It’s clear in a lot of places that there is just total denial of reality. – Alison Macrina
Torture Chamber
Your “leaders” refer to this as “correction”:
[Bureaucrats who mismanage New York] city jails [were] recently [forced to] share…photos and videos from Rikers Island with assistant district attorneys in Manhattan, giving…prosecutors…a…look at the squalid and deadly conditions [to] which [they routinely condemn poor people who have not been convicted of any crime]…The…presentation…[included] a man defecating in his shorts due to a lack of toilets in the intake area and then being left in his soiled clothes for 11 hours until another [prisoner]…brought him new clothes; a [prisoner] locked in a cage shower for nearly 24 hours before he injured himself; and [prisoners] dragging sick people to medical care, and even administering chest compressions themselves, because [screws were off fucking around somewhere instead of doing their jobs. People condemned to this hell-hole by]…prosecutors…face months, and sometimes years, waiting for court hearings…most…have not been convicted of crimes…
You Were Warned (#1119)
Indian politicians use the same high-sounding airy-fairy excuses to censor the internet as those in the West:
The…Indian government has ordered the country’s internet service providers to block 67 adult sites for violating a new IT law passed in 2021…using the…[rather vague excuse] of “tarnishing the image of modesty of women”…Although most mainstream Indian newspapers avoided mentioning which sites were the latest to be subjected to government censorship, India Express has published a spreadsheet that lists the sites, which brings the total number…banned by the Indian government to 857…
Choke Point (#1159)
PayPal is becoming an active threat to civil liberties:
Access to online payment systems is crucial for the innumerable individuals and organizations that rely on financial support for their expressive activity. It’s essential to content creators’ ability to earn a living, to websites’ and other businesses’ ability to raise revenue, to fundraising by political candidates and nonprofit organizations, and to everyday Americans’ ability to consume content and support causes they believe in. When payment processing services act as political hall monitors or moral arbiters…they present a grave threat to free expression. A small number of companies dominate the space, allowing them to wield significant control over the speech environment by denying service to users who express disfavored views or wade into controversial subject matter…When consumer choice borders on illusory, any argument that those dissatisfied…should simply seek other payment methods is not particularly convincing — or realistic…
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#1164)
It’s always a pleasure to watch experts trash harmful sex myths:
Treatment for “sex addiction” is booming, even though it frequently destroys marriages and the individuals it “treats”. It’s expensive, moralistic, and is obsessed with sex while understanding very little about it…most professionals offering sex addiction treatment (including the movement’s 1985 founder, Patrick Carnes) have no training in human sexuality. Very few sex therapists—the country’s clinical experts in human sexuality—offer such treatment, because they don’t believe in the so-called disease. But…the “sex addiction” concept provides the dignity of something that sounds like a medical diagnosis, which gratifies both betrayer and betrayed. Sex addiction treatment simultaneously trivializes sex, and sees everything involving a penis as sexual. The treatment typically ignores a couple’s power dynamics; how painful it can be to lose not just sex but touching and affection; the huge range of normal sexual desire and expression; and the simple fact that for most people, sex is about more than sex…
Thought Control (#1253)
I never would’ve thought my first profession would become as much a target for violent authoritarians as my second:
In the last [few] weeks, at least a dozen public libraries across the U.S. received threats that resulted in canceled events and systemwide closures…bomb and active shooter threats [were sent] to public library systems in Nashville, Fort Worth, Denver, Salt Lake City, Boston, and other cities…some…[were] directed at LGBTQ events…[while] other[s]…seemed to have no obvious motive but come at a time when libraries and library workers have increasingly become targets of [political] harassment. Public libraries were also closed statewide in Hawaii over [a recent] weekend due to an “unspecified threat”…[many of] the threats were received via digital reference points that allow patrons to communicate with library workers…through direct chat, email, or SMS functions…
The Next Target (#1272)
Most Americans still believe France is a sex-positive society:
A French Senate committee has issued a virulently anti-porn report comparing the adult industry with “hell” and recommending state regulation and censorship…The report is the result of six months of hearings about the adult industry…[dominated by] a group of feminist associations aiming to abolish all sex work…Le Mouvement du nid, Osez le féminisme and les Effronté·es…The…report recommends the [inven]tion of a new crime, “Encouraging a Criminal Act in Case of Sexual Violence in the Context of Pornography”…making it a criminal offense to even write or speak, without explicit condemnation, about porn that someone else or the state considers “sexual violence”…
To Molest and Rape (#1273) 
Most rapist cops have multiple underage victims:
A [typical and representative] Philadelphia [cop]…sexually abus[ed] young girls and threaten[ed] witnesses…Patrick Heron…faces more than one dozen counts related to [rape, molestation and child porn]…”This is not only about terrible conduct, it’s about a…terrible effort at cover-up, intimidation and abuse of pretty much every process you can imagine,” [reformist DA Larry] Krasner said…
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I find it rather sweet that so many people are so enchanted by our kunekune pig, Cicero. Everyone who comes to Sunset wants to meet him and even take pictures of him; people text me to ask how he’s doing and to tell me to give him a scratch for them. This picture was taken last Wednesday at the request of a reader who felt it had been too long since I shared a picture of him, and my friend Sophie is so enamored of him that if I send her a picture she’ll respond with, “I love that pig!” I think part of it is simply that city people find the idea of having a pig as a pet novel and funny all by itself; it’s not that uncommon in rural areas, and in fact I had neighbors in both Oklahoma and Washington with pet pigs themselves. But I think another part is that he’s such a comical little fellow; not only does he look like a dirigible with legs, he also has a face like an anime character and usually emits a constant stream of little oinks and grunts as he walks. He’s gentle, friendly, social, and curious, and has a lot of personality. And of course, a pig is not exactly the knd of animal one expects a harlot to keep as a pet. So all in all, I reckon it isn’t all that surprising people are fascinated by him; I simply didn’t expect this degree of fascination.
