December 6

Well hello, sailor!  Welcome to December 6.  Away we go!

If you live in the land of Rus, it's shaping up to be a bad winter in 1240, and "General Winter" ain't gonna be much help.  The Mongols are coming, and like so many of the steppe dwellers, a little snow and cold isn't a big deal to them.  Of course, the people of Rus had already learned this lesson, but this is pretty much the end, as Kiev falls.  Batu sets up there with the Golden Horde, and Russia is a servant for a couple hundred years.  It's notable that some of the Russians had learned the necessary lesson of dealing with the Mongols:  Surrender is in fact "an option".  In fact, it's about the only way to survive.

Happy birthday to Quito, Ecuador; founded on this date by the Spanish.  'Twas 1534, 'twas. 

Happy birthday to yet another inanimate object!  This one is the Encyclopedia Britannica, first published in 1768.  In Britain, by the way.  In case you didn't get that. 

In 1790, the US Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia, thus opening up lots of space for crooked politicians in New York.  It takes about 150 years, but in the end the UN arrives to fill that gaping hole of corruption. 

It's in 1933 that we see the great question of the year 1933.  A federal judge is asked to decide whether James Joyce's book "Ulysses" is obscene.  Ultimately, he rules it's not obscene.  Just weird and boring.  Neither of which is against the law. 

In 1956, the Olympics host the famous "Blood in the Water" match.  It's water polo, and this match is between the USSR, and Hungary.  Since it's 1956, the Hungarians have some feelings about the Soviets.  They were still a bit irked about the whole invasion and slaughter of innocent people while destroying any semblance of independence.  The Soviets were pissed about the whole revolting and trying to overthrow our puppet government angle.  In the end, the Hungarians, who had previously won gold medals, won the match.  It was, as they say, a bit "chippy" on both sides, with punches being thrown, taunting, and all the things that athletes do to get an edge.  A Soviet player punched an opponent, who bled a bit.  Not enough to make the water turn red like a Comintern meeting, but a little.  At which point the crowd also got chippy, and the match was called.  Oh, and Hungary won another gold medal. 

Montreal shows what a bunch of wusses men can possibly be on this date, in the infamous École Polytechnique Massacre.  A guy walks into a classroom at the school carrying a gun.  He orders all the men out of the room.  They go, he locks the door, and then he proceeds to murder 14 women, while the men sit outside wondering where their testicles are.  The gunman is named Marc Lépine, though his birth name was Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi, so he was not really French.  It's of course a hate crime, and an issue of violence against women.  Mark Steyn did an article reviewing a movie about it- the movie apparently explored the hurt feelings of one of the men who did nothing as his girlfriend was killed (by the way, did I mention that after shooting all the women in the first classroom, the killer walked outside and went right past the men?)  Ah, the glories of a society where men are not allowed to be men, but rather women with slightly different pieces.  Grr. 

And on that humiliating note for all men, we have to finish.  And ponder a society and culture where men would rather do nothing than protect women from a screwed up loser.