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im 9 years old and i work for nintendo

@jacebeleren / jacebeleren.tumblr.com

radley. he/him. #1 jace beleren lover in the multiverse.

brooooooooo i hate when ppl get like insanely weirdly anxious Abt interacting w other cultures Problematically and it ends up being just like "actually let's go for progressive ethnocentrism". it is literally always better to clumsily interact with ppl and culture different than you than to stay closed to the world and others

Why is iron traditionally considered anathema to magic and the magical? These days, knowing what we do about stars and how the creation of iron signals their immediate death, there's some interesting new symbolism there to unpack. But the idea predates that knowledge. So what made iron so special, or, anti-special, I guess?

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It's not that it's anti-magical per se.

Iron, and all the other planetary metals, have their own magical associations. Gold is purity, silver holds dominion over cycles, lead death, tin function, copper rules form and beauty, mercury change and fluidity.

Iron is the knife. It is destruction, will, not change but the instrument of change. The medium between the magician and the world.

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Iron isn't anti-magical per se, but it's the metal that gives dominion over magic.

I’m watching that documentary “Before Stonewall” about gay history pre-1969, and uncovered something which I think is interesting.

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.

It appears that no one has made the connection between Dale Olson the publicity agent instrumental in the AIDS debate and Dale Olson the 22-year-old first openly gay man on TV. So I thought I’d make it. For Pride month, an unsung gay hero.

RATING: RELIABLE

you can listen to the clip of the 1954 interview here and find him on wikipedia here