FAREWELL NASA

On the 20 July, 1969, in North America and on the 21 July, 1969 in Europe, the Apollo 11 mission flew to the moon and Neil Armstrong and 'Buzz' Aldrin became the first men to land on the Moon. Michael Collins was the Command Module Pilot and orbited the moon whilst the other two landed in the lunar module.

Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin

At the time of the landing I was watching Televisione Milano in Campione d'Italia, which is on Lake Lugano, in the Italian speaking Canton of Ticino in Switzerland. It was in the wee small hours of the morning, and the Hotel had laid on a few small eats for those guests interested enough to be up at that hour, to watch the broadcast of the landing. I remember a very exited Italian commentator translating the chat between the astronauts and ground crew "Everything is A-OK, beautiful" as "Quando si dice beautiful, tutto va bene" and then leaping up and down in his chair screaming "Sono arrivati, sono arrivati" Patrick Moore couldn't have done it better.

Forty two years later on the 21st July 2011, the last space shuttle flight took place. A fitting date, I guess, on which to end to the United States' space programme. 

THE INFALLIBLE CHIP

The doctrine of Papal Infallibility was pronounced, in a solemn declaration, by the First Vatican Council, one hundred and forty one years ago today on the 18^th July 1870. I confess I have never been au fait with Papal Infallibility, but then I have never been clear on the various doctrines of the Catholic Church.

According to Wikipedia Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, by action of the Holy Spirit, the Pope is preserved from even the possibility of error when he solemnly declares or promulgates to the universal Church a dogmatic teaching on faith as being contained in divine revelation, or at least being intimately connected to divine revelation. It is also taught that the Holy Spirit works in the body of the Church, as sensus fidelium, to ensure that dogmatic teachings proclaimed to be infallible will be received by all Catholics. This dogma, however, does not state either that the Pope cannot sin in his own personal life or that he is necessarily free of error, even when speaking in his official capacity, outside the specific contexts in which the dogma applies.

Pope Pius IX
Convoked Vatican I

This doctrine was defined dogmatically in the First Vatican Council of 1870. According to Catholic theology, there are several concepts important to the understanding of infallible, divine revelation: Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Sacred Magisterium. The infallible teachings of the Pope are part of the Sacred Magisterium, which also consists of ecumenical councils and the "ordinary and universal magisterium". In Catholic theology, papal infallibility is one of the channels of the infallibility of the Church. The infallible teachings of the Pope must be based on, or at least not contradict, Sacred Tradition or Sacred Scripture. Papal infallibility does not signify that the Pope is impeccable, i.e.., that he is specially exempt from liability to sin.

The Holy Spirit descending on 

Pope Gregory I 

by Carlo Srarceni, circa 1610, Rome.

The doctrine of infallibility relies on the other Catholic dogma of petrine supremacy of the Pope, and his authority to be the ruling agent in deciding what will be accepted as formal beliefs in the Church. The clearest example (though not the only one) of the use of this power ex cathedra since the solemn declaration of Papal Infallibility by Vatican I on July 18, 1870, took place in 1950 when Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary as being an article of faith for Roman Catholics. This authority is considered by Catholics to be apostolic and of divine origin. Prior to the solemn definition of 1870, Pope Boniface VIII in the Bull Unam Sanctam of 1302, Pope Eugene IV in the Bull Cantate Domino of 1441, and Pope Pius IX in the Papal constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 1854 have all spoken "ex cathedra."

Pius XII

Boniface VIII

Eugene IV

So what I think it boils down to is:  when the Pope pronounces on religious matters requiring blind faith whilst sitting in his chair, he is infallible; otherwise, he can be as fallible as anybody.

If Vatican I is cause for confusion, what about Vatican II:

On a more secular note, on the 18th July 1968, The Intel Corporation was founded in Santa Clara, California.

Intel was founded, as Integrated Electronics Corporation (though a common misconception is that "Intel" is from the word intelligence). Intel also makes motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing. Founded by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore and widely associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove, Intel combines advanced chip design capability with a leading-edge manufacturing capability. Though Intel was originally known primarily to engineers and technologists, its "Intel Inside" advertising campaign of the 1990s made it and its Pentium processor household names. The Companies net income for 2010 is reported as US$ 11.464 billion which converts to £7,105,390,000 British pounds sterling. A nice little earner for those who had faith in the micro chip.

Noyce

Grove

Moore

This is one of their cathedrals.

REMEMBER THE MEN AND WOMEN OF SPAIN - 75 YEARS

I have been away in the South West, in Devon. Today, Sunday the 17th July, marks the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, which was a prelude to the Second World War.

Mola

Franco

Manuel Azaña Díaz

The Spanish Civil War was fought from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. The war began after a Coup d'état by a group of conservative generals under the leadership of Emilio Mola against the Government of the Second Spanish Republic, at the time under the leadership of President Manuel Azaña Díaz. The rebel coup was supported by the conservative groups including the  Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right,  monarchists such as the Carlists, and the Fascist Falange. Following the only partially successful coup, Spain was left militarily and politically divided. A junta in Burgos proved unable to set overall strategy and General Francisco Franco was chosen commander-in-chief at a meeting of ranking generals on September 21. Mola continued to command the Army of the North and led an unsuccessful effort to take Madrid in October. In a radio address, he described Nationalists sympathizers in the city as a "fifth column" that supplemented his four military columns. From that moment onwards General Franco, began a protracted war of attrition with the established government, as loyalist supporters of the centre-left Republican Government fought the rebel forces for control of the country. The conservative generals (nacionales) received the support of Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946), as well as neighbouring Portugal, while the Soviet Union intervened in support of the socialist Republicans.

The International Brigades were military units made up of socialist, communist and anarchist volunteers from different countries, who traveled to Spain to defend the Second Spanish Republic.

The number of combatant volunteers has been estimated at between 32,000–35,000, though with no more than about 20,000 active at any one time. A further 10,000 people probably participated in non-combatant roles and about 3,000–5,000 foreigners were members of the CNT - Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour) or the POUM - Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista  (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification). They came from a claimed "53 nations" to fight against the Spanish Nationalists.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade refers to volunteers from the United States who served in International Brigades. As time went on, the name Abraham Lincoln Brigade became used loosely, in the United States, as shorthand to describe any unit with an American component. Volunteers from the United States also served with the Canadian Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion, the Regiment de Tren (transport), and the John Brown Anti-Aircraft Battery. North Americans also ran a very well-organized and well-equipped field hospital (funded and staffed by the American Medical Bureau to Save Spanish Democracy).

When I was in Los Angeles in early sixties I worked in a bookshop owned by a member of the Lincoln Brigade, Robert Klonsky. He went out to Spain at 17. He managed to survive. He was a wonderful man.
It was not only the young men who went to Spain. A particular salute also to Salaria Kea.

Salaria Kea

Salaria Kea was born in Georgia, USA, in 1917. Her father, an attendant at the Ohio State Hospital for the Insane, was stabbed to death when Kea was a child. His widow took her four children, including Salaria, to Akron, Ohio. Kea became a nurse and while working at the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing, led a successful campaign against racial segregation. In 1935 she helped to organize medical care in Ethiopia when it was invaded by Italy. In March 1937 Kea joined an American Medical Unit working with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. She later recalled: "I sailed from New York with the second American Medical Unit. I was the lone representative of the Negro race. The doctor in charge of the group refused to sit at the same table with me in the dining room and demanded to see the Captain. The Captain moved me to his table where I remained throughout the voyage." To find out more, this you tube entry is a must view.

HISTORY, SCIENCE AND LITERATURE

71 years ago, yesterday, on the 10^th July 1940 the l’État Français, the French State, was established. This was the end of the Third Republic. Marshal Philippe Pétain, proclaimed the government following the military defeat of France by Germany during World War II and the vote of the National Assembly, l’Assemblée Nationale, on 10^th July 1940. The vote granted extraordinary powers to Pétain, the last Président du Conseil (Prime Minister) of the Third Republic, who then took the additional title Chef de l'État Français ("Chief of the French State"). Pétain headed the reactionary program of the so-called “Révolution nationale", aimed at "regenerating the nation." Effectively France allied with the Axis powers for what was called ‘industrial purposes’. In the aftermath of the 1940 defeat, Pétain collaborated actively with the German occupying forces.

"Maréchal, nous voilà!" is a French song dedicated to Marshal Philippe Pétain. The song was performed on many official occasions in France and Algeria during Vichy France. Not a great memory for the French.

However, moving on, in scientific matters, today on 11^th July, 2011, Neptune completed its first full Barycentric orbit since its discovery in 1846, although it did not appear at its exact discovery position in our sky because the Earth was in a different location in its 365.25-day orbit. Because of the motion of the Sun in relation to the barycentre of the Solar System, on 11 July Neptune was also not be at its exact discovery position in relation to the Sun; if the more common heliocentric coordinate system is used, the discovery longitude was reached on July 12, 2011.

In astronomy, barycentric coordinates are non-rotating coordinates with origin at the centre of mass of two or more bodies.

Within classical mechanics, this definition simplifies calculations and introduces no known problems. In the General Theory of Relativity, problems arise because, while it is possible, within reasonable approximations, to define the barycentre, the associated coordinate system does not fully reflect the inequality of clock rates at different locations. Brumberg explains how to set up barycentric coordinates in General Theory of Relativity.

The coordinate systems involve a world-time, i.e., a global time coordinate that could be set up by telemetry. Individual clocks of similar construction will not agree with this standard, because they are subject to differing gravitational potentials or move at various velocities, so the world-time must be slaved to some ideal clock; that one is assumed to be very far from the whole self-gravitating system. This time standard is called Bartycentric Coordinate Time, abbreviated "TCB."

This following video is probably more than you wanted to know about Neptune, but it’s a pleasant  8 and a bit minutes.

As to literature, two events in American literature occurred on the 11th July, 54 years part. In 1906, on the morning of 11th July , a young man, Chester Gillette, just a month short of his 23^rd birthday, took a young girl, Grace Brown, aged 20, out in a rowboat on Big Moose Lake, New York, where he clubbed her with his tennis racquet and left her to drown. He returned alone and laid low at his hotel. Later, witnesses would say that Gillette seemed calm, collected and perfectly at ease; nothing was amiss. Brown's bruised and beaten body was found at the bottom of the lake the next day. Gillette was arrested shortly thereafter which led to a highly publicised trial. The story and subsequent trial became the basis for the fictional characters Clyde Griffiths and Roberta Alden in the Theodore Dreiser novel An American Tragedy, which in turn was the basis of the 1951 Academy Award - winning film A Place In the Sun.

Chester Gillette

Theodore Dreiser

On the 11th July 1960, Harper Lees's Pulitzer Prize-winning only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was first published. It also was made into an Academy award-winning film in 1962.

BIRTH OF A NATION - AVOIDING ARMAGEDDON

Today, the 9^th July 2011, marks the official birth of a new country, The Republic of South Sudan.

A landlocked country in East Africa, its capital and largest city is Juba. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the east; Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south; the Central African Republic to the west; and Sudan to the north. South Sudan includes the vast swamp region of the Sudd formed by the White Nile.

The Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan of 2005 is the supreme law of South Sudan. The constitution establishes a presidential system of government headed by a President who is Head of State, Head of Government, and the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Legislative power is vested in the government and the unicameral South Sudan Legislative Assembly. The Constitution also provides for an independent judiciary, the highest organ being the Supreme Court. A Defence Paper on defence processes declared that Southern Sudan would eventually maintain land, air, and riverine forces.

The first elected President of The Republic of South Sudan is Salva Kiir Mayardit. The Vice-President is Riek Machar.

President Kiir

Vice President Machar

This new country emerges out of a difficult and disturbing history; however, it now exists in its own right. We must all hope that it will prosper and develop in a peaceful manner; although, I am not at all confident that it will do so. President Kiir once told Radio Netherlands Worldwide that homosexuality is not in the "character" of Southern Sudanese people. "It is not even something that anybody can talk about here in southern Sudan in particular. It is not there and if anybody wants to import or to export it to Sudan, it will not get the support and it will always be condemned by everybody," he said. He then went on the refer to homosexuality as a "mental disease" and a "bastion of Western immorality" These remarks do not lead one to expect any form of enlightened or forward thinking government. The Vice-President Dr. Riek Machar has been accused of corruption and manipulation, and has been involved, allegedly, in a number of scandals. Any good working relationship between the two men is apparently doubtful.  Yet we must hope that the country will succeed in developing into a free democracy wherein all citizens are subject to the rule of law and that its institutions of government will support and serve equally all those citizens of the Republic. One hopes they will “remember their humanity and forget the rest.”

That last is a revised quotation from the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which was issued 56 years ago today on the 9^th July 1955 by Bertrand Russell in the midst of the Cold War. It highlighted the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and called for world leaders to seek peaceful resolutions to international conflict. The signatories included:

Max Born
, Percy W. Bridgman
, Albert Einstein
, Leopold Infeld, Frederic Joliot-Curie
, Herman J. Muller,
 Linus Pauling,
 Cecil F. Powell
, Joseph Rotblat,
 Bertrand Russell
 and Hideki Yukawa.

The manifesto was released during a press conference at Caxton, London. Rotblat, who chaired the meeting, describes it as follows:

"... It was thought that only a few of the Press would turn up and a small room was booked in Caxton Hall for the Press Conference. But it soon became clear that interest was increasing and the next larger room was booked. In the end the largest room was taken and on the day of the Conference this was packed to capacity with representatives of the press, radio and television from all over the world. After reading the Manifesto, Russell answered a barrage of questions from members of the press, some of whom were initially openly hostile to the ideas contained in the Manifesto. Gradually, however, they became convinced by the forcefulness of his arguments, as was evident in the excellent reporting in the Press, which in many cases gave front page coverage."

Russell had begun the conference by stating:

"I am bringing the warning pronounced by the signatories to the notice of all the powerful Governments of the world in the earnest hope that they may agree to allow their citizens to survive."

The manifesto called for a conference where scientists would assess the dangers posed to the survival of humanity by weapons of mass destruction (then only considered to be nuclear weapons). Emphasis was placed on the meeting being politically neutral. It extended the question of nuclear weapons to all people and governments. One particular phrase is quoted often, including by Rotblat upon receipt of the Nobel Pece Prize in 1995:

"Remember your humanity, and forget the rest."

The penultimate paragraph of the manifesto reads: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

Let us hope that the leaders of the new Republic of South Sudan will choose continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom.

WILL WALL STREET FALL STREET?

On the 8^th July 1889, the first issue of the Wall Street Journal appeared. Dow Jones & Compny, publisher of the Journal, was founded in 1882 by reporters Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser. Jones converted the small Customers' Afternoon Letter into the Wall Street Journal, first published in 1889, and began delivery of the Dow Jones News Service via telegraph. The Journal featured the Jones 'Average', the first of several indexes of stock and bond prices on the New York Stock Exchange.

Dow

Jones

Bergstresser

Charles Barron

Journalist Clarence Barron purchased control of the company for US$130,000 in 1902; circulation was then around 7,000 but climbed to 50,000 by the end of the 1920s. Barron and his predecessors were credited with creating an atmosphere of fearless, independent financial reporting—a novelty in the early days of business journalism.

Barron died in 1928, a year before Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that greatly effected the Great Depression in the United States. Barron's descendants, the Bancroft family, would continue to control the company until 2007.

Kilgore

The Journal took its modern shape and prominence in the 1940s, a time of industrial expansion for the United States and its financial institutions in New York. Bernard Kilgore was named managing editor of the paper in 1941, and company CEO in 1945, eventually compiling a 25-year career as the head of the Journal. Kilgore was the architect of the paper's iconic front-page design, with its "What's News" digest, and its national distribution strategy, which brought the paper's circulation from 33,000 in 1941 to 1.1 million at the time of Kilgore's death in 1967. It was also on Kilgore's watch, in 1947, that the paper won its first Pulitzer Prize, for editorial writing.

The Wall Street Journal nevertheless fell on uncertain times in the 1990s, as declining advertising and rising newsprint costs—contributing to the first-ever annual loss at Dow Jones in 1997—raised speculation that the paper might have to drastically change, or be sold.

Unfortunately the paper was sold in 2007 to News Corp. the Rupert Murdoch empire. It was stated at the time:

“Mr. Murdoch told the Bancrofts that 'any interference – or even hint of interference – would break the trust that exists between the paper and its readers, something I am unwilling to countenance.' ... Mr. Murdoch and the Bancrofts agreed on standards modeled on the longstanding Dow Jones Code of Conduct.”

A June 5 Journal news story quoted charges that Murdoch had made and broken similar promises in the past. One large shareholder commented that Murdoch has long "expressed his personal, political and business biases through his newspapers and television stations." Journalist Fred Emery, formerly of the British newspaper The Times, recounted an incident when Murdoch was reminded of his own earlier promises not to fire The Times' editors without independent directors' approval and allegedly responded, "God, you don't take all that seriously, do you?"

This is the man who has been embarrassed into closing down the News of the World. The very idea that journalism can stoop so low as the operators of News of The World is, in my view, symptomatic of its top leadership. One can only wonder at the fate of the Wall Street Journal. As I am not a regular reader I can only wonder if it still maintains those qualities established during its history and the guidance of Bernard Kilgore. Probably not. Patrick Yau has a view of whats up:

IN MEMORIAM

James Adams, 32;
 Lee Baisden, 34;
 Samantha Badham, 36; 
Phil Beer, 22; Ania Brandt, 41;
 Michael Stanley Brewster, 52;
 Ciaran Cassidy, 22; Rachelle Lieng Siong Chung For Yuen, 27;
 Benedetta Ciaccia, 30;
 Elizabeth Daplyn, 26;
 Jonathan Downey, 34; 
Richard Ellery, 21; 
Anthony Fatayi-Williams; 
David Foulkes, 22;
 Arthur Edlin Frederick, 60;
 Karolina Gluck, 29;
 Jamie Gordon, 30;
 Richard Gray, 41;
 Gamze Gunoral, 24;
 Lee Harris, 30; 
Giles Hart, 55;
 Marie Hartley, 34; 
Miriam Hyman, 31; 
Ojara Ikeagwu, 55;
 Shahara A Islam, 20;
 Neetu Jain, 37; 
Emily Jenkins, 24;
 Adrian Johnson, 38; Helen Jones, 28;
 Susan Levy, 53;
 Sam Ly, 28;
 Shelley Mather, 26;
 Mike Matsushita, 37; James Mayes, 28;
 Anne Moffat, 48; 
Colin Morley, 52; Behnaz Mozakka, 48;
 Jennifer Nicholson, 24;
 Mihaela Otto, 46; 
Shyanuja Parathasangary, 30; 
Anat Rosenberg, 29; Philip Russell, 28; 
Attique Sharifi, 24;
 Ihab Slimane, 24;
 Christian Small, 28;
 Fiona Stevenson, 29; 
Monika Suchocka, 23;
 Carrie Taylor 24;
 Mala Trivedi; 
Laura Susan Webb, 29;
 William Wise
; Gladys Wundowa, 50.


http://www.war-memorial.net/List-of-Victims-of-Bomb-Attacks-in-London-on-July-7,-2005-4.165

AQABA - FACT AND FICTION

T.E. Lawrence

On the 6^th July 1917, during the First World War and the Arab Revolt, Arabian troops led by T.E. Lawrence and Auda Ibu Tayi captured the city of Aqaba from the Ottoman Empire. This particular event was portrayed, with great flare, by David Lean in his film Lawrence of Arabia. It is viewed as the turning point in Lawrence’s military career. The film version of events is of course far more dramatic then the facts as noted at the time.

You may recall in the film, Lawrence (Peter O’Toole), after meeting with Faisal (Alec Guiness) in his tent, wanders round the desert through the night working out how to provide Faisal with the ‘miracle ‘ he needs to conduct his war against the Turks. He decides to take Aqaba and persuades Sherif Ali (Omar Shariff) and fifty of Faisal’s troops, to head across the desert. They then meet Auda Abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn) and persuade him to join up with his men, and they all charge up the valley and surround the city. It’s all a clever scheme devised by Lawrence out of the blue and done without any reference to his superior officers. He then rides across the Sinai Peninsula with two boys, his servants, one of whom dies in a sand storm, to inform his superiors of what he’s done. He eventually strides into the Officer’s Mess in Cairo in his Arab dress, and overwhelms everyone with the deeds of daring do, and General Allenby (Jack Hawkins) gives him a promotion and everything he needs to go back and carry on. This is a short potted version of the filmic events surrounding Lawrence’s attack on Aqaba. The reality, however, is not quite the same.

Aqaba

Auda Ibu Tayi

Lawrence 1917

It would appear that, Lawrence, sent by General Archibald Murray, commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, to act as a military advisor to Faisal, convinced the latter to attack Aqaba. Aqaba was a Turkish-garrisoned port in Jordan, which would threaten British forces operating in Palestine; the Turks had also used it as a base during their 1915 attack on the Suez Canal. It was also suggested by Faisal that the port be taken as a means for the British to supply his Arab forces as they moved further north. Though he did not take part in the attack itself (his cousin Sherif Nasir rode along as the leader of his forces), Faisal lent forty of his men to Lawrence. Lawrence also met with Auda Ibu Tayi, leader of the northern Howeitat tribe of Bedouin, who agreed to lend himself and a large number of his men to the expedition. Lawrence informed his British colleagues of the planned expedition, but they apparently did not take him seriously, expecting it to fail.

Aqaba was not in and of itself a major military obstacle; a small village at the time, it was not actually garrisoned by the Turks, though the Turks did keep a small, 400-man garrison at the mouth of the Wadi Itm to protect from landward attack via the Sinai Peninsula. The British Royal Navy occasionally shelled Aqaba, and in late 1916 had briefly landed a party of Marines ashore there, though a lack of harbor or landing beaches made an amphibious assault impractical. The main obstacle to a successful landward attack on the town was the large Nefud Desert, believed by many to be impassable.

The actual battle for Aqaba occurred for the most part at a Turkish blockhouse at Abu el Lissal, about halfway between Aqaba and the town of Ma’an. A group of separate Arab rebels, acting in conjunction with the expedition, had seized the blockhouse a few days before, but a Turkish infantry battalion arrived on the scene and recaptured it. The Turks then attacked a small, nearby encampment of Arabs and killed several of them.

After hearing of this, Auda personally led an attack on the Turkish troops there, attacking at mid-day on July 6. The charge was a wild success. Turkish resistance was slight; the Arabs brutally massacred hundreds of Turks as revenge before their leaders could restrain them. In all, three hundred Turks were killed and another 150 taken prisoner, in exchange for the loss of two Arabs killed and a handful of wounded. Lawrence was nearly killed in the action; he accidentally shot the camel he was riding in the head with his pistol, but was fortunately thrown out of harm's way when he fell. Auda was grazed numerous times, with his favorite pair of field glasses being destroyed, but was otherwise unharmed.

Meanwhile, a small group of British naval vessels appeared offshore of Aqaba itself and began shelling it. At this point, Lawrence, Auda, and Nasir had rallied their troops; their total force had been quadrupled to 2,000 men by a local Bedouin who, with the defeat of the Turks at Lissal, now openly joined Lawrence's expedition. This force maneuvered themselves past the outer works of Aqaba's defensive lines, approached the gates of Aqaba, and its garrison surrendered without further struggle.

Lawrence travelled across the Sinai Peninsula with a small bodyguard to personally inform the British army in Cairo, now under General Edmund Allenby, that Aqaba had fallen. Arriving at the Suez Canal, Lawrence phoned Cairo HQ to tell of the success, and also arranged for a naval transport of supplies to Aqaba. Lawrence arrived in Cairo a few days later and conferred with Allenby, who agreed to supply the Arab forces there with arms, supplies, payment and several warships.

Murray

Allenby

On the whole I have to agree that Robert Bolt’s screenplay version is a lot tidier and much better viewing, except I think the bit about Lawrence accidentally shooting his camel should have been in the film.

Emir Faisal's delegation at Versailles, during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Left to right: Rustrum Haidar, Nuri as-Said, Prince Faisal, Captain Pisani (behind Faisal), T.E. Lawrence, Faisal's black slave (name unknown), Captain  Tashin Kadry

Also see entry 28th June 2011 re. Paris Peace Conference of 1919.

NECESSITY, NATURE, DECENCY AND RESPECT

The 4^th of July is a date Americans view as a celebration of independence; however, I wonder just what the average ‘American’ has in her/his mind as s/he celebrates the day. Is it just another day off? A brief holiday at the beginning of summer? A nice day for a picnic and a few fireworks? A day for a few patriotic speeches? A celebration of American, the birth of a nation?  It is designated a Federal Holiday and is intended to be a day commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on the 4^th July 1776, declaring separation from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

What I like most about this ‘declaration’ is its simplicity and directness of thought. The first thought is that groups of people are held together by political bands and that, perhaps inevitably, events may occur requiring part of that group to break away and form its own sovereign and independent group. The second thought is that the ‘Laws of Nature’ and ‘Nature’s God’ entitle the group to break away. The group can only follow its natural instinct; however, in doing so it must also follow the third thought, that out of decency and respect for the whole group, it is required to state the reasons why it must form its own breakaway group.

Necessity, nature, decency and respect are the very foundations of freedom and that is why:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This is reinforcing the opening paragraph, defining the very Laws of Nature, which compel the group to act. It is this very ‘duty to rebel when the government violates the rights of the people’ as reiterated in the First French Republic’s Acte Constitutionnel du 24 Juin 1793 (see blog entry 24^th June 2011)

What I am getting at, is that the 4^th of July should be a natural celebration of decency and respect, because that is what compelled those men, who came together at the Continental Congress in 1776, to come together despite their varying and disparate views and situations, and to agree to sign, as a group, the Declaration of Independence.

By coincidence, fifty years later, on the 4^th July 1826, two of the men who singed up to and wrote the declaration, John Adams(2^nd President) and Thomas Jefferson (3^rd President) died the same day.

Jefferson

Adams

It was also on the 4^th July 1827 that Slavery was abolished in New York State.

Lewis Adams

On the 4^th July 1881 the Tuskegee Institute opened in Alabama. The school was founded, on that day, as the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers. The school was the dream of Lewis Adams, formerly enslaved, and George W. Campbell, a former slaveholder. Adams could read, write and speak several languages despite having no formal education. He was an experienced tinsmith, harness-maker and shoemaker and Prince Hall Freemason, an acknowledged leader of the African-American community in Macon, County, Alabama.

It was on the 4^th July 1886 that the people of France offered the Statue of Liberty to the people of the United States.

And finally, in keeping with the idea of independence, The Indian Independence Bill was presented on the 4^th July 1947 by the then prime minister, Clement Attlee, before the British House of Commons:

Attlee

"to make provision for the setting up in India of two independent Dominions, to substitute other provisions for certain provisions of the Government of India Act, 1935, which apply outside those Dominions, and to provide for other matters consequential on or connected with the setting up of those Dominions," presented by the Prime Minister; supported by Sir Stafford Cripps, Mr. Alexander and Mr. Arthur Henderson; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 92.]

Independence did not actually happen till 15th August 1947.