Saturday, May 30, 2026
Via Daily Dharma: Focusing on Pain
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Friday, May 29, 2026
Via White Crane Institute \\\ TODAYS GAY WISDOM From Edward Carpenter's Ioläus
Today's Gay Wisdom  2018 - TODAYS GAY WISDOM From Edward Carpenter's Ioläus I CONCLUDE this collection with a few quotations from Whitman, for whom "the love of comrades "perhaps stands as the most intimate part of his message to the world — "Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting." Whitman, by his great power, originality and initiative, as well as by his deep insight and wide vision, is in many ways the inaugurator of a new era to mankind; and it is especially interesting to find that this idea of comradeship, and of its establishment as a social institution, plays so important a part with him. We have seen that in the Greek age, and more or less generally in the ancient and pagan world, comradeship was an institution; we have seen that in Christian and modern times, though existent, it was socially denied and ignored, and indeed to a great extent fell under a kind of ban; and now Whitman's attitude towards it suggests to us that it really is destined to pass into its third stage, to arise again, and become a recognized factor of modern life, and even in a more extended and perfect form than at first. [As Whitman in this connection (like Tennyson in connection with In Memoriam) is sure to be accused of morbidity, it may he worthwhile to insert the following note from In re Walt Whitman, p. 115," Dr. Drinkard in 1870, when Whitman broke down from rupture of a small blood-vessel in the brain, wrote to a Philadelphia doctor detailing Whitman's case, and stating that he was a man ' with the most natural habits, bases, and organization he had ever seen.]' "It is to the development, identification, and general prevalence of that fervid comradeship (the adhesive love, at least rivaling the amative love hitherto possessing imaginative literature, if not going beyond it), that I look for the counterbalance and offset of our materialistic and vulgar American Democracy, and for the spiritualization thereof. Many will say it is a dream, and will not follow my inferences; but I confidently expect a time when there will be seen, running like a half-hid warp through all the myriad audible and visible worldly interests of America, threads of manly friendship, fond and loving, pure and sweet, strong and lifelong, carried to degrees hitherto unknown-not only giving tone to individual character, and making it unprecedentedly emotional, muscular, heroic, and refined, but having deepest relations to general politics. I say Democracy infers such loving comradeship, as its most inevitable twin or counterpart, without which it will be incomplete, in vain, and incapable of perpetuating itself." Democratic Vistas note: The three following poems are taken from Leaves of Grass: "Recorders ages hence, Leaves of Grass, 1891 " When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd "I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions, | |||||||||||||||
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute "With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989! |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 | |||||||||||||||
Via White Crane Institute \\\ JOSHUA FRY SPEED
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| This Day in Gay History | |||
May 29Born  1882 - JOSHUA FRY SPEED, who passed on this date (b: 11/14/1882) was an American planter and businessman. He was a close friend, and likely a lover, of future President Abraham Lincoln from his days in Springfield, Illinois, where Speed was a partner in a general store. He first met Lincoln in 1837. Later, Speed was a farmer and a real estate investor in Kentucky, and also served one term in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1848. Despite having had little formal education himself, Speed's father wanted his children to have that advantage. Joshua was tutored by his maternal grandfather, Joshua Fry, and attended St. Joseph's College near Bardstown. Before completing college, however, he fell ill. He returned home and, despite his father's opposition, argued that he was ready to begin a career. He spent two to three years as a clerk in the largest wholesale establishment in Louisville. He then moved to Springfield, Illinois. Speed had heard young Abraham Lincoln deliver a speech on a stump when Lincoln was running for election to the Illinois legislature. In April 1837, Lincoln arrived at Springfield, the new state capital, to seek his fortune as a young lawyer, whereupon he met Joshua Speed. Lincoln sublet Joshua's apartment above Speed's store, becoming his roommate, sharing a bed with him for four years, and becoming his lifelong best friend. Although bed-sharing between same sexes was a reasonably common practice in this period, this has led to speculation, including by Professor Thomas Balcerski, regarding Lincoln's sexuality. And even the "customary sharing of beds" doesn't really explain FOUR YEARS in the same bed. In March 1840, Judge John Speed died and Joshua announced plans to sell his store and return to his parents' large plantation house, Farmington, near Louisville, Kentucky. Lincoln, though notoriously awkward and shy around women, was then engaged to Mary Todd, a vivacious society young woman also from Kentucky. As the dates approached for both Speed's departure and Lincoln's marriage, Lincoln broke the engagement on the planned day of the wedding, January 1, 1841. Speed departed as planned, leaving Lincoln mired in depression and guilt. Seven months later, in July 1841, Lincoln, still depressed, decided to visit Speed in Kentucky. Speed welcomed Lincoln to his paternal house, where the latter spent a month regaining his mental health. During his stay at Farmington, Lincoln rode into Louisville almost daily to discuss legal matters of the day with Attorney James Speed, Joshua's older brother. James Speed lent Lincoln books from his law library. Historians such as David Herbert Donald point out that it was not unusual at that time for two men to share a bed due to myriad circumstances, without anything sexual being implied, for a night or two when nothing else was available. Yadda yadda yadda. Lincoln, who had just moved to a new town when he met Speed, was also at least initially unable to afford his own bed and bedding; however, even after he could have easily afforded a bed of his own, Lincoln continued sleeping in a bed with Speed for several years. A tabulation of historical sources shows that Lincoln slept in the same bed with at least 11 boys and men during his youth and adulthood. Abe got around! There are no known instances in which Lincoln tried to suppress knowledge or discussion of such arrangements, and in some conversations, raised the subject himself. Tripp discusses three men at length and possible sustained relationships: in addition to Joshua Speed, William Greene, and Charles Derickson. However, as heterosexual historians trip all over themselves to explain, in 19th-century America, it was not necessarily uncommon for men to bunk-up with other men, briefly, if no other arrangement were available. Whatever. For example, when other lawyers and judges traveled "the circuit" with Lincoln, the lawyers often slept "two in a bed and eight in a room". William H. Herndon recalled for example, "I have slept with 20 men in the same room". And really, who of us haven't? In the nineteenth century, most men were probably not conscious of any erotic possibility of bed-sharing, since it was in public. Speed's immediate, casual offer, and his later report of it, suggests that men's public bed-sharing was not then often explicitly understood as conducive to forbidden sexual experiments. In such public arrangements, they would not be alone. Nevertheless, gay historian Jonathan Ned Katz says that such sleeping arrangements "did provide an important site (probably the major site) of erotic opportunity" if they could keep others from noticing. Katz states that referring to present-day concepts of "homo, hetero, and bi distorts our present understanding of Lincoln and Speed's experiences." He states that, rather than there being "an unchanging essence of homosexuality and heterosexuality," people throughout history "continually reconfigure their affectionate and erotic feelings and acts". He suggests that the Lincoln-Speed relationship fell within a 19th-century category of intense, even romantic man-to-man friendships with erotic overtones that may have been "a world apart in that era's consciousness from the sensual universe of mutual masturbation and the legal universe of 'sodomy,' 'buggery,' and 'the crime against nature'". Some correspondence of the period, such as that between Thomas Jefferson Withers and James Henry Hammond, may provide evidence of a sexual dimension to some secret same-sex bed-sharing. The fact that Lincoln was open about sharing a bed with Speed is seen by some historians as an indication that their relationship was not romantic. None of Lincoln's enemies hinted at any homosexual implication. Joshua Speed and Lincoln corresponded about their impending marriages, and Gore Vidal regarded their letters to each other as having evinced a degree of anxiety about being able to perform sexually on their wedding nights that indicated a homosexual relationship had once existed between them. Despite having some political differences over slavery, they remained in touch until Lincoln died, and Lincoln appointed Joshua's brother, James Speed, to his cabinet as Attorney General. 8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute "With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989! |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 | |||
Via Daily Dharma: The Importance of Joy
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