Visibility

International Transgender Day of Visibility is an annual holiday occurring on March 31 and dedicated to celebrating transgender people and raising awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide. The holiday was founded by Michigan-based transgender activist Rachel Crandall in 2009 as a reaction to the lack of LGBT holidays celebrating transgender people, citing the frustration that the only well-known transgender-centered holiday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance which mourned the loss of transgender people to hate crimes, but did not acknowledge and celebrate living members of the transgender community.

In 2014, the holiday was observed by activists across the world — including in Ireland and in Scotland.
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Damien's note: People often question the point of events such as this, but until we become aware of how many people among us are transgender, they will not be taken seriously. I know more than one transgender person and out of respect for them, I want to do my small part to make their presence known.

Political movement

Although the colored blocks continue to move at the same pace around the circle, the addition of black and white lines creates the illusion that the yellow block stops and the blue block moves ahead.

I present this optical illusion as a reminder that sometimes what we perceive is influenced more by circumstances than by reality.

Not to imply, of course, that political (or any other) progress moves uniformly at all times and places. 

BTW, the students at Horton are on Spring Break this week, which means almost all the frats are gone and I have some free time. I hope to post more regularly for the next few days, although I am also taking advantage of the break to catch up on some work of my own.

Palm Sunday witches

Among the customs for Palm Sunday -- which is called Pussy Willow Sunday in places where palms are rare and pussy willows serve the purpose for the processions in church -- is that of a sort of mini-Halloween in Finland.  Children dress as rather adorable witches and go about the neighborhood for candy and coins.

The Swedish version takes place on Holy Thursday, when, according to a tradition that may even predate Christianity, they say that the witches fly off to dance with the devil. People would light bonfires to keep the witches away on their journey to and fro. Presumably the treats given to the children are bribes to keep the witches out of the house.

The Easter card shows witches riding a ram and a cat, not the sort of image one associates with the Pasch in most places.

Just checking in

I have been pleasantly surprised that things at the Kappa Dabba Du house have been going well. There was an initial unsettling encounter with a pledge who was determined to play Jeeves -- or worse! -- to my Wooster, but we seem to have that sorted out. And the cultural event project is falling into place nicely. 

Daniel has arrived in England and reports things are fine except for the language barrier. He is not good at accents and his hearing is not all it could be. When we were in Rome ten years ago, we visited the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli, St. Peter in Chains. Daniel insisted that the very British tour guide was saying "St. Peter and change."

Well, as Wilde wrote of the English in The Canterville Ghost, "We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language."

That's it for now. Back to work!

A bit of a kerfuffle

Without going into unnecessary details, I want to tell you that a slight problem has arisen here at Horton University. As a result, and under some pressure from the administration, I will be assuming a temporary position as house director for one of the fraternities on campus. No, no, nothing like the problem at Oklahoma, thanks be to WhomEver. But it means that in addition to my usual academic load, I will have to devote significant time to the fraternity this spring, especially helping them organize and run a cultural project in order to keep up their certification. Personally, I think they are certifiable by most standards, but apparently not in this case.

At any rate, this coincides with Daniel flying to England to cover a class for a former colleague while she deals with some complications arising from her pregnancy. Things are fine, but she will be confined to her home for the duration and Daniel has agreed to fill in for her as lecturer at some college in Durham. This works out in some ways, because my duties with the fraternity require me to spend several nights each week in residence. It means, however, that I will have to go take care of the cats at our apartment daily and yada yada yada I said I would not go into unnecessary details and here I am rambling on and on.

Bottom line: This blog will be quite irregular for the next few months. Hope you all manage to find enough amusing queer things to keep you occupied in the meantime. I hope to be back by summer.

Ciao!

St. Patrick's Day

There are 34.7 million U.S. residents with Irish ancestry. This number is more than seven times the population of Ireland itself.

Irish is the nation’s second most frequently reported ancestry, ranking behind German.

Across the country, 11 percent of residents lay claim to Irish ancestry. That number more than doubles to 23 percent in the state of Massachusetts.

Irish is the most common ancestry in 54 U.S. counties, of which 44 are in the Northeast. Middlesex County in Massachusetts tops the list with 348,978 Irish Americans, followed by Norfolk County, MA, which has 203,285.

Irish ranks among the top five ancestries in every state except Hawaii and New Mexico. It is the leading ancestry group in Delaware, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

There are approximately 144,588 current U.S. residents who were born in Ireland.

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Damien's note: The famous Irish Need Not Apply signs may or may not have been common in the States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most historians seem to believe anti-Irish [immigrant] feeling was wide-spread, but there are those who claim such prejudices were restricted mostly to recent English immigrants who brought their bias with them. Whatever the case, anti-immigrant feeling is obviously as American as the flag, mom and apple pie, even to this day. Today, of course, many of those anti-immigrant Americans are descended, like me, from the Irish.

 

 

Beer buddies

 A New Orleans man shot his best friend in the elbow after he brought him the wrong brand of beer.




Clarence Sturdivant, 64, allegedly gunned down years-long pal Walter Merrick, 66, after he handed over a Busch, reports The Times-Picayune.

The younger man prefers Budweiser.

They argued in the parking lot of their Harvey apartment complex about which brand was better on Saturday, March 7, before a shot was fired. Sturdivant then fled the scene.

Merrick was rushed to hospital where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries to his elbow.

Deputies pulled Sturdivant over a short time later. They reportedly found 20-gauge shotgun cartridges in his truck. During questioning, Sturdivant confessed to arguing over the beer. But he alleged that Merrick had first pointed a gun at him, and that he'd fired in self-defense.

Merrick was cited for aggravated assault.

Sturdivant was arrested on unrelated charges for failing to appear in court over charges of resisting an officer and interfering with police in December 2013.

He was later released from the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center on a $1,000 bond.
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Damien's note: At least they were good friends. Pity the poor unknown bar tender who put the wrong beer in front  of Mr. Sturdivant.

Happy Pi Day

Friday the thirteenth ... again!

As Michael mentioned on his blog last month, 2015 blesses/curses us with three Fridays the Thirteenth -- February, March and November. If you care to know more than you possibly could about superstitions regarding the date and number, click on the link above.

But to give you something queer to ponder, on March 13, 1781 William Herschel discovered Uranus. That was a Tuesday, but the Spanish-speaking often consider Tuesday the Thirteenth to be unlucky. 

Herschel was German-born, though he migrated to Great Britain when he was nineteen. I imagine he considered March 13 very lucky for himself, but the planet he discovered was not to be named for him (although that had been suggested) nor for his patron King George III as Herschel proposed. (Yes, that King George III. Britain's loss of the American colonies at Yorktown was only eight months after the planetary discovery.) That sycophantic suggestion was unpopular outside the British dominions, and the name Uranus finally won general acceptance some seventy years after the discovery. During the interim, several names had been in use.

And, of course, it is bad luck that crude jokes are so easily made about the planet's name. Its luck and the jokes got even worse when the existence of rings around Uranus were confirmed in 1977.

Happy birthday, Girl Scouts of America!

And in their honor, here is an excerpt from their web page about the famous cookies with a recipe you can try at home.

Girl Scout Cookies had their earliest beginnings in the kitchens and ovens of our girl members, with moms volunteering as technical advisers. The sale of cookies as a way to finance troop activities began as early as 1917, five years after Juliette Gordon Low started Girl Scouting in the United States, when the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma, baked cookies and sold them in its high school cafeteria as a service project.

In July 1922, The American Girl magazine, published by Girl Scout national headquarters, featured an article by Florence E. Neil, a local director in Chicago, Illinois. Miss Neil provided a cookie recipe that had been given to the council's 2,000 Girl Scouts. She estimated the approximate cost of ingredients for six- to seven-dozen cookies to be 26 to 36 cents. The cookies, she suggested, could be sold by troops for 25 or 30 cents per dozen.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Girl Scouts in different parts of the country continued to bake their own simple sugar cookies with their mothers. These cookies were packaged in wax paper bags, sealed with a sticker, and sold door to door for 25 to 35 cents per dozen.

Girl Scout Cookie, circa 1922

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• additional sugar for topping (optional)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

Cream butter and the cup of sugar; add well-beaten eggs, then milk, vanilla, flour, salt, and baking powder. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Roll dough, cut into trefoil shapes, and sprinkle sugar on top, if desired.
Bake in a quick oven (375°) for approximately 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges begin to brown. Makes six- to seven-dozen cookies.

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Damien's note: A year or so back, a young Girl Scout and her mother who were trying to sell cookies in Houston were verbally attacked by a Christian woman who claimed they were supporting lesbianism and abortion. Her vicious attack made the news and many people increased their cookie purchases as a result of her abusive behavior. Go, Thin Mints!

My big fat Greek ... what??

Greece's most grotesque custom takes place once a year on the first Monday of Lent, in the plain of Thessaly. Walk into the town of Tirnavos that day and all you'll see are people chasing and hitting each other in the streets with fake penises. 

The custom is called "Bourani"—like the vegetable soup being boiled in a large cauldron in the middle of the town square. Townspeople and visitors from the nearby villages eat, drink, and sing songs full of profanity until they faint. 

Like pretty much every Greek custom, Burani seems to have its roots in ancient Dionysian rituals symbolizing the coming of Spring and fertility—both in humans and in nature. The penis was probably chosen as the symbol of this strange celebration in reaction to the matriarchal society of the time.

In recent years, the festivities seem to be more focused on crude humor than sexual liberation. Dummy penises made of wood, paper, clay, or sugar seem to cover every possible surface—on tables and benches, next to packs of Marlboros, mobile phones, and kebab shops. Some are placed at crossroads like totem sculptures, while others get stuck on open zippers. People keep kissing them, taking selfies with them, and wearing them as earrings. Everyone swears at each other constantly.  

Source (with more photos): Vice 
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Damien's note: I'm speechless.

Bible birds

In 1940, Rev. Wendell Hansen started touring around the U.S. with his family, putting on a show in which he used trained birds to demonstrate lessons from the Bible. Newsweek (Dec. 10, 1951) offered this description of the act:

A typical show opens with a six-canary choir accompanying Mrs. Hansen (on the vibra-harp) in "The Star-Spangled Banner," while an oriole pulls a string that hoists a flag on a tiny pole and a parakeet shinnies to the pole top to pose as an American eagle.

Other birds ride on a tiny electric train, eat at tables, and climb ladders while the Hansens appropriately quote the Bible. For example, when Tiger the canary sits on Catnip the cat while daughter Sylvia watches (see picture), Mr. Hansen quotes Isaiah 11:6, "... the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."

Mr. Hansen feels that the whole act is "a demonstration of faith. Pete is not afraid of the flaming hoop because he knows I am holding it. Muggs has to stretch out his neck to swallow a sword that's as long as he is, but he has faith in us."

Amazingly, Hansen was able to continue putting on his Bible Birds show for 60 years, until he died in 2002.

Source: Weird Universe March 7, 2015

Buckyballs

Buckyballs are bouncing around the volleyball court these days. Volleyballene is the first buckyball to be spiked with scandium atoms.

Discovered in 1985, the original buckyball was a hollow, stable sphere of 60 carbon atoms. It takes high temperatures and pressures without complaint and helped earn its creators a Nobel prize in chemistry in 1996.

Volleyballene has 60 carbon atoms moulded into pentagons, plus 20 scandium atoms locked in octagons, an arrangement that resembles the panels of a volleyball.

Jing Wang at Hebei Normal University in China and colleagues tested five other configurations to see if a different mash-up proved easier to make, stronger, or more stable. Only volleyballene held its shape up to 727 °C, or 1000 kelvin.

Source: New Scientist 

Damien's note:  A fullerene is a molecule of carbon in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, tube, and many other shapes. Spherical fullerenes are also called buckyballs, and they resemble the balls used in soccer. Fullerenes are similar in structure to graphite, which is composed of stacked graphene sheets of linked hexagonal rings; but they may also contain pentagonal (or sometimes heptagonal) rings.

Buckyballs is also the name given to sets of spherical magnets that can be shaped in just about any way. They have come under fire as a health hazard for children who swallow them.

Live long and prosper

Fascinating. Illogical but true.

Thanks for reading my blog, but it's ...

Things I am grateful for on World Book Day:

1) I can read. Thank you, parents and teachers!

2) I can write. Again, thank you, parents and teachers!

3) I have written and published books.

4) You can buy books at book stores and online.

5) Some people have bought and read my books as printed books and as e-books.

6) There are libraries where I can get books to read for free.

7) Some libraries have my books.

8) Some people check out my books from libraries.

9) There are many better books out there for me to read and others to read.

10) We are lucky.

National Reading Out Loud from someone else's work Day!

This is Read Across America Week and today is a day when people are asked to read something aloud. Michael, over on his blog In Dodd We Trust, did a reading from one of the stories that I actually wrote. Now I admit he edited and polished and did all the grunt work for getting my material out there to the reading public, but in the reading on his blog he gives me no credit whatsoever. 

The "I" in that passage he is reading is me, Damien F. Malachy, PhD. 

Just thought you would want to know.

Still with us

In February, the Kansas Humanities Council, providing background to a current, traveling Smithsonian Institution exhibit, posted a description of a 1925 baseball game in Wichita in which the professional, all-black Wichita Monrovians took on members of the local Ku Klux Klan. (Historians guessed that the KKK risked the embarrassment of defeat only because it needed the exposure to overcome declining enrollments.) The Monrovians (champions of the “Colored Western League” the year before) won, 10-8, and the Klan shut down in Kansas two years later. 

 Source: KHC Blog 
Tip of the hat, though, to Weird Universe for drawing it to our attention.

Damien's note: Sadly, the Klan is still around and anti-equality forces remain willing to risk embarrassment by protests and lawsuits across this great land.

The Republicans in Kansas are sending a "right to discriminate" bill through the legislature even as you read this.

Woooooooooo, Pig ! Sooie!

National Pig Day is an event held annually on March 1 in the United States to celebrate the pig. The holiday celebration was started in 1972 by sisters Ellen Stanley, a teacher in Lubbock, Texas, and Mary Lynne Rave of Beaufort, North Carolina. According to Rave the purpose of National Pig Day is "to accord the pig its rightful, though generally unrecognized, place as one of man's most intellectual and domesticated animals."The holiday is most often celebrated in the Midwest.

National Pig Day includes events at zoos, schools, nursing homes, and sporting events around the United States. It is also recognized at "pig parties" where pink pig punch and pork delicacies are served, and pink ribbon pigtails are tied around trees in the pigs' honor. 

According to Chase's Calendar of Events, National Pig Day is on the same day as pseudo-holidays Share a Smile day and Peanut Butter Lover's day. The question of whether the holiday is a time to honor pigs by "giving them a break" or to appreciate their offerings (spare ribs, bacon and ham) is an open question.
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Damien's note: In view of the confluence of Pig and Peanut Butter and Share a Smile Days, I want to recall a delightful train trip I once made from Boston to Washington, DC with a friend whose mother had thoughtfully provided sandwiches for our journey -- peanut butter and bacon on whole wheat. Magically delicious! I do not recall if that journey was on March 1, however. The memory makes me smile and I share that with you.

I believe March 1 is also National Dance Teacher Appreciation Day, but my story does not involve dancing. On the other hand, my friend Michael taught an aerobics dance class for a few years, so I will take this opportunity to appreciate him.