Getting A Jump On Pride Month One Of My Favorite LGBTQ+ History Channels

 

I like Hugh Hagius' videos about LGBTQ+ history.   I like his research and writing and I like his plain, no production gimmicks style.   I will probably post a number of them in the next month 

And Now The Poetry Corner - Posted for reasons I'm not going to disclose

In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus

by X. J. Kennedy

In a prominent bar in Secaucus one day

Rose a lady in skunk with a topheavy sway,

Raised a knobby red finger—all turned from their beer—

While with eyes bright as snowcrust she sang high and clear:

“Now who of you'd think from an eyeload of me

That I once was a lady as proud as could be?

Oh I'd never sit down by a tumbledown drunk

If it wasn't, my dears, for the high cost of junk.

“All the gents used to swear that the white of my calf

Beat the down of the swan by a length and a half.

In the kerchief of linen I caught to my nose

Ah, there never fell snot, but a little gold rose.

“I had seven gold teeth and a toothpick of gold,

My Virginia cheroot was a leaf of it rolled

And I'd light it each time with a thousand in cash—

Why the bums used to fight if I flicked them an ash.

“Once the toast of the Biltmore, the belle of the Taft,

I would drink bottle beer at the Drake, never draft,

And dine at the Astor on Salisbury steak

With a clean tablecloth for each bite I did take.

“In a car like the Roxy I'd roll to the track,

A steel-guitar trio, a bar in the back,

And the wheels made no noise, they turned over so fast,

Still it took you ten minutes to see me go past.

“When the horses bowed down to me that I might choose,

I bet on them all, for I hated to lose.

Now I'm saddled each night for my butter and eggs

And the broken threads race down the backs of my legs.

“Let you hold in mind, girls, that your beauty must pass

Like a lovely white clover that rusts with its grass.

Keep your bottoms off barstools and marry you young

Or be left—an old barrel with many a bung.

“For when time takes you out for a spin in his car

You'll be hard-pressed to stop him from going too far

And be left by the roadside, for all your good deeds,

Two toadstools for tits and a face full of weeds.”

All the house raised a cheer, but the man at the bar

Made a phonecall and up pulled a red patrol car

And she blew us a kiss as they copped her away

From that prominent bar in Secaucus, N.J.

If That Kind of "Protected Speech" Is OK For Everyone Else Why Is It Wrong When Judges Are The Victims Of It?

 AS I SAY BELOW,  just about everything Judge Esther Salas says, I agree with.  I will not mention a few things I disagree with just now - but listen to what she is saying about the violence and harassment that is coming the way of judges because of Donald Trump and his allies lies and violence provoking language about them. 

Here's my comment on this video.

I agree with just about everything Judge Salas said, but I would add that it was the judges and, especially, the "justices" who decided that these kinds of attacks were perfectly all right when it comes to them being made against other People. Whether they be politicians, especially, as it turns out Democratic politicians or teenagers who are victims of online harassment. There was a case in Massachusetts quite a while ago where a teenage girl was harassed and badgered and terrorized by girls at her high school and one of the girl's mother who was egging them on into committing suicide and when her mother tried to get redress she was told by the courts that her daughters assassins had a First Amendment "right" to drive her daughter to kill herself.* If the judges and "justices" had not made that interpretation of the First Amendment the kind of thing that she is rightly objecting to when it's judges who are the target of it would not be happening. You can't have that interpretation of the First Amendment and the kind of civility or even safety she is advocating.

* I haven't located the post I wrote at the time on that one but I did find one I found about a male nurse who frequented suicide blogs posing as a young woman, encouraging People to commit suicide online for his sexual pleasure. It was all about how he and lawyers said he had a "right" to do that. Here's a bit of what I wrote then:

Pretending he was a women half his age,* Dinkel trolled suicide websites (NB) and encouraged people to kill themselves in front of web cams for his sexual gratification. He’s suspected in at least five suicides and was believed to have encouraged as many as a hundred around the world. While pursuing his “suicide fetish (sic)” he worked as a nurse in hospitals and nursing homes. After years of doing this he was outed by Celia Blay, a 64-year-old woman with few technical skills, who tracked him down when police refused to become involved. The details of the case are pretty awful but even worse is the fact that the criminally degenerate Dinkel will likely get off without prosecution in the United States. As he has put it "Nothing is going to come of it, ... I've moved on with my life, and that's it." And, given the free speech fetish in our current legal culture, he’s probably right. As he moves on with his life, his victims will, of course, not. The law that St. Paul police used to finally stop him, for now, is likely to not be deemed to cover internet predators of his kind, encouraging people to kill themselves for his gratification on web-cams. If he never serves a sentence of a day, it wouldn’t be surprising. Here is how Jonathan Turley puts it: Turley said that if prosecutors file charges against Melchert-Dinkel, convicting him would be difficult, especially if the defense claims freedom of speech. The law professor said efforts to make it illegal to shout "Jump!" to someone on a bridge have not survived constitutional challenges. "What's the difference between calling for someone to jump off a bridge and e-mailing the same exhortation?" he said.

With all respect to Judge Salas, the judges and, especially, "justices" are now in a sewer they put the rest of us in. I only wish she would realize that what she wants for judges, they deny to the rest of American society.

I Also Got Some Flack

when I proposed taxing the endowments of places like Harvard and MIT and other rich, private institutions with enormous endowments and using the money to fund education for the poor and working class of Boston and other places.   But when Trump's robo-blonde designated liar, KKKaroline Leavitt talks about shutting down elite education because we need more electricians and plumbers,  I think it's in line to ask why that skank went to the Benedictine St. Anselm College - she went there on a softball scholarship, to tie in with the post below - instead of a vo tech where she might have learned to do something more productive than lying her face off for fascism.

I looked at the, no doubt St. Anselm maintained Wikipedia pages for the college and they list the lying fascist skank as one of their notable alumni.   They should be ashamed of having produced  such an amoral person, though I suppose like most of elite Catholic institutions, the same rules apply for them that some of them applied to organized criminals.  

Sports Are Healthy!

SINCE I GOT the kind of push back I knew I'd get when I again declared myself not a sports fan,   I thought I'd share this account of the good, clean, fun athletic competition is:

The teenager, identified in local media as Ryan Satterthwaite, died in hospital on Monday after playing a game of "run it straight" in Palmerston North.

The game has two players, one with a ball and the other the tackler, who tries to knock the other player down.

"Run it straight" has recently become popular as a viral online trend and has long been played in Australia and New Zealand.

"We would urge anyone thinking about taking part in a game or event like this to consider the significant safety and injury risks," Manawatū police spokesperson Ross Grantham said in a statement on Tuesday.

"While this was an impromptu game among friends, not a planned event, this tragic outcome does highlight the inherent safety concerns with such an activity."

I suppose it would have been OK if it had been one of the many deaths that have come about through organized games with coaches and rules and paying viewers and owners making money.   And if you think that that has nothing to do with this:

Mr Grantham added it was not a police matter, but officers will "continue to undertake enquiries on behalf of the coroner".

The match sees two players running head first towards each other over a 65-foot field without any protective equipment or kit.

It's even been endorsed by some professional rugby players, with England rugby player George Burgess, 33, winning £9,500 after competing in an Australian tournament, according to The Mirror.

Ryan was rushed to hospital by friends after the match on Sunday and died the following day.

One tournament, the Runit Championship League, described the game as the "fiercest, new collision sport".

Professor Patria Hume, an expert in sports science and injury prevention, said the sport is "a step backwards"

"This is a reckless and dangerous spectacle," she told the NZ Herald.

"The science is clear – repeated head impacts increase risk of long-term brain damage."

Run It Straight's founder, Christian Lesa, said community support remains strong despite backlash and said the game should only be played under strict and regulated conditions.

Again, I ask, so it's OK when someone dies or is maimed or suffers permanent brain damage so long as it's organized and,  I'm sure, someone is making money off of it. 

The nauseating, phony and ginned-up sentimentality and quasi-religious sanctity concerning "sports" has led the world into pretending it isn't what it is, sometimes ritualized, sometimes very actual violence as entertainment.   I merely said no one has ever been able to explain to me why I was supposed to care who won or who lost a game,  something that extends to everything from checkers to the phoniest, most sentimentalized and sanctified of shake-down con jobs, the Olympics and America's real religion, the NFL, but there are actually larger problems with sports.    

When I asked the guy who most consistently trolls me to explain to me why I should care, he listed with no explanation the long ago Brooklyn Dodgers,  The Mets (he's a NYC guy, I suspect those who live in other sports markets couldn't care less about the ghost of a team moved to Los Angeles a lifetime ago or the Mets) and mentioned a couple of famous players who,  I had to point out, where human beings, not sports.   A good part of why I don't like sports is because I do care about the lives and health and happiness of human beings and animals - don't get me started on sports that involve the abuse, harm and death of animals.   Such are also covered by "sports."  Bear and badger baiting were popular sports - bloody Queen Bess was a big fan -  as are dog and cock fighting.   

I am still awaiting some brighter sports fan to explain to me why I should care about it.   Though, that's a lie, I stopped waiting for that explanation about the time I was 12.  I do resent the near universal demand that I pretend to care about it and the idea that something is wrong with someone who doesn't like sports or find them interesting.   If someone told me they weren't interested in some part of the arts I care about,  I wouldn't figure they were morally depraved,  I'd have figured we liked different things.   The difference is that few to no artists produce artistic work that they want half of those who hear or see or participate in it to be unhappy.   That's built into sports.   In many of them along with a body count and lists of those maimed and injured, and corruption for profit, like, you know wars?   Some fun, huh?   I think there is something wrong with those who can watch People and animals getting killed or injured in some entirely unproductive and useless would-be entertainment with pleasure and no reflection on the morality of what they're getting pleasure from. 

Why don't I publish all of the neo-Nazi troll's comment?

BECAUSE AS HE almost always does, he slanders People and accuses me of saying things I've never said, often about things I never heard of.    I don't carry slander against other People.   If he didn't do that I might more often post his comments.   But, as I always have to point out, lying with bearing of false witness is the mother tongue of those on the right.   It's the start of why they are so consistently dangerous and evil.   Unlike the mainstream media and media in general, I won't be fair to fascists,  I won't be nice to Nazis and I despise anti-democrats of all kinds, on the fascist right and their near cousins on what only stupid people think are far removed from them on the left side of a stupidly written up graph.   There is egalitarian democracy and there is gangster government.  Only egalitarian democracy is a legitimate form of government, the rest of it is merely less bad to totally evil.  

It Could Get Worse

IF KRISTI NOEM ever finds out who Irma Grese was.   I can easily imagine her LARPing that role and Trump giving her a pardon for whatever crimes she committed while doing it and our insane Constitution letting them let her off the hook.   I can well imagine that happening under our legal system.  Especially under the Roberts Court and its unitary executive fascist model. 

They've identified, activated and weaponized every of the many defects in the United States Constitution.  Even some of the head-in-sand MSNBC lawyers are beginning to face the fact that the Constitution has been in a crisis for years now,  I'd say ever since Bush v Gore in 2000.  

Update:  I'm tempted to point out that SS Barbie was the governor of the once great state of South Dakota at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic and she was one of those who was the most irresponsible of all governors in the country,  among other things permitting the Sturgis Motorcycle rally to go on with an eye to the money that would bring in and, besides that,  it made her the Covid Queen of South Dakota, as one publication put it.  A star in MAGA world and, no doubt along with her considerable and extensive plastic surgeries,  got her the same kind of notice from Trump that a woman can get from him if she isn't a billionaire.   I think her recklessness with Peoples and animals lives is reason to think, given the right circumstances that she'd do what Irma Grese did.   

As it is, I think the Dakotas and Wyoming should either be forced into being one state cutting down the number of criminal idiots they send to the Senate down by four or they should be returned to territorial status.   South Dakota, at least, used to send someone like George McGovern to Washington,  now it sends criminal idiots like her to Washington. 

Memorial Day Radio Drama - Canadian Broadcast Corporation - Afganada

 Afganada

Afganada was one of the last radio dramas produced by the once very fine Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio Drama department.   I'm posting the first of three episodes you can find at Archive.org.   Apparently you can hear the entire series at i-tunes, though I haven't tried the link. 

It's a story of Canada's involvement in the United States' long war declared on the poor country because the country that financed and aided the terror attack on September eleventh was the rich dictatorship of Saudi Arabia,  which is now doing through Republicans and Trump some of what they wanted to do through financing and aiding that attack,  destroying America through buying Trump and Republicans.   America is its democracy or it is just another dirty, seedy nation state under oligarchic fascism, like the countries Trump went to this month expecting to get lots of money from them, which he did. 

In trying to decide what to post on the damaged and sullied and should be solemn holiday of Memorial Day,   I thought, given Trump's attacks on the best friend the United States has ever had,  it would be best to remember the Canadian and Afghan veterans of what was our war and our fight.   Canadians died in fighting and attacks, both military and civilians,  many were injured including those who sustained permanent injuries, many came back with the same range of health issues that others who answered America's call in what turned out to be the longest war in our history.   It should be remembered that the first Canadians killed in Afghanistan weren't killed by the Taliban or other factions on the ground there,  they were killed when the United States bombed a training exercise, the pilot thinking it was an enemy operation, the Tarnak Farm Incident.    Remember that when you hear Trump and Republican-fascists talking trash against Canada.