Musicians

Ertzaintza

The Ertzaintza is the police force for the Basque Country. An Ertzaintza member is called an ertzaina and most eye catching when seeing one, is the red beret (or txapela).

The origins of the current Ertzaintza, can be traced back to the old municipal militias, which were popular organizations at the service of local bodies, created to satisfy the need for public safety. But it was not until the 19th century when the almost permanent police corps of a professional nature was created.

It was a response to the banditry caused by the continuous social and political upheaval occurring from the end of the 18th century and well into the 19th. The decisive argument for its configuration was the First Carlist War, when the Miqueletes of Biscay and Guipuzcoa and the Miñones of Alava commenced their activities.

On October 1, 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque Statute of Autonomy come into force, leading to the establishment of an autonomous government with actual authority over the provinces of Biscay and Guipuzcoa. One of the priorities of the new government was the re-establishment of public order.

When the war on the Basque front concluded, the Ertzaña was dissolved, and Franco's Nationalist regime pretended that this institution had never existed in the first place.

Having allied themselves with the losing Republican side, Biscay and Guipuzcoa were considered "traitor provinces" and most of their autonomy was annulled. However, since at the outbreak of the civil war Alava and Navarre had thrown their lot in with the Nationalists, the Miñones and Miqueletes continued on duty, with assignments such as traffic patrols and custody of the regional institutions.

The first officers were members of the Basque Nationalist Party. Although the law required that Ertzaintza commissioned officers had to be previous members of the Spanish army or the State police forces, this was often ignored.

This new police force, made up of Basque citizens, developed in an organized manner from 1982, and was progressively deployed starting from the countryside towards the cities.

The Ertzaintza is currently a fully-fledged police force, except for border control. The state police bodies have decreased their numbers in the Basque Country. Combating ETA and pressuring violent Basque nationalist organisations is also part of their remit.

Enrico Banducci and the Hungry I

Enrico Banducci (1922 – 2007) was an American impresario. 

Banducci operated the hungry i nightclub in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, where he launched the careers of Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Bill Cosby, Jonathan Winters, and Barbra Streisand, and featured Woody Allen and Dick Cavett before they were well-known, as well as countless folk singers.

The hungry i featured the original brick wall in the stage background, a staple for stand up comedy presentations ever since. Banducci bought the hungry i from its founder, Eric "Big Daddy" Nord, in 1950. Banducci later also started the Clown Alley hamburger stand as well as Enrico's Sidewalk Cafe on Broadway, a restaurant and jazz club that has since gone out of business.

He began wearing a beret after a health inspector insisted he cover his hair while running a food operation, and continued the practice to hide his eventual baldness. 

He bought the hungry i for $800 in borrowed money in 1948. Although he once calculated that he made over $10 million from his various projects, he spent it all on his lavish lifestyle. He spent time in jail, and was involved in a number of brawls. The hungry i went bankrupt at least once.

British Automobile Association

New uniforms for AA (Automobile Association), Leicester Square, London.
The (silent) video shows men seated answering emergency calls at AA headquarters, a large map with pin markers showing where breakdowns are located. 
At Fanum House in Leicester Square, a man on bicycle arrives wearing the original AA patrol uniform. 

We see the beret when an AA patrol mini-van pulls up at breakdown in a London street. The patrolman is wearing the new AA uniform (boiler suit and beret). The breakdown is only a boiled engine, he tops it up with water. 

Last, a man and two young women pose on steps of Fanum House wearing the new uniform. 
Date on dope sheet is 13/05/1969.

Uncovering WW2 Elite Training Centre

Achnacarry Castle, the ancestral home of the chiefs of Clan Cameron, was crucial to the allied campaign against the Axis powers during WW2.

The castle, about 15 miles north east of Fort William, was used to train elite commandos from Britain and the US as well as France, the Netherlands, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Belgium from 1942 to 1945.

The grounds are now being excavated. Earlier excavations have uncovered live ammunition, including bullets for captured German weapons. 

Instructors included Dutchman Cpl Martien van Barneveld, the tall figure wearing a beret pictured in a snow storm at the centre. A veteran of the Battle of Arnhem, he was known to his Dutch recruits as the Big Man of Achnacarry.

More than 25,000 men passed through Achnacarry from when the commando centre opened in 1942 and until it closed in 1946.

Photo's: Commando Veterans Archive

Harry Edmund Pritchett - Archaeologist and Artist

Island of Wight archaeologist and artist Harry Pritchett: a quiet self-contained man, with his beret and pointed beard (an unusual feature in the ‘Twenties), his appearance and demeanour indicated essentially what he was – an artist and scholar, albeit untrained and to a certain degree untutored.

Evidence of his skill as a wood-carver was to be found in the beautifully decorated oak chairs with which as a young man he had furnished his home.
When engaged in the graphic arts, Harry Pritchett did most of his work in water-colours.

The New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

The New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (NBPP) is a U.S.-based black political organization founded in Dallas, Texas, in 1989. Despite its name, NBPP is not an official successor of the Black Panther Party. Members of the original Black Panther Party have insisted that the newer party is illegitimate and have firmly declared, "There is no new Black Panther Party".

The New Black Panther Party identifies with the original Black Panther Party and claims to uphold its legacy. It also says that many others see the organization similarly.

Although the NBPP says it sees capitalism as the fundamental problem with the world and revolution as the solution, the new party does not draw its influences from Marxism or Maoism as the original party did. Instead, it promotes the Kawaida theory of Maulana Karenga, which includes black unity, collective action, and cooperative economics. 

Maruse Heath, seen here giving the middle finger to the camera, is a leader in the New Black Panther Party

The NBPP says it fights the oppression of black and brown people and that its members are on top of current issues facing black communities across the world. Also, it notes that not all of its members are members of the Nation of Islam, although the group acknowledges universal spirituality practices within the organization.

Over time, many groups subscribing to varying degrees of radicalism have called for the "right to self-determination" for black people, particularly US blacks. Critics of the NBPP say that the group's politics represent a dangerous departure from the original intent of Black Nationalism; specifically, that they are starkly anti-white, and also anti-Semitic. The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the NBPP as a "black racist" hate group. Even the mildest critics of the organization have said that the NBPP's provocative brand of black supremacy undermines other civil rights efforts.

Roger Duff's Moas

Roger Shepherd Duff was born in Invercargill on 11 July 1912.

At Otago he studied anthropology under H. D. Skinner, who was to become both mentor and colleague. It was not possible to take anthropology to an advanced level and Duff therefore majored in education, the only social science subject available. His MA thesis, on the sociology of Tuahiwi Maori, reflected his early interest in Maori culture.

From 1935 to 1937 Duff worked as a cadet in the Samoan Public Service. He had intended to undertake a social anthropological study, but this proved impossible. The two years in Samoa fostered his interest in Polynesian culture and character; he learned some Samoan, and collected artefacts now in Canterbury Museum. In 1938 he was appointed ethnologist at Canterbury Museum.

His first research project, from 1939 onwards, was the excavation of well-preserved complete moa skeletons at Pyramid Valley in North Canterbury. This was followed by his excavation, initially with a schoolboy assistant, Jim Eyles, at the archaeological site of Wairau Bar in Marlborough in 1942 and over many subsequent years. The artefacts uncovered there allowed Duff to establish conclusively that the Moa-hunters represented an early Maori culture. 

The Whistling Language of Aas in the Ossau Valley

Aas is the Occitan name of a French village of about a hundred inhabitants in the commune of Eaux-Bonnes, Ossau valley, the historical province of Haut-Béarn.

Its shepherds maintained a whistled language until the 20th century. According to Graham Robb, no outsiders knew of the language until a 1959 TV program mentioned it. 

Whistles were up to 100 decibels, and were used for communication by shepherds in the mountains and by women working in the fields. 

During the Nazi occupation the language was used to ferry refugees across the Spanish borders.

Role Models for Boineros

Jean-Pierre Arripe

Jean-Baptiste Charcot

Earl de Blonville

Eknath Easwaran

Bunny Rugs

Michael Glover

The Moore-McCormack Lines

The Moore-McCormack Lines was a series of companies operating as shipping lines, operated by the Moore-McCormack Company, founded in 1913 in New York CIty. It ceased trading on its buy-out in 1982. The founders were Albert V. Moore and Emmet J. McCormack.

From a small start with one ship, the SS Montara (intended to be a shipment of dynamite from Wilmington, Delaware to Rio de Janeiro in, Brazil; but, with the load not ready, the ship took coal from Norfolk, Virginia to Aroostook County, Maine before returning for the dynamite). The ship was the first US line ship into Brazil in 26 years, causing a sensation. It had been built in 1881, and was retired after this trip.

The company then acquired various small steamers, including a Great Lakes vessel renamed Mooremack, which were operated profitably during World War I. Additionally, chartered ships including passenger ships added to the South American runs, that by 1919 included Recife in Pernambuco, Bahia, Santos, Montevideo and Buenos Aires.

The USA's entry into World War II brought various opportunities for Mooremack, along with many of its ships being taken into US Navy service.

Mooremack was also involved in the Korean War. Notably, its cargo ship SS Meredith Victory rescued some 14,000 refugees from Hungnam in December 1950.

Interesting detail: Mooremack issued their own (French made) berets.