Earth Day! Wow! Bet there'll be a metric boatload of speechifying and posturing today, a half century later. So what happened in between? Mostly hippies, activists, and a handful of scientists "celebrating"; howling into the wind, mostly ignored and/or mocked. Now the bandwagon will be overloaded with talkers, most of whom will propose assorted "planning" and "research", like they should have 50 some odd years ago, but, most of whom have, during that period, pretty much done zip shit. In the near and not so near future, most of them will continue to talk and do zip shit. The youth, however, are rising, and may be able to accomplish something yet, in the face of all the subtle and not at all subtle opposition, obstruction, and resistance, all the stalling and can kicking on the part of the global establishment. It's up to assorted "fellow travelers" now, and one cannot help but wonder how many will die at the hands of the authorities and corporate goons in the coming decade. Don't laugh, many already have.

On this day in history:

On 04-22-1529, The Treaty of Zaragoza divided the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal along a line 297.5 leagues east of the Moluccas. This was a bookend to the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, which sort of codified and enacted assorted Papal Bulls. It would seem that the popes and kings involved in this process were blithely unaware of certain fundamental properties of spherical objects, such as the fact that "everything west of a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands" must also include "everything east of a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands". This oversight led both Spain and Portugal to "rightfully" claim the Moluccas, which they did and then went to war for 9 years over. (Of course, none of them had any right whatsoever to make any claim on the Moluccas, but the pernicious doctrines embodied in that usurpation of the rights of indigenous peoples to their own lands has been recognized as valid by the US Supreme Court, and far be it from me to decry it and thereby disclose my allegiance to Putin or some such fallacious idiocy.) At any rate this final treaty put the end to 9 years of war caused by the fact that popes and kings are neither required nor even expected to know geometry or anything else remotely practical or useful, but, like all political animals, only what to kiss and when.

On 04-22-1864, The U.S. Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1864, creating the 2 cent coin and allowing the inscription of the pernicious, nefarious and blatantly unconstitutional phrase "In God We Trust" on said 2 cent piece.. (I'd like to assert that this is the origin of "my two cents' worth", but have no support for such an assertion, though, or course, supporting ones assertions is admittedly quite passe', old school, unnecessary and generally otiose today.) Sure enough, on March 3, 1865, Congress approved the inscription of this dastardly attack on the first amendment on all US silver and gold coins. and in 1956 Ike saw to it that it replaced "E Pluribus Unum" as our national motto and got printed and minted on all of our currency and coins. Nonetheless, Ike didn't trust god be in charge of Viet Nam's fate, odd, that, except for the fact that the US political class has never placed any trust in anything except lethal force, lucre, and legalisms. Lethal force is, of course, far and away preferred which is why the country turned into a warfare state instead of a mere garrison state as was proposed by Harold Lasswell

On 04-22-1970, The first Earth Day was celebrated.

On 04-22-2016, The Paris Agreement was signed. The timing was intended to be symbolic. As signed, the entire treaty was pretty much symbolic. The US eventually withdrew, sparing itself the stigma of ignoring it. Of course, any such stigma would've been minimal and very short lived, and the US, in reality had pretty much no face to save, then or now.

Some people who were born on this day:

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

~~ Immanuel Kant

1707 – Henry Fielding, novelist and playwright
1724 – Immanuel Kant, anthropologist and philosopher.
1766 – Germaine de Staël, author and political philosopher
1830 – Emily Davies, suffragist and educator, co-founder of Girton College.
1870 – Vladimir Lenin, leftist lawyer
1891 – Nicola Sacco, anarchist martyr murdered by the state.
1892 – Vernon Johns, minister and activist
1899 – Vladimir Nabokov, novelist and critic
1904 – J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist
1916 – Yehudi Menuhin, violinist and conductor
1916 – Ruth A. M. Schmidt, geologist and paleontologist
1922 – Richard Diebenkorn, painter
1922 – Charles Mingus, bassist, composer, and bandleader
1927 – Laurel Aitken, singer
1935 – Paul Chambers, bassist and composer
1936 – Glen Campbell, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor
1937 – Jack Nitzsche, singer, songwriter, pianist, and conductor
1939 – Mel Carter. singer and actor
1943 – Louise Glück, poet
1950 – Peter Frampton, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1950 – Jancis Robinson, journalist and critic
1951 – Paul Carrack, singer, songwriter and guitarist

Some people who died on this day:

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds.

~~ Miguel de Cervantes

1616 – Miguel de Cervantes, novelist, poet, and playwright
1778 – James Hargreaves, inventor
1806 – Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, Nelson's foil
1983 – Earl Hines, pianist and bandleader
1984 – Ansel Adams, photographer and environmentalist
1989 – Emilio G. Segrè, physicist and academic
1995 – Jane Kenyon, poet and author
1996 – Erma Bombeck, journalist and author
2003 – Felice Bryant, songwriter
2011 – Hazel Dickens, singer, songwriter, bassist and guitarist
2013 – Richie Havens, singer, songwriter and guitarist

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

Earth Day
National Jelly Bean Day

Today's Tunes

Earth Day

The Coinage Act of 1864, etc.

Yehudi Menuhin

Charlie Mingus

Laurel Aitken

Paul Chambers

Glen Campbell

Jack Nitzsche

Mel Carter

Peter Frampton

Paul Carrack

Earl Hines

Felice Bryant

Hazel Dickens

Richie Havens

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

Open Thread, Earth Day, Coinage Act, Treaty of Zaragoza, Fielding, Kant, Cervantes, Yehudi Menuhin, Charlie Mingus, Glen Campbell, Peter Frampton, Earl Hines, Richie Havens