January 31

Events

1797 - Be careful what masculine brooks you dip into - Composer Franz Schubert was born on this date in Vienna. At age nine, he began harmony and counterpoint studies, and at 11 entered the Imperial Chapel as a choirboy, receiving his musical and general education at the Staatskonvikt. The school gave him ample opportunity to develop his compositional technique. He studied theory with Salieri (who was choirmaster), and composed his First Symphony in 1813 for the school orchestra. After his application for a teaching job was rejected, Schubert abandoned his teaching career at age 19 and decided to live a Bohemian lifestyle as a composer. Schubert's circle of friends included a wide variety gay males of varying ages from older boys to middle aged men. In 1823 Schubert composed Die Schöne Müllerin ("The Fair Maid of the Mill"), the subject-matter of which possibly reflects Schubert's own feelings at the time. It is about a boy who falls in love with a beautiful miller-girl who eventually rejects him. Throughout the cycle, the boy seeks solace in the masculine brook, and eventually commits suicide. While Schubert did seek a lot of solace in relationships with men and boys, he did not commit suicide. He died of syphilis at the age of 31.

1996 - Free speech for all - except the pedos, of course - "Zymurgy" was the name of the non-profit corporation that NAMBLA created to handle a number of publishing ventures. It was incorporated on September 9, 1994., as a Type B Non Profit Corporation, which means it was incorporated to "foster and advance greater knowledge and understanding of human sexuality" through workshops and lectures. the government of New York decided that free speech be damned, they didn't like this one bit, so on this date the New York Senate presented a bill specifically to dissolve Zymurgy. The bill passed and was signed by Governor Pataki into law. Zymurgy took the case to court, won on at a lower level, but ultimately lost on appeal.

2002 - "I'll have a pint of bitter and sex with your daughter, please." - Nineteen people living in and around Sainte-Ode, Belgium, a remote village of 2,000, went on trial on this date, accused of having sex with the daughter of a former bar owner starting from when she was 12. The case lead the media to refer to Sainte-Ode as "the pedophilia village." The case surfaced when the girl, who had just turned 14, alerted police, claiming she had been forced to have sex with her father and other men visiting the home. First to be arrested were her divorced father and his girlfriend, widely suspected of being a prostitute. Then the list grew to include the town car repair man, the phone company technician, an antique salesman, a lumberjack, and the village doctor.

2002 - You are not amused? Too bad. - British Labour MP, Barbara Follett, complained to the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC) about Chris Morris' Brass Eye special, a comic parody of the pedo hysteria in the UK. She was miffed when she found out - only after the broadcast - that it was not a serious journalistic piece and that her segments were used to mock her. The BSC ruled the means used to deceive the MPs "were justified in the context of the serious issues raised by the programme" and in particular "the dangers of people in the public eye speaking with apparent authority about matters they do not understand." Poor Babs. Maybe she can sue the BSC for making her look bad in their statements. Or maybe she can try growing a brain instead.