Today y’all are going to learn two very important people in hockey history.
One of them is Willie Eldon O’Ree. He was born in New Brunswick in 1935 which makes him 81 years old. In 1958 he was called up to the Boston Bruins and became the first black player in the NHL.
Coming eleven years after the integration of Major League Baseball with Jackie Robinson, Willie O’Ree became the first black NHL player, but he was not the first to break the color barrier in the NHL. That honor belongs to Chinese Canadian, Larry Kwong – born Eng Kai Geong in Vernon, British Columbia in 1923 (making him 93). He was the first person of Asian descent and first person of color to play in the NHL just one year after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball (1948). He played for the New York Rangers.
Larry Kwong was called up to the Rangers in March of ‘48 where he only saw the ice in the 3rd period for a very short amount of time. Unfortunately this was his only NHL ice time as he was soon sent back down. Despite being the leading scorer for the Rangers’ farm team, he was never called back up. He then left to play hockey in Canada’s senior leagues. He later moved to Switzerland and coached hockey there where he became the first person of Chinese descent to coach a professional hockey team (and he also became a tennis coach).
Willie O’Ree, however, impacted the NHL strongly as a person of color as he had more opportunities and playing time. Despite only having 5% of vision in his right eye that he hid, O’Ree was called up to the Bruins to replace an injured player. His first game he played for the Bruins was against the longtime rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, in January of 1958. He only played two games that year and then came back for 43 games in 1961. In his time playing, he said that racist remarks from fans were much worse in the United States than they were in Toronto or Montreal. However, he spent most of his career in the minor leagues and one of the teams he spent time with, the San Diego Gulls (now AHL affiliate for the Anaheim Ducks), retired his number.
After Willie O’Ree played in the NHL, the next black player didn’t even come until 1974 when the Washington Capitals drafted Mike Marson. Now there are currently 23 active black NHL players. The NHL teams are now required to have diversity training before each season and racist remarks are not tolerated and can warrant fines and suspensions. He is a part of the NHL/USA Hockey Diversity Task Force that helps out youth hockey programs. Just this past season, Joel Ward (another black NHLer) of the San Jose Sharks said that O’Ree was one of his role models and that there should be a league-wide retirement of his number (22) just like there was a league-wide retirement of Jackie Robinson’s number. I agree.
“If autism isn’t caused by environmental factors and is natural why didn’t we ever see it in the past?”
We did, except it wasn’t called autism it was called “Little Jonathan is a r*tarded halfwit who bangs his head on things and can’t speak so we’re taking him into the middle of the cold dark forest and leaving him there to die.”
Or “little Jonathan doesn’t talk but does a good job herding the sheep, contributes to the community in his own way, and is, all around, a decent guy.” That happened a lot, too, especially before the 19th century.
Or, backing up FURTHER
and lots of people think this very likely,
“Oh little Sionnat has obviously been taken by the fairies and they’ve left us a Changeling Child who knows too much, and asks strange questions, and uses words she shouldn’t know, and watches everything with her big dark eyes, clearly a Fairy Child and not a Human Like Us.”
The Myth of the Changeling child, a human baby apparently replaced at a young age by a toddler who “suddenly” acts “strange and fey” is an almost textbook depiction of autistic children.
To this day, “autism warrior mommies” talk about autism “stealing” their “sweet normal child” and have this idea of “getting their real baby back” which (in the face of modern science) indicates how the human psyche actually does deal with finding out their kid acts unlike what they expected.
Given this evidence, and how common we now know autism actually is, the Changeling myth is almost definitely the result of people’s confusion at the development of autistic children.
Weirdly enough, that legend is now comforting to me.
I think it’s worth noting that many like me, who are diagnosed with ASD now, would probably have been seen as just a bit odd in centuries past. I’m only a little bit autistic; I can pass for neurotypical for short periods if I work really hard at it. I have a lack of talent in social situations, and I’m prone to sensory overload or you might notice me stimming.
But here’s the thing: life is louder, brighter and more intense and confusing than it has ever been. I live on the edge of London and I rarely go into the centre of town because it’s too overwhelming. If I went back in time and lived on a farm somewhere, would anyone even notice there was anything odd about me? No police sirens, no crowded streets that go on for miles and miles, no flickery electric lights. Working on a farm has a clear routine. I’d be a badass at spinning cloth or churning butter because I find endless repetition soothing rather than boring.
I’m not trying to romanticise the past because I know it was hard, dirty work with a constant risk of premature death. I don’t actually want to be a 16th century farmer! What I’m saying is that disability exists in the context of the environment. Our environment isn’t making people autistic in the sense of some chemical causing brain damage. But we have created a modern environment which is hostile to autistic people in many ways, which effectively makes us more disabled. When you make people more disabled, you start to see more people struggling, failing at school because they’re overwhelmed, freaking out at the sound of electric hand dryers and so on. And suddenly it looks like there’s millions more autistic people than existed before.
“…disability exists in the context of the environment.”
I love Alexander the Great because if he was a fictional character you would yell “THAT’S JUST NOT REALISTIC WTF MAN YOU CAN’T WIN A BATTLE AFTER BEING ATTACKED FROM BEHIND AND HAVE TO WHEEL YOUR WHOLE FUCKIN ARMY AND FIGHT YOUR WAY ACROSS A RIVER AND UPHILL AGAINST A LARGER ARMY"
But
“Look conquering an island by making it not an island any more is ridiculous that’s never going to be believable.”
But
He just fuckin did that shit.
I actually got the inspiration for the protagonist of Lady of Ice and Iron from him, and when/if it’s ever published and people inevitably yell “YOUR PROTAGONIST IS JUST NOT REALISTIC” I’m just going to make unblinking eye contact while folding a printout of Alexander’s troop movements at Gaugamela into a paper airplane and then lob it at their face.
And if they give me shit for her being queer, I’m going to print out historical accounts of Alexander’s lover Hephaestion, tape them to Nerf darts, and shoot them at people.
Wait he un-islanded an island?
Tyre is now an isthmus. Before Alexander, it was an island.
He offered to let them surrender peacefully. They told him to get fucked, secure in their place on a fucking island in a fortified city.
“Fine.” Said Alexander, cracking his knuckles. “Get me my engineers, we’re building the land out to this island.”
“Holy shit”, his generals presumably said. “Holy fuckin shit, man.”
And so, at Alexander’s command, his engineers constructed a causeway to connect the island of Tyre to the mainland. It took eight months. Tyre hurled everything they could against the workers, so Alexander rolled siege engines out there to protect them.
Anyway, long story short, the causeway was completed, Tyre fell and was burned and sacked (unusually, as Alexander normally did not allow his army to pillage and plunder and destroy, but he was, apparently, mega peeved).
And the causeway stands to this day. Tyre remains an isthmus.
[Further proof to verify you guys’ info]
Ancient History Encyclopedia says:
“
Negotiations having failed, Alexander began his operations in January 332 BCE. After occupying old Tyre, he began to construct a causeway (or mole) across the channel toward the walls of Tyre, using rocks, timbers, and rubble taken from the buildings of the old city. Initially, work progressed well: the water near the mainland was shallow and the bottom muddy, but, as the causeway lengthened, the Macedonians and Greeks began to run into trouble. The seafloor shelved sharply near the city, to a depth of 18 ft (5.5m). Work slowed to snail-pace, and the work gangs found themselves increasingly harassed by missile fire from the city walls.
Alexander constructed two siege towers from timber covered with rawhide and positioned them at the end of the causeway. Artillery engines at the top of these towers were able to return fire at the walls, and the work gangs erected timber palisades as an added measure of protection. Work proceeded, and Alexander spent much of his time on the mole, dispensing small gifts of money to his sweating labourers and leading by personal example.”
I LEARNED RECENTLY THAT PLATO WON THE GOLD MEDAL IN THE OLYMPICS FOR WRESTLING THREE TIMES. THIS PUTS A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS. I ALWAYS IMAGINED PLATO TO BE FRAIL AND MISSHAPEN BUT HE MUST HAVE BEEN FRICKEN RIPPED. I WONDER IF ARISTOTLE EVER FELT ANXIETY ABOUT GETTING PHYSICALLY (I.E. NOT JUST METAPHYSICALLY) DISMANTLED BY PLATO. PLATO WAS PROBABLY PISSED OFF BY AT LEAST A HANDFUL OF QUESTIONS ARISTOTLE ASKED HIM. ARISTOTLE WAS A LITERAL GENIUS TOO. IMAGINE PLATO LECTURING AND WRITING ON A BLACKBOARD AND ARISTOTLE THROWING A COMMENT OUT THERE ABOUT SOME COMPLEX MISSTEP IN PLATO’S LOGIC AND PLATO’S CHALK JUST SNAPS AND ARISTOTLE’S TESTICLES SUCK WAY BACK UP TO WHERE THEY DROPPED FROM, THEN PLATO IN A BLUR APPEARS BESIDE ARISTOTLE SITTING AT HIS DESK AND HE PICKS HIM UP AND SUPLEXES HIS MACEDONIAN ASS.
given the content of a lot of Plato’s conclusions I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Plato responded to a lot of reasonable criticisms with “Fight me” and that was the end of it.
We’re not actually sure whether Plato is his real name! Some people speculate that, because Platon means “broad” in Greek, this was actually his wrestling nick name. Basically, it’s like Dwayne Johnson became a famous philosopher and everyone still called him “The Rock”.
More and more I wish we kind of had time traveling capabilities.
Now I can’t stop thinking about Plato looking like The Rock
Now I can’t stop thinking about a film where The Rock plays Plato.
what if it was a bruce banner situation and he’s really logical and calm usually but when some dumbass won’t stopp dragging down the discourse with grade one logic errors he just
her son was a minotaur, half bull through and through,
and when her old husband, king Minos, found out,
he cried out aloud, “what the fuck’s this about?
I do not like this half-bull child!
I do not find him meek and mild!
He keeps on eating all my staff!
I think he does it for a laugh!”
The queen was upset by her son’s attitude,
for eating the servants was really quite rude,
and although she still thought that she’d be a good mother,
there still was a risk that he’d eat his own brother.
“I do not like this minotaur!
I’ve never heard of one before!
I do not want him any more!
Let’s build a maze beneath the floor!”
As Minos had asked for, a labyrinth was built
and the minotaur lived there, not stricken with guilt
for the people he ate were now sacrificed there,
and he dined on their flesh without any despair.
I offer my dick for your mouth and your ass And I do not care if you think that is crass. You tease and you mock me for being a bard, But you get weirded out when my words get you hard. Or you would, I suppose–but you both have limp dicks That even my thousand deep kisses can’t fix. But do not despair! I’m the picture of class– I’ll offer my dick for your mouth and your ass.
That is probably the best translation of Catullus 16 I’ve ever read
I love how humans have literally not changed throughout history like the graffiti from Pompeii has people from hundreds of years ago writing stuff like “Marcus is gay” “I fucked a girl here” “Julius your mum wishes she was with me” and leonardo da vinci’s assistants drew dicks in their notebooks just for the banter and mozart created a piece called “kiss my ass” so when people wish for ‘today’s generation’ to be like ‘how people used to’ then we’re already there buddy we’ve always been
The Hagia Sophia has inscriptions that were considered sacred for centuries until they were deciphered in the 70s to be Nordic runes saying “Halfdan wrote this”
my old english prof told us that theres a cave in Scandinavia where a viking gratified some runes like 14 feet up on the wall and when they finally reached it all it translated into was “this is very high”
Ancient Shitposting
Now on the History Channel
‘People have literally just always been people’ is genuinely my favorite fact about the world
“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 BC – 43 BC
oxford was built and operational as a college before the rise of the mayans and cleopatra lived in a time nearer to pizza hut’s invention than to the pyramids being built
I need a noncomprehensive history book that covers Known World History in time periods, like “in this century, all this shit was happening concurrently” and not just all spread out so I have to piece it together like some unpaid uneducated scholar
Yeah! Like, a chronological history atlas. Each chapter covers 100 years or whatever (probably longer periods the farther back you go), and the start of each chapter is a world map, with brief summaries of all the stuff going on, with page numbers to turn to the relevant section. So you could read Egypt’s sections in each chapter only, and get a decent overview of the history of Egypt, or read each chapter wholly and get a sense of what was going on in the world/on a given continent or whatever.
There would have to be careful organization and good writing to help the reader keep track of people and civilizations that span multiple chapters, so that reading about the Roman Empire in the 100′s BC doesn’t feel totally out of context, and especially for groups of people that moved around a bunch. Probably would be done with footnotes, like, ‘hey, last time we saw these guys, they were over here doing this, see section (page number)’.
Ideally, it would cover political/traditional history (wars, important people, etc.) technological history, and social history. So not only do you know what was going on in China when Augustus was emperor, you also have an idea about how the average Roman or Chinese person lived at that time.
That would be such a huge project and would involve so many scholars but it would be SO COOL
it’s sort of funny that the current cultural idea of the flapper dates not from the 1920s, but the 1950s when costume designers took the radical, gender-fluid, sexual, sexually liberated ideas and fashions of the 20s and made them sexy. as in sexual objectifying.
because 1950s and fuck female agency.
If you would like, I would love to hear more about this. What, exactly, happened, and what was the true 1920s aesthetic, untainted by 50s views?
hokay. so it’s the 1950s and it’s the heyday of the studio system and writers and movie makers (and audiences) want rom coms and frolicking films and lighthearted fun, but there’s just one problem.
WWII
but that was the 1940s! you say
you’re right.
but in order to set a film in the 1950s, writers and film makers have to establish what the male lead character did during the war or risk it coming across like he didn’t, well, serve. can’t have a shirker or a coward and rejected for medical reasons really doesn’t fly in the 1950s. and there’s only so many times you can write about soldiers and sailors and airmen and the occasional spy before it starts to become stale. and it doesn’t terribly fit with the fluffy writing because, well, war and death and tens of millions of people dead. contemporary films more fall in the line of what we now call film noir. men and women who have been damaged by war, but that’s another topic.
sooooo, you do period pieces. no one wants to do the 1930s because that’s the great depression. so 1920s. frolicking and gay and fabulous!
(Great War, what Great War?)
but the thing is, the 1920s, especially in Paris and Berlin, were a massively transgressive, reversal, and experimental time period in art, fashion, society, and all over. but only a little bit in america because honestly we were barely touched by wwi so it’s not like we’re partying to forget an entire generation of young men killed off and entire towns wiped off the face of the earth using weapons the likes of which had never been seen before. the us as a whole mostly heard about sarin gas, not see it poison entire landscapes and men and animals dropped to the ground and die in truly horrific ways.
the europe that emerged from wwi was massively shell shocked, angry, and living in a surreal dream of everything being upwards and backwards and live now because tomorrow you may die and it’s all nonsense anyway. it’s a world in which surrealism and dadaism and german expressionism make sense because fuck it all.
you get repudiation of the old, experimentation, deliberate reversals, transgressive behavior, and if there’s an envelope to push, you tear it open. France calls the 1920s “Années folles”, the crazy years.
the things we’re doing now, with fluidity and experimentation and exploration of gender and sexuality and presentation? the 1920s did that already. it’s drag and androgyny and blatant homosexuality. it’s extramarital affairs and sex before or without marriage, it’s rejection of marriage as an idea and an institution, it’s playing with gender and gender roles and working women and unrestrained art and
it’s everything the 1950s hated. or more accurately: absolutely terrified of.
the flappers of the 1920s went to college and cut their hair to repudiate a century of a woman’s hair being her crowning glory. they wore obvious makeup and makeup in ways that are not terribly appealing now and weren’t terribly appealing then, but they signaled you were part of the tribe.
they were women who wanted independence and personal fulfillment.
“She was conscious that the things she did were the things she had always wanted to do.“
so the 1950s didn’t want that. they wanted films with dancing and chorus lines and pretty girls to be looked at. they wanted spaghetti straps and fringed dresses that moved pretty when the chorus girls danced.
1920s fringe doesn’t. 1920s fringe is made of silk, incredibly dense, incredibly heavy, sewn on individually by hand, and rather delicate. the all-over fringe dress didn’t exist until the 1950s invention of nylon and continuous loops that could be sewn on in costume workshops by the mile on machines.
(this is before “vintage” exists. to the 1950s, the 1920s (or earlier) wasn’t vintage, it was old-fashioned. démodé. out of style. last last last last last season.)
1950s 1920s-set movies have clothes that are the 1950s take on it. the dresses have a dropped waist, but they’re form-fitting, figure-revealing. the actresses are pretty clearly wearing bras and 50s girdles under them a lot of the time. they’re not
the woman on the far left is basically wearing a man’s suit with a skirt. la garçonne. some women went full-out and wore pants. you could be arrested for that. they were. still wore pants. and pyjama ensembles in silk and loud prints.
or class photo of ‘25
or even
not that 1920s dresses could be sexy or sexual; they often were. i’ve seen 20s dresses that were basically sideless and held together with straps. but it’s sort of like how the mini skirt went from being a thing of sexual liberation to an item of sexual objectification.
it’s ownership and it’s agency and it’s hard to put a name or finger on it, but you just know. sex goddess versus sex icon.
My Grandmother used to have to bind her chest to get the silhouette fashionably androgynous.
just moving along like everyone else 