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homomenhommes · 23 days

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … April 29

1863 – C.P. Cavafy born (d.1933). Constantine P Cavafy was a major Greek poet who worked as a journalist and civil servant. He has been called a sceptic and a neo-pagan. In his poetry he examines critically some aspects of Christianity, patriotism, and homosexuality, though he was not always comfortable with his role as a nonconformist. He published 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. His most important poetry was written after his fortieth birthday.

He was born into a family of rich Greek merchants in Alexandria. In 1872, two years after his father's death depleted the family fortune, he went to England with part of his family and remained there between the ages of nine and sixteen.

They returned to Alexandria, but events leading to the bombardment of the city by the British drove them to Constantinople in 1882, where Cavafy remained until 1885, when he went back to the city of his birth and gained employment in the civil service.

Cavafy may have had his first gay experiences in Constantinople, but the details of his sexual life remain vague. He had no long-term companions, and if his erotic poems reflect his actual experiences, most of his sexual encounters must have been fleeting ones.

From 1891 to 1904 he published his poetry in broadsheet form, only for his close friends, receiving whatever acclaim mainly within the Greek community in Alexandria.

He lived alone in a rather seedy location in Alexandria, where he entertained guests and took part in Alexandrian literary life. Indeed, in Lawrence Durrell's novel series The Alexandria Quartet, he is considered the presiding poet of the city.

In his twenties and thirties, Cavafy tried his hand, unsuccessfully, at heterosexual love poems, but when he was forty years old, he began to be more comfortable with same-sex themes and produced a body of about fifty poems that has made him a significant inspiration for gay and bisexual writers.

Cadafi by Yannis Psychopedis

Although some of the poems indicate guilty feelings about sex and others portray a world of one-night stands in seedy quarters, the overall tone is one of acceptance of gay male sexuality and a recognition that personal and artistic creativity can spring from what the bourgeois world may consider decadent or unrewarding encounters.

Cavafy drew his themes from personal experience, along with an enormous knowledge of history, especially of the Hellenistic era. Many of his poems are either pseudo-historical, or seemingly historical, or accurately, but quirkily, historical. Uncertainty about the future, sensual pleasures, the moral character and psychology of individuals, homosexuality, and a fatalistic existential nostalgia are some of the defining themes.

He died of cancer of the larynx on April 29, 1933, his 70th birthday.

Since his death, Cavafy's reputation has grown. One of his greatest supporters was the author E M Forster, who did much to promote awareness of Cavafy's work in the English-speaking world. He is now considered one of the finest modern Greek poets and his poetry is taught at schools in mainland Greece and throughout the world in Universities.

1870 – UK: Thomas Boulton and Frederick Park were Stella and Fanny to their friends. They were drag queens who were arrested the night after a performance and charged "with conspiring and inciting persons to commit an unnatural offence". They appear in court in women's clothing. After the prosecution failed to establish that they had anal sex, which was then a crime, or that wearing women's clothing was in any sense a crime, both men were acquitted.

1904 – Wendell Sayers was the first Black attorney to be hired to work in the Colorado state attorney general’s office. Sayers’s specialty was in real estate.

Wendell Phillip Sayers was born in Nicodemus, Kansas—a town created after the Civil War specifically for ex-slaves. Wendell’s grandparents were all former slaves. Wendell was the adopted son of William L. Sayers and Sarah F. Bates. Following in his father’s footsteps, Wendell attended Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas, where he later also obtained his JD.

Wendell’s mother was an active member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and other organizations. When his father died in 1956, he left an estate of $115,000, the equivalent of more than a million dollars in 2019. Part of the estate was to be used to acquire suitable places and accommodations where people could find food and lodging without being rejected because of their race.

When Wendell was still a teen, he already knew he was gay. When his father found out about it, he took his son to the Mayo Clinic. He was “diagnosed” at the Mayo Clinic as a homosexual, and threatened with incarceration. That was an idle threat: while homosexual acts were illegal, you could not be arrested simply for being gay.

Wendell was too young to serve in World War I, too old for World War II (although in 1942, at age 37, he registered for the draft).

In 1945 Wendell started his private law practice in Denver. He worked on many civil rights and discrimination cases. In the 1960s he became the first Black assistant attorney general for the state of Colorado.

In the late 1950s he attended several meetings of the Denver chapter of the Mattachine Society, an early gay rights organization, as well as the Mattachine Society’s sixth annual national convention, which was held in Denver in September 1959.

He died on March 27, 1998.

Wendell was the first cousin, once removed, of noted Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers. In 1967, Gale and his teammate Brian Piccolo became the first interracial roommates on a professional football team. They became close friends until Brian died of cancer in 1970 — a story told in Gale’s autobiography I Am Third, which became the inspiration for the classic television film Brian’s Song.

1920 – The abstract expressionist artist Paul John Wonner was born on this date (d. 2008). Born in Tucson, Arizona, Wonner received a B.A. in 1952, an M.A. in 1953, and an M.L.S. in 1955—all from the University of California, Berkeley.

He rose to prominence in the 1950s as an artist associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement, along with his partner, Theophilus Brown (1919-2012), whom he met in 1952 while attending graduate school.

Artist and Model with Red Robe

In 1956, Wonner started painting a series of dreamlike male bathers and boys with bouquets. In 1962, he began teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles. By the end of the 1960s, he had abandoned his loose figurative style and focused exclusively on still lifes in a hyperrealist style. Wonner died April 23, 2008 in San Francisco, California.

1933 – Rod McKuen (d.2015) was a bestselling American poet, composer and singer, instrumental in the revitalisation of popular poetry in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Born in Oakland, California, sexually and physically abused by relatives, he ran away from home at an early age to avoid an alcoholic stepfather. To compensate for his lack of formal education, McKuen began keeping a journal, which resulted in his first poetry and song lyrics. In the 1950s, McKuen worked as a newspaper columnist and propaganda script writer during the Korean War. He settled in San Francisco, after a series of drifter jobs throught the West and a spell with the army in Korea, and began to find an audience with his poetry, eventually appearing with Beat poets such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.

After moving to New York in 1959, he found great success in the 1960s with his poetry and songs. In the early 1960s, McKuen moved to France, where he first met the Belgian singer-songwriter and chanson singer Jacques Brel. McKuen began to translate the work of this composer into English, which led to the song "If You Go Away" – an international pop-standard – based on Brel's "Ne me quitte pas". In the early 1970s, singer Terry Jacks turned McKuen's "Seasons in the Sun", based on Brel's "Le Moribond", into a best-selling pop hit. McKuen also translated songs by other French songwriters, including Gilbert Bécaud, Pierre Delanoé, Michel Sardou, and others.

In the late 1960s, McKuen managed to capture in verse the feelings of the student generation in opposition to the Vietnam war and his readings were attended like rock concerts.

He wrote many hundreds of songs, including two albums for Frank Sinatra, and collaborated with many including Henry Mancini and John Williams. He has sold millions of albums and written orchestral and film music - his scores for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1970) were Oscar nominated.

A major spell of clinical depression in the 1980s made him withdraw from the limelight. He later returned to activity but in a more low-key way and making full use of the Internet.

Always a performer with a social conscience, he went from fighting the Vietnam war and apartheid and on to working for AIDS awareness.

Rod McKuen had a partner of 45 years standing. To the question "Are you married?" McKuen's standard response was the coy statement, "I have no legal certificate that says I am, but, let's just say I'm committed." McKuen lived in Southern California with his brother Edward McKuen, whom he called his "partner," and four cats.

"It doesn't matter who you love, or how you love, but that you love." - Rod McKuen

As he has said, "I have had sex with men; does that make me Gay?" Nevertheless, and to his credit, he risked alienating a million readers by taking a public stand against Anita Bryant in the 70s. McKuen wrote "Don't Drink the Orange Juice" in support of the pro-gay boycott. He released the song on a manifestly gay-targeted album called "Slide...Easy In." The album, which was a sophisticated send-up of disco, featured on its cover a bare and hairy muscular male arm pulling a fistful of white lubricant from a can of Crisco, renamed "Disco."

1935 – April Ashley MBE is an English model and restaurant hostess. She was first Briton to have a sex change and sparked countless lurid headlines once she became the first British person to be outed as a transsexual, by the Sunday People in 1961.

Born and raaised George Jamieson in Liverpool, dark, slightly built and effeminate, the young George became the victim of daily beatings at school. She had under-developed genitalia and by the age of 15 she had not developed secondary sexual characteristics. At 15, in a vain attempt to become masculine, she signed up for the merchant navy but after two years at sea — once more a magnet for bullies — she resolved to commit suicide. After a failed attempt she wasgiven a dishonourable discharge and sent to the mental institution in Ormskirk for electric shock treatment.

In her book The First Lady, Ashley tells the story of the rape she endured while still living as a man. A roommate raped her, and she was severely injured as a result of the sexual assault.

She moved to London in 1950, at one point sharing a boarding house with then ship's steward John Prescott. Having started cross-dressing, she moved to Paris in the 1950s and using the name April E became a professional Drag Queen.

At the age of 25 and having saved £3,000, Ashley had her seven hour long sex reassignment surgery on 12 May 1960, in Casablanca, Morocco under Dr Georges Burou. All her hair fell out and she was in a lot of pain, but the operation succeeded. She went on to become a model.

In her glamorous heyday she became a Vogue model, seduced actors Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole and attracted the amorous attentions of Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso. After a friend sold her story to the media, in 1961 under the headline "Her" Secret Is Out, the Sunday People outed Ashely as transgender. She became a centre of unwanted attention.

In 1963 she wed Hon. Arthur Corbett (later 3rd Baron Rowallan), the Eton-educated son and heir of Lord Rowallan, who also enjoyed cross-dressing. However, in 1970 Corbett had the marriage annulled on the grounds that Ashley had been born male, even though he knew about her history when they married.

In the eighties, Ashley married Jeffrey West, on the retired cruise ship RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California; and by all accounts is still married to same.

In 2005, after the passage of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, Ashley was finally legally recognised as a female and issued with a new birth certificate. The then Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom John Prescott, who knew Ashley from the 1950s, helped her with the procedure.

In June 2012 Ashley was awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to transgender equality

1955 – The American Emmy Award-winning actor, memoirist and playwright Leslie Jordan was born on this date (d.2022). Jordan was probably best known for his television work - including guest appearances on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Star Trek: Voyager, Reba, Boston Public, Boston Legal, Nash Bridges and his secondary role on Hearts Afire. He guest-starred on the popular comedy-drama Ugly Betty as celebrity-trasher Quincy Combs. In 2007, Jordan starred as Jesse Joe in the short-lived CW television program, Hidden Palms.

Jordan is best known for his role of Karen's pretentious, sexually ambiguous rival Beverley Leslie on the hit series Will & Grace. For that role he received an Emmy Award for Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Series at the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards in 2006. For that role he received an Emmy Award for Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 2006.

Jordan was an accomplished stage actor and playwright. He played "Brother Boy" in the onstage and onscreen versions of Del Shore's Sordid Lives. He also starred in his autobiographical play Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel, which was also made into a motion picture. He recently toured the country performing his one-man stage comedy, Like a Dog on Linoleum. In the show, he told stories of the high and low points of his life, from his father's death in a plane crash when he was just 11 years old, to his battles with substance abuse and his weakness for street hustlers.

Jordan distilled his experiences growing up as an effeminate tiny boy in the south and in show business into an autobiographical one man show, My Trip Down the Pink Carpet.

Of his recent life he says, he said,

"Anyway, I have been involved with an organization called The Trevor Project over the years doing fundraising and stuff. The Trevor Project is a national suicidal hotline for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender kids if they're considering suicide they can call in. When they plugged in ten years ago they got almost 15,000 calls, which they were just overwhelmed from kids all over the country that were thinking about suicide. And you know where the majority of the calls came from? The Bible Belt, which is my story."

Jordan, who was openly gay, had recently starred in the pilot episode of Laugh Out, the world's first interactive, gay-themed comedy show.

Asked whether he would marry if same-sex marriage were legal in California,he said,

"I think if I met the right person. I am just afraid I'll end up with some hustler, fall in love with the rent boy, take me for all I am worth. No. I think I am gonna find somebody, someday I think."

On October 24, 2022, at approximately 9:30 am PDT, while driving to film scenes at the Call Me Kat set,[34] Jordan's car, a late model BMW 2 series Gran Coupe, hit the side of a building at Cahuenga Boulevard and Romaine Street in Hollywood. He was believed to have experienced a medical episode that led to the crash. Jordan was pronounced dead at the scene. He was 67 years old.

In January 2023, an autopsy report revealed Jordan died by "sudden cardiac dysfunction". According to the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, Jordan died from sudden cardiac dysfunction due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. There was no evidence of drugs or alcohol in Jordan's system. At the time of his death, he had been sober for more than two decades.

1969 – Jack Mackenroth is an American swimmer, model, and fashion designer who competed in the fourth season of American reality show Project Runway. Mackenroth was the first openly HIV-positive contestant in the show's history.

Although he was a late bloomer and had trouble fitting in, by the time he reached high school, he began to express himself through sewing. "I was a total club kid. I hung out with all the alternative kids at school, and we all made our own clothes and cut our own hair," he says. "I always had a knack for it and I wanted to look cool, but I didn't have the money, so I would just alter items I already had. At the time, it really irritated my mother, but look at me now!"

Mackenroth was pre-med at the University of California, Berkeley for the first two years, following in the footsteps of his mom who was a nurse at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center, but later graduated with a double degree in Fine Arts and Sociology after he figured he could actually make a living in the fashion industry.

In 1991, Mackenroth moved to New York to study Fashion Design at Parsons School of Design. After Parsons, Jack opened a menswear store on Bleecker Street in New York City's West Village called "Jack" where he showcased new designers alongside upscale brands such as Gaultier Junior, Diesel and John Richmond. In 1997, Mackenroth went to work for Tommy Hilfiger and then designed for Levis Slates brand. From 2003-2007, he was the Design Director at Weatherproof Active Wear

After a promising start on Project Runway, including a win in a menswear competition, Mackenroth abruptly decided to withdraw from the show during episode 5 due to a serious MRSA staph infection completely unrelated to his HIV.

"I am most proud of the fact that I was open about my positive HIV status on the show and exemplified that a person can manage HIV and live a successful life," Mackenroth says. "Every time a person with HIV is open about his or her status it helps everyone who is living with the disease.... I am a living testament to what you can accomplish by letting go of shame and being your own advocate." After his departure from the show, Mackenroth received many letters and e-mails thanking him for his openness and honesty and for being a great role model.

In 2008, Mackenroth partnered with Merck & Co., Inc. to launch a national HIV and AIDS education campaign called Living Positive By Design.] The Living Positive By Design campaign seeks "to address the stigma still associated with the disease and [highlight] the importance for people living with HIV to have a positive outlook on life while effectively managing their disease." Living Positive By Design events have been held in Miami/Fort Lauderdale, Florida at the 2008 United States Conference on AIDS (USCA), Atlanta, Georgia and in New York City at the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) Fashion Forward 2008 fundraiser.

On October 15, 2008, Mackenroth unveiled a custom-designed wedding gown crafted entirely of condoms as a visual reminder of the importance of safer sex and correct, consistent condom use for San Francisco's Project Inform. The project was especially challenging because Mackenroth is allergic to latex.

Mackenroth was a competitive swimmer in elementary and high school and continued competing after college at the Masters level. He has three All-American titles to his name and set a national record in the summer of 2006 in the breaststroke leg of the 4x50 meter medley relay. The same summer he finished 12th in the 50 meter breaststroke at the Masters World Championships in Stanford, California. Mackenroth first competed in the Gay Games in 1990 in Vancouver, British Columbia, without a team but won a bronze medal in the 50-meter breaststroke. He has won at least one gold medal in every one of the international competitions since.

2013 – Jason Collins of the NBA's Washington Wizards became the first gay athlete to come out while still an active player in one of the four North American major sports leagues.

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yesyoubelonghere · 9 months

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Things that you do not know about me...and that I am willing to share with you.

1. Though I was in a military family and moved about somewhat, I call Colorado Springs, Colorado home.

2. I am an only child.

3. I have been married.

4. I have killed people.

5. I was awarded a medal for what happened in #4.

6. I have delivered 6 babies (human) and have delivered lots of animal babies.

7. I have saved more people than I killed.

8. I have smoked weed and taken speed. But that was along time ago.

9. I look older than I am. Though this may not apply any longer.

10. I have lived in a commune.

11. I have lived in or visited all 50 states.

12. I have paid for sex.

13. My first sexual encounter was in the 4th/5th grade, but my first sexual intercourse was not until I was 20.

14. I have had a homosexual encounter. That was in Jr. High. I am a straight male.

15. I procrastinate.

16. I have never smoked cigarettes, but have chewed snuff.

17. I may withhold information from you.

18. Back in high school, I skied every ski area from Taos, NM to Jackson Hole, WY.

19. I fall in love easily.

20. I used to drink to forget....now I forget to drink.

21. I have had sex in a car, while it was moving.

22. I had an affair with a married woman.

23. I would rather visit/live in Asia than Europe.

24. I have few friends, but know lots of people.

25. I would give you the shirt off my back and be cold than have you be cold.

26. I have a track record in Jr. High that will never be broken.

27. I was considered for a Summer Olympic position in track.

28. I lost my first home to foreclosure.

29. I have worn glasses since I was 5 years old.

30. I have had a mustache since getting out of Navy boot camp.

31. I hate to shave and only do so when I have to go to work or on a date.

32. I went through an Outward Bound program in highschool.

33. I have sold several of my photos. I have had several of my photos published in a magazine.

34. Several of my poems have been published. I co-wrote a "book" of poems with a woman I met online and she supposedly published the book online. I have never been able to find it and as far as I know, have the only hard copy.

35. While in the Navy, I met a guy who wrote paper back books. He told me if I needed extra $$ (which I did), I should write them too. I took his advice and had 5 paper back books published. The books were porn. I have searched for them online, and can find no mention of them. The publisher is no longer in business. As far as I know, my copies are the only ones to survive.

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ambermaitrejean · 2 years

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Hello my lovely...it's been awhile since I saw your face and your beautiful smile. Don't you know that love is the constant bridge that crosses the frozen river wide of cold hollow silence, distance and time? I've waited so long on that bridge alone, 'til the world grew still and the waters froze. I've waited through autumn's golden dreams, through the promise of spring and the summer green. Forever I'll stand on the bridge of love under stars of night, under blue skies above. I'll wait for you, love, forever and a day, 'til my heartbeat grows tired, 'til my bones blow away. I'll wait all eternity for the chance to say, I love you, my darling, 'til creation fades away.

Bridge over Blue River, Summit County, Colorado. Photo and poem by Amber Maitrejean

#photographers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #black and white #landscape #poem #winter #summit county colorado

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 10 months

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Cloud formation over Palmer Park, Colorado Springs, CO. Photo: Christine Miles Kincaid (June 28, 2023) :: [Robert Scott Horton]

* * * *

"follow the cloud to a new place. see the grace in undoing everything you’ve done."

from “moving” in There Is a Future: A Year of Daily Midrash by Amy Bornman, p. 43

#Robert Scott Horton #cloud formation #Colorado Springs #clouds #Christine Miles Kincaid #A year of daily midrash #Amy Bornman #poem #poetry

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rayehendrix · 2 years

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Sharing this poem from years ago because it's horrifically relevant. Again. I'm so tired.

AFTER ORLANDO

The week after the shooting every shower feels like violent baptism—symbolic rebirth performed too literally—water too hot, skin too red. I let it blister peel it off in layers until I can’t until my body is not a body I recognize—becomes a diagram of the bruised blue threads of nervous systems, bloody and exposed—and then I ask you to hold me. We don’t know any of the dead but when they read out the names on the evening news we take turns weighing them on our tongues, marvel at how something spoken can be so heavy, can choke into throat. After that, we shower together. Say their names against each other’s pruning skin. Say our own with the same reverence—as if for the first time, or the last.

#poetry #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #lgbt pride #colorado #colorado springs #we deserve better #orlando #pulse shooting #pulse #queer lit #queer #raye hendrix #poem

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loneberry · 1 year

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What have I done today? Very little. (Secretly, I like doing very little—if I had my druthers I’d spend my days in bed, reading and writing in my journal.)

If I had to make an inventory of my day’s activities it would look something like this:

Megaformer pilates class

Grocery shopping

Reading by the sea

Cooking

Yet at the end of the day, as I was crying during the conclusion of Woolf’s first novel, The Voyage Out, all the details of my day surged forth with such a powerful force that I felt, how can I describe it, it was something like pure love. I want to be better. I want to tell my beautiful friends how much they mean to me. How full a day is, even when nothing happens. Isn’t that what Bernadette Mayer taught us in her durational poem written on the winter solstice? It began with a dream. So did my day.

Every night for the last week I’ve woken up in agony—it is the recrudescence of my mysterious autoimmune condition, which waylaid me for 6 months this year. I wake up in the middle of the night covered in hives and can’t go back to sleep. During the day I struggle to focus or function. At night I take four different antihistamines and every otc sleep remedy (magnesium, melatonin, valerian, kava, Benadryl, herbal tea, CBD) plus my prescription sleep med. Nothing works.

When my hives woke me up at 3am I was dreaming. Of Laura. I go to check the time on my phone. Uncanny, the only notification is a text from Laura. She sends a picture of Walter Benjamin’s memorial. Half-asleep, I write her back:

Wow I was just dreaming you wrote a brilliant novel called “diaries of a terrorist” (funny my friend wrote a book w that title)… it was somehow about the geometry of revolt, about an elaborate coordinated action in Red Square that took the shape of a pentagram, aimed at revealing an invisible structure… but the action misfired because there was a flaw in the original hidden design of the structure. There were more points than the five of the pentagram…

Red Square… was it Russia? No, it was somehow Germany. But it looked like the Red Square of Moscow… perhaps because earlier in the day I was thinking about my trip to Russia. Was the pentagram of the dream drawing attention to some latent demonic presence in Russian society? Lord. How I wish I could sleep.

What do I do when I can’t sleep… listen to podcasts with my eyes closed while in bed, my usual rotation of news, political economy, politics, and war. So much emotion in the voices of strangers, how it stirs me. Richard Fierro, the man who disarmed the Club Q gunman in Colorado Springs, is talking about the incident, calmly narrating the actions, when suddenly he starts weeping about the people he could not save. It cuts through everything, like the testimonies of Ukrainians I listen to daily. On another podcast, Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina speaks beautifully about her memories of Maidan, of the university of the streets, the transformational eros of revolt, and how useless literary writing feels during times of war, how she switched from writing novels to investigating war crimes.

News. It never stops. Ariana’s mother is dead. Bernadette Mayer is dead. A 2-day old Ukrainian baby, dead. More civilian infrastructure in Ukraine has been destroyed by Russian missiles. A maternity ward. All the cities in candlelight. No water in Kyiv. Germany builds an LNG terminal. Meanwhile in Virginia: another mass shooting. Turkey is attacking the Kurds. Who will help the Kurds?

I rearrange my wilting gillyflowers into smaller vases. There’s the smell of clove as I cut the stems. Gilly…I knew you simply as “stock.” Others call you “hoary”—a word I once used in my journal to describe a vision of my future: “…a hoary woman alone in the stone house, clutching her shimmering memories.”

Meditate on Sophrosyne. When will I ever get a handle on this monkey mind? Cook tilapia and pasta. Think about the dead. Call Ulysses. UC on strike. Call from Lily, mom in the hospital again. “Toss a penny to the sky. Heads or tails. Who knows, not I…” Conversations on the pier, while the crows, seagulls, and pigeons loitered for scraps. How the pelicans flew overhead in their enormous formations, then dipped and glided just above the water. The face of the young man with the fishing rod as he looks up when I bike past him.

All the words I read. Free associating in the marginalia, that tender compassion I felt for Virginia Woolf, the exposed nerve that was her mind, too sensitive for the world. I think of the death of her brother Thoby, of the sexual abuse she endured in childhood, all the things she never got over. The sea, the water closing over the head. So much in a day. There are people I can’t protect. You can’t protect the dead. I think of the dead. She died without dignity. Does anyone die with dignity? Yes, some do. “Poetry doesn’t tell you how to bury the dead,” though I often think, as I’m looking at a patch of light while tidying my house, that poetry is the last defense of the sacred.

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newstfionline · 2 months

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Sunday, March 10, 2024

Spring starts early as US winter was warmest on record (AP) Across much of America and especially in the normally chilly north, the country went through the winter months without, well, winter. In parka strongholds Burlington, Vermont, and Portland, Maine, the thermometer never plunged below zero. The state of Minnesota called the last three months “the lost winter,” warmer than its infamous “year without a winter” in 1877-1878. Michigan, where mosquitos were biting in February, offered disaster loans to businesses hit by a lack of snow. The Great Lakes set records for low winter ice, with Erie and Ontario “essentially ice-free.” For a wide swath of the country from Colorado to New Jersey, and Texas to the Carolinas, spring leaves are arriving three to four weeks earlier than the 1991-2020 average, according to the National Phenology Network, which tracks the timing of plants, insects and other natural signs of the seasons.

US ‘prepper’ culture diversifies amid fear of disaster and political unrest (Reuters) Thirty-year-old Brook Morgan surveyed booths at the “Survival & Prepper Show” in Colorado that were stocked with boxes of ammunition, mounds of trauma medical kits, and every type of knife imaginable. Morgan is one of a new breed of Americans getting ready to survive political upheaval and natural catastrophes, a pursuit that until recently was largely associated with far-right movements such as white nationalists since the 1980s. Researchers say the number of preppers has doubled in size to about 20 million since 2017. Much of that growth is from minorities and people considered left-of-center politically, whose sense of insecurity was heightened by Donald Trump’s 2016 election, the COVID-19 pandemic, more frequent extreme weather and the 2020 racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd.

UnitedHealth could take months to fully recover from hack (Reuters) UnitedHealth Group, the largest U.S. health insurer, is likely to need several months to make a full recovery from a cyberattack that has been one of the most disruptive hacks against America's healthcare infrastructure, security experts said. The insurer’s Change Healthcare unit processes about half the medical claims in the US and its offerings touch a third of US patient records. In short, it’s a smorgasbord for hackers. The company expects its payment platform to be operational on March 15, and its claims network three days later. Doctors face a hard choice because of the hack: stop treating patients or stop paying staff.

Foreigners trapped in violence-torn Haiti wait desperately for a way out (AP) Dozens of foreigners, including many from the United States and Canada, are stranded in Haiti, desperately trying to leave the violence-torn country where anti-government gangs are battling police and have already shut down both of the country’s international airports. They were in Haiti for reasons ranging from adoptions to missionary and humanitarian work. Now, they are locked down in hotels and homes, unable to leave by air, sea or land as Haiti remains paralyzed by the mayhem and the gangs’ demands that Prime Minister Ariel Henry resign. “We are seriously trapped,” said Richard Phillips, a 65-year-old from the Canadian capital, Ottawa, who has traveled to Haiti more than three dozen times to work on projects for the United Nations, USAID and now, a Haitian nonprofit called Papyrus.

A lonely radio nerd. A poet. Vladimir Putin’s crackdown sweeps up ordinary Russians (AP) A lonely man jailed for criticizing the government on his ham radio. A poet assaulted by police after he recited a poem objecting to Russia’s war in Ukraine. A low-profile woman committed to a psychiatric facility for condemning the invasion on social media. President Vladimir Putin’s 24 years in power are almost certain to be extended six more by this month’s presidential election. That leadership has transformed Russia. A country that tolerated some dissent is now one that ruthlessly suppresses it. Along with opposition politicians, independent journalists and human rights activists, ordinary Russians have been increasingly swept up in a crackdown reminiscent of the Soviet era.

Turkey’s Erdogan says March election will be his final, state media reports (Reuters) Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said local elections scheduled for March 31 would be his last vote, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Friday. Erdogan, modern Turkey’s most successful politician, has led the country for more than two decades. A winner of more than a dozen elections since 2002, Erdogan was re-elected for a five-year term during hotly contested elections in May 2023.

The Taliban once smashed TVs. Now it fosters YouTubers to promote its image. (Washington Post) The Taliban-run government is fostering a thriving community of YouTube influencers and video bloggers in Afghanistan, seeking to shape a positive narrative about the country by rewarding those who have welcome viewpoints with access to stories that can draw millions of views online. The Taliban, which smashed televisions and burned films in the 1990s during its first stint in power, is now using modern video technology in its radical campaign to remake Afghanistan. The regime grants influencers coveted broadcasting licenses that put them on an equal footing with TV networks and radio stations, and threatens to withdraw the licenses of those who break official rules. Influencers whose work is seen as benefiting the regime have been allowed to embed with government ministries and showcase their achievements. Meanwhile, videos that are critical of the Taliban have largely disappeared from platforms such as YouTube over the past two years as a result of Taliban pressure and self-censorship.

With Unusual Speed, Hong Kong Pushes Strict New Security Law (NYT) Under pressure from Beijing, officials in Hong Kong are scrambling to pass a long-shelved national security law that could impose life imprisonment for political crimes like treason, a move expected to further muzzle dissent in the Asian financial center. The law known as Article 23 has long been a source of public discontent in Hong Kong, a former British colony that had been promised certain freedoms when it was returned to Chinese rule in 1997. Now, it is expected to be enacted with unusual speed in the coming weeks. China has sought to tighten its grip over Hong Kong after massive antigovernment protests in 2019 engulfed the city, posing the greatest challenge to Beijing’s rule in years. Many protesters had taken to the streets to push back against Beijing’s encroachment over the city and its erosion of Hong Kong’s civil liberties, but Chinese officials said the demonstrations were instigated by Western forces seeking to destabilize the territory and China.

Taylor Swift gave Singapore’s economy a massive boost (Washington Post) Singapore is set to earn big money and a big reputation from hosting global pop sensation Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, analysts are calculating. Swift’s six sold-out concerts, which run from March 2 to 9, are expected to bring in an estimated $260 million to $375 million in tourism receipts, Erica Tay, Maybank director of macro research, told The Washington Post. The city-state is the latest beneficiary of “Swiftonomics,” the phenomenon named for the economic boost experienced by destinations of the record-breaking tour, which has surpassed $1 billion in global sales. Singapore’s GDP is likely to expand by 2.9 percent in the first quarter of the year—its highest in six quarters—Bloomberg News reported Friday, with economists raising predictions for annual growth from 2.3 percent to 2.5 percent.

Philippines strikes security deals as tensions rise with China at sea (Washington Post) The Philippines has been striking new defense agreements with other countries at a rapid clip, seeking to build what officials here call a “network of alliances” that could deter Chinese aggression in disputed waters. The Philippines has signed or entered discussions over new security agreements with at least 18 countries since a Chinese coast guard vessel flashed a military-grade laser at a Philippine coast guard ship in the South China Sea last year, according to the Philippine Defense Department. While the deepening Philippine alliance with the United States—which includes granting the U.S. military expanded access to Philippine military bases—has drawn much attention, Manila’s security campaign goes beyond Washington. Since 2022, the Philippines has inked new defense agreements with the European Union, India and Britain. Japan, Canada and France are looking at signing visiting-forces agreements with the Philippines, which would allow those countries to send troops to Philippine bases, according to their embassies.

At Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque, Ramadan brings uncertainty and fear (Washington Post) Just days before the start of Ramadan—the busiest and often most volatile month in Jerusalem’s Old City—the offices of al-Aqsa Mosque were bustling with preparations and uncertainty. Even in quieter years, al-Aqsa is a Ramadan tinderbox. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians come to worship at this mosque that has sat for more than a millennium on a site that both Muslims and Jews claim as sacred ground. It’s administered by Jordan, but access is controlled by Israeli security. Jews revere the site they call the Temple Mount as the location of the first and second temples and worship at the Western Wall, a remnant of the ancient complex. Muslims know it as the Noble Sanctuary, where the prophet Muhammad is said to have ascended to heaven. It’s the holiest site in Judaism and third holiest in Islam. The competing claims are one of the most challenging elements of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Clashes here have been a repeated flash point for war. With Ramadan only days away, tensions around al-Aqsa are soaring. Hard-liners in the Israeli government have pushed to limit the number, age and gender of Palestinians allowed on the plateau, prompting warnings from both sides that restrictions could lead to violence.

Europe and U.S. Plan to Supply Gaza by Sea, but Aid Groups Say It’s Not Enough (NYT/Reuters) A day after President Biden announced plans for maritime aid delivery to the Gaza Strip, European leaders said Friday they would deliver aid by ship as early as the weekend. But aid groups and Gaza officials criticized shipments by air or sea as too cumbersome, urging that vastly more food and medicine be supplied by trucks. The complications of delivering aid to the hungry residents of Gaza were underlined on Friday when the authorities in Gaza said at least five Palestinians were killed and several others were wounded after they were struck by packages of humanitarian aid that were dropped from an aircraft. The United Nations has warned that five months of war and an Israeli blockade have left hundreds of thousands of Gazans on the brink of starvation, prompting a variety of proposals to speed the delivery of food and other vital needs. Israel insists on inspecting all supplies going into Gaza, and aid trucks have been allowed in through just two border crossings—one from Egypt and one from Israel—in southern Gaza. One UN official said discussing complicated aid routes to reach territory blockaded by an ally “is absurd in a dark and cynical way.”

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