Happy Halloween, dear readers, and Blessed Be!
Archive for October, 2020
Halloween 2020
Posted in Holidays, tagged holidays, paganism on October 31, 2020| 2 Comments »
Dead On Arrival
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged holidays, imaginative fiction on October 30, 2020| 23 Comments »
Here’s a fun little Halloween game; y’all can play in the comment thread or on Twitter as you prefer. How many TV shows can you think of in which one of the main characters is already dead by the end of the first episode? Characters who appear only occasionally don’t count; it has to be regular screen appearances. Obviously, shows which have vampire characters such as Dark Shadows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood and The Munsters are included, as are ghost characters like Merlyn Temple in American Gothic, Captain Daniel Gregg in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, and “Slimer” in the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters (and since we’re allowing cartoons, half the cast of The Groovie Goolies qualifies). But there are also science-fiction versions of undead, such as Arnold Rimmer in Red Dwarf or Alex Murphy in Robocop, and wholly-mortal characters whose deaths set events in motion and thereafter regularly appear in flashbacks, such as Master Po in Kung Fu and Laura Palmer (mostly in photos) in Twin Peaks. I asked Grace to play yesterday and she came up with Georgia Lass and her fellow Grim Reapers in Dead Like Me; several characters in Glitch, Resurrection and The Returned; Ezekiel Stone in Brimstone; Olivia Moore of iZombie; Sheila Hammond of Santa Clarita Diet; and Kieren Walker of In the Flesh. I’ll bet there are plenty of others, though; how many can you name?
Back Issue #88
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged blogging on October 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Prostitution is to my knowledge the only “crime” which is entirely defined by its motive. – “Lack of Evidence”
- The state keeps trying to crucify a young man after the 1st attempt failed.
- Funny how clients aren’t treated as menaces to society when they’re cops.
- Moral panics only end after they start harming middle-class white women.
- Yet another pogrom in the pocket police-state that is Polk County, Florida.
- Just in case you think it’s only sex workers who will be harmed by SESTA.
- Watching “sex trafficking” hysteria spin out of control is deeply gratifying.
- Everyone harmed by “prostitution stings” needs to keep suing over them.
- A good little article despite a truly stupid statement in the third sentence.
- How can people read this and still think prostitution laws are a good idea?
- Negating women’s consent via psychobabble won’t stop with sex workers.
- Watching “sex trafficking” hysteria spin out of control is deeply gratifying.
- Weinstein made it possible to publicly attack “sex addiction” as malarkey.
- New sleazy government trick: use civil suits rather than criminal charges.
- Claiming this constitutes “slavery” is almost as stupid as calling the cops.
- I always feel dirty when prohibitionists share wanking fantasies in public.
- Anti-trans laws, religion & “feminism” are the theory; this is the practice.
- How dare they interfere with pigs’ “right” to destroy their students’ lives?
- “Authorities” claiming North Dakota is a “sex trafficking hub” is hilarious.
- “Sex trafficking” propaganda will soon be cult faves like Reefer Madness.
- When a non-sexworker uses the term “decriminalization”, read carefully.
- Collaboration between government & private industry is called “fascism”.
- At least this report doesn’t pretend these robbers were real sex workers.
- Oakland allows cops who qualify as “traffickers” by law to get away free.
- Authoritarians keep re-electing this lunatic despite the cost of his antics.
- More hysterics who can’t tell the difference between adults and children.
- Outcry against the grotesque “Operation Northern Spotlight” is growing.
- Amateurs: a health menace who should be licensed & heavily regulated.
- When a law intended as political theater is defeated, politicians still win.
- Leeds is slightly more enlightened about sex work than much of the UK.
- The Unsinkable Liz Brown looks at this year’s “Operation Cross Country”.
- Say what you like about Larry Flynt, but he’s a dedicated foe of tyranny.
- Not the same huge child porn site run by the FBI; this is a different one.
- Volunteers selflessly devote their time to watching porn so others can’t.
- How many kids must be sacrificed to this obscenity before it’s enough?
- Spending as much time as possible in less-haunted parts of the house.
- “Feminist” calls other women “toilets” for ministering to disabled men.
- It’s utterly loathsome to use talk of “slavery” to oppose human rights.
- Why would anybody pay for sex instead of trying to “pick up” women?
- Pearl-clutching is both funnier and sadder when a young man does it.
- 99% of men who claim they don’t like breast implants are full of shit.
- We’re lucky to have such moral exemplars to “protect” and “lead” us.
- Evil is evil, tyranny is tyranny, and I DO NOT CONSENT, now or ever.
- Politicians everywhere are obsessed with regulating women’s bodies.
- How many need to be sacrificed to this obscenity before it’s enough?
- Bad laws disproportionately harm small businesses and poor people.
- Grosso has consistently pursued this course for over two years now.
- Why is “sex trafficking” hysteria is so pervasive? Follow the money.
- The Francophone world is in deep denial about compensated dating.
- When does a “sex trafficking victim” become an “underage hooker”?
- This was only necessary due to idiotic laws against sex businesses.
- I wonder what fraction of his rhetoric is directed toward “perverts”?
- Naturally, because it’s politicians’ job to cause harm, not reduce it.
- Bigoted hotel staff in the US could have ratted her out to the pigs.
- The real purpose of this is to cut sex workers off from healthcare.
- Breaking news! Las Vegas shooter ate food the day of his crime!
- Reporter makes poor attempt to hide envy under pearl-clutching.
- How can a client who was busted by cops help sex worker rights?
- Really not much more repressive than the so-called “free world”.
- Hey amateurs, you want to avoid being profiled as sex workers?
- Combining “sex addiction” nonsense with “sex robot” nonsense.
- Despite this popular UK cop fantasy, none has ever been found.
- Pervert cops and FBI thugs gang up to ruin the lives of women.
- Remember: these people have already served their sentences.
- Just in case you think being a “legal” sex worker protects you.
- Cops are not intended to “protect” you, and never have been.
- Indonesia is trying to criminalize all sex outside of marriage.
- Don’t feel left out, amateurs; they’ll get around to you next.
- The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
- The BBC has discarded whatever credibility it once enjoyed.
- It looks like Scott Cunningham has finally done a good one.
- Because sex rays can piggyback on radio waves, obviously!
- Deeply stupid reporter confuses BDSM with police violence.
- Why you should be wary of talk about “going after pimps”.
- Cops call children abducted from sex workers “recovered”.
- The beginning of the end for the “sex addiction” scam.
- A grave isn’t a “final resting place”; it’s a garbage can.
- I hope none of you find this even remotely surprising.
- How “feminism”, Gay Inc & ACLU betray sex workers.
- Will Weinstein bring down the “sex addiction” scam?
- A Utah politician’s bizarre anti-porn antics continue.
- It was inevitable they’d get around to transwomen.
- The official completion of my move to Washington.
- Many sex workers really hate the word “prostitute”.
- This will continue for as long as prohibition does.
- People sometimes ask why I’m not on Facebook.
- What really goes on in Seattle’s “john school”?
- Escort advertising is already illegal in Ireland.
- Yet another dumb “awareness-raising” stunt.
- What is wrong with doctors who do this shit?
- Decriminalization does not create a “Mecca”.
- In which I add a bookstore to this website.
- Why hackers should support sex workers.
- Talking is now defined as “sex trafficking”.
- This isn’t “remarkable” or even “unusual”.
- “Sex trafficking” as the new “blood libel”.
- Definitely not the worst pickup line ever.
- The real result of “sex trafficking” laws.
- The dysphemisms are thick in this one.
- The truth about Swedish “feminism”.
- Another whore who thinks she isn’t.
- My creativity is a lot like my libido.
- It’s your turn to help sex workers.
- “This is not about sex trafficking“.
- HIV-positive man cured in Berlin.
- Another setback for due process.
- I really, really don’t like change.
- Rapist cops of October, 2017.
- The ten worst jobs in the US.
- On “evidence of prostitution”.
- The story of a shill for AHF.
- Hooters, Japanese style.
- From moving to fixing.
- R.I.P. Hugh Hefner.
In the News (#1085)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged A Mound of Filth, agency denial, Arizona, California, censorship, Don't Call It Trafficking, Election Day, illegal aliens, Ireland, language, left-right myth, No Escape, politicians, porn, propaganda, rape, rescue industry, So Close and Yet So Far, The Implosion Begins, The Pro-Rape Coalition, Torture Chamber, video on October 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »
McCain and her ilk…never let facts get in the way of a good moral panic. – Julianna Piccillo
Yes, sex workers are more likely to experience violence and coercion under Swedish criminalization than under most legalization regimes, including the British model which was used in Northern Ireland until the Swedish model was imposed there. However, these sex workers are still adults and still capable of adult decision-making; they are not “children”, “victims”, “slaves” or whatever other fashionable dysphemim one cares to apply to them without their consent. So if you’re a reporter who thinks you’re “helping” sex workers by calling attention to this increased violence, yet insist on calling their work “modern slavery”, I suggest you find something different to write about.
A reminder that you shouldn’t let anyone shame you for refusing to vote:
Don’t Call It Trafficking (#911)
Remember, this isn’t “human trafficking”, but consensual sex is:
Lawyers appointed by a federal judge to identify migrant families who were separated by the Trump administration say they have yet to track down the parents of 545 children, and that approximately two-thirds of those parents were deported to Central America without their children…Unlike the 2,800 families separated under [Trump’s] zero tolerance [policy] in 2018, most of whom remained in c[ages] when zero tolerance was ended…many of the more than 1,000 parents separated from their children under the [2017] pilot program had already been deported before a federal judge in California ordered they be found…
The schadenfreude is so sweet, it almost hurts my teeth:
The Arizona…Republic‘s scribes outdid themselves recently in a piece comparing [“Cuckoo Clock” McCain]’s many years of peddling the moral panic of sex trafficking, to the…[fantasy] known as QAnon, which posits that a worldwide ring of Democratic elites sells minors for sex while feasting on the flesh of infants and undermining the presidency of Donald J. Trump. Due to the rise of QAnon…anti-trafficking [profiteers] worry…there will be less [money to] support…the [rescue industry]…In other words, it’s a turf war, with all these unwashed newbies attempting to usurp the anti-trafficking throne currently inhabited by the widow of the late warmonger, Senator John McCain…the McCain Institute issued a statement condemning QAnon, while Cindy McCain took QAnon to task on Twitter for its “lies”…Talk about projection. Aided and abetted, time and again, by mainstream news outlets, Cindy McCain has spread dangerous misinformation and myths about sex trafficking, citing debunked statistics, prevaricating about her own experiences, and falling back on racist tropes — all in a narcissistic bid to maintain her media profile…
“Detention center” is just another euphemism for “prison”, and that means rape:
…since 2017, at least 265 calls…have reported violence and abuse inside California’s four…federal detention centers…Half [reported] sex crimes, including rape, sexual assault and abuse against detainees. The rest were to report assault, battery and other threats of violence against [prisoners, mostly by] staff. In only three cases…[was] a suspect…charged…and…[only] one…is pending. [Since] prosecutors [a]re…[un]likely to pursue cases…what [has] emerged is…a system in which violence can be perpetuated against [prisoners] with impunity, [especially] by…[screws. Prisoners a]re banned from calling 911…and forced to rely on [screws] to report a[ttacks by other screws]…
Turning the police state’s own weapons against it:
…[because cops sent to suppress protests] are…tap[ing] over their name[s]…individuals…are…researching how to build a facial recognition product that could defeat [cop]s’ attempts to [hide] their identity…The authorities targeted so far have not been pleased. The New York Times reported in July 2019 that Colin Cheung, a protester in Hong Kong, had developed a tool to identify [cops] using online photos of them. After he posted a video about the project on Facebook, he was arrested…This month, the artist Paolo Cirio published photos of 4,000 faces of French [cops] online for an exhibit called “Capture,” which he described as the first step in developing a facial recognition app. He…[was forced to take] the photos down after France’s interior minister threatened legal action but said he hoped to republish them…Last month, Andrew Maximov…uploaded a video to YouTube that demonstrated how facial recognition technology could be used to digitally strip away [cops’] masks….[but] it’s unclear if the matches are accurate…
I’m skeptical this will work if the cops wear balaclavas, as they so often do.
The Pro-Rape Coalition (#1071) 
At least a few reporters seem to be beginning to get it:
…While Traffickinghub presents itself as “a non-religious, non-partisan effort,” the organizing force behind it is neither…the organization running the…campaign…is Exodus Cry, a far-right Evangelical group “prayed” into existence in a Missouri church, with the goal of abolishing the commercial sex industry entirely. When Exodus Cry first emerged in 2007, it was little more than a weekly prayer group hosted by a man named Benjamin Nolot at the charismatic Christian enclave known, incredibly, as the International House of Prayer, or IHOP…In recent years, the group has transitioned into a new form of advocacy: making [fak]umentaries. Their cinematic work has yielded Liberated: The New Sexual Revolution…about the [supposed] dangers of youth hook-up culture; [and] Seattle Bikini Baristas, about how “behind the intrigue of lingerie and java lurks a darker side”…IHOP (which was actually sued by the pancake chain in 2010 for trademark infringement; the case was later dropped)…[also stoked] the homophobia that led to Uganda’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Act. IHOP later rejected the association, but the church’s founder, Mike Bickle, has…claimed that…the “gay marriage agenda” is “rooted in the depths of Hell,” that Adolf Hitler was a “hunter” sent by God to punish the Jews, and that Oprah Winfrey is a footservant to the Antichrist…
Diary #539
Posted in Diary, tagged holidays, imaginative fiction, Sunset on October 27, 2020| 1 Comment »
This week ends, of course, with my birthday! I’ve already received one gift, a copy of the Nicholas Cage version of Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space (from reader Vanguardcdk), and I think something else is on the way from another reader because it’s missing from my Amazon wishlist (and thank you both!) If you, too, would like to get me something, I’ve arranged the list in order of ascending price, so you can find the right point for your budget! I’m out at Sunset this week, so anything you send will await my return a week from Friday; my landlord and neighbor are both dears about keeping an eye out for packages and putting them safely on my desk. Speaking of desks, I’ve started getting my office at Sunset together; Chekhov has built himself a set of bookshelves, so we were able to move all of his books out to the cottage. And that cleared space in the hall closet for everything that doesn’t fit in our smallish kitchen pantry, plus emptied out my office for me to fully move into. Maybe I’ll buy myself a desk for my birthday present; after all, even if the weather slows down my improvements outside, that doesn’t mean I can’t go back to fixing up the inside.
Tricks for the Treat
Posted in Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, tagged animals, Australia, China, cops, Egypt, holidays, imaginative fiction, Ireland, New York, politicians, racism, Romania, Russia, Texas on October 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I’ve always been dedicated to the idea of this as the time of year for spooky fun. So every year I collect all the spooky, creepy or scary content from the previous year into one place just before Halloween. If you’ve come to my blog in the past year, or don’t remember previous editions, they are “Trick or Treat”, “More Trick or Treat“, “Tricks and Treats“, “This Trick’s a Treat”, “Tricky Treats“, “A Trickle of Treats”, and “Tricking and Treating“. Horror, death or Halloween-themed columns of the past year include “Diary #489“, “The Shaver Connection“, “No Explanation“, and the short story “Let There Be Dark“; there are creepy or spooky-fun videos in Links #486, #487, #509, #530, and #537; and here’s a collection of spooky or Halloweeny links:
- It’s alive! ALIVE!
- A seasonal prank.
- R.I.P. Stuart Gordon.
- Nightmare of the week.
- I hate it when this happens.
- Trick-or-treating while black.
- Post-imperial tombs don’t count.
- The perfect authoritarian candidate.
- That is not dead which can eternal lie…
- Promising headline; disappointing story.
- And y’all mocked that guy for protecting himself.
- This season was written in part by Ray Bradbury.
- Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
- The world would be better if we elected more dead politicians.
Links #538
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged animals, asset seizure, cops, Germany, Maryland, Missouri, Nigeria, politicians, propaganda, racism, Texas, video on October 25, 2020| 1 Comment »
Eventually, all of us are food for fungi. – Brian Lovett
This week’s timely video was provided by Mistress Matisse, and the links above it by Cop Crisis, Jesse Walker, I Am Curious Blue, Popehat, Amy Alkon, Chekhov, and Cop Crisis again, in that order.
- Stop faking!
- 16,000 sound effects.
- The mummified Twinkie.
- Just protecting and serving.
- I hate it when this happens.
- Cops are the same everywhere.
- “Crime”: speeding. Penalty: summary execution.
From the Archives
- How is seeing a sex worker “harm reduction” in a monogamous marriage?
- You thought I was joking when I put that necrophilia item in this heading.
- Y’all didn’t stand up for actual pros; now they’re coming for you dabblers.
- There’s literally never been a case of a kid getting drugged trick-or-treat.
- A well-known prohibitionist publicly masturbates to “sex slave” fantasies.
- This is finally getting attention outside of libertarian & sex worker circles.
- Corporations are becoming the favored tool of censors around the world.
- Where “predators” is used to mean “those who hire local entrepreneurs”.
- We’re lucky cops & prosecutors moronically chose such a wealthy target.
- Once in a while, there are witnesses to the way cops act toward women.
- The anti-whore brigade just wants to make sex workers’ lives miserable.
- Hearings for the DC decriminalization bill dwarfed similar NYC meetings.
- Threatening landlords to get them to evict whores is a popular pig trick.
- Prohibitionists never grasp how unhinged they sound to normal people.
- Pro-decrim articles are even common on conservative sites these days.
- The myth of Nigerian “sex trafficking” has grown ever more outlandish.
- Cannabis prohibition in North America will soon be a thing of the past.
- When this (soon) arrives in the US, the excuse will be “sex trafficking”.
- It’s never called “trafficking” when the government or a crony does it.
- Don’t teach kids about sex; fill their heads with anti-sex propaganda.
- Allena Gabosch presents an essay collection called Sex Positive Now.
- This popular UK cop masturbatory fantasy has crossed the Irish Sea.
- When a highway is destroyed, the traffic has to go into side streets.
- Any non-politician would have given this up as a bad idea long ago.
- Activists, shareholders and employees ask Amazon to be less evil.
- It’s the same everywhere our work is even partially criminalized.
- Sex workers in Indonesia form an association to fight together.
- “Crime”: introducing two people. Sentence: life as a pariah.
- A cop who molested people spiritually as well as physically.
- Why won’t prohibitionists let sex workers get other jobs?
- Another sleazy scam artist raping aspiring sex workers.
- If you aren’t worried about spy planes, how about this?
- TSA is helping to build a giant biometric database.
- Another story touting bullshit “safe harbor” laws.
- Let’s hope Moran discovers the Streisand Effect.
- What the fuck is going on in San Angelo, Texas?
- Cops, Muppets, Florida, words, and much more.
- An excuse for being moody and cantankerous.
- Your government refers to this as “correction”.
- This is getting both nastier and more tangled.
- Cops, books, Sesame Street and much more.
- October 2015 and 2016 in retrospect.
- Links for Halloween, 2018 and 2019.
- An exceptionally pleasant autumn.
- Katie Herzog on Stephen Elliott.
- Rapist cop of the week.
- R.I.P. Scotty Bowers.
In the News (#1084)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged California, censorship, cops, Deafening Silence, disease, Disqualified, Do As I Say, France, Germany, hysteria, India, Monsters, politicians, scams, sex work is work, Social Distancing, statistics, Swedish model, The Course of a Disease, The Implosion Begins, Twitter, video, violence vs. sex workers on October 24, 2020| 4 Comments »
They could give us condoms, but instead they offer us thoughts and prayers. – Thierry Schaffauser
“Sex trafficking” propaganda has always been deeply racist:
There w[as] once [propaganda] that Chinese restaurants corrupted young, innocent women, leading them down a dark path of opium addiction and prostitution. Several [prohibitionist organizations] spread this myth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries…the Boston Journal, November 1, 1903 [panted]…“The picture of a girl’s ruination through the medium of the Chinese restaurant is too horrible to depict…The Chinese restaurant is doubtless the most degrading phase of the great social evil…The suppression of the Chinese restaurant would mean the salvation of thousands of girls annually in America”…in January 1910, [politician] John L. Donovan…filed a bill to prohibit women from entering Chinese restaurants unless they were over 21 years old and accompanied by a non-Chinese man…the bill was [of course] unconstitutional…[and] thus…rejected…but…[brought] forward once again [a year later with support from a prohibitionist]…doctor…William F. Boos[, who fantasized]…“More than 10% of the doctors of the United States, as well as many of their wives and many trained nurses, are addicted to the use of morphine, and numbers of Boston young women who patronize Chinese restaurants, because of a taste for chop suey and other characteristic Chinese dishes, end by becoming confirmed opium smokers in Chinese dives”…
Chop suey causes “sex trafficking”! 
Ever notice how often predatory cops’ targets are underage?
A Los Angeles [cop named]…Miguel Cabrera…met an[other cop fantasy role-playing]…as a 17-year-old girl on a mobile dating app [o]n…Oct. 21, 2019…Cabrera…[h]as [been] on [paid vacation for the past year]…
Commies are still enamored of the fantasy that sex work magically vanishes under communism:
…prostitution…was outlawed in…[East Germany], which referred to it as a “criminal refusal to take part in socialist life.” And to enforce the crackdown, the party looked to the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police force, which had 91,000 full-time staff and twice as many unofficial informants. And yet…prostitution still existed…everywhere, all the time, with the knowledge, tacit agreement and even encouragement of the state and party leadership. And as Axel Nixdorf reveals in his new documentary, Prostitution in the GDR: Socialism, Stasi, Sex, it not only brought in foreign currency, but also knowledge and power that could be used against individual citizens…certain hotels were an absolute market for sex — if you were paying with foreign currency, that is…In the harbor town of Rostock, the Free German Federation of Trade Unions ran the International Sailors’ Club, wh[ere]…only sailors with a valid shore pass — and women, of course — would be allowed entry to the establishment. For Rostock historian Steffi Brüning, that is a clear sign that the state knew exactly what was going on at the club…
The Course of a Disease (#953)
Good long read on the havoc wrought by Swedish criminalization in France:
…[in] April 2016 [France imposed a prohibitionist regime based in Swedish criminalization, which]…is…why [Vanessa] Campos was working in a place where she could easily be killed…While sex work has taken place at the Bois de Boulogne for decades, it used to primarily occur on the outskirts of the woods –closer to other sex workers and roads full of light…When Campos died, many European countries paid attention to her murder. France didn’t. Despite the European sex worker community’s outrage and the clear line they drew between the law and her murder, only one French politician even bothered to comment…In the six months between June and December 2019 at least 10 sex workers were killed in France. That’s double the already startling rate of one sex worker death per month that France had in 2014…the majority of France’s sex workers, multiple healthcare associations, and influential NGOs like Médecins du Monde [blame the law,] yet…the…official assessment of the legislation…[includes] not a single page…[on] how the law has affected sex workers at all…
Indian activists battle prohibitionism disguised as “public health”:
…the National Human Rights Commission [of India] has urged the government to recognise sex workers as informal sector workers and provide them access to welfare benefits. The NHRC’s recommendation came in its “Advisory on Rights of Women” issued…as part of a series…in the wake of Covid-19…lockdown[s which]…led to a sudden loss of employment, particularly in the informal sector with no alternate sources of money, food or shelter and it has “disproportionately affected” women who comprise a substantial proportion of such workers…HIV positive sex workers are unable to access antiretroviral therapy…which are essential for their survival and many sex workers are outside the purview of government schemes as they lack identity documents…
A look at Hacking/Hustling’s report on shadowbanning:
Shadowbans are complicated, in part because they don’t just impact marginalized users…the term itself gained mainstream prominence after President Donald Trump tweeted about it. Nor are social media platforms transparent about their shadowbanning process, making it difficult to verify when a user is shadowbanned and when they aren’t. So what are sex workers up against, and how are shadowbans impacting the American public at large? The answer is as urgent as it is complex…
Annex 22
Posted in Diary, tagged Sunset, Washington (state) on October 23, 2020| Leave a Comment »
It took us six weeks, but we’ve finally got all the materials for our roof on the way! I was hoping to have the roof up before the rain came again, but Trump’s silly trade war made that impossible; metal building components are hard to find here already (I reckon they’re just not as popular in Washington as in drier climes), and the tariffs made the ones that were available insultingly expensive. But we found some leads a few weeks ago, and with the help of a generous gent I was able to shove money around to clear enough space on my credit cards to buy what I needed (if anyone else wants to volunteer to help me pay that, please do). We got the structural steel a month ago, then this week I ordered the cee purlins (crossmembers which support the roof panels) from a place in Phoenix and the roof panels themselves from a place near Knoxville, Tennessee; today Chekhov is picking up the heavy-walled pipe we’re using for the support posts. Since the stuff from other states is coming via freight, it’ll probably be late November before it arrives; that’s OK because it won’t be needed until the roof structure is in place, and Grace will be welding the trusses together in her shop. Since we’ll have to work around the rain, phase four will probably go slowly; we figure it may take until the beginning of spring. But then we’ll have shelter from the rain, so the walls should go relatively quickly afterward. For the time being, expect about two updates a month; let’s hope the progress speeds up again in March! 
For the Best
Posted in Biography, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged drugs, marriage, pragmatism, psychology on October 22, 2020| 3 Comments »
Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!” – John Greenleaf Whittier
On looking back at my life and pondering the various forks in the road when I might have chosen another path than the one I actually did, I have realized that I cannot agree with Whittier’s famous lines. While might-have-beens are indeed often sad on the surface, I find that (in my own life, at least) deeper reflection usually reveals that what actually happened was really better in the long run than what might have. Nor does it matter whether the choice I made was a free one, a constrained one, or a forced one; over and over again, the place I ended up was really better for me (and often for others) than the alternative. The most obvious example was the chain of events which led me to sex work; though I hadn’t originally planned on making it my full-time profession, none of the others I considered would have given me all the blessings sex work has, nor allowed me to do as much good in the world. Another is childlessness; though I was unable to have kids rather than unwilling, it’s still for the best that I didn’t. Some of the rough spots in the past 30 years would have been dramatically more difficult with a child to worry about instead of just myself, and it’s a virtual certainty the government (and possibly even my own family) would have weaponized my children against me. Though I still feel sad when I think about losing all the work I did building my ranch in Oklahoma, it’s clear that my current situation is much better for me, for Grace, and for too many others to list. Though my parting from Matt left a wound that will never completely heal, both of us are probably better off as friends than as spouses. And though I could never have recognized or admitted it when I was younger, it’s really for the best that I avoid romantic partnerships entirely. My lacking the wherewithal to hire an agent and endure the ordinary publishing process so my books would have better distribution than via self-publishing? Yeah, that was probably for the best, too. Even my abstaining from intoxicants until six years ago produced the best possible outcome; though some people might regret losing all those years of possible exploration, I realize that sobriety was much better for me both emotionally and economically until I reached a level of maturity conducive to wise, responsible use. I’m sure I could think of a dozen other examples, but I think you get the point; though I am far too cynical to believe that I live in the best of all possible worlds, I have of late been forced to grudgingly admit that, whether by chance or fate, I have somehow managed to play the best possible game with the hand I was dealt.
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