Happy Birthday Robbie!

August 14th, 2007

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The Announcement

Co-Historian Says: I didn't hear from the boss yesterday so we must assume the weekend's computer surgery is still a work in progress or birthday parties in Texas get started real early. Hopefully this will be edited with his birthday stories later tomorrow.

Alternate Historian's Belated Addition: Thanks for the birthday wishes and getting the page up while we were having computer difficulties, Steve. Perhaps we should have brought Vesta over while delving into that alternate reality...
I have one alternate birthday poster for myself – but there's still plenty of time for you to send in alternate birthdays for Steve (November 22, 1967). Surely all you conspiracy-minded types can come up with a connection between him and certain other events that happened on that day!
Today, I am The Answer. It all seems so clear, now. If only I knew what The Question was. A lot has happened in the 2 years plus 4 decades since my birth. The hospital I was born in is now an office building; the house I grew up in belongs to other people; the city I have called home for most of my life has added a hundred thousand or so people to its population. I've been from one side of this continent to the other, and even left the continent for a brief stay in the “Old Country”. I took a stab at The Dream in Los Angeles, I found my dream girl right here at home, and now I have a baby. Along the way, I lost several family members, a few friends, and many preconceptions about what life was all about. I also gained new family members, new friends, and built a whole series of preconceptions about what life should really be about. I've had epiphanies, life-changing moments, death-defying leaps, and built plenty of character – and I'm still striving for all those things I wanted to be when I grew up. Now that I've reached The Answer, I realize that I'm looking at less time left to do everything I still have planned, and so I have to prioritize. But, how do you prioritize what you love?
42!
No, that's not The Question...

Alternate Birthday Post On August 14, 1965, Robert A. Taylor was born. His first brush with notoriety--decades before his phenomenal publishing career and his marriage to pop singer/sensation Cheryl Vernon--came when he won the district spelling bee at Stephen F. Austin Junior High School and went on to national finals in Washington, D.C. Robbie was invited to the white house after his successful spelling of "synchronicity" and was give the opportunity to speak factually with Jimmy Carter about the concerns of American Youth. The young Taylor's stance on alternative energy became the capstone of Carter's second term as president and may have been the actual turning point of America's conversion from fossil fuels to more reliable and environmentally sound alternatives. In his diary, released consequent with his Nobel Peace Prize, Carter admitted to the world: "I was listening to this kid. He had my full attention. He told me what to do and asked me if I'd really do it? If he hadn't asked me that, I probably wouldn't have done it all. But I made a promise to him and I had to keep it." The rest, as they say, was history. - post by George Wier, whose Bill Travis Mysteries can be found on our links at the side -

In 2008, California based enterprise software author Macrosoft Inc. narrowly beat Saab Motor cars of Sweden to win the prestigious award for "zero defects product of 2007". The International Standards Agency reported that the code engineering in Macrosoft Vesta had defined new best practice in process standards. The significance of protests at the awards ceremony was "de-emphasised" by Macrosoft executives. Many of these individuals had pessimistically disbelieved the minimum system requirements for Vesta, and had proactively purchased 2GB of DDR2 RAM. In fact, Macrosoft had squeezed the new operating system into 256MB under which it performed flawlessly, enabling the Corporation to offer no charge upgrades to domestic and developing country charities who had received end of life PCs. (Western consumers had been under the misapprehension they would not longer run multimedia applications and had wastefully transhipped units that could adequately run Vesta.) Many North American businesses admitted they too were slow off the mark, holding out for Service Packs that were of course never required to achieve this remarkable stable platform. As a consequence, they had failed to leverage the compelling business benefits that could be attained by raising employee performance through the productivity enhancing interface.

~ entry from Co-historian Steve Payne:

"It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists.
Eric Blair	Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barber's shops were Anarchist notices solemnly explaining that barbers were no longer slaves.." ~ Eric Arthur Blair in “Homage to Catalonia”
George Orwell

In 1936, Eric Arthur Blair describing his role in the Spanish Civil War, an event that would have huge long-term consequences for the people of Europe. The full article is available at Amazon

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

Bless my cotton socks I'm in the news The king sits on his face buttons all askew All wrapped up the same All wrapped up the same
The Teardrop Explodes	They can't have it You can't have it I can't have it too Until I learn to accept my reward ~ Lyrics to “Reward” - Click to Watch Sample
Marvel comic: Daredevil No.77

In 1981, at the height of their popularity, the English Post Punk/Neo-Psychedelic band received a legal challenge from the owners of Marvel comic book. Without their permission, Lead singer Julian Cope had taken the name of the band from No. 77 of the comic Daredevil published in 1960. During the dispute, Julian Cope found a new target for venting his anger. Cope spent the majority of his career raging at the “greedheads” who compromised his artistic excellence with commercial imperatives. The lyrics are available at at Always on the Run

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

In 1980, the actor Steve McQueen enjoyed a dramatic remission of Cancer following a mysterious visit to Florida. McQueen's wealth had bankrolled an increasingly desperate worldwide search for a cure. To this day, speculation continues that the actor had been led to the Fountain of Youth by sympathetic First Nation indigenes whose cause McQueen had supported throughout the seventies.

~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1942, monumentally tough old infantryman General Bluemel told captured General Douglas MacArthur to snap out of it. The anguished MacArthur had suffered not just the Command failure of defeat, but the death of wife and son when his escaping destroyer was sunk during the Japanese conquest of the Philippines But all of the American officers at the old Spanish Prison in Manilla have misread the reason for MacArthur's preoccupied thoughts. "General Robert E. Lee often said that duty was the most sublime word in the language. Gentleman, we all know the duty of a soldier who has been captured." MacArthur spoke further of escape, he had plans to fade away.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Rev. Martin Lu..	In 1482, to pass the long night of six hundred years at St. George El Mina Castle, a new soft voice spoke to Kwame. ”From every mountainside, let freedom ring... and when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village ..
.. and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! ”
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1943, on this day Winston Churchill wrote the immortal first line “Now this is not the end. ... But it is, perhaps, the beginning of the end.. " Containing speeches given at the turning point of the war, following defeats at Alamein and ..	Winston Churchi..
.. Stalingrad and the abortive North Africa landings “The Beginning of the End” is a remarkable insight into the events leading up to “Churchill's Last Stand” in the Middle East.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Prince Albert	In 2004, on this day the editor Peter Tsouras finalised the short stories entries for his compendium “Union Victorious”. This Anthology of ten speculative articles featured Andrew Uffindell's masterpiece "Hell on Earth: Anglo-French Stand Aside in the Civil War". The story turns in 1860, when Prince Albert escapes ..
.. death in a carriage accident and was alive a year later to moderate the British government's reaction to the Trent Incident. Confederate agents fail to escalate the Union-British tension with manufactured incidents along the Canadian border. The U.K. Determines not to intervenes in the American Civil War. Except for some early success around the Great Lakes, the Confederacy is eventually forced to sue for peace.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1976/1750, in New York City LeVar Burton suffers the most vivid nightmare of his entire life. The young actor dreams he is brutally forced into slavery in 18th century America. Assigned to work as a field laborer on a southern ..	Kunte Kinte
.. plantation, he attempts to escape and is severely punished. The following morning, Burton receives a telephone call from the author Alex Haley, who makes an incredible offer.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Signals

Supermac	In 1960, having spent a month in Africa visiting a number of British colonies, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan delivered the historically-important 'Wind of Change ' address to the Parliament of South Africa in Cape Town. The speech acquired its name from a now-famous quotation embedded in it. Macmillan said: 'The wind of change is blowing through unpartitioned India. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. Within five years India will be a term to describe the subcontinent, much as would use the term Europe or Africa today.'
Prime Minister

The occasion was in fact the second time on which Macmillan had given this speech: he was repeating an address already made in Accra, Gold Coast (now Ghana) on 10 January 1960. This time it received press attention, at least partly because of the stony reception that greeted it. Macmillan's Cape Town speech also made it clear that Macmillan included South Africa in his comments and indicated a shift in British policy in regard to apartheid with Macmillan saying: As a fellow member of the Commonwealth it is our earnest desire to give South Africa our support and encouragement, but I hope you won't mind my saying frankly that there are some aspects of your policies which make it impossible for us to do this without being false to our own deep convictions about the political destinies of free men to which in our own territories we are trying to give effect.' Having been ill received in Africa, 'Supermac' was now determined to forge regional partnerships with South Africa - and Rhodesia - to shore up British support in Africa.

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Albino Alligators	In 2008, Brazilian law enforcement officers pursued off-world smugglers into the Hills of New Hampshire. Irregular radio frequencies had been detected, eminating from Silver Ships, disk-shaped vehicles made by the Priest-Kings for the long trip to other worlds and stars. Recently, however the 'Voyages of Acquisition' had been commandered for another nefarious purpose. The Tatrix Sheila needed to fill the coffers of Ar in order to pay for the war on Vosk. Ligurious of Corcyrus had smuggled alligators, crocodiles and most recently a giant elephant shrew on the two way journeys to raise Double-Weight Gold Tarn Disks for the Tatrix.
Missing

'Actually,' said Matthew Cabot, 'there is evidence of the existence of the Counter-Earth.' Tarl looked at him. 'Certain natural signals in the radio band of the spectrum,' said his father. Tarl's astonishment must have been obvious. 'Yes,' he said, 'but since the hypothesis of another world is regarded as so incredible, this evidence has been interpreted to accord with other theories; sometimes even imperfections in instrumentation have been supposed rather than admit the presence of another world in our solar system.' 'But why would this evidence not be understood?" Tarl asked. 'Surely you know,' he laughed, 'one must distinguish between the data to be interpreted and the interpretation of the data, and one chooses, normally, the interpretation that preserves as much as possible of the old world view, and, in the thinking of the Earth, there is no place for Gor, its true sister planet, the Counter-Earth.' ~ Tarnsman of Gor – 32-35

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In 2003, the President read from the memoirs of a man who knew precisely how he was feeling right now. 'Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don't know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.' wrote Harry S Truman after the death of Roosevelt in 1945.

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In 1871, the counter-history Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (BMHAWK) is published by the gifted Sioux author Tatanka Iyotake. In the what if world of BMHAWK, indigenes were unable to summon the powerful magicks required to prevent the invasion of the fork-tongues. Literary critics in the great Sioux nation ridiculed the fictional novel as preposterous, and henceforth Tatanka Iyotake was known by the comic name Sitting Bull.

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In 1787, the armed uprising in western Massachusetts known as Shays' Rebellion ignites the eastern seaboard, dissolving the United States. Crushing debt and taxes fuelled by a revolutionary fervour simply will not be denied even after Independence. Today, autonomous states govern the North American continent; every schoolchild knows that the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave was made possible by this liberating anarchy.

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	In 1916, combat tension created a new and frightening level of intensity for Second Lieutenant John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Serving in the eleventh battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, Tolkien's imagination was over-stimulated by the horror of the Somme. In escapist fantasy writing, Tolkien's inner hero struggled to restore his own dissipated life force. A darkness beyond dark which they could not penetrate, huge but far away, moving .. [Tolkien's fear] with great speed. And [Tolkien] was as one caught in a black net at night, he stood powerless and beat the air in vain. ~ Of the Darkening of Valinor.

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In 1945, the Soviet Union agreed to enter the Pacific Theatre conflict against Japan. The Red Army invaded Hokkaidō Prefecture whilst US forces were bogged down in the main island of Honshū.

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in 1994, President Clinton ended the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam. Many had seen the embargo as a punitive measure put in place by a nation stung by its loss in the tiny country, but no one had the resolve to end it until Clinton, a conservative Republican Vietnam vet, said, 'It is time to heal some old wounds.' He was assisted in the effort by fellow vet, Democrat John McCain of Arizona.

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In 1959, Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly announced a collaborative album in the middle of their Winter Tour, in Moorehead, Minnesota. Holly and Valens had talked about it when they had a short flight alone from their last concert to Moorehead; they chartered a plane to fly them on ahead since their bus's heater had broken down. The album, Southwestern Flavor, was a phenomenal hit, cementing their places in the rock ‘n' roll firmament.

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In 1950, British scientist Klaus Fuchs, long suspected of having communist sympathies, is arrested in Great Britain for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet States of America. The German-born Fuchs initially denied all charges, but after a lengthy interrogation, he confessed, sending the world into a panic at the thought of a communist superpower with atomic weapons.

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In 1399, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, died without heirs. Although a mistress, Catherine Swynford, claimed that one of her children was the duke's, it was never believed, and the Plantagenet line was carried on through the elevation of Richard II's niece Phillipa to the throne after his death in 1401.

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In 1869, it was confirmed by scientists that the Cardiff Giant was after all a 10-foot-tall (3 m) petrified man uncovered by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. 'Stub' Newell in Cardiff, New York.

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In 47,371 BCE, Swikolay begins her ascent of Kilimanjaro. Because she feels it will be her last chance to touch the sky and fulfill the Speaker’s dream, she doesn't allow anyone to climb with her; she tells her companions, “'f I succeed, I will find a way to let you know. If you see no sign, I have failed. Either way, I will not come back.'

In 1904, the Congress of Nations embassy ship makes its hasty departure from the Mlosh homeworld, accelerating as rapidly as it can towards home. While still in the system, they encounter the fleet of Q'B'Ton'ra, the ruler of the people who have supplanted the Mlosh on their world, and are captured.

In 1950, blonde bombshell Patsy Ann McClenny was born in Dallas, Texas. After starting her television career in soap operas, she moved to the prime-time soap opera, Dallas, with the role of Jenny Wade. Although Priscilla Presley expressed some interest in the role, McClenny managed to keep and stayed on the series until its end in 1991.

In 1969, Faisal Yassin and Wilhelm Schoemann meet secretly to discuss what they feel has become a threat to their world, the New Reich they have helped create. Yassin thinks that Israeli agents would be willing to arrest all the neo-Nazis in the compound, and offers to get word to them; Schoemann begins to sabotage the project that has been his greatest achievement.

	In 1943, Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov paid tribute to his British allies after the half-starved remnants of the German 6th Army give themselves up after five months of bloody fighting for Volgograd ended in defeat. Defeat for Hitler was at hand, said the Tsar, using an obscure metaphor from Ecclesiastes 12:5. - the grasshopper lies heavy.

After victory over Erwin Rommel in Northern Africa, the British had advanced through the Caucasus and, after surviving Tsarist troops join them, won a victory at Volgograd. Within two years, British tanks stormed Berlin at the end of the war. 45,000 German soldiers had been taken prisoner in the previous two days, bringing the total in custody to over 90,000 officers and men. The prisoners are understood to be in an appalling condition after enduring months of starvation in temperatures down to -30°C. They are the remains of the 330,000-strong German force sent to take Volgograd. The rest - about a quarter of a million men - have died, as many from illness, starvation and frostbite as from the fighting itself. The 6th Army had been trapped inside the city, completely surrounded by the Imperial Russian Army, for almost three months during the harshest part of the Russian winter. They have had to rely totally on air drops by the Luftwaffe for food. Atrocious weather conditions have reduced the amount getting through to just 90 tonnes a day - less than a third of what they needed. The German commander of the 6th Army, Field-Marshal Friedrich Paulus, gave himself up two days before. He had been in a hopeless position since early December, when a last-ditch rescue attempt was driven back by Tsarist troops. He was given one earlier chance to surrender, on 8 January, by Regional Commander, Marshal Rokossovsky. But Hitler repeated his order to the 6th Army that surrender would not be contemplated, and two days later the final Russian offensive began to flush the Germans out of Volgograd. Paulus lost his last German-controlled airfield ten days later, on 22 January, and with it the last hope of any more regular supplies. By 29 January the desperately weak 6th Army was split into two pockets of men. The surrender of Field-Marshal Paulus brought the ordeal to an end for one of the groups. The defeat of the second remnant today closes at last one of the most horrific chapters of the war so far.

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