Author: ali redford

I love dogs and people. I want living creatures to thrive. I love to cook, and share the food, but ya gotta get in line in front of the dog.

Is It A Good Day To Post About Drag in The US Army?

Everyday’s a good day to do that! Jeff Tiedrich included this in his substack today about the President’s grad speech at West Point. I also linked that below this snippet, if anyone’s interested in that. It’s TMI for me today, but very good; I read his most days. Meanwhile, back to the Army news: -A

Drag in the military: How drag queens helped U.S. soldiers win World War II

Ronald Reagan was even involved in this largely-forgotten tradition.

By Dan Tracer Friday, June 21, 2024 · Updated on June 22, 2024

Long before RuPaul’s Drag Race, Drag Queen Story Hour, or any one of the countless drag shows gracing the stages of LGBTQ+ bars around the world, there was another popular spot for performative gender-bending: U.S. military bases in the 1940s.

During World War II, the military embraced drag shows as a unique form of entertainment and a morale-boosting activity. These officially sanctioned events featured all-male performances with soldiers often dressing in women’s attire. According to author Allan Bérubé, GIs staged these shows everywhere from makeshift platforms to grand theater stages, incorporating popular female impersonation routines of the day.

Due to the official segregation of the armed forces, service-member theater productions had no option but to cast men in female roles.

One of the most iconic productions of the era, “This is the Army,” was initially a Broadway musical designed to raise funds for troops. It later became a sensation as a 1943 film starring Ronald Reagan, 37 years before he was elected President of the United States. These shows not only provided soldiers with much-needed diversion during the stresses of conflict but also served as a safe haven for gay service members, as explained by Joe E. Jeffreys, a drag historian and professor at New York University’s New School. (snip; a little MORE with video)

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elderly golfer’s brain goes fuckity-bye in batshit West Point speech by Jeff Tiedrich

Donny can’t be bothered to act like a human being Read on Substack

Open Windows, Clay Jones

Corrupt Bananas by Clay Jones

As Gwen Stefani said, “This shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Read on Substack

If you’re the president of the United States and you want to do a lot of corrupt bullshit, the first thing you do is hire corrupt people who will support your corrupt bullshit.

A sure way to tell someone is corrupt is by offering them a bribe. If they accept the bribe, then they’re good to go because they’re up to no good. Years later, when you need a corrupt Attorney General to vouch that accepting a $400 million plane from Qatar isn’t corrupt, Pam Bondi will tell the public it’s not corrupt, even though it is.

And then, when you need your spokesgoon to say something super ridiculous to defend you over selling access to the Oval Office, you hire Karoline Leavitt. Leavitt said it was OK for Trump to be at his golf club, hosting the top buyers of his crypto because he was off the clock, attending in his “personal time,” as though he’s just a guess. Get the fuck out of here.

The White House claims that Trump’s assets are in a “blind trust” managed by his two idiot kids, Sniffy Jr. and Eric. (snip-MORE, and it’s good!)

Republican bill cuts food aid for elderly, low-income, & disabled Americans by Ann Telnaes

and increased funding for their own version of Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program Read on Substack

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/house-republicans-narrowly-passed-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-heres-what-in-it

John T. Scopes Indicted This Date, + More in Peace & Justice History for 5/25

May 25, 1774
A group of African slaves in Massachusetts Bay colony petitioned the British royal governor for freedom as their natural right: “. . . we have in common with all other men a natural right to our freedoms without Being depriv’d of them by our fellow men as we are a freeborn Pepel [people] and have never forfeited this Blessing by aney compact or agreement whatever.”
May 25, 1925
John T. Scopes was indicted for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. Scopes, a football coach and substitute high school biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, agreed to be arrested and put on trial for teaching evolution. He was challenging the legitimacy of a four-day-old state law barring Darwin’s theory from the public school curriculum.

The Scopes “Monkey Trial”  ACLU
May 25, 1948

Garry Davis, formerly a member of the U.S. military, renounced his American citizenship to become a Citizen of the World. Davis continued to promote “world citizenship” for over 50 years; 400,000 have, at one time or another, joined the movement.    
  watch trailer “THE WORLD IS MY COUNTRY”
Read more about Garry Davis   NY Times
May 25, 1963
Leaders of 32 African nations met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to set up the Organization of African Unity (OAU), giving them a united voice for the first time in the continent’s history. The primary aim of the OAU was to end European colonial control in the countries where it still existed at the time: Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), South Africa, Mozambique and Angola.

OAU flag
Read more 
May 25, 1986

An estimated 7 million Americans participated in Hands Across America, forming a line across the country from Los Angeles to New York to raise public awareness of the issues of hunger and homelessness in the U.S. Participants paid ten dollars [almost $20 in 2009] to reserve their place in line; the proceeds were donated to local charities to feed the hungry and help the homeless.
May 25, 2003
Four activists, members of the Catholic Worker movement and known as “Riverside Ploughshares,” were arrested for pouring blood and hammering on the USS Philippine Sea’s Tomahawk cruise missile hatches. The ship was visiting New York City for the annual “Fleet Week.”
“With hammers we have initiated the process of disarming this battle ship, of transforming this carrier of mass destruction into a vessel for peace…”
pouring blood and hammering..
Details of the Riverside Ploughshares action 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may25

Long-Weekend (US) Reads in LGBTQ+ History

I keep meaning to get them posted, then I don’t get it done. Here they are; readers can pick and choose, or read each one in your own time. Enjoy!

This one has 2: 120, and 120a! -A

Queer History 120: Sappho by Wendy🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈

How a woman from ancient Lesbos changed literature and sexuality forever Read on Substack

Queer History 119: Dr Alan Hart, Trans Guy Super Power by Wendy🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈

“What does it feel like to save countless lives while being forced to hide who you really are? To revolutionize medicine while living in constant fear of being “discovered”? To fight a deadly disease that ravaged millions while battling a society that treated your very existence as a fucking scandal?”
Read on Substack

Queer History 118: The Tragedy of Carmen Carrasco (1932) by Wendy🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈

“In a Spain teetering between progress and persecution, one woman’s death exposed the brutal reality faced by those who dared to love differently.

The day they found Carmen Carrasco’s body, Madrid whispered.”  Read on Substack

Queer History 117: The Boys of Boise Scandal by Wendy🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈

“In 1955, the sleepy city of Boise, Idaho became ground zero for one of the most fucked-up anti-gay witch hunts in American history. What began as arrests of three men exploded into a moral panic that would rip families apart like wet paper, crush reputations under its boot, and drive some to blow their brains out—all under the bullshit guise of ‘protecting the children.'”
Read on Substack

Queer History 116: Natalie Clifford Barney by Wendy🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈

How an American heiress built a lesbian literary empire in the heart of French culture while telling society to go fuck itself Read on Substack

Queer History 115: The Radical Queer Brotherhood in Walt Whitman’s Revolutionary Circle by Wendy🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌈

How America’s “Good Gray Poet” built a secret society of gay intellectuals that changed literature forever Read on Substack

It’s in the Saturday Evening Post

Mourning Dove, Teller of Native American Stories

The gifted storyteller and tribal advocate published one of the first novels written by a Native American woman.

Nancy Rubin Stuart

Mourning Dove, 1916 (L.V. McWhorter Collection, Washington State University Libraries Digital Collections)

“I am most grateful that…I was born long enough ago to have known people who lived in the ancient way before everything started to change.”
–Mourning Dove

Maybe it was because she was born in a canoe on Idaho’s Kootenai River. Or because she was multiracial. Or because she went to a convent school to learn English as a ten-year-old.  Whatever the reason, Christine Quintasket, whose Salish language name was Hum-ishu-ma (Mourning Dove in English, which she adopted as her literary name as an adult), wrote stories about the hostility white people had toward Native Americans and the confusion they suffered when educated in white schools.

Born around 1884 to Sinixt/Colville Lucy Stukin of the upper Columbia River and Okanagan/Irish Joseph Quintasket of British Columbia, the future writer grew up speaking the Salishan dialect in her mother’s home near Kettle Falls, Washington, according to her autobiography. Mourning Dove’s grandmother taught her the traditional customs of Columbia Plateau natives. Teequalt, an older woman who lived with the family, introduced her to tribal spirituality, and Jimmy Ryan, an adopted white orphan, taught her to read English through dime novels.

As a young girl, Mourning Dove remembered sitting by a campfire and listening to the animated voice of a tribal storyteller imitating an animal. “We thought of this as all fun and play, barely aware that tale-telling and impersonations were part of our primitive education,” she recalled decades later.

Mourning Dove’s indigenous education ended in 1894 when she went to the Sacred Heart School at the Goodwin Catholic Mission near Kettle Falls. When her mother died in 1902, the writer returned home to care for her younger siblings. After her father remarried in 1904, she moved to Great Falls, Montana to attend the Fort Shaw Industrial Indian School. In 1908 Mourning Dove sorrowfully watched the last roundup of America’s wild bison herd as the Old West faded. “One magnificent fellow fought like a lion as they tried to crowd his wonderful shaggy head into a box car,” she told an interviewer. She later incorporated the roundup in her writing. (snip-MORE, not too long to read, and it’s really interesting!)

Woot! 🌞

Anatomy of Typos (Sonnet) – Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets

I Wonder If I’ll Ever Be Able To Make This A Daily Practice- 🤷 🌞

Quote of the day: Growth requires patience 💮🫶✨🙏

International Women’s Day for Disarmament Today, and More, in Peace & Justice History for 5/24

May 24, 1774
The Virginia House of Burgesses declared this a day of “fasting, humiliation and prayer” in reaction to the British closure of the Port of Boston.
May 24, 1906

Dora Montefiore
British suffragist Dora Montefiore protested the lack of women’s right to the vote by refusing to pay taxes, and barricading her house against bailiffs sent to collect.
Dora Montefiore biography 
May 24, 1917 
An Anti-Conscription Parade was held in Victoria Square, Montreal, Quebec, in resistance to a Canadian draft to send soldiers to the European war. Riots nearly a year later resulted in the death of four demonstrators in Quebec City.

Anti-Conscription Parade, Victoria Square
May 24, 1964
  
Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona), running for the Republican Party nomination for president, gave an interview in which he said he would consider the use of low-yield atomic bombs in North Vietnam.
May 24, 1968
Four protesters, including Phil Berrigan and Tom Lewis, were sentenced in Baltimore, Maryland, to six years each in prison for pouring blood on draft records.
May 24, 1971
At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, an anti-war newspaper advertisement, signed by 29 U.S. soldiers supporting the Concerned Officers Movement, resulted in controversy.
The group had been formed in 1970 in Washington, D.C. by a small group of junior naval officers opposed to the war.
The newspaper advertisement at Fort Bragg was in support of the group’s members, who had joined with anti-war activist David Harris and others in San Diego to mobilize opposition to the departure of the carrier USS Constellation for Vietnam. No official action was taken against the military dissidents, though many were forced to resign their commissions.

GI resistance to the Vietnam War 
May 24, 1981 (since 1981)
International Women’s Day for Disarmament was declared, calling for the peaceful resolution of conflict, and an end to the horror and devastation of armed conflict.
IFOR’s Women Peacemakers Program 
May 24, 1982
More than 200,000 people participated in a massive anti-nuclear demonstration in Tokyo, Japan.
May 24, 2000
Israeli troops completed their withdrawal from southern Lebanon, ending 18 years of occupation. Prime Minister Ehud Barak: “From now on, the government of Lebanon is accountable for what takes place within its territory, and the Lebanese and Syrian governments are responsible for preventing acts of terror or aggression against Israel, which is from today deployed within its borders.”

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may24

“Seldom-seen Sprite”

Virginia's Warbler

Check In With Your States-

Kansas denies USDA request for personal data of residents receiving food assistance

By: Morgan Chilson – May 22, 2025 5:15 pm

 Kansas Department for Children and Families denied a request by the federal government for access to personal data of a food assistance program. (Submitted)

TOPEKA — State officials have denied a federal request to disclose personal information of Kansans using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

On May 6, the Kansas Department for Children and Families received a letter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that demanded “unfettered access to comprehensive data from all State programs that receive federal funding.” DCF spokeswoman Erin LaRow shared a copy of that letter and other communications in response to an inquiry from Kansas Reflector.

The USDA letter specified that information to be collected for each SNAP applicant or recipient included name, Social Security number, date of birth, personal address and records to calculate the amount of SNAP benefits participants received over time. It was signed by Gina Brand, senior policy advisor for integrity at USDA’s Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services division.

The requested data would cover the time period from Jan. 1, 2020, to the present, the letter said.

DCF’s SNAP data is held by a third-party database administrator, Fidelity Information Services LLC. That company notified DCF on May 9 that a formal request for Kansas SNAP records had been made from USDA and that because of federal guidance, they were required to disclose that information.

“As such, FIS intends to fully cooperate with the USDA in facilitating its request for information, as required by applicable law and the guidance,” wrote Prashant Gupta, FIS senior vice president. He then asked for DCF’s written consent.

DCF stopped the process in a letter dated May 14, sent by Carla Whiteside Hicks, the DCF director of economic and employment services.

“Please be advised that we do not consent to your providing the USDA the requested information at this time,” Whiteside Hicks told FIS. “As you know, our obligation to maintain these records in confidence is paramount and may only be disclosed to the USDA for specific program-related reasons. At this time, we are unsure as to the reason for the USDA’s request. As such, we are unable to consent to your turning the information over.”

Whiteside Hicks also said DCF will be asking the USDA to contact DCF directly in the future. She asked FIS to turn over any information that they may have already provided to the USDA and to also provide DCF with any written communications the company has received from USDA.

LaRow said DCF is reviewing the request from USDA related to the personally identifiable data of Kansans.

“Security of Kansans’ personal information is paramount to the agency, and we are committed to maintaining confidentiality consistent with state and federal law,” she said.

(snip-see the letters in .pdf on the page)