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playboy bunny history

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Playboy bunnies, a subject you would never expect from me. Except that I started watching Drunk History and I was inspired by one that showcased Gloria Stienem doing an expose on 1960s Playboy clubs. What was it like to be a bunny for Hugh Hefner? Let's dive into that.  The late Hugh Hefner and his wife Crystal Harris Hefner Gloria Steinem wrote on the less-glamorous aspects of the Playboy club, such as sore feet, pay lower than promised, and crude comments from customers. According to Drunk History, the club members could date the bunnies if they held a membership key, though I can't find any reference to this anywhere else. I'm not saying that Drunk History has any reason to lie, but I can't find it in writing. I seriously doubt they'd advertise something so close to prostitution in their "Bunny Manual" if it happened. A little bit of history on the Playboy Club is in order. Only 21 percent of members even came in the door, mostly because they only neede...

The Real West vs. The Movies

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The old west has been used by Hollywood to show a wild time when gunfights were common and outlaws were rampant. From 1803 to 1890 is considered "the west". Let's dive into that and see what it really was.  To be fair to Hollywood and various others in the film industry, there were gunfights. That wasn't a lie. What is a lie is that the gunfight at OK Corral happened at OK Corral with rifles. Truthfully, it happened with handguns, beside a photography studio, and lasted 30 seconds. They were all six feet from each other or closer.  Westerns portraying the 1900s and violent times are significantly less accurate, too. The west was cleaned up far more by that time. It is around the first settlements that it was the roughest. Imagine single men with guns bought from the gold rush cash they acquired, all of them scarred from the Civil War and dealing with Native Americans defending their homes. Add the raiding parties and bandits, then we have a violent time. Most traveled...

Men and visual minds

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Men are visual. A phrase that most women have heard every time they wear short shorts at summer church camp. That phrase is not entirely understood unless you look at the situation from a man's point of view. Shall we dive in? Based on the research I found, it is irrefutable and I have no doubts. Men are far more visually stimulated than women. Unfortunately, it is a fact used (sometimes) to make dress code violations one-sided. Men can control their actions. They are not animals. However, we should be as kind as possible to them in what we wear (and I'm not just saying this to be restrictive). To be entirely fair to men here, they can't just turn it off. There may not be much we can do, truthfully, to help when the advertising world is making it hard to avoid. There was an experiment proving this done at Emery University Health Sciences Center. The men processed visual stimulation differently than women and you can read about the whole study by clicking my first source lin...

News and media- making money off of our distress

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False news! Misinformation! Controversy and shock! Let's talk about how reliable your news is. Did you ever wonder how much power your local news station held over you? You'd be surprised how much it dictates your thoughts.    Now, your news may not tell you what to think, but it is biased. No human is entirely without bias. I blog and I can tell you that bias is everywhere. Including here. And, to boot, your news tells you what is important and should be discussed. During the coverage of George Floyd you may remember Covid 19 going into the background real quick, and that was because the news stopped covering Covid 19 when a less-stale lead came up for them to follow.  Is this anything new? No, they've been doing this for years. Sensationalism? Yellow journalism? It is still out there. Look at war newspapers and tell me what you see. One can quickly come to the conclusion that there is nothing new under the sun. The media still tells us what to focus on and converse abou...

The Boston Police Strike of 1919 - a look back at history

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Boston, Massachusetts. Sept. 9th, 1919. That was the day that the police force in Boston ran out of negotiation options and went on strike. After the first night of quiet, the city went crazy and militia were called in. Murders, property damage, rape, and looting were rampant. The volunteers (scabs) taking the officers' place were in way over their heads.  I thought I'd bring you some long-forgotten history today, and maybe some perspective. The police force in Boston had wages that hadn't risen since the Civil War, and the war wages that were promised to rise if they waited, didn't rise. They were denied having a Union to speak for them, most of them were immigrants (Irish, mostly), and working conditions were awful. They had to try to afford expensive uniforms that cost around  $207.25 on a $21.90 weekly salary.   How bad were working conditions? Try rats in the bunkhouse and one day off for every fifteen days on the job. 12 hour beats ( walking routes) on the stre...

Concubines, Mistresses, and Prostitutes- Oh My!

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Of all the subjects to talk about, why am I talking about this?  Because why the heck not. There is, apparently, a difference between prostitute, concubine, and mistress - all in the lense of history. I'm not saying it is right, but I'm not going to argue with the history of the subject and it happened. Just for fun, let's explore this random topic.  Definitions first! Mistresses (in our case) are lovers on the side, unmarried. Prostitutes are paid to have sex with anyone. Concubines are almost the same as a mistress, but includes living with their lover. All this in the lense of history is an interesting and scandalous topic.  Women have been used for sex often throughout history. I don't like it, but there it is. I read a Phryne Fisher one day and it mentioned concubines were not prostitutes, so I was curious as to what they were, for real. Let's start with Mistresses. Mistresses The actual term did not start out like the definition above. For example, the mistres...

Defund Police movement - what is it?

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The Defund Police movement is all up in arms right now because, well, Black Lives Matter. Before you form any opinions based on what your neighbor, cousin, or your news source believes, let me tell you the factual basics on the movement, based on what I researched. *The rest of this blog is facts from my research on the subject and the use of logic.* First things first, what is it? In the most basic of terms, they want to lower funds for the police and give them to often-neglected needs in the community, possibly redefining police roles in the process. While there is a sister movement that goes farther and says disband the police, I am not talking about the sister movement.  I'm not going into an overly-detailed description in this post, so if you want more information follow my sources below and go as far as you'd like in the research process. This is a deep hole of an issue. You should probably find a shovel at this point.  Where does the money go? This money, in theory, wou...