#1908 - 1954

[automotiveamerican]

The Power Under the Hood: Evolution of Ford Engines (1908-1954)

Introduction The automotive world witnessed a revolution in 1908 when Henry Ford introduced the iconic Model T, forever changing the landscape of personal transportation. While the Model T itself was a breakthrough, the heart of any vehicle lies beneath its hood – the engine. In this journey through time, we’ll explore the evolution of Ford car engines from the birth of the Model T in 1908 to…

[myfairynuffstuff]

Harald Wiberg (1908 - 1986) - Deer in Winter Forest. 1954. Oil on canvas.

[thefugitivesaint]

Raymond Peynet (1908-1999), 'Love in Harmony', ''The Lovers’ Pocketbook'', 1954 Source

[vintagegeekculture]

there was Chinese interest in the Out Of Asia theory, in both the Republic, Chiang Republic and People’s Republic periods before the Out Of Africa theory became commonly accepted. Was the 1954 Yeti expedition done just from the Nepalese-Indian side or were the American agents and “anthropologists” given access on the Sino-Tibetan side of the Himalayan border?

During the early part of this century, it was absolutely believed for a long time that the deserts of Western China were the most likely place of human origins, as seen in this migration map from 1944, made from the best available knowledge of the time:

Remember, the oldest fossil remains at this point were in China, where Homo erectus was discovered (originally known by his initial place of discovery in Chungkotien Cave, nicknamed "Peking Man"). The discovery of Australopithecus and Homo habilis in Olduvai Gorge and South Africa, which place human origins in Africa, were not until the 50s and 60s, so it seemed entirely reasonable that Homo sapiens evolved in Western China.

The idea that China's desert regions were the origin of modern humans and culture is seen a lot in pop culture from 1900-1950, mainly because there were tremendous explorations in the region, especially Aurel Stein's expedition of 1908, who ventured into the Taklamakan Desert to find the Dunhuang Caves and Khara-Khoto, a city destroyed completely by Genghis Khan and vanished in the desert.

If you've ever heard of Roy Chapman Andrews and his famous expeditions in the 1920s, it's worth noting that he ventured into the Gobi Desert looking for human remains....not dinosaurs, and the discovery of dinosaur eggs was an unexpected surprise.

For that reason, there was a short lived Silk Road Mania that seemed to be a smaller scale predecessor to the pop culture dominating Egyptomania of the 1920s. It's bizarre to read adventure and fantasy fiction of the 1910s-1920s that features mentions of Silk Road peoples like the Kyrgyz, Sogdians, Tajik, Uigurians, and Tuvans. The best example I can think of would be the Khlit the Kossack stories of Harold Lamb (who also wrote a biography of Tamerlane), which together with Tarzan and Tros of Samothrace, formed the core inspiration for Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian.

The most interesting example of this would be A. Merritt's Dwellers in the Mirage, which featured a lost city in Xinjiang that was the home of the Nordic race, who worshipped their original religion, the kraken-like squid devil god Khalkru. It was widely believed in this era that Nordics emerged from Central Asia originally, and while it's easy to write this off as turn of the century racialist claptrap pseudohistory (along with Hyperborea legends), in this case, it is actually true: a branch of the Indo-European family lived in West China, and 5,000 year old redheaded mummies have been found in the region. As usual, A. Merritt was right on the money with his archeology, more so than other 1920s authors. After all, his "Moon Pool" was set around the just discovered ruins of Nan Madol, the Venice of Micronesia.

Jack Williamson's still chilling Darker Than You Think in 1948 was also set in the Silk Road/Central Asian region, as the place the race of shapeshifters emerged from, Homo magi, who await the coming of their evil messiah, the Night King, who will give them power over the human race.

H. Rider Haggard set "Ayesha: the Return of She" (1905) in Xinjiang, among a lost Greek colony in Central Asia (no doubt based on Alexandria on the Indus, a Greek colony in modern Pakistan that was the furthest bastion of Greek Culture). This was also two years after the Younghusband Thibetan Expedition of 1903, where the British invaded Tibet. At the time, the Qing Dynasty was completely declining and lost control of the frontier regions, and the power vacuum was filled by religious authority by default (this is something you also saw in Xinjiang, where for example, the leader of the city was the Imam of Kashgar).

This is one of the many British invasions they have attempted to cram down the memory hole, but if you ever see a Himalayan art piece that was "obtained in 1903-1904" ....well, you know where it came from.

Incidentally, there's one really funny recent conspiracy theory about paleontology, fossils, and China that I find incredibly interesting: the idea that dinosaurs having feathers is a lie and a sinister plot spread by the Communist Chinese (who else?) to make American youth into sissy fancylads, like Jessie "the Body" Ventura. How? By lying to us and making up that the manly and vigorous Tyrannosaurus, a beast with off the charts heterosexuality and a model for boys everywhere, might have been feathered like a debutante's dress. What next - lipstick on a Great White Shark? The long term goal is to make Americans effeminate C. Nelson Reilly types unable to defend against invasion. This is a theory that is getting steam among the kind of people who used to read Soldier of Fortune magazine, and among abusive stepfathers the world over.

...okay, are you done laughing? Yeah, this is obvious crackpottery and transparent sexual pathology, on the level of the John Birch Society in the 60s saying the Beatles were a Communist mind control plot. Mostly because animals just look how they look, and if it turned out that the ferocious Tyrannosaurus had feathers and looked like a fancylad Jessie Ventura to you, well, that's your problem and mental baggage, really.

I was left scratching my head over this one. But there is (kind of) something to this, and that is that a huge chunk of recent dinosaur discoveries have been in China. I don't think it has anything to do with a Communist plot to turn American boys into fancylads, but more to do with a major push in internal public investment in sciences in that country, and an explosion of Chinese dinosaur discoveries. If you want to see a great undervisited dinosaur museum, go to the Zigong Dinosaur Museum in Sichuan.

Pop quiz: what living scientist has named more dinosaur discoveries? It's not Bakker or Horner. The greatest living paleontologist, Xu Xing, which is why a lot of recently found dinosaurs are named things like Shangtungasaurus.

[resplendentoutfit]

Painted Ladies and their Biggest Fans

Frank Dicksee (British, 1853-1928) • An Offering • Unknown date • Private collection

Valentine Cameron Prinsep (British/English, 1838–1904) • Leonora of Mantua • 1873

Left: John Hubbard Rich (American, 1876-1954)

Right: Hélier Cosson (French, 1897-1976) • Lady with a Fan • 1922

Julius LeBlanc Stewart (American/active in Paris, 1855–1919) • Portrait of Mrs. Francis Stanton Blake • 1908

[gacougnol]

William Edwin Booth (American, 1908 - 1995)

Morning Mist

1954

[broadwaydivastournament]

Movie Musical Divas Tournament: Round 4

Ethel Merman (1908-1984): Call Me Madam (1953 - Sally Adams) | There's No Business Like Show Business (1954 - Molly Donahue) | Anything Goes (1936 - Reno Sweeney)

"She's MOTHER! The most iconic MILF in Hollywood" - anonymous

Miss Piggy (Never ask a lady her age): The Muppet Movie (1979) | The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) | Emily Crachitt in The Muppet Christmas Carol | (1992) Benjamina in Muppet Treasure Island (1996)

"Maintaining the status of diva/star/fashion icon for even a few years is difficult, but Miss Piggy has been doing this with ease for decades now. Unironically, the fact that we’re all so attached to her like we would be with any other celebrity is a testament to the level of talent that goes into every single one of her performances." - anonymous

This is Round 4 of the Movie Musical Divas tournament. Additional polls in this round may be found by searching #mmround4, or by clicking the link below. Add your propaganda and support by reblogging this post.

ADDITIONAL PROPAGANDA AND MEDIA UNDER CUT: ALL POLLS HERE

Ethel Merman:

"Originated so many classic Broadway roles and songs. I Get a Kick Out of You, Rose’s Turn, There’s No Business Like Show Business, we could go on but we’d be here all night." - anonymous

Photos and video submitted by: anonymous

Miss Piggy:

Photos submitted by: @funnygirlthatbelle | Photos and video submitted by: anonymous

[henk-heijmans]

Pablo Casals (1876 - 1973, Spanish/Puerto Rican), the legendary cellist, 1954 - by Yousuf Karsh (1908 – 2002), Armenian/Canadian

[realmoftheacornking]

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954), "Joueurs de Boules," 1908.

[horses-in-art-history]

The Friesian Horse

1. A photograph of "Sneek 500 jaar. Wedstrijd ringrijden" from 1956, and by Wim van Rossem.

2. A photograph of "Circus Strassburger. Regina Strassburger hogeschool dressuur" from 1948, and by J. D. Noske (1902-1972).

3. Friese hengsten (c. 1954) by Kuno Brinks (1908-1992).

4. Een Fries paard by Tethart Philipp Christian Haag (1737-1812). Fries paard is the Dutch name for Friesian horses.

5. Paard uit Friesland Phryso (in English: Horse from Friesland Phryso) from c. 1578 - 1583 and attributed to Hendrick Goltzius, after a design by Jan van der Straet. Even though not referred to as a Friesian this is a horse from Friesland - the Dutch province that Friesians orginated in - that shows the same features and likely gives a sense of the breeds earlier origins and appearance.

(Picture source for Rossem's photograph, Noske's photograph, Friese hengsten, Een Fries paard, and Paard uit Friesland Phryso)

[peaceinthestorm]

Leonor Fini (1908-1996, Argentinian/Italian)

~ Portrait de María Félix ii (detrás de la puerta), 1954 [Source: phillips.com]

~ Portrait de María Félix I or Reina del fuego, 1954 [Source: Sotheby's]

~ Las dos Mariás (Double portrait de María Felix), 1950 [Source: Christie's]

[quasi-normalcy]

A while ago while I was in tumblr jail, you posted that you had a masters in science fiction literature (unless you didn't, I have been known to be mistaken), and I am wondering, what do you consider 'important' works of science fiction? Like the science fiction literary canon? I am so curious. Feel free to ignore, I will not harass you.

Yes! I do. I can tell you the ones that I was assigned (I'm afraid that the list skews extremely male and (especially) white).

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men (1930) and Star Maker (1937) [You can probably add Odd John (1935) to this list]

Jules Verne, Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870) [You can probably add From the Earth to the Moon (1865)]

H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895) and War of the Worlds (1897) [Though you can probably go ahead and add The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The First Men in the Moon (1901)]

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (1915)

Catherine Burdekin (writing as Murray Constantine), Swastika Night (1937)

Karel Čapek, R.U.R. (1920)

Isaac Asimov, I, Robot (1950) [You can probably add the first three Foundation novels here as well]

Yevgeny Zamyatin, We (1921)

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1967) and Rendezvous with Rama (1973) [Add: Childhood's End (1953) and The Fountains of Paradise (1979)

John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids (1951) [add: The Chrysalids (1955) and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)]

H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" (1926) [add The Shadow over Innsmouth (1931)]

Richard Matheson, I Am Legend (1954)

Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination (1956)

Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers (1959) [Probably Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) too, depending on, you know, how much of Heinlein's bullshit you can take]

J.G. Ballard, The Drowned World (1962) [Also, The Burning World (1964) and The Crystal World (1966)]

Phillip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle (1962) [Also Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) and several of his short stories]

Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)

Michael Moorcock, Behold the Man (1969)

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-5 (1969)

Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed (1974) [Also The Lathe of Heaven (1971) and The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)]

Brian Aldiss, Supertoys series

William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (1992) [Also Green Mars and Blue Mars]

They also included Iain M. Banks's The Algebraist (2004), but I personally think you'd be better off reading some of his Culture novels

Other ones that I might add (not necessarily my favourite, just what I would consider the most influential):

Joe Haldeman, The Forever War (1974)

Matsamune Shiro, Ghost in the Shell (1989-91)

Katsuhiro Otomo, Akira (1982-1990)

Octavia Butler, Lilith's Brood (1987-89) and Parable of the Sower (1993)

Poul Anderson, Operation Chaos (1971)

Hector Garman Oesterheld & Francisco Solano Lopez, The Eternaut (1957-59)

Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem (2008)

Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975)

William Hope Hodgson, The House on the Borderland (1908)

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1992)

Joanna Russ, The Female Man (1975)

Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game (1985) [Please take this one from a library]

Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars (1912)

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and Oryx and Crake (2003)

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)

Osamu Tezuka, Astro Boy (1952-68)

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (1962)

Walter M. Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959)

Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

[strictlyfavorites]

MB 300 SL Roadster hardtop 🇩🇪

'70 Super Bee.

1954 Chevrolet Corvette

1969 Pontiac Catalina convertible

Chevrolet Corvette4

Plymouth Cuda Convertible 6

1963 Jaguar 3.81 E-Type

vintage ads5

Royal Enfield Continental GT Custom

Rum-runners drive alcohol exported from Canada over the frozen Detroit River, ca. 1920s.1

Ducati 600

1908 C'Dora Indian

Josh Brookes33

Kawasaki Ninja 250

Ken at the wheel of the Shelby King Cobra, Riverside 🇺🇸, 1964.

Lamborghini with Rolex’s

R12 Nine T by VTR Customs

honda65

Ferrari 308 gtb

[thefugitivesaint]

Paul Woodroffe (1875-1954), 'Ariel As A Harpy', ''The Tempest'' by William Shakespeare, 1908 Source

[4eternal-life]

Balthasar Klossowski de Rola known as Balthus  (French, 1908- 2001)

Passage du Commerce - Saint - André,  1952–1954

Oil on canvas, 294 x 330 cm

Collection privée © Balthus. Photo : Mark Niedermann

@  Alain.R.TRUONG

[olympic-paris]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more …

September 14

1306 – France: Philip IV orders the arrest of two Knights Templar because they exchanged an obscene "kiss" that pretty much covered their entire bodies.

1769 – Alexander von Humboldt, German naturalist and explorer, born. (d.1859); The younger brother of the Prussian minister, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), Alexander von Humboldt's work on botanical geography is considered foundational to the fields of biogeography, physical geography and meteorology. He is a prime example of a Renaissance man of the sciences, studying in astronomy, vulcanology, and geology. Thomas Jefferson called him, The most important scientist I ever met. 19th century Freethinker, Robert G. Ingersoll said, "He was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama."

In the 19th Century, Alexander von Humboldt was one of the most famous men in Europe and is remembered for not only his own scientific achievement, but for his nurturing and mentoring of young, up-and-coming scientists. The American painter Rembrandt Peale painted him, between 1808 and 1810, as one of the most prominent figures in Europe at the time.

Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt traveled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time in a manner generally considered to be a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. He was one of the first to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). His five-volume work, Kosmos (1845), attempted to unify the various branches of scientific knowledge. In Voyage of the Beagle, where Darwin describes his own scientific exploration of the Americas, Darwin says "He was the greatest traveling scientist who ever lived. I have always admired him; now I worship him."

Much of Humboldt's private life remains a mystery because he destroyed his private letters. In 1908 the sexual researcher Paul Näcke, who worked with outspoken gay activist Magnus Hirschfeld, gathered reminiscences of him from people who recalled his participation in the homosexual subculture of Berlin. A travelling companion, the pious Francisco José de Caldas, accused him of frequenting houses where 'impure love reigned', of making friends with 'obscene dissolute youths', and giving vent to 'shameful passions of his heart'.

On the question of homosexuality, author Robert F. Aldrich concludes, "As for so many men of his age, a definite answer is impossible." But throughout his life Humboldt formed strong emotional attachments to men. In a letter to Reinhard von Haeften, a soldier, he wrote: "I know that I live only through you, my good precious Reinhard, and that I can only be happy in your presence."

1954 – Michael Patrick King is an openly gay, Emmy winning director, writer and producer for television shows. He started out doing stand-up and sketch comedy comedy but eventually moved into writing for television.

His most famous work has been for Sex and the City where he wrote all the season finales and premieres since the second season. King has also recently directed the show's film adaptation.

He has also written for another HBO show, Lisa Kudrow's post-Friends project The Comeback, and as well as for broadcast shows Will & Grace, Cybill, and Murphy Brown. He owns Arcade Productions.

1954 – David Wojnarowicz (d.1992) was a gay painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s. The first American gay artist to respond to the AIDS crisis with anger and moral outrage, he used his art as a polemical tool with which to indict those he held responsible for the AIDS epidemic and to document his own suffering.

Wojnarowicz had no extensive formal training. Born in Red Bank, New Jersey into a severely dysfunctional family in 1954, he dropped out of high school soon after acknowledging his homosexuality as an adolescent. He was a street kid in New York City at the age of sixteen, turning tricks in Times Square and keeping company with hustlers and other outsiders.

Wojnarowicz found salvation in making art and writing. Yet the rawness of his life experiences would always be the stuff of a highly personal and confrontational art.

As a young man, Wojnarowicz hitchhiked across the United States and lived in San Francisco and Paris for several months. In 1978, he settled in New York. By the early 1980s he had become, like graffiti artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, a vital fixture in the East Village art scene in lower Manhattan.

Wojnarowicz came to maturity as a contemporary artist and writer during a decade when the arts sought increasingly to address issues of gender, race, and ethnicity. A younger postmodern generation of artists gave expression to these concerns in non-traditional media and often worked in multimedia. For example, Wojnarowicz expressed himself in film, installation art, sculpture, photography, performance art, painting, collage, drawing, and writing. Indeed, he became as fine a writer as he was a visual artist.

Before being diagnosed HIV-positive in 1987, Wojnarowicz tracked in his confessional art a life that vacillated between sensual abandon and despair, bringing into focus a dark vision of existence that drew upon the examples of Arthur Rimbaud and Jean Genet.

With the onset of his disease, Wojnarowicz turned fiercely political. The tragedy and injustices of the AIDS epidemic within the gay community became the central subject in his art and writings. He took to task the medical community and the federal government for their indifference to the pressing health issues of gay men. He passionately protested the fact that, as he put it, so many people were dying 'slow and vicious and unnecessary deaths because fags and dykes and junkies are expendable in this country'.

Wojnarowicz was the first American gay artist to step forward in anger and give expression to his moral outrage. His 'post-diagnostic art', as he called it, indicted all those he held responsible for the social and private horrors of those dying from AIDS, including himself. Toward the end of his life, his defiant art was a polemical and poignant record of his cruel demise.

Wojnarowicz died of AIDS on July 22, 1992.

1957 – Steven Jay Russell is a U.S. con artist known for escaping from prison multiple times. A film about his life and crimes was produced in 2009, named I Love You Phillip Morris. In 2011, his crimes were featured on the TV show I Almost Got Away with It in the episode "Got a Boyfriend to Support.". He is known to be the only con artist in the world serving a life sentence (since he is sentenced to 140 years). A documentary about his crimes was aired on TV in 2005 On The Run episode "King of Cons" on Discovery Channel.

Russell's life of crime started in the early 1990s when he was fired from his job as an executive of a food service company after his employers found out he was gay. He was later arrested for fraud for faking a slip-and-fall accident, and was sentenced to six months in prison. After serving four weeks in jail, Russell escaped by using a spare set of civilian clothes and a walkie talkie to impersonate a guard. He later went to take care of his boyfriend Jimmy Cambell who was dying of AIDS; Cambell died three weeks after Russell was re-arrested and sent back to Harris County jail.

In prison Russell met Phillip Morris, whom he quickly fell in love with. The two were later released from prison, and wanting to give Morris a glamorous lifestyle, Russell managed to get a job as the chief financial officer of the North American Medical Management Company (NAMM). He then started embezzling funds, stealing $800,000 before the activity was detected and Russell and Morris were arrested.

Sent back to the Harris County jail, Russell, considered a flight risk, had his bail set at $950,000, but later made his next escape by calling the Harris County Records Office, pretending to be a judge, and lowering his bail from $950,000 to $45,000 before posting the reduced bail. He was arrested in a hotel room in West Palm Beach, Florida one week after his second escape.

Russell was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the NAMM fraud and was sent back to prison. Russell concocted a new escape after he began collecting green highlighter markers and a spare prison uniform and used his cell toilet to dye the uniform green to look like doctor's scrubs. He then walked out of the front door. After tracking down Morris, he convinced him to run with him and the two fled to Biloxi, Mississippi, making money in casinos, where Russell was later identified and arrested by a U.S Marshal. Morris was also quickly found and arrested.

He was sent back to a maximum security prison in Texas to serve an additional 45-year sentence. From here, Russell made his most inventive escape ever; he used acting and laxatives to fake the symptoms of AIDS, and a prison typewriter to fake his medical records to show him as HIV positive, being granted a special-needs parole to a nursing home to die. He then called the prison and parole board, posing as a doctor and AIDS specialist, asking for prisoners interested in an experimental treatment, and volunteered. Once out of Texas, he then sent death certificates to the prison and parole board stating he had died.

U.S. Marshals later tracked Russell down in Florida where they arrested him once more. Russell was then sentenced to a total of 140 years in prison (119 for the escapes and subsequent scams).

His release date from prison is July 12, 2140.

1978 – Heterosexual Ben Cohen, MBE is an activist and former England rugby union international player. He began his professional career with Northampton Saints in 1996; in 2007 he moved to France to represent Brive before returning to England two years later to join Sale Sharks. In May 2011, Cohen retired from professional rugby, and will focus on The Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation he created to combat homophobia and bullying.

In November 2000, Cohen's father Peter Cohen, brother of English World Cup winning football player George Cohen, was fatally injured while protecting an attack victim at the Eternity nightclub in Northampton which Peter Cohen managed. He died a month later from head injuries sustained in the assault. Three men were found guilty of violent conduct.

Cohen wass married to Abbie Cohen (Blayney), with twin children. The couple have been estranged since 2014, and divorced in March 2016. In January 2016 it was announced, his former Strictly Come Dancing dance partner and now girlfriend, Kristina Rihanoff, will be expecting their first child together.

He is clinically deaf, with about 30 to 33 percent hearing loss in each ear, and has been involved in efforts to make rugby more accessible to the hard of hearing, especially younger deaf players.

In 2011, Cohen founded The Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation, Inc., which is, according to its website, "the world's first foundation dedicated to raising awareness of the long-term, damaging effects of bullying, and funding those doing real-world work to stop it".

Off the field he is considered a gay icon, and often speaks favourably of his gay following. He ousted David Beckham as Gay Times' sports personality of the year in 2008, and came second as their sexiest man of the year. Among other Ben Cohen merchandise, he has released calendars since 2009 in which he is often shirtless. Ben appeared on the cover of Attitude's October 2009 issue.

In 2010, Cohen donated a signed jockstrap to support GMFA, a British charity addressing gay men's health issues, which was sold at auction at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. He also featured on the front cover and in an interview section of GMFA's printed FS Magazine in November 2010.

2000 – Five police officers raid Pussy Palace, a women's bathhouse event in Toronto. No charges were laid against customers, although police recorded the names of ten women, and two organizers, Rachael Aitcheson and J.P. Hornick, were charged under the bawdyhouse law. Subsequent protest action characterizes the event as essentially little more than a panty raid; and a march on the offices of the Toronto Police Services' 52 Division on October 28 featured protestors waving underwear in the air.

Police estimate some 125 women and men — swinging their boxers, sober cotton undies, raunchy red lingerie and bustiers — showed up at the Oct 28 Panty Picket protest in front of 52 Division.

"Fuck you 52" was one of the chants — hearkening back to a slogan from the 1981 bathhouse raids, where police destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars in property and arrested more than 300 gay men in a carefully orchestrated raid of Toronto bathhouses.

The demo protested the hour-and-a-half-long raid on the Pussy Palace — filled with 300 women — by the five male plainclothes police officers on what they call a "routine liquor inspection" and what the women call harassment.

One picket sign read "Sluts can't be shamed," and props included a giant vulva and a clothesline of lacey underthings.

A call and reply went: "What do we want?"

"Pussy!"

"When do we want it?"

"Now!"

Even the cops laughed — at least 18 of whom lined the entrance to 52 Division during the protest.