Trevor Donovan as Christopher (Kit) Acklin
I’ve already posted several times about the upcoming mini-series, Texas Rising, starring Trevor Donovan and many other fine names. Although Donovan is straight, he played a ground-breaking gay role in Beverly Hills 90210 and he’s always been a friend to the LGBT community. But more than that, I’m finding more interesting things about the character Donovan is playing in Texas Rising, Kit Acklin.
Here’s a book for sale on Google Books titled, Voyage to North America, 1844-45 that mentions a few Texas Rangers, including Kit Acklin.
While two of the rangers, John Carlton and James Dunn, bathed in the river, the other two, Christopher H. “Kit” Acklin and Cicero Rufus “Rufe”Perry, were suddenly attacked by Indians. Acklin and Perry fought back as best as they could while they retreated to the river to link up with their comrades. In the melee both were severely wounded.
You can read more from the book excerpt with the link to Google books, above. It’s another good example of how primitively wars were fought back then, and how hard it was to survive.
Now, here’s a link dating back to 2002 where someone else was curious about Kit Acklin that tells more about Acklin’s lineage.
I am also interested in Christopher (Kit) Acklen, Texas ranger; I think he is the son of Samuel Black Acklen and Elisabeth Hunt of Huntsville AL. His brother Joseph was US attorney for Alabama. His father Samuel was the son of Christopher Acklin and Christian Black of Abingdon, VA. Most of the male children of Christopher Acklin and Christian Black settled in Franklin Co TN, except for Samuel who ended up in Alabama. Samuel Acklen and Elizabeth Hunt had a son named Christopher Black Acklen among many others. Contact me directly and I will give you more info on the Acklins/Acklens I know.I am a descendant of Alexander Acklin, a brother of Samuel.
Unfortunately, there are no replies, which shows how difficult it really is to find any information on the web. The two spellings of the name isn’t unusual. In those days this kind of thing often happened. I left a comment for the person who wrote that, hoping to get more information about Acklin. I’m not familiar with that site and I’m not even sure how it works.
And here’s another web site that mentions more details about Captain Acklin and his men.
In June 1846, the First Regiment of Texas Mounted Riflemen was formed under Colonel Jack Hays. His old Ranger company (now Hays’ Company B) came under the command of Captain Christopher B. “Kit” Acklin and First Lieutenant Walter P. Lane. Acklin’s company was mustered in on June 6, consisting of seventy-three men who had been recruited primarily from Point Isabel near the Rio Grande. When Captain Acklin stepped aside temporarily, Lieutenant Lane briefly commanded this unit from August 1 – September 12, 1846.
In any event, Texas Rising sounds very promising and Trevor Donovan fits the role perfectly. The rest of the cast won’t disappoint you either. The only problem at this point is that we have to wait until May 25th to watch it. I’d like to see it become a full series. It’s been a while since that kind of series was done.
Finally, here’s a link with more details about Texas Rising and when it will air.
Hillary’s Gay Campaign Manager
It seems a lot of people are surprised by this. Frankly, I’m not. I’ve dated lobbyists from Washington. I’ve known closeted gay senators both Republican and Democrat. And I even knew one campaign strategist who kept his young boyfriend in a condo not far from New Hope. New Hope is a gay mecca, and it’s only a few hours by car from Washington D.C. It’s also the perfect place to hide if you are gay and in the closet. Oh, and cheaters love to bring their lovers here.
My general point is that there are and always have been many gay people in high positions in Washington. Although up until recently it was kept very quiet, things seems to be changing. Now that Hillary Clinton has announced her candidacy in the 2016 general election, it’s big news to discover her campaign manager is openly gay.
Mook has quite the resume. At 16, he was organizing phone banks in his native New Hampshire for the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign. At 23, he was running Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in New Hampshire. At 27, he was responsible for three key victories in Hillary’s unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Somewhere along the line, he found the time to get a degree in classics in Columbia University. (Yes, Mook actually reads ancient Greek.)
You can read more about him, here.
Side note: Wait until you see the post I’m working on tomorrow where Larry Kramer outs George Washington.
8th Grader Gets Felony Charge For Gay Photo
This is unreal.
14-year-old Domanik Green has been charged with a felony cybercrime — offense against a computer system and unauthorized access — for pranking a teacher he doesn’t like by swapping out the teacher’s desktop image for one of two men kissing.
The teen reportedly “shoulder surfed” the teacher’s computer password, which wasn’t hard to do seeing as it happened to be the instructor’s last name (come on, Teach). He then used it to trespass into the network and change the image.
They aren’t taking this lightly at the school. The kid was questioned at length and given a ten day suspension. Of course, this happened in Florida where most things of this nature seem to happen.
There’s a lot about this article I find disturbing. For one thing, why did this kid post a photo of two men kissing? To get a laugh? Because that’s, you know, so gay? I can’t imagine this kid was making a political statement. There’s just not enough information to go on in order to speculate.
