Stay Strong @StoneBystone

VENICE’S HIDDEN TECHNOLOGY IS SHEER GENIUS

Prescott Townsend (b. 24 June 1894) was an American cultural leader, early Bohemian, and gay rights activist from the 1930s through the early 1970s. By the time Pres entered the world in 1894, over two centuries of Boston Brahmin pedigree and wealth had set expectations for the life he should live. He attended the Volkman School, graduated in 1918 from Harvard University, and attended Harvard Law School for one year. In the 1910s and 20’s, he led a peripatetic life – spending the summer of 1914 in logging camps in Montana and Idaho; serving in the navy during WWI; traveling to Paris, North Africa and the Soviet Union; operating speakeasies, restaurants, and theaters on Beacon Hill's Joy Street; pioneering affordable housing during the Depression (building several houses in Provincetown); and later becoming a founder of the Provincetown Playhouse, where the works of Eugene O'Neill were first performed. After returning from his travels abroad, he had begun a relationship with theater producer Elliot Paul, with whom he founded the experimental Barn Theatre in 1922. Paul introduced Townsend to numerous avant-garde creatives, including the openly gay writer André Gide. In the 1930s, Townsend repeatedly addressed the Massachusetts legislature as an acknowledged homosexual man, advocating for the repeal of the state’s sodomy legislation and urging the lawmakers "to legalize love". As was typical of the “Massachusetts way”, he was indulged due to his Boston Brahmin status but ignored. While working at the Fall River shipyard during World War II, Townsend was arrested on January 29, 1943, for participating in an "unnatural and lascivious act". The Mid-Town Journal headline reported, "Beacon Hill 'Twilight' Man Member of Queer Love Cult Seduced Young Man". He did not deny it and was sentenced to eighteen months in the Massachusetts House of Corrections on Deer Island. No one in his influential family applied any pressure to shorten his jail time. A month later he was officially stricken from both the New York and Boston Social Registers. One senses that he couldn’t have cared less. In 1968, writing to his fellow Harvard graduates of the Class of 1918 in their 50th Annual Report, Townsend addressed his arrest: "I helped win the Incredible Battle of Midway by working two years down at Fore River [shipyard] with a shipfitter's wedge, one time at ten below zero. Then I was thrown in jail for refusing to pay [$1500 in] graft for an act that is not against the law in England nor in Illinois. I came out the day the war was over." In the 1950s, he held meetings in his home/bookstore at 75 Phillips Street, which he described as "the first social discussion of homosexuality in Boston" and founded a Boston chapter of the Mattachine Society. After the group grew and he was forced out by its more “respectable” members (allegedly due to his shabby, beatnik appearance, the disreputable company he kept, and his flagrant disregard for traditional politics), he founded his own organization, the Boston Demophile Society. In talks in Boston and Provincetown, he promoted his "Snowflake Theory" of human personality and sexuality, stating that the human mind is like a snowflake in that no two are alike, and each has six opposing sides: I/You, He/She, Hit/Submit. Toward the end of his life, in his two remaining properties on the Hill’s North Slope (where traditionally the servants of the patrician South Slope residents lived), he accommodated a motley collection of tenants, mostly hippies and young gay men (including future filmmaker John Waters and poets Rene Ricard and Stephen Jonas), on Philips Street in an eight-unit building. Prescott himself inhabited an old brick townhouse at the end of Lindall Place, a cul-de-sac that terminated just behind the Philips Street apartments. A subterranean corridor lined with cubicles connected the basements of the two buildings. The tunnel was said to have housed runaway slaves in transit on the Underground Railway prior to the Civil War. In June 1970, at age 76, Pres traveled to New York City to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising -- the very first Pride parade -- with decades of his efforts to influence change culminating in this moment. For years, Townsend had suffered from failing health brought on by Parkinson's disease, and on May 23, 1973, his body was found in the Beacon Hill apartment of John Murray (75 Phillips Street and 15 Lindall Place had become uninhabitable after a fire in 1971), who had been caring for him during the final years of his life. Of his entire family, only one sister, a nephew and a great-nephew attended his memorial service at the Arlington Street Church. Prescott Townsend was indeed a character. But he was also a gay man unafraid to live his truth and advance gay rights through his outspoken advocacy at a time when his nature was still a punishable criminal offence. And for that, we salute him.🏳️‍🌈

@sadshaytan 🔥

Musk is everything the right thinks George Soros is.

When an artist goes beyond the frame

Here’s a clip that is well worth your time today over a coffee. It’s always good to introduce some historical context to Trump’s lunacy. Thanks to The Americans for the clip 🎥 TikTok - vm.tiktok.com/ZNRkGB7fC/

@pvtjokerus The view from the other side simultaneously yet time lapsed

Since everyone is talking about #WatchmenHBO, listen to the late Dr. Olivia J. Hooker talk about the Tulsa race massacre. She refuses to refer to the incident as a riot.

This was so on point✨

This video got over 300,000 Likes in less than 24 hours Again, it’s about US Congress I think it’s fair to say the American People are wide awake to the absolute scam that Congress really is and have had enough The TikTok ban is not about China, in fact it has nothing to do with China. #tiktokban

214 years ago today was the largest slave revolt in United States history. Hundreds of enslaved men led by Charles Deslondes marched towards New Orleans destroying slaveowners' property. Those who carried out the uprising were eventually tortured, killed, and had their heads put on pikes as a message to other slaves. Despite its size and influence, the 1811 slave uprising in the Louisiana territory is rarely covered in school or in history textbooks. RIP to these kings 👑

Christian nationalism isn't about faith, it's about domination,

Switzerland uses a mobile overpass bridge to carry out road work without stopping traffic.

Racist conspiracy theorist @charliekirk11 confirms that he said that the Civil Rights act was a mistake. And then he couldn’t even answer my question of why he thinks that. Embarrassing.