official state media for a secessionist republic of one
In Memoriam
Mathematics is a thing of beauty, and Mandelbrot — best known for his development of fractal geometry; also one of the most important innovators in applied mathematics during the past half-century — should also be remembered as one of our day’s most remarkable writers, and artists.
We won the race of discovery against the Germans….
Sixty-five years ago today:
Harry S. Truman, August 9, 1945.
Truman described Hiroshima, a port city of some 300,000 people, a military base,
and then said, That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.
About 85% of the people killed in Hiroshima were civilians — about 140,000 people, more than half of all the people living in the city. Meanwhile, on the same day that President Harry Truman recorded this message, at 11:02am, on August 9, 1945, the United States Army Air Forces, acting on Truman’s orders, dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, an industrial center and seaside resort town. About 240,000 people were killed, all told, by these two deliberate atomic bombings of civilian centers.
What else is there to say on a day like today?
Having found the bomb, we have used it.
… on Hiroshima, a military base…
We wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.
We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor…
We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war.
The audio clip above is from a recording of President Harry S. Truman’s radio report on the Potsdam conference, recorded by CBS on August 9, 1945 in the White House. The song linked to above is a recording of Oppenheimer (1997), by the British composer Jocelyn Pook. The voice that you hear at the beginning is Robert Oppenheimer, in an interview many years after the war, talking about his thoughts at the Trinity test
, the first explosion of an atomic bomb in the history of the world, on July 16th, 1945.
The State In Action. Austro-Athenian Empire (2010-05-04):
Forty years ago today, Ohio National Guardsmen murdered four unarmed students at Kent State and wounded nine others, permanently paralysing one. (CHT Making Light for the reminder.) The students' crime? Protesting the invasion of Cambodia (or, in some cases, walking nearby while others were protesting it). "That is government; that…
Happy Sunday, y’all. And I hope you had a happy May Day. I was away from writing opportunities all day yesterday, but in belated honor of International Workers’ Day, I’m pleased to announce that Fair Use Repository is now home to Black Friday of 1887, a commemoration of the Haymarket martyrs which was published in November, 1914 in Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman’s Mother Earth.
There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!
–Last words of August Spies (1887-11-11), immigrant, anarchist, and Haymarket martyr
I’m announcing it here partly to take notice of the article itself; but also because this article is the first of several heretofore unwebbed articles from Mother Earth which will be appearing over the next several days. (I hope to have the entire November 1914 issue of Mother Earth available online by the end of the coming week.)
And what about y’all? What have you been up to this week? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.
I got this story by email from a private correspondent. Right now, most of the news stories on this terror-murder, and the homophobic victim-blaming by the government police’s investigator on the case, are printed in Spanish. So I’ve translated the story into English, below.
Jorge Steven L?@c3;b3;pez Mercado was an openly gay 19 year old, well known in the local gay community in Cayey, Puerto Rico. R.I.P.
Solicitan relevo de agente investigador en asesinato de joven homosexual en Cayey
Portavoces de Puerto Rico Para Tod@s y la Fundaci?@c3;b3;n de Derechos Humanos exigieron hoy una investigaci?@c3;b3;n libre de prejuicios por el asesinato de Jorge Steven L?@c3;b3;pez Mercado, un joven homosexual de 19 a?@c3;b1;os, que se presume fue víctima de un crimen de odio y cuyo cuerpo fue encontrado el viernes calcinado, decapitado y desmembrado de brazos y piernas en el área de Guavate, en Cayey.
El líder activista y portavoz de Puerto Rico Para Tod@s, Pedro Julio Serrano, denunci?@c3;b3; que el agente investigador del caso, Ángel Rodríguez Col?@c3;b3;n, realiz?@c3;b3; expresiones
inconcebibles, inmorales y antiéticas, referentes al homicidio.“Este tipo de personas cuando se meten a esto y salen a la calle saben que esto les puede pasar”, expres?@c3;b3; el agente Rodríguez a un noticiario televisivo (Univisi?@c3;b3;n).
“Es inconcebible que el agente investigador aduzca que la víctima bus?@c3;b3; ser asesinado. Es como el abusrdo y falaz argumento de que una mujer se busc?@c3;b3; ser violada por llevar falda corta. Exigimos la renuncia al caso de este agente investigador y que el Superintendente Figueroa Sancha ponga en su lugar a alguien capacitado que investigue este vil asesinato, por prejuicios de clase alguna”, manifest?@c3;b3; Serrano.
Por su parte, la licenciada Ada Conde, presidenta de la Fundaci?@c3;b3;n de Derechos Humanos, le solicit?@c3;b3; a Figueroa Sancha y al Secretario de Justicia, Antonio Sagardía, que cumplan con la ley y establezcan mecanismos para que se investiguen este tipo de casos y que se procesen como crímenes de odio.
Translated into English:
They call for relieving the agent investigating the murder of a homosexual youth in Cayey
Today, spokespeople from Puerto Rico Para Tod@s [Puerto Rico for Everyone] and Fundaci?@c3;b3;n de Derechos Humanos [the Foundation for Human Rights] demanded a prejudice-free investigation into the murder of Jorge Steven L?@c3;b3;pez Mercado, a homosexual youth of 19, who is presumed to have been the victim of a hate crime and whose body was discovered Friday burnt, decapitated, and dismembered of arms and legs in the area of Guavate, in Cayey.
The activist leader and spokesman for Puerto Rico Para Tod@s, Pedro Julio Serrano, denounced the fact that the investigating agent for the case, Ángel Rodríguez Col?@c3;b3;n, made
unthinkable, immoral and unethicalstatements referring to the homicide.
When this type of people get involved in this and go out in the street they know this kind of thing can happen,Agent Rodriguez told a TV news program (Univisi?@c3;b3;n).
It’s unthinkable that the investigating agent would allege that the victim was looking to get murdered. It’s like the absurd and fallacious argument that a woman is looking to get raped by putting on a short skirt. We demand that this investigating agent get off the case and that Superintendent Figueroa Sancha replace him with someone capable of investigating this vile murder, without any kind of prejudice,said Serrano.For her part, the lawyer Ada Conde, president of Fundaci?@c3;b3;n de Derechos Humanos, called on Figueroa Sancha and the Secretary of Justice, Antonio Sagardía, to comply with the law and establish mechanisms for investigating this type of case and processing them as hate crimes.
