February 2008
-- Posted by OtterVomit on Thursday, February 21 2008
SI BEANPOLE SPREAD
So it was pointed out to me that Sports Illustrated has put their much celebrated swimsuit spread online. You can scroll through the models until you find one you like, then you can view their pics.
Well, there's just one problem. Not a single one of these ladies looks at all attractive to me. They all look like they were collected from various 3rd world countries suffering from severe famine. Call me crazy but if I can easily recognize a woman's skeletal structure, she's just not attractive to me. Most of these women look like they would break in half if I tried to make the beast with two backs with any of them.
Next year's SI swimsuit stars
TIME TO LET UP ON CUBA...AND ELSEWHERE
The exit of Fidel Castro from power presented the United States with an opportunity to end their 45-year long trade embargo on Cuba - an opportunity that was flatly refused.
Just a question - why? Because Cuba is a cruel Communist dictatorship, and we LOVE FREEDOM! YAY! So when does the embargo against China start? Better yet, when will we stop borrowing money from China to prop up Musharaff - another military dictator - in our quest to "promote Democracy in the Middle East?"
This embargo is a prime example of what is wrong with American foreign policy. You either do things our way or we will inflict poverty, famine and death upon your people. In the meantime, Joe Sixpack has a stroke when he sees the American flag being burned on TV by these same people - and thinks anti-American sentiment is caused by a hatred of freedom and prosperity, instead of a yearning for it.
This insipid embargo doesn't do a damned thing to the Cuban government. It didn't do a damned thing to Saddam for 20 years and it won't do a damned thing to whoever else we decide to blockade. The United States has done nothing but hurt the Cuban people and American businesses by restricting the ability to freely trade. We need to increase engagement with the Cuba instead of continuing a foreign policy that hurts both Americans and Cubans alike.
You want to promote freedom around the world? You won't do it by selectively denying it to others. Of course, we all know American foreign policy really has absolutely nothing to do with promoting freedom or Democracy.
A DAY SADLY NO LONGER REMEMBERED
On this date in 1803, Britain hung its freedom-minded former governor of Belize - along with six others - for treason. Stricken from the annals of history by a tyrannical regime, its a story worth being heard.
Edward Despard was a decorated and well-traveled Naval officer who served the British Empire in the Caribbean during the 1790's. While there his political views were influenced greatly by Thomas Paine. Despard regarded Paine's Rights of Man as "his Bible."
So it should be of no surprise that when he returned to Britain speaking these views, he was constantly harassed. He was arrested several times and held for years, despite no charges being filed against him. In late 1802 he was named by 'government informers' and disaffected soldiers as a member of a conspiracy engaged in a plot to seize the Tower of London along with the Bank of England, and assassinate King George III. The evidence was thin, but Despard was arrested and prosecuted by Attorney General Spencer Perceval, before Lord Ellenborough, the Lord Chief Justice. Despite a dramatic appearance by Lord Nelson as character witness on his behalf, Despard was found guilty by the jury of high treason, and sentenced, with six of his fellow-conspirators to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
This ought-to-be-memorable occasion lies half-lost in time's shifting sands, retrieved in part only by the oddity of being the last sentence of drawing and quartering handed down in Britain. The sentence was moderated to simple hanging and posthumous beheading - it was feared the cruel punishment might spark outrage among the citizens.
But there was much more to be said about Despard than his sentence.
It was tradition that public hangings were a somewhat jovial affair, with the crowd cheering and jeering and generally having a good ol' time. This was different. Most of the public believed Despard to be completely innocent, and thus believed they were seeing tyranny of the worst sort unfolding before their eyes. The usual Tom-Foolery was replaced by a solemn, angry silence.
This unique situation made another bit of tradition very interesting - and dangerous for the British crown. Despard was granted a chance to speak to the crowd before he swung from the gallows. Usually this was of little importance since the various roughians and scallowags facing execution would usually simply blurt out some nonsensical bit of profanity or angry rebuke. Despard was different, though. He was an intelligent man, a thoughtful man and worst of all, about to be a martyred man.
He stepped to the gallows and the noose was placed over his head. He requested permission to address the crowd. The sheriff agreed, however with the stipulation that if anything was said that might incite a ruckus, the lever would be pulled without hesitation and the speech would be cut off.
Despard did not have much to work with, but spoke nevertheless with a judicious combination of plain speaking and hidden meaning.
"Fellow Citizens,
I come here, as you see, after having served my country faithfully, honorably and usefully served it, for thirty years and upwards, to suffer death upon a scaffold for a crime of which I protest I am not guilty. I solemnly declare that I am no more guilty of it than any of you who may now be hearing me. Though His Majesty's ministers know as well as I do that I am not guilty, yet they avail themselves of a legal pretext to destroy a man, because he has been a friend to truth, to liberty and to justice, because he has been a friend to the poor and the oppressed. But, Citizens, I hope and trust, notwithstanding my fate, and the fate of those who no doubt will soon follow me, that the principles of freedom, of humanity, and of justice, will finally triumph over falsehood, tyranny and delusion, and every principle inimical to the interests of the human race."
This earned a warning from the sheriff. Despard nodded his understanding and fell silent. Then he raised his head and spoke once more. "I have little more to add," he concluded, "except to wish you all health, happiness and freedom, which I have endeavored, so far as was in my power, to procure for you, and for mankind in general."
The accounts of Despard's speech perfectly illustrate the paradox that the more witnesses are present at an event, the harder it is to establish exactly what happened. Robert Southey, the future Poet Laureate, was among the packed crowd; he records that "the mob applauded him while he spoke." Others maintained that his speech was received "in the most perfect silence."
At seven minutes to nine the signal was given to drop the platforms, beginning with Despard's. In the first unambiguous expression of their feelings since they had assembled, the crowd all removed their hats. The rope was jerked, the platform gave way; Despard uttered no sound and displayed no struggle. He clenched his hands in spasm twice, and then hung perfectly still as he was, in the words of one eye-witness chronicle, "launched into eternity."
Yet, as everyone was well aware, there was more to come. The executioner stepped back to make way for the surgeon with the dissecting knife. This was the part of the ritual which had barely been seen within living memory and, as soon became clear, had never previously been attempted by anyone present. The surgeon aimed at a joint in the neck vertebrae but missed it, and was soon reduced to nervous hacking. The executioner barged him out of the way and began twisting Despard's neck this way and that, a spectacle which filled everyone present with horror and anger. When Despard's head was eventually separated, the executioner picked it up by the hair, carried to to the edge of the parapet in his right hand and held it before the crowd. As he did so, he spoke the words which had for centuries marked the climax of the ceremony, but which were now ringing out for the first time over the modern world: "This is the head of a traitor: Edward Marcus Despard."
Robert Southey records that the crowd broke their silence at this point to hiss the executioner. Garbage was thrown. Arrests were made.
Britain was a step closer to freedom.
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