FOR JAMES

This video shot on way through Germany on 12th July 2012, on the way to the Chauvets' in Tour-sur- Marne.

Film of 7 Goedeke Strasse, Celle, Germany - unedited

REBELLION AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE

Gabriel (1776 – October 10, 1800), today known as Gabriel Prosser, was a literate enslaved blacksmith who planned a large slave rebellion in the Richmond (Virginia) area during the spring and summer of 1800. On the 30^th August 1800, Gabriel intended to lead slaves into Richmond, but the rebellion was postponed because of rain. The slaves' owners had suspicion of the uprising, and two slaves told their owner, Mosby Sheppard, about the plans. He warned Virginia's Governor, James Monroe, who called out the state militia. Gabriel escaped downriver to Norfolk, but he was spotted and betrayed there by another slave for the reward offered by the state. That slave did not receive the full reward. 

Monroe

Gabriel was returned to Richmond for questioning, but he did not submit. Gabriel, his two brothers, and 23 other slaves were hanged. Gabriel was born in the year of the writing of the declaration of independence: 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 Virginia Governor, James Monroe was considered one of the founding fathers of the United States. He fought in the Continental Army from 1775 to 1780 and later served as the 5^th President of the United States from 1817 to 1825. It is his administration that came up with the Monroe Doctrine. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonise land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression requiring U.S. intervention. The Doctrine noted that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. The Doctrine was issued at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved independence from the Spanish Empire (except Cuba and Puerto Rico). The United States, working in agreement with Britain, wanted to guarantee no European power would move in. ‘Stay out of my back yard’ was the clear intention. It was invoked by many an American President, including Kennedy, Johnson and Reagan.

Marshall

Yet, one hundred and sixty seven years later, President Lyndon Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark, saying that this was "the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place." Marshall was confirmed as an Associate Justice by a Senate vote of 69–11 on 30^th August 1967. He was the 96th person to hold the position, and the first African American.

RAIL TRAVEL AND SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (or should it now be Scientific German)

Rufus Porter

The first issue of Scientific American magazine was published on the 28^th August 1845. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein, have contributed articles in the past 167 years. It is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the United States. Scientific American was founded by inventor and publisher Rufus M. Porter in 1845 as a four page weekly newspaper. It reported on a broad range of inventions including perpetual motion machines machines, an 1860 device for buoying vessels by Abraham Lincoln, and the universal joint, which now finds place in nearly every automobile manufactured.

DiChristina

Porter sold the newspaper to Alfred Ely Beach and Orson Desaix Munn a mere ten months after founding it. Until 1948 it remained owned by Munn & Company.   In 1948, three partners who were planning on starting a new popular science magazine, to be called The Sciences, purchased the assets of the old Scientific American instead and put its name on the designs they had created for their new magazine. Circulation had grown fifteen-fold since 1948. In 1986, it was sold to the Holtzbrinck group of Germany, which has owned it since. Mariette DiChristina is the current editor-in-chief.

It originally styled itself "The Advocate of Industry and Enterprise" and "Journal of Mechanical and other Improvements". On the front page of the first issue was the engraving of "Improved Rail-Road Cars". The masthead had a commentary as follows:

Scientific American published every Thursday morning at No. 11 Spruce Street, New York, No. 16 State Street, Boston, and No. 21 Arcade Philadelphia, (The principal office being in New York) by Rufus Porter. Each number will be furnished with from two to five original Engravings, many of them elegant, and illustrative of New Inventions, Scientific Principles, and Curious Works; and will contain, in high addition to the most interesting news of passing events, general notices of progress of Mechanical and other Scientific Improvements; American and Foreign. Improvements and Inventions; Catalogues of American Patents; Scientific Essays, illustrative of the principles of the sciences of Mechanics, Chemistry, and Architecture: useful information and instruction in various Arts and Trades; Curious Philosophical Experiments; Miscellaneous Intelligence, Music and Poetry. This paper is especially entitled to the patronage of Mechanics and Manufactures, being the only paper in America, devoted to the interest of those classes; but is particularly useful to farmers, as it will not only appraise them of improvements in agriculture implements, But instruct them in various mechanical trades, and guard them against impositions. As a family newspaper, it will convey more useful intelligence to children and young people, than five times its cost in school instruction. Another important argument in favour of this paper, is that it will be worth two dollars at the end of the year when the volume is complete, (Old volumes of the New York Mechanic, being now worth double the original cost, in cash.) Terms: The "Scientific American" will be furnished to subscribers at $2.00 per annum, - one dollar in advance, and the balance in six months. Five copies will be sent to one address six months for four dollars in advance. Any person procuring two or more subscribers will be entitled to a commission of 25 cents each.

The commentary under the illustration gives the flavour of its style at the time:

There is perhaps no mechanical subject, in which improvement has advanced so rapidly, within the last ten years, as that of railroad passenger cars. Let any person contrast the awkward and uncouth cars of '35 with the superbly splendid long cars now running on several of the eastern roads, and he will find it difficult to convey to a third party, a correct idea of the vast extent of improvement. Some of the most elegant cars of this class, and which are of a capacity to accommodate from sixty to eighty passengers, and run with a steadiness hardly equalled by a steamboat in still water, are manufactured by Davenport & Bridges, at their establishment in Cambridgeport, Mass. The manufacturers have recently introduced a variety of excellent improvements in the construction of trucks, springs, and connections, which are calculated to avoid atmospheric resistance, secure safety and convenience, and contribute ease and comfort to passengers, while flying at the rate of 30 or 40 miles per hour.

It continued to be fascinated with rail travel. This article appeared on the from page of the 23^rd September 1848 edition;

Rail travel doesn't seem to have changed much.

As to general stuff got to;

http://www.youtube.com/user/sciamerican?feature=results_main

ANCIENT TREES AND THE MOON

Here is a little something to do with trees and performance writing. A bit of the oldest tree in Paris which is in a park just round the corner from Shakespeare & Co. book shop on the left bank in Paris. On the pavement was some left over tree material which created a pile of performance writing detritus. 

Herschel

Also let us not forget the "The Great Moon Hoax" which began on the 25^th August 1835. This refers to a series of six articles that were published in the New York Sun beginning on 25^th August 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and even civilization on the Moon. The discoveries were falsely attributed to Sir John Herschel, perhaps the best-known astronomer of his time.

LIBERATION OF PARIS

The Liberation of Paris (also known as the Battle for Paris) took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the surrender of the occupying German garrison on 25 August 1944. The Liberation of Paris started with an uprising by the French Resistance against the German garrison. On 24 August, the French Forces of the Interior (Forces françaises de l'intérieur, FFI) received reinforcements from the Free French Army of Liberation and from the U.S. Third Army under General Patton. This battle marked the liberation of Paris and the exile of the Vichy government to Sigmaringen in Germany.  This may not have much to do with performance writing, but Paris Libre is worth remembering.

THE PARTY'S OVER

The 24^th August was a difficult day for the Communist Party.

The Communist Control Act (68 Stat. 775, 50 U.S.C. 841-844) is a piece of United States federal legislation, signed into law by Dwight Eisenhower on the 24^th August 1954, which outlawed the Communist Party of the United States and criminalized membership in, or support for the Party or "Communist-action" organizations and defined evidence to be considered by a jury in determining participation in the activities, planning, actions, objectives, or purposes of such organizations.

There was much controversy surrounding the Act. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and its Director, the famed J. Edgar Hoover, opposed the bill on the count that it would have forced the Communist movement underground. In addition, the Michigan Law Review argued that the politically charged Act was plagued by a number of constitutional problems which would have undermined its effectiveness. The Yale Law Journal lauded the Act as the “most direct statutory attack on internal communism yet undertaken [by 1955] by Congress,” but stressed the “haste and confusion of the Act’s passage” which led to many “vague and ambiguous provisions.”  The incongruity of its provisions, a grave constitutional defect, was in part attributed to obscure language. For example, the nature of the “rights, privileges, and immunities” to be terminated by the Act was never explicitly stated as relating to state or federal jurisdiction. Also, the Yale Law Journal underlined a number of instances during which a literal interpretation of key passages would have caused entire sections to fall because of the use of comprehensive, unspecific language. McAuliffe notes that, because of these complications, the Act was never “used as a major weapon in the legislative arsenal against Communism,” apart for two minor cases in the states of New York and New Jersey.

On the 24^th August 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Communist rule effectively ended when Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the CPSU and advised the Central Committee to dissolve. Shortly afterward, the Supreme Soviet suspended all Party activities on Soviet territory. On that same Day the Ukraine declared itself independent from the Soviet Union.