Plato’s Symposium uses the dialogue to expound various theories of love. Each participant by means of very personal contributions adds something towards an exposition of love that at the end receives its conclusion from Socrates. The comic playwright, Aristophanes’s speech is an explanation of why people in love say they feel “whole” when they have found their love partner. He begins by explaining that people must understand human nature before they can interpret the origins of love and how it affects their own times. 

 Aristophanes says that in the beginning there were three parents: Sun, Moon, and Earth. Each produced an offspring, round and otherwise like itself. From sun was produced the man; from earth, the woman; from moon, the androgyne. Each of these three was a double, one head with two faces looking out in opposite directions, four arms and legs, and two sets of genitalia. They moved about on the earth with a great deal more freedom and power than humans do now, for they rolled-ran hand over hand and foot over foot at double speed.  In other words, they did cartwheels to get around.

One day, these fast, powerful, but foolish creatures decided to scale Mt. Olympus to attack the gods.

What should the gods do to show the foolish humans the error of their ways? Should they shoot them down with thunderbolts? No, they decided, too boring. They’d done that before to the giants. Besides, who would pour out libations and offer sacrifices to them if they destroyed their worshipers? They had to devise a new punishment.

Zeus thought and thought. Finally he had a brainstorm. Humans were not a real threat, but they did need a dressing down. Their arrogance would be checked if they lost their speed, strength, and confidence. Zeus decided that if they were cut in half, they would be only half as fast and half as strong. Even better, it was a re-usable plan. Should they act up again, he would repeat the operation, leaving them with only one leg and one arm each.

After he revealed his plan to his fellow Olympians, he asked Apollo to join him in putting it into effect. The king of the gods cut the man-man, woman-woman, and man-woman creatures in half and Apollo made the necessary repairs. The face, previously facing out, Apollo turned inward. Then he gathered all the skin together (like a purse) with an opening in the middle as a reminder to mankind of his earlier state.

After the surgery, the half creatures ran around frantically looking for their other halves, seeking them out, embracing them, and trying to join together again. Unable to join, the creatures despaired and began to starve to death in their sorrow. Zeus, again mindful of his need for worship, decided something must be done to recharge the creatures’ spirits, so he instructed Apollo to create a means to rejoin temporarily. This Apollo did by turning the genitals to the belly side of the body.

Before, mankind had procreated by dropping seed on the ground. This new system created an interesting new means of producing offspring.

The creatures who had been double women before, naturally sought out women; those who had been androgynous, sought out members of the opposite gender; those who had been double men, sought out the company of men, and not simply for intercourse, but so they could become whole again by being rejoined with their soul mates.



It may look like a simple through arch bridge, but the Edmund Pettus Bridge is not a simple bridge.   The Edmund Pettus Bridge is a bridge that carries U.S. Route 80 across the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama.  I’ve crossed it countless times in my life, and have always been struck by the history made there. Built in 1940, it is named for Edmund Winston Pettus, a former Confederate brigadier general, Democratic Party U.S. Senator from Alabama and Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.  The Pettus Bridge was the site of the conflict of Bloody Sunday on March 7, 1965, when armed officers attacked civil rights demonstrators attempting to march to the state capital of Montgomery.

Saturday, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the event as thousands gathered in the small city of Selma, Alabama to hear among others, President Obama speak. Obama’s address commemorated the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” during the marches to Montgomery in 1965, but his rhetorical scope encompassed all of American history.  Obama made the case that we are not exceptional in the perfection of our virtue, but rather, exceptional in our relentless struggle to live up to our ideals:

For we were born of change. We broke the old aristocracies, declaring ourselves entitled not by bloodline, but endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. We secure our rights and responsibilities through a system of self-government, of and by and for the people. That’s why we argue and fight with so much passion and conviction, because we know our efforts matter. We know America is what we make of it.

For Obama, the marchers at Selma helped set a new course for American democracy. “Because of what they did, the doors of opportunity swung open not just for African-Americans, but for every American,” he told the crowd. “Women marched through those doors. Latinos marched through those doors. Asian-Americans, gay Americans, and Americans with disabilities came through those doors.” Had one of his predecessors not already taken the phrase, perhaps he would have called this a new birth of freedom.

He further noted, “We do a disservice to the cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are immutable, or that racial division is inherent to America. If you think nothing’s changed in the past 50 years, ask somebody who lived through the Selma or Chicago or L.A. of the ’50s. Ask the female CEO who once might have been assigned to the secretarial pool if nothing’s changed. Ask your gay friend if it’s easier to be out and proud in America now than it was 30 years ago. To deny this progress — our progress — would be to rob us of our own agency; our responsibility to do what we can to make America better.”

Linking all “warriors of justice,” he invoked immigrants, slaves, and more who worked to change the U.S., he commented, “We are the gay Americans whose blood ran on the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge.”

It is often forgotten the role of LGBT Americans in the Civil Rights Movement for African-Americans.  James Baldwin was at the Selma to Montgomery March, and he wrote the first gay book I ever read, Giovanni’s Room.  Lorraine Hansberry was a lesbian, whose 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun, blazed a trail for African Americans into mainstream theatre and entertainment.  Bayard Rustin was not only dedicated to orchestrating the civil rights movement, he was also one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest advisors, and the organizer of the epic 1963 March on Washington. The Civil Rights Movement owes a debt of gratitude to the many LGBT Americans who fought for equal rights in the 1950s and 1960s.

Last week when Alabama broke numerous records for all time lows, silvereagle commented
“Cold here also. 20 right now. Glad I am inside. Wear those longjohns. Wonder where they got that name? Was John really long? What if his name had been Dick? Lol”. So I thought I might find the answer. How did long johns get their name?

Long johns were first introduced into England in the seventeenth century but only become popular as sleepwear in the 18th century. The manufacturing foundations of long johns may lie in Derbyshire, England, at John Smedley’s Lea Mills, located in Matlock. The company has a 225-year heritage and is said to have created the garment, reputedly named after a famous boxer who fought in long underwear.

The setting: a smoke-filled room with a boxing ring in Boston, Massachusetts around 1879.

The bell announced round three. Two antagonists rose from opposing corners, carefully calculating their next moves. Big John Sullivan, also called “The Boston Strong Boy,” made the first move: a blazing uppercut blow from the left. His deceived opponent fell hard, eyelids wavering.

Big John swaggered over his fallen victim, bragging, “I can lick anybody, anywhere, anytime.”

Modesty may not have been Big John’s forté, as John became known not only for his fighting style but for the mark he left upon the world of fashion. Unlike other fighters of his time, Big John wore one-piece thermals in the ring, otherwise known as the Union suit.

As his notoriety grew, John’s wardrobe took on the identity of the man, himself. Thus creating “long johns” as the character’s article of choice to wear.

In 2004, Michael Quinion, a British etymologist and writer, first postulated that the “john” in the item of apparel may be a reference to Sullivan, who wore the above mentioned union suit in the ring. This explanation, however, is uncertain and the word’s origin is ultimately unknown.

A less colorful explanation comes from Stanfield’s of Canada. An adjustable two-piece design is credited to Canadian Frank Stanfield, a native of Truro, Nova Scotia, who patented his design on 7 December 1915. In 1898, Stanfield and his brother John had developed a product called Stanfield’s Unshrinkable Underwear for Stanfield’s, their garment manufacturing company. Frank Stanfield may have given it the nickname long johns after his brother.

The most interesting part of my research (to me at least) into the name long johns was that I actually knew who John L. Sullivan was. I used to live less than five miles from the site of Sullivan’s most famous fight. You see, at the corner of Richburg Road and Sullivan-Kilrain Road in rural Mississippi there’s a monument that honors the last bare-knuckle boxing fight, famously known as the Sullivan-Kilrain fight. When I took the back roads to school, which I often did to avoid the worst of traffic, I regularly passed by this monument. The fight is 125-years-old and happened on July 8, 1889. The prize fight was between Jake Kilrain and John L. Sullivan.

On the 125th anniversary, WJTV News in Jackson, Mississippi, did a story about the Sullivan-Kilrain fight. Harold Hartfield, who’s grandfather witnessed the fight said “A lot of the people that was here for the fight actually came on special trains out of New Orleans to witness the fight.” They came from New Orleans on a train track that runs alongside Highway 11 because the governor of Louisiana forbid the fight in his state. However, a large number of influential politicians and businessmen (including, if memory serves me correctly, the mayor of New Orleans) wanted the fight to happen, so they decided to find a new place outside Louisiana’s borders. Bare-knuckled fighting was banned in most southern states, so they had to meet in rural Mississippi at this secret location near the train tracks out of New Orleans.

This being July in South Mississippi, the temperature got up to 106 degrees and the fight went 75 rounds and lasted two hours and 16 minutes. There is no doubt that the heat and humidity were oppressive, especially since the fight took place in late morning as the day began to heat up.

During these fights, a round ended when someone hit the ground and did not depend on a time limit. At the end of the 75 rounds, the assistants for Kilrain took him back to his corner and the doctor said he should not go back in the ring. The doctor feared that Sullivan would kill him if it went on longer. So Kilrain threw in the sponge, which is the same as throwing in the towel.

But since this was a bare-fisted prize fight and was illegal, there was a price to pay to the law. Both fighters left Mississippi for the Northeast but were brought back for trial in the Circuit Court of Marion County, Mississippi. They were both found guilty. Sullivan paid a $500 fine. Kilrain served a two month jail sentence. He served on the farm of Charles Rich where the fight had taken place.

Each Christmas Eve people all over the world will log on to the official Santa Tracker to follow his progress through U.S. military radar. I remeber the local NBC station would break in with updates on Santa’s location. As a kid, I always thought it was so cool. Tracking Santa all started in 1955, with a misprint in a Colorado Springs newspaper and a call to Col. Harry Shoup’s secret hotline at the Continental Air Defense Command, now known as NORAD.

The Santa Tracker tradition started with this Sears ad, which instructed children to call Santa on what turned out to be a secret military hotline. Kids today can call 1-877 HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723) to talk to NORAD staff about Santa’s exact location.

Shoup’s children, Terri Van Keuren, Rick Shoup, and Pam Farrell, recently visited StoryCorps to talk about how the tradition began. Col. Shout had two phones on his desk, one was the “red” phone that only Shoup and a four-star general at the Pentagon had the number. Of course, this was the 1950s during the height of the Cold War. Shoup was the first line of defense against a nuclear attack.

The red phone rang one day in December 1955, and Shoup answered it. On the line was a small voice that asked “Is this Santa Claus?” Shoup was a serious, disciplined, and straight-laced colonel and was immediately annoyed at the call, thinking it was a joke. Then the little voice began to cry, Shoup realized it wasn’t a joke. So, Shoup went into Santa mode. He talked to the young boy, said a few “HO-HO-HOs” and asked if he’d been a good boy this year. Then Col. Shoup asked to speak to the boys mother. And the mother got on and said, ‘You haven’t seen the paper yet? There’s a phone number to call Santa. It’s in the Sears ad.’ Dad looked it up, and there it was, his red phone number.

That was the first of many phone calls that the Continental Air Defense Command received on the red phone. Shoup decided to assign a couple of airmen on the phones to act like Santa Claus. It became a big joke at the command center. Col. Harry Shoup came to be known as the “Santa Colonel.”

The airmen had a large glass board with the United States and Canada on it so that they could track airplanes in the skies. On Christmas Eve of 1955, when Shoup walked in, there was a drawing of a sleigh with eight reindeer coming over the North Pole. Shoup asked, “What is that?” The airmen replied, ‘Colonel, we’re sorry. We were just making a joke. Do you want us to take that down?’ Shoup looked at it for a while, and next thing you know, he had called the radio station and had said, ‘This is the commander at the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh.’ Well, the radio stations would call him like every hour and ask, “Where’s Santa now?”

Later in life, Shoup got letters from all over the world, people saying, ‘Thank you, Colonel,’ for having a sense of humor. And in his 90s, he would carry those letters around with him in a briefcase that had a lock on it like it was top-secret information. The letters were important to him. He had been an important man for America’s defense in the Cold War, but he was also known as Colonel Santa.

Col. Shoup died in 2009. How many of you have fond memories of tracking Santa all thanks to this straight-laced military man who turned out to have a good-natured sense of humor?

I have been fascinated by the story of Alan Turing for many years. He is a great unsung hero of the Second World War, and he has just recently begun getting some recognition for his genius. He’s often forgotten because he was gay, convicted in England for gross indecency in 1962, and forced to take estrogen treatments to curb his sexuality. He committed suicide two years later. Below is an article from the Huffington Post Gay Voices:

Alan Turing’s Biographer On The Truth About The Troubled Genius And His Tragic Death
By David Freeman

Sixty years after his tragic death, the brilliant English mathematician Alan Turing (1912-1954) has come back to life, if only virtually, in the new movie The Imitation Game.

The movie spotlights Turing’s work as a codebreaker during World War II. That’s a logical choice given his success in cracking a key German naval code known as Enigma.

The feat, which is believed to have shortened the war by at least two years and saved millions of lives, led Winston Churchill to say that Turing had made the single biggest contribution to the Allied victory over the Nazis.

But if cracking Enigma was Turing’s most tangible achievement, his greatest scientific legacy is his earlier theoretical work in the field now known as computer science. So says Andrew Hodges, the author of “Alan Turing: The Enigma,” the newly republished 1983 Turing biography on which The Imitation Game was based.

“The thing that really singles him out is his theoretical work in the 1930s, published at the end of 1936 [in his famous paper On Computable Numbers], in which he brought up this idea of the universal Turing machine,” Hodges says in a recent interview with The Huffington Post’s senior science editor, David Freeman. “And he said, rather tantalizingly, we can now invent a machine…and that really is the generalized idea of the computer as we now know it.”

Ultimately, the computer visionary and cryptanalyst–who was gay–broke not only the Enigma code but also the legal code of post-war England, which criminalized sexual contact between men. Turing was convicted of gross indecency in 1952. Two years later, in the aftermath of harrowing estrogen treatments intended to curb his sexual impulses, he died of cyanide poisoning.

Some have argued that the poisoning was accidental. But Hodges said it was a suicide he had carefully planned to minimize the emotional pain felt by his survivors.

“He’d been using cyanide in this home chemistry experiment,” Hodges, a mathematician at the Wadham College, Oxford University, says in the interview. “And I have no doubt at all that this experiment was there as a cover which allowed people, especially his mother, to believe that it was an accident.”

Turing received a posthumous royal pardon on Dec. 24, 2013.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/01/alan-turing-biographer-genius-death_n_6205838.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay%20Voices