……A man approached her to make her stop…..and she raised a finger and said;….. Nope, not until I’m finished”……just before the historic 1848 Woman’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York…..a woman on the other side of the globe…..was making her own call for women’s rights….Tahirih…..a Persian theologian, poet and social activists…..walked into a gathering of men without wearing her veil….now a veilless woman hardly seems notable to Western sensibilities…..but in 19th-century Iran…..it was an unspeakable act of heresy……Tahirih boldly proclaimed that the day of equality of men and women had arrived…..gender equality was a core tenet of the Babi faith she had embraced….and she would be executed for it four years later…..she was choked to death with her own scarf…..and her body was tossed into a well….her final words are still believed to this day….. “You can kill me as soon as you like….but you will never stop the emancipation of women”…..and nearly two centuries later…..women are still fighting for their emancipation from oppressive laws…..there have been waves of protest in the streets since the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022….with women demanding the right to choose whether or not to wear the hijab…..the current Islamist regime enacted the hijab law in 1983…..the same year the Iranian government publicly hanged 10 Baháí women…..most of whom were in their 20’s…..for refusing to recant their faith….those executions were conducted one by one…..so the women were forced to watch each other die…..which shows the lengths the regime would go to their extremism……and drew condemnation from around the world…..and further demonstrated the courage and fortitude of Iranian women…..who refuse to bend to injustice….. the woman was just singing…..and that alone is a crime in Iran….where the government has forbidden women from singing in public…..the woman was singing a poem from the Sufi tradition…..a mystical form of Islam that gave us the widely beloved poetry…..of Rumi and Hafiz.
UPSCALE STEAKHOUSE SAYS IT WILL NOT AIR CMT IN ITS RESTAURANT IN SOLIDARITY WITH JASON ALDEAN……In case you don’t know…..he’s the one who wrote a song that’s pissing a lot of people off….it’s a song called “Try That in a Small Town”…..and people are calling it racist, White, whatever……it was shot in front of a courthouse….where a Black man was lynched……a news site was kind and printed the lyrics….I read them…..and their just lyrics…..how you interpret them or understand them…..that’s up to you….but one thing is true……this is not the first song released…..that pissed people off…..was it Tipper Gore…..who was so upset when she heard her daughter listening and grinding to Prince…..Little Nicky……and decided putting “Warning Labels” on Rap CD’s would deter folks from buying them?…..how well did that idea work out?…..you can’t watch a sporting event…..without listening to a rap song…..and let’s not forget how people lost their damn minds…..when N.W.A. came out with….. “Fuck The Police”…..and that one pissed off cops……and they were threaten with being arrested if they performed it live in concert…..it’s the First Amendment folks……if you don’t like the song or the lyrics….. “DON’T LISTEN TO IT!”…..everyone is so touchy-feely now days…..weeds legal……so chill!
THE LITTLE KNOWN STORY OF RADU…..THE HANDSOME BROTHER OF VLAD THE IMPALER….I knew about Vlad…..but I had no idea about his good-looking brother…..Radu….. I came so close to calling my man Ragu…..anyway,…..and he kick his brother’s ass…..in 1462 with the help of Sultan Mehmed II.….Vlad was called “The real Dracula”…..and Radu III of Wallachia was the good looking one…..they were sent to live in the Otterman Empire as hostages when they were kids…..and learned about statecraft, religion and warfare…..Radu hooked up with Mehmed II the sultan at the time….became lovers…..and participated in military campaigns that led to the fall of Constantinople and the defeat of his brother in Wallachia…..their father Vlad II ruled a kingdom that is now part of Romania….brought both sons to meet Sultan Murad II….Murad betrayed and captured him….and dad could only escape if he promised to leave his sons behind…..word on the street is Vlad might have been tortured…..and witnessed the impalement of the Ottoman’s enemies…..and thought that was a great idea to use against his future enemies…. Six years after they were taken hostage….Vlad II was killed by a local warlord….Vlad III and Radu’s eldest brother was tortured, blinded and buried alive…..the sultan messed up when he released Vlad II because he started plotting his revenge…..but Radu didn’t want any part of it…..when Vlad III reclaimed his father’s throne…..Radu converted to Islam and became a beloved member of the Ottoman court…..and that’s when he and Mehmed II…..the sultan’s heir…..began their relationship…..Radu wasn’t having it at first…..when he was in Mehmed II room….he tried to have sex with him….Radu fought him off…..grabbed a knife, stabbed him in the leg and ran off…..but in time…..they became lovers…..but this relationship would have profound implications….in 1453 Mehmed II attacked Constantinople and took over the city with Radu be his side…..everything was running smoothly until another threat popped on their radar…..Vlad III…..Mehmed II thought Vlad would be his partner but Vlad said….. “Nah, dude!”…..and impaled two of his boys and nailed their turbans to their heads…..in 1462…..Vlad attacked Ottoman land…..and killed thousands of Turk and Muslim Bulgarians…..and that pissed Mehmed off…..he raised an army of 150,000 men….sailed with Radu to Wallachia….and hoped to put Radu in Vlad’s place…..Vlad wasn’t going down without a fight…..they freaked out when they realized Vlad had impaled an entire town where Mehmed’s men were camping out….they saw over 200,000 men, women and children…..even infants…..affixed to their mothers on the stakes….and Vlad bragged about it….Mehmed II victory over Vlad was swift though…..and Vlad fled to Transylvania…..and the king of Hungary had him imprisoned for 12 years….Vlad later died in battle in 1477…..in the end, the dude was no punk……he went out fighting…..Radu the Handsome died throneless between 1475 and 1477…..and he never saw Mehmed II ever again.