Year: 2007

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Saturday, August 20, 1881, Vol. 1, No. 2

January 14, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Vol. I BOSTON, MASS., SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1881. No. 2 “For always in thine eyes, O Liberty!Shines that high light whereby the world is saved’And though thou slay us, wewill trust in thee.”John Hay On Picket Duty About Progressive People Viva L’Association Internationale! Rise and Fall of “Free Religion” The Root of Despotism The Concord School The Revolutionary Congress Crumbs from Liberty’s Table
Anarchism

Our ideas are in everyone’s archives

January 13, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
From the Support from Unexpected Quarters Department: I’m a big fan of Archive.org’s moving pictures collection, but hadn’t spent a lot of time looking at their texts. There are some gems tucked away there, including: John Henry Mackay, The Anarchists; a Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century Sadakichi Hartmann, My Rubaiyat Both of these are, amusingly enough, sponsored by MSN. Other finds: Anna Bowman Dodd, The Republic of the Future, or, Socialism a Reality (1888) Laurence Gronlund, Our Destiny : the influence of socialism on morals and religion : an essay in ethics (1891) Jack London, […]
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Guinea-Pig Fleet: Hiroshima Tattoo

January 7, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
A little something from one of the other parts of my life: When I’m not researching and teaching, I work as a live sound tech and karaoke jockey at a local bar. I also do some electronic music, some of which is at least partially related to the stuff readers here are more familiar with: radical history, etc. Guinea-Pig Fleet is a more or less “ambient” project—but one that serves as a periodical cleansing of the brain when my research on modern warfare, technological risk and the like gets to that overwhelming point. The video below is a very abstract […]
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January 6: Anniversary of the Fifth Monarchist uprising

January 6, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
From the Wikipedia entry: . . . on January 6, 1661, 50 Fifth Monarchists, headed by a wine-cooper named Thomas Venner, made an effort to attain possession of London in the name of “King Jesus.” Most of the fifty were either killed or taken prisoner, and on January 19 and 21, Venner and ten others were hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason.> Also of interest: J. F. Maclear, New England and the Fifth Monarchy.
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John Cleves Symmes and the Hollow Earth

January 5, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
In 1818, John Cleves Symmes (1779-1829), nephew of the Ohio pioneer of the same name, announced to the world that the earth was hollow, in habitable, and accessible at the poles. He was not the first nor the last hollow earth theorist, but he was certainly among the most interesting, in part because he advanced his theories during when polar exploration was an active concern. Symmes presented the bare facts of his “theory of concentric spheres and polar voids” in a short piece (reproduced below) entitled Light gives light, to light discover—”ad infinitum.” Responses varied from scorn to enthusiasm, even […]
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Symmesonian, No. 1. (1824)

January 5, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Symmesonian, No. 1. Having been informed Mr. Editor, that your countrymen always require of every person when first introduced to them, a regular account of himself—including his name, his business, whence he came, where he is going, &c.; &c.; I shall commence this communication by informing you that I am desirous of concealing my name, and that all other matters concerning myself will be revealed to you in the course of several communications which I intend making. At present, I shall merely inform you whence I came, and my business here. My country is that part of the concave surface […]
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Symmesonian, No. 2. (1824)

January 5, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Symmesonian, No. 2.TO THE SYMMESONIAN. As you seem desirous of concealing your name, and announcing only the country or nation from which you came, I am under the necessity of addressing you by the vague appellation which you have assumed. The primary object of your visit to these upper regions appears to be, to determine the truth or falsity of certain flying reports amongst the northern aborigines prejudicial to our character as honest men and good Christians; and moreover, the probability or improbability of our furnishing Captain Symmes with an outfit sufficient to enable him to pay your country a […]
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Symmesonian, No. 3 (1824)

January 5, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
Symmesonian, No. 3. The reasonings of S. R. in your last, could not fail to convince me of the justice of the course adopted with respect to your Indian neighbours, and the propriety as well as probability of the same course being pursued towards the Symmesonians. I was aware that, in “extinguishing the Indian title” to lands, you always found it expedient to extinguish the Indians also; and expected no other course to be pursued towards us. But however just and proper this might be, we could never be brought to relish it heartily, and I have been endeavouring to […]
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Report on Lab Reports

January 4, 2007 Shawn P. Wilbur
What’s a plan if you don’t change it a few times on the way to fruition? After weighing the costs in time and hassle of trying to put the new Lab Reports together as a DIY ‘zine, I’ve decided to take the project to Lulu, which seems to be the most inexpensive and flexible of the low-to-no-initial-cost print on demand operations (hardcover options, ebook options, audio download options, etc). My goal with this project is to make as much material available in as inexpensive and usable a form as possible. I expect volumes to range between 350 and 500 pages […]