Today in Labor History December 15, 1973: The American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In the 1950s and 1960s, some therapists used aversion therapy to "cure" male homosexuality. Like in Anthony Burgess’s, “A Clockwork Orange,” they would show patients pictures of naked men while giving them electric shocks or drugs to make them puke. In the 1973 vote, 5,854 members voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, while 3,810 voted to retain it. In a compromise, they agreed to remove homosexuality from the DSM, but replaced it with "sexual orientation disturbance" for people "in conflict with" their sexual orientation. They did not completely remove homosexuality from the DSM until 1987.
@MikeDunnAuthor@bookstadon
What an insane world that 5,000 PhDs got to 'debate' and determine what's 'curable' and what's not; but I guess letting a bunch of elected Libertarian wallies make regressive choices is just as nuts
In the Aotearoa New Zealand the people who voted for 'parental choice' and against removing conversion therapy as a 'treatment' are part of NZ's Coalition of Chaos #nzpol#conversiontherapy#mentalhealth
Today in Labor History December 5, 1928: The Colombian military slaughtered up to 2,000 people in the Banana Massacre. Workers had been on strike against United Fruit Company since November 12. They were participating in a peaceful demonstration, with their wives and children. The Columbian troops set up machine guns on the rooftops near the demonstration and closed off the access streets so no one could escape. The soldiers threw the dead into mass graves or dumped them in the sea. U.S. officials in Colombia had portrayed the workers as communists and subversives and even threatened to invade if the Colombian government didn’t protect United Fruit’s interests. Gabriel García Márquez depicted the massacre in his novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” as did Álvaro Cepeda Samudio in his “La Casa Grande.”
United Fruit, which is now called Chiquita, controlled vast quantities of territory in Central America, and the Caribbean, maintained a near monopoly in many of the banana republics in which it operated (e.g., Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica). By 1930, it was the largest employer in Central America and the largest land owner. In 1952, the government of Jacobo Arbenz, in Guatemala, began giving away unused land, owned by United Fruit, to landless peasants. In 1954, the CIA deposed the Arbenz government, leading to decades of brutal dictatorship and genocide of Guatemala’s indigenous population. The head of the CIA at that time was former board member of United Fruit, Allen Dulles, who also oversaw the over throw of the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the MK Ultra LSD mind control experiments.
@NoraGottlieb@bookstadon
Btw, coincidentally, the scientist who led the MK Ultra mind control experiments for the CIA, as well as developing poisons to assassinate Castro and Lumumba, was named Gotlieb.
Today in Labor History December 3, 1984: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killed over 3,800 people and injured up to 600,000 more. Up to 16,000 people died, in total, over the years following the disaster. The Government of Madhya Pradesh has paid compensation to family members of 3,787 of the victims killed. Numerous local activist groups emerged to support the victims of the disaster, like Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla, who won the Goldman Prize in 2004. Many of the activists were subjected to violent repression by the police and government. Larger international groups, like Greenpeace and Pesticide Action Network also got involved. The disaster has played a role in numerous works of fiction, including Arundhati Roy’s “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” (2017) and Indra Sinha’s “Animal’s People” (2007). It has also been referenced in music by the Revolting Cocks “Union Carbide” and the Dog Faced Hermans ”Bhopal.”
@MikeDunnAuthor
I remember well that insurance companies executives rushed to have the family of deceased or injured victims, and signing a settlement agreement of a few hundred $, a huge amount for those people, preventing them from suing the company after that and obtaining the thousands and ten of thousands of $ they might have claimed and would have no doubt obtained.
Was a teenager then and I remember seing these obnoxious people as a pack of hyenas.
They would have a bonus of many thousands of $ for each settlement they had those illiterate victims signed.
Today in Labor History December 2, 1859: The authorities hanged abolitionist John Brown in Charleston, Virginia for his leadership of a plot to incite a slave rebellion. Victor Hugo, who was living in exile on Guernsey, tried to obtain a pardon for him. His open letter was published by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. His plea failed, of course. On the day of his execution, John Brown rode in a furniture wagon, on top of his own coffin, through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers, to the gallows. The soldiers included future Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth. Walt Whitman described the execution in his poem “Year of Meteors.”
@MikeDunnAuthor@bookstadon There is an obvious way to prevent executions of our activists and warriors: pay them back in their own coin. When John Brown has hanged, ten pro-slavery officials should have gotten the same.
I am incredibly excited to say that my debut novel released today on Amazon KU/ebook/paperback: http://quill-still.sofaer.net/mast . It's a queer, cozy slice-of-life portal fantasy story about civics, divinity from a Jewish lens, chemistry/alchemy, and more civics.
Join Sophie Nadash, burned-out 39-year-old chemist, as a run-in with the goddess Artemis while hiking in the Greek woods and finds herself sent to a new, kinder world.
@writers I reckon it could be 3 or 4 weeks at most for her to realise, she might hide it for another couple of months... hasty wedding on the quiet another two weeks after that perhaps, if they slip the priest a bribe. So maybe the pregnancy is not quite halfway through by the time she's at the altar? And that's approaching mid to late December?
Hello fellow-writers, help wanted. Last week my partner lost a number of my tabs. They are irretrievable. One of them was of a website by women on ao growing vegs and, if I remember it well, pictures of pumpkins. They also asked for fiction submissions on nature, with possible bonus points for a vegan character. It's not hearthstories.
Can anybody help me, please? Thanks in advance!
@MarjoleinRotsteeg@writingcommunity@writers I can't help with the website but I will say that if you happen to browse using a google account, your entire history is saved in a really well-indexed list that lets you locate search and site history a lot more deeply than a history search provides
as someone who ran a fiction magazine for a decade i don't agree with the premise of that article. The future is in the slush pile, not in a network of who happens to know the right person.
and i suspect the issue is more that the slush pile usually outweighs the subscribers for most small magazines.
"Tokarczuk is wrestling with the biggest philosophical themes: the purpose of life on earth, the nature of religion, the possibility of redemption, the fraught and terrible history of eastern European Jewry."
@appassionato@bookstodon This story went to places I didn't expect. So many characters and so detailed. I could see why it's her opus, a book she worked on for years.
Today in Labor History November 20, 1820: An 80-ton sperm whale attacked and sunk the Essex, a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts. The tragedy occurred off the western coast of South America. 7 members of the 20-man crew died at sea, as they attempted to make land in the lifeboats. Survivors ate their dead comrades to stay alive. The story inspired Herman Melville to write his 1851 novel Moby-Dick. And it inspired modern day orcas to organize and fight back to reclaim the seas from humans.
@MikeDunnAuthor@bookstadon As a longstanding supporter of Sea Shepherd's brand of antiwhaling activism, I say whaling ships being rammed and sunk is always a good thing.
Where's a good online marketplace to sell #usedbooks that is #NOTAmazon? Their Seller Central has become a little too complicated and I have a lot of former rentals my brother used in college which my mom had to purchase because he missed the return deadline. If it helps any, they are #history, #memoir, #christian, #theology, and some #fiction (editions published within the last decade). Also may sell some to local stores. #amazonalternatives@bookstodon
I admit when it comes to knowledge of Peter Straub's work, I am lacking. I know of him thanks to his collaborations with Stephen King (The Talisman, Black House). When Straub passed away last Sept, I felt I had missed something by not enjoying his writing while he was still on this earth.
Many said at the time that Shadowland is his best work. I'm reading it now. Slow going, but good so far.
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 3 Nbr 8 — What does your most productive writing space look like?
This is my most productive writing space. It includes a keyboard and trackpad glued to my treadmill, a monitor above mirroring my iPadPro to the right, a Apple TV puck, a Homepod mini, and coffee.
I get more revision done here than anywhere else, and some composition, too!
"So a lot of all your writing happens on - wait. Is that a treadmill?"
Shhh! Don't tell anyone, but /I'm really a hamster./ That's my hamster wheel. It allows me to get my writing tasks done while getting my aerobic exercise during a busy day (most of them). ~2.8 mph. Remember, I also read aloud to proof my stories...