An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children. – Benjamin Disraeli
Just over a year ago in “Top Ten” I listed the most popular posts at that time by number of visits and number of comments, and also shared those I thought deserved more attention. I’ll do an update on the top columns in my annual summary in January, but today I’d like to discuss the ten columns with which I’m most pleased. As is my custom with these lists, I’m going to restrict it to only one representative per column type; I’m also going to exclude all miscellanea-type columns, list columns and those built around large extracts from others’ writings (such as news stories). With those rules in place, it was a little easier to whittle 779 posts down to this list, arranged in chronological order.
1) Painted Devil (August 23rd, 2010)
It was really difficult to choose a favorite “fictional interlude”, and the two runners-up are mentioned as honorable mentions below. But this one, the second I wrote, was very special to me because of the way it came into being. The idea first occurred to me in the late ‘80s, but I was very dissatisfied with the resulting story and it rattled around in my brain for over two decades; though I tried many times to put it together it just never quite jelled. But once I realized the missing ingredient was that the heroine had to be a courtesan, it came together in just a few hours; the result made me realize that I really could write a story every month, as long as I continued to employ that common factor.
Honorable mentions: “Concubine” (July 19th, 2011) and “Pearls Before Swine” (October 13th, 2011)
2) Amazingly Stupid Statements (October 10th, 2010)
What makes this one a favorite is very simple: it contains the most concise responses I have ever written to a number of common prohibitionist arguments, all of which have been addressed at greater length in other columns. But for simplicity and convenience, I think this column deserves greater exposure.
3) Plaçage (November 22nd, 2010)
I’m very happy with most of my historical columns, but since I can only choose one it would have to be this treatment of the system of concubinage which was so prevalent in early New Orleans that it actually gave rise to an entire culture which survived until very recently. Several of my historical columns cast light on obscure aspects of history, but this one seems to have become an important internet reference on the subject.
Honorable mentions: “Honolulu Harlots” (July 5th, 2011) and “The Ouled Nail” (September 11th, 2011)
4) Harm Reduction (January 13th, 2011)
Though the topic of harm reduction often arises with respect to the way society treats prostitution, few of those who talk about it acknowledge that the trade is itself a harm reduction mechanism. This essay explains what is meant by “harm reduction”, gives a brief history of the concept and explains how whores practice it.
5) Numerology (January 24th, 2011
This column’s place on this list was a given because it was the one which first “put me on the map” by capturing the attention of many people outside the sex worker rights ghetto. But even if that had not been the case, it deserves the position as the most important exercise in applied math I’ve done here to date.
6) Godwin’s Law (March 5th, 2011)
I’ve written a number of essays on why police states are a moral abomination, but I’m so proud of this one I even reposted it on The Agitator during my guest blogging there last month. In it, I discuss the titular internet principle, point out the danger of the pretense that nothing like Nazi Germany could ever happen again and argue that “sometimes Nazi analogies are entirely appropriate.”
Honorable mentions: “Creating Criminals” (January 15th, 2011) and its sequel “Universal Criminality” (January 15th, 2012), and the Star Trek-themed “The Fourth of July” (July 4th, 2012)
7) A False Dichotomy (June 22nd, 2011)
Prohibitionists and sex worker rights advocates alike often subscribe to the fallacious belief that all whores are either free-willed “happy hookers” or “trafficked slaves”; this essay explains why that idea is incorrect and how belief in it is harmful to the cause of human rights and dismissive of the experiences of most of the world’s prostitutes.
Honorable mention: “Thought Experiment” (December 16th, 2011)
8) Frightful Films (October 28th, 2011)
At the time it was published this was the farthest off-topic I had ever wandered; it also had more pictures than any other, and some of them are the largest ones I ever uploaded to the blog. It also took longer to post than any other column before or since (due to formatting issues), but it was worth it as a labor of love on a topic near and dear to my heart.
9) Objectification Overruled (January 31st, 2012)
Of all the numerous criticisms of feminist theory I’ve written, this is my favorite. That’s partly because I find “objectification” the most absurd, indefensible, offensive and pie-in-the-sky of all feminist notions, yet it’s achieved widespread acceptance in popular discourse and is almost never questioned despite the fact that its asininity should be obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. So as you might imagine, I took particular pleasure in demolishing it with the help of Rene Magritte and Captain Kirk.
Honorable mention: “My Body, My Choice” (November 19th, 2010)
10) Imagination Pinned Down (June 12th, 2012)
It’s bad enough that the Great Unwashed accept lurid and unproven anecdotes as valid arguments against demonstrable facts, well-supported statistics and a very large number of anecdotes which contradict the lurid ones. But when those stories strongly resemble other outrageous “survivor” tales, and violate both common sense and physical laws, somebody needs to stand up and call a trafficking victim a UFO abductee; this essay does exactly that.
New readers will probably find these an excellent introduction to my back-catalog, and even regular readers may find some titles they don’t recognize. But I hope even those of you who remember all of these appreciated this month’s look into my own aesthetic sensibilities.
Regarding frightful films. Check out The Night of the Hunter. Robert Mitchum is so scary I won’t watch it again. Dean Clark
You didn’t mention it as your favorite … but, with Issac closing in, are you willing to do a “comeback tour”?
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/the-only-working-girl-in-new-orleans-part-one/
That one was MY personal favorite series, by the way. Except for the columns where you talk sexy and stuff that is. 😀
By the way – when Katrina hit I was an active duty Master Chief working at a personnel command at the Naval Station on Poland Ave. This was the same complex that housed the Marine Corps Reserve HQ and the MEPS station where I actually took the oath way back in 1982.
I really don’t plan on reprising that role if this gets “ugly” 😛
I just wanted to say that you are a fabulous writer. I haven’t been reading very long but I would have a really hard time choosing your best columns because they are all so wonderful.
OFF TOPIC:
With Hurricane Isaac heading Maggie’s way, I thought I’d share some Craigslist posts from the time of Hurricane Katrina.
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/nor/97962395.html
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/nor/95492519.html
Heading my way? Luckily, no; I don’t live anywhere near Florida! One of the reasons I moved inland was to get away from hot, humid, hurricane-pestered Gulf of Mexico weather. If any hurricane makes it this far, it’s in the form of rain and a cool front.
I knew you lived in SWEDEN! 😀
It’s headed towards Louisiana, as if your state needs more misery than it’s already gotten. Here’s another Craigslist post from that time:
“This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test.
Had this been an actual emergency, you would have all been left to die while President Bush finished his vacation, Vice President Cheney went fishing, and Secretary of State Condi Rice went shopping for expensive shoes in Manhattan and took in a Broadway play.
This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System. We now return you to your regularly scheduled disaster.
Well I hope that Obama and Biden go on vacation for this storm because I really don’t need their help with this. I got dis covered.
In all fairness, the Democratic governor and the Democratic mayor of Lousiana and New Orleans are just as much to blame as the Republican presidency for Katrina negligence. They had the responsibility to prepare for these disasters, and they didn’t.
Well, to be fair to all of them, the groundwork for the disaster was laid in the inaction of officials from the 1970s through 2005. If anything, the later officials were less responsible because they inherited an insoluble problem. Their greatest contribution, and the part I very much hold them responsible for, was in wolf-crying “Evacuate! Evacuate!” so many times in the preceding decade that nobody listened when it was serious.
Well, you know politics around there, and past negligence can make later preparation worse. But Nagin COULD have had some water tanks and some food at the Superdome, more appropriate named Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in this situation.
Okay – maybe you can straighten this out for me because I was a part of the Navy liaison to the mayor’s office for disaster preparedness.
This was 2004 – to 2005 when Katrina hit. I was told by his staff that a mandatory evac of the city had never been ordered – AND NEVER WOULD BE ORDERED – EVER. Reason? “It’s impossible to evacuate the whole city ya doofus!”
Now – I showed up in NOLA in 2004 – and, in 2004 we had IVAN – which at the last moment veered and hit P-cola. However, I’m under the understanding that the “Evac! Evac!” calls were simply to scare people into voluntarily leaving – because no mandatory evac would be ordered.
It was their piss poor way of evacuating the city without having to spend any money or do anything – or order a mando evac.
Your knowledge on this would be better than mine though.
Yes, they were intended to scare people into leaving voluntarily…and they were issued every year, several times a year, every time a category 2 storm came into the Gulf on a generally northward course, or a category 1 storm got within 500 miles of the city. And after a while, even the sheeple got awfully tired of spending two days trapped inside their cars in massive traffic jams stretching all the way to Baton Rouge.
I don’t think Bush, or the Dem Governor and Mayor are responsible either.
It’s up to PEOPLE to take care of them themselves – those that don’t – meet horrific ends.
I’m not going to write a long dissertation of my Katrina adventures – but my house flooded 6 feet and I had no flood insurance (didn’t live in a flood plane). I rebuilt everything myself with help from my family and few illegals who showed up in NOLA after the storm to help rebuild. I only used them to do the roofing … which I can shingle a roof but my roof has an extreme angle and I’m built like a football player – not a circus high wire performer.
I didn’t take a dime of federal money … might would have, but I was convinced the deal was too good to be true. Apparently it wasn’t – unbelievable that we gave away that much money it wouldn’t happen in any other nation on this planet.
I took out a $50,000 loan immediately – my damages were assessed at $110,000 – but with me and my (70 year old) Dad and my brothers doing the work … coupled with working two jobs (I retired from the military and became a “consultant” and, for awhile – I was making in excess of $200K per year not including my wife’s professional salary). Also – things like my AC unit – which were assessed as beyond repair – I repaired them. My AC is still working to this day even though last year I broke down and replaced the outside unit (one of them – the other is still ticking away).
It took two years to get out of the ditch and get the house back to normal. Once it did – I quit the consulting shit and got a real job again that pays me less than $100K – but for my sanity, the pay cut is NOTHING.
I’m not a hero – I’m an idiot. The key is … you lose the game if you don’t play the game. You play the game and never say die.
Maggie, thanks for this post! It was very enjoyable to reread those previous columns of yours. BTW I agree with Krulac on your Hurricane Katrina post, it’s one of my favorites as well.
You’ve made a lot of good posts over these past couple years.
I hope you guys are hangin’ in there, Maggie. It hurts me just to look at the Weather Channel.
I’m a good bit inland now, so all we’ll get is heavy rain, and that is expected Friday. All of my friends there live on (relatively) high ground and have generators, so they’ll be OK. But a lot of others…well, let’s just hope the levees hold this time.
Well, now that the rescues are happening, there is a “blame the victim” attitude oozing up from the brains of the functionally illiterate. As in, “How come those people don’t build their houses on stilts?” Yes, stilts. Why didn’t we think of that? Now the houses can blow away instead of flood. Oh, and did you know that the Plaquemines levee received billions in federal upgrade and failed anyway?
Gotta love the reading skills of these people.
Did a search. Yes, there are homes built on stilts down there. But at least I bothered to do a search.
Oh, yeah, there are plenty of ’em on stilts down in lower Plaquemines. There are some in the southern parts of Jefferson Parish, too; I actually went down there on a call on Christmas night (not Christmas Eve) one year. He paid me extra in advance for the long drive, and was very nice. And it was cool parking underneath someone’s house.
Indeed, New Orleans never should have been built where it was; and if anyone involved had common sense, the flood insurance should have paid off during Katrina but then ended permanently so that nobody could, unless it was on their own dime. Instead, the feds insisted on displaying so much “compassion” that they’ve guaranteed it will happen again someday.
This case is a beautiful example of why government “welfare” programs are always worse than none at all. I’m glad you’re now out of the danger zone.