Since Lorelei knew I was coming into town last week, she invited me over for a Who night on Friday, and when I arrived this was what she had waiting for me because she knows I’m very fond of charcuterie with all the trimmings, especially for a TV-watching date. Look at how gorgeous this is; I told her at the time it was almost too pretty to eat. Emphasis on the “almost” there, because eat it we did, nearly every morsel. The drinks, by the by, are our signature Who cocktails; mine (left) is a Sonic Scewdriver (a screwdriver made with our favorite cinnamon-sugar flavored vodka) and hers is an Ass-kicking Amy Pond (like a Moscow Mule but made with our favorite vodka and blood orange-flavored ginger beer). We don’t get to do our Who nights as often as we used to, but we still do them as often as possible. And occasions like that are made extra-nice when the person one is sharing them with does something like this to say, “I love you and you are important to me.”
Archive for August, 2021
Diary #583
Posted in Diary, tagged imaginative fiction, recipes on August 31, 2021| 1 Comment »
Back Issue #98
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged blogging on August 30, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Control freaks…can’t stand the idea of women choosing whom they will have sex with for their own reasons. – “Droit du Seigneur”
- Reality can only be fit into simplistic belief systems by ignoring most of it.
- “Loitering laws are a way of harassing people whose looks you don’t like.“
- Liz Brown on the government persecution of Michael Lacey & Jim Larkin.
- “People recognize abuse of authority, but don’t question authority itself.“
- “Justice is what feminists want from others, not what they do to others.“
- How can a transwoman meet men who see her as more than a fetish?
- When everything is “violence against women” or “human trafficking”.
- The “couple” has become a cultic totem 2nd only to “The Children!”
- Why do people get upset if a woman prefers men of one ethnicity?
- “If America had a civil death penalty, sex registries would be it.“
- “No act of government will end the exchange of sex for money.“
- How can I make up to a provider I didn’t treat well in the past?
- What fraction of online casual sex ads are really escort ads?
- Why do so many clients think they can have bareback now?
- “It’s kind of like the universe conspired for this to happen.“
- What type and size of penis do most women really prefer?
- Cops raid strip club so they can strip-search the dancers.
- Ashley Sinclair is the 11th member of my Hall of Shame.
- Slowly but surely, things are coming together at Sunset.
- Some Korean whores prefer suicide to “rescue” by cops.
- Indian high court order decriminalization of prostitution.
- What kind of sex work should an 18-year-old virgin do?
- Cops stage raids to charge people before CANS repeal.
- The newest threat to public health: the over-50 crowd.
- Tennessee cops blatantly invent “trafficking” numbers.
- The point of interrogation is not to collect information.
- “It’s not money laundering when it’s the government.“
- Hiring detectives to discover what cops want covered.
- Another attempt to destroy the internet is defeated.
- The counterfeit comfort of “sex offender” registries.
- “You can’t provide consent freely if you’re not free.“
- Cops harass strippers with their super cop powers.
- “Authorities” who use their power to rape whores.
- The total absence of “trafficking” in New Zealand.
- Your dick is not a mighty and dangerous weapon.
- The bittersweet experience of leaving sex work.
- Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever.
- Why you didn’t mention y in your column on x?
- Prohibitionist cockroaches flee from the light.
- On the meaningless tech buzzword “disrupt”.
- When individuals behave as “authorities” do.
- The inevitability of Nature getting her way.
- A small sex worker victory against Google.
- An online conflict between two activists.
- Ignorant sexologists begin to wake up.
- Several examples of sex work scams.
- The Dog Days go and a pony arrives.
- The selective blindness of partisans.
- What are your views on polyamory?
- The truth about “safe harbor” laws.
- Language patterns of New Orleans.
- On whores who think they aren’t.
- Canadian town buys a strip club.
- Impotent anti-streetwalker laws.
- Three whores go to a strip club.
- The moral panic over “sexting”.
- How we blackballed a bastard.
- A picture book of vulvas.
- A ghost in the machine.
- Buying tools for Grace.
- Porn causes terrorism!
- The new Victorianism.
- Lots of lovely gifts.
- Maslow’s Hammer.
- Dirty amateurs.
Links #582
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged animals, Arizona, Believe Them, California, Colorado, cops, Florida, I can't breathe, Never Call the Cops, Not for Any Reason Whatsoever, teachers, video on August 29, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Please, don’t kill me! – Angelo Quinto, last words
Since Don Everly died last week, I thought this was the most appropriate song with which to memorialize him. The links above it were provided by Lenore Skenazy (“ball”), Dave Krueger (“Hall”), Jesse Walker (“Everly”), and Cop Crisis (everything else).
- But for video.
- R.I.P. Tom T. Hall and Don Everly.
- Not. For. Any. Reason. WHATSOEVER.
- Thug paid to terrorize teens terrorizes teens.
- Not because your neighbors were playing ball, either.
- Cops constantly demonstrate what they are. Believe them.
From the Archives
- How can a male professional service provider cultivate sex worker clients?
- Cops vow to destroy young lives for the awful “crime” of viewing pictures.
- This sex-ray contaminated money would have “sexualized” their patients!
- If this happens to a rich, prominent man, what happens to the rest of us?
- In which paying for a son to lose his virginity is declared “sex trafficking”.
- Journalists never ask why women risk death to escape “rescue” by cops.
- If the Democrats cared about human rights, this would be their position.
- “Equality minister” is European Prohibitionese for “anti-sex bureaucrat”.
- Dems won’t admit that they are just as responsible for this as the GOP.
- Cops, censorship, Cherokees, giant meteors, Shazam! and much more.
- UK cops increasingly use the euphemism “team” to mean “vice squad”.
- Nobody will be safe until this odious practice is ruled unconstitutional.
- Maya Morena on the gang of malignant sociopaths called Deliverfund.
- Who would’ve imagined laws couldn’t stop consensual transactions?
- Man says women shouldn’t be paid for services men can’t perform.
- Dr. David Ley vs. the childish belief that pictures of sex are magic.
- One day, simply listing a job on a job list will not be controversial.
- Cops, schools, Vincent Price, elephant whores, and much more.
- European “anti-trafficking” racism is getting harder to disguise.
- Are some cops starting to abandon the “sex trafficking” myth?
- In mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
- European anti-migration policies grow steadily more horrible.
- Hey prohibitionists, are you proud of your accomplishments?
- A retrospective of my blogging from August 2016 and 2017.
- Any internet-connected device can be used to spy on you.
- Why are amateurs so obsessed with sex workers’ taxes?
- A hopeless mess even by yellow journalism standards.
- The dystopian future of Minority Report has arrived.
- Some states are doubling down on the dying myth.
- The Biden-Harris pro-violence vs women agenda.
- Court declares that illegal surveillance is illegal.
- Your government refers to this as “correction”.
- Finishing the foundation for my bathhouse.
- I’ve been telling you so for ten years now.
- I love it when they feed on their own.
- My autumn 2019 travel schedule.
- Pigs, porches, and plums.
- What makes a trip good?
- Rapist cops of the week.
- Ask Maggie, Volume I.
Bathhouse 41
Posted in Diary, tagged Sunset on August 27, 2021| 1 Comment »
It’s good to at last see the roof structure beginning to take shape; as you can see, the third post is shorter than the others because the roof beam it will support runs from the peak down to the edge of the existing house roof, so this will give you an idea of the pitch. In preparation for running that beam, we’ve also welded the header beam which runs along the back of the house to its support brackets, but that wouldn’t make much of a picture. The next step, which should be in place by the time you read this, will make an even better picture; I hope things are speeding up now at last, because once the framework in place the installation of the cee purlins should be relatively simple, and the roof panels more straightforward still. And if we can get the roof in place before the rainy season starts again in October, we’ll be able to work on the walls and other internal features at our leisure without having to plan around the rain.
Missing Parts
Posted in Biography, Miscellaneous, tagged imaginative fiction, psychology on August 26, 2021| 5 Comments »
It’s probably difficult for people under 40 to imagine the frustration of being unable to complete a multi-part story due to the conclusion being unavailable. But in the days before home video, there was no way to see missed episodes of a TV show except by finding it in syndication and waiting until the missing stories were shown again. And in the days before Amazon and other online stores, it could often be extraordinarily difficult to find the missing issues of a comic book or serialized magazine story, especially if one lived in a small town or minor city with only one library and few if any places that sold used books. Add OCD to that mixture, and I think you can probably grasp how frustrating it was for me as a child and teenager when months would go by without a given title appearing on any comic book racks I visited, and when the comic at last reappeared it was a new story because for some reason the distributors had apparently skipped, one, two, or even three issues. Or I’d anxiously look forward to the next in a series of novels, only to discover that our library didn’t have a copy and the only accessible bookstore told me it was out of print. Because of this I developed an aversion to multi-part comic book stories and multi-volume novels, and by the time I had grown into an independent adult, I was strongly averse to beginning any story I was unsure I’d be able to finish. It became my habit to buy entire series of books I wanted to read all at once whenever possible, and when it wasn’t possible I’d diligently search every possible source until I found whatever I needed to complete a set, even if it meant driving around for hours. And due to more than one instance of a network cancelling a show I was enjoying with a complex story left incomplete (American Gothic and Farscape leap immediately to mind), I generally won’t start a new TV series until it’s concluded and I know I can get the entire set; I imagine a special circle of Hell for corporations which release the first few seasons of a show I want and then suddenly stop before finishing the job (Disney is notorious for this, but Warner can be nearly as bad). So when TV series started using long, interconnected arcs in the late ’80s, I was not at all happy about it; though many of my friends enjoyed The X-Files, I never watched it because the first two episodes I tried to watch were both part of longer arcs and therefore made little sense to me, and in VHS days buying an entire TV series was prohibitively expensive. Now that I can in most cases easily buy an entire series on DVD, my view of long story arcs has changed; upon rewatching the last three seasons of classic Doctor Who (the first of the series to employ such an arc) I found I enjoyed them much more than in the days when there was no way to ensure I could see them all, and in the correct order. But I still won’t invest the time and emotional energy into new shows until and unless I’m dead sure I won’t be left in the lurch.
Diary #582
Posted in Diary, tagged Sunset on August 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »
The cable I ordered arrived last Monday, after I had already left for Seattle. But I came home on Wednesday, so on Thursday we measured it out, ran it through the conduit and buried it, so now everything is ready for our electrician to return. In addition to running the subsidiary breaker box for the garage I’ve wanted since we moved here, he’ll also set up our generator to operate as it’s supposed to, and wire up the GFCI panel (purchased for me by a generous gent last week) for the hot tub, which means we’ll be able to start using it (at least in fair weather). Once the bathhouse roof is in place, that condition will be moot as well, and about damned time considering I bought the thing a year and a half ago. And since it looks like my apple crop will be pretty good this year, I look forward to being able to sit in the tub drinking homemade apple cider while listening to the sound system given me by another lovely gent. Would that I always had so much good news to share!
Day of the Dogs
Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous, tagged drugs, psychology, Sunset on August 23, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Because my brain insists on being contrary, while a lot of people I know were extremely stessed out last summer, I was actually doing a lot better than usual. This was largely due to the fact that I was extremely busy working on my bathhouse project, and therefore much too focused on important, positive developments for my typical summer anxiety to get me as knotted up as usual. This isn’t to say it was completely absent; it just took a different form than it usually does. Rather than manifesting as a nearly-constant agitation which waxes and wanes depending on other conditions, it mostly stayed trapped below the surface unless someone obstructed my work, at which time it exploded in the offender’s face like an incompetently-opened champagne bottle. But this year the work progressed much more slowly, with the result that I found myself displaying the usual symptoms: restlessness, agitation, troubled sleep and nightmares even under the influence, worrying about everything and anything, aversion to leaving my home, pointless procrastination, mild writer’s block, excessive frustration and annoyance with any interruption to my routine, and other curious writhing of the snakes in my head. But today marks the end of the Dog Days, and as we pass through September my brain will start to relax. The government’s obsession with fucking around with perfectly-good time zones means the sun will still be up far later than it should be until a whole damned week into November, but at least the total amount of light per day will have contracted back within my autumnal brain’s capacity to handle it, even if it is distributed so as to offend my sensibilities for weeks longer than necessary.
Links #581
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged Arizona, cops, drugs, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iran, Netherlands, New Hampshire, prisons, racism, teachers, Things We Choose To Do Together, video on August 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Get down on the fucking floor. – typical Chicago “peace officer”
The latest addition to my collection of unusual covers is unusual indeed! The links above it were provided by Elizabeth N. Brown, Scott Greenfield, Radley Balko, Mike Siegel, C.J. Ciaramella, Cop Crisis, and Stephen Lemons, in that order.
- Nightmare of the week.
- Everything old is new again.
- Just another isolated incident.
- This practically screams “rebury it”.
- Which leads us to say/It’s a typical day/In Chi-town, USA.
- Cops repeatedly demonstrate what they are. Believe them.
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
From the Archives
- Cop molests a corpse: state acts. Cop molests living woman: state yawns.
- Cops bloviate that they use the technology to catch “dangerous criminals”.
- “Detention center” is just a euphemism for “prison”, and that means rape.
- Michigan is among the greediest, most unscrupulous states in this regard.
- Magic stickers, secret-squirrel codes…it’s like a bad episode of Get Smart!
- Will porn companies be next to face the music for exploiting sex workers?
- I hope they get every last cent they’re asking for, plus punitive damages.
- The term is “tippelzone”, not “sex booth” or another sophomoric coinage.
- Would-be dance banners crib language from the federal “obscenity” test.
- Despite their pious posturing, this is exactly what prohibitionists wanted.
- How pundits lie about the centrality of prohibition in mass incarceration.
- This psychopath is far too close to the power she so desperately craves.
- Pro-decrim articles are even common on conservative sites these days.
- A “compromise” only bureaucrats and politicians could find reasonable.
- UK cops increasingly use the euphemism “team” to mean “vice squad”.
- Ken White on the inhuman abominations that the US calls “correction”.
- Strippers are spearheading the movement for sex worker labor rights.
- The damage from the rebranded “Operation Cross Country” pogroms.
- Indian sex workers, like their US sisters, are going online to survive.
- Cops, gulags, “environmentalism”, chalk drawings, and much more.
- I love that Trumpaloons are taking over “sex trafficking” hysteria.
- New York apes Scotland’s approach to “helping” sex workers.
- If you’re new to my oeuvre, this is the best way to catch up.
- But don’t worry, toothless local laws will definitely stop this!
- Facial recognition systems have quietly become ubiquitous.
- It is far too late to put this evil djinni back into its bottle.
- Completing the foundation for our second guest cottage.
- Finally, some public skepticism about “diversion courts”.
- More on Amazon’s campaign to end privacy forever.
- They’ll simply hand-wave a sex exemption into this.
- Picket-fence queers claim cops aren’t our enemies.
- The old strip club business model is a dead duck.
- How “sex trafficking” hysteria grew into “QAnon”.
- The Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit of 2019.
- Thoughts on Machen’s “The White People”.
- I’d really like to be wrong once in a while.
- The death of a rather unusual archivist.
- Decriminalization is just the beginning.
- Cops, errors, Plato, and much more.
- “Youth pastors” are as bad as cops.
- The sweet smell of schadenfreude.
- A shame-powered blackmail scam.
- Spending time with a dear friend.
- Rapist cop of the week.