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blue-grama · 7 months

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Jesus motherforking shirtballs

Or: I am asking every business journalist to take one (1) gender studies class before I tear my hair out.

This interview came across my dash and it's a lot of fun, particularly Apo's "dad joke" actually being a hilariously cringey pickup line, but one aside by the writer made me wince.

ASDKHGKJ. This is not the first time I've seen an article about BL or gay romance in general speculate that the reason female audiences enjoy gay male romance is because there are no other threatening, icky girls on screen. I find this exceedingly irritating and misogynistic and I'm gonna rant about it. Now, look. Maybe there are women-identifying people out there watching mlm romance because they are threatened by beautiful actresses. Maybe. I haven't met every woman in the world. But this reasoning is, in my opinion, some male-gaze bullshit and needs to be smacked down. A non-exhaustive list of reasons to like mlm romance that AREN'T based on some weird idea of female competitiveness and insecurity: 1. Queer people... exist? Look, the LGBTQ+ community alone isn't the reason KP had huge international success. Just numbers-wise, it was probably watched by more straight people than not. But ignoring that audience makes absolutely no sense, especially because sexuality is fluid and many viewers interested in LGBTQ+ media may be uncertain/exploring. Cultural anthropologist Thomas Baudinette has talked about how many "straight women" exploring BL turned out not to be so straight. It's a thing. (Here on Tumblr the LGBTQ+ audience is THE thing, but there's a lot of selection bias here, obviously.)

2. A good romance is a good romance

In my personal (and admittedly limited) experience, cishet men have a hard time grasping this, but give me a good, swoony romance and IDGAF about the genders involved. I've noticed this is very common among my female-identifying and nonbinary friends, regardless of their sexual attractions in real life. Good chemistry is good chemistry, a good story is a good story, and honestly it's kinda insulting to silo LGBTQ+ romance off as something you need a particular reason to watch, if you're someone who likes watching romance. 3. Female gaze

Look. Mile and Apo are blisteringly hot individuals. It's interesting this article mentions the action sequences and not the inherent appeal of, say, these two humans exploring each other's bodies in front of God and Deutsche Bank:

Perhaps it's a family publication.

But to get a little more thinky about horniness: If you're a female-identifying person interested in men, it can be a tough slog out there. I'm coming from a western perspective, where romance is looked down upon in general. (Asian media seems more willing to look at the romance audience and go "hmm... $$$!" instead of "ugh, girl stuff.") And even when you get romance-driven stories, the male gaze is fucking ubiquitious. I remember having my mind blown some years ago by Outlander -- a show I did not make it through otherwise -- because the wedding episode in the first season has a sex scene in which the camera lingers on the male lead's face. That is some female gaze shit that you just do not see. I just spent a couple minutes checking in with the sex scenes in Bridgerton, probably the biggest romance-genre hit in the U.S. in some time, made explicitely for a female audience in mind, and even there, the camera spends FAR more time on the female leads' faces in sex scenes. Presumably the idea is that the female viewing audience will be inserting themselves into the scene and imagining her pleasure as their own, but ... show me a man's O-face, you cowards.

KP (and BL in general) does that.

I mean, quite literally. But also figuratively - men are posited as objects of desire, and the viewer is the agent desiring them. Taking a straight female as our theoretical viewer: We're so, so socialized to see females as the objects of desire and men as the agents of desire that even media made with straight women in mind parks the camera on the female lead. BL turns that on its head. The female viewer isn't watching a stand-in for herself being desired. She's actively desiring. I hope it's clear that this is miles away from "other girls are threatening." It's about being the one with agency for once.

4. Removal of the burden of one gajillion years of patriarchical bullshit

This is like a trauma response or some shit, istg, but sometimes it's nice to watch a romance not weighed down by 300,000 years of hetero gender relations. How many times have we seen a female character who is just a male fantasy or who starts out great but gets ruined by bad writing and it's like... fuck. Someone has probably written about this a lot more eloquently and intelligently than me, but sometimes it's just like, geez. Leave women out of it. Let us rest. I'm joking a bit, and this entirely elides the fact that non-het relationships can be just as abusive and problematic as a het relationship out there in the real world, but in the realm of fantasy I do think there's an appeal to stripping away at least part of the gender discourse. Especially for a fully escapist show like KP -- personally, I love a good female character, but I did not have any problem with the dearth of them in that series. Don't make me worry, even subconsciously, about the mafia's maternity leave policy, okay?? Contrary to idea that the mlm aspects save some sort of self-insert space for me in that romance, I as a woman-identified person did not want to be anywhere NEAR that hot mess. I wanted a world that touched on exactly zero of my real-life concerns.

Ok, maybe one real-world concern: How to find a small animal vet at an inconvenient hour.

Anyway, like I said at the start, I can't possibly explain everyone's motivations for watching KP or BL or anything, really. The world is a rich tapestry and sexuality is not a simple binary. But boiling it all down to, "women are insecure" ain't it and I would love to see that explanation permanently retired from casual use. EDIT: I forgot the link to the original article.

#kinnporsche #thai bl #lgbtq media #yelling about things that pissed me off over my morning coffee #please feel free to add thoughts bc i'm sure there are many more reasons people like this genre and this is a rant #not an academic thesis #romance #ps I just really enjoy the female and queer gazes as like things that exist #lotta resentment to straight male gaze supremacy from my quarter #mileapo

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homomenhommes · 4 months

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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 … December 22

1823 – The American author, abolitionist, and soldier Thomas Wentworth Higginson was born today in Cambridge, Massachusetts (d.1911). The Higginson clan was quite pedigreed. Thomas was a descendant of a Puritan minister, a member of the Continental Congress, and the founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism. During the Civil War, he served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized African-American regiment, from 1862-1864. Following the war, Higginson devoted much of the rest of his life to fighting for the rights of freed slaves, women and other disenfranchised peoples.

Higginson has largely been forgotten to history except in the last few years when Brenda Wineapple's book White Heat was published to great accolades. In the book Wineapple posits an intense relationship between Higginson and his penpal, the poet Emily Dickinson. They only met twice but the title of Wineapple's book suggests a more intimate relationship. Interestingly (or not) Wineapple makes no mention in her book of William Hurlbert, the handsome Southern journalist that Higginson was just crazy about. A very telling omission because Higginson's famous "Letter to a Young Contributor" (the Atlantic essay that Dickinson first responded to and started their correspondence) alluded to "Cecil Dreeme," the very queer title character in Theodore Winthrop's 1861 novel by the same name. Dreeme was based on Hurlbert, of whom Higginson once remarked: "I never loved but one male friend with passion—and for him my love had no bounds—all that my natural fastidiousness and cautious reserve kept from others I poured on him; to say that I would have died for him was nothing." Now there's some "White Heat."

In Higginson's book Army Life in a Black Regiment (1870) he exhibits an erotic fascination with black skin and bodies: "I always like to observe [black soldiers] when bathing,—such splendid muscular development, set off by that smooth coating of adipose tissue which makes them, like the South-Sea Islanders, appear even more muscular than they are. Their skins are also of finer grain than those of whites, the surgeons say, and certainly are smoother and far more free from hair."

Whitman scholars like Ken Price have noted that Higginson's later attacks on the gay aspects of Whitman's poetry may have been a case of "pot calling the kettle black" given the "tonalities" in Higginson's writing and relationships.

1899 – Gustaf Gründgens (d.1963), one of Germany's most famous and influential actors of the 20th century, intendant and artistic director of theatres in Berlin, Düsseldorf, and Hamburg. His career continued undisturbed through the years of the Nazi regime, but the extent to which this can be considered as deliberate collaboration with the Nazis was hotly disputed.

Born in Düsseldorf, Gründgens after World War I attended the drama school of the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and started his career at smaller theaters in Halberstadt, Kiel, and Berlin. In 1923 he went to the Kammerspiele in Hamburg, where he also appeared as a director for the first time, co-working with the author Klaus Mann, son of Thomas Mann, and his sister Erika Mann. Gründgens, who meanwhile had changed his first name to "Gustaf", married Erika in 1926. However, they divorced three years later.

In 1928 he moved back to Berlin to join the renowned ensemble of the Deutsches Theater under director Max Reinhardt. Apart from straight theatre, Gründgens also worked with Otto Klemperer at the Kroll Opera, as a Kabarett artist and also as a movie actor, most notably in Fritz Lang's 1931 film M, which decisively added to his popularity. From 1932 he was a member of the Prussian State Theatre ensemble, first scintillating as Mephistopheles.

Gründgens' career proceeded after the Nazi Machtergreifung: in 1934 he became "Intendant" of the Prussian State Theatre; though constant attacks on his homosexual orientation made him ask the Prussian Minister President Hermann Göring for his discharge after the Night of the Long Knives. Göring rejected the request and instead appointed him a member of the Prussian state council to ensure his immunity.. In 1941, Gründgens starred in the propaganda film Ohm Krüger and also in Friedemann Bach, a film he also produced. After Goebbels's total war speech on 18 February 1943, Gründgens volunteered for the Wehrmacht but was again recalled by Göring, who had his name added to the Gottbegnadeten list.

Imprisoned by the Soviet NKVD in 1945, Gründgens was released thanks to the intercession by the Communist actor Ernst Busch, whom Gründgens himself had saved from execution by the Nazis in 1943.

From 1936 till 1946, Gründgens was married to the famous German actress Marianne Hoppe. The wedlock was widely seen as a lavender marriage.

Posthumously, Gründgens was the subject of a novel entitled "Mephisto" by his former brother-in-law Klaus Mann, who had died in 1949. The film version was a huge commercial and critical success winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1981.

1919 – On this date G. Harrold Carswell, Richard Nixon's unsuccessful nominee for the Supreme Court, was born (d.1992). He was rejected for being a mediocre nominee and for his voiced support for racial segregation during an unsuccessful election bid in 1948. He was also against women's rights. In defense against charges that Carswell was "mediocre", U.S. Senator Roman Hruska (Republican, Nebraska) stated: "Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos." Talk about damning with faint praise!

The remark was criticized by many and is believed to have backfired and damaged Carswell's cause. Probably a good thing. It would have been very embarrassing to the Court when, several years later, he was convicted of "unnatural and lascivious advances," the result of propositioning an undercover police officer in a Florida men's room. Carswell subsequently withdrew from public life.

1959 – Norbert Bischoff, born in Meyenburg, Germany, was a German songwriter (d.1993).

Bischoff worked for the Leipzig song group and moved to Berlin in 1976.

From 1983 he performed his own songs. He was one of the first musicians in the GDR to openly address homosexual issues. In 1984 he released the song Truly a Place to be Happy about the dealings in pubs, and the program Sorry, I'm Gay. In late 1984 was hired by the Ministry of State Security, getting the job as a casual employee with with a fake resume. Bischoff quit after a short time.

In 1985, at the GDR Chansontage in Frankfurt on Oder, he received the General Director's Prize at the Committee for Entertainment Art for his program Excuse me, I'm the Gay One and since that year has been working as a freelance singer. Some of his songs were recorded on GDR radio. His song He says he is serious about a GDR neo-Nazi was banned.

In 1986 and 1990 he was a contributor to the Festival of Political Song in Berlin. In September 1989 he was one of the signatories of the resolution by rock musicians and songwriters calling for change in the GDR.

In the early 1990s he appeared with his band as Norbert Bischoff & Gesellschaft (Society). The band included Tina Tandler, Lexa Thomas, Bert Wrede, Norbert Grandl, and Juwe Andrees.

On November 9, 1993, Bischoff took his own life, frustrated by developments in reunified Germany. He left the note: "The right date to disappear for a German."

The CD: "I Don't Want to Wait any Longer - last songs by Norbert Bischoff", was released posthumously in 1994.

1960 – The American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was born on this date (d.1988). Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Puerto Rican woman and a Creole man. Because of his heritage, and his visits to Puerto Rico, Basquiat was fluent in French, Spanish and English by the age of eleven, and was able to read and write in all three languages. He showed artistic abilities at an early age but struggled in school, finally dropping out of high school.

In 1974, Jean-Michel moved to Puerto Rico with his family, who lived there for two years. It was there he experienced the first of many homosexual encounters; on one occasion he was orally raped by a barber. Upon the family's return to America, Jean-Michel dropped out of school and frequently ran away from home. At the age of 15, he absconded from his father, who caught him having sex with a male cousin and tried to kill him. Basquiat was a bi-sexual. His first sexual encounters were gay, and as a teenager he ofter worked as a gay street hustler, though later in his life he had many famous and infamous relations with women, including Madonna.

In the late 1970s Basquiat began spray-painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan, working under the pseudonym SAMO. When the Village Voice published an article about the graffiti, the artist ended the project by inscribed "SAMO IS DEAD" on the walls of SoHo buildings in 1979.

He started appearing on live public-access cable show and performing with noise rock bands. Finally in 1980, Basquiat participated in his first major show and received coverage in Artforum magazine, which brought Basquiat to the attention of the art world. This led to his joining a gallery in SoHo and showing regularly and an invitation to meet Andy Warhol who became a collaborator.

By 1985 he was appearing on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in recognition of his success as a leading artist of the period. After Warhol died on February 22, 1987, Basquiat became increasingly isolated, and his heroin addiction and depression became more severe. He died of a heroin overdose in his art studio on August 12, 1988, at the age of 27.

Basquiat's work has undergone major and influential exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Brooklyn Museum. On May 15, 2007 an untitled Basquiat work from 1981 sold at auction in New York for US$14.6 million. In 1996, seven years after his death, a biopic titled Basquiat was released, directed by Julian Schnabel, with actor Jeffrey Wright playing Basquiat. A 2009 documentary film, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, directed by Tamra Davis, was first screened as part of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

2000 – Joshua Bassett is an American actor, singer and songwriter. He is known for his starring role as Ricky Bowen in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.

Bassett was born and raised in Oceanside, California, and was home-schooled.

His first introduction to musical theater was at age 7, over a decade before he starred as Ricky in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, when he was in a community theater production of High School Musical as J.V. Jock No. 2. Since then, Bassett has starred in over 30 musical productions.

He moved to Los Angeles when he was 16 years old to start acting, living in his car for some time to get by.

Bassett sings and plays piano, guitar, ukulele, bass, drums, and some saxophone. On May 10, 2021, he came out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community during an interview.

In December 2021, Bassett disclosed that he experienced sexual abuse as a child and teen.

2010 – President Obama signs the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

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dragoneyes618 · 5 months

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The blood libel is a centuries-old odious antisemitic canard that was used to accuse Jews of murdering Christian children and obtaining the victims’ blood in accordance with the “kosher rules” for the slaughter of animals, and using their blood in the performance of religious rituals, especially the baking of matzot for Passover. Ritual murder claims against the Jews often arose in the context of the otherwise unexplained murders of children and, in many cases, the alleged victims of human sacrifice have become venerated as Christian martyrs.

The origin of this slander against the Jewish people – which included allegations that they poisoned wells and desecrated the “host” – can be traced back to the Crusades, with the first recorded libel occurring in Fulda, Germany, in 1235. Countless recorded cases of blood libel resulted in the arrest and murder of Jews and, with the allegations against individuals often expanding to accusations against all the Jewish people, entire Jewish communities were persecuted, expelled, and murdered.

The most notorious antisemitic political trial was arguably the Dreyfus Affair in France (1894 – 1906) and, although Dreyfus was accused of treason, not ritual murder, the course of the trial and its consequences were similar in many ways to historic blood libel cases. It was in this environment that the notorious Hilsner Affair began.

Leopold Hilsner (1876 -1928) was a physically and mentally limited 23-year-old unemployed Jewish vagabond journeyman with a history of petty theft who lived with his mother in a basement of a German Jewish school paid for by the charitable Polná Jewish community in Bohemia. The Hilsner Affair was a series of antisemitic trials in which he was accused of murdering Anežka Hrůzová, a local 19-year-old Czech Catholic, and using her blood for Jewish rituals. On the afternoon of March 29, 1899, which was Ash Wednesday, Hrůzová, a seamstress, left her place of employment in Polná, a German-speaking town of about 5,000 people, including 212 Jews, in eastern Bohemia about 60 miles from Prague. She set out on her two-mile walk along her usual route running alongside the Březina woods to her home adjacent to the Jewish quarter in the Czech village of Malá Vĕžnice, but she never arrived.

Three days later – on April 1, 1899, the day before Easter – her body was discovered in the forest face down and partially clothed with her throat slit and her bloodied head wrapped in part of her torn blouse. Next to the body, investigators found clothing torn near a pool of blood, some blood-stained stones, parts of her garments, and a rope with which she had been either strangled to death or dragged post-mortem to the place where the corpse was found. Because her disappearance had taken place during Passover and very little blood was found near her body, the authorities quickly concluded that the Christian girl had been murdered by a Jew, who had taken her blood to bake matzot for the holiday. The notorious antisemitic Austrian priest, Father Josef Deckert, published one of the first pamphlets alleging that Anežka was the victim of ritual murder; the Jew-hating Vienna newspaper, Deutsches Volksblatt, piled on; and the Austrian public lost no time in perpetrating the blood libel.

The investigating detectives turned their attention to Hilsner and they focused on his alleged ritual murder motive to the extent that they ignored all other suspects and disregarded all evidence that did not fit into their pre-determined narrative. For example, they never checked out allegations that Anežka was killed by her brother, Jan, who fled to the United States. In 1961, a report spread in Czechoslovakia that Jan made a hospital deathbed confession that he had murdered his sister to put himself in position to inherit their parents’ entire estate. The Czechoslovakian-born Israeli chargé d’affaires in Prague, Eliahu Kurt Livne, gathered evidence about the report and forwarded it to Israel’s Foreign Office, but the deathbed confession story was never confirmed.

A police search of Hilsner’s house yielded no incriminating evidence, and he maintained that he had left the city on the afternoon of the murder long before it could have been committed. Nonetheless, although there was no basis at all to charge him, the local aristocracy and the seditious press urged his prosecution and he was arrested. On the very day of his being taken into custody, hundreds of protestors entered the Jewish quarter and began throwing stones at windows and attacking Jewish shops – evocative of the Kristallnacht that would take place 39 years later – and rioting against Jews throughout Bohemia and Moravia continued throughout the Affair.

At his murder trial on September 12-16, 1899, Hilsner denied all knowledge of the crime. The only alleged physical evidence against him was a pair of damp trousers on which some stains were found, which testifying chemical experts said “might” have been blood and which they said “looked like” an attempt had been made to wash it. One witness had informed the legal committee set up by the local authorities to investigate the crime (which paid for such testimony) that she had seen Hilsner from 2,000 feet away (!) together with two other Jews at the scene of the crime on the day of the murder, but when she later saw Hilsner at his trial, she admitted that she could not be certain he was the same man that she had seen. Nonetheless, the court, after denying several requests by Hilsner’s counsel to test the chief witness’s eyesight, accepted her incriminating “eyewitness” testimony.

Media coverage of the investigation, including particularly in Catholic, Czech nationalist and antisemitic newspapers, focused on Hilsner’s Judaism, the proximity of the murder to Passover, and the ancient blood libel. Similarly, the local medical examiners, emphasizing that the victim’s body had been nearly completely emptied of blood (and that, therefore, the blood had to have been removed by the killer for nefarious purposes), responded to leading questions put to them by the court by raising the blood libel. Karel Baxa, a radical right-wing nationalist politician who served as counsel for the victim’s family and was named by the antisemitic press as “the savior of Christendom,” focused obsessively on the idea of Jewish ritual murder throughout the trial. In the prosecutor’s closing argument, he left little to doubt about Hilsner’s motive: “Disgusting people, people of another race, people who have acted like animals, have murdered a virtuous Christian virgin so that they could use her blood.”

Exhibited here is the Kol Koreh against the blood libel issued by the Rabbis of London in December 1899 during the Hilsner Affair:

A SOLEMN DECLARATION TO ALL THE NATIONS: We have learned, with grief and indignation, that the most hideous calumny which malice and hatred ever invented, is now being again revived against our people. The terrible accusation is made by evil-disposed persons, and industriously circulated by the antisemitic press, that Jews require human blood for their Passover ritual, or for some other religious rite, public or secret, and that Christian children are consequently entrapped and slaughtered for that purpose. We should have hoped that no person of sense would attach the slightest credence to this fable, which, though published against us in olden times of persecution and intolerance, has never been supported by a tittle of evidence. It is, moreover, directly at variance with all the well-known laws and customs of Judaism, as handed down to us by our books and traditions, and its falsehood has been acknowledged by eminent heads of the Church and proved by non-Jewish scholars. But as, unfortunately, there are still people who seem to believe this legend of Ritual Murder, and as this belief has lately led to acts of violence and other persecutions being inflicted on Jews in many parts of Austria, and to the spread of ill-will and hatred in many other places, we deem it right to publish this our Solemn Declaration, however painful the necessity for such action on our part. We solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm that in no book ever written by any man professing the Jewish religion, is there contained any ordinance or direction relating to the use of human blood at the Passover festival, or at any of our celebrations or rites, whether public or domestic. We, the undersigned, holding Rabbinical offices, are the disciples of Rabbis, who have been conversant with every detail of Jewish usage and history, and who have communicated to us all the knowledge of Hebrew law and tradition which they possessed, and we have never heard of such ordinance, direction, custom or usage, whether public or secret, as existing among any community or section of Jews. And whenever our teachers have spoken to us about this allegation of “ritual murder,” they have denounced it as foul and unfunded slander, as we ourselves declare it to be. And we, will all solemnity, and in the presence of Almighty G-d and man, make our Declaration, as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Although testimony at trial established that Hilsner was incapable of such a violent act – indeed, the doctors believed him too weak to fight alone against the much more vital Anežka – he and two unidentified coconspirators (no attempt was ever made to find these alleged accomplices and to bring them to justice) were convicted of aggravated murder and Hilsner was sentenced to death by hanging. The ramifications of the conviction were felt throughout the Austria-Hungarian empire, but most particularly in Vienna, where an antisemitic assembly, attended by Mayor Karl Lueger, presented the Jews as an international, “interconnected power that could destroy states” and that the Hilsner trial proved that the Jews “have set their foot on our necks; perhaps they want our blood as well.”

On September 20, only a few days after his first trial, Hilsner was confronted by hostile fellow prisoners, who pointed to carpenters working in the prison courtyard, informed him that gallows were being constructed for his hanging, and demanded that he name his “accomplices.” They promised him a commutation of his death sentence if he identified his collaborators and, beyond terrified, he named two Jews, Joshua Erbmann and Solomon Wassermann, as his fellows-in-crime. Perhaps due to his diminished mental capacity, fear and confusion, he reversed course several times: On September 7, he retracted his allegations against the other two Jews; on October 7, he reiterated his accusations against them; and on November 20, he again maintained that he had incorrectly named Erbmann and Wasserman. Fortunately, the alleged collaborators had airtight alibis: one had been incarcerated on the day of the murder, and the other was visiting poorhouses in Moravia at the time.

Hilsner’s counsel appealed to the Supreme Court in Vienna to overturn the verdict, but it received little attention until Tomáš G. Masaryk (1850-1937), the future first president of Czechoslovakia and then a professor of sociology at the Czech University in Prague, intervened forcefully on Hilsner’s behalf and spearheaded the appeal in the Supreme Court. He cited numerous technical errors made at trial, and he argued that the forensic work, the witness testimony, and nearly every other aspect of the case against Hilsner had been a set-up. In an 1899 pamphlet, The Need to Review the Polná Trial, he urged a complete review of the case and demanded a retrial, and in 1900, he authored The Meaning of the Polná Trial for the Blood Superstition, in which he presented a comprehensive attack on the allegation of ritual murder.

Comparisons were regularly drawn between the Dreyfus Affair and the Hilsner Affair, as evidenced by this postcard, and Masaryk was often referred to as the “Czech Zola.”

Masaryk’s involvement in the case was a gutsy and unpopular move, as he put his reputation, his career, and his future on the line to defend the Jewish people in general, and Hilsner in particular, against the loathsome blood libel. Standing virtually alone in the face of overwhelming hostility, he was vilified by the Church and the Czech media; his pamphlets were banned, and officials at the Czech University forced him to take a leave of absence from his teaching. Known as the “George Washington of Czechoslovakia,” Masaryk proved to be a good friend of the Jews, not only during the Hilsner Affair, but also during his term as president of Czechoslovakia (1918 – 1935).

During the Masaryk era, Czechoslovakia belonged to a small group of states that officially recognized Jewish nationality and granted Jews full civil rights. Masaryk was a strong supporter of Zionism; as he said in 1918:

The Jews will enjoy the same rights as all the other citizens of our State . . . As regards Zionism, I can only express my sympathy with it and with the national movement of the Jewish people in general, since it is of great moral significance. I have observed the Zionist and national movement of the Jews in Europe and in our own country and have come to understand that it is not a movement of political chauvinism, but one striving for the rebirth of its people.

In 1927, Masaryk visited Eretz Yisrael where, upon his arrival in Jerusalem, he was greeted with great affection by a massive crowd that included representatives of virtually every sector of the Jewish community. Heading his reception was Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, chief rabbi of the Edah HaCharedit and a staunch opponent of political Zionism, who escorted the president through the throngs and the decorated streets. In recognition of his friendship with the Jews, the kibbutz Kfar Masaryk in the Galilee was named for him.

In response to Masaryk’s filing and the publicity generated by his pamphlets, the high court ordered the medical faculty at the Czech University in Prague to review the findings of the original medical commission. In its subsequent report, the faculty issued a severe critique of the medical examiners’ criminological work, including particularly their false claim that the amount of blood at the site of Anežka’s corpse was materially less than the amount that should have been found in a violent death. Accordingly, the court nullified the original verdict and remanded the case to the Písek court for a new trial, but now Hilsner faced a second murder accusation: Marie Klímová, a servant who had disappeared on July 17, 1898. When a female body was found on October 27 in the same forest where Anežka’s body had been found, the decomposition was so advanced that the authorities could not even determine whether the girl had been murdered; nonetheless, the condition of the corpse bore some resemblance to that of the Anežka Hrůzová crime scene, which the prosecutor decided constituted sufficient basis for them to charge Hilsner with the murder.

The Supreme Court had expressly rejected the ritual murder theory, so the prosecutor, forced to find a different theory, decided to try Hilsner as a sexual predator, and the prosecution was materially assisted by the testimony of witnesses who, overnight, somehow became more certain in their testimony. For example, a witness who had previously testified that they had seen Hilsner with a knife, but could not provide any description of the weapon, was now adamant that the blade was a schochet’s knife (used by Jews in their ritual kosher slaughtering), and the “strange” Jews who a key witness had claimed she had seen accompanying Hilsner and whom she could not describe were now described in great detail. When Hilsner’s counsel showed the witnesses transcripts of their testimony at the first trial and asked them to compare with it their new testimony at the second trial, they alleged that either they had been intimidated by the judge or that their statements had been incorrectly transcribed.

After a 17-day retrial ending November 14, 1900, Hilsner was convicted of both murders and sentenced to death, but the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1901 by Emperor Franz Josef. Hilsner’s requests for a new trial were all denied and, although he was finally pardoned by Emperor Charles I on March 24, 1918 as one of his first acts upon succeeding to the Hapsburg throne, the conviction was never annulled. (In 1919, the organization for combatting antisemitism in Austria made a futile appeal for a new trial to clear his name, but the attempt failed.) Anežka Hrůzová’s killer was never found and, although suspicions have been directed at various individuals over time, no one else was ever charged with the murders.

It is interesting to note that in writing The Trial, the celebrated novel in which a man is prosecuted by an unknown authority and is tried and convicted of a crime that is never disclosed to him, Franz Kafka was inspired by contemporary historical events, including particularly the Hilsner Affair, which took place in his own country. Allegations that Anežka Hrůzová’s cut throat was consistent with schechita requirements to make an animal kosher must have hit Kafka, the 16-year-old grandson of a shochet, particularly hard, and he was also likely affected by his father’s active involvement in the Central Association for the Preservation of Jewish Affairs, which took a strong public stand in support of Hilsner and against the blood libel hoax.

According to Gustav Janouch, a Czech poet best known for his memoir Conversations with Kafka, Kafka cited the Hilsner Affair as the starting point of his awareness of the Jewish condition: “a despised individual, considered by the surrounding world as a stranger, only tolerated – in other words, a pariah.” In Kafka’s correspondence with Milena Jesenska, one of the great loves of his life, he makes a direct reference to the Hilsner affair as a definitive example of the irrationality of antisemitism: “I cannot understand how people came to this idea of ritual murder.”

Hilsner spent the rest of his miserable life as a beggar traveling through the Hapsburg monarchy under the name Heller. He exhibited almost unimaginable ingratitude when he rebuked Masaryk after the Czech president declined to meet with him, and an almost psychotic view of his own importance when he claimed that it was he who made Masaryk famous. Hilsner’s tombstone (see exhibit) reads: “As the innocent victim of lies of ritual murder, he languished in prison for 19 years.” A plaque at his final residence reads “Here stood the house where Leopold Hilsner (1876-1928) lived before his death. As an innocent victim of a lie about a ritual murder, he suffered 19 years in jail.”

At the end of the day, the Hilsner Affair was perhaps more terrifying than the Dreyfus Affair and other antisemitic trials of the time because it revived a medieval mode of antisemitism that was theoretically incompatible with supposedly enlightened contemporary society. Jews came to understand the lesson of history, yet again, that antisemitism trumps rationality and modernism.

#history #jewish history #antisemitism #interesting #jumblr #leopold hilsner #Tomáš masaryk #tomas masaryk

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sarcasticdolphin · 1 year

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“Purgatory” Todolf mafia au. Some sex. Also Tod .... was a bit theatrical in how he faked their deaths.

It’s raining on the island the day Tod flicks the TV on, going through the channels until he finds what he is looking for. Rudolf had been sketching the seagull perched on their balcony with no care for the rain.

There is something utterly odd about watching your own funeral. Rudolf abandons his pen and notepad soon enough, for Tod’s thigh as his pillow and Tod’s fingers working through his hair. It feels oddly divine.

The procession is over the top and gaudy and so very in character for his father. Rudolf actually had a will, and it had specified he only wanted a simple funeral, nothing like the spectacle on the TV.

“It’s only been three months.”

Tod makes an affirmative sound, his fingers not stopping. Rudolf nuzzles into the touch like a cat.

“The law is 18 before they can declare me dead without a body.”

Tod scratches a particular spot and Rudolf purrs. “But they did find a body ... or as good as in their book.”

Rudolf turns to look up at Tod’s far too amused face, raising an eyebrow.

Tod continued. “They got a tip a few weeks back. That they might do well to look at the meat being fed to some big cats at a particularly sketchy zoo - if you can even call it that. Your dear friends and animal control raided the place. I’m afraid they found your blood in one of the tiger’s food bowls. As far as the world is concerned you are tiger dug, my dove.”

Rudolf pulled himself into a sitting position, straddling Tod’s lap. “Tiger dung? Really?”

Tod looks amused. “You only gave me one unit of blood to work with, Rudolf. Would you feel better if it was the lions?”

Rudolf scoffed. “And did you also feed yourself to the tigers?”

Tod pulled him in for a kiss, his expression amused. “No. That blood went to the lions.”

Rudolf rolled his eyes. His father’s eulogy was starting. He slid off of Tod’s lap and sat beside him on the couch, before rising and returning with a pair of beers.

“Shall we play a drinking game, my friend?”

Tod raises an eyebrow but accepts the beer Rudolf offers him.

“A sip every time my father lies.”

Tod snorted. “Do you want us to die of alcohol poisoning?”

Rudolf drank as his father proclaimed how much he would miss his darling son. “I haven’t seen him in eight years.” He muttered under his breath.

His mother is obviously crying (in contrast to his ever-put-together father) - but she doesn’t speak, just standing there like the perfect porcelain doll. Rudolf’s mood darkens.

The rest of the funeral does little to improve it. It is like his father specifically went out of his way to avoid everything Rudolf had requested in his will. He leaves before they put the empty casket in the ground.

It has stopped raining so he heads outside. The ocean is vast and blue before him, the white sand of the beach the same color as his skin. The first time Tod brought him here he’d gotten a sunburn all over his neck and face.

Rudolf turned back toward the house. Tod had a very particular aesthetic here - all the décor was white or pale blue, and all the furniture was white or tan. It was as far from the dark modern style he preferred everywhere else. Rudolf supposed he fit the white aesthetic well enough himself, looking down at the half-undone linen shirt and loose cargo shorts. White and a pale tan.

A gull lands beside him. Rudolf wonders if it was the same one from the balcony rail earlier.

A gentle hand on Rudolf’s shoulder marks Tod’s arrival.

“Now what?’

“We wait. Draw. Enjoy yourself.” Tod turns Rudolf in his arms and kisses him, deep and with a very particular intent. “Let me distract you.” Tod tucks a strand behind Rudolf’s ear and kisses his forehead. “Welcome to purgatory, my prince.”

“Will I ever leave?”

“In time. But you will never return there. Ich schlage vor, du lernst Deutsch.”

Rudolf raises an eyebrow.

Tod merely smirks and picks Rudolf up, drawing a squawk from the younger man.

The walk back to the house is pleasant enough. Tod puts him down to dust the sand off their feet before hefting Rudolf once more, tossing him onto the bed this time.

Tod marks his neck with abandon. Why wouldn’t he? It’s not like Rudolf will face the stares of his colleagues on Monday. The black silk ribbon that binds his hands to the headboard is familiar enough.

Tod takes him roughly at first - as Rudolf wines from the intoxicating mix of pain and pleasure Tod has trained him so well to enjoy - but switches to gentle rolls of his hips after Rudolf cums the first time.

The kiss that comes as they cum together, swallowing the half whine that escapes Rudolf’s throat at the sensation, is somehow more possessive than any bite, than any bruise.

They shower together, Tod’s hands never leaving Rudolf, before Tod spoons the younger man and hooks his chin over his shoulder.

“Sleep. You don’t need to worry about anything.” Tod presses a final kiss to the little raven on Rudolf’s shoulder blade before they fall asleep together.

#todolf #modern mafia au #Tod faked their deaths in a messed up way #you have been warned #my fic

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oceaneducation · 1 year

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Trigger Warning TW: Story of a Survivor, Domestic Violence, Sexual Abuse There are moments in life that you never forget. One of them was when I first dialed “Nummer gegen Kummer”, a helpline for children and Youth. As many of you know, I am an advocate against domestic violence. I became interested in marine conservation when I met fishermen's wives in Peru in 2008 who were being abused by their husbands. What I'm writing about today for the first time: I myself am a survivor of domestic violence and sexual abuse in my childhood and youth. One of my resources at the time was the helpline “Nummer gegen Kummer" (“number against sorrow”). It must have been at school that I first heard about the number. One day, when I was home alone, I sat down on the stairs to the 1st floor so that I could always see the driveway. I nervously clutched the phone. I dialed the number, my whole body was shaking. I can still remember how much I cried and was relieved to have an adult just listening to me. I was also very afraid of being discovered during the calls. Since the calls are taken over by Deutsche Telekom and are anonymous, the telephone number does not appear on the bill. It was also a relief for me that the calls were free because I didn't have any pocket money. Until I moved out at the age of 19, I turned for help by dialing the “Nummer gegen Kummer”. From my experience I know how difficult it is to ask for support. I often thought to myself: "Is it even worth it? I have to do it alone!" But it's okay to reach out for support. Why didn't I ask anyone for help then? The culture of my family of origin played a major role in this, in which it was not proper to talk about private problems with outsiders. The racism I encountered growing up in Germany also made my trust in those around me crumble. So the number was my lifeline at a time when I was struggling to keep my head above water. Check out www.nummergegenkummer.de for more information. Growing up, I got to know another helpful counseling service: The "Violence against women" helpline caters specifically to women and girls: Bullying, stalking, forced marriage, rape or human trafficking - the "Violence against Women" help line provides advice on all forms of violence. Check out https://www.hilfetelefon.de/en.html. They provide help in 18 languages and more. Why am I telling you my story today? Because in the last few years I've remembered my WHY, why I started to stand up for women's rights: When I was a child, I swore to myself that when I reached adulthood, I would do my part to ensure that girls and women never again experienced violence. Every third woman in Germany is affected by sexual and/or physical violence. I don't want to hide behind anonymous statistics to take action against domestic and sexual violence. I myself am a survivor. I survived to speak about it. I survived to tell people about the help that saved me and that I wished I had had more of as a child. Today, at the age of 38, I can say: Thank you dear team of the “Nummer gegen Kummer” for your help. These counseling offers cannot replace therapy. But if it weren't for the positive experience I had with the advisors back then, I wouldn't have regained hope to work for marine conservation, women's rights and diversity. My goal is that in the future even more young people who are looking for help will have access to counseling services. Let's work together so that no call for help goes unheard! So feel free to share and spread the word. Thank you! #support #womensrights #MentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #Therapy #grief #domesticviolence #survivor #abuse #believesurvivors #orangeyourcity #orangetheworld #orangeday #16days #humanrights #unwomen #femalepower #gender #equality #noviolence #endgbv #violenceagainstwomen #EndViolenceAgainstWomen #international #girls #women #metoo #femaleempowerment #feminism

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raducotarcea · 20 minutes

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thatmcgwords · 6 months

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Constantly, creative people find it extremely difficult to complete what they start, they are usually distracted by the numerous ideas occasionally flowing through their minds. ~ Marie Forleo

“Identify thought patterns of the mind that prevent one from learning something new and vaccinate against them. The first thought virus is “I know this already” and the second thought virus is “This won't work for me.””

Instead of I know this already, think more of What can I learn from this? And instead of This won't work for me, think more of How can this work for me? ~ Marie Forleo

“Rule 1: All problems (or dreams) are figureoutable

Rule 2: If a problem is not figureoutable, then it is either a fact of life or a law of nature

Rule 3: The problem or dream you want to figure out must be something you are passionate about for Rule 1 to apply

Quantum theorist David Deutsch says, “Everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge.” So, test it, apply it, experience it, and live it.”

“The movies, stories, and books we've come across have taken a journey from the world of unmanifest to manifest. From formless ideas to concrete reality. The mind is a piece of magical creation machinery and is the birthplace of every extraordinary idea we've come across and even major breakthroughs encountered in human history.”

Everything in the material world is initially created on the level of thought. ~ Marie Forleo

“Everything that exists in our world exists in our minds first. That is the universal gift that's been bestowed upon us to help shape our lives, and collectively the world that surrounds us. The creation process starts from thoughts, then moves on to the feeling. Subsequently, feeling begets behavior and behavior produces results.

Deep inside our thoughts lies an even deeper and more rooted force that directs and takes control of our lives. This deeply rooted commanding force is our beliefs. They are the hidden scripts that run our lives. It is something you know totally and with absolute certainty. A thought you've consciously or unconsciously decided is the Truth.”

“The environment we live in programs our brain with beliefs about almost everything, ranging from love, health, sex, our bodies, money, religion, beauty, relationships, other people, and the world at large. Close experiences to further cement those beliefs about ourselves, others and the world at large.

And naturally, all these beliefs are sometimes influenced by hand-me-down beliefs, both positive and negative, which stacks up over time and begin to become stronger and deeply rooted, transforming who we are, and what makes up our reality.”

“Find inspiring examples through biographies, whether alive or dead, famous or unknown, watch movies, listen to interviews, or even simply pay attention to the good people in your life.

You may have no examples in looking for inspiration, yet there is the belief in what possibly burns so brightly in your heart thereby devoting your life to making it a reality.”

Research has shown how belief affects our physical well-being and our cognitive performance. ~ Marie Forleo

You are 100% responsible for your life. ~ Marie Forleo

You have more power than you think. ~ Marie Forleo

“If you allow them, excuses can be dream killers. They can keep you locked in a prison of your own making. As the adage goes, if you argue your limitations, you get to keep them. We can always find something to blame for our lack of results if we want to, but nothing is more detrimental to our long term success than an untrained mind.

Do not allow any excuse space in your head or heart. Use the stories of those who can become touchstones for your mental and emotional strength, people whose stories of relentlessness and determination of you, use to keep your life in perspective.”

“There are cognitive strategies that can transform fear into a productive and creative fuel. Some of them are:

• Explore fear as your GPS

• Leverage your language

• Think about a specific time you failed and mine the gold from that. What are the three good things that came from it? What lessons were learned? What valuable understanding did you now have that you wouldn't have otherwise?

Be curious and listen to your fear, the helpful positive signals your fears might be sending you.”

I win or I learn, but I never lose. ~ Marie Forleo

“Writing down your dreams forces you to be clear and specific about what you want, even as basic as it is, most people still haven't cultivated the habit of writing down what is most important to them. Ambiguity is the greatest enemy of accomplishment.”

“Focus and get real about your dreams, select the dream you feel most drawn to from the list you've made, circle it, and ask yourself how important the dream is to you at that moment. Note that you have to be honest with yourself when answering that question.

If perhaps you were able to circle more than one dream, narrow it down to one because it is important to narrow it down. That single dream will serve as the training ground to mastering the figureoutable philosophy. Develop the ability to focus and concentrate and in doing so, you are cultivating a set of mental strengths and behavioral habits that will assist you in accomplishing your goals. Trying to multitask at this stage is a recipe for failure and frustration.

Convert your dream into something specific, measurable, and actionable.”

Take small consistent steps towards your goals Instead of procrastinating because progress is better than waiting for perfection. ~ Marie Forleo

“Determining your next 3 steps and getting started on them. What are those 3 simple actions to take in getting closer to that eventual goal of figuring it out? What could be done in 10 minutes or less, the first of which could be done right?.

Focusing on small active steps like making a phone call or setting up an appointment and if you must research, how you can make that research more hands-on. Train yourself to move towards discomfort, put yourself in scary and intimidating situations because that is where the figureoutable magic lies.”

Always direct your energy, attention, and efforts to what you can control and not what you can't. ~ Marie Forleo

“Here are what will always be in your control: your words, actions, behavior, attitude, perspective, focus, effort, and every. Also, you are in control of how you respond to certain events and circumstances as they occur, whether you like them or not.

Here's what's never within your control: other people and their words, actions, behaviors, attitudes e.t.c. you are not in control of the weather, acts of God, or natural laws that govern our existence (e.g, gravitational force).

Making a lifelong commitment to cultivating social intelligence because, at some point, all dreams require cooperation or at least harmonious interaction with others. This includes learnable disciplines like the act of persuasion, influence, marketing, and sales, even when you think you might not need those skills.”

You can do whatever you set your mind to if you just roll up your sleeves, get in there and do it. Everything is figureoutable. ~ Marie Forleo

“Most times we are struggling with how to try and fit into the societal construct rather than figuring out what works for us. Long before becoming a fully functioning adult, you are expected to choose one well-paying thing to be, incur debts to get educated on that one thing, and therefore stick to that choice for the next forty-plus years, praying you'll earn enough to one day retire and not die broke. Not only is this idea gross, it is dangerous in many ways being that many of us aren't built for that kind of narrow, long-term focus. While some people are happy and devoted to a single field, some of us are multi-passionate creatives.

Progress begins with making a brave decision to start even before you are ready, this will therefore fast track your learning and growth. Action spawn courage, not the other way round. It generates motivation, so instead of waiting for inspiration to strike, action implores you to keep going. Value growth and learning over comfort and certainty, do not mistake procrastination for extensive research and planning.

Where you will gain new skills and capabilities is the growth zone. It is where you will acquire strength and expertise, and produce new results. Then the growth zone becomes your comfort zone.

Confidence increases and all the things that once terrified you no longer scare you, your conviction is strengthened to tackle new sets of challenges and you begin to embrace the uncertainty, vulnerability, and humility inside every learning process. All these cycles are fundamental to mastering the figureoutable philosophy.”

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