Paracultural Calendar for June 6

[Mark Thibodeau]

<http://thearrowsoftruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Krakatoa-Tsunami.jpg>
On this day in *1884*, ten inches of snow falls in New England. This was
the "year without a summer," thanks to all the crap thrown into the
atmosphere by the massive explosion of the island of *Krakatoa*, near
Indonesia. Don't bother looking for it on a map... it blew up real good,
and it ain't there no more.

***

On this day in *1933*, the first drive-in theater opens in Camden, New
Jersey, thus creating a market for films of a certain quality, not to
mention behavior the likes of which nostalgic dreams are made of.

***

On this day in *1934*, US President *Franklin D. Roosevelt* signs the
Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the*Securities and Exchange
Commission*… for all the good it’s done us.

***

On this day in *1984*, one of the most addictive and best-selling video
games of all time is unleashed on an unsuspecting public by sinister Soviet
conspirators: *TETRIS!* Yes, that’s right, TETRIS was a global communist
conspiracy designed to waste hour after hour of bourgeois capitalist time
stacking imaginary blocks in an imaginary hole… and it WORKED!

***

On this day in *1985*, the grave of *Wolfgang Gerhard* – who drowned while
swimming in 1979 – is exhumed in Embu, Brazil. These remains are later
proven to be those of *Josef Mengele*, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death".

***

On this day in *1988*, President *George Herbert Walker "Poppy" Bush *promises
to provide reparations and an official apology to the thousands of
Americans of Japanese descent who were held in work camps for the duration
of World War II. In May of 1989, Ol' Blurry Lips breaks his promise.

***

On this day in *2002*, in a successful attempt to steal media coverage from
FBI agent *Coleen Rowley*’s *testimony and concurrent media blitz
<http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=4f1e0899533f7680e78d03281fe094ed&wit_id=4f1e0899533f7680e78d03281fe094ed-2-1>*,
the *Bush* administration counters with a public relations event of its
own. The same day that Rowley testifies, President Bush announces the
proposed creation of the new, Cabinet-level *Department of Homeland
Security* - an agency proposed by Democrats and, up till then, one that
Bush has vehemently opposed, preferring instead to make any such agency a
subsidiary office within the White House. It will be the largest
reorganization of the government since the implementation of the 1947
National Security Act, when the *Defense Department*, *National Security
Council*, and *CIA* were created. To ensure that Rowley’s testimony would
not dominate the headlines, Bush also gives an evening speech on prime-time
television, again announcing the new department. In that speech, Bush calls
the DHS the latest effort in the US’s “titanic struggle against terror.”
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20150606/f50eabd5/attachment.html>