Today is International Whores’ Day. It is not “Sex Worker Day”; that is March 3rd. Today is a day to shamelessly celebrate our shameless history, not a day for sanitized words or concepts; it is a day to fight society’s attempts (via law and police violence) to sanitize the wilder, unrulier, more chthonic aspects of sex. This is a day for sexual outlaws, not well-behaved “workers”; it is a day to celebrate the triumphs of criminalized human beings against a society that would rather we didn’t exist. It is a day to oppose censorship, not to engage in self-censorship; a day to honor a means of survival that predates laws and governments by eons; and a day to celebrate a power which will always defeat even the most pernicious attempts to domesticate it.
Posted in Holidays, Perception, Philosophy, Words | Tagged activism, Aphrodite, archeofeminism, censorship, holidays, language, paganism | 1 Comment »
What you’re looking at here is the ring which joins the plumbing of my hot tub to the heater; the flashlight is necessary because even in broad daylight it’s pretty dark in the basement. As I learned three years ago, when there’s a leak it’s typically because a two-dollar rubber o-ring needs replacement. But my body has aged considerably in the past three years, so it was much more tiring and unpleasant than it was last time, and I experienced nearly as much anxiety around the process as I did last time despite knowing exactly what needed to be done. That’s how it has been with nearly every technical problem since Grace died; even when it was something she could no longer do (like crawling under the floor or climbing up on the roof), I could rely on her technical expertise to guide me, and because I had faith in her ability I wasn’t as reluctant to attempt things I’d never done before (like welding a steel structure together). In contrast, I now experience considerable anxiety every time something technical needs doing; I even put off changing the main water-system filter for the entire last year because I was worried something might go wrong (I finally did it recently and of course it was fine). About 30 years ago my friend Frank said that tragedies are multiplied by the inconveniences they spawn, and I’ve had the truth of that ground into my heart every time I have a technical problem, because every time it does and she’s not there to fix it herself or tell me how to fix it, I am reminded of the huge Grace-shaped hole in my life.
Posted in Diary | Tagged Grace, psychology, STEM, Sunset | Leave a Comment »
Before today, I cannot think of a single time when a Bing search result was more valuable than the Google equivalent. – Russell Brandom
When I saw this essay from C.J. Ciaramella two months ago, I was immediately reminded of a different Australian nun who was also an early ’70s pop star, because this one got very heavy play on New Orleans Top 40 stations in 1974; it also made its way into the guitar masses which were popular at the time. The links above the video were provided by Mike Siegel, Ryan Marino, Walter Olson, Violet Blue, and IncarcerNation (x2), in that order.
- Instant karma.
- Last week in artificial stupidity.
- A scene from a long-ago tragedy.
- Another great moment in artificial stupidity.
- Trigger-happy gypsy cop rewarded for multiple murders.
- When will the mainstream media admit pigs in schools are a menace?
From the Archives
- America’s sick lust for torture turns prison sentences into death sentences.
- Prohibition turns bodies into “crime scenes” which cops can violate at will.
- Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do.
- The inevitable result of entrusting mentally ill people to sociopathic thugs.
- How long will the US ignore the costs of its sick worship of state violence?
- Prohibitionists keep trying to inflict the evil “Swedish model” on Scotland.
- Politicians don’t even try to make their new laws Constitutional anymore.
- The hotel industry is really going to regret its collaboration with fanatics.
- I was fated to be threatened with state violence regardless of my career.
- Psychopathy is typical in politicians, but these laws are wholly deranged.
- Keep plunging that ice pick in; the bad thoughts will go away eventually.
- Hey, female cops; how’s that collaboration with the police state working?
- Cop deals with problems exactly as trained to, and everyone is shocked.
- I’m sure they helpfully yelled “Stop faking!” at this little girl as she died.
- Swedish politicians are angry their law doesn’t destroy enough lives yet.
- Denying meds to caged people is silently yelling “Stop faking!” at them.
- Local politicians’ virtue-signaling is powerless vs the fascist panopticon.
- Most coverage of this story hides the fact that the abuser was a screw.
- A large fraction of US politicians implicitly or explicitly approve of this.
- Infantilizing young victims of state violence as “children” doesn’t help.
- If he truly had trouble before, why did he call the same agency again?
- When will the federal government finally read the writing on the wall?
- One would think that the title “youth pastor” would be a big red flag.
- The only way to keep any data from being abused is not to collect it.
- Apparently, this wasn’t a rape attempt, just a cop being a dumbass.
- The government doesn’t care, as long as Lacey dies in a filthy cage.
- Cops will continue to do this until there are criminal penalties for it.
- Why are people shocked when men paid to behave violently, do so?
- Note that cases of actual coercion don’t look much like the myths.
- The Spanish case of the Swedish rot has been especially virulent.
- Retrospectives of my blogging from May 2013, 2014, and 2015.
- Cops, antimatter, Tina Turner, George Maharis, and much more.
- The censors are growing bold enough to admit their real goals.
- Occasionally, cops’ lies are too outrageous even for politicians.
- In mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
- Letting government dictate what constitutes “disinformation”.
- The 2nd installment of a multi-part review of the Buffyverse.
- Another massive pogrom from the psychopathic Grady Judd.
- Cops, artificial stupidity, Richard Sherman, and much more.
- It’s good to see someone actually studying this problem.
- Cops are nothing more than state-sponsored terrorists.
- Rapist cops often specifically target vulnerable women.
- Kaytlin Bailey on the realities of sex work Down Under.
- This sickness will get much worse before it gets better.
- Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Throwback Thursday.
- This is no surprise to anyone from New Orleans.
- The censors got what they wanted in this case.
- Cops, families, Bruce Logan, and much more.
- My Year of Disaster is now thirty years gone.
- I have a system for nearly everything I do.
- A very late end to chick season at Sunset.
- Opening up my new paddock extension.
- Definitely something to be thankful for.
- The Throwback Thursday Happening.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny | Tagged artificial stupidity, Australia, Catholicism, cops, Enshittification, Google, Illinois, restaurants, Rome, STEM, teachers, Texas, video, weaponry, Wisconsin | Leave a Comment »
The Trump…[regime] is more interested in monitoring and intimidating public servants than in actually governing. – Michael Martinez
Crypto-moralists believe anything people enjoy must be “bad for them”:
Social media use ranks with smoking as a threat to the health of young people, according to [a bizarre exaggeration of]…a submission to a government consultation on social media use for under-16s…the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges [actually] says doctors should routinely ask about screen time…when seeing younger patients. There is no [evidence]…that [social media] is harmful to children [or young adults, and in fact two massive new studies show that moderate usage is actually good for young people. What actually seems to harm them is pervasive surveillance and infantilization, such as referring to young adults as “children” and attempting to control everything they see, hear, and do. But]…Technology Secretary Liz Kendall [wants to ban] social media for under-16s [despite the abject failure of such a totalitarian scheme]…in Australia…Kendall said…”No [mere facts are] going to stop me from [impos]ing what I think is right [on everyone else]”…
In surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down:
Executives at Home Depot and Lowe’s want to hide…the[ir collaboration with government efforts to destroy] civil rights [b]y shar[ing] automatic license plate reader…data with…cop…[shops, spook houses] and [goon squads], who use the information to hunt [people they wish to brutalize]…shareholders are asking them to produce reports describing how their company assesses the risks…when they [collaborate]…by [feeding] the Flock [network]…pictures of vehicles as they drive by…[so pigs, spooks, and goons can root in them] to [target human beings for violence by]…identify[ing their] cars…[government actors can] watch children…stalk and terrorize [sexual prey, and harass]…people seeking reproductive health care, or people of the “wrong” race…
Fools eagerly hand the government constant surveillance without even being asked:
Oura rings are [faddish tech gewgaw]s worn on a finger. These [self-surveillance gimmick]s keep track of a person’s health data, like heart rate, sleep patterns, menstrual cycles, and dozens of other data points, including their location…Oura’s [half-assed] security design choices allow governments to [root in whatever] records [they like]…And, Oura…data is not end-to-end encrypted. That means that an[yone with the apparatus can intercept any]…user’s health data…at [many] points as it travels from…ring…through…phone app, over the internet, and…[onto] Oura’s [insecure] servers…staff [can] access it…as [can]…a prosecutor with a warrant, a hacker with stolen keys, or a [politician with]…a fustercluck of a[n agenda]…Oura would not say how…often it turns over user data [to malicious actors like cops, but it]…has sold over 5.5 million rings to date…
Fascists are infuriated by free people who ignore their diktats:
VPNs are currently under attack in various ways…last year, the Danish government…[tried to criminalize us[ing] a VPN to access geoblocked streaming content or…websites [politicians dislike]…France [wants]…to compel NordVPN, ExpressVPN, ProtonVPN, and others to block access to pirate sites and services…[which will] open…the door to…more calls to use [such orders] for a wider range of material…some [legitimate VPN provid]ers are considering whether to abandon the French market completely…[driving] people [to use shady] VPN providers…The UK government has announced wide-ranging [censorship] plans [justified by barfing]…“keep children safe online”…[in] adult [citizens’ faces]…the[se]…misguided plans will also bolster the growing attempts by the copyright industry to demonise VPNs – a core element of the Internet’s plumbing – as unnecessary tools that are only used [by peasants to disobey their rightful masters]…
“Bossware” is even more horrifying when the boss is the government:
The Trump [regime] is building a surveillance network to spy on its own workforce across multiple agencies…[and] has already given Palantir an initial $3.9 million to do so…the USDA…VA…[and] SSA…[are already] surveilling workers…and measuring occupancy levels…[as]…a prelude to consolidating or outright shuttering of more offices nationwide, based on…staff levels [which] are low because DOGE [fired 348,219] workers last year…as…part of…Russell Vought’s plan to strip Americans of federal services…Research shows working under constant scrutiny harms workers’ physical and mental health…[but] Palantir…is getting rich off U.S. taxes…
Evil corporations are using artificial stupidity to destroy journalism entirely:
A [web]site called National Today…[is re]publish[ing]…reworded version[s] of o[thers’ work]…and…present[ing] the reporting as if it were the original source…[it] is blatant plagiarism…[from] countless…publications, ranging from top newspapers to local newsrooms across the country…stealing their original reporting and using it to publish a torrent of what appear to clearly be [computer]-generated articles, complete with bizarre errors and hallucinations. The scope is immense. [Futurism reporters] tried to count how many it published in a single day, but lost count around 300…In addition to the incredible speed at which it churns out all this slop, National Today is full of comically terrible errors…[such as replacing] real people’s names with “Jane Doe”…[or getting] stuck on a certain quote, repeatedly jamming it into articles where it makes no sense…National Today is…[run] by the TOP Agency, a flashy [PR firm] that claims to have worked with nationally-known companies including Microsoft, Intel…US Bank and Discover…
Safetyism has always enabled totalitarianism:
…163 immigration-related searches were registered in Cleveland’s Flock camera audit logs between December 28th and January 27th, despite the city having blocked immigration searches since November…[this is because] the drones [sold to useful idiots as helping] the Cleveland fire and emergency medical services were “accidentally” and “mistakenly” included in Flock S[urveillance]’s national network…the records include dozens of searches explicitly referencing “I.C.E”…[and] originat[ing in quisling states such as] Florida…and…Texas…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny | Tagged agency denial, bogus studies, censorship, crypto-moralism, Denmark, Enshittification, ethics, fascism, Florida, France, I Spy, illegal aliens, internet, Mad Libs, Ohio, Panopticon, politicians, psychology, surveillance, Texas, The Puritan Recrudescence, Thou Shalt Not, United Kingdom, Walled Garden, Welcome to the Future | Leave a Comment »
Sexual likes, dislikes, kinks and fetishes emerge by mysterious paths from the murky swamp we carry deep in our brains, and there’s no known way to reroute those pathways once they’re established.
– “Out of the Dark”
- Sleazebag takes it upon himself to persecute strangers for consensual sex.
- These articles aren’t even funny any more; they’re just pathetically stupid.
- Massage parlors are popular pig targets because they’re low-hanging fruit.
- As our wanker switches from pimp fantasy to incest fantasy, fade to black.
- Mike Crawford: one of the most eloquent male voices on sexworker rights.
- Why do “rescuers” always push whores into menial garment-related work?
- How long before judges start fining these lawyers for filing nuisance suits?
- Brains so narrow they can only conceive of humans existing in two states.
- Can people not see that “sex trafficking” hysteria is rooted in xenophobia?
- Fact: woman with drug problem goes missing. Conclusion: sex trafficking!
- Women are passive dolls unable to make decisions without male coercion.
- Politicians keep promising the impossible & the stupid keep believing ’em.
- Another asinine “crackdown” on massage parlors, using the usual excuse.
- Emily Bazelon pisses off prohibitionists by promoting Amnesty’s platform.
- Another ridiculous tale of spineless women & pimps with magical powers.
- Brooke Magnanti schools politicians wanting to hurt adults who want sex.
- The meat of this article about whether escorting will survive dating apps.
- Invited religious fanatic speaks about her dogma; officials feign surprise.
- Luckily, cops can diagnose us as “victims” no matter what we may think.
- Despite political claims, regulations aren’t meant to protect sex workers.
- This excellent article about anti-porn hysteria is also very droll at points.
- Arresting sex workers & clients to “build a positive relationship” with us.
- Anyone “shocked” by this should move to a remote farm without media.
- This would’ve been better without her moral signalling at the beginning.
- What would they have said had she been arrested instead of murdered?
- KIRO has my number & should call it before printing ludicrous garbage.
- Fanatic finds data disprove “sex trafficking”, decides we need new data.
- What does it mean if my regular escort stops using protection with me?
- Why bother looking for victims when cops can just pretend to be them?
- In US media, “sex trafficking” is now just a dysphemism for “sex work”.
- Fetishists trot out more lurid wanking fantasies than usual for the RNC.
- Fashion shows promote “sex trafficking” hysteria to enrich sweatshops.
- Police chief decides to destroy a few lives to give bored cops some fun.
- Police state exploits technically skilled but naive kids to attack whores.
- Countering the Seattle Times‘ nauseating bootlicking & prohibitionism.
- A revolting exercise in bootlicking in support of an unwinnable lawsuit.
- New surveillance weapons are usually used against sex workers first.
- A woman who fought New York’s agency-denying “trafficking courts”.
- Canadian prohibitionists desperate to cash in before panic implodes.
- A basic primer on sex worker rights, focusing on France & Belgium.
- South Africa is another country with awesome sex worker activists.
- This sounds good until one gets down to the “end demand” poison.
- Another woman’s child abducted by the state because of her work.
- Reporters compete to write the most cop-fellatory article possible.
- This case horrifies me more than almost any other of this century.
- When whores advance, cops soon arrive to “teach them a lesson”.
- Why just stand around, when you can HIKE to “raise awareness”?
- The Dutch seem determined to slowly throttle sex work to death.
- Censorship is OK because Donald Trump is running for president.
- Can a loving but pragmatic whore/client relationship really work?
- A powerful takedown of “porn is a public health crisis” nonsense.
- How persecuting ridesharing companies is like stripper licensing.
- Cops, bison, bureaucrats, a musical coming out and much more.
- Guys, please do your research, and let the pigs hunt each other.
- “Anti-trafficking” publicity stunts are growing ever more bizarre.
- Elizabeth Nolan Brown has become a force to be reckoned with.
- Sometimes “authorities” prefer to rape vulnerable men instead.
- Why do people just accept these ridiculous made-up numbers?
- Cops, idiocracy, Heracles, Ozymandias, Canada & much more.
- In the US, we’re barely even tolerated, much less listened to.
- But it’s not a surveillance measure, because THE CHILDREN!
- Sex workers’ ideas of what a perfect brothel would look like.
- The best parts of my life have always involved other people.
- Cops, consequences, laws, Bradbury, dogs and much more.
- Another transwoman murdered and misgendered in death.
- There can never be too many anti-Swedish model articles.
- Some sex workers’ mothers really do love unconditionally.
- Cops are allowed to rape, but not to have consensual sex.
- In which NSWP counters absurd prohibitionist arguments.
- An article on student sex workers with a “so what?” tone.
- Spokane cops are on a fanatical client-targeting crusade.
- “…the pattern of legislating over their heads continued…“
- Which is to say, the second country in the entire world.
- Missouri wants to define escort ads as “sex trafficking”.
- This is TOTALLY different from what American cops do.
- Cops, fairy tales, Disney birth control and much more.
- Decriminalization in New South Wales is safe for now.
- All censorship seems this futile and ridiculous to me.
- How to fail at writing a pro-decriminalization article.
- Cops, wood, lies, prohibition, vegans & much more.
- A glimpse at the return of the Sex Workers’ Opera.
- So many rapist cops they needed a whole column.
- The ridiculous self-contradictions of anti-sex laws.
- A weekend in Los Angeles & a visit to Disneyland.
- Politicians just can’t stop beating this dead horse.
- A prohibitionist’s notion of “helping” sex workers.
- This anti-whore article’s language is horrifying.
- On the cover of the New York Times Magazine.
- The people prohibitionists want to “rescue” us.
- Don’t be fooled by this “guest post” in Forbes.
- A tale of cookies, mud and chances not taken.
- Whore-murderer seeks early release in Dubai.
- The War on Whores is the new War on Drugs.
- Endza Adair on being a student & sex worker.
- Why do so many women have rape fantasies?
- I really love it when they feed on each other.
- I hope he wins and establishes a precedent.
- The cover of the New York Times Magazine.
- A visit to California with my purple blanket.
- Public opposition to yet another toilet bill.
- Rapist cops of the week. Plenty of them.
- Another teen’s life destroyed for flirting.
- Another rapist preying on sex workers.
- An instant ticket to my Hall of Shame.
- It’s impossible to state this too often.
- Would you be my sex work mentor?
- The murder of Renee Duckmanton.
- On the sentencing of Tracy Elise.
- Another murdered transwoman.
- Testing a new vertigo remedy.
- Sex worker rights in Uganda.
- Rapist fake-cop of the week.
- Facebook, the prudish giant.
- Yet another Friday the 13th.
- Rapist official of the week.
- R.I.P. Charles Gatewood.
- A week of good and bad.
- Rapist cop of the week.
- More of this, please.
- The McNeill Rule.
Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged blogging | Leave a Comment »
In the early ’80s…I was much too young…to really feel in my gut what it meant to remember [being in love] across a gulf of decades. –
“So Long Ago, So Clear”
Trying to use [social media] without muting is like trying to have a garden without weeding. – “Maytweets”
Journalism that doesn’t at least occasionally offend the government isn’t real journalism. – “Yes, They’re Still Tweets”
My emotions are often insidious, slippery things, which is why I often used to refer to the “snakes in my head”.
– “Thirty Years Gone“
Posted in Biography, Favorites, Miscellaneous, Music, Philosophy, Tyranny | Tagged blogging, Bluesky, censorship, ethics, New Orleans, psychology, Twitter | Leave a Comment »
In [Canadian] criminal law…we can only be victims. – Adore Goldman
It’s unusual for McNeill’s Law cases to confess before they’re caught:
…Alan Manning Chambers…[has been] arrested…in [Orange County, Florida for talking to a cop fantasy role-playing]…as a 14-year-old boy…Chambers is the former leader of Exodus International, an Orlando-based organization that promoted so-called conversion therapy and claimed for years that people could change their sexual orientation…in 2013…Chambers apologized to the LGBT…community and announced Exodus International would shut down…[admitting] that he had masked his own attraction to men…
Not To Be Taken Internally (#886)
This tag used to be mostly women; now it’s more often men:
The…latest [stupid social media fad], known as “ballmaxxing,” has [foolish] men injecting fluids like saline or Surgilube into their testicles to increase their size….[sometimes] to the size of grapefruits…for [fetishistic] purposes…Physicians have called [it] one of the most reckless body modification trends to emerge from male online communities, warning that [it] often leads to permanent damage…Specific risks include infection, abscess formation, and cellulitis…kits bought online…may contain toxic materials that are not only harmful but also unsterile, increasing the risk of…permanent disfigurement…Surgilube…is not bioabsorbable…which…can…result…[in] the need for surgical intervention to remove embedded material…
On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (#1065)
I’m glad to see this spreading from US strippers to their Canadian sisters:
…Montreal sex worker Adore Goldman is organizing a…[stripp]er strike…in the midst of F1 weekend — one of the busiest times of the year for the city’s clubs — to demand greater labour protections and push for the decriminalization of sex work. She says strippers’ employment status as independent contractors, which is now an industry-wide norm, has for too long shielded club owners from ensuring safe working conditions….[presentl]y, she and members of…the Sex Work Autonomous Committee (SWAC)…[ar]e zeroing in on the “bar fee” that clubs charge dancers to work…but…clubs…treat…[dancers] as…employee[s] despite the self-employed label….[dictating] what time [they] can come in, what time [they] can leave and penalize [them] for being late…The strike also includes erotic massage parlour workers…One of…SWAC’s ultimate goals is to create a union grouping all kinds of sex workers…
Do As I Say, Not As I Do (#1524) 
Laws are for the peasantry, not the rulers:
…a Colorado [politician named]…Hunter Rivera…was arrested [for talking to]…a [cop fantasy role-playing online as]…a minor prostitute…
In surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down:
Cops across California are getting incentivized to arrest more people for stealing from chain stores with the help of millions of dollars in grant money that they can use to buy surveillance technology from companies like Flock…[which are] facing national backlash for [enabl]ing…privacy violations ranging from stalking ex-girlfriends to tracking people seeking abortions out of state. It all goes back to a [fascist] collaboration between the retail industry and the California Governor’s office…based on the [false] premise that retail theft is linked to organized crime…a narrative largely pushed by lobbies like the National Retail Federation…[which has] no [demonstrable basis in fact]…Walgreens famously walked-back its complaints about shrinkage three years ago…[but]…the…plan…helped unleash ALPRs on California cities…including…Bakersfield, Irvine…Chula Vista…Los Angeles…Santa Rosa…Vacaville…and…Modesto…[but]…the most Flock-happy [cop shop] appears to be th[at of] San Francisco…which received $15 million in grant money…to install 400 Flock cameras around the city…
The fully-realized fascist police state has arrived:
The FBI wants to buy access to automated license plate readers…nationwide, which would likely allow the agency to [unconstitutionally] track the movements of vehicles—and by extension people—across the country without a warrant…The…[only two] companies that [can] provide the [level] of data the FBI is seeking…[are] Flock…and…Motorola…which acquired Vigilant Solutions…in [Search of Problems]…
Why are people shocked when those paid & encouraged to behave violently, behave violently?
…a [typical and representative] North Carolina [cop] planned to kill Black people in a mass shooting at…the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival…Christopher Gillum…was arrested…[on April 22nd] at a hotel in…Destin, [Florida] and…will be extradited to Louisiana to face charges there…Gillum’s family reported him missing on [April 21st] and he has a history of self-harm…[but] left the state before…the [family could] involuntarily commit him to psychiatric treatment. [North Carolina cops didn’t bother to try to stop him because he was only threatening to murder]…Black people…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny | Tagged activism, Buried Truth, California, Canada, Colorado, cops, cosmetic surgery, Do As I Say, fantasy, fascism, FBI, Florida, genitalia, Having and Eating Cake, homosexuality, McNeill's Law, New Orleans, North Carolina, Not To Be Taken Internally, Panopticon, politicians, racism, scams, stripping, surveillance, The Cop Myth, underage | Leave a Comment »
It’s that time of year when y’all are starting to get tired of pictures of chickens, so I instead present something completely different: pictures of eggs. A few years ago I was given four ornamental chickens by friends who decided to stop keeping poultry, and I’ve been surprised that elderly (they’re all at least 6) chickens not really bred for laying are nonetheless still laying more than the much-younger blacks, who have been extremely disappointing layers. One of the Ameraucanas is starting to peter out; she now lays only sporadic, tiny, vestigial eggs. But one of the blacks laid this enormous goose-egg-sized monster last week; I’ve included a normal large-grade egg and one of the vestigial eggs for comparison. On Friday night I decided to make eggs in a frame for dinner, and I used the giant (which turned out to be double-yolked) and three of the tinies (which had no yolk at all); that’s how I typically use eggs whose size grossly departs from the norm, because they’d throw off the amount of liquid in a recipe, but that doesn’t matter when one is merely cooking them straight. Plus it’s kinda fun.
Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous | Tagged animals, recipes, Sunset | 1 Comment »
As a lifelong bibliophile with a special interest in reference books, I’m always delighted to find a useful one that I didn’t even know existed. Regular readers know that I’ve been working on a novel, The Big Boom, set in New Orleans of 1925 and featuring the characters from “Until the End of Days“ and “Hellhound”. It will surprise no one who has read more than a few examples of my work that I’m an absolute fiend for accuracy; anachronisms and other such errors really annoy me when I encounter them, so there’s absolutely no way I’m going to let them creep into my work if I can possibly avoid it. But once in a while, the fact one needs is far too obscure for the enshittified latter-day Google to turn up, and since there is no academic library nearby that can turn into a complicated search unless I want to rewrite that section of the story so as to avoid referencing unknown facts.
Now, some of you may know that early 20th-century New Orleans had one of the most extensive networks of streetcars in the United States, but as automobiles proliferated in the 1930s some of the lines began to close down, and after World War II an unholy alliance of Detroit manufacturers and corrupt New Orleans politicians conspired to replace the clean, quiet, efficient, and long-lasting (there are streetcars still in operation today which were built in the 1920s) electric streetcars with filthy, noisy, inefficient, “modern” buses which must be replaced every few years. By 1953 only the St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street lines were left, and in 1964 the Canal Street line was pulled out as well; the only line which survived into my adulthood was the St. Charles line, and even it was reduced to about half of its former range. So when streetcar routes came into the plot twice in the first four chapters of my book, I started trying to find maps of the network in its 1920s heyday, only to be repeatedly thwarted. Finally, a few weeks ago, a serendipitous search turned up a photo of the map someone had posted to Reddit; it was much too low-resolution to be of any use, but the poster had the good sense many internet denizens lack: she named the source. I immediately went to Amazon, located a copy, bought it for the very reasonable price of $20, and it arrived a week ago Saturday. It was published in 1955, was written by a New Orleanian who was an age-peer of my main characters, and was even better than I’d hoped for; it had three different maps (1880, 1906, and a combined 1915-1930 map), detailed descriptions of each route, schematics of the cars, period photos galore, and a wealth of facts I couldn’t have hoped for (such as the fact that the normal fare from 1922 to at least 1955 was 7¢). The whole thing was so exciting that I spent most of the following afternoon immersed in it, editing my text to insert small details, and generally feeling like a kid in a candy store. I know some of y’all probably find this amusing, but as I’ve said many times, “You can take the girl out of the library, but you can’t take the librarian out of the girl.” Or the old woman, for that matter. And I always treasure books which connect me to a world I was born too late to explore for myself.
Posted in Biography, Fiction, History | Tagged imaginative fiction, internet, libraries, Lost Angels, New Orleans, The Big Boom | Leave a Comment »
Approving a project that will consume water and energy at this scale is irresponsible and dangerous. – Franque Bains
This week’s video is a recently-discovered shellac master pressing of “Cross Road Blues” by Robert Johnson, who died mysteriously in 1938 before his career even got properly started, yet still influenced the young blues-inspired guitarists of the Sixties. The video was provided by Brooke Magnanti, and the links above it by Mike Siegel, Shiv Ramdas, Kevin Wilson, Reason, IncarcerNation, and Nun Ya (x2), in that order.
- R.I.P. Ann Robinson.
- So much safer than human drivers.
- Another of Easter Island’s many mysteries.
- What part of “never” is so hard to understand?
- Cops are predators, and behave like predators.
- Artificial stupidity is enabled by natural stupidity.
- Remember computer dating? These folks apparently don’t.
From the Archives
- Why pay for surveillance when useful idiots can be talked into providing it?
- A little bit of good news about mob-rule attempts to castrate Section 230.
- How long will Western society allow cops to terrorize traumatized women?
- Every “official” involved in this abomination should be imprisoned for life.
- Crypto-moralists believe that people enjoying any food makes it “unsafe”.
- Modern courts curtail the power of cops and prosecutors much too rarely.
- Nobody will be safe until this odious practice is declared unconstitutional.
- Wannabe censors & ambulance-chasers both capitalize on mob rule laws.
- This will continue as long as fools teach children obedience to “authority”.
- If other big websites followed suit, the damage would’ve been contained.
- Hey, female cops; how’s that collaboration with the police state working?
- These attempts to destroy the internet are going to keep getting worse.
- Give aggressive thugs power over teens; what could possibly go wrong?
- Government using “sex trafficking” myths to destroy another company.
- If you thought “asset forfeiture” was brazen robbery, get a load of this.
- As long as sex work is criminalized, rapist cops will target sex workers.
- The US government is almost completely out of Constitutional control.
- Articles about misconduct shouldn’t include making excuses for cops.
- Hiding a murderer’s cop identity by shoving it down to paragraph 20.
- Wow, she managed to call for help without magic bathroom stickers.
- It’s barely even possible to talk about this under criminalization.
- Prohibition can never succeed, regardless of what is prohibited.
- All too often, evil arrives cloaked in the mantle of expediency.
- In mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
- Cop excuses produced by human bootlickers are bad enough.
- Politicians want to micromanage every aspect of teens’ lives.
- Remember, Twitter claims this surveillance isn’t surveillance.
- A society can be judged by the way it treats its prisoners.
- Washington state politicians demonstrate their hypocrisy.
- Another baby step toward recognizing sex work as work.
- No matter how little their victims have, cops will steal it.
- Cops should not be allowed anywhere near legal minors.
- Your curated selection of tweets for May 2023 and 2025.
- Cops, “discovery”, rolling ball thingies, and much more.
- Cop violence is never limited to members of the public.
- Cops, artificial stupidity, David Lazer, and much more.
- Of course Florida had to have its own “bathroom bill”.
- This one prowled for any kind of victim he could find.
- Politicians keep openly trying to destroy the internet.
- Surveillance beyond the wildest dreams of the Stasi.
- Cops, headlines, Dabney Coleman, and much more.
- Anyone who trusts Zuckerberg is out of his mind.
- Privacy as we once knew it is a thing of the past.
- I really wish I were wrong about the Uniparty.
- Looks like I was wrong about Belgian decrim.
- Your “leaders” refer to this as “correction”.
- It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
- The pullets come forth from the nursery.
- Much, much, much more of this, please.
- I’m gradually seeing more signs of age.
- Thoughts on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- Finally getting my fountain into place.
- The shittiest-paying sex work ever.
- It’s two! Two! Two fads in one!
- Throwback Thursday’s Castle.
- Paying For It: The Premiere.
- Once a cop, always a cop.
- Yes, They’re Still Tweets.
- Your “leaders” at work.
- Throwbilly Thursday.
- Who in Review.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Posted in Biography, Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny | Tagged artificial stupidity, cell phones, Chile, cops, dating, Georgia, language, Michigan, Never Call the Cops, New Jersey, politicians, prisons, robots, Utah, video | Leave a Comment »
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