PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR MAY 16

[Mark Thibodeau]

On this day in *1918*, the United States Congress passes the *Sedition Act*,
which extended the *Espionage Act* of 1917 to cover a broader range of
offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the
government or the war effort in a negative light, or interfered with the
sale of government bonds. Basically, these laws made criticism of the
American government an offense punishable by hefty fines and/or
incarceration. The Espionage Act (an umbrella law that covered the later
Sedition Act) was repealed by Congress in December of 1920. Democrat *Woodrow
Wilson* was President during both enactment and repeal.

*****

On this day in *1943*, after 28 days of bloody fighting, armed resistance
by Jews in the Warsaw ghetto comes to an end as Nazi soldiers overwhelm the
area.


On this day in *1988*, a report issued by United States' Surgeon General *C.
Everett Koop* states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar
to those of heroin and cocaine. To be perfectly honest... he's very wrong
about that.

*****

On this day in *1991*, *Queen Elizabeth II* becomes the first British
monarch to ever address the United States Congress. She spends most of the
speech congratulating President *George Herbert "Poppy" Walker Bush* on his
magnificent handling of the Gulf War in Iraq.

*****

On this day in *2005*, *Newsweek* magazine retracts a story in which it was
claimed that investigators had found evidence the *Quran* was desecrated by
interrogators at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The story
had sparked deadly protests in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Of course,
despite the retraction, it's clear that the desecration did take place -
that, and far, far worse - and that *Newsweek* cracked under pressure by *The
Powers That Be.*
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