain a communications blackout), perhaps as many as several thousand, would be dead. The US would deny any involvement in this. In 2002 the local cemetery to which the bodies of the killed had been carried would be declared a Korean national cemetery.

After a moratorium of several months during which everybody alive got to stay alive (give or take), large-scale executions resumed in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In the month since the beginning of the boat lift out of the harbor of Mariel, Cuba allowed by the president, Dr. Fidel Castro, 67,000 Cubans had made it to the United States, including an unknown number of criminals and mentally ill persons specially released from their institutions for this purpose by the island’s communist government. The tide of refugees was beginning to tail off.

President Jimmy Carter declared a state of emergency in the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls, New York.

Prism for orchestra by Jacob Druckman was performed for the initial time, in Baltimore.

KOREAN WAR

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Premier of the George Lucas “Star Wars” sequel “The Empire Strikes Back.”

I had promised to take my four children, but the media were warning about exposure to the malathion spray coming from the Medfly helicopters nightly. There was a schedule of overflights posted, so I consulted that schedule and determined that there was not going to be any spraying on the night in question in our vicinity. I therefore drove my children to the local shopping mall having a theatre, and we got in line outside the locked glass doors of the megaplex. The area outside the theatre was open to the sky. A spray formation of helicopters came overhead, and I ran forward and hammered on the glass doors: “Let us in! Let us in! They’re spraying us!” The theatre employees in the lobby ignored us. So I called to the children and we ran to the nearest building overhang, taking what shelter we could. We could feel the droplets on our skin (we were the only ones seeking shelter; the others waiting in line simply stood and stared or stood and ignored us). The next day I called the Medfly Hotline to file a report, only to listen to them assure us over and over that in fact no such spraying had taken place at that location on that evening. The spray line of helicopters moving across the night sky, each one diagonally behind and to the side of the one before it, with the telltale horizontal spray bar beneath them, had been a figment of our perfervid imagination. A few days later Michelle exhibited flu-like symptoms (hoarseness and fever, as I recall), but none of the other children reacted and she quickly recovered.

ASSLEY

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

May 24, day: Former head of the Korean CIA Kim Jae Kyu, and 4 other KCIA members, were hanged for the murder of President Park Chung Hee.

The Japanese Olympic Committee voted to boycott the Moscow games.

The International Court of Justice ordered Iran to release all US hostages and return all US property. It ordered Iran to make reparations to the US.

Far Calls, Coming, far! for violin and orchestra by Toru Takemitsu was performed for the initial time, in Tokyo.

May 28, Wednesday: South Korean troops regained control of Kwangju — in a week of fighting as many as 500 people had been killed.

The new Iranian Parliament met for the initial time, in Tehran.

In fighting that broke out in a suburb of Beirut between feuding Muslim factions, 30 people were killed.

The 3 United States military academies graduated women for the 1st time.

The National Archives for the 1st time opened the Watergate tapes to the public.

Our national birthday, Wednesday the 4th of July: Throughout our nation this day was being “observed amid somber reminders” that 53 American citizens were still being held as hostages in Tehran, Iran. To further such reflection Cleveland, Ohio planted 53 trees.

July 9, day: Iranian authorities discovered a coup plot and launched a new purge of the military.

July 11, day: One of the hostages held by Iran, Richard Queen, was released for medical reasons. He would be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

July 14, day: 26 people were put to death in Iran as part of a wave of mass executions.

Descant-Nocturne for orchestra by John Harbison was performed for the initial time.

CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

July 18, day: for the initial time, India launched an artificial satellite into orbit. Blast-off was from Sriharikota, north of Madras.

The home of former Iranian Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar in Paris was invaded by 3 armed men. In the ensuing gun battle, 2 people were killed and 4 injured. Bakhtiar was unhurt. The attackers and 2 accomplices were arrested by French police.

Eine kleine Posaunenmusik for trombone and winds by Gunther Schuller was performed for the first time, in Norwalk, Connecticut.

July 22, day: Former Iranian diplomat Ali Akbar Tabatabai was shot to death at his home in Bethesda, Maryland by a supporter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

July 27, Friday: The former Shahanshah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, died of cancer in an Egyptian hospital.

In Antwerp, a Palestinian terrorist threw hand-grenades into a group of 40 Jewish young people, killing 1 and injuring 13. The terrorist was captured by the police.

The Santa Fe Songs, a cycle for baritone and piano quartet to words of Bynner, was performed for the initial time, in Greer Garson Theater, College of Santa Fe, New Mexico, with the composer Ned Rorem himself at the piano.

July 31, Tuesday: A firing squad made short work of 11 in Tehran, who had plotted to overthrow the government. Busy, busy Tuesday.

In a Stuttgart court, Baader-Meinhof terrorist Knut Folkerts was sentenced to life in prison for the 1977 murder of chief federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback.

August 3, Sunday: Iranians voted in nation-wide elections for the Assembly of Experts, a clerical-dominated body empowered to finalize the draft constitution. Due to boycotts by leftist, nationalist, and some Islamist factions, voter turnout fell far below that of the March referendum.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

October 7, day: Iranian forces in Khurramshahr began shooting at foreign vessels in the port and in the Shatt al-Arab. They sank 3 and set fire to 5 others. At least 20 people were killed.

100,000 people demonstrated in Paris to protest recent violence against Jews in France.

María Magdalena Henríquez of El Salvador’s Human Rights Commission was found dead in La Libertad, south of San Salvador, where she had been abducted on October 3d.

Represenative John Jenrette and another man were found guilty of bribery and conspiracy in the Abscam scandal.

October 14, day: In Iran, an Assembly of Experts approved a draft new constitution enshrining Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini’s pet doctrine of velayat-e faqih, one that accorded ultimate authority to a religious leader.

October 22, day: Former Shahanshah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was allowed to enter the US for medical treatment. The attitude of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was, how dare you allow the deposed Shah to receive medical treatment?

October 31, day: The right-wing Labour party won parliamentary elections in Jamaica.

Iran’s Oil Minister and 5 of his assistants were captured by Iraqi troops near Abadan. They would be transported to Baghdad.

November 4, Sunday: Student protestors overran the US Embassy in Tehran, seizing its personnel as hostages.

November 5, Monday: The South Korean National Assembly met for the 1st time since the killing of President Park but could not conduct business because 70 opposition members refused to participate.

Iranians occupying the US embassy in Tehran released all Iranian employees of the embassy.

November 6, Tuesday: The government of Iranian Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan resigned in protest after Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini and his advisors supported the takeover of the American embassy. An Islamic Revolutionary Council took over.

Leftists left 2 government buildings in San Salvador and released their hostages, including 3 government ministers, after their demands were met.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

November 7, Wednesday: When President Jimmy Carter sent emissaries with a personal note to Iran, to negotiate for release of the embassy hostages, they were refused entry.

November 9, Friday: The UN Security Council voted unanimously to call on Iran to return the US hostages immediately.

November 12, Monday: Süleyman Demirel replaced Mustafa Bülent Ecevit as Prime Minister of Turkey.

President Jimmy Carter suspended all oil purchases from Iran.

Mexico closed its embassy in Tehran and removed all staff.

November 14, Wednesday: President Jimmy Carter froze all Iranian government property and interests and property and interests of the Central Bank of Iran in the United States and in US firms overseas.

November 20, Tuesday: Over the previous couple of days, 13 female and African-American hostages in the American embassy in Tehran were freed in a unilateral Iranian gesture. They were flown to a US air base in Wiesbaden, West Germany.

About 300 Islamic extremists took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca, apparently attempting to overthrow the Saudi Arabian government.

President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia put his army on a war footing in the face of continuous raids by Zimbabwe Rhodesia.

November 21, Wednesday: After Iran disseminated false information throughout the Muslim world that the United States was behind the attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca, a Pakistani mob attacked the American embassy in Islamabad, killing 4 and setting the building afire. 90 members of the embassy staff were rescued off the roof by Pakistani helicopters. United States missions were damaged in 4 other cities in Pakistan and demonstrations were held against American interests in Bangladesh, India, and Turkey.

November 22, Thursday: The hostage takers in Iran freed 5 non-US citizens from the embassy.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

November 23, Friday: About 1,000 people attempted to storm the US and Soviet consulates in Calcutta but were held back by police using tear gas and clubs.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abolhasan Bani-Sadr said his nation was not going to pay any of its foreign debts.

Thomas McMahon was found guilty in a Dublin court in the murder of Earl Mountbatten. He was sentenced to life in prison. Francis McGirl was acquitted.

December 2, Sunday-3, Monday: Iran’s new constitution was overwhelmingly approved in a popular referendum that drew participation from 75% of the electorate.

December 4, Tuesday: The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling for Iran to release the hostages at the US Embassy in Tehran.

December 12, Wednesday: NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, decided that by 1983 it was going to be deploying 572 medium-range nuclear missiles (to protect us from harm, that’s why).

Rebel South Korean troops took martial law administrator General Chung Seung Hwa and 16 other senior officers prisoner at the Defense Ministry in Seoul. They were accusing these officers of having been involved in the killing of President Park.

Rhodesia officially returned to colonial status under Great Britain as a prelude to majority rule. Lord Soames arrived in Salisbury as the new British governor. Great Britain lifted all sanctions against the country.

President Jimmy Carter ordered most Iranian diplomats to leave the United States of America.

Babylon the Great is Fallen op.40 for chorus and orchestra by Alexander Goehr was performed for the initial time, in Royal Festival Hall, London.

December 15, Saturday: The International Court of Justice ruled unanimously that Iran must free the US citizens it was holding hostage. In hope of bringing the crisis to an end, the former Shahanahah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, having survived his cancer operation, left Texas for Panama, where he had arranged to take up residence on a secure island offshore.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

Shahanshah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran having fled his country and the Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini having returned from Iraq and France to Iran and come to power, Iraq invaded Iran in an attempt to gain territory during the period in which this neighbor nation would be preoccupied with its own internal instability. That war would drag into an immensely costly and deadly decade-long WWI-style stalemate. Despite their very best efforts, Iraq’s poison gas (mustard, sarin, and tabun) would not seem to be doing the job against Iran’s mass army of fundamentalist hotheads. Eventually the Reagan administration, aware that Iraq needed to use biological weapons against Iran, would authorize at least 40 shipments from the American Type Culture Collection, which is a large scientific institute housing cultures every known type of disease for scientific purposes, to our ally Saddam Hussein (the enemy of our enemy is our friend), of weapons-specific biological agents.

The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would receive heart treatment in Tehran.

This Reagan administration would be investigating every imaginable exotic disease, of course only for the purpose of developing vaccines against these perils. Everything we were doing, of course, was within the exceptions of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention that the US had become a party to on April 10, 1972, since the back barn door of this treaty was open a wide country mile. Of course, get a clue, the technology used to get the vaccine for our defense is exactly the same technology used to create the agent in the first place! The way research into biological weapons proceeds is that after one creates the agent, one creates the vaccine to defend one’s own people against one’s own weapon. The sole difference between an offensive-weapons program and a defensive-weapons program is that in an offensive program one needs to develop a delivery device. Ordinarily, however, since most of these weapons are delivered through the air, a delivery device, some sort of military-size aerosol can, can be pretty much an off-the-shelf no-brainer.

Meanwhile the Reaganites, they being the sort of people they were, were cutting way back on funding for the National Science Foundation. There was push as well as pull. We all know what scientists do when civilian research money dries up — they turn to the military for research money. The Council of Responsible Genetics became so concerned over the manner in which researchers were getting sucked into President Ronald Reagan’s secret biological weapons programs, that it sponsored a Pledge which ethical researchers might take. That Pledge was simple and declarative: “I will not accept any money from the Pentagon for any reason.”

In the presidential election, Ronald Reagan defeated the incumbent, Jimmy Carter.

Dismissing televised speculation on a Ronald Reagan/Gerald Ford co-presidency, Reagan makes a late-night dash to the Republican National Convention to announce that George Herbert Walker Bush would be his running mate. Though Bush denied meeting Iranian officials in Paris to delay the release of America’s remaining 52 hostages during President Jimmy Carter’s term, the Iran hostage situation would be resolved the day the new President was sworn in.

The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit for dredging and landfilling for the construction of New York City’s Westway. President Reagan presented Mayor Koch with a symbolic $85,000,000 check for the highway right of way.

1980

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

January 4, day: Sunni and Shia Muslims battled in Qom, Linegh, and Tabriz, Iran until 43 were dead and 110 injured.

The United States instituted measures in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — it ended the sale of high technology equipment to the USSR, seriously curtailed grain sales, severely cut back on fishing privileges in US waters, delayed opening of new consular facilities, and postponed cultural exchanges. President Jimmy Carter mentioned the possibility of boycotting the Moscow Olympics.

January 12, day: Iranian officials executed 11 Azerbaijani rebels in Tabriz. This incited further violence in that city.

About 1,000 people met in Karlsruhe on this day and the following one to organize a new environmental party, to be termed “Die Grüne.”

January 14, day: Indira Gandhi returned to power in India after her party won a sweeping victory in parliamentary elections.

All American journalists were forced to leave Iran for the offense of having reported the recent violence in Tabriz.

The United Nations General Assembly voted to condemn the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by a tally of 104-18-18. They demanded the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.

January 25, Friday: Heavy fighting broke out near the Thai border, between Vietnamese forces and guerrillas of the former Cambodian government of Pol Pot.

Japan announced restrictions on sales of strategic materials to the USSR.

Presidential elections took place in Iran. They would be won by Finance Minister Abolhassan Bani-Sadr (within 18 months he would be impeached and flee the nation).

Israel completed the 2d stage of its withdrawal from the Sinai.

January 28, day: Japanese Army chief of staff Shigeto Nakana and 10 senior military officials resigned in the wake of the spy scandal that had been reported on January 18th.

With Canadian help, 6 American Embassy members were clandestinely flown out of Iran. They had been sheltered by the Canadian diplomats since they had escaped from the American embassy takeover on November 4th. The remaining 4 Canadian diplomats closed their embassy and departed from Tehran, pending an announcement of the escape that would be made on the following day.

Andrei Sakharov issued a statement from exile in Gorky demanding a public trial.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

January 29, day: The Conference of Islamic States, meeting in Islamabad, condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the holding of US hostages by Iran.

A bomb exploded at the Syrian embassy in Paris shortly before the Syrian Foreign Minister arrived for an official visit: 1 killed, 8 injured.

Novelette for orchestra by Witold Lutoslawski was performed for the initial time, in Washington.

February 1, day: When Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini returned to Iran he was greeted by millions of people in the streets of Tehran.

February 4, day: When Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini appointed Mehdi Bazargan as the prime minister of an interim Iranian government, Bakhtiar insisted that he remained the head of the only legitimate Iranian government.

Abolhassan Bani-Sadr became President of Iran.

Libyan protesters sacked the French embassy in Tripoli and the French consulate in Benghazi. They set the embassy alight. The demonstrations (charged by France to be government organized) were apparently against French support of Tunisia. France recalled its diplomatic staff and ordered Libyan diplomats out of their country.

The USSR agreed to stop Aeroflot flights into Kennedy Airport in New York, because baggage handlers and maintenance personnel were refusing to service Soviet planes as their protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.

February 7, day: New Zealand closed its embassy in Tehran following a break-in, in which diplomatic records and valuables were stolen.

February 10, day: When Bakhtiar announced a nationwide curfew and martial law, Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini ordered his followers to ignore that curfew and rise up in a national revolution.

February 11, day: The armed forces of Iran declared neutrality, and any remnants of the Shah’s government collapsed. Bakhtiar immediately fled Iran for France (where he would be assassinated in 1991 by Iranian agents).

February 12, day: Pakistan and the USSR were the 1st countries to recognize the new government of Iran.

Rhodesian guerrillas shot down a civilian airliner shortly after takeoff from Kariba.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

March 7, Friday: US journalists began working in Iran for the initial time since they had been expelled in January.

Syrian troops began their scheduled withdrawal from Beirut.

March 8, Saturday: Tens of thousands of Iranian women protested in Tehran on International Women’s Day to oppose mandatory veiling. (See also: https://designyoutrust.com/2018/10/rare-photographs-document-iranian-women-protest-against-the-hijab-law-in-march-1979/)

March 10, Monday, 1980 Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini announced his support for those holding US hostages in Iran.

Opus 231 for violin and organ by Ernst Krenek was performed for the initial time, in Vienna.

March 11, Tuesday: The UN commission investigating the hostage situation in Iran left the nation. They had been unable to meet the hostages. It had been the Draconian restrictions placed on them by the Iranian government that had led them to depart.

March 14, Friday: Iranians voted in parliamentary elections, with a 2d round to be held in May.

March 23, Sunday: Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, former Shahanshah of Iran, needing further hospital care, left his secure island refuge off the coast of Panama for permanent exile in Egypt.

Several world premieres took place in Alice Tully Hall, New York to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Da Capo Chamber Players founded by Joan Tower: Joan’s for flute, clarinet in A, violin, cello and piano by Charles Wuorinen, Private Game for clarinet and cello by Shulamit Ran, Scherzo by George Perle, Modern Love Waltz by Philip Glass, and Petroushskates by Joan Tower.

March 30, Sunday-31, Monday: Iranians participated in a national referendum on whether Iran should become an “Islamic Republic;” since the motion provided no alternatives, it received near-unanimous support.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

April 7, day: Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini announced that the US hostages would remain under the control of the militants holding the embassy and not turned over to the Iranian government. The US Embassy compound in downtown Tehran would become a training ground for the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

President Jimmy Carter responded to the Ayatollah’s statement by formally severed diplomatic relations with Iran and ordering all Iranian diplomats out of the country, by midnight on the following night. He banned all exports to Iran. 250 Iranian military trainees were ordered out of the US by April 11th.

PLO terrorists took over a nursery at Kibbutz Misgau Am taking several children hostage. Israeli soldiers ended the raid. All 5 terrorists, 1 child, 1 Israeli soldier, and 1 civilian were killed.

Ihsan Sabri Caglayangil replaced Fahri Korutürk as president of Turkey.

April 8, day: Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini told the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Iranian Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghtbzadeh announces that his government intends to overthrow Sadam.

Astronomers Smith, Reitsema. Larson, and Fountain discover Telesto, a moon of Saturn.

De profundis for bayan by Sofia Gubaidulina was performed for the initial time, in Moscow.

April 10, day: European Community foreign ministers meeting in Lisbon refused to join the United States in concrete measures against Iran.

April 15, day: 3 days of fighting between clients of Iran and Iraq began in Beirut. 53 people would be killed.

Jean-Paul Sartre died in Paris at the age of 74.

April 17, day: 90 years of colonial rule ended in Rhodesia as it became independent of Great Britain under the name “Zimbabwe.” Ceremonies in Salisbury were presided over by the Prince of Wales. The leaders of the new nation were President Canaan Banana and Prime Minister Robert Mugabe.

President Jimmy Carter announced new sanctions against Iran. All financial transfers between the two countries were ended. Travel by US citizens to Iran was banned, except for journalists. All imports from Iran were banned. All military equipment intended for Iran and impounded, would now be used by the US military or sold elsewhere.

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April 22, Tuesday: Meeting in Luxembourg, the foreign ministers of the European Community voted to institute a gradual increase of diplomatic and economic sanctions against Iran.

The military junta that had seized power in Liberia executed 13 high-ranking members of the previous government.

The United States Olympic Committee voted to boycott the Moscow games in protest against the invasion of Afghanistan.

The Canadian government announced support for an Olympic boycott.

Barcarola for orchestra by Hans Werner Henze was performed for the initial time, in Zürich. The audience demanded that the final movement be repeated.

April 23, day: Iran expels all US journalists for a 2d time.

Corsican terrorists exploded 7 bombs in Paris and 2 in Nice. There were some slight injuries.

The Canadian government banned all military sales and export credits to Iran. They asked all Canadian firms to refrain from new export contracts with Iran. They also expelled an Iranian diplomat.

Symphony no.2 “St. Florian” for solo voices, chorus and orchestra by Alfred Schnittke to words of the Mass, was performed for the initial time, in Royal Festival Hall, London.

April 26, Saturday: President Jimmy Carter reported the use of 6 US transport planes and 8 helicopters in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue American hostages being held in Iran.

April 28, Monday: Secretary of State Cyrus Vance announced that he had submitted his resignation to President Carter 4 days before the failed rescue operation in Iran had been launched.

May 5, day: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is established by a decree issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

Six days after Iranian Arabs took control of the Iranian embassy in London, British commandos assaulted the embassy. The attack began after a hostage was killed and his body thrown into the street. 5 hostage-takers were killed and 1 was captured. 19 hostages were freed.

US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

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May 8, day: Farrokhrou Parsa, the 1st woman member of Iran’s Parliament and Education Minister in the former government, was executed by firing squad.

Argentina announced it would boycott the Moscow Olympic Games. The Olympic Committees of New Zealand and Peru voted to attend.

The World Health Assembly announced the eradication of smallpox and recommended the end of vaccination.

May 14, Wednesday: When Corsican separatists fired automatic weapons at the Iranian embassy in Paris, they injured 4 French policemen who were guarding the building.

President Jimmy Carter closed the open door to refugees from Cuba — in 3 weeks, 46,000 people had already arrived.

The orchestration of Steve Reich’s Variations for winds, strings and keyboards was performed for the initial time, in War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco.

May 18, day: China announced that it has successfully tested an ICBM.

Complete martial law was imposed in South Korea to deal with mounting nationwide anti-government demonstrations. Hundreds of opposition figures were arrested.

Meeting in Naples, the Foreign Ministers of the European Community imposed limited economic sanctions on Iran. All contracts signed since November 4 were canceled.

The Italian Football Federation banned the President of AC Milan, Felice Colombo, for life, and demoted the team to the 2d division, because of a betting scandal.

Mt. St. Helen’s in Washington state exploded. Ash was spewed 18,000 meters into the air and landed as far as 800 kilometers away. 26 people were killed, 46 were missing. The elevation of the mountain was reduced from 2,949 meters to about 2,500 meters and a crater was created 1.6 kilometers wide and 500 meters deep. Skies in eastern Washington were blackened.

May 21, Wednesday: Anti-government protesters took control of Gwangju, South Korea as a way to protest against the military coup that had occurred in their nation on December 12, 1979. By May 27th an unknown number of them (the military would maintain a communications blackout), perhaps as many as several thousand, would be dead. The US would deny any involvement in this. In 2002 the local cemetery to which the bodies of the killed had been carried would be declared a Korean national cemetery.

After a moratorium of several months during which everybody alive got to stay alive (give or take), large-scale executions resumed in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In the month since the beginning of the boat lift out of the harbor of Mariel, Cuba allowed by the president, Dr. Fidel Castro, 67,000 Cubans had made it to the United States, including an unknown number of criminals

KOREAN WAR

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and mentally ill persons specially released from their institutions for this purpose by the island’s communist government. The tide of refugees was beginning to tail off.

President Jimmy Carter declared a state of emergency in the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls, New York.

Prism for orchestra by Jacob Druckman was performed for the initial time, in Baltimore.

Premier of the George Lucas “Star Wars” sequel “The Empire Strikes Back.”

I had promised to take my four children, but the media were warning about exposure to the malathion spray coming from the Medfly helicopters nightly. There was a schedule of overflights posted, so I consulted that schedule and determined that there was not going to be any spraying on the night in question in our vicinity. I therefore drove my children to the local shopping mall having a theatre, and we got in line outside the locked glass doors of the megaplex. The area outside the theatre was open to the sky. A spray formation of helicopters came overhead, and I ran forward and hammered on the glass doors: “Let us in! Let us in! They’re spraying

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us!” The theatre employees in the lobby ignored us. So I called to the children and we ran to the nearest building overhang, taking what shelter we could. We could feel the droplets on our skin (we were the only ones seeking shelter; the others waiting in line simply stood and stared or stood and ignored us). The next day I called the Medfly Hotline to file a report, only to listen to them assure us over and over that in fact no such spraying had taken place at that location on that evening. The spray line of helicopters moving across the night sky, each one diagonally behind and to the side of the one before it, with the telltale horizontal spray bar beneath them, had been a figment of our perfervid imagination. A few days later Michelle exhibited flu-like symptoms (hoarseness and fever, as I recall), but none of the other children reacted and she quickly recovered.

May 24, day: Former head of the Korean CIA Kim Jae Kyu, and 4 other KCIA members, were hanged for the murder of President Park Chung Hee.

The Japanese Olympic Committee voted to boycott the Moscow games.

The International Court of Justice ordered Iran to release all US hostages and return all US property. It ordered Iran to make reparations to the US.

Far Calls, Coming, far! for violin and orchestra by Toru Takemitsu was performed for the initial time, in Tokyo.

May 28, Wednesday: South Korean troops regained control of Kwangju — in a week of fighting as many as 500 people had been killed.

The new Iranian Parliament met for the initial time, in Tehran.

In fighting that broke out in a suburb of Beirut between feuding Muslim factions, 30 people were killed.

The 3 United States military academies graduated women for the 1st time.

The National Archives for the 1st time opened the Watergate tapes to the public.

June 16, Monday: After 27 days in the country, a UN commission of inquiry abandoned its efforts to end the Iranian hostage crisis.

An Israeli patrol boat sank a Palestinian vessel off the coast of Israel, killing the 3 terrorists aboard.

In the case of Diamond v. Chakrabarty, the US Supreme Court ruled that life forms could be patented.

ASSLEY

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Our national birthday, Wednesday the 4th of July: Throughout our nation this day was being “observed amid somber reminders” that 53 American citizens were still being held as hostages in Tehran, Iran. To further such reflection Cleveland, Ohio planted 53 trees.

July 9, day: Iranian authorities discovered a coup plot and launched a new purge of the military.

July 11, day: One of the hostages held by Iran, Richard Queen, was released for medical reasons. He would be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

July 14, day: 26 people were put to death in Iran as part of a wave of mass executions.

Descant-Nocturne for orchestra by John Harbison was performed for the initial time.

July 18, day: for the initial time, India launched an artificial satellite into orbit. Blast-off was from Sriharikota, north of Madras.

The home of former Iranian Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar in Paris was invaded by 3 armed men. In the ensuing gun battle, 2 people were killed and 4 injured. Bakhtiar was unhurt. The attackers and 2 accomplices were arrested by French police.

Eine kleine Posaunenmusik for trombone and winds by Gunther Schuller was performed for the first time, in Norwalk, Connecticut.

July 22, day: Former Iranian diplomat Ali Akbar Tabatabai was shot to death at his home in Bethesda, Maryland by a supporter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY

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July 27, Friday: The former Shahanshah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, died of cancer in an Egyptian hospital.

In Antwerp, a Palestinian terrorist threw hand-grenades into a group of 40 Jewish young people, killing 1 and injuring 13. The terrorist was captured by the police.

The Santa Fe Songs, a cycle for baritone and piano quartet to words of Bynner, was performed for the initial time, in Greer Garson Theater, College of Santa Fe, New Mexico, with the composer Ned Rorem himself at the piano.

July 31, Tuesday: A firing squad made short work of 11 in Tehran, who had plotted to overthrow the government. Busy, busy Tuesday.

In a Stuttgart court, Baader-Meinhof terrorist Knut Folkerts was sentenced to life in prison for the 1977 murder of chief federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback.

August 7, day: 13 people charged with attempting to overthrow the government were executed by firing squad in Tehran.

August 12, day: Mohammad Ali Rajai became Prime Minister of Iran, replacing the Islamic Revolutionary Council.

East of the Beach for orchestra by Robert Erickson was performed for the initial time.

August 15, day: 15 people charged with attempting to overthrow the government were executed by firing squad in Tehran.

Strikes spread from Gdansk to Gdynia and Sopot. Gdansk bus drivers struck in sympathy with the shipyard workers. Prime Minister Edward Babiuch appeared on television and asked workers to return to their jobs.

September 9, day: Great Britain closed its embassy in Tehran but retained an interest section in the Swedish embassy.

September 12, day: In a speech, Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini outlined the preconditions for an agreement.

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September 17, day: South Korean opposition leader Kim Dae Jung was sentenced to death for sedition by a military court in Seoul.

Amidst cross-border clashes, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein canceled his country’s border agreement with Iran.

The independent trade union Solidarity was formed by the merger of 35 independent Polish unions.

The US and China signed major trade agreements in Washington DC, including direct commercial airline service and port access.

Leftist guerrillas took over the OAS offices in San Salvador, injuring 5 people and taking 6 hostage. They demanded the release of political prisoners.

Anastasio Somoza Debayle, former dictator of Nicaragua, was ambushed by several men firing machine guns and a bazooka, in Asuncion. Somoza, a business associate, and his driver were killed.

September 22, day: After years of disagreements over territory, most notably the Shatt al Arab waterway, after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein announced his intention to reclaim that waterway, open warfare began between Iraq and Iran with the Iraqi airforce attacking 10 Iranian airfields. The war would last 8 years, until August 1988. The tactics used by both sides would be similar to those used during World War I, including large-scale trench warfare with barbed wire stretched across trenches, manned machine-gun posts, bayonet charges, human wave attacks across a no-man’s land, and extensive use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas by the Iraqi government against Iranian troops, civilians, and Iraqi Kurds.

September 23, day: Iraqi forces crossed the Iranian border at several points as their planes attacked the oil refineries at Abadan. Abadan and Khurramshahr were surrounded. Qasr-i-Shirin was captured. Iranian planes retaliated by hitting Baghdad and other major cities, as well as oil refineries and other economic and military targets.

September 24, day: Iraqi forces seized a 15-kilometer strip of Iranian territory. Both countries ended oil shipments from the Persian Gulf.

The new independent trade unions registered in Warsaw as a single entity termed “Solidarity,” led by Lech Walesa.

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October 7, day: Iranian forces in Khurramshahr began shooting at foreign vessels in the port and in the Shatt al-Arab. They sank 3 and set fire to 5 others. At least 20 people were killed.

100,000 people demonstrated in Paris to protest recent violence against Jews in France.

María Magdalena Henríquez of El Salvador’s Human Rights Commission was found dead in La Libertad, south of San Salvador, where she had been abducted on October 3d.

Represenative John Jenrette and another man were found guilty of bribery and conspiracy in the Abscam scandal.

October 14, day: In Iran, an Assembly of Experts approved a draft new constitution enshrining Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini’s pet doctrine of velayat-e faqih, one that accorded ultimate authority to a religious leader.

October 22, day: Former Shahanshah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was allowed to enter the US for medical treatment. The attitude of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was, how dare you allow the deposed Shah to receive medical treatment?

October 31, day: The right-wing Labour party won parliamentary elections in Jamaica.

Iran’s Oil Minister and 5 of his assistants were captured by Iraqi troops near Abadan. They would be transported to Baghdad.

November 2, day: The Iranian Parliament approved 4 conditions for the release of the American embassy hostages, and allowed for direct negotiations.

November 8, day: Iraqi forces advanced through Khuzistan Province, Iran, but attacks on Abadan were repulsed.

Some of “The Harmony of Maine” for organ and 3-6 assistants by John Cage was performed for the initial time, in Essen at the Lutheran Church of Essen-Rellinghausen.

November 10, day: The Polish Supreme Court ruled that the charter of “Solidarity” did not need to include a clause about the supremacy of the Communist Party.

Assistant Secretary of State Warren Christopher traveled to Algiers to convey to the Algerians, acting as intermediaries, the US response to the 4 demands of the Iranian Parliament.

Three Madrigals for soprano, violin, viola, bass, vibraphone and harpsichord by Alfred Schnittke to words of Tanzer were performed for the initial time, in Moscow.

Salammbo, an opera by Modest Musorgsky to words after Flaubert, was performed for the initial time, in a version orchestrated by Peskó, over the airwaves of RAI originating in Milan.

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December 5, day: Leaders of the USSR and 6 Eastern European satellites met in Moscow over the Polish question. They expressed confidence in the Polish leadership to deal with the problem.

An Iraqi air strike destroyed Iran’s main oil pipeline at Bandar Khomeini.

The United States suspended military aid to El Salvador.

Gunther Schuller was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Gogol-Suite for orchestra by Alfred Schnittke was performed for the initial time, in London.

December 19, day: Iraq halted all pumping from its northern oil fields.

The Iranian government demanded $24,000,000,000 for the return of the US hostages.

Anguilla was formally removed from union with St. Kitts and Nevis and became a separate dependency of Great Britain.

The Palace for baritone and tape by Roger Reynolds was performed for the initial time, in a “preperformance” in La Jolla, California.

December 21, day: Voters in Galicia voted to make their area the 3d autonomous region in Spain.

US Secretary of State Edmund Muskie termed Iran’s demands unacceptable.

December 26, day: Iraqi forces invaded the Iranian province of Kurdistan.

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January 3, day: Algerian intermediaries conveyed the latest US initiative for freeing the hostages to Iranian leaders.

Two US agricultural advisors and the director of the land reform program of El Salvador were shot to death in a San Salvador hotel. Conservative death squads were suspected.

January 5, Monday: Iranian forces began a counteroffensive against invading Iraqis. It would not achieve its objectives.

The Italian government rejected the demands made by the Red Brigades holding magistrate Giovanni D’Urso.

The FBI’s successful ABSCAM bribery of public officials had raised concerns that such undercover efforts might result in dismissals due to entrapment. The Attorney General therefore issued a set of guidelines for use by undercover Agents in investigating the willingness of public officials to accept bribes. The courts, however, in the ABSCAM cases, would refuse to credit the entrapment defense and would uphold these bribery convictions.

January 19, Monday: Iran agrees to free the Americans they hold in Tehran in return for $8,000,000,000 in Iranian assets frozen by the United States in 1979.

Four UN soldiers, 3 from Senegal and 1 from Fiji, were killed by the PLO in southern Lebanon.

Piano Sonata no.3 by Lejaren Hiller was performed for the initial time, in Buffalo, 31 years after it had been composed.

January 20, Tuesday: David Tillerson Smith died in Arkansas at the age of 82.

As new President Ronald Wilson Reagan completed his 20-minute inaugural address and James Earl Carter stepped away from the platform, by the sheerest coincidence all the planets of our solar system aligned and after 444 days in captivity at the American embassy in Tehran, following Algiers Accords mediated by Algeria, the Islamic Republic of Iran released 52 American hostages to board a plane bound for Algiers. The Algerian government would place them in the hands of Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher who would put them on US Air Force planes for a flight to a medical checkup in Wiesbaden, West Germany.

Although we never negotiate with terrorists, the agreement unfroze Iranian assets, lifted other U.S. sanctions on Iran, and established a tribunal to adjudicate billions of dollars of financial claims between the two nations.

January 27, Tuesday: 52 Americans held hostage in Iran were feted by the citizens of Washington DC as they traveled through the streets to be greeted by President Ronald Wilson Reagan at the White House.

1981

GOVERNMENT SCANDALS

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February 1, day: The Iranian government severed diplomatic relations with Jordan and Morocco because they were supporting Iraq.

Concerto for cello and 10 players by Richard Wernick was performed for the initial time, at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington.

June 10, Wednesday: Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini removed President Bani-Sadr as commander-in-chief of the Iranian armed forces.

9 people were convicted in a Managua court for the 1978 killing of newspaper publisher Pedro Joaquin Chamorro.

June 11, Thursday: The New York State Health Department reported that ex-Love Canal residents were failing to exhibit any abnormally high cancer rate. Admittedly it did look bad, the publicity had been horrible, the public fear was epidemic, but see, this whole thing has been blown way out of proportion — unexpectedly, it has turned out that there’s actually no harm done at all when we build our homes and schools on top of seeping toxic waste! It’s OK, we just lucked out on this one. Who would have supposed?

An earthquake in southeast Iran killed 3,000.

Parliamentary elections in Ireland failed to produce a majority. The ruling Fianna Fáil party lost 7 seats, even though the Dail Eireann was increased by an overall 18 seats. Fine Gael and Labour would form a coalition government.

June 22, day: Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini removed President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr from office. He was replaced by a 4-man Provisional Presidential Council.

The Spanish Cortes approved a bill legalizing divorce.

June 28, day: Nocturnal for piano by Peter Sculthorpe was performed for the initial time, in North Caulfield, Victoria.

As Iranian Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammed Beheshti addresses a meeting of the Islamic Republican Party, a bomb goes off killing Beheshti and 73 party leaders, including four cabinet ministers and over 20 parliament members.

Giovanni Spadolini was named Prime Minister of Italy, replacing Arnaldo Furlani whose government collapsed in scandal.

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July 7, Tuesday: The Iranian government ordered the Reuters News Agency out of the country. Since there were other expulsions as well, Agence France-Presse became the sole major news agency operating in Iran.

The Solar Challenger flew from Cormeilles-en-Vexin, France to Manston R.A.F. base in England in 5.5 hours, powered by 16,000 photovoltaic cells on its wings.

July 8, Wednesday: Over the following week, 40 supporters of the deposed President Abulhassan Bani-Sadr would be executed in Tehran.

Joseph McDonnell became the 5th IRA hunger striker to succumb in Maze Prison, renewing violent clashes in Northern Ireland.

Rioting in London and Liverpool spread to Manchester.

July 29, day: Before 2,500 guests in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and approximately 700,000,000 television viewers world-wide, Prince Charles of Wales got married with Lady Diana Spencer. Blinded in the sparkle of diamonds, we all presumed this to be a marriage made in Heaven.

Deposed Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr arrived in Paris after a dramatic night flight from Tehran.

Both houses of the US Congress passed President Ronald Reagan’s controversial tax cut plan.

August 2, Sunday: Kieran Doherty became the 8th hunger striker to die in Maze Prison.

Mohammad Ali Rajai became President of Iran, replacing a provisional council.

August 4, Tuesday: Mohammad Javad Bahonar replaced Mohammad Ali Rajai as Prime Minister of Iran.

The Reagan administration called on the World Bank to stop plans to create an energy affiliate to encourage energy development in 3d-world countries.

Mottetti di Montale for soprano and piano by John Harbison was performed for the initial time, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

August 5, Wednesday: Iran gave the French ambassador 3 days to get out. The French government urged its citizens to also leave.

Polish citizens staged a general strike against food price rises.

Refusing to negotiate with the air traffic controllers union, the Reagan administration fired all 13,000.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

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August 12, Wednesday: The last of the 107 French diplomats departed Iran.

The national leadership of Solidarity asked local members and chapters to desist from protest strikes over food shortages and rationing.

The Commission for Human Rights in Central America reported that the US-backed Salvadoran army killed 96 unarmed civilians during the previous week and that the army was using toxic gases, white phosphorous, and bacteriological weapons that was causing the deaths of thousands of children and elderly people.

IBM introduced its personal computer model 5150.

August 24, Monday: On this day 72 people were executed by the Iranian government (they would be reported to have been political opponents, religious minorities, and drug and sex offenders).

Angola announced that South African forces had invaded their country in 2 places, penetrating as far as 130 kilometers.

August 30, Sunday: Iran’s President Mohammed Ali Rajai, Prime Minister Mohammed Javad Bahonar and 5 others were killed when a bomb went off in the prime minister’s office. 15 were wounded. Rajai would be replaced by a Provisional Presidential Council.

Tashi Gomang for orchestra by Pauline Oliveros was performed for the initial time, in Aptos, California.

September 2, day: Mohammad Reza Mahdavi-Kani replaced Mohammad Javad Bahonar as Prime Minister of Iran.

President Antonio Ramalho Eanes of Portugal gave his approval to a new government organized by Prime Minister Francisco Pinto Balsemao.

September 3, Thursday: Iranian authorities ordered that all women who went out from the home into any public area must have their hair covered, all their hair all the time. They banned narcotics, alcohol, obscene pictures (for instance, such photographs as revealed head hair), and popular songs.

Egyptian authorities began 2 days of arrests of about 1,500 opponents and critics of the government of President Anwar el-Sadat.

September 5, day: A bomb exploded under the office of Hojatolislam Ali Qoddousi, Iran’s prosecutor general, in Tehran, killing him.

Solidarity opened its 1st national congress in Gdansk. 892 delegates attended. 100,000 Soviet troops carried out maneuvers on the Polish border.

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September 11, day: 8 people were killed and 12 injured in a grenade attack during Friday prayers in Tabriz, Iran. Among those killed were Ayatollah Assadollah Madani, an associate of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, and his killer.

Prime Minister Mauno Henrik Koivisto became acting President of Finland. Eino Oskari Uusitalo became acting Prime Minister.

Marking the 8th anniversary of his military coup, President Augusto Pinochet of Chile declared his nation to be a “stronghold of liberty.” He announced that in order for his nation to continue to be a stronghold of liberty, the ban on political activity would need for the time being to continue.

September 27, day: Iranian forces broke the Iraqi siege of Abadan.

Leftists battled Revolutionary Guards in the streets of Tehran. 10 people died.

Train à grande vitesse (TGV) began operations between Paris and Lyon.

Guatemalan troops killed 45 people and injured 80 in the village of San Miguel Chicaj during a fiesta.

September 29, day: A plane crash near Tehran killed Iran’s Minister of Defense, Chief of Staff, and a couple of other high-ranking military men.

October 12, day: Sayyed Ali Khamenei became President of Iran, replacing a provisional council.

October 29, day: Mir Hossein Moussavi replaced Mohammad Reza Mahdavi-Kani as Prime Minister of Iran.

November 29, day: Iranian forces recaptured the town of Bustan from the Iraqis.

A bomb in Damascus killed 64. A Lebanese group claimed responsibility.

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When pro boxer Earnie Shavers auditioned for a role in ROCKY II, he was pulling his punches and Sylvester Stallone told him they should make it look real. Pretty soon Sly needed to go to the bathroom and “When he came back he tol’ me he was sorry, but they couldn’t use me.... Only thing, people come up to me now, they know who I am, and they say, ‘Hey Earnie, think you could beat Rocky?’”

“Grizzly” Adams was played by the actor Dan Haggerty in the TV movie The Capture of Grizzly Adams.

Iran got the upper hand in its war with Iraq. We needed to leap to the assistance of our friend Saddam Hussein. President Ronald Wilson Reagan removed Iraq from our list of known terrorist countries so we would be able to do “whatever was necessary and legal” to assist him in his nation’s struggle for survival (soon we would be sending him air shipments of our anthrax and weapons-grade botulin toxin).

During this year or the following one, Bill Walker unearthed a dinosaur claw at a Surrey clay pit. A previously unknown theropod, the animal would be formally named Baryonix walkeri and nicknamed “Claws.” Claws’s fishy fossilized gut contents raise suspicions that it might have been semi-aquatic, a hypothesis supported by oxygen isotopes later found in its tooth enamel.

March 22, day: Iranian forces began a major offensive against Iraqi troops in their country.

March 30, day: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein admitted that his troops had retreated from forward positions in Iran.

Western observers reported that the Iranian forces had advanced in some places as much as 39 kilometers.

1982

PALEONTOLOGY

THE SCIENCE OF 1982

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April 7, day: Former Iranian Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotzbadeh was arrested and charged with plotting to kill Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

France, West Germany and Belgium joined the Netherlands in banning arms sales to Argentina.

April 30, day: Iranian forces began a new offensive across the Karun River near Abadan.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan announced his administration’s support for Great Britain in the Falkland’s dispute and offered military assistance.

By a vote of 130-4-17, the UN Law of the Sea Conference adopted a treaty governing the commercial exploitation of the seabed. The Reagan administration voted against the treaty.

May 7, day: An Iranian offensive broke the Iraqi lines on a drive toward Khurramshahr.

The British government announced that any Argentine forces found more than 12 miles from the Argentine coast would be considered hostile. Don’t go there.

The US Labor Department announced an unemployment rate of 9.4%, the highest since 1941.

Claus von Bulow was sentenced in a Rhode Island court to 30 years in prison for twice having attempted to kill his wife with insulin injections.

May 8, day: Iran announced that their forces had captured Hoveizeh and Hamid from the Iraqis.

Luis Alberto Monge replaced Rodrigo Carazo Odio as president of Costa Rica.

Sonority Forms no.1 for piano by Otto Luening was performed for the initial time, at the Music School at Rivers, Weston, Massachusetts.

May 11, day: An Iranian offensive reached the vicinity of Khurramshahr.

US Secretary of State Alexander Haig informed a Senate committee “we consider SALT II to be dead…”

Black Pentecost for baritone, mezzo-soprano and orchestra by Peter Maxwell Davies was performed for the initial time, in Royal Festival Hall, London.

May 23, day: Iranian forces cut off the Iraqi defenders of Khurramshahr and began an attack on the city.

Argentine war planes renewed their attack on British ships, sinking one. They lost at least 6 of their planes.

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May 24, day: Iranian forces captured Khurramshahr from the Iraqi defenders.

A car bomb exploded in the French embassy in Beirut, killing 12 and injuring 27.

July 14, day: Iranian forces began an invasion of Iraq along a 15-25 kilometer front towards Basra.

Britain released the last of the Argentine prisoners from the Falklands, at Puerto Madryn.

July 15, day: The Iranian offensive was stalled by Iraqi defenders along a 15-kilometer front near Basra.

Maj. Gen. Celso Torrelio Villa, president of Bolivia, resigned under pressure from the military and was replaced by General Guido Vildoso Calderón.

July 20, Tuesday: Iraqi forces managed to slow the Iranian invasion.

IRA bombs went off in two London parks, killing 9 British soldiers and injuring 50 members of the public.

The Reagan administration announced it would not resume negotiations on a nuclear test ban.

July 21, Wednesday: Iranian warplanes attack Baghdad, inflicting losses on oil installations. Iranian forces launch a new offensive near Basra.

Polish leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski announced that 1,227 political prisoners would be released and some restrictions would be lifted.

September 15, day: Former Iranian Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh was executed by firing squad for having plotted to kill Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

Israeli troops took control of West Beirut in response to the murder of President-elect Bashir Gemayel.

USA Today began publication in the Baltimore-Washington area.

A Wind Quintet op.14 by Gustav Holst was performed for the initial time, in Wigmore Hall, London, 79 years after it had been composed.

September 30, day: Iranian forces began a new offensive northeast of Baghdad.

A bomb exploded in the main square of Tehran killing 60 and injuring 700.

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October 1, day: Iran began an offensive into Iraqi territory. It would soon fail.

With the defection of the Free Democrats from the Social Democrats to the Christian Democrats, Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The makers of Tylenol™ recall 264,000 bottles of the Extra Strength product after 7 deaths in the Chicago area from cyanide laced capsules.

Vermont Counterpoint for flute/piccolo/alto flute and tape by Steve Reich is performed for the first time, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Trio for violin, cello and piano by Arthur Berger was performed for the initial time, at Christ and St. Stephen’s Church, New York.

October 6, day: Iraq announced that it has repelled an Iranian offensive near Sumar.

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February 7, Monday: Iran began another large offensive against Iraq, this one at Fakeh, west of Dizful. Within weeks it would grind into a stalemate.

Recuperating from pneumonia, Vaclav Havel was released from imprisonment and transferred to a public hospital.

68 pounds of U235 came down from one of the USSR’s Cosmos 1402s into the South Atlantic Ocean. Disposition of this radioactive material is not known. This accident is of course not included in the official timeline of atomic testing:

“If anything bad can happen, it probably will.”

— Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Straussin the Chicago Daily Tribune, February 12, 1955)

1983

CLOSE CALLS

August 8, 1982

Soviet Project 705 Alfa-class hunter/killer nuclear-powered submarine K-123 was in the Barents Sea when there was a leak inside its reactor’s steam generator and the reactor began to emit its liquid lead-alloy coolant. Approximately a couple of tons of this liquid lead irreparably damaged the reactor compartment. Repair would require the following 9 years.

February 7, 1983

Soviet spy satellite Kosmos 1402 had been orbiting since August 30th, 1983 and had failed to boost its nuclear power core into a higher “parking orbit” before it burned up on re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere on January 23d, 1983. On this day that remaining radioactive lump of 68 pounds of U235 plunged into the South Atlantic Ocean.

September 26, 1983

Several weeks after the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over Soviet airspace, a satellite early-warning system near Moscow reported the launch of an American Minuteman ICBM. Then it reported the launch of 4 more such missiles. Convinced that a real American attack would involve more missiles, Lieutenant Colonel Stan-islav Petrov of the Air Defense Forces insisted that this was a false alarm until ground radar confirmed that he was correct.

TIMELINE OF EXPLOSIONS

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March 2, Thursday: Iraqi war planes further damaged an Iranian offshore oil installation, sending a massive slick into the Persian Gulf.

Pope John Paul II began a 9-day visit to Central America at San José, Costa Rica. He spoke against violence, communism, and the interference of the major powers in the affairs of the region.

Verticals for piano by Shulamit Ran was performed for the initial time, in Merkin Concert Hall, New York.

Love, Sweet Animal for chorus and piano-four hands by Arthur Berger was performed for the initial time, in Jordan Hall, Boston.

May 4, Wednesday: The Iranian government banned the Communist Party and ordered 18 Soviet diplomats out of the country.

Lebanon agreed to a draft proposal for the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.

The US House of Representatives called for a “mutual and verifiable freeze and reductions in nuclear weapons.”

RA for about 25 singers, actors and dancers along with various middle eastern and western instruments by R. Murray Schafer to words from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, was performed for the initial time, in Toronto. The work required 11 hours to perform. Critics were mixed.

May 11, day: The International Committee of the Red Cross charged the warring countries of Iran and Iraq with “grave and repeated violations of international humanitarian law.”

Chilean police used tear gas and water canons to disperse crowds protesting the US backed military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. 2 demonstrators were shot to death while 350 were arrested.

July 23, day: Iran began a new offensive against Iraq in Kurdistan.

October 8, Saturday: France sent 5 fighter/bomber planes to Iraq to aid in their war against Iran.

November 10, Thursday: Iran cut all diplomatic and cultural ties with France, because the French had delivered 5 fighter/bomber aircraft to Iraq.

PERSIA IRAN

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The US Secret Service commissioned the development of “pumpkin-head” or “bulletman” foam-padded training suits. The idea was to allow for opponents in training scenarios to provide more resistance, thereby increasing training realism.

The book I RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ: AN INDIAN WOMAN IN GUATEMALA detailed the struggle of Guatemalan women in the face of a US-supported military government that killed more than 100,000 people.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan went on TV to ask the USers to support the “freedom fighters” of Nicaragua. (A few years later the Reagan administration would be forced reluctantly to admit that in order to fund these Nicaraguan “Contras” it had been illegally selling weapons to the enemies of America, in Iran.)

Douglas Hurd became Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The New Ireland Forum advocated a federal Ireland based on the four Provinces. In the general election in the United Kingdom, Gerry Adams was elected for West Belfast but would not in fact take a seat at Westminster.

Professor Freeman J. Dyson’s WEAPONS AND HOPE.

(According to this learned man, the corrective for too many, too deadly weapons must be many more, much more deadly weapons. Pedal to the metal, folks!)79

By this year President John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s 1963 Equal Pay Act had been in full force and effect for more than a decade. After I had escaped from the Iranian revolution, I had made my way to Silicon Valley. At Tandem Computers in Cupertino, my cubicle was next to the cubicle of Jane Wyman. I was a “techwriter” and she an “editor.” My pay was therefore almost precisely twice hers. I received a job offer with significantly better compensation, at a just-founded Silicon Valley startup called Sydis Computer Systems, and informed my supervisor that due to the fact that Tandem had in my employment contract stipulated that I would be provided with a home computer but he had reneged on that obligation, I was providing them with two weeks notice. Later on that same memorable day Jane and I sat down together with him and pointed out that she and

1984

PERSIA IRAN

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I had been not only working in adjoining cubicles, but had been being assigned precisely the same work. His explanation to us was that due to my background I had technical skills in the computer industry, whereas hers was a mere humanities background and she was being compensated accordingly. I pointed out to him that my BA had been in Philosophy and she pointed out to him that her PhD was in Literature, as well as that she had been techwriting for a number of years whereas I had, since escaping the Iranian revolution, been doing this sort of computer work for approximately one. At a knickknack store on El Camino Real I purchased two lapel buttons with an appropriate humorous logo, a piece of humor that she accepted in good grace. Two weeks later at my exit interview with the Personnel Department of Tandem, I noticed that the chic young lady had pre-checked the block on her form “Do Not Rehire,” and that her notion seemed to be that I was being processed for termination for cause. She was surprised to be advised that Tandem had not honored its employment contract, but made no comment.

79. I, Austin Meredith, ran in a 10-kilometer race in Palo Alto, California and noticed this nuclear weapons scientist and his wife jogging along as a pair, wearing matching T-shirts with the logo “Disturbing the Universe with Weapons and Hope.” (They both came across the finish line well ahead of me. The race was sponsored by a chiropractic clinic, which of course had its equipment set up after the finish line. I stood in line for their free examination and they put a pelvic-girdle level device around my waist and had me stand on a platform with plumb lines hanging from this device — although this was a little embarrassing for me in public. The chiropractor expressed amazement that I had just completed the race. “You shouldn’t be running with a tipped pelvis like that.” I didn’t inform him that my tipped pelvis had by this point almost completely corrected itself, and that my spine was still getting straighter and straighter.) Afterward I went to Professor Dyson’s lecture at Stanford University. He opinioned that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not done the job that needed to be done, because we now misappreciate how very destructive a modern A-bomb is. We need for a third city to be nuked now, he asserted, in order to tune up our appreciation of such weaponry. In his lecture he kept using the term “maximize,” so after the lecture I raised my hand and asked him whether, in using that term, sometimes he actually meant not “maximize” but “optimize.” “There’s a difference?” he wondered, and smirked and gave out a little barking laugh — and went directly on to recognize the next raised hand in the audience.

ASSLEY

PERSIA IRAN

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March 4, day: Iran charged Iraq with use of chemical weapons.

Over the last week about 1,000 people had been killed in fighting between Muslim extremists, Muslim moderates, soldiers, and police in Yola, Nigeria.

Jubilate Deo fin E flat or chorus and organ by Benjamin Britten was performed for the initial time, in Winchester Cathedral, 50 years after it had been composed.

March 7, day: The Australian Parliament enacted legislation to outlaw discrimination based on sex, marital status, or pregnancy.

Jeremy Levin, bureau chief for CNN in Beirut, was kidnapped.

A report by the ICRC identified about 160 Iranians wounded in the war against Iraq who had been affected by “substances prohibited by international law.”

Duo Sonata for two pianos by Samuel Adler was performed for the initial time, in Cardiff, Wales.

Jubilee Music for orchestra by Gunther Schuller was performed for the initial time, in Memorial Hall, Dayton, Ohio.

March 10, Saturday: An Austrian physician treating wounded Iranians in Vienna indicated that he could say “with certain proof” that they had been exposed to mustard gas and mycotoxins.

Sarah was Ninety Years Old for three voices by Arvo Pärt was performed for the initial time, in New York. Also premiered was the 1st setting of Pärt’s Hymn to a Great City for two pianos.

The Black Theater of Hermes Trismegistos for solo voices, chorus, actors, and dancers by R. Murray Schafer was performed for the initial time, in Valencia, California.

Antiphony VIII (Revolution) for percussion and tape by Kenneth Gaburo was performed for the initial time, in California.

March 26, day: The government of Bangladesh lifted a ban on political activity.

United Nations scientists reported that Iraq had used mustard gas and nerve gas in its war against Iran.

Requies for chamber orchestra by Luciano Berio was performed for the initial time, in Lausanne.

PERSIA IRAN

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May 7, Monday: A Saudi tanker leaving Kharg Island, Iran was hit by an Iraqi missile.

The USSR announced it would not take part in the Summer Olympics of 1984 in Los Angeles.

Andrei Sakharov was removed from his apartment in Gorki by Soviet government agents to an unknown destination.

In an out-of-court settlement, 7 chemical companies agreed to pay $180,000,000 to Vietnam veterans for exposing them to dioxins, a byproduct of Agent Orange.

Six New Etudes for piano by George Perle was performed for the initial time, in Beijing.

Orion and Pleiades: Concerto for cello and orchestra by Toru Takemitsu was performed for the initial time, in Paris.

May 18, day: Iraqi warplanes attacked a Greek cargo ship near Kharg Island, Iran. That vessel would sink on the following day.

Spectres Parisiens for flute, horn, cello, chamber orchestra and computer electronics by Tod Machover was performed for the initial time, in Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Sixteen Haiku of Seferis for soprano, tenor, percussion and strings by John Tavener was performed for the initial time, in St. David’s Cathedral, Dyfed, Wales.

Dialogue for violin and piano by Gunther Schuller was performed for the initial time, at the Library of Congress, Washington.

June 5, dayIran reported that 600 people had been killed in an Iraqi air attack on Baneh.

Saudi Arabian jet fighter planes shot down 2 Iranian fighter planes over an area of the Persian Gulf proclaimed as a protected zone for shipping. The Saudis had been aided by US “AWACS” electronic surveillance aircraft and fueled by a US KC-10 tanker.

June 27, day Iraqi warplanes attacked a Swiss-owned tanker south of Kharg Island, Iran. 8 crewmen were killed and 3 seriously injured.

Pastoral Drone for organ by George Crumb was performed for the initial time, in San Francisco.

US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

PERSIA IRAN

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July 1, day: Two main Muslim militias and the Christian militia agreed on a peace plan and the demilitarization of Beirut.

Richard von Weizsäcker replaced Karl Carstens as President of West Germany.

Iraq announced the destruction of 5 Iranian ships and 1 plane in the Persian Gulf. Ground fighting resumed east of Basra.

December 4, day: 4 Arab gunmen commandeered a Kuwaiti airliner and ordered it flown to Tehran. At Tehran, they killed an American passenger and dumped his body out of the plane.

Constitutional government returned to Grenada for the initial time since the 1983 American invasion. Herbert Augustus Blaize became prime minister.

The Sleeper for soprano and piano by George Crumb to words of Poe was performed for the initial time, in Carnegie Hall, New York.

Incidental music to Beckett’s play Endgame by Philip Glass was performed for the initial time, in New York.

December 5, Wednesday: National Air and Space Museum crews began restoring Bomber 44-86292, the Enola Gay.

Arab hijackers of a Kuwaiti airliner demanded that Kuwait free 17 of their colleagues in prison. They threatened to blow up the plane. Kuwait refused to negotiate.

WORLD WAR II

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December 6, day: 5 supervisory officials at Union Carbide in Bhopal were accused of criminal negligence by Madhya Pradesh.

Arab hijackers of a Kuwaiti airliner forced an American hostage out the door of the plane, forced him to plead their demands, then shot him to death.

Fighting began between Christian and Druse militias in the Shouf Mountains southeast of Beirut.

December 7, day: Indian police arrested Union Carbide president Warren Anderson on charges of criminal conspiracy, shortly after his arrival in their nation. 2 officers of Union Carbide India Ltd. were also arrested. Anderson was released and forced to leave the nation.

Arab hijackers of a Kuwaiti airliner beat hostages so that their screams could be heard over the cockpit radio.

For the Pleasure of Ovid’s Changes for Javanese gamelan by Lou Harrison was performed for the initial time, at Mills College, Oakland.

December 9, day: Union Carbide announced an $830,000 contribution to a special fund for disabled survivors of their negligence. This worked out to about $5.50 per victim.

Iranian security forces took over a hijacked Kuwaiti plane at Tehran airport. The Arab hijackers were arrested.

Symphony no.2 by Isang Yun was performed for the initial time, in Berlin.

PERSIA IRAN

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January 24, Thursday: The final Nazi war criminal in custody in Italy, Walter Reder, convicted of the 1944 murder of 600 people, was freed and allowed to depart for Austria.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan warned of a new danger to Central America from Iran, Libya, and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Be afraid, be very afraid — they’re all around us.

Requiem for solo voices, chorus and orchestra by Andrew Imbrie to words of the Latin requiem, Blake, Herbert, and Donne, was performed for the initial time, in San Francisco.

March 12, day: A massive Iranian offensive against Iraq began north of Basra. They advanced as much as 29 kilometers! (One wonders how many lives they lost per kilometer.)

3 Armenian gunmen shot their way into the Turkish embassy in Ottawa, killing a Canadian guard and taking 10 people hostage. They surrendered to authorities after 4 hours.

Eugene Ormandy died of pneumonia in Philadelphia at the age of 85.

Lost whale calf for piano by Ross Lee Finney was performed for the initial time, at the Hartt School of Music, Hartford, Connecticut.

March 13, day: Iraq launched a counteroffensive against the Iranians.

March 15, day: When a suicide bomber detonated a device on his waist at the University of Tehran, he managed to kill himself and 5 others but President Mohammed Ali Khamenei was uninjured.

British oil company executive Brian Levick was abducted in Beirut.

José Sarney Costa replaced João Baptista Figueredo as President of Brazil, ending 21 years of military rule. Because the elected president, Tancredo de Almeida Neves, was incapacitated due to surgery, José Sarney Costa, the vice-president, assumed power as acting president.

The 1st internet domain name was registered by Symbolics, a computer company based in Massachusetts.

Ritual for orchestra by Alfred Schnittke was performed for the initial time, in Novosibirsk.

1985

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

March 19, day: The United States reported that a week-long offensive by Iran against Iraq has failed and that most of the 30,000-50,000 Iranians in the battle were casualties.

IBM announced it would cease production of the PCjr because “the home [computer] market didn’t expand to the degree that IBM and others thought it would.”

Ned Rorem’s Organ Concerto was performed for the initial time, in Portland, Maine.

May: Former Navy personnel John Walker, Jerry Whitworth, Arthur Walker, and Michael Walker were accused by the FBI of passing classified material to the Soviet Union, and eventually would plead guilty or be convicted.

The Central Intelligence Agency proposed that America’s allies be allowed to sell arms to Iran to enhance Western influence.

May 4, day-5, day: Mr. Ledeen visited Israel and discussed the situation in Iran with Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

June 5, day: Secretary of State George P. Shultz complained to Mr. McFarlane that Mr. Ledeen had bypassed the State Department in his contacts with Israel. Mr. McFarlane assured Mr. Shultz that Mr. Ledeen was acting “on his own hook.” Mr. McFarlane said of the Iran initiative: “I am turning it off entirely.”

June 29, day: Mr. Shultz said the proposed new policy toward Iran was “perverse” and “contrary to our own interests.” Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger wrote that the proposed policy was “almost too absurd to comment on.”

July: Adnan M. Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian arms dealer, sent Mr. McFarlane a long paper discussing the political situation in Iran.

News items relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology:

• Commodore unveiled the new Amiga 1000 in New York. It features a multitasking, windowing operating system, using a Motorola 68000 CPU, with 256KB RAM, and 880KB 3.5-inch disk drive, for US$1,300.

• Micrografx released its 1st Microsoft Windows application, In-A-Vision.• Wang announced a series of products to turn PCs into local and remote Wang terminals.• Aldus PageMaker was released for the Apple Macintosh.• Quarterdeck Office Systems shipped DESQview 1.0.

July 3, day: David Kimche, director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, told Mr. McFarlane that Iranian officials wanted to open “political talks” with the United States.

July 14, Friday: Mr. Shultz told Mr. McFarlane that the United States should “seriously consider the idea of private U.S.-Iran relations.”

PERSIA IRAN

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July 15, Saturday: In 1946 John Hersey’s “Hiroshima” had filled almost an entire issue of The New Yorker magazine with “New Journalism” about our dropping of the A-bomb. In this week’s issue the magazine included a follow-up piece, “Hiroshima: The Aftermath.”80

In mid-July, President Ronald Reagan, in the hospital for major abdominal surgery, authorized Mr. McFarlane to make contact with Iran. Donald T. Regan, the White House chief of staff, said later that he assumed release of Americans held in Lebanon would be a “collateral benefit.”

July 29, Monday: Calling on the US to reciprocate, USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing, to last from August 5th to the following January 1st.

General Tito Okello was named President of Uganda.

Late in this month Mr. Ledeen met in Israel with Manucher Ghorbanifar, an expatriate Iranian businessman and arms dealer. According to Mr. Ledeen’s later testimony, Mr. Ghorbanifar said Iran might arrange for the release of American hostages if the United States helped Iran to buy weapons.

August 1, day: The Canadian Red Cross announced it would establish a program to screen blood donors for AIDS.

The US government concluded that Iraq had used chemical weapons in its war against Iran.

The Milos Foreman film “Amadeus” won 8 Academy Awards.

August 2, day: President Ronald Wilson Reagan approved shipment of 100 TOW missiles by Israel to Iran as ransom for 7 American hostages being held by Iranian-backed militants in Lebanon.

Montgomery Ward & Company announced it would cease its 113-year-old catalogue business.

August 8, day: Mr. McFarlane briefed Mr. Reagan on “the Kimche proposal” to permit the sale of American antitank missiles to Iran through Israel. Mr. Regan said the President did not authorize such sales; Mr. McFarlane said he did.

August 15, day: In a speech in Durban, South African President P.W. Botha rejected all attacks on apartheid and blamed violence on “barbaric communist agitators.” Iraqi forces carried out a massive air strike on the Iranian oil facility at Kharg Island. In spite of great damage, the facility would continue to operate.

August 20, day: Israel sent 96 TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran.

80. Hersey’s book would be revised and would incorporate this additional material.

PERSIA IRAN

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August 30, day: The secret shipment of 508 TOW anti-tank missiles from Israel to Iran, through a 3d country, as ransom for hostages held in Lebanon, took place (the shipment would arrive on September 13th).

Piano Trio in d minor by Ethel Smyth was performed publicly for the initial time, at Grinnell College, Iowa, 105 years after it had been composed.

September 4, day: Mr. Ledeen met in Paris with Mr. Kimche, Mr. Ghorbanifar, and 2 Israeli arms dealers to discuss “technical questions” related to the sale of American weapons to Iran. They also discussed efforts to obtain the release of American hostages in Lebanon.

September 14, day: Israel sent 408 more TOW anti-tank missiles to Iran.

Lebanese Shiite terrorists released the Reverend Benjamin F. Weir, a Presbyterian minister, after having held him for 16 months.

Songs to Words by J. Slowacki for voice and piano op.48 by Henryk Górecki was performed for the initial time, in Zakopane.

October 4, day: Islamic Holy War announced that it had executed William Francis Buckley, Beirut station chief of the CIA kidnapped on March 16th, 1984 (actually, he had probably died of a heart attack on June 3d, 1985).

November 15, Friday: An agreement was signed by the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland that although Northern Ireland would remain a part of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland would be allowed to play a consultative role in the province.

When the United States of America sent its 3d secret ransom allotment to Iran, this shipment consisted of 18 Hawk missiles.

Harpsichord Sonata no.8 by Vincent Persichetti was performed for the initial time, in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York.

At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Professor of Psychology James V. McConnell and his research assistant Nicklaus Suino suffered temporary hearing loss, and Suino had in addition burns and shrapnel

PERSIA IRAN

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wounds, when they opened a package containing a bomb from the unknown UNABOM perpetrator.

It is interesting to me to note now, in 2018, that we do not seem to have gotten any closer at all, to an understanding of how memories are physically encoded and stored and then decoded and redeemed in our neural tissue. That 1959 excitement about the planaria, with their heads cut off and regenerated, still being able to retain their previous training, had evaporated as a false lead (evidently because what the planaria were actually following were slime trails left on the glass lab equipment). We are not any closer now than we were then, to understanding the wet-computer brain chemistry by which memories are stored and retrieved! This has been one of the enduring puzzles of my life (but at least I didn’t bomb the scientist who made the mistake).

November 22, day: The CIA agreed to shipment of 18 HAWK antiaircraft missiles from Israel to Iran.

November 24, day: Per instructions, Israel sent 18 HAWK antiaircraft missiles to Iran.

November 25, day: According to his later testimony, John N. McMahon, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, learned of the agency’s role in the arms shipments to Iran and ordered that there be no more such covert activity unless the President explicitly authorized it.

December 5, day: President Ronald Wilson Reagan signed a finding retroactively approving the illegal arms-for-hostages shipments to Iran. This was not disclosed to Congress.

December 7, day: President Reagan discussed his Iran program with Mr. Shultz, Mr. Weinberger, Mr. McFarlane, and Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter, who was to succeed Mr. McFarlane at year’s end as national security adviser. Mr. Shultz and Mr. Weinberger opposed further arms sales.

December 8, day: Mr. McFarlane and an aide, Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver L. North, met in London with Mr. Kimche, Mr. Ghorbanifar, and Yaacov Nimrodi, an Israeli arms dealer who had served as military attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Tehran. Mr. McFarlane told Mr. Ghorbanifar that the United States of America did not want to participate in any more arms transfers to Iran.

Late December: Mr. Ghorbanifar met with CIA officials in Washington DC. William J. Casey, Director of Central Intelligence, warned President Reagan that Mr. Ghorbanifar’s information on Iran “could be a deception to impress us.”

PLANARIA FLATWORMS

PERSIA IRAN

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January: Mr. Ghorbanifar submitted to a polygraph examination the results of which indicated to the CIA that he was not to be trusted. Nevertheless, per an Intelligence Committee report, “the White House chose to continue to work with him.”

Amiram Nir, an adviser to Prime Minister Peres, urged President Ronald Wilson Reagan to resume arms shipments to Iran. According to an account that Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North provided to Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d during November 1986, Mr. Nir and Lieutenant-Colonel North discussed using money from the Iran arms sales to help Nicaraguan rebels.

January 6, day: President Ronald Wilson Reagan signed an order secretly authorizing arms shipments to Iran in exchange for the release of hostages in Lebanon.

January 7, day: President Ronald Wilson Reagan met in the Oval Office with Vice President Bush, Mr. Shultz, Mr. Weinberger, Mr. Casey, and other officials and Mr. Shultz and Mr. Weinberger argued strongly against selling arms to Iran. According to a Senate report, Mr. Reagan, desiring “to keep the channel open,” left the issue “unresolved.”

January 17, day: Spain and Israel established diplomatic relations in a ceremony at The Hague.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan signed a 2d secret order authorizing an attempt to contact “moderate elements” in Iran by providing them with arms and equipment. The stated purpose was 1.) to establish a more moderate government in Iran, 2.) to obtain from them intelligence on Iranian intentions, and 3.) to further the release of US hostages held in Beirut. Responsibility for arranging the shipments was assigned to Secretary Weinberger’s military assistant, Major-General Colin L. Powell, and Lieutenant-General Vincent M. Russo, director of the Defense Logistics Agency.

Album de Lilian op.139 for voice, flute and piano by Charles Koechlin was performed completely for the initial time, in the Concert Hall of the Boston University School of Music, 52 years after it had been composed (the suite was a commentary on the films of Lilian Harvey).

Concerto for violin and orchestra by Richard Wernick was performed for the initial time, in Philadelphia.

Late January: Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North met in London with Mr. Ghorbanifar, promising to send more weapons to Iran and offering to provide intelligence on the position of Iraqi troops at war with Iran. The CIA would object to sharing sensitive intelligence data but its objection would be overruled by the staff of the National Security Council.

1986

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

February 10, day: Iran launched a major new offensive against Iraq.

Fighting resumed in Chad as Libyan-backed rebels began an offensive against the French-backed government.

Eight Latin American countries urged a halt in US aid to the conservative rebels in Nicaragua. They called for renewed efforts toward a negotiated settlement.

February 11, 1986 Philippine opposition leader Evelio Javier was killed by gunmen.

Iranian forces captured Al-Faw, within sight of Kuwait. This gave them control of the Shatt-al-Arab.

The Soviet Union freed leading dissident Anatoly Shcharansky in an exchange of 9 prisoners at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan declared his belief that there was fraud “on both sides” of the Philippine elections.

February 13, 1986 A count by the Philippine National Congress showed Ferdinand Marcos ahead after half the votes had been counted. Opposition candidate Corazon Aquino and others were claiming massive fraud.

Iran announced that 17 of its soldiers had been killed by Iraqi chemical weapons.

February 15, day-16, day: The United States sent 1,000 TOW missiles to Israel, where they were to be secretly transshipped to Iran. Mr. Khashoggi, who helped finance the transaction, received $12,000,000 from Mr. Ghorbanifar.

February 18, day: The United States sent 500 TOW missiles to Israel, where they were to be secretly transshipped to Iran.

February 20, 1986 The USSR launched the space station “Mir.”

Iraq launched a ground offensive against Iran at Fao.

Coca-Cola Corporation paid $470 million to acquire Dr. Pepper.

PERSIA IRAN

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February 22, 1986 Philippine Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Armed Forces Chief of Staff Fidel Ramos deserted President Marcos and declared for Ms. Aquino. They took over Defense Ministry headquarters. Thousands of citizens came out to protect them and other rebel leaders.

1,000 TOW missiles were secretly shipped by the United States to Israel, where they were to be transshipped to Iran.

February 27, day: The United States sent 500 TOW missiles to Israel, where they were to be secretly transshipped to Iran.

Late February: Prime Minister Peres wrote President Ronald Wilson Reagan, urging him to continue efforts to achieve a “strategic opening” to Iran.

April 3, day: Unidentified American officials met in Washington DC with Mr. Ghorbanifar to discuss a proposed visit to Tehran. Several documents suggest that there was discussion of using profits from the arms sales to help Nicaraguan and Afghan insurgents.

April 4, day: A memorandum prepared around this time says $12,000,000 from arms transactions with Iran was to be used to purchase supplies for Nicaraguan rebels. It is unclear whether this proposal was ever approved.

April 17, day: The body of an American hostage in Lebanon, Peter Kilburn, was found. His kidnappers said he had been killed in retaliation for the American bombing of Libya 2 days earlier.

PERSIA IRAN

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April 28, Monday: At 7AM a radiation monitoring device at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant near Stockholm inexplicably went off as Cliff Robertson, a chemist assigned to the monitoring of radiation levels, attempted to pass from the washroom where he had brushed his teeth to the locker room where he kept his clothing. He went through the detector again, and again it went off. Was this an equipment malfunction? Later that morning he took a shoe from one of his co-workers to the lab, and found that the shoe was highly contaminated with the sort of particles that one might expect to encounter after the explosion of an A-bomb. What was going on? There were no reports in the press, of any nuclear incident.

An examination of current wind patterns suggested the USSR as the source. However, Swedish inquiries to the USSR were going unanswered. Then at 9PM in the evening, a dull-voiced announcer on the evening news program Vremia (“Time”) read out a brief bulletin in Russian from the TASS news agency: “An accident has taken place at the Chernobyl atomic energy station. One of the atomic reactors has been damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Assistance is being given to the victims. A government commission has been set up to investigate what happened.”

The 1st account of an arms-for-hostages deal with Iran appeared in the American press. What?

For a live TV special, journalist Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s vault beneath the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, discovering inside, after a significant quantity of suspense, a few empty bottles.

May 15, day: Sinan Hasani replaced Radovan Vlajkovic as President of Yugoslavia.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan approved of a secret mission to Tehran by National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane.

The Spanish Lady, an opera by Edward Elgar to words of Jackson and the composer after Ben Jonson, was performed for the initial time, in a concert setting, in St. John’s Smith Square, London, approximately 53 years after it had been composed.

May 18, day: Mr. Ghorbanifar assured a CIA official that American hostages would be released when US National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane’s group arrived in Tehran.

May 23, day: The CIA shipped 508 TOW missiles to Israel.

May 25, day-28, day: US National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane, his aide Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North, and other American officials arrived in Tehran on a plane secretly carrying spare parts for Iran’s HAWK antiaircraft missiles. They were to talk with Iranian “moderates,” so called. The hostages, however, would not be released. On the trip back to the UA, Lieutenant-Colonel North informed Mr. McFarlane that money from the Iran arms sales had been used to support the contras.

Virgilio Barco Vargas of the Liberal Party was elected President of Colombia.

PERSIA IRAN

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May 28, day: After no progress whatever had been made in secret talks with Iranian “moderates,” so called, US National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane abandoned the talks and returned home.

The government of Uganda became the 1st in Africa to admit there was an AIDS epidemic within its borders.

July 2, day: Iranian forces retook Mehran and sent the Iraqis back across the border.

Norway announced that it would end commercial whaling in the following year. They said they would, however, continue to kill whales “for scientific purposes.”

The Chilean opposition staged a 2-day general strike. Police killed 6 people. They doused 19-year-old Rodrigo Rojas de Negri and 18-year-old Carmen Quintana Arancibia with flammable liquid and set them afire.

July 26, day: The Reverend Lawrence Martin Jenco, a Roman Catholic priest, was released after having been held hostage in Lebanon for more than 18 months. Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North reported that this release had been a result of the McFarlane mission to Iran.

August 3, day: Iran received another American shipment of spare parts for HAWK missiles.

August 12, day: Iraqi warplanes attacked the Iranian oil port of Sirri Island at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

Fighting broke out between French peacekeepers and Shiite militia east of Tyre, Lebanon. This fighting would go on for several days.

August 16, day: A car bomb exploded in Qom, Iran, killing 13 and injuring 100.

August 19, day: A car bomb exploded in Tehran, killing 20.

August 30, day: Spare parts for HAWK missiles were secretly shipped to Iran.

September 12, Friday: Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel offered “a significant quantity of captured Soviet bloc arms” for use by the contras. Admiral Poindexter would discuss this Israeli offer with President Ronald Reagan just before the President would meet with Prime Minister Peres on September 15th.

October 7, day: A CIA officer informed Mr. Casey that profits from the Iran arms sales might have been diverted to Nicaraguan rebels.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

October 28, day: The CIA arranged for a shipment of 500 TOW missiles from Israel to Iran. This apparently would amount to the last arms deal between the United States and Iran.

October 30, day: During this night, 500 TOW missiles were shipped to Iran.

Chadian rebel leader Goukouni Oueddei was shot and seriously wounded as Libyan authorities arrested him in Tripoli. 3/4ths of the Libyan-backed Chadian rebels thereupon switched sides to the government of President Hissene Habre.

November 3, day: The Beirut weekly Al Shiraa reported that American spare parts and ammunition had been sent to Iran after a secret mission by US National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane.

Joaquim Alberto Chissano replaced Samora Machel as President of Mozambique.

November 4, day: The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, confirmed the previous day’s report in Beirut weekly Al Shiraa. He said that McFarlane and 4 others had arrived in Iran on such a mission.

Congressional elections in the United States resulted in a gain of 8 seats for the Democratic Party in the Senate, giving that party a 10-seat majority. The Democrats retained control in the House of Representatives, with their majority increased by 5 seats.

Three Songs for voice and piano by Aaron Copland to words of Schaffer were performed for the initial time, in Austin, Texas, 68 years after they had been composed.

November 13, day: Symphony no.4 “Im Dunkeln singen” by Isang Yun was performed for the initial time, in Tokyo.

In a televised speech, President Ronald Wilson Reagan admitted contact between the United States and Iran to 1.) deal with “moderate” elements in Iran, 2.) end the Iran-Iraq War, 3.) end state-sponsored terrorism, and 4.) bring about the release of US hostages. He admitted that he had authorized transfers of small amounts of defensive weapons and spare parts but insisted that he had complied fully with the law. “We did not-repeat-did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages nor will we.”

Dies, an oratorio for solo voices, chorus, organ and orchestra by Wolfgang Rihm to words of the BIBLE and Leonardo da Vinci was performed for the initial time, in Vienna.

Keqrops for piano and 92 instruments by Iannis Xenakis was performed for the initial time, in Lincoln Center, New York.

A Doleful Dompe on Deborah’s Departure As Well As Borda’s Bawdy Badinage for English horn, violi,n and cello by Charles Wuorinen was performed for the initial time, at a private party in San Francisco.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

November 19, 1986 Eastman Kodak Co announced that it would stop selling its products in South Africa by the following April, and sell its operations in the country.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan asserted “We ... have had nothing to do with other countries or their shipment of arms or doing what they’re doing.” He admitted, however, selling 1,000 anti-tank missiles and spare parts for US weapons systems to Iran.

November 21, Friday: The Justice Department began an inquiry into the activities of the National Security Council, in what would become known as the Iran/Contra scandal. US National Security aide Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall altered critical documents dealing with the Iran/Contra initiative and shredded a whole bunch of other documents.

The Flight Into Egypt, a cantata for soprano, baritone, chorus, and orchestra by John Harbison, was performed for the initial time, at New England Conservatory, Boston (this piece would win the Pulitzer Prize).

Voiceless Essay for tapes by John Cage was performed for the initial time, in Herbst Theater, San Francisco, to a dance by Merce Cunningham.

November 22, Saturday: The Justice Department discovered a memo in Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North’s office on the transfer of $12,000,000 obtained from an Iranian arms sale to the Contras of Nicaragua.

November 25, Tuesday: President Ronald Wilson Reagan announced the Justice Department’s findings concerning the Iran/Contra affair and Attorney General Meese informed congressional leaders that proceeds of United States arms sales to Iran had gone to the Nicaraguan rebels. Meese revealed to the public the discovery of the “diversion memo” of April wherein Oliver North had described how money from Iran was to be transferred to the conservative rebels in Nicaragua. A criminal investigation began. National Security Advisor John Poindexter resigns and his aide Oliver North was sacked, and faithful blond secretary Fawn Hall got busy smuggling important documents out of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North’s office in her brassiere — that being a place where, since she was Republican, no-one in Washington DC would ever think to search.

GOVERNMENT SCANDALS

GOVERNMENT SCANDALS

GOVERNMENT SCANDALS

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

November 26, Wednesday: In the wake of the Iran/Contra affair, President Ronald Wilson Reagan, playing dumb, appointed a commission headed by former Senator John Tower to investigate his own National Security Council staff.

The French cabinet decided to end most of the remaining price controls by January 1st.

A West Berlin court convicted 2 Palestinians of bombing a social club in that city during the previous March. During the trial the defendants would reveal that their bomb had been supplied to them by the Syrian embassy in East Berlin.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan appointed a 3-man National Security Council board to review the workings of his administration during Iran-Contra.

December 1, Monday: Discretion being the better part of valor, before a Senate panel investigating the Iran/Contra arms sale US Marines Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North stood tall and proud in uniform, while seeking refuge behind the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution — he had a God-given right as a United States citizen not to be forced to incriminate himself. Duck and cover, guy!

Billionaire H. Ross Perot was expelled from the board of directors of General Motors.

What Time Is It? for boys chorus and jazz orchestra to the words of the composer was performed for the initial time, in New York City, directed by its composer T.J. Anderson.

December 2, Tuesday: The Danish government announced it would allow women to volunteer for combat duty in the navy. This would be the initial NATO nation to allow women to engage in combat.

In Buenos Aires 5 policemen were convicted of having during the Dirty War of the late 1970s perpetrated numerous tortures.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan asked for an independent counsel to investigate the accusations being made, of illegalities committed by his administration in the Iran/Contra affair (for certain sure he himself having had nothing whatever to do with any of this).

December 8, Monday: After several days of student protest and violence, Prime Minister Chirac abandons his plans to reorganize the French university system. One person was killed and 68 injured in the violence.

US Secretary of State George Schulz testifies before a congressional committee that members of the White House staff were in secret communications with the ambassador to Lebanon about selling arms to Iran without informing him. He also reveals that Oliver North got the Sultan of Brunei to contribute money to the Nicaraguan contras. Former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane testifies that Oliver North told him that part of the money from Iran went to the Contras and that a “higher authority” had approved it.

Etcetera 2/4 Orchestras for orchestra and tape by John Cage was performed for the first time, in Tokyo.

GOVERNMENT SCANDALS

GOVERNMENT SCANDALS

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

December 15, Monday: Chemical New York Corporation purchased Texas Commercial Bankshares for $1,100,000,000.

The Credit Suisse bank froze 2 accounts believed to have been used by Oliver North, Richard Secord, and Albert Hakim to transfer funds from Iran to the Nicaraguan contras.

The office of Vice-President George Herbert Walker Bush released a chronology that suggested that the Reagan administration knew more about the Hasenfus mission than they had previously stated.

Akea for piano and string quartet by Iannis Xenakis was performed for the initial time, in Paris.

Opening Prayer for baritone and orchestra by Leonard Bernstein to words from the Bible was performed for the initial time, in Carnegie Hall, New York, directed by the composer. This night marked the reopening of Carnegie Hall after a 7-month period of renovations.

December 17, Wednesday: The US Congress formed an “Irangate” committee.

Aufzeichnung: Dämmerung und Umriss for orchestra by Wolfgang Rihm was performed for the initial time, in Freiburg.

Eugene Hasenfus, the American who had been convicted in Nicaragua for running guns to the Contras, was pardoned and released.81

December 19, Friday: Andrei Sakharov and Yelena Bonner were freed from internal exile. Sakharov would be allowed to rejoin the staff at the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

Lawrence Walsh was named special prosecutor in the Iran/Contra scandal.

Reuben M. Baron’s and David A. Kenny’s “The Moderator-Mediator Variable Distinction in Social Psychological Research: Conceptual, Strategic, and Statistical Considerations” in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.82

81. During this year the International Court of Justice at The Hague, Netherlands ruled that the United States of America was in violation of international law for its “unlawful use of force” in Nicaragua, through its own actions and through the actions of its Contra proxy army. The US of course refuses to recognize this court’s jurisdiction; however, a UN resolution calling for compliance with the decision of the Court was approved 94/2 with the two dissenting votes coming from the United States and Israel.82. Street, W.R. A CHRONOLOGY OF NOTEWORTHY EVENTS IN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 1994

GOVERNMENT SCANDALS

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

The Iran/Contra hearings took place. President Ronald Wilson Reagan and George H.W. Bush emerged virtually unscathed. Following George H.W. Bush’s 1992 pardons of Iran/Contra felons, independent counsel Lawrence Walsh would opinion that Bush’s actions proved that “powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office — deliberately abusing the public trust — without consequence.” Several Iran/Contra figures, having demonstrated their mettle, would go on to be awarded top jobs in the administration of George W. Bush.

After the Iran/Iraq War resulted in military incidents in the Arabian Gulf, the United States increased US Navy forces operating in those waters and began a practice of reflagging and then escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers. US shipping would be fired upon, or would strike mines, or be subjected to other hostile action, on September 23d, October 10th, and October 20th in 1987 and on April 19th, July 4th, and July 14th in 1988. Eventually the United States would be able gradually to reduce its forces in these waters, after the cease-fire between Iran and Iraq on August 20th, 1988.

January 9, day: Iranian forces opened a new offensive against Iraq around Basra, simultaneously firing long range missiles into Baghdad. They made some headway at a cost of 50,000 Iranian and 20,000 Iraqi casualties.

The White House released the text of President Ronald Wilson Reagan’s intelligence finding of January 17th, 1986. This included a cover memo written by Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North which clearly indicated that this was a deal to free hostages in Lebanon.

Silver Ladders for orchestra by Joan Tower was performed for the initial time, in Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis.

January 23, day: The US Department of Defense announced that the arms sale to the CIA was deliberately underpriced, so that it would fall below the $14,000,000 threshold that would have required that Congress be informed. The arms had been sent by the CIA to Iran.

Handmade Proverbs—Four Pop Songs for six male voices by Toru Takemitsu to words of Takiguchi (translated into English by Lyons) was performed for the initial time, in Tokyo.

1987

US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

February 26, Thursday: After frequent appeals to the United States to follow its lead in a testing moratorium, the USSR conducted an underground nuclear test in Kazakhstan.

The report of the Tower Commission was released. The press labeled it a strong indictment of the handling of the Iran/Contra affair by the Reagan administration. “Primary responsibility for the chaos” was put on Chief of Staff Donald Regan. National Security Advisors Robert McFarlane and John Poindexter were charged with not informing or actively misleading the cabinet. CIA Director William Casey was charged with not controlling the National Security Council or informing the President. Secretary of State George Schulz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger had “distanced themselves from the march of events.” Oliver North had misused the NSC in providing a private network for funding the Contras. Yada yada yada.

(I don’t myself buy the above interpretation. I take the report of the Tower Commission to be a whitewash of the raw truth that these minions were simply doing what they knew the President wanted them to do — wink wink, nudge nudge. This report was an instance of “blaming the messenger,” thereby freeing the top dog of all responsibility. I had heard this same song and dance before, in Tehran during the early stages of the Khomeini Revolution: “Oh, if the Shahanshah only knew what his SAVAK is doing to us — he would discipline his minions, he would intercept all this torture and murder!”

March 4, day: 7,000 Syrian troops with tanks evicted Muslim gunmen from West Beirut, ending factional fighting there.

Federal Judge W. Brevard Hand ruled in Mobile, Alabama that 40 textbooks used in the state’s public schools promoted the “religion” of “secular humanism” and thus violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. He ordered such passages to be removed.

National Amusements Inc. won a bidding war for Viacom International Inc. They would buy Viacom for $3,400,000,000.

In a nationally televised address, President Ronald Wilson Reagan accepted full responsibility for the Iran/Contra debacle. He admitted that he had been trading arms for hostages. He concluded that this had been “a mistake” (everyone admits, he was really excellent at this sort of stuff).

Postcards for mezzo-soprano and lute by Robert Erickson to his own words was performed for the initial time, at the University of California at San Diego.

GOVERNMENT SCANDALS

PERSIA IRAN

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May 5, day: Over 500,000 black workers in South Africa stayed home to protest the white-only election scheduled for the following day.

Hearings by a joint Congressional Committee investigating the Iran-Contra Affair began. Retired Major General Richard Secord testified that about $3,500,000 of the arms sales to Iran was sent to the conservative rebels in Nicaragua. He said that Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North and Robert McFarlane were both aware of all his activities, and had approved them.

An amnesty program for immigrants illegally in the United States went into effect. Thousands of trusting souls voluntarily journeyed to the offices of the Immigration and Naturalization Service around the nation.

May 6, day: Former CIA Director William Casey died of pneumonia in Glen Cove, New York.

Richard Miller, a conservative fundraiser, pled guilty to conspiracy, admitting that he had funneled money into Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North’s Swiss bank account.

Whites-only parliamentary elections in South Africa saw gains for the far-right Conservative Party and losses for the moderate Progressive Party. The Nationalist Party retained power with a slightly increased majority. About 1,500,000 black workers joined the strike begun yesterday.

May 11, Monday: Klaus Barbie was put on trial in Lyon for crimes he had committed during World War II.

Philippine voters elected a new legislature dominated by Aquino supporters.

Former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane testified before the Iran-Contra Committee that King Fahd of Saudi Arabia had doubled his contribution for the conservative rebels in Nicaragua to $2,000,000 after meeting with President Ronald Wilson Reagan in 1985. When McFarlane had told the president of this, Reagan had been grateful but not surprised.

ANTISEMITISM

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

May 14, Thursday: Stephanie Booth-Kewley’s and Howard S. Friedman’s “Psychological Predictors of Heart Disease: A Quantitative Review” in Psychological Bulletin concluded that Type A personality, depression, anger, and anxiety were reliably related to coronary heart disease.

Former National Security staff member Gaston Sigur testified to the Iran/Contra committee that he personally solicited $2,000,000 from the government of Taiwan for the conservative rebels in Nicaragua, at the request of Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North. Robert Owen testified that he brought envelopes full of cash from Lieutenant-Colonel North’s office to representatives of the Contras in Washington DC, at a time when aid to the Contras had been banned by law. He said he was helped by State Department official Johnathan Miller. Miller, currently an assistant to the President, immediately resigned.

Serenade in G for string septet op.64 by Robin Holloway was performed for the initial time, at the University of Keele, Great Britain.

Two works by Lou Harrison were performed for the initial time, at Mills College in Oakland on the composer’s 70th birthday: Ariadne, a dance for flute and percussion, and Concerto for piano with Javanese gamelan.

May 15, day: Lazar Mojsov replaced Sinan Hasani as president of Yugoslavia.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan reversed earlier statements and admitted that he had been briefed regularly on aid to the Contras and that “it was my idea to begin with.”

May 19, day: The Australian government ordered the closure of the Libyan embassy in Canberra for spreading terrorism and revolt in the South Pacific.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan exonerated Saddam Hussein in the Stark incident, saying that “Iran was the real villain.”

The Reagan administration announced agreement with Kuwait for the reregistration of 11 Kuwaiti tankers to the US so they might be protected by US warships.

May 21, day: The Iran-Contra committee heard testimony from 3 wealthy Americans that they were directly solicited for money for the Contras by Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North and Carl Channell.

May 28, day: A British diplomat was arrested and beaten by Iranian authorities in Tehran. Britain claimed this was in retaliation for the arrest of an Iranian diplomat in Manchester on shoplifting charges.

Aria op.59, an operatic scene for tuba, piano, tam-tam and bass drum by Henryk Górecki, was performed for the initial time, in Salzburg.

PSYCHOLOGY

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

May 29, day: 19-year-old Hamburg resident Mathias Rust piloted a Cessna 172 from Helsinki, across 600 kilometers of Soviet airspace, and landed it within meters of the Kremlin. After conversing with onlookers for a while, Rust was taken into custody.

In secret testimony before the Iran-Contra committee, former CIA station chief Joe Fernandez said that his superiors had been aware of his activities helping Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North to resupply the Nicaraguan Contras.

June 2, day: Tamil rebels killed 40 bus passengers near Maha Oya, Sri Lanka.

Andrés Segovia died of a heart attack in Madrid at the age of 94.

Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams told the Iran-Contra committee that he had misled an earlier investigation by telling them “we’re not … in the fundraising business,” even though he personally had solicited $10,000,000 for the Contras from the Sultan of Brunei. Abrams also admitted he had lied when he said no one in the government knew of the private resupply efforts.

June 4, day: In retaliation for the actions of May 28, Britain closed the Iranian consulate in Manchester and expelled the diplomats there.

Compresenze for orchestra by Wolfgang Rihm was performed for the initial time, in Cologne.

Initiale for brass by Pierre Boulez was performed for the initial time, in Houston.

June 8, day: Pope John Paul II began his 3d visit to Poland.

President Raul Alfonsin signed a bill legalizing divorce in Argentina.

Fawn Hall (Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North’s blond secretary during the Irangate machinations), testified before the Iran/Contra committee, describing how she had altered memos previously sent by Lieutenant-Colonel North, and telling about a “shredding party” they had held the previous November 21st. She then told how she smuggled sensitive documents out of the National Security Council concealed in her clothing.

June 9, Tuesday: Fawn Hall (Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North’s blond secretary during the Irangate machinations), continuing her testimony before the Iran/Contra committee about how she had altered memos, shredded documents, and smuggled sensitive materials out of the NSC, pointed out that “Sometimes you just have to go above the written law.”

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

June 18, Thursday: Tens of thousands of anti-government students and middle class citizens gained control of downtown Seoul for several hours.

The Vietnamese national assembly removed Prime Minister Pham Van Dong and President Truong Chinh, replacing them respectively with Pham Hung and Vo Chi Cong.

After several tit-for-tat expulsions, Iran and Great Britain had gotten down to a single solitary diplomat in the other’s capital – someone, apparently, to pick the phone and go “Sorry, nobody home right now but, can I take a message?”

July 7, day: President Arturo Delvalle of Panama banned mass demonstrations.

Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North began 6 days of testimony before a Congressional Committee under cover of immunity. He revealed his direction of and his complicity in the Iran-Contra scandal. He admitted shredding incriminating documents.

July 8, day: Thorsteinn Palsson replaced Steingrimur Hermannsson as Prime Minister of Iceland.

Oliver North admitted to the Iran-Contra committee that he diverted funds from the Iran arms sale for his personal use.

July 15, day: Rear Admiral John Poindexter, former National Security Advisor, told the Iran-Contra Committee that he never informed President Ronald Wilson Reagan of the diversion of money from the Iran arms sale to the Nicaraguan contras. He said he wanted to “provide some future deniability for the President.” He also said that he saw Reagan sign the November 1985 finding authorizing the trading of arms for hostages, something Reagan denied (Poindexter destroyed the finding when the scandal became public).

July 17, Friday: US Marine Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North and US Navy Rear Admiral John Poindexter began testifying to the United States Congress regarding the Iran/Contra scandal. They would point out that they had merely been obeying the orders of duly-constituted authorities.

France broke relations with Iran over a bombing suspect taking refuge in the Iranian embassy in Paris.

Concerto no.1 for piano and computer by John Melby was performed for the initial time, at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts.

July 18, day: Anti-government rebels killed 386 civilians and injured 76 others in Homoine, Mozambique.

Iranian authorities surrounded the French embassy in Tehran.

GOVERNMENT SCANDALS

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

July 23, day: 200 were killed and 100 injured in a battle between wealthy landowners and land reform advocates in Jean-Rebel, Haiti.

Secretary of State George Schulz testified before the Iran-Contra committee that the affair created “guerrilla warfare” within the White House and that former officials Casey, McFarlane, and Poindexter had lied to him to keep the plan going.

String Quartet no.2 by Sofia Gubaidulina was performed for the initial time, in Kuhmo, Finland.

July 31, day: Iranian pilgrims shouted political epithets and turned violent during the annual pilgrimage in Mecca. Iranians trampled other pilgrims and battled police. 402 were killed, 649 taken to hospital.

Adagio and Rondo for horn and orchestra by Robin Holloway was performed for the initial time, at Cambridge.

August 3, day: A joint Congressional committee ended the Iran/Contra hearings.

Montags-Gruß no.55, an excerpt of Montag aus Licht by Karlheinz Stockhausen, was performed for the first time, in Siena.

August 6, day: The results of a vote by members of Britain’s Social Democratic Party showed a majority in favor of merging with the Liberal Party.

In view of the France-Iran embassy standoff, the French government ordered all oil companies operating in France to stop importing Iranian crude.

The Greatest Show for over 100 singers, actors and carnival performers by R. Murray Schafer to his own words, was performed for the initial time, in Peterborough, Ontario.

August 10, day: After a de facto 25-day cessation of hostilities, Iraq resumed the war against Iran with air strikes on Iranian industrial targets.

Ode of Ronsard for voice and piano by Arthur Berger was performed for the initial time, at Tanglewood, Lenox, Massachusetts.

August 11, day: Great Britain and France reversed their previous policy and dispatchd minesweepers to the Persian Gulf.

Nostalghia: In Memory of Andrei Tarkowskij for violin and string orchestra by Toru Takemitsu was performed for the initial time, in Edinburgh.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

August 19, day: After weeks of nationwide labor unrest in South Korea, Hyundai Group, at the insistence of the government, agreed to recognize the workers’ new independent union.

Michael Ryan killed 16 and injured 14 before killing himself in Hungerford, in the worst mass shooting incident in British history.

Censored transcripts of a CIA agent’s closed testimony before the Iran-Contra committee were made public. They outlined a Reagan-administration plan for South Africa to provide funds for the arming and training of Contra rebels. In return the US was to provide intelligence for South Africa’s allies in Angola.

August 29, day: The revolt in the Philippines was put down by loyal troops.

After a 45-day lull, Iraq bombed Iranian oil installations in the Persian Gulf.

Splitter, an orchestral sketch after Oedipus by Wolfgang Rihm, was performed for the initial time, in Berlin.

September 4, day: An Iranian missile landed on the southern coast of Kuwait.

September 5, day: Kuwait expelled 5 Iranian diplomats after the events of yesterday.

September 21, day: A British-registered tanker was attacked by Iranian forces and set afire near Farsi Island. One crew member was killed and 33 injured.

A US helicopter attacked an Iranian ship laying mines in the Persian Gulf northeast of Bahrain. US naval forces then seized the ship. 3 Iranians were killed, while 2 were missing and presumed dead. 4 were wounded. The remaining 26 crewmembers were taken into custody.

October 8, day: United States helicopters sank an Iranian patrol boat in the Persian Gulf, and captured 2 others.

October 13, day: An Iranian missile landed near a school near Baghdad, killing 32 and injuring 218, nearly all of whom were students.

President Oscar Arías Sanchez of Costa Rica was named as the recipient of the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize.

Rioting and looting again broke out during a funeral procession for Jamie Pardo Leal, killed 2 days earlier.

Musica Ptolemica for brass quintet by Richard Wernick was performed for the initial time, in Philadelphia.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

October 16, day: An American-flagged Kuwaiti tanker was struck by an Iranian missile. 18 people were injured.

The Dow Jones Average loses 108.36 points. The Average has lost 450 points from its August highs.

Symphony no.6 by George Rochberg was performed for the initial time, in Heinz Hall, Pittsburgh.

October 19, day: The Hong Kong stock market drops 11%. Trading was suspended for a week.

United States Navy ships destroy an Iranian oil rig in the Persian Gulf in retaliation for the attack of October 16.

Jacqueline Du Pre dies in London at the age of 42.

The Belgian government of Prime Minister Wilfried Martens resigns over language issues.

The London stock market sees a record decline.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 508.32 (22.6%) the largest one-day drop since 1914.

October 22, day: An Iranian missile hits the main offshore oil terminal in Kuwait. Three people were injured and the facility was seriously damaged.

Protokoll-ein Traum for six cellos by Wolfgang Rihm was performed for the initial time, in Graz.

Nixon in China, an opera by John Adams to words of Goodman, was performed for the initial time, in Houston.

October 26, day: As the Hong Kong stock market reopens after a week, stocks immediately drop by 1/3.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan announces a total ban on oil imports from Iran.

November 4, day: Le Figaro published a secret report of the inspector general of the French military outlining illegal arms sales to Iran by the previous government, from 1983 to 1986. President Mitterand reportedly had been informed of these sales. The report also indicated that the French company Luchaire had paid “commissions” to French officials for the sales (this was to become known as “L’affair Luchaire”).

Over the previous week, 78 Chilean actors, directors, and playwrights received death threats.

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

November 18, Wednesday: A fire at the King’s Cross Underground stop killed 30.

The final report of the congressional Iran/Contra committees placed “ultimate responsibility” for the wrongdoing of his aides on the shoulders of President Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Japan Air Lines was officially denationalized.

The special Iran-Contra Committee of the US Congress issues its final report saying that President Ronald Wilson Reagan failed in his constitutional responsibilities in the Iran-Contra scandal and that his policies in Iran and Central America depended on “secrecy, deception and disdain for the law.”

CBS Inc. agreed to sell CBS Records to Sony Corp. for $2,000,000,000.

November 27, day: President Hossein Mohammed Ershad of Bangladesh declared a state of emergency after 2 weeks of anti-government unrest.

Two French journalists were freed by Iranian-backed terrorists in Beirut.

November 29, day: French authorities released Wahid Gordji, wanted in connection with bombings in Paris, who sought refuge in the Iranian embassy in Paris. He had been exchanged in Karachi for Paul Torri, consul in the besieged French mission in Tehran. The 40 Iranian diplomats in Paris and 8 French in Tehran were thereupon freed, thus ending an embassy standoff begun last July.

The 1st free elections in Haiti in 30 years were canceled by the government after terrorist acts at polling places by supporters of deposed President Jean-Claude Duvalier. 34 were killed and 70 injured. The United States suspended all humanitarian aid to Haiti.

The Motherland Party of Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Ozal easily won reelection in parliamentary voting.

Et exspecto for bayan by Sofia Gubaidulina was performed for the initial time, in Moscow.

Pendant l’attente for voice and piano by Albert Roussel to words of Catulle Mendès was performed for the initial time, in Saint-Etienne, France, about 88 years after it had been composed.

LONDON

GOVERNMENT SCANDALS

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

February 28, day: Iran attacked southern Iraq and bombed Basra.

31 people were killed in fighting between Muslims and Christians in Sumgait, Azerbaijan SSR. Soviet troops were dispatched to enforce a dusk-to-dawn curfew. Soviet journalists maintained the riots were pogroms against Armenians.

Georgios Vasou Vasiliou replaced Spyros Achilleos Kyprianou as President of Cyprus.

Sound Line, a sound work by Max Neuhaus, was inaugurated in CNAC, Magasin, Grenoble. This was to exist until April 10th.

The Fifteenth Winter Olympic Games closed in Calgary. In 15 days of competition, 1.423 athletes from 57 countries had taken part.

A Summerfield Set for piano by Lou Harrison was performed for the initial time, at Mills College in Oakland.

February 29, day: Iran and Iraq traded missiles aimed at each other’s capitals. Hundreds of civilians would be killed over the following couple of weeks, in daily attacks.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and 24 other church leaders were arrested in Cape Town, South Africa during a march to protest the banning of 17 anti-apartheid groups.

Although a multi-party election took place in Bulgaria, all candidates needed approval by the Communist party.

A general strike began in Panama City.

All official United States aid to the Contras expired.

The complete version of György Ligeti’s Piano Concerto (including the 4th and 5th movements) was performed for the initial time, in the Mozart Room of the Konzerthaus Society, Vienna.

March 2, day: Iraqi missiles hit the holy city of Qom, Iran.

March 6, day: A mob attacked the Soviet embassy in Tehran, angry at the use by Iraq of Soviet missiles.

When British security forces gunned down 3 suspected IRA members in Gibraltar, the 3 gunned down turned out to have been unarmed.

1988

PERSIA IRAN

HDT WHAT? INDEX

March 15, day: Iran announces it had captured Halabja, a Kurdish stronghold. During the attack, Iraqi planes dropped bombs containing mustard gas and cyanide. Approximately 5,000 Kurds were killed.

300 protesters staged a march for freedom of expression and assembly in Leipzig.

After doctors and nurses in Panama demonstrated against General Manuel Antonio Noriega, troops stormed that nation’s largest hospital, firing tear gas and bird shot.

NASA announced a significant decline in the ozone layer over the Northern Hemisphere.

March 16, Wednesday: As part of the Iran/Contra affair, former Reagan administration officials US Marine Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver L. North and US Navy Vice-Admiral John M. Poindexter of the National Security Council, along with 2 others, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington DC for a “conspiracy to defraud the United States.”(Defraud their nation? Get serious, these are dedicated military personnel standing

ready and willing to give somebody else’s life for their nation!)

(Pssst! You guys, if worst comes to worst, the magic words are “I was only following orders.”)

As Iranian troops entered Halabja to accept its surrender, Iraqi forces unleashed a chemical weapons attack on the town that killed thousands of their own citizens.

At the Belfast funeral of those killed March 6th, a Protestant attacked mourners with grenades and an automatic pistol, killing 3 and wounding dozens — just like Jesus would have done.

The Reagan administration announced that 2,000 Nicaraguan troops had crossed into Honduras to attack rebel bases, and ordered 3,200 US troops into Honduras. President Ortega of Nicaragua denied the Reagan administration’s accusation and invited observers from the UN and OAS into the area.

Pasiphae for piano and percussion by Samuel Adler was performed for the initial time, in Rochester, New York.

March 19, day: When Iraqi war planes attacked 2 supertankers at Kharg Island, 54 merchant seamen went missing and were presumed dead.

When, at a West Belfast funeral for those killed on March 16th, 2 armed British soldiers drive into the crowd, they were overpowered by the mourners, beaten, and shot to death.

March 30, day: Iranian gunboats fired on Kuwaiti positions on Bubiyan Island. The Kuwaitis suffered 2 casualties.

GOVERNMENT SCANDALS

PERSIA IRAN

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April 5, Tuesday: Arab terrorists hijacked a Kuwaiti airliner and diverted it to Mashhad, Iran. They demanded that Kuwait release 17 Shiite terrorists.

As rival Shiite militias battled each other for 4 days in southern Lebanon, 51 were killed and 130 injured.

1,300 US Marines began arriving in Panama.

Agents of the federal government of the United States of America kidnapped a suspected drug trafficker in Honduras, and spirited him to the USA in direct violation not only of the Honduran constitution but also of international law.

April 8, Friday: Yang Shangkun became president of the People’s Republic of China, replacing Li Xiannian.

After freeing most of the passengers, Arab hijackers took off from Iran and attempted to land in Beirut. When they were refused permission, the plane landed in Cyprus.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan froze all Panamanian assets in the United States.

April 18, Monday: US naval forces attacked 2 Iranian offshore oil platforms in reprisal for Iranian mines in the Persian Gulf. Iranians retaliated with several attacks on US naval vessels in the southern gulf. 6 Iranian vessels were sunk or seriously damaged.

Iraq recaptured the port of Fao from Iran.

Ricorrenze for woodwind quintet by Luciano Berio was performed for the initial time, in Paris.

April 26, Tuesday: In elections for the National Assembly in South Korea, the ruling Democratic Justice Party failed to win a majority of seats. This was the 1st time in the history of the nation that a ruling party failed to win a majority.

15,000 workers struck at the Lenin Steel Mill near Krakow.

Saudi Arabia broke diplomatic relations with Iran. They claimed that this was because of the riot last year in Mecca, because of the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and because of Iranian attacks on merchant ships in the Persian Gulf (but who knows, it might have been because it was Tuesday).

PERSIA IRAN

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May 25, Wednesday: For the initial time, the Soviet Defense Ministry released casualty figures for the fighting in Afghanistan. 13,310 Soviets had been killed and 35,478 wounded in the more than 8 years of fighting.

Iraq began an offensive east of Basra pushing back Iranian forces.

Libyan leader Muammar Khaddafi announced an end to his war with Chad.

Panamanian strongman General Manuel Antonio Noriega rejected an offer from the Reagan administration to drop all the drug trafficking charges against him, were he to give up power and temporarily leave the nation. What a sweetheart deal! No, he didn’t think so.

Concerto for flute and orchestra by Peter Mennin was performed for the initial time, in New York.

June 13, Monday: The Soviet government announced the rehabilitation of 4 victims of the Stalin purges of the 1930s: Grigory Y. Zinoviev, Lev B. Kamenev, Karl B. Radek, and Grigory L. Pyatakov.

Iran attacked southern Iraq east of Basra but, after initial gains, was beaten back.

A federal court in Newark, New Jersey found Liggett Group, Inc., a tobacco company, to bear partial responsibility for the death of a smoker and ordered that it pay her survivors $400,000.

Eight Colors for String Quartet by Tan Dun was performed for the initial time, in Wellington, New Zealand.

June 16, Thursday: France and Iran restored diplomatic relations after a hiatus of almost a year.

Concerto for horn and orchestra op.46 by Robin Holloway was performed for the initial time, in London.

Five Stone for three performers by John Cage was performed for the initial time in Berlin. This was the first part of Five Stone Wind.

July 3, day: A heavily armed American navy vessel, the USS Vincennes, shot down an Iranian commercial airliner over the Persian Gulf killing all 290 passengers and the crew. No one will ever be held responsible for the deaths. The United States would apologize to anyone still alive and agree to financial compensation for the families of victims, protesting that our guys had innocently, honestly mistaken this enormous civilian plane taking off and ascending from a known civilian airfield in a routine manner and following a known normal commercial itinerary while broadcasting all required “I am civilian, folks” routine signals, for an aggressive small attacking military fighter-bomber behaving deceptively while coming in for the kill. Yeah, gosh!

PERSIA IRAN

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July 11, day: Palestinian terrorists using automatic weapons and hand grenades attack a ferry carrying tourists from the island of Aegina to Athens. Nine were killed and more than 80 injured.

President Ronald Wilson Reagan said that his government would pay compensation to the families of the 290 people killed when the USS Vincennes shot an Iranian commercial airliner out of the sky on July 3d.

Nicaragua expeled the US ambassador and 7 other US diplomats for fomenting rebellion.

July 17, day: Canada and Iran agreed to restore normal relations.

July 18, day: Iran accepted a UN Security Plan to end the war with Iraq.

The Canadian and Newfoundland governments signed a preliminary agreement with an energy consortium to develop the Hibernia oil fields off Newfoundland.

July 22, day: Iraq launched a new offensive against Iran.

Twenty-Three for strings by John Cage was performed for the initial time, in Putney, Vermont.

July 23, day: Iraqi forces reached 60 kilometers inside Iran, heading toward Ahwaz.

Demonstrations in Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius protested the 1940 Soviet annexation of the Baltic States.

July 25, Monday: Representatives of Vietnam, the Cambodian government, and 3 Cambodian rebel groups met for the 1st time, in Bogor, Indonesia.

Armenians ended a 2-month general strike after a crackdown from Moscow.

Iraqi forces withdrew from their recent gains in Iran.

July 27, day: UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar suspends his peace efforts after Iraq continues to demand direct talks with Iran.

Symeon der Stylit, an oratorio by Ernst Krenek to words of Bell and the Book of Psalms, was performed for the initial time, at the Universitätskirche, Salzburg. Krenek began the composition in 1935 but completed it only last year.

PERSIA IRAN

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August 8, Monday: After 3 weeks of negotiations, UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar announced that Iran and Iraq had agreed to United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 for a ceasefire, to take effect August 20th.

After talks in Geneva, Angola, Cuba, and South Africa announced a truce in Angola and Namibia.

The original version of Ballata and Ballabile by Charles Villiers Stanford was performed for the initial time, in Belfast, 72 years after it had been composed.

August 20, Saturday: President Lazarus Salii of Palau was found shot to death in his living room (although an intruder was suspected, suicide was not ruled out).

The Iran/Iraq War, that had become the deadliest conventional war ever fought between regular armies of developing countries, ended in a stalemate. A ceasefire went into effect as UN truce observers took up positions along the front (however, some people are still alive, so — it ain’t over ’till it’s over).

In the face of spreading coal mine strikes, the Polish government began to conscript draft-age miners.

An Irish Republican Army bomb exploded near Omagh in Northern Ireland, killing 8 British soldiers and injuring 28.

Passacaglia for orchestra by Krzysztof Penderecki was performed for the initial time, in Lucerne (the composer would make this part of the Symphony no.3).

August 25, Thursday: 5 more coal mines were attacked by Polish authorities, breaking the strikes.

Transport workers in Szczecin entered into negotiations with the government.

The foreign ministers of Iran and Iraq began formal negotiations in Geneva.

“The Thin Blue Line,” a film by Errol Morris with music by Philip Glass, was released in the United States.

November: Former Queen of Iran Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary was so down on her luck at this point that she needed to auction off a Harry Winston diamond necklace at Christie’s in Geneva.

News items relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology:

• Ashton-Tate sued Fox Software and Santa Cruz Operations for infringing copyrights on the Dbase language.

• Microsoft released MS-DOS 4.01.

PERSIA IRAN

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His bioweapons still being relatively ineffective despite all our help, maybe Saddam Hussein of Iraq –or maybe somebody else, who knows– killed off 5,000 of the Kurdish citizens of Iraq with nerve gas.

Iraq had invaded Iran shortly after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, in a 1980 attempt to gain territory while Iran was preoccupied with its own internal instability. That war had dragged into an immensely costly and deadly WWI-style stalemate. Despite their very best efforts, Iraq’s mustard gas did not seem to be doing the job against Iran’s mass army of fundamentalist hotheads. During this year the Reagan administration, aware that Iraq needed to use biological weapons against Iran, authorized at least 40 shipments from the American Type Culture Collection, which is a large scientific institute housing cultures every known type of disease for scientific purposes, to Iraq, of weapons-specific biological agents. Because of the openhanded manner in which the administration had been passing around money to any and all scientists willing to do research into new biological weapons, the Council for Responsible Genetics had helped to create draft legislation for the US Congress, to counter the manner in which administration officials had been persistently tweaking research into genetic engineering technology in the direction of use for purposes of biological warfare. Since neither the biotech industry as a whole nor the US Congress as a whole had any desire to be tainted in such a manner by the mad scientists of the Pentagon, in this year, with the tacit support of the George Herbert Walker Bush White House, the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 was passed unanimously by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by the President. According to this Act, fighting fire with fire, any US scientist caught doing any research, development, or testing of biological warfare agents was to be packed off to federal prison for the remainder of his or her life.

Meanwhile, in Liberia, Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor, an Americo-Liberian who had been convicted for embezzlement, and his followers, were toppling the Doe-led government. This was precipitating civil war among various Liberian ethnic factions, a civil war which his faction would win (until, eventually, he would be convicted of terror, murder, and rape and sentenced to 50 years in prison as “responsible for aiding and abetting as well as planning some of the most heinous and brutal crimes recorded in human history,” despite his defense that his deeds of torture and crimes against humanity were just like those of President George W. Bush in his Global War on Terror).

1989

GERM WARFARE

PERSIA IRAN

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The United Nations enacted an Optional Protocol to its International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This contained a provision optionally banning the execution of any person under 18 years of age (China would be abolishing such executions in 1997 and Pakistan in 2000, while the United States of America would remain in unity with Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia — the nations, of this bluegreen planet with chocolate, that still have not enlisted in support of this optional rule against killing children).83

The Reverend George Mills Houser’s NO ONE CAN STOP THE RAIN:

My introduction to the African liberation struggle began withthe “Campaign to Defy Unjust Laws,” sponsored by the AfricanNational Congress. The year was 1952. Word about plans for theforthcoming massive nonviolent Defiance Campaign to resist theapartheid laws came to me from my friend and co-worker BillSutherland through a South African editor whom he had met inLondon. Sutherland and I were both pacifists, and had worked

May 18, 1990 Dalton Prejean Black Male Louisiana

February 11, 1992 Johnny Frank Garrett White Male Texas

July 1, 1993 Curtis Paul Harris Black Male Texas

July 28, 1993 Frederick Lasley Black Male Missouri

August 24, 1993 Ruben Montoya Cantu Latino Male Texas

December 7, 1993 Christopher Burger White Male Georgia

April 24, 1998 Joseph John Cannon White Male Texas

May 18, 1998 Robert Anthony Carter Black Male Texas

October 14, 1998 Dwayne Allen Wright Black Male Virginia

February 4, 1999 Sean Richard Sellers White Male Oklahoma

January 10, 2000 Douglas Christopher Thomas White Male Virginia

January 13, 2000 Steve Edward Roach White Male Virginia

January 25, 2000 Glen Charles McGinnis Black Male Texas

June 22, 2000 Gary Lee Graham Black Male Texas

October 22, 2001 Gerald Lee Mitchell Black Male Texas

May 28, 2002 Napoleon Beazley Black Male Texas

August 8, 2002 T.J. Jones Black Male Texas

August 28, 2002 Toronto Markkey Patterson Black Male Texas

April 3, 2003 Scott Allen Hain White Male Oklahoma

83. In 2005 the US Supreme Court would (with Chief Justice William Rehnquist with Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Sandra Day O’Connor dissenting) prohibit state execution of offenders who had been under the age of 16.

PERSIA IRAN

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together on numerous projects to combat segregation in theUnited States by non-violent methods.

January 13, Friday: Daniel Barenboim was sacked as artistic and musical director of the new Bastille Opera of Paris. The overseeing board claims his salary, negotiated by the previous government, was too high, his demands for control too great and his performance schedule too puny. Barenboim vowed to stay on.A US federal judge dismissed the main criminal conspiracy charges against Iran/Contra mastermind Oliver North, due to the fact that the Reagan Administration was refusing to release incriminating documents to the prosecution.Mazurca en do menor for piano by Manuel de Falla was performed for the initial time, in Madrid, 90 years after it had been composed. Also premiered was Falla’s Serenata for piano, composed in 1901.

February: The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority ceased the daily discharge of 10,000 gallons of sewage scum into the inner Boston Harbor from its Deer Island Treatment Facility. Henceforth such scum would be treated on land.

Speaking of scum, during this month Indian author Salman Rushdie’s book “The Satanic Verses” was causing such uproar among fundamentalist Muslims that the Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini pronounced a “fatwah” religious ruling against the life of that author, characterizing his book as “blasphemous against Islam.” Placing a $3,000,000 bounty on the author’s head, the religious leader called on all “zealous Muslims” to earn credit in the next world by finding an opportunity to off him. (Henceforward, whenever this author would encounter a fellow Muslim he would need to inquire,

“Hey, you aren’t by any chance, uh, religious — are you?” :-)

February 20, day: 12 European Community members recalled ambassadors from Iran in protest against the death threat of February 14th.

PERSIA IRAN

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March 3, Friday: Former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane was fined $20,000 and sentenced to 2 years probation for withholding information from Congress about the Iran/Contra crimes.

The Venezuelan government announced that 300 people had been killed in recent rioting.

Ceremonies for band by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich was performed for the initial time, at Florida State University.

March 7, Tuesday: To quell violence, the Chinese government imposed martial law in Tibet.

The difficulties over Salman Rushdie and his controversial novel THE SATANIC VERSES caused Iran to sever diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom.

The Polish government officially accused the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of having in 1940 massacred Polish officers in the Katyn Forest.

May 4, Thursday: Speaking to foreign bankers, General-Secretary Zhao Ziyang contradicted the Peoples Daily article accusing students of trying to overthrow socialism.

100,000 Chinese marched in Beijing to demand democracy. Civil disobedience protests also took place in Shanghai, Changchun, and Dalian.

Bulgarian General-Secretary Todor Zhivkov announced plans to dissolve large collective farms and allow individual farmers to lease land.

Oliver North was found guilty of 3 crimes in the Iran/Contra affair in federal court in Washington DC.

The Rogers Pass Tunnel opened in British Columbia. A rail tunnel running through the Selkirk Mountains, at 35 kilometers, became the longest tunnel in the Western Hemisphere.

Fantasy and Polka for orchestra by Ned Rorem was performed for the initial time, in Evian, France.

June: On the island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic Ocean, a Fisheries Association was formed.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini died after an 11-day stay in the hospital.

An elected body of senior clerics — the Assembly of Experts — chose the outgoing president of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini as their national religious leader.

IRAN

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June 3, Saturday: In the early morning, unarmed Chinese soldiers attempt to clear Tienanmen Square without using deadly force. They were blocked by civil disobedience demonstrators before they reached the square. They withdrew. This “victory” emboldened the protesters and hundreds of thousands of civilians poured into the square.

At 2PM, police and troops fired tear gas and begin attacking civilians in Tienanmen Square.

At 4PM, troops and civilians exchanged flying missiles, mostly bricks, near the Great Hall of the People.

At 10PM, Chinese army units advanced on Tienanmen Square, firing on anyone who attempted to detain them or who openly opposed them. Perhaps thousands were killed.

Two weeks of ethnic riots began in Uzbekistan.

Iran’s paramount ruler Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini died in a Tehran hospital.

France announced a ban on the importation of ivory.

Incidental music to Pushkin’s play A Feast in Time of Plague by Alfred Schnittke was performed for the initial time, in Taganka Theater, Moscow.

June 4, Sunday: The final day of a series of pro-democracy civil disobedience events around Tiananmen Square in central Beijing that had begun on April 14th. The Chinese government displayed the warmth it felt toward democracy. Most of the killing took place some three miles to the west of the square, out of which the student demonstrators had peaceably marched. Regarding this, perhaps mistakenly, as the clearest possible sort of warning of what was to come after the July 1, 1997 re-colonization of Hong Kong by the PRC, educated and well-to-do Chinese there began using all avenues at their disposal to emigrate to other safer locations (actually, the PRC doesn’t ever molest Hong Kongers because of how badly this would play in Taiwan).

At 1AM, clashes began between Chinese army units surrounding Tienanmen Square and protesters. Troops fired into crowds, killing hundreds. Civilians set police vehicles on fire and lynched soldiers they managed to capture.

At 5AM, as thousands of students began to exit Tienanmen Square peacefully, army units attacked with tanks.

At 7:40AM, the Chinese government declared it was in control of Tienanmen Square.

When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinesegovernment almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they werehorrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you thepower of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak... as being spit on by the rest of the world—

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Soviet troops were dispatched to Uzbekistan to quell violence.

President Ali Khamenei replaced Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini as Faghi of Iran.

The Arab League truce in Beirut broke down as fighting began again.

In free elections in Poland, Solidarity-backed candidates won 99 of 100 seats in the new Senate. They won a majority of contested seats in the Sejm but 65% of the seats had been guaranteed to the Communist Party.

Monologue for viola and string orchestra by Alfred Schnittke was performed for the initial time, in Bonn.

“Osten” from the cycle Die Stücke der Windrose for small orchestra by Mauricio Kagel was performed for the initial time, in the Rathaus, Aachen.

July 6, day: A Palestinian terrorist took control of the wheel of an Israeli bus west of Jerusalem and sent it down a ravine. 14 were killed.

The University Complutense of Madrid conferred an honorary doctorate on Joaquín Rodrigo.

Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North was sentenced to $150,000 in fines and 1,200 hours of community service for crimes committed in the Iran-Contra affair.

Wie es wär’, wenn’s anders wär for soprano and eight instruments by Paul Hindemith to words of von Miris (pseud. of Bonn) was performed for the initial time, in München, 71 years after it had been composed.

August: A news item relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: Britain’s Apricot Computers produced the 1st PC based on the 25-MHz Intel 80486 chip.

Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Speaker of the Iranian National Assembly, replaced Sayyed Ali Khamenei as President of Iran (Rafsanjani had been an influential member of the Council of Revolution in the Islamic Republic’s earlier days).

August 3, day: As Hajatolislam Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani replaced Sayyed Ali Khamenei as President of Iran, the post of Prime Minister was abolished.

PERSIA IRAN

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December 19, Tuesday: The Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia approved free elections and a transition to a market economy.

Anti-government protests spread to Cluj and Oradea in Transylvania.

After meeting with East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl addressed tens of thousands of people in front of the ruins of the Frauenkirche in Dresden. He told them that his goal was the unification of Germany.

Soviet Foreign Minister Edvard Shevardnadze visited NATO headquarters in Brussels, the 1st leader of a Warsaw Pact country to do so.

The Iranian tanker Kharg-5 suffered an explosion north of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands and dumped more than 140,000,000 liters of crude oil into the Atlantic Ocean.

PERSIA IRAN

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The Soviet Union’s immense secret biowarfare program would begin to crumble during this decade, as due to financial chaos their scientists’ salaries year after year went unpaid. Iraq is known to have unleashed its chemical weapons in the 1980s, not only during the Iran/Iraq war but also against rebellious Kurds in northern Iraq, but we have no evidence that the Iraqi state had attempted to utilize its biological arsenal. The conclusion would be, rather than that Saddam Husayn Al-Tikriti was reluctant to have recourse to biowarfare, that his biowarfare tools were not yet effective. He may well have lured some of these desperate bioweapons experts from the insolvent Soviet Union to help his ongoing research program become effective. It is almost certain, also, that much of this arsenal remains in existence as of 2001. In fact, with the aid of these former Soviet experts and with the UNSCOM inspectors being held at bay by diplomatic maneuvering, we can expect that the Iraqis have been increasing their arsenal of germs.

January 6, day: Rioting Azerbaijanis attacked Soviet border stations on the Iranian frontier.

The nationalist Serbian Renewal Movement was formed, headed by Vuk Draskovic.

April 7, day: John Poindexter, National Security Advisor to Ronald Reagan, was found guilty on 5 counts of lying to Congress by concealing Reagan Administration culpability in the Iran/Contra Affair. He would be sentenced to 6 months imprisonment.

The Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center and its director were indicted by a grand jury for displaying photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe that they deemed obscene.

June 11, day: Today began 3 days of demonstrations in Sofia protesting the elections results.

A new conservative coalition took control in Israel under Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Former National Security Advisor John Poindexter was sentenced in federal court in Washington to 6 months in prison for his part in the Iran/Contra Scandal.

1990

GERM WARFARE

PERSIA IRAN

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June 21, day: A stock exchange opened in Budapest.

An earthquake, the worst in the history of Iran, struck the northeast of the nation. 40,000 were killed, 100,000 injured, and 400,000 left homeless.

The Parliaments of both East and West Germany approved measures that guaranteed the present borders of Poland.

Dérive II for 11 instruments by Pierre Boulez was performed for the initial time, in Milan, conducted by the composer.

July 20, day: The conviction of Iran-Contra mastermind Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North was overturned on a technicality.

The London stock exchange was bombed. A warning by the IRA allows for evacuation of the buildings and no injuries were reported.

July 27, day: The Parliament of Byelorussia declared the sovereignty of the nation.

OPEC oil ministers, meeting in Geneva, agreed to raise prices by 20%.

The French government released 5 men convicted of attempting to kill former Iranian Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar. They were sent to Tehran.

A group of Black Muslim rebels instituted a coup in Trinidad and Tobago. They seized the parliament building, TV station, and several high officials including Prime Minister Arthur Robinson.

September 10, Monday: Meeting in Jakarta, the 4 warring factions in Cambodia agreed to a United Nations cease-fire plan. They agreed that their nation would be run by a 12-member Supreme National Council until elections could be held.

In a Pakistani court, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was formally charged with abuse of power.

At Côte d’Ivoire in Africa, Pope John Paul II was consecrating the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro. Meanwhile, in Liberia, rebel factions were torturing and executing seriously injured President Samuel Kanyon Doe.

Iran and Iraq announced that they were restoring diplomatic relations.

West Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to maintenance and repatriation of all Soviet troops in East Germany.

PERSIA IRAN

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January 26, day: Czechoslovakia began to privatize retail outlets.

The United States announced that Iraqi pilots had flown 24 Iraqi warplanes to Iran and landed them there. The warplanes had been impounded by Iran.

Over 75,000 people marched against the Gulf War in Washington.

Duets for chamber orchestra by Joan Tower was performed for the initial time, in Los Angeles.

February 27, Wednesday: Mitchell brother Jim shot and killed Mitchell brother Artie for reasons that aren’t exactly clear, or at least aren’t exactly clear outside the family. The brothers had built up a San Francisco porn empire centered around the O’Farrell Theater and had made themselves responsible for one of the best-selling porno films of all time, “Behind the Green Door,” starring Marilyn Chambers and the inimitable John Holmes.

President George Herbert Walker Bush –aware that one of the US’s long term objectives was that Iraq not be so weakened that it would no longer be an effective blocking force keeping Iran away from Kuwait– halted the invasion of Iraq after exactly 100 hours.84

1991

84. Since we don’t want to have to fight Iran ourselves, we need to leave Iraq strong enough to be able to fight Iran on our behalf.(It is now apparent that President GHW Bush neglected adequately to elucidate this Realpolitik for the benefit of other members of his nuclear family.)

US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

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April 3, Wednesday: The UN Security Council approved a permanent cease-fire in the Persian Gulf War. Iraq was required to destroy all chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, renounce terrorism, pay billions of dollars in reparations to Kuwait, and accept the 1963 borders with Kuwait. The embargo on food to Iraq was immediately lifted. A week-long Kurdish revolt in northern Iraq collapsed and thousands of Kurds fled into Iran and Turkey. President George Herbert Walker Bush commented about how frustrated he felt “any time innocent civilians are being slaughtered” — but of course he would be unable to intervene.

April 7, Sunday: Allied planes began dropping food and medical supplies to fleeing Kurds in northern Iraq. Iran closed its borders to Kurdish refugees.

A Serb assembly met in Banja Luka and declared the independent Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

April 9, Tuesday: The Parliament of Georgia declared independence from the Soviet Union under President Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Prime Minister Tengiz Ipolitovich Sigua.

The UNHCR estimated that 750,000 Iraqi Kurds had crossed into Iran, 280,000 have crossed over into Turkey, and 300,000 were on the Turkish border still waiting for an opportunity to cross.

The UN Security Council approved 1,440 peacekeeping troops to be stationed on the Iraq-Kuwait border.

Soviet military forces began to withdraw from Poland.

Shulamit Ran was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music for her Symphony.

August 8, Thursday: 18,000 Albanians arrived on ships at Bari, Italy. Albania closed all its ports.

British journalist John McCarthy was freed by Islamic Jihad in Lebanon. He had been held since 1986.

Former Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar of Iran was found stabbed to death in his home near Paris. His assistant was also found dead. Rival Iranians were suspected.

Chantefleurs et Chantefables, a cycle for soprano and orchestra by Witold Lutoslawski to words of Desnos, was performed for the initial time, in Royal Albert Hall, London, conducted by the composer.

September 16, day: The Philippine Senate rejected a treaty to continue a United States lease on Subic Bay Naval Base.

The Federal Presidency of Yugoslavia agreed to a European Community plan to end the war.

The Yugoslav army renewed its offensive against Croatia.

Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson of Sweden resigned after the previous day’s election defeat.

Due to legal technicalities, all charges pending against Iran-Contra mastermind Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North were dropped.

PERSIA IRAN

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November 15, Friday: Preparing for serving Thanksgiving Dinner, the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center in New York City advertised in the New York Times:

A 100-billion-ton block of ice designated as “A-24,” melting to a different drumstick between the Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island, ventured into the shipping lanes of the South Atlantic Ocean. When this block of ice had broken off the Antarctic ice shelf in 1986 it had measured 70 miles by 50 miles, larger than Long Island, and at this point it still a mouthful, showing up in satellite photos as about 55 by 35 miles.

Marching to a different drumstick, a federal appeals court in Washington overturned the convictions of John Poindexter, national security advisor to Ronald, on a technicality (this wasn’t because he wasn’t guilty as charged).

Former assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, who had during the Iran/Contra coverup neglected to march to a different drumstick, was sentenced to 2 years probation and 100 hours “community service.”

The US Justice Department brought criminal charges against the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and 3 individuals. It seems they should have been marching to a different drumstick.

String Trio by Krzysztof Penderecki was performed all the way from start to finish, for the initial time, in Metz.

At the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC, Two4 for violin and piano or sho by John Cage was performed for the initial time (this performance was on piano).

This Thanksgiving march to a different drumstick.

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This year marked the reductio ad absurdam of the influence study, with the publication of George J. Stack’s NIETZSCHE AND EMERSON: AN ELECTIVE AFFINITY.85 Professor Stack seemed not to be able to grasp the difference between mere reiterated assertion and demonstration:

Stack of course offered no evidence whatever for the accuracy of his bald assertion that “Nietzsche rarely travelled without his Emerson.” This stands as a mere assertion made by a person given to such assertions. He likewise offers no evidence whatever for the accuracy of his assertion that “the works of Emerson, in German translation, were the most frequently read books in his library.” This stands also as a mere assertion made by a person given to such assertions. The instances which Stack cites, of the over a hundred points at which in his published and unpublished writings, Friedrich Nietzsche made direct or indirect references to Waldo Emerson, paraphrased him, adopted his tone or imagery, and appropriated his phrases, have left me rather out in the cold. For instance, one of these instances amounts to the following: Napoleon said: “Friendship is but a name,” then Emerson said: “Friends such as we desire are dreams and fables,” then Nietzsche quoted a bitter remark of “the sage,” to wit, “Friends, there are no friends,” and George J. Stack concludes from the foregoing that it constitutes “yet another” demonstration that Nietzsche was influenced by

1992

85. George J. Stack. NIETZSCHE AND EMERSON: AN ELECTIVE AFFINITY. Athens OH: Ohio UP, 1992

Nietzsche rarely travelled without his Emerson. And Emerson’sESSAYS were quite literally treasured by him: the works of Emerson,in German translation, were the most frequently read books in hislibrary. Over a twenty-six year period allusions to, or referencesto, Emerson cropped up in Nietzsche’s notes or letters. Hisaffinity with this man he knew only through his translatedwritings was so strong that he often referred to him as if he werea personal friend. In his published and unpublished writingsNietzsche made over a hundred direct or indirect references toEmerson. He often paraphrased him, adopted his tone or imagery,and appropriated his phrases.

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Emerson!

I will proceed to instance some of this material which I found to be particularly worthy of being here instanced. For instance, for a one-liner, how about:

(The materials I am citing on the following screens appear in the sequence which I have preserved here.)

Emerson served as Socrates to Nietzsche’s Plato.

SOCRATES

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The following it would seem to me is an excellent example of what one might be tempted to characterize as “craziness.” Any scholar who finds himself noticing that it “appears” that there is a connection which could not possibly be the case ought to be able to put on his or her brakes at that moment, full lock, and pose to himself or herself the poser, “What is going wrong with my thinking here?” It seems clear that Professor Stack does not subject himself to such interrogations:

What Professor Stack giveth with one hand he taketh away with the other:

Also:

Also:

Also:

Commentators on Nietzsche are pleased to cite the passages in hiswritings in which he speculates about the nature of dreams andthe expression of the unconscious in them as miniatureanticipations of Freud’s analysis of dreams. Emerson is neveracknowledged as the teacher of the German philosopher in oneiricmysteries.... Although there is no evidence that Nietzsche hadaccess to Emerson’s JOURNALS, there are instances in his writingsin which it appears that he did. As early as 1840, Emersonspeculates about the role of the unconscious in our own life.

It is Nietzsche who synthesizes ideas that Emerson expresseswithout explicitly conjoining them.

Many of Nietzsche’s heartfelt sentiments are, in actuality,paraphrases of, or unconscious echoes of, Emerson’s writings....There are so many instances of this phenomenon –that is, Nietzscheadopting Emerson not only as teacher and model, but as alter ego–that to speak of intellectual “influence” here is a considerableunderstatement.

To be sure, Emerson himself does not tie together all of thepieces of his scattered, insightful reflections on this question[of a viable interpretation of reality in terms of the mostfundamental aspect of the human self] in such a neat,philosophical way. It was left to his unknown German “soul-brother” to gather together and synthesize the random anddispersed observations and aperçus of the American thinker andpoet.

In the course of his discussion of what he variously calls“force,” “vital force,” “energy,” or “spirit” in his essay,“Power,” Emerson introduces a number of observations that seem tohave left their imprint on Nietzsche’s thought ... Nietzsche’sadmiration for the energetic, vital, and uninhibited “blondbeasts” of his imagination is obviously derived from Emerson’swritings.

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Also:

(Be warned that by “first” in the above, obviously, all that is meant is “before Nietzsche,” as there is no attempt in the monograph in question to establish that such ideas actually originated with Emerson.)

Before one can duel with a philosophical problem, one must firstrecognize it, inherit it, have it impressed upon one, as aproblem. Given Nietzsche’s almost reverential attitude towardsEmerson’s Essays when he was young and his rereading of them overa twenty-six year period, and given his respect for the man andhis thought, it would be natural if some of the primary issues inhis philosophy centered around themes that were first posed byEmerson. As we’ve seen, and as we shall continue to see, thereare very strong, clearly identifiable, conceptual-imaginativeconnections between Emerson and Nietzsche in regard to a numberof philosophical ideas. The agreement between the two on thequestion of the meaning of, and role of, fate in existence is oneof the strongest of these connections.

The resemblances between key doctrines, theories, and conceptionsin the philosophy of Nietzsche and the impressionistic theoriesand conceptions of Emerson are not carefully examined. What is atissue in the relation between Emerson and Nietzsche is not onlya matter of shared turns of phrase, words, or tropes. Rather, itis a question of a deep, highly specific transmission of ideasfrom the one to the other, ideas that lie at the center ofNietzsche’s constructive thought and are considered his originalcreations. Ironically, perhaps by looking backward to theoriginal American template of these patterns of thought we maygain a better understanding of what Nietzsche meant.

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Also:

Also:

Also:

Emerson’s interpretation of man as subject to powerful fatalitiescast a long shadow on Nietzsche’s thought. It is present in thepiece of juvenilia he wrote in 1862, “Fate and History,” and itreappears in a passionate passage in TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS (“The FourGreat Errors,” §8). Although the language of this passage is farmore intense and dramatic than that of Emerson, the ideasexpressed in this work of 1888, as well as some of the words andphrases, are Emerson’s. “No one,” Nietzsche writes,

is accountable for existing at all, or forbeing constituted as he is, or for living inthe circumstances and surroundings in which helives. The fatality [Fatalität] of his naturecannot be disentangled from the fatality ofall that has been and will be.... One isnecessary, one is a piece of fate [ein StückVerhängnis], one belongs to the whole, one isin the whole.

In “The Method of Nature” and especially in “Fate,” Emersoncharacterized the individual as a “necessary” piece of a dynamiccosmic process, as subject to “circumstances” that are out of hisor her control, as conditioned by a host of natural “fatalities.”And the pithy phrase that is so closely identified with Nietzsche–“a piece of fate”– was derived from Emerson’s essay, “Nominalistand Realist.” Describing there how he reads authors forstimulation of his imagination, he remarks that he doesn’t simplyread a particular author (a Plato, say, or a Proclus). rather, itis “but a piece of nature and fate that I explore.” In anotherplace, he characterizes man as a “piece of causation.”

It is curious how often the American literary critics haveappealed to Nietzsche in order to illuminate aspects of Emerson’sthought. For, in many instances, as we’ve seen and shall see, itis Emersonian insights and conceptions that are accentuated andintensified in the philosophy of Nietzsche.

In Stanley Hubbard’s study of the influence of Emerson onNietzsche [NIETZSCHE UND EMERSON, 1958] he goes out of his way to saythat the latter was not an “Emersonian.” But given the parallelsbetween the thought of these similar radical thinkers, we maywonder if Hubbard fully understood what an Emersonian was.

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Also, in regard to THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA:

Also:86

January 31, day: Former CIA official Alan Fiers pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-Contra affair.

86. In fairness to Professor George J. Stack, I must acknowledge that he is correct in pointing out that the German rendition of Emerson’s “Zertusht” in the following from “Character” was “Zarathustra” and that this particular passage has been annotated by someone at some time in the household edition available to Nietzsche:

Whether the handwriting in question is Friedrich’s or Elisabeth’s is as far as I am concerned yet to be determined, just as whether the annotation in question was made before Nietzsche wrote on Zarathustra, or while Elisabeth was crafting stuff out of the insane one’s old notes, is yet to be determined. It is, however, a plausible interpretation that Nietzsche had originally derived the name for his most significant persona during an early reading of Emerson. (I wouldn’t trust Elisabeth any farther than I could throw an opera singer.) Some may wish to see in this an influence: I see in it at most nothing that could not just as easily have been derived from a dictionary or from a collection of popular children’s stories. Emerson influenced Nietzsche to use a particular word — big freaking deal!

The sayings of the “sage of Concord,” paraphrased or slightlymodified, appear often in this work. If one went from a carefulreading of Emerson’s essays (let’s say a Nietzschean reading!)to THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA, one would repeatedly have the experienceof déjà-vu.

[Nietzsche] adopted Zarathustra as his prophetic cultural hero onthe basis of Emerson’s description of this Persian “sage.” In hisworn copy of Emerson’s VERSUCHE he wrote “Das ist es!” (“That isit!”) in the margin next to the following passage in “Character”which creates a charismatic picture of “Zertusht.” “We requirethat a man ... can proceed from them.”

The most credible pictures are those of majestic men whoprevailed at their entrance, and convinced the senses; as happenedto the eastern magian who was sent to test the merits of Zertushtor Zoroaster. When the Yunani sage arrived at Balkh, the Persianstell us, Gushtasp appointed a day on which the Mobeds of everycountry should assemble, and a golden chair was placed for theYunani sage. Then the beloved of Yezdam, the prophet Zertusht,advanced into the midst of the assembly. The Yunani sage, onseeing that chief, said, “This form and this gait cannot lie, andnothing but truth can proceed from them.”

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April 5, Sunday: Serb paramilitaries laid siege to, then attacked the Sarajevo police academy on the south side of the city. Serb artillery began bombarding the Sarajevo airport. Meanwhile, thousands of Serbs, Croats, and Muslims marched through Sarajevo protesting the violence. They were fired upon by Serb paramilitaries with bullets and hand grenades. Suada Dilberovic, a 21-year-old female medical student, became the first civilian to die in Sarajevo.

Iranians opposed to the government attacked 10 Iranian diplomatic missions in Europe and North America.

President Alberto Fujimori of Peru dissolved Congress and the Judiciary, arrested opposition politicians and imposed censorship. Tanks and troops took to the streets of Lima in support of the coup. The Congress building and homes of congressional leaders were surrounded.

June 16, Tuesday: Russian President Boris Yeltsin and President George Herbert Walker Bush agreed in Washington to large reductions in long range nuclear weapons.

Former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger was indicted for perjury to Congress for his part in the cover-up of the Iran-Contra scandal.

December 9, day: The death toll in Hindu-Muslim violence since December 6tj exceeded 700.

1,800 United States troops entered Mogadishu and began restoring the airport runway.

The Russian Congress refused to confirm President Yeltsin’s nominee, Yegor Gaidar, as prime minister.

Prime Minister John Major announced that the Prince and Princess of Wales had agreed to separate.

Former CIA operations director Clair George was convicted of having lied to Congress during the coverup of the Iran-Contra scandal.

December 24, day: US troops secured Bardera, Somalia.

President George Herbert Walker Bush pardoned 6 men for their part in the Iran-Contra scandal and its cover-up: former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, indicted for perjury; 3 former CIA officials, Clair George, convicted of perjury, Duane Clarridge, indicted and Alan Fiers, convicted of withholding information from Congress; former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane; and Elliott Abrams, convicted of withholding information from Congress.

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In Iran, Rafsanjani won reelection.

The 1st Islamic Countries’ Women’s Sports Games were held in Iran. 11 countries sent teams to compete in 8 sports. Men were permitted at events such as shooting in which women could be fully attired but barred from watching basketball — a sport in which the women would need to reveal their limbs.

The final death toll for the World Trade Center bomb turned out to be 6. In something of a mixed message, Jesus Christ projected his face onto the frosted bathroom window of a Manhattan apartment.

Rudolph W. Giuliani became the 1st Republican mayor of New York City in 2 decades; crucial support for Mayor Giuliani had come from Staten Island, which had also voted to secede from New York City.

February 8, day: The Russian government began a massive privatization of major industries and other firms, in Volgograd.

The diaries of former United States Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger were released. They clearly revealed his culpability in the coverup of the Iran/Contra scandal. Weinberger had been pardoned by President George Herbert Walker Bush during the previous December.

1993

NEW YORK

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January 18, Tuesday: A final report was issued by Lawrence Walsh, special prosecutor in the Iran/Contra scandal. 14 had been charged with crimes, 11 convicted. 6 were pardoned by President George Herbert Walker Bush. Walsh found complicity in the affair, and of course its coverup, by President Ronald Reagan, Secretary of State George Schulz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Attorney-General Edmund Meese, and CIA Director William Casey, among others.

Three Songs from the Norse for voice and piano by Arnold Bax was performed publicly for the initial time, in Wigmore Hall, London.

1994

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Mad cow disease became suspected of causing disease in humans.

Professor Emeritus Frederick Campbell Crews’s THE MEMORY WARS: FREUD’S LEGACY IN DISPUTE. This was made up of a number of encounters with indignant letter-to-the-editor writers in the pages of the The New York Review of Books.

The United States (otherwise known as “The Great Satan”) placed oil and trade sanctions on Iran, accusing that nation of sponsoring terrorism, committing human rights abuses, and seeking to sabotage the Arab-Israeli peace process.

April 30, Sunday: US President William Jefferson Clinton suspended all trade with Iran due to its nuclear weapons programs and its support for terrorism.

A news item relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: NSFNet was turned off for good and all. This marks a major leap: the Internet is now an all-commercial network. Even if you decide to count the government and education as non-commercial, their traffic is carried on backbones operated by commercial enterprises. The National Science Foundation is pumping about $4 million more per year into the commercial networks to support the transition, but that funding is to decrease and vanish by 1998. The bite is that the networks must agree to develop and “peer” (exchange packets) at NAPs. Currently, the major points are MAE-EAST (Metropolitan Area Ethernet East) in Washington, D.C., and the ATM/SMDS/Pac Bell hub in San Jose. Motion is underway by several major networks to start a non-ATM-flavored hub in the Bay Area; Network99 spearheaded a Chicago NAP; and apparently NAPs in Denver, Seattle, Dallas, and other major cities were also underway.

May 8, Monday: Citing Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its sponsorship of terrorism, President William Jefferson Clinton a complete embargo on all trade with Iran.

Figment for cello by Elliott Carter was performed for the first time, in Merkin Hall, New York.

“Mr. Harwit Bails Out,” Washington Times, 5/8/95, A24 “Senator Stevens’ forthcoming hearings therefore should not only keep the pressure on the Smithsonian but even turn it up, inquiring into the real and deeper sources of anti-Americanism in the class that runs the federal government’s cultural apparat and exploring concrete ways by which the public honoring of America’s heritage can be returned to the hands of those who really honor rather than despise it.”

1995

ENOLA GAY

ATOM BOMB

WORLD WAR II

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At the Anniversary dinner of the War Resisters League the League Peace Award was presented to Bob Moses.

“Power Geyser” was created, as a secret counterterrorism program using Special Operation commandos inside the US. (Such “extra-legal missions” call into question the functioning of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which had stipulated that the military could not be used to police US citizens.)

In the Year of Our Lord 1989, the United Nations had enacted an Optional Protocol to its International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This had contained a provision banning the execution of any person under 18 years of age. In this Year of Our Lord 1997, therefore, China abolished the execution of children. (In the Year of Our Lord 2000, Pakistan would abolish the execution of children. The United States of America remains, as of the Year of Our Lord 2007, one of the 5 nations on the face of this earth that still allow the execution of children — we have taken our stand with Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Axis-of-Evil nation Islamic Republic of Iran, and of course our staunch ally or partner in crime Saudi Arabia.)

(Ali) Mohammad Khatami-Ardakani was elected to the presidency of Iran in a landslide victory amidst pledges of political and social reforms as well as economic revitalization.

February 28, Friday: An earthquake in Ardabil Province, Iran killed about 1,000.

Citizens of Vlora and several other Albanian cities took up arms and began widespread looting and confrontation with authorities. Members of the secret police attempted to storm a university building where many students had been on a hunger strike since February 20th. Citizens surrounded the headquarters of the secret police and a 2-hour-long gun battle ensued. Ten people were killed, most of them policemen.

September 17, Wednesday: Since some 110,000,000 land mines were estimated to be currently in the ground around the world, producing annually approximately 9,600 deaths and 14,000 injuries, representatives of 89 countries, meeting in Oslo, of course agreed to ban such devices — however, China, India, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States of America of course refused to go along with such a ban, fearing that this might cramp our inimitable style.

“GET A CLUE, IT’S WHAT WE DO!”

1997

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December 3, Wednesday: A treaty banning land mines was signed, in Ottawa, by 122 nations. Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, but the United States of America and South Korea of course refused to sign any such treaty, because we have a love affair with these neato devices — it’s so easy, not to mention inexpensive, to instantaneously blow off some unsuspecting person’s leg with a land mine!

Former Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi was convicted in a Milan court of fraud in the 1989 purchase of a film company by his firm, Fininvest SpA. He was given a 16-month suspended sentence and fined 60,000,000 lire.

Shortly before dawn the flatbed truck carrying Theodore John Kaczynski’s 10-foot-by-12-foot tarp-covered cabin left Malmstrom Air Force Base heading for California. The wide-load vehicle made its way through Great Falls to Interstate 15, where it could only be on the freeway during daylight hours, and headed south.

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US thought about the Middle East had become a very mixed kettle of fish. Our best intelligence reported that Osama bin Laden’s “next operation could possibly involve flying an aircraft loaded with explosives into a US airport and detonating it,” and followed up on this with a 2d report explicitly warning against attacks in New York City and Washington DC.

At a gathering at the Cato Institute, Dick Cheney underscored his distaste for sanctions against Iraq, Iran, Libya and other oil-rich countries. “The good Lord didn’t see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratic regimes friendly to the United States,” he noticed. Though Cheney would later deem Iran “the world’s leading exporter of terror,” as CEO and chairman of Halliburton he was lobbying to have economic sanctions against Tehran lifted.

In 2002, White House lawyers would contend that President George W. Bush could preemptively attack Iraq without Congressional approval. Paul Wolfowitz would testify before Congress, urging it to pass the Iraqi Liberation Act. Help the Iraqi people “remove him [Saddam Hussein] from power,” Wolfowitz suggested, denying that it would be necessary for us to resort to American force. “The estimate that it would take a major invasion with US ground forced seriously overestimates Saddam Hussein,” he averred. Later that year, President William Jefferson Clinton would sign the Iraqi Liberation Act.

George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft co-authored A WORLD TRANSFORMED — portions of which appear in TIME Magazine under the heading, “Why We Didn’t Remove Saddam.” Saying that a “march into Baghdad” would force soldiers “to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war,” which “could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater instability,” Bush also said that if coalition forces had unseated Saddam, “the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.”President Clinton ordered a strike against Iraq, saying that “Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas, or biological weapons.” Scott Ritter later told Buzzflash that by 1996/1997, “Iraq had been fundamentally disarmed, meaning that there was no chance of viable weapons of mass destruction existing in Iraq.”

May 15, Friday: After 3 days of rioting in Jakarta during which an estimated 500 died, President Suharto restored the subsidies he had reduced on May 5th.

Argentina announced that 7 of the 8 officials at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires would be expelled. They alleged that they had acquired proof that Iran had been behind bombings of Jewish targets in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994, in which 116 had been killed.

July 23, Thursday: Reformist Mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi of Tehran was found guilty of embezzlement and mismanagement, and sentenced to 5 years.

Palestinian Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Maizar was found guilty in federal court of plotting to place a bomb on the New York City subway system.

Hermann Prey died at his home near München at the age of 69.

1998

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September 22, Tuesday: 200,000 Iranian troops conducted a military exercise on the border with Afghanistan. The Iranians were upset about the deaths of 11 Iranians at the hands of the Taliban as they had overrun Mazar-i-Sharif in August. The Taliban had been tardy to apologize.

600 soldiers from South Africa and 200 from Botswana entered Lesotho to put down a military rebellion.

Vers une Symphonie fleuve IV for orchestra by Wolfgang Rihm was performed for the first time, in Dresden.

September 24, Thursday: The Foreign Ministers of Great Britain and Iran announced in New York that their countries would reestablish diplomatic relations after 10 years. Iran has publicly announced that it no longer calls for the death of author Salman Rushdie.

On page B9 of The New York Times, a book review by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt examined Chris Goodrich’s ROADSTER (HarperCollins), a book about putting together an automobile kit. Interestingly, this reviewer found the book somewhat lacking by comparing it not only with Pirsig’s ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE but also with WALDEN:

The feeling you have when closing “Roadster” is that ...by begging comparison with “Walden” and “Zen and the Artof Motorcycle Maintenance,” his book seems a littlefrivolous and self-indulgent ... up against the heavyweights,“Roadster” comes away with it fenders a little bent.

The reviewer saw Henry Thoreau and Simone Weil as similarly different from this guy who built a sports car from a kit and wrote a book about it: they completed what he did not even begin, they “altered their lives radically to explore the true meaning of work.”

(In a word play that Thoreau would have admired, the perpetrator of this was described as an autodidact.)

November 22, Sunday: David Kaczynski told The Daily Gazette of Schenectady that to pay the family’s legal bills he planned to sell a book and movie rights having to do with his mental struggle in turning his brother over to authorities.

Dissident poet Mohammed Mokhtari and his wife were stabbed to death in their home in Tehran. The government was suspected.

Celestial Dinner Music for flute and harp by William Bolcom was performed for the initial time, in Washington DC.

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April 10, Saturday: In Tehran, an Iranian opposition group killed Brigadier General Ali Sayyad Shirazi, deputy chief of staff of the armed forces.

May 18, Tuesday Asif Ali Zardari, husband of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, was taken to the hospital after being tortured by police.

Great Britain and Iran exchanged ambassadors for the 1st time since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi replaced Nicola Mancino as President of Italy.

Rolandas Paksas replaced Irena Degutiene as Prime Minister of Lithuania.

July 8, Thursday Vaira Vike-Freiberga replaced Guntis Ulmanis as President of Latvia.

Islamic vigilantes attacked a student demonstration at the University of Tehran. The students were demonstrating the closure of a moderate newspaper. Riot police then invaded the university, beating students with clubs.

July 20, Tuesday: My day in Santa Clara County was frankly a nightmare. I sat there from 8:30AM on, waiting, and watching as person after person was serially abused by this “Commissioner.” The place is run with all the style and furniture of a courtroom, and with black robes as in real judges in a real courtroom, etc., but of course it has nothing whatever to do with the judicial branch of the government. It is a pseudo-court of the administrative branch of the government, masking what is in actuality a ruthless collection agency possessing all the power of the state. The “Commissioner” (note, not a judge) angrily abused person after person, repeatedly iterating a cant phrase, “Get a clue, it’s the money. You give us the money, we give you no problem. You don’t give us the money, we make sure you have a problem. This isn’t going to go away and it isn’t going to get any better.” Rey was sitting there with red eyes, sobbing.

What they are trying to do is transfer my alleged indebtedness from the 1970s, when my children were small, onto Rey, since she is a university professor with a salary and a retirement account. They are demanding that she pay them more than $140,000, or else they will send her husband to prison. They simply scorn the idea that we are married under a nuptial agreement and they simply scorn the idea that since all the income is hers, since the house is hers alone, since the car is hers alone, since I do not inherit, since I am no beneficiary, etc., we are separate entities.

The Commissioner ruled that although I have been devoting myself to public service work without any income or any benefits for more than a decade, and although I have no assets whatever, I am not entitled to have any free legal counsel assigned to me. He specifically warned Rey that if she got the idea to divorce me in order to avoid my debts, that would constitute fraud upon the court and “would subject her to criminal processing.” To the idea that this was all closed out as of 1986, when through my attorney I had agreed to a plea bargain which would put the whole matter behind us, the idea that I had agreeing to plead “no contest” and let them find me “guilty of criminal child neglect” in order to help them put this entire situation to rest, and had agreed

1999

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to be sentenced to 3 years to be served on probation while making monthly payments, until after my youngest child had reached his majority — he responded simply that no-one would ever have entered into any such a plea bargain with my attorney. He opinioned that my attorney must have misunderstood or maybe misinformed me — as these debts do not ever go away, in any other manner than paying them in full.

We pointed out that in the paperwork that the judge had issued, he had required me to make payments for ongoing child support but had refrained from requiring any payments at all for arrearages. They pointed out, so what?

I pointed out to them that at the completion of my 3 years of probation, as of 1990, their bills had indeed stopped coming, as if they were living up to the plea bargain as it had been explained to us by our attorney, and that we had been entirely free and clear of them — until 1996 when suddenly their threatening letters started showing up in the mail again exactly as before, indicating that suddenly some computer had coughed up some old record which actually is in error and needs to be erased. They said that didn’t matter, that their computer doesn’t make such mistakes because no such records are ever erased in any event.

Repeatedly they threatened to take me directly from the courtroom into custody. At one point the bailiff came up behind me as I sat at the microphone, and put his hands on my shoulders and whispered in my ear: “I am about to put the cuffs on you and take you away.”

And indeed we had sat there and watched all day, as person after person had his pockets emptied, his cash counted and confiscated, and was taken in handcuffs through the door at the side of the chamber.

Finally, at 5:25, with our plane taking off at 6:20, I agreed to a postponement so that I could ask Rey to buy a lawyer to represent me. They rescheduled for September 14th. We have now retained an attorney with a $3,000 retainer, nonrefundable. Rey says she is prepared to sacrifice everything, her home equity, etc., borrow from her family, etc., to purchase my freedom. I feel utterly humiliated.

What I was thinking of doing, through this attorney we have now hired, was to send off a letter to the Secretary of State, with a copy to the Commissioner of this family court, along the following lines:

US Department of State:Again I plead with you, as I pleaded with you in 1986, to defendme in this insane predicament I am in, in California courts.You will remember that in 1979, after I escaped from the IranianRevolution, the Carter Administration formally removed from methe right to represent myself in any case involving thegovernment of Iran. You did this, you said, because the USConstitution give you complete control over any mattersimpinging upon US foreign policy. You filed a claim on my behalfwith the International Court at The Hague, Netherlands, a claimwhich you have never completed despite the lapsing of twodecades.Here in California, meanwhile, you have allowed me to be found“guilty of criminal child neglect” for the offense of havingbeen held and worked as a slave by the Imperial Iranian GroundForces during the Iranian Revolution, without pay, at explicitthreat not only to my own life but also to the lives of my fourchildren back in California: “We know where your children are.”You had refused to lift your little finger to help me escapefrom that enslavement in Iran, and after I escaped in 1979 into

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the Soviet Union and made my way back home, when I went intohiding in fear of my life from SAVAK, you refused to do anythingwhatever to protect me or to reassure me in my plight. When thegovernment of the state of California finally caught up with mein 1986, and processed me for “criminal child neglect” onaccount of my attempts to escape execution here by former SAVAKagents, you did nothing whatever to free me from the clutchesof this “court.”Now that I am, in 1999, through your neglect, considered to befor the remainder of my life a convicted felon — they have comeafter me again on the same old thing. This time they want tofind me guilty not of criminal child neglect (since the youngestof my children is 28 years of age), but this time of criminalcontempt, in that they have now resuscitated and reinstated intheir computer child support “arrearages” from the years inwhich I was being held against my will without income in Iran,and the subsequent years in which I was in hiding in the USnational forest, living on acorns, in fear of my life. I am asking that you intercede with Commissioner Schroeder ofthe Santa Clara Family Court by informing him that in any suchcase, having to do with that putative child support“arrearages,” THE GOVERNMENT OF IRAN IS AT LEAST CONSTRUCTIVELYA CODEFENDANT, and that under the federal constitution of theUnited States of America, therefore, I have already formallybeen prohibited from defending myself, with all such obligationsformally assumed by the Iran Claims Desk of the US Departmentof State. Please instruct Commissioner Schroeder that as amatter of formal law, under the Constitution, he cannot proceedwith his prosecution, unless and until I have been provided withproper defense representation, by the US Department of State.

Obviously the Department of State would simply ignore this letter, as they had ignored my previous pleas. But the question would be, would receiving a copy of such a letter through my attorney be enough to stop Commissioner Schroeder of the Family Court in his tracks? He was dealing with me with the most utter contempt and scorn, as if I were some clown who wanted to party rather than pay child support for his rugrats. Such a letter would emphatically bring it to his attention, that he was not here dealing with such a situation.

September: Rey and I went back from UC–Irvine to San Jose, California one more time — and suddenly they had all her savings from a decade of college teaching and it was all over.

They had been charging me with 35 counts of contempt (not contempt “of court,” of course, since the establishment in question was not a part of the judicial branch of the government but instead part of its executive branch). The pretend judge of this pretend court, “Commissioner” John Schroeder, immediately agreed with our pretend attorney, Sanford B. Wolf (Bar Number 63226, 1550 The Alameda #330, San Jose CA 95126), that 23 of these counts were so bogus that they should never have been drawn, and that he had to simply dismiss them without any argument. That left a dozen counts of contempt remaining, for which he could sentence me only to a maximum of a dozen weeks in prison. The accusations were that a Judge Kennedy had orally instructed me, on one day when I was present in his “family court” in 1974, a quarter of a century

ASSLEY

ASSLEY

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before, to for a period of months pay to the sheriff of the county the sum of $825.00 per month rather than the usual $750.00, until an additional total of $3,500.00 had been collected. Our defense was that this $3,500.00 in question actually had indeed been paid, and several times over — that it had been paid once prior to that 1975 verbal court order, to my ex-wife Mary Meredith, and then once again after that 1975 court order, to the sheriff’s office as directed, during the 1970s before GE fired me. What had happened was that I had paid the $3,500.00 in question directly by check to Mary, when they said I should instead have paid it to the Sheriff’s office which would then have passed the collected money on to Mary. Because I had not paid the money in the procedurally correct manner (I had been given no instructions as to how to pay it), it had to be paid all over again. My contention at this hearing was that the money had indeed been paid over again, during the late 1970s a quarter of a century before, paid both by voluntary wage assignment and by involuntary wage attachment. The issue has been access to their record of collections, which supposedly was a public record to which our pretend attorney Wolf supposedly has access for purposes of “defending” me against such false charges. Since 1987, however, they had been refusing to display this computer record of my payments, and thus had been making it impossible for me to defend myself. This year Rey and I had made three trips from Southern California to San Jose (each time the trip costing in total approximately $500), expecting each time that they would keep a promise they had made, to produce the computer report of my payments for our review — and each time it had turned out that they have failed so to do, thus preventing me from defending myself.

What I would find out was that there was simply no way to force them to disclose their office records that substantiated this alleged debt. Instead, it worked the other way around. If, as I alleged, the money had been paid, then there was a “Satisfaction of Judgment” paper that I should be able to produce, as a receipt, proving that the money had indeed been paid. If, more than a quarter of a century later, I could produce no such “Satisfaction of Judgment” receipt produced by them, then I still owed the money. All of it, payable immediately — plus penalties and compounding interest over all those years.

Therefore, the District Attorney’s office was alleging, during the 12-month period between August 1997 and August 1998, more than a quarter-century afterward without any notice from them, my new wife Rey Chow, who as a professor at the University of California was currently employed, should have been sending them twelve payments of $75.00, one each month — and I had failed to require her to do so, and therefore I was in contempt of this commissioner and of his proceedings.

Am I giving you the idea that I had had some warning of this? No, I had no warning whatever, this was a sandbag, this was a total surprise. No-one had ever used the figure “$75.00” before the summons deliverer had arrived with the summons to a hearing on the charge of criminal contempt for not paying said $75.00. There had for instance been no bill, no invoice, in the amount of $75.00. There had never been any mention whatever of such a figure. I therefore had had no reason to expect that any such process server would ever show up on my doorstep for this or for any reason whatever.

In 1987 they had caught me red-handed, working and supporting my children, and had charged me with criminal child neglect and hauled me into a hearing, and convicted me and sentenced me to a year in prison (working and supporting my children was held to be theft, since I should have been giving the money to the government while refusing it to my children). Then the commissioner suspended the one-year sentence on condition that 1.) I cease and desist from giving my children any money, and instead give all money to the Santa Clara County Sheriff, and on condition that 2.) I make regular monthly payments to the sheriff until my youngest child had reached the age of 18. I had complied with that order: I had stopped giving money to my children and instead had given money faithfully to the sheriff until 1989, when my youngest child was 18 years of age. Then I went and saw my Parole Officer and he shook my hand and announced me cleared of the entire matter. It had all been over over over. Supposedly.

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Well, that was 1989 and it was indeed over over over over — until I got this new process served on me in 1999. Their new explanation was that although in 1989 it had been over as an issue of my supporting my children until they reached adulthood, it was not over as an issue of a debt to the county. They differentiated as follows: “That was criminal, this is civil. We had told you the truth, as the criminal part was indeed over. What you did not realize was that this civil part was still hanging over your head. And guess what, we can put you in prison for contempt as easily over the civil part as over the criminal part.”

There was no way whatever for me to know before the fact that they were going to say that I should have sent them a check for $75.00. I didn’t actually owe them any payment of $75.00, not even one payment let alone eleven monthly payments, nor had they ever so much as alleged that I did — before suddenly I had had these papers for criminal contempt without warning served upon me.

Since they were refusing to make the record of payments available to us so that we could prove that these moneys had already been paid and that this had become a dead issue back during the 1970s, our pretend attorney Wolf tried this argument: “Commissioner Schroeder, during this recent period, 1997 and 1998, for which contempt is being alleged, we can prove that the government actually obtained from Rey Chow, Ashley Meredith’s second wife, for his 1st wife who divorced him in 1972, Mary Meredith, one payment of $1,600.00. The 12 counts of recent contempt at $75.00 each which you are alleging amounts to a sum total of $900.00, and $900.00 is less than this payment of $1,600.00. Therefore my client is not guilty of any contempt.”

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Rogers countered with “But, Commissioner Schroeder, although we agree that we did obtain $1,600.00 from the respondent’s second wife during that period as alleged, and although $1,600.00 is indeed more than $900.00 as alleged, the respondent and his 2d wife did not provide that money to us willingly to send to his 1st wife, and the payment had been in one lump sum rather than in the required series of 12 payments each amounting to exactly $75.00 — therefore he is in contempt.”

Commissioner Schroeder rejected that argument, saying that whether the single payment of $1,600.00 had been voluntary or not was entirely irrelevant to the situation.

Deputy DA Rogers tried again: “Your honor, one payment of $1,600.00 does not match 12 payments of $75.00. Therefore the respondent is indeed guilty of 12 counts of contempt.”

Commissioner Schroeder rejected that argument as well, saying that whether payment had been in a series of 12 equal payments or not was entirely irrelevant to the situation.

Deputy DA Rogers tried a final time: “Your honor, at best the single payment of $1,600 can count as discharging only one of these 12 counts of contempt. The respondent and his 2d wife made only a single payment and therefore he is guilty of 11 counts and should be sent directly from this hearing to prison for 11 weeks.” This greatly concerned Commissioner Schroeder. He feared that he was going to have to dismiss all current counts of contempt and start over again with the persecution/prosecution. At this point the commissioner called for a sidebar conference with the Assistant DA and my counsel. Wolf and Deputy DA Rogers came forward and they whispered together there, glancing occasionally toward Rey and me sitting in the very back of this emptied courtroom. (It appeared that they were deliberately holding this case on a Friday, when usually they do not hold sessions, with an empty docket — so that members of the general public would not be able to witness what was happening.)

Our counsel then came back from this whispering session at the sidebar, and took us to a little cubicle set up in the middle of a hallway in this Superior Court building, with a table and 3 chairs, in which we had some sort of supposed semi-privacy (despite the fact that anyone could have been listening behind the 4 flimsy partition

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walls that surrounded this furniture). He said to us “Look, here’s the situation. The commissioner recognizes that he is going to have to start over again. He is concerned that you will get the idea that you’ve won. Hear me, you haven’t won. They will simply go back into their books and file a new accusation of some sort, and next time they will be sure they get something that will stick. Next time the charges will be big big big, and next time you won’t have any technicalities such as statute of limitations or whatever, or payments that you have made, so that you can think you will get off. The commissioner says, we had better use this opportunity to settle. Now, I’ve known this guy for a long time, he and I have worked together on case after case, I’m telling you that you’d better settle.” So he turns to Rey and asks “Just how much money can you come up with immediately?”

I objected that this didn’t have anything to do with her, since the California legal code is very clear in stating that a 2d wife cannot be forced to pay a 1st wife. Wolf agreed that this was indeed the law, but pointed out that she would pass the money to me — and under the law therefore the payment would be coming not from her but from me.

Rey responded that she supposed she could come up with something like $10,000 immediately. Wolf said “That’s not enough, John won’t even consider that. Maybe he’d consider $20,000, but he won’t consider 10.” So Rey said she could raise $20,000 from her relatives in Hong Kong. Wolf said OK then that’s your offer and he grabbed his briefcase and told us to wait there and walked out.

A few minutes later he was back and said “Look, John isn’t going to be willing to listen to anything less than $60,000. Your ex-wife, what’s her name, Mary, has gotten over the years at least $40,000 in welfare, and they want all that money back now from you.” (Incidentally, this remark now turns out to have been false. The most they were accusing Mary of having received, in welfare and aid over the years, was some $8,000. –But we weren’t being told that at the time.)

I objected that there was a 3-year statute of limitations on the collection of welfare arrears, and that since this welfare had been collected by Mary from the State of California during the 1970s and 1980s while my children had still been minors, those 3 years had expired on all of it and none of it was currently collectable. Wolf explained that although this was technically true –they couldn’t put me in prison for refusing to reimburse these funds– if I didn’t reimburse them they would find some way to put me in prison for something else. So, he said, that defense based on the statute of limitations was moot. The statute of limitations on collections, he said, didn’t apply to voluntary reimbursements — and this was to be classified as a voluntary reimbursement on my part.

Rey asked if she could have time to come up with more money, and Wolf asked how much time, and Rey asked for until the end of the year, and then maybe she could come up with something like $40,000. Wolf went “OK then that’s your offer” and grabbed his briefcase and was gone again.

A few minutes later he was back, saying “No, John says, if he takes just $40,000 from you, that won’t leave Mary anything, and without Mary’s consent this thing can’t be ended. There has to be something for her as well, otherwise it won’t fly. The figure has to be at least $60,000.”

I had promised Rey in advance, that I would keep my pride out of this, that it was all her money and therefore I would not attempt to interfere with her decisions. The negotiation actually was hers and hers alone since the money was hers and hers alone, money out of her salary as a university professor, money from her family in Hong Kong — money that I had no control over and no involvement in whatever. So I had to just sit there and listen while she was being extorted in this cheap and obvious manner, and what she said to Wolf was “Give him the whole $60,000.” Our attorney went “Now you’re talking,” and he told us to follow him and ushered

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us back into the hearing room. The bailiff was tipped back in his chair with his head against the wall, sound asleep in his armored vest and pistol belt and everything. The other functionaries were sitting around and chatting, and chewing gum. They took the chewing gum out of their mouths as the commissioner came back in to the chamber through his private door behind his bench, and the bailiff jumped to his feet and shouted “All rise.” The commissioner was in his shirtsleeves, he didn’t have on his pretend-judicial black robe. He waved from the pretend bench “Come here.”

Wolfe led us single file across the courtroom and up onto the dais and behind the judge’s desk and through his little private door, and there was a chamber back there with a desk and chairs and a telephone plus a private little elevator that would take the commissioner to the security of his real office in a higher story of the building. We all sat around for awhile and chatted. The commissioner was sitting on his desk with one foot up on top of the desk. Rey said “You know, I am entirely innocent, I did not even meet Ashley until 8 years after his divorce, I have nothing to do with this and all the money we are talking about is my money.” The commissioner said that that didn’t have anything to do with anything as California was a no-fault divorce state, and as California was a community property state. You could be guilty as sin and it wouldn’t make one little bit of difference, he pointed out. What matters, he explained, is that what is yours is his, and what is his is ours. “We know you own a house, but we haven’t been able to seize it because the title is in your name alone, you name alone is on the mortgage, you have a quitclaim deed from him declaring that he has no interest in the house, and the down payment you made does not include any money from him. So we have been intercepted. But he is a computer programmer and we suspect he has been making unreported money on the side.”

(Those of us who find this sort of thing intriguing will be intrigued to note that at this point the commissioner commented on the quitclaim deed, frankly acknowledging its efficacy — earlier, during these hearings, they had been treating the existence of this quitclaim deed, which of course had merely been one of the stack of documents required by the mortgage issuer, as evidence that the house had at some earlier point pertained to me, and therefore that in “transferring title” to my wife I had been committing theft of property actually belonging not to me but to them.)

But I let this pass, since it was also being alleged that I was a computer programmer who was hiding income. I said truthfully “I have never ever taken any course in computer programming and have never in my life been employed as a computer programmer and have never written a single program and would not know how to begin. In fact I have not had a cent of income in the past decade — and could not have since you people seized my driver’s license.” The commissioner merely ignored me, making no response to these words. It obviously mattered not one little bit, whether what he was opinioning was truthful or was a false and groundless imputation. He went on, speaking directly to Rey: “Your only chance is to pay up. Otherwise, eventually, we’re going to get this guy. Maybe not right now, but pretty soon.” Wolf went “On what grounds, John, since he is 62 years old and has no job?” The commissioner went “Look, Sanford, you know perfectly well we sent a man to prison the other day, on the basis of potential earnings, simply by saying that he hadn’t been looking for a job hard enough or he would have found one.” Wolf then nodded his head yes (it seems to me to be quite obvious that the two of them were simply staging this conversation for our benefit, as an extortion team).

So to make a very long story a bit shorter, Rey capitulated, and the commissioner sent us out of his chamber to sit back in the hearing room while he used that telephone to make a private call to Mary in Texas. I had gotten Mary’s phone number from my daughter Cara and given it to Wolf, who had given it to his buddy John, otherwise they wouldn’t have had a clue as to how to contact Mary. Also, I had alerted Mary, through Cara in Wisconsin, to be standing by the telephone that morning.

The commissioner came out again with his robe off, and the bailiff jumped up to shout his shout but the

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commissioner waved at him and he didn’t say anything, and the commissioner waved Wolf forward and whispered to him, and Wolf came back to us in the back of the courtroom, and said “Mary won’t settle. She wants everything, and in particular she wants you in prison.” I said to Wolf “So what did I tell you?”

So the commissioner got us all back into his little cubicle behind his bench again, next to his little private elevator, and the two of them talked at us again. Rey promised to do her best to get her home sold by the end of the year so she could come up with the sum of $60,000 in a cashier’s check made out to the District Attorney of Santa Clara County. I asked Schroeder to take into consideration that this had to settle all issues and one of the issues was the fact that Mary had been awarded alimony of $250 per month for the rest of her life, which meant that by this point technically I owed her in addition to everything else some $75,000 in alimony arrears plus an ongoing $250 per month for the rest of her life. Wolf and Schroeder talked for awhile about how persuasive the commissioner was, how he liked to settle things by negotiation, etc. Then we were sent out into the hearing chamber for one final time, while Schroeder picked up the phone again where he had put Mary on hold.

When the commissioner came out into the courtroom again, he was flapping his black robe on over his shirtsleeves. Everybody jumped to attention and Wolf called me forward to sit beside him at the Respondent’s Bench on the left. Commissioner Schroeder glared at me and said “And what is your name, sir?” I responded “Ashley Meredith.” Wolf said “Wolf, Sanford Wolf, attorney for the Respondent.” The court recorder had the gum out of her mouth and she was clicking away.

“Let it be on the record that I have reached a settlement with Mary Meredith, the claimant in this case. In return for one payment of $60,000 in cash by the end of this year, all issues before this court including all arrears and all continuing support will be done and over with, and there will be no further pursuit.” Wolf immediately clarified, that this was to include all welfare, AFDC, spousal support (alimony), etc. etc. etc. The only thing they left open was, my 28-year-old son Guy was on welfare in Texas, sitting around in his mother the Welfare Queen’s house watching Pay-Per-View TV and drinking malt liquor out of big bottles, enormously obese and also an expert at beating the system — would they someday pursue me to support him as an “adult child”? Sometimes he takes a course at a junior college but he’s never ever had any sort of job.

Sanford Wolf asked if a certified check or cashier’s check would be as good as cash, and the commissioner amended himself: “cash or its equivalent, but the remaining eleven counts of contempt will not be dismissed until the instrument has cleared processing and the cash has been obtained.” So they were all scribbling on their yellow pads, and the commissioner directed Wolf to prepare a formal document for his signature. Wolf was all smiles.

Here is the document which our attorney has prepared:

SANFORD B. WOLF, ESQ. #63226 1550 The Alameda #330 San Jose CA 95126 Telephone: (408) 280-7151Attorney for ASHLEY MEREDITHSUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SANTA CLARAIn re the Marriage of )Petitioner: MARIA MEREDITH ) ORDER RE SUPPORT AND ) NO. 1-74-FL284278CONTEMPT )Respondent: ASHLEY MEREDITH)---------------------------)

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This matter came before Commissioner John Schroeder on October15, 1999 as a Judicially Supervised Settlement Conference.Respondent was present with his attorney, Sanford Wolf. Thepublic interest was represented by Lisa Rogers, Deputy DistrictAttorney. Petitioner appeared by telephone, and authorized thesettlement set forth as an order herinbelow with her consent toCommissioner Schroeder.IT IS HEREBY ORDERED as follows:1. Respondent shall pay to the Family Support Trustee a lump sumpayment of $60,000.00 by cash, money order or cashiers check,on or before December 28, 1999.2. The receipt of the aforesaid $60,000.00 by the Family SupportTrustee shall constitute a full settlement and resolution of anyand all support issues in connection with this matter, includingchild support, child support arrears, spousal support andspousal support arrears, and there shall be no further Courtproceedings for any matter related to the above stated supportissues, including contempt of court actions. Furthermore, uponreceipt of the aforesaid $60,000.00 by the Family SupportTrustee, Petitioner shall waive any and all rights to spousalsupport, including past due and future support, and the Court’sjurisdiction to extend spousal support, or to award any spousalsupport to Petitioner shall be absolutely terminated.Although the payment of $60,000.00 shall include a waiver andresolution of all spousal support claims Petitioner may haveagainst Respondent, the entire payment shall be characterizedas child support, and no amount shall be deducted for taxpurposes by Respondent nor be considered income for Petitioner.3. The aforesaid payment of $60,000.00 shall be divided betweenthe County of Santa Clara and Petitioner pursuant to theiragreement in which Santa Clara County shall receive $8315.00,and the balance shall be paid by the Family Support Trustee toPetitioner. However, the payment of $60,000.00 shall releaseRespondent from all support related obligations from bothPetitioner and the County acting in the public interest.4. Upon receipt of payment of the aforesaid $60,000.00, theDistrict Attorney’s Office is ordered to restore to Respondenthis California driver’s license and passport.5. Upon receipt of payment of the aforesaid $60,000.00 the Orderto Show Cause re contempt filed on May 6, 1999 shall be dismissedwith prejudice. Pending receipt of payment, said OSC re contemptmatter shall be continued to December 28, 1999 at 9:00 a.m.6. If Respondent fails to pay $60,000.00 to the Family SupportTrustee on or before December 28, 1999, the full amount of childsupport arrears owed by Respondent shall be $141,684.00.Dated: ------------------------------------- JOHN SCHROEDER SUPERIOR COURT COMMISSIONER

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Evidently, as Rey and I are guessing, what happened was that the commissioner told Mary that if she didn’t settle she wouldn’t get a cent and that she had better take what she could, and didn’t she agree that that would be better, and probably Mary went “uh-huh” or something and Schroeder hung up on her. He clearly was creating an official reality. Probably she was not aware that she would not get all the money, that first they would take from it what they wanted and they would send her only the balance. As soon as the house sold, and we gave them their certified cashier’s check, they would send a check for whatever to Mary, and whether or not she cashed that check, no matter how loud she howled when she found out how badly she has been screwed, then constructively the reality they had created would be the real reality and she really had agreed that it is all over, including all that alimony. Anyhoo, that’s the way that Rey and I are guessing the situation was shaking out behind those closed doors and in those whispered conversations.

Wolf reassured us that they’ll probably never get us to support Guy at the age of 28, since there had never been an order classifying him as an “adult child” and since anyway it was Texas rather than California that is paying for him.

After we got back down to Orange County, there was an earthquake out in the desert at 2:46AM. The house really shook and swayed as the earth jerked back and forth in big heaves. Rey was terrified but finally went back to sleep after many reassurances. I told her we’ll see on the news the next morning, where the earthquake was centered and how big it was, and that obviously it hadn’t hurt the house or we would have been hearing some sort of crashing noises.

So now the appraisers have been here, the house wasn’t damaged, and Rey is to give up her home as of December 9th, and we will be renting here until her job at the University of California is over on December 31st at which point we can fly away to Rhode Island — a non-community-property state. Rey has until December 28th to obtain her money from the escrow company and from clearing out her savings accounts, and pass it to me so I can generate that cashier’s check for $60,000 in my name and get the money up to San Jose, and then the commissioner will issue his order and dismiss all charges against me with prejudice so that nothing like them can be generated again, and hand me back my drivers license and passport so that maybe at age 62 I can get a job — and a quarter century of officious extortion will be over over over. California and Mary will no longer be a part of our life, in any way. It will be a new existence for Rey and myself after seventeen years of marriage.

(Postscript: I mentioned above that my basic problem was that I had been unable to produce, a quarter of a century later, a “Satisfaction of Judgment” receipt issued by the officials, to show that I had indeed already paid these sums of money back during the 1970s. What they were doing, in these multiple hearings during 1999, of course, was extorting money from us with which to purchase such a document — a “Satisfaction of Judgment” receipt signed by the appropriate officials. It would turn out that, even after the delivery of the lump sum check as stipulated and ordered, it would take months, and any number of contacts by our attorney, before such a legal document would be obtained — and even then, the actual document which they would produce would appear somewhat flawed, as it would not be possible to make out whether it was an original or a copy, or whether the scrawling at the bottom represented an actual signature of an actual person authorized to sign such a legal document, or exactly how that supposed official’s name was to be spelled. So, am I really in the free and clear now, or, having two or three times tasted blood, will they come after me yet again? — I actually have no way to be sure even now that I am safe from them.)

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(Postscript: I’ve gotten the sense, repeatedly, while discussing with friends the fix I got Rey into in California, that caused her to forfeit all her savings after teaching in this country for ten years, that they automatically tend to suppose that I actually owed the $3,500 judgment that had been issued against me back in 1972, that had gotten that whole thing started, and go on supposing this, and go on supposing this. --That the only thing I had to complain about was that when the “Family Court” proceeded in 1999, they proceeded against her assets when she was innocent. This presumption has been so prevalent, that I want to emphasize here once again that no, I too was innocent. The money they were demanding, from that 1972 judgment, the only judgment ever issued against me, I emphasize, was money that actually had been paid many years before, and had been paid not once but twice.Again, to make certain you’ve “gotten” the situation, bear with me because I’ve been disappointed in people’s understanding so often, here’s what had happened. When my 1st wife divorced me, of course there was a monthly sum set for alimony and child support. The divorce papers had ordered me to pay my ex-wife $750 per month for her and my children’s support.This was more than half my total income, but I began to do so. Each month I wrote a check for $750 and gave it to her and she cashed it, and the cashed check was returned to me by the bank and I kept that as my receipt.After four months of this proper conduct, I was proceeded against in Family Court on the grounds that I had fallen $3,500 in arrears in my payments to the Santa Clara County Sheriff. The Sheriff’s Office had not booked those four months of alimony and child support payments, payments that I had in fact made in full and on time and completely in compliance with the divorce decree. I picked up my folder full of receipts and went to Family Court, expecting to be fully exonerated.Well, here’s what it turned out to be, as Commissioner Kennedy explained it from the bench. The State of California has a program under which all such alimony and child support payments are supposed to be made not to the ex-wife, but to the county sheriff. The sheriff puts the money into a pool of money, out of which he sends checks to the various ex-wives. It is up to his discretion, whether he gives my ex-wife and my children the full $750 I have paid, or whether he gives them only part of it, and gives part of my payment to somebody else’s ex-wife and somebody else’s children. So, I hadn’t been following the rules, he said.I protested that nobody had said anything about this to me. It had been a trap. I had merely been performing in full exactly what my divorce decree had been requiring of me. I had it in writing. My divorce decree had ordered me to pay to my ex-wife each month, in alimony and child support, the sum of $750 — and here were my receipts. “Now,” I said to Commissioner Kennedy of the Family Court, “you are telling me that I should not have done what the divorce decree instructed me to do. You are telling me that I was supposed to have ignored this legal document, signed by a divorce judge, and given my ex-wife nothing, given my children nothing. You are telling me that instead I was to have given everything to the sheriff, who may or may not pass all or part of the money over to my family.” Protesting that I had never been instructed to do this did me no good with Commissioner Kennedy at all. Instead, from the bench, he addressed me as “Perry Mason.”Finally I said, fine, we can get the money back from my ex-wife and hand it to the sheriff, and he can then hand it to her. “No,” Commissioner Kennedy said, “you get the money back from your ex-wife and give it to the sheriff.” I said “But your Honor, my ex-wife is not going to give anything back. She’s already spent that money.” So then Commissioner Kennedy said, “Well, that’s your problem, not our problem. You come up with the money somehow, or you’ll be found in contempt.”So I had to pay that $3,500 over again, to the sheriff. I did so. I actually paid that money twice, back in 1972, 1st to my ex-wife, and then a 2d time, to the sheriff.OK, that was back in 1972. That was the only cash judgment that ever was obtained against me. When this Family Court tracked us down again and proceeded against us again, in 1999, it was for this same $3,500 a 3d time. They averred they had no record that I had paid this old judgment, back in 1999. They said, show us your receipt. I said, “Your honor, this is 1999. A full twenty-seven years have passed since 1972. During that twenty-seven years I have been trapped in the Iranian Revolution, and have lived in three or four different places, such as Rhode Island and Minnesota. I have no records now, going back twenty-seven years. You cannot require me to have such records.”

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Not only were they unimpressed, but they also pointed out that this $3,500 had grown over the years, to the point at which it was now with all accrued penalties and compounded interest a sum of well over a hundred thousand dollars. They put a lien on my new wife’s home, that she (not I) had paid for with her earnings of ten years as a college professor. They said, pay in full or be found in contempt and sent to prison for an indefinite period, until the money finally is produced.So, finally, they took her home away from her and obtained the equity. The money had been paid yet a 3d time. Then —after about 2 months of prodding and petitioning by our attorney— they finally gave us a receipt acknowledging payment. The receipt is not signed or stamped, it is merely a xeroxed piece of paper. (By the way, my children, who were in their 20s and 30s, received nothing from this.)So no, contrary to what our friends have been supposing, and supposing, and supposing, I had not actually owed any money. There was not actually any outstanding judgment against me. The problem was not merely that they were proceeding against my innocent 2d wife, when they should have been proceeding against me. I had not actually owed anything at all, ever; this was merely administrative extortion. —We are living in the sort of world in which our government can function quite explicitly, as an extortionist, in defiance of every principle of justice and rule of law. The government administrator has been duly constituted as a law unto himself.Now that we have paid the money three times, now that we have in hand a receipt that is a piece of flimsy paper bearing no signature and no official stamp, are we finally safe? We have little reason for confidence. Since paying this 1972 judgment a third time, plus accrued compounded interest and penalties, in 1999, we have been living in terror for seven years, from 1999 to 2006, wondering whether they will proceed against us even a fourth time for the same money. They can, after all, look at this “receipt” with which they so belatedly, so reluctantly provided us and go “But, this is an obvious forgery, it isn’t signed, it doesn’t bear any official stamp, it doesn’t mean anything. You still owe.”Our pretend attorney in California, Wolf, has been able to offer us no reassurance whatever. All he has been able to tell us is that he doesn’t know of any case in which they have attempted to take a retirement Social Security check away from a retired person. He says that in his judgment, now that I have passed the official retirement age of 65, they can no longer put me in prison for contempt for “refusing to get a job.” He is explicitly unable to reassure us, however, that “Your assets, such as home equity and bank accounts that you have built up again after 1999, are now safe from estoppal.”)

September 22, Wednesday: The UN Population Fund announced that worldwide population growth had slowed.

Police in Amman, Jordan arrested 3 Palestinian terrorists as they stepped off a plane from Iran.

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Pro-reform candidates and allies of President Khatami won 189 of the 290 seats in the Iranian parliament, setting the stage for reformers to control the legislature for the 1st time since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Conservatives won 54 seats, independents 42, and another 5 seats were reserved for religious minorities.

Candidate George W. Bush made a speech at Bob Jones University — raising questions concerning just how “compassionate” he truly was; Questions regarding his National Guard service arose and would persist.During the 2000 presidential campaign Cheney admitted that though his corporation Halliburton had conducted business with Iran and Libya, he held a “firm policy” against dealing with Iraq. During June 2001, however, the Washington Post reported that “Halliburton held stakes in two firms that signed contracts to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was chairman and chief executive officer of the Dallas-based company.”After George W. Bush’s brother assured him he’s won Florida and his cousin declared him the winner on national TV, the 2000 presidential election raised serious questions about the health of our republic. The election had been marred by scrubbed voter rolls, millions of lost votes, and out-and-out thuggery.The Washington Post reported that “Something very strange happened on election night” in Volusia County, Florida. Al Gore, it seems, had been leading George W. Bush by 83,000 votes over 62,000 at one point, but a half-hour later “Gore’s count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000 — all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters.” America got its 1st whiff of e-voting election fraud. When journalist Greg Palast uncovered the shameful Database Technologies voter roll purge in Florida, the New York Times refused to carry the story. A little more than 3 years later, when it was way way too late to do anything about it, the paper admitted that something’d been rotten in the state of Florida. “In 2000, the American public saw in Katherine Harris’s massive purge eligible voters in Florida, how easy it is for registered voters to lose their rights by bureaucratic fiat,” the Times would report. Al Gore conceded the presidential election after the Supreme Court installed George W. Bush President of the United States. Unsettling questions regarding the future of American democracy arose. Salon.com lamented: “The people have not been heard. They will not be heard. And each of those uncounted ballots is a cry of reproach against the act of judicial arrogance that has now forever silenced them.”

February 18, day: In national elections, reformers won a large majority of seats in the Majlis, the Iranian parliament.

Stjepan “Stipe” Mesic replaced Zlatko Tomcic as President of Croatia.

21ST CENTURY

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July 1, Saturday: A court in Shiraz, Iran convicted 10 Jews of spying for Israel.

At a performance where popular music entertainers Pearl Jam were playing near Copenhagen, audience members rushed the stage. 8 were killed and 26 injured.

Three Sonnets and Two Fantasias for countertenor and viols by Alexander Goehr was performed for the initial time, in Pitville Pump Room, Cheltenham.

Symphony no.10 by David Diamond was performed for the initial time, in Seattle.

The Reverend Barry Maxwell Andrews, a Unitarian Universalist who lives on Long Island, issued the 88-page paperback THOREAU AS SPIRITUAL GUIDE: A COMPANION TO WALDEN FOR PERSONAL REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION (Skinner House Books).

August 6, day: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered an end to a debate in the Iranian Majlis over the creation of freedom of the press.

Big Sky for violin, cello and piano by Joan Tower was performed for the initial time, in La Jolla, California.

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June 8, Friday: In Iran, President Khatami won reelection.

October 14, Sunday: According to the Observer, CIA investigators of the recent anthrax attacks through the US postal system were at this point regarding Iraq as the most likely culprit. A source asserted, “They aren’t making this stuff in caves in Afghanistan. This is prima facie evidence of the involvement of a state intelligence agency. Maybe Iran has the capability. But it doesn’t look likely politically. That leaves Iraq.” In a few days this theory would be discarded and, on October 20th, the International Herald Tribune would report a new theory, that a disgruntled employee of a domestic laboratory that experimented with anthrax had carried out the attacks. The newspaper also asserted that the investigators had tentatively identified this anthrax strain as a domestic one that bore no resemblance to the strains that Russia and Iraq had turned into biological weapons (in late 2002, with an attack upon Iraq in preparation, the Iraq theory would be recycled).

In the aftermath of the anonymous domestic attacks, such as the letter that had been mailed on September 18th to Tom Brokaw at NBC News in New York, it was belatedly revealed to the American public that during World War II the Allies had been planning to launch an anthrax attack that would have wiped out Germany once and for all:

UK planned to wipe out Germany with anthraxBy George Rosie

As the world recoils at the horrific possibility of al-Qaeda terrorists waging anthrax war against UnitedStates citizens, the Sunday Herald can reveal thatBritain manufactured five million anthrax cattle cakesduring the second world war and planned to drop them onGermany in 1944.The aim of Operation Vegetarian was to wipe out theGerman beef and dairy herds and then see the bacteriumspread to the human population. With people then havingno access to antibiotics, this would have caused manythousands –perhaps even millions– of German men, womenand children to suffer awful deaths.The anthrax cakes were tested on Gruinard Island, offWester Ross, which was finally cleared of contaminationin 1990. Operation Vegetarian was planned for the summerof 1944 but, in the event, it was abandoned as the

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Allies’ Normandy invasion progressed successfully.Details of the wartime secret operation are containedin a series of War Office files (WO 188) at the PublicRecord Office in Kew. Some of the files are stillclassified. The man whose task was to carry outOperation Vegetarian was Dr. Paul Fildes, director ofthe biology department at Porton Down near Salisbury inWiltshire. Fildes had previously been in charge of theMedical Research Council’s bacterial chemistry unit atMiddlesex Hospital.In early 1942, Fildes began searching Britain forsuppliers and manufacturers of linseed-oil cattle caketo make five million small cakes. Large quantities ofthe bacillus itself had to be produced, while specialcontainers to carry the cattle cakes had to be designedand made. Some RAF bombers had to be modified to deliverthe anthrax-infected payload. And all of it had to bedone as cheaply as possible.The raw material for the cake was provided by theOlympia Oil and Cake Company in Blackburn. The contractto cut the cattle cake into small pieces went to J & EAtkinson of Bond Street in London, perfumers and toilet-soap manufacturers and suppliers to the royal family.The Atkinsons calculated that they could produce180,000 to 250,000 cakes, each 2.5cm in diameter and 10grammes in weight, in a 44-hour week. The price was tobe between 12 and 15 shillings per thousand. The firmpledged to deliver 5,273,400 cakes by April 1943. By themiddle of July 1942, the Atkinsons informed Fildes that“we are now producing at the rate of 40,000 per day.”The anthrax was manufactured by the Ministry ofAgriculture and Fisheries at its veterinary laboratoryin Surrey. An Oxford academic named Dr. E Schuster wasset to work devising the pump to inject the bacilli intothe cattle cakes. The Porton Down scientists settled oncube-shaped cardboard containers, 18cm square, to carrythe infected foodstuff.Each held 400 cakes. They would be fitted with a steelhandle “of a size which enables the operator to graspthe handle without difficulty when wearing thickleather or moleskin gloves...” Thirteen women were thenrecruited from various soap-making firms, sworn tosecrecy and given the job of injecting the cattle cakeswith anthrax spores.At the same time, Fildes and his team were working onthe best way to deliver the diseased cattle feed to theGerman herds.The RAF’s research unit came up with a simple solution— easily made wooden trays that fitted on to aircraftflare chutes. Their Bomber Command Lancasters,Halifaxes and Stirlings were chosen for the job.By the beginning of 1944, Operation Vegetarian was readyto go. It was crucial to mount any attack in the summer

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months. Fildes said: “The cattle must be caught in theopen grazing fields when lush spring grass is on thewane.” “Trials have shown that these tablets ... arefound and consumed by the cattle in a very short time.”“Cattle are concentrated in the northern half ofOldenburg and northwest Hanover. Aircraft flying to andfrom Berlin will fly over 60 miles of grazing land.”Fildes calculated that, at an average ground speed of300mph, the distance would be covered in 18 minutes. “Ifone box of tablets is dispersed every two minutes, theneach aircraft will be required to carry and dispersenine, or say 10, boxes.”One Lancaster bomber returning from a raid on Berlinwould be able to scatter 4000 anthrax-infected cakesover a 60-mile swathe in less than 20 minutes. A dozenaircraft would have been enough to litter most of thenorth German countryside with anthrax spores. OperationVegetarian was a seriously deadly project.But, by the time Fildes’s operation was ready to go inthe summer of 1944, the Normandy invasion had takenplace and Allied armies were crashing through northernFrance and up through Italy. The war against NaziGermany was instead being won by conventional means. Atthe end of 1945, five million anthrax-infected cattlecakes were incinerated in one of Porton Down’s furnaces.

September 30, Sunday: The neocons at Project for a New American Century in Washington DC published an open letter “to The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States, pushing him to defend us against Iraq or Iran or Syria or whatever he chose to be our target. You will notice, of course, that these neocons were the very folks who had long been longing for the occurrence of “some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor”:

Dear Mr. President,We write to endorse your admirable commitment to “lead the worldto victory” in the war against terrorism. We fully support yourcall for “a broad and sustained campaign” against the “terroristorganizations and those who harbor and support them.” We agreewith Secretary of State Powell that the United States must findand punish the perpetrators of the horrific attack of September11, and we must, as he said, “go after terrorism wherever wefind it in the world” and “get it by its branch and root.” Weagree with the Secretary of State that U.S. policy must aim notonly at finding the people responsible for this incident, butmust also target those “other groups out there that mean us nogood” and “that have conducted attacks previously against U.S.personnel, U.S. interests and our allies.” In order to carry outthis “first war of the 21st century” successfully, and in order,as you have said, to do future “generations a favor by comingtogether and whipping terrorism,” we believe the following stepsare necessary parts of a comprehensive strategy.Osama bin Laden We agree that a key goal, but by no means the

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only goal, of the current war on terrorism should be to captureor kill Osama bin Laden, and to destroy his network ofassociates. To this end, we support the necessary militaryaction in Afghanistan and the provision of substantial financialand military assistance to the anti-Taliban forces in thatcountry.Iraq We agree with Secretary of State Powell’s recent statementthat Saddam Hussein “is one of the leading terrorists on theface of the Earth....” It may be that the Iraqi governmentprovided assistance in some form to the recent attack on theUnited States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directlyto the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication ofterrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort toremove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertakesuch an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisivesurrender in the war on international terrorism. The UnitedStates must therefore provide full military and financialsupport to the Iraqi opposition. American military force shouldbe used to provide a “safe zone” in Iraq from which theopposition can operate. And American forces must be prepared toback up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessarymeans.Hezbollah Hezbollah is one of the leading terroristorganizations in the world. It is suspected of having beeninvolved in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies inAfrica, and implicated in the bombing of the U.S. Marinebarracks in Beirut in 1983. Hezbollah clearly falls in thecategory cited by Secretary Powell of groups “that mean us nogood” and “that have conducted attacks previously against U.S.personnel, U.S. interests and our allies.” Therefore, any waragainst terrorism must target Hezbollah. We believe theadministration should demand that Iran and Syria immediatelycease all military, financial, and political support forHezbollah and its operations. Should Iran and Syria refuse tocomply, the administration should consider appropriate measuresof retaliation against these known state sponsors of terrorism.Israel and the Palestinian Authority Israel has been and remainsAmerica’s staunchest ally against international terrorism,especially in the Middle East. The United States should fullysupport our fellow democracy in its fight against terrorism. Weshould insist that the Palestinian Authority put a stop toterrorism emanating from territories under its control andimprison those planning terrorist attacks against Israel. Untilthe Palestinian Authority moves against terror, the UnitedStates should provide it no further assistance.U.S. Defense Budget A serious and victorious war on terrorismwill require a large increase in defense spending. Fighting thiswar may well require the United States to engage a well-armedfoe, and will also require that we remain capable of defendingour interests elsewhere in the world. We urge that there be nohesitation in requesting whatever funds for defense are neededto allow us to win this war. There is, of course, much more thatwill have to be done. Diplomatic efforts will be required to

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enlist other nations’ aid in this war on terrorism. Economic andfinancial tools at our disposal will have to be used. There areother actions of a military nature that may well be needed.However, in our judgement the steps outlined above constitutethe minimum necessary if this war is to be fought effectivelyand brought to a successful conclusion. Our purpose in writingis to assure you of our support as you do what must be done tolead the nation to victory in this fight.Sincerely, William Kristol, Gary Bauer, Jeffrey Bell, William J. Bennett,Jeffrey Bergner, Eliot Cohen, Seth Cropsey, Midge Decter, ThomasDonnelly, Aaron Friedberg, Hillel Fradkin, Francis Fukuyama,Frank Gaffney, Jeffrey Gedmin, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Charles Hill,Bruce P. Jackson, Eli S. Jacobs, Michael Joyce, Donald Kagan,Robert Kagan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Charles Krauthammer, JohnLehman, Clifford May, Richard Perle, Martin Peretz, NormanPodhoretz, Randy Scheunemann, Gary Schmitt, William Schneider,Jr., Richard H. Shultz, Henry Sokolski, Stephen J. Solarz, VinWeber, Leon Wieseltier, Marshall Wittmann.

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January 29, Tuesday: In his State of the Union speech, President George W. Bush referred to Iran as part of an “axis of evil,” saying the nation was actively pursuing weapons of mass destruction. The speech was met, don’t you know, with anger in Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi responded by terming President Bush’s comments “arrogant” and saying Iran perceived them, don’t you know, as “interference in its internal affairs.”

December: The shortlist of proposals to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for this year included a proposal to award the prize to Hamid Karzai, the untested puppet ruler of Kabul, Afghanistan, and a proposal for a joint award to US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair — but the committee had been overwhelmed by 43,000 protest letters from all over the world. Therefore it was former US President Jimmy Carter who received the Nobel Peace Prize from the hands of the unassuming bicycling monarch of Norway.87

Bear in mind that it had been during this president’s administration that the CIA had begun to allow the killers who were running death squads in Argentina to train Nicaraguan Contras in Honduras. Bear in mind that it had been during the Carter years that millions in aid and riot equipment had been given to the Salvadorian military, and that US personnel had trained Salvadorian officers in Panama. Bear in mind that it had been during the Carter years that special envoy Richard Holbrooke had gone to South Korea and given US backing to the military so that it could crush workers and students who were demanding democracy, the result being that about 3,000 South Korean protesters were killed during March 1980. Bear in mind that it had been under Carter that the covert CIA operation in Afghanistan had begun, that would lead to the creation of the mojahedin and

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would give the green light for Saudi religious, ideological and financial intervention to begin under the leadership of Osama bin Laden. Bear in mind that it had been Carter who had re-armed Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge after they had been defeated by the Vietnamese. Bear in mind that it was Carter who released William Calley, who had officered a mass murder at My Lai. Bear in mind that it had been during the Carter administration that support and weaponry had been provided for the Indonesian military dictatorship after its brutal occupation of East Timor. Bear in mind that it had been while Carter had been leading us that the righteous Christian right had arisen in America. Bear in mind that it had been under Carter that financial help had been solicited from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International while this outfit was calmly cheating its depositors. Bear in mind that it had been Carter who had been phoning the Shahanshah of Iran to congratulate him on the way he was leading his nation toward democracy and freedom, while he was having his troops shoot down women and children in the streets and while his political prisons were crammed with torturers and torturees. –Obviously, we were not awarding this man the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 because of his conduct of his administration during the late 1970s, because his conduct in office had been simply clueless. The men of evil had walked right past him, while he postured righteously this way and that way. –No, this guy is now being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because, after he had left the government service, he has made himself into the best damned ex-president this world has ever seen or may soon see again.

Jimmy, you’re OK — or at least, you’re OK now even if you weren’t OK back when we needed for you to be not only as innocent as the doves but also as cunning as the vipers.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

87. Historical Marker erected in 1986 at the Old Train Depot, Plains GA:PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER

From this depot in 1975, James Earl Carter, Jr. launched a two-year campaign for the presidency of the United States. At first an unknown referred to as “Jimmy Who,” Carter was inaugurated as America's 39th President on January 20, 1977.

James Earl Carter, Jr. was born October 1, 1924, in Plains. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and married Rosalynn Smith in 1946. After seven more years of naval service he returned to run a family agribusiness. In 1962, Jimmy Carter was elected to the Georgia Senate and in 1970, became Governor. As governor, he reorganized state government, reformed the budgetary process, improved race relationships, health care, education, and environmental quality. Notable achievements of his presidency (1977-1981) were based on the values he considered most important “...human rights, environmental quality, nuclear arms control, and the search for justice and peace.” Successes included the resolution of the Panama Canal issue, signing the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, the Camp David accords and peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, normalizing relations with China and reorganization of the federal government. This Depot and surrounding historic district symbolize the culture of this small rural community which produced a highly respected international leader.129-9 GEORGIA HISTORIC MARKER 1986

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The International Atomic Energy Agency stated that Iran admitted that it was producing plutonium but also stated that there was no evidence that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. Iran agreed to more rigorous UN inspections of nuclear facilities.

Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange was formed in Vietnam to provide medical care, rehabilitation services, and financial assistance to those impacted by Agent Orange.

Alston Chase’s HARVARD AND THE UNABOMBER: THE EDUCATION OF AN AMERICAN TERRORIST (W.W. Norton & Company) connected the dots between Ted Kaczynski’s abusive experiences as an undergraduate under Professor of Clinical Psychology Henry Alexander Murray to his subsequent life trajectory. In fact, however, he was aware that he was being studied and participated in this CIA-sponsored experiment more or less willingly. Although the subjects were lied to, being informed that they would be debating personal philosophy with a fellow student while actually they were being subjected to a “purposely brutalizing psychological experiment,” Ted could have opted out. During the test he was taken into a room and connected to electrodes that monitored his physiological reactions, while facing bright lights and a one-way mirror. Each subject had previously written an essay detailing their personal beliefs and aspirations, and this material had been turned over to an anonymous attorney who entered the room and individually belittled each student based in part on disclosures they had offered. This was filmed and later in the study the subjects’ facial expressions were played back to them several times.

Books intended for little children, such as this one “Henry Climbs a Mountain” by D.B. Johnson published during this year, tend to falsify history by misrepresenting the $1 poll tax that Thoreau had famously refused to pay as having had something to do with human slavery (books intended for grown-ups, to the contrary, tend to falsify history by misrepresenting the poll tax that Thoreau refused to pay as having had something to do with our War on Mexico):

“Henry wants to climb a mountain, and nothing is going to stophim. Then Sam, the tax collector, puts him in jail for not payinghis taxes. Henry refuses to pay to a state that allows slavery.But being locked up doesn’t stop Henry. He still gets to splashin rivers, swing from trees, and meet a stranger. This bear,

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modeled on the real Henry David Thoreau, roams free.”

There are two dangers here. First, to pretend that this $1-per-year poll tax had something to do with human slavery, or had something to do with our War on Mexico –when those factoids are easily demonstrated to be historically false– leaves the doctrine of civil disobedience open to the disrepute, that it was something founded merely upon historical falsehoods and is therefore something to be sniffed at. Second, to presume that you understand the doctrine of civil disobedience when you presume falsely that it has to do merely with disobeying laws that are evil, that it does not extend beyond the domain of evil law, is to presume that you already fully understand something that you have not yet even begun to comprehend.

D. B. JOHNSON

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January 7, Tuesday: Early on, after a letter containing domestic anthrax spores had been mailed to Tom Brokaw at NBC News in New York, and after other letters with nearly identical handwriting, hate messages, and lethal spores had arrived at the offices of Democratic Senator Tom Daschle in Washington DC and at the American Media Corporation in Miami, I had inferred that the choice of targets had been curious.My personal suspicion became that this attack likely had come from some disaffected Gulf War veteran like Timothy McVeigh, who was himself immune to the anthrax because he had been vaccinated against it, and whose intention it was to teach America a lesson it wouldn’t soon forget about our need to be prepared to defend ourselves in a hostile world. I also was supposing at the same time, however, that it was possible that we would never be told, if this was indeed the case, because although it is illegal for our government to assassinate foreign heads of state, it is not illegal for it to order the assassination of its own citizens in the interest of national security and with prior permission as specified in a top-secret Presidential “Finding” order. Whoever did this would be identified and killed, I hypothesized, his death would be made to appear an accident, I hypothesized, and no public disclosure would ever be made. Of course, I may well have been fantasizing, because at that point I had had very little hard information to go on (this was before the anthrax in the letters had been identified to be the Ames strain, out of our own war labs).

The following article by a law professor at the University of Illinois, however, at this point surfaced on the Internet — and would appear to indicate that my initial suspicions in the absence of hard evidence may not have been all that far off:

Tuesday, 7 January 2003FBI Knows Who Was Behind Anthrax Attacks

Bio-Warfare and TerrorismBy Francis A. Boyle - Professor of Law at the Universityof Illinois, Urbana IL, author of FOUNDATIONS OF WORLDORDER (Duke UP, 1999) and THE CRIMINALITY OF NUCLEARDETERRENCE (Clarity Press, 2002)

During the Fall of 2001, we witnessed anthrax attackson the United States government that were obviouslydesigned to shut down the government at a very criticaltime immediately after September 11. It was during thistime that Congress should have been in session, makingdecisions regarding oversight of the Executive Branchof government. This note will discuss some historicalbackground for the law, policy and science of biologicalweapons here in the United States.

Early US Bio-War ProgramThe US has had, at least going back to World War II, anextremely aggressive offensive biological warfare

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program. In 1969, President Richard Nixon decided todiscontinue this program (at least with regard tobiological agents, which are used as weapons, as opposedto toxins, which were theoretically for researchingmethods of immunization and therapy). There were tworeasons for discontinuing the weapons program: (1) itwas counter-productive militarily, as biologicalweapons were very difficult to control, and (2) the USalready had massive superiority in nuclear weapons.Biological weapons were seen as the poor mans atom bomband Nixon wanted to get rid of them to prevent ThirdWorld nations from acquiring relatively inexpensiveweapons of mass destruction.

In accordance with President Nixon’s order, the totaldestruction of antipersonnel biological agents andmunitions was completed by May of 1972.88 It isbelieved, however, that the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) continued to research biological weapons in spiteof the President’s order.

The US signed on to the Biological and Toxin WeaponsConvention (BTWC) on 10 April 1972.89 The BTWC enteredinto force on 26 March 1975. This convention prohibitsthe research, development and testing of biologicalweapons, agents and compounds. The convention has anexception for prophylactic and defensive purposes.There remained, however, a Chemical and BiologicalWarfare unit lurking in the Pentagon, starved for fundsand wanting to come back to life.

The Reagan AdministrationThe administration of President Ronald Reagan came topower in 1980. The Reagan administration took theposition that the US was going to exploit its superiortechnology with regard to all types of weapons. Thisalso included the new technologies of gene splicing andgenetic engineering. Massive amounts of money, hundredsof millions of dollars, were poured into researching anddeveloping what were claimed to be defensive biologicalagents.

The way the Reagan administration did this was byinvestigating every exotic disease one could imaginefor the purpose of developing vaccines. In this way, theUS operated within the exceptions of the BTWC. Ofcourse, the technology used to get the vaccine isexactly the same technology used to create the agent.In fact, the agent is usually created first in order tothen produce the vaccine. After one creates the agent,one creates the vaccine and then a delivery device. The

88. http://www.gulfwarvets.com/biowar.htm89. http://projects.sipri.se/cbw/docs/bwbtwcmainpage.html

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result is a biological weapon.

Much of the research for these biological weapons wasbeing done at universities around the country. The tip-off in many of these government contracts is that theycall for the development of an aerosol delivery device.This is important because most biological warfareagents are delivered through the air.

Meanwhile, the Reagan administration was cutting backfunding for the National Science Foundation (NSF). Theeffect was that second- and third-rate scientists, whowere no longer able to receive research funds from theNSF, were forced to turn to the Pentagon for funding.90

Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989On September 13, 1985, the Council for ResponsibleGenetics (CRG) had a Congressional Briefing on CapitolHill. I was asked to participate in this briefing andto explain what the Administration was doing and howdangerous the situation was. The US government wasfunding scientists to research biological warfaretechnology and it was going out all over the country,indeed, around the world.

I was then asked by the CRG to help draft legislationto deal with this problem, in particular the abuse ofgenetic engineering technology for biological warfarepurposes. I worked in conjunction with the CRGscientists and the biotech industry. At that time, thebiotech industry had no desire to get into developingbiological warfare technology and the industrysupported the proposed legislation. The result was theBiological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.91

The Reagan administration fought the proposedlegislation tooth and nail. They knew full well that thelegislation was designed to stop what they were doingat the Pentagon. The Act makes it very clear thatresearch, development or testing of biological warfareagents would be punished by life in prison.

While this fight was going on, the Reagan administrationauthorized at least 40 shipments of weapon-specificbiological agents to Iraq from the American Type CultureCollection, which is a large scientific institute. TheCollection cultures every known type of disease forscientific purposes. It was clear that the Reaganadministration was shipping all of these materials toIraq knowing full well that Iraq was going to develop

90. The Council of Responsible Genetics responded to this by putting out a Pledge where the signers declared that they would not accept any money from the Pentagon for any reason.91. http://www.sunshineproject.org/publications/uscode.html. See also: Francis Boyle, The Future of International Law and American Foreign Policy, 277-316 (1989).

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biological weapons and use them against Iran.92

The Bush, Sr. AdministrationPresident George Bush, Sr. was elected in 1988. Thequestion was whether we should continue to push for thelegislation or abandon the project. The decision wasmade to go forward. To the credit of President Bush,Sr., the moment his administration came into power, allopposition to our legislation stopped. We were advised,however, that it would help on the Hill if we wouldrepackage it as a piece of legislation designed to dealwith biological weapons in the Third World, that therewere crazies who were looking to develop biologicalweapons and our legislation was designed to deal withthem. We agreed. The legislation was not changed, justthe way in which is was presented. The Act was passedunanimously by both Houses of Congress and signed intolaw by President Bush.

IraqIn the Fall of 1990, the US went to war with Iraq afterthe Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. President Bush, Sr., andthen-Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney ordered all USmilitary personnel to take experimental vaccines foranthrax and botulin. As was later revealed, the Reaganadministration had shipped these biological agents toIraq, and Iraq had weaponized them.

These experimental vaccines were given to over a half-million US soldiers. At least 50,000 of these soldierslater developed unexplained illnesses, generallyreferred to as Gulf War Syndrome. I personally believethat this syndrome is the result of these vaccines. Theywere experimental medical vaccines in violation of theNuremberg Code on medical experimentation.93

The Clinton AdministrationIn the last two years of the Clinton administration, thepolicy shifted back to the dual-use biological warfarework. Again, hundreds of millions of dollars werecommitted to research and develop every known exoticdisease. The research was then turned over to thePentagon, where it could be used to produce weapons.This is going on today.

Finally, the New York Times broke the story that the USgovernment was violating the BTWC. The US was developinga resistant strain of anthrax with genetic engineering.The US had also developed super weapons-grade anthraxin quantities and strengths that have no legitimatedefensive purpose. It is very clear that the US was back

92. Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, shortly after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, in an attempt to take advantage of Iran’s instability and gain territory.93. http://www.raven1.net/nurm.htm

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in the business of researching and developingbiological agents. This is a clear violation of both theinternational BTWC and the domestic Biological WeaponsAnti-Terrorism Act.

The Bush, Jr. AdministrationThat is why the Bush, Jr. administration repudiated theverification protocol for the BTWC. These negotiationshad been underway for quite some time. The conventionhas no verification provisions.

In Fall 2002, all of a sudden, Bush, Jr. repudiated thewhole thing and tried to kill it. Why? Because it isclear we are involved in this type of work, whether thePentagon, the CIA, their contractors, or all of them.

Anthrax Attacks 2001Finally we have the recent anthrax attacks in the UnitedStates. It was not clear what was going on until the NewYork Times published the details of the technologybehind the Daschle letter. The technology behind thisand following letters was very sophisticated. Theseanthrax samples had a trillion spores per gram. That issuper weapons-grade.

There was also a special treatment to eliminateelectrostatic charges so the spores would float in theair. One must have special equipment for this treatment.The only people who would have the capability to do thisare individuals who are either currently employed by theDepartment of Defense or the CIA doing biologicalwarfare work, or people who had been employed in thatcapacity. One would probably need access to one of thegovernment s biological warfare labs and there are onlya handful of these labs in the country.

The day I read the New York Times piece, I called asenior official in the FBI who handles terrorism andcounter-terrorism. The FBI was coordinating its effortswith Fort Detrick, which is one of these few biologicalwarfare labs. The obvious problem with this is that theperson responsible for the anthrax attacks could verywell be one of the personnel from Fort Detrick.

Soon thereafter, the FBI authorized the destruction ofthe anthrax culture collection at Ames, Iowa. It hadbeen determined that the anthrax used in the attacks wasan Ames-produced strain. The entire supply wasdestroyed. This was obviously a cover-up. If you hadaccess to that supply, then you could do a geneticreconstruction of where the anthrax used in the attacksoriginated.

I believe that the FBI knows exactly who was behindthese attacks and that they have concluded that the

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perpetrator was someone who was or is involved inillegal and criminal biological warfare researchconducted by the US government (the Pentagon or the CIA)or by one of the governments civilian contractors. Forthat reason, the FBI is not going to apprehend andindict the perpetrator. To do so would directlyimplicate the government in conducting biologicalwarfare research. So this is where we are today. The FBIsays that they are working on it, but of course, thatis ridiculous.

August: Iran/Contra figure John Poindexter, chosen to head the Pentagon’s controversial Total Information Awareness Program, resigned amidst controversy concerning plans to develop an online futures market for predicting terrorist attacks. (The chorus will now sing: “Say what? Say what?”)

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At the Anniversary dinner of the War Resisters League the League Peace Award was presented to Fernando Suarez del Solar of “Military Families Speak Out.”

William S. Coffin’s CREDO suggested that “President Bush, Jr. rightly spoke of an ‘axis of evil’ but it is not Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Here is a more likely trio calling for Herculean efforts to defeat: environmental degradation, pandemic poverty, and a world awash with weapons.”

After conservatives reclaimed control of Iran’s parliament in controversial elections that had been boycotted by reformists, Iran’s new government averred that (conservatives being, of course, conservative) they were going to consider re-starting the nation’s nuclear program.

For the 1st time since the end of World War II, Japan sent troops to a war zone (Iraq). The US Air Force was field-testing there a directed energy weapon system known as the “Active Denial System.” Basically, this was a projected microwave that would make someone react as if their skin were being scorched (the system, developed to protect US nuclear weapons, was being evaluated to find out whether it had any potential for simple garden-variety crowd control even in the absence of nuclear weapons that of course, being nuclear, required protection).

2004

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June 9, Tuesday: Brazil officially entered a condition of recession.

Friend George F.R. Ellis’s “Physics, complexity and causality” (Nature 435, page 743).

June 12, Friday: Iranian presidential election: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected for a 2d time after again defeating Mousavi.

June 13, Saturday: There were protests, of course, in Iran over the election results.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

June 24, day: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline Islamic mayor of Tehran who campaigned as a champion of the poor and had pledged to return to the values of the revolution of 1979, defeated one of Iran’s elder statesmen, the more liberal Rafsanjani, in this presidential election.

2005

Persia “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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May 8, Monday: Iranian President Mahmoud “I’m A Dinner Jacket” Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President George W. Bush calling for ways to ease tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, while continuing to defy UN deadlines to halt uranium-enrichment activities. Ahmadinejad pointed up the fact that his stuff was for civilian energy purposes only.

2006

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2d and final season of the HBO series “Rome.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the United States of America, and during a speech to the UN General Assembly took note of Israel’s occupation and racism.

A US National Intelligence Estimate report found that although Iran had ceased to develop nuclear weapons in 2003, it had continued to enrich uranium — and might therefore in the future resume development of nuclear weapons. The United States announced new economic sanctions against Iran, targeted to impact the country’s military and halt Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

January: Dr. David Scott argued, in “Rewalking Thoreau and Asia: ‘Light from the East’ for ‘A Very Yankee Sort of Oriental’,” Philosophy East and West (Volume 57, Number 1, pages 14-39),that the usual alternative “Was Thoreau more inspired by what he studied of Buddhism and Taoism or more by what he studied of Hinduism?” should actually offer also a 3d option, of being inspired by what he studied of Islamic Sufism:

Within Thoreau’s Hindu appropriations, the “practical”importance for Thoreau of yogic practices is reemphasized.Thoreau’s often-cited Buddhist links are questioned. Instead,it is Thoreau’s explicit use of Confucian and Persian Sufimaterials that deserve reemphasis, as do, in retrospect, somestriking thematic convergences with Taoism. Thoreau’s “Lightfrom the East” focuses on ethical and mystical techniques,infused with lessons from Nature for “a very Yankee sort ofOriental.”...Thoreau’s Persian inspirations were primarily through the matrixof Sufism, the esoteric mystical side of Islam.Sufi egalitarianism and interfaith pluralism was one featurethat Thoreau thought well of:94

2007

94. A WEEK, referring to Wolff’s NARRATIVE OF A MISSION TO BOKHARA (1845), a travel source discussed in Christie, THOREAU AS WORLD TRAVELER, pp. 132-135. Elsewhere, in A WEEK, Thoreau asked “hast thou not heard of a Sufi, who was hammering some nails into the sole of his sandal; an officer of cavalry took him by the sleeve, saying, Come along and shoe my horse.”

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More important than travelogues was Persian poetry. This wasgenerally accorded high status in Transcendentalist circles, asin Emerson’s 1844 essay “The Poet,” with Thoreau noting how“poetry is the mysticism of mankind.”95 Consequently, Thoreaucould lament “the narrowness of his European culture and theexclusiveness of his reading. None of her children has donejustice to the poets and philosophers of Persia.”96 Such soaringSufi verses pointed toward direct experiential contemplativetransformation, expressions, and focus that were of directinterest to Thoreau, as well as to Emerson.97

Hafiz (d. 1389) was one Sufi master who attracted Thoreau’sattention.98 Thus, Thoreau could mention how “‘yesterday, atdawn,’ says Hafiz, ‘God delivered me from all worldlyaffliction; and amidst the gloom of night presented me with thewater of immortality.’”99 Hafiz’s poetry had also attractedEmerson’s interest, as in his presentation of verses “From thePersian of Hafiz” (1847) and extracts in “The Liberty Bell”(1851).A more sustained Sufi interest came for Thoreau, as also forEmerson, with Mosleh Od-Din Sa’di (d. ca. 1291), with extracts“From the Gulistan [Rose Garden] of Saadi” appearing in “EthicalScriptures” in The Dial in January 1844.100 Thoreau firstmentioned Saadi in his JOURNAL on March 23, 1842, with somementions in A WEEK. One example was in passing, where “in thelife of Sadi by Dowlat Shah occurs this sentence: ‘The eagle ofthe immaterial soul of Shaikh Sadi shook from his plumage thedust of his body.”’101 Elsewhere Thoreau recounted how “Sadi

95. A WEEK96. A WEEK97. J. Yohannan, “The Influence of Persian Poetry upon Emerson's Work,” American Literature 14 (1943): 25-41.98. General profile in INTOXICATION, EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY: SEVEN STUDIES ON THE POET HAFIZ OF SHIRAZ, ed. M. Glunz and J. Burgel (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1991).99. A WEEK100. General profile in J. Yohannan, THE POET SA'DI (Washington: University Press of America, 1987). Also see Emerson’s poem “Saadi” in The Dial, October 1842; “Saadi,” Atlantic Monthly, July 1864; and his preface to Gladwin’s 1865 translation of SAADI, THE GULISTAN OR ROSE GARDEN.101. A WEEK

A WEEK: There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all theworld over, living on anticipation. Wolff, travelling in thedeserts of Bokhara, says, “Another party of derveeshes came to meand observed, ‘The time will come when there shall be nodifference between rich and poor, between high and low,when property will be in common, even wives and children.’”But forever I ask of such, What then? The derveeshes in thedeserts of Bokhara and the reformers in Marlboro’ Chapel sing thesame song. “There’s a good time coming, boys,” but, asked one ofthe audience, in good faith, “Can you fix the date?” Said I, “Willyou help it along?”

PEOPLE OF

A WEEK

REVEREND JOSEPH WOLFF

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tells who may travel; among others, ‘A common mechanic, who canearn a subsistence by the industry of his hand, and shall nothave to stake his reputation for every morsel of bread, asphilosophers have said.’ He may travel who can subsist on thewild fruits and game of the most cultivated country.”102 Thoreaualso evoked Saadi in WALDEN, where Saadi had been the firstexemplar of his “Wise Old Man.”103 In that vein, Thoreau advised:

This section, from Saadi’s chapter on “Rules for Conduct inLife,” was the passage from Thoreau that Burroughs subsequentlychose to conclude his own 1882 profile of Thoreau.104 As with theLaws of Manu and the Gita, Thoreau was happy to use natureimagery as deeper pointers.An extended treatment, “Assimilating Saadi,” emerges fromThoreau’s JOURNAL [entry for August 8, 1852, quoted below],Thoreau started from a more pluralist interfaith perspectivewhere “a certain elevation makes all men of one religion. It isalways some base alloy that creates the distinction of sects.Thought greets thought over the widest gulfs of time withunerring freemasonry.” Within that universal pluralistfraternity came the following sequence: “I know, for instance,that Sadi entertained once identically the same thought thatI do, and thereafter I can find no essential difference betweenSadi and myself. He is not Persian, he is not ancient, he is notstrange to me.” Thoreau’s readiness to go across time and

102. A WEEK103. J. Steadman, “The motif of the Wise Old Man in Walden,” Modern Language Notes 75 (1960): 201-204, at p. 202 n. 3.104. J. Burroughs, “Henry David Thoreau,” The Century 24 (July 1882): 368-380, at p. 379.

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

WALDEN: Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavorto become one of the worthies of the world.I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz,that “They asked a wise man, saying; Of the many celebrated treeswhich the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, theycall none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears nofruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied; Each has itsappropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuanceof which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absencedry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypressexposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are theazads, or religious independents. –Fix not thy heart on thatwhich is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue toflow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct:if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if itaffords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like thecypress.”

CYPRESS

ANDROMEDA

MOSLEH OD-DIN SA’DI

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identity can be commented on, as seen already in his treatmentof Zoroaster and of Hindu wisdom. In turn came Thoreau’s “by theidentity of his thoughts with mine he [Mosleh Od-Din Sa’di]still survives. It makes no odds what atoms serve us,” whichevokes Sufi expression (e.g., Rumi) and Whitman’s subsequentverses in “A Persian Lesson” (1891), which started with “thegreybeard Sufi” and moved on to talk of how “it is the centralurge in every atom, (often unconscious) ... to return to itsdivine origins.”105 Saadi was to become the continuing vehiclethere for Thoreau’s own ‘stream of consciousness,’ so that “bysympathy with Sadi I have embowelled him. In his thought I havea sample of him, a slice from his core, which makes itunimportant where certain bones which the thinker once employedmay lie; but I could not have got this without being equallyentitled to it with himself.... Methinks I can be as intimatewith the essence of an ancient worthy as, so to speak, he waswith himself.”

105. W. Whitman, “A Persian Lesson,” COMPLETE POETRY AND COLLECTED PROSE, ed. J. Kaplan (New York: the Library of America, 1982), pp. 650-651. Also, M. Farzan, “Whitman and Sufism: Towards ‘A Persian Lesson,’” American Literature 47 (1976): 572-582, for technical details.

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Alireza Taghdarreh’s translation of the RUBAIYAT of Omar Khayyam into English:

The International Atomic Energy Agency released a report saying Iran’s suspected research into the development of nuclear weapons remained “a matter of serious concern.” European Union nations agreed to impose new sanctions against Iran.

2008

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the landslide victor in presidential elections, sparking protests by supporters of candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who unsuccessfully appealed the results to Iran’s Guardian Council. “Hey, guys, your candidate lost, it’s not the end of the world!”

According to prophetess Lori Adaile Toye of the I AM America Foundation, a series of Earth changes beginning in 1992 and ending in 2009 would have caused much of the world to be submerged, and only 1/3d of America’s population would have been able to survive. Guess we dodged the bullet on that one!

At this point the United States of America had somewhere between 9,400 and 10,400 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics somewhere between 12,950 and 13,950. That’s enough to make the rubble bounce! In addition, the People’s Republic of China had somewhere between 184 and 240, France in the vicinity of 300, the United Kingdom 160, Israel somewhere between 60 and 200, India some 60 or 70, Pakistan about 60, and North Korea 5 or perhaps 6. Professor John E. Mueller pointed out, however, in ATOMIC OBSESSION: NUCLEAR ALARMISM FROM HIROSHIMA TO AL-QAEDA (Oxford UP), that we might as well cease declaiming about nuclear weapons and eat our corn muffin and get some sleep. The problem we are having is a problem with our rhetoric, a problem of scare tactics, rather than with the proliferation of such a technology. Actually, he indicated, atomic weapons are “difficult to obtain, militarily useless, and a spectacular waste of money and scientific talent.” (Professor Mueller is well known for his opinion that “War has almost ceased to exist” and gave a blockbuster interview on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show on October 31, 2006.)

“If anything bad can happen, it probably will.”

— Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Straussin the Chicago Daily Tribune, February 12, 1955)

June 12, day: There were, it goes without saying, protests in Iran, following the presidential election.

All television broadcasts in the United States switched from analog NTSC to digital ATSC transmission.

2009

MILLENNIALISM

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April: Reza Khan Pahlavi had died in exile in Johannesburg, South Africa and his corpse had been mummified in Egypt and was eventually interred in a mausoleum in Rey near Tehran, Iran. A mob led by Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq Givi Khalkhali had during April 1980 demolished his elaborate tomb with sledgehammers but had been unable to locate the body. During this month a mummified corpse was discovered near that demolished tomb and re-interred, and Reza Shah’s grandson Reza Pahlavi confirmed (on the basis of whatever evidence) that this had in fact been the body of his grandfather.

2018

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February 4, Monday: My wife Rey Chow and I went to an evaluation interview with Lisa Honeycutt at Duke Behavioral Health at 823 Broad Street, Durham, North Carolina 27705, which was actually on Greene Street only 3 blocks from our home. This was an initial evaluation for my seeking insurance coverage for mental health, because of the fact that my current psychiatrist Dr. David Moore is “out of network” and therefore quite a bit more expensive.

Something unexpected came out of this. Lisa gave us a standard office questionnaire to fill out and it posed what for us was a startling question: had I at any point in my life by means of any deadly apparatus such as gun or poison or knife or whatever, sought to or contemplated the possibility of ending my own life? We suddenly found ourselves providing her with an itemized list, and I was forced to realize that I had never thought about the matter before, in such a systematic and chronological manner:

• After my mother Mildred Geraldine Mattox Smith had attempted unsuccessfully to poison me with botulin toxin in 1953, I had purchased rat poison and hid it where I could get at it, if I ever decided to finish the job that my mother had attempted to accomplish, and free myself from my existence as a sexually deformed person. I obtained a metal box at an Army Surplus store and, providing this box with a clasp and padlock, concealed this rat poison. Then, on the dawn after graduating from high school, before I hitchhiked away from home I flushed that poison to ensure that my little sister Carolyn Jane Smith would not ever find it.

• After the Sharonville, Ohio police had shot our ChowChow in the front yard on Wyscarver Road in 1968 (because I was the Democratic campaign chairman in a town that was overwhelmingly Republican), and I had retrieved Honey Butter’s headless body from the Dempster Dumper behind the police station (a Dempster Dumper which was visible from our front porch), I contemplated entering the station through its front door in such a manner as to induce them to gun me down — a situation sometimes humorously described as suicide by cop.

• During my 1st marriage things had gotten so bad that at one point in about 1970 I went deer hunting in Vermont with my wife, and deliberately gave her the 7.62mm and walked in front of her through the snowy woods. I was waiting for her to shoot me in the back, and merely hoping that she would be able to make this a clean shot.

• During the 1975 period in which I was agonizing over the rampant fraud in quality programs at the General Electric Nuclear Energy Division in San Jose, California, before I was able to steel myself to become an Atomic Energy Commission whistleblower, there was a concrete bridge pillar on the freeway on my way from home to work. Over and over I would dare myself to drive my Volkswagen bug straight into this pillar, and bring all the agony instantly to an end.

• During my period of hiding in about 1979, subsequent to my escape from Tehran and the Iranian revolution into the Soviet Union, while subsisting on acorns in the national forest of the High Sierra while evading capture by the California authorities, I sometimes found it impossible to get to sleep unless I had the barrel of my pistol in my mouth. I would attempt to console myself with thoughts such as “You are no longer allowed to commit suicide: you gave all that up when you became a parent.”

2019

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Staring at the above list written down for the 1st time in black and white on this standardized questionnaire, I then found just a bit of white space at the bottom in which to add a parenthetical remark, to the effect that after my spine had begun to rotate about 75 degrees to the right, in such manner that I could for the 1st time walk down a sunny sidewalk without being rendered nauseous by watching myself be followed after by the disgustingly deformed shadow of my own body –and after I discovered with Rey’s help that my penis had rotated far enough forward in my crotch that I had for the 1st time become capable of the normal male feat of penile intromission –and that by getting up on my elbows and knees and rocking back and forth, I could approximate (more or less adequately) pelvic thrusting —my entire existence was transformed, and these above repetitive tendencies toward suicidal mentation have gone entirely away, and have been entirely absent for the past 4 decades of my new-and-improved life.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2019. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at <kouroo@kouroo.info>.

Prepared: March 2, 2019

SUICIDE

ASSLEY

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.

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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology —but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary“writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place requests with <kouroo@kouroo.info>. Arrgh.

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