Dragqueen(dot)Racing

  Picture yourself in Washington DC on a rainy fall evening in 1941.  As you stand under an awning, trench coat and fedora soaked from the rain, a similarly outfitted man approaches.  “Is it ready?  Do you have it with you?” he asks in a British accent.  “We’re out of time.”  You nod and jiggle the leather valise in your hand.  He lets out a sigh of relief.  “You may have just saved Britain,” he says as you hand him the briefcase.  Inside, a map detailing Nazi Germany’s plans to invade South America has begun its journey into the hands of US President Franklin Roosevelt.  Two days later, FDR will address the nation at the Mayflower hotel.  The following part is real, by the way. “I have in my possession a secret map made by Hitler’s government. It is a map of South America and part of Central America, as Hitler proposes to reorganize it,” FDR will tell the crowd.  With American approval for involvement in a war in Europe ho...

  Wednesday night, August 28, 1968, Chicago Illinois.   Inside the International Amphitheater, the Democratic National Convention was nearing its conclusion.  Fights had broken out on the convention floor between supporters of Vice President Hubert Humphrey and those of Senators Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern, as well as supporters of civil rights-focused candidates Julian Bond and Channing Phillips.  Security guards shoved CBS reporter Dan Rather to the ground while he was attempting to interview delegates live on the air.   Outside, in nearby Grant Park, the Battle of Michigan Avenue was raging.  An absolutely astonishing amount of law enforcement gathered to confront a menagerie of loosely aligned protest groups.  In total, 12,000 Chicago cops and 15,000 Army service members and National Guard troops arrived in downtown Chicago to confront protestors with overwhelming force.  The mayhem was captured on film by reporters from nearly eve...

On January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan gave his inaugural address after being sworn in as President of the United States and made his way to a celebratory lunch. At the same time, almost to the minute, the 52 hostages held in Iran after the seizing of the US embassy in Tehran over a year earlier, were released from captivity. The timing of the release was suspiciously advantageous to Reagan’s campaign and may have carried him in the election over Jimmy Carter. While this is a fascinating tale, it’s not really what this blog post is about, though, so let’s skip ahead a few months. On March 29 of that same year, John Hinckley, Jr. arrived in Washington DC on a Greyhound bus. The next day, he waited in the crowd outside the Hilton Hotel where President Reagan had given a speech. Around 2:30pm, as Reagan was exiting the hotel, Hinckley leapt from the crowd and emptied his revolver. He missed Reagan with all six shots, but managed to wound Reagan nonetheless when the final shot ricochet...

 In April of this year, the year of our lord, two thousand and twenty-four, a YouTube content creator named Kat Blaque was presented with an opportunity by her management firm to appear on reality TV star Travis Kelce's podcast.  As part of the preparation for the upcoming appearance, Kat Blaque participated in a technology preparation call to ensure that she could be interviewed for Taylor Swift's boyfriend Travis Kelce's podcast without technical problems or poor audio quality.  During this call, Kat Blaque was asked to add a permission to her Facebook business page that would allow the podcast livestream to take place via Facebook.  After concluding the technical preparation call, Kat Blaque went back to work on her content creation and awaited a scheduling call to finalize the details for her appearance on barbecue sauce entrepreneur Travis Kelce's podcast.   Several days later, however, she noticed that her Facebook account was no longer under her cont...

  In 1570, Queen Elizabeth I was facing massive pressure from her advisors, foreign monarchs, the Vatican, and most of Europe to choose a husband.     I will spare you a deeper discussion of the geo-political intrigue of the era to say that Elizabeth was subjected to relentless harassment because she was a female monarch and that carried the social expectation forcing women to respond to “May I speak to the man of the house, please,” and not even royalty was exempt.     One of the leading contenders (at least on paper) for Elizabeth’s hand in marriage was Henry, Duke of Anjou.    Though he would later become Henry III, king of France, he was the fourth son of Henry II and therefore not seriously considered in line for the throne in 1570 when he began courting Elizabeth.    Royals further away from succession have historically enjoyed more freedom from court and many earned reputations as hedonistic and lascivious, to say nothing of the drunke...