Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for June, 2023

Diary #677

It’s been an unusually chilly spring here at Sunset; rather, I should say this year was a return to a more typical weather pattern for this area after the heat waves of the past few years.  After all, there’s a reason the locals refer to this month as “Junuary”.  But if you’d told teenage Maggie that she’d one day be living in a place where she was still wearing sweaters and running heaters on the last day of spring, she’d probably have laughed at you.  Of course, back then I couldn’t have known that my body’s ability to regulate its temperature would vanish after my hysterectomy, because I’d never heard anything to that effect from older women in my family (probably because in south Louisiana, feeling colder than the surrounding temperature typically warrants would be viewed as a blessing rather than a problem).  It certainly isn’t bothering the animals; they’re clearly enjoying the weather, and I often see them sunning themselves (or even taking refuge in the shade, like Cicero here).  But I do have to say it feels very strange to be so chilly when my brain is so overloaded with daylight that I’m confused about whether to be glad because the warmest months are soon to arrive, or because we’re about to go over the hump and the days will soon begin to get shorter.

Read Full Post »

One of the things Grace and I have always enjoyed is watching TV shows, usually science fiction or fantasy, together.  And over the past three years we’ve established a pattern: about ten PM we each prepare a snack – I a cup of tea and a little dessert, and she a bowl of soup – and take some edibles to relax, and then we watch a couple of episodes of whatever show we’re doing at the moment.  Over the past few years we’ve watched or re-watched Doctor Who, Farscape, Deep Space Nine, Space: 1999, Blake’s 7, Babylon 5, Mission: Impossible, The Wild, Wild West, Enterprise, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Star Trek, and currently The Six Million Dollar Man, plus a number of shorter series we knocked out in a week or less.  Some of these I first saw as an adult, but others (like our current show) I haven’t seen since they first aired when I was much younger, and those are the ones I’m finding most interesting.  It’s hardly incisive criticism or inspired analysis to point out that children see and enjoy different things in a movie or show than adults do, or that young adults and older adults may enjoy different things about the same show.  But what’s fascinating is that ofttimes it’s almost like watching a different show.  Even as a young lass I enjoyed watching good characters, though obviously I lacked an adult’s ability to appreciate the nuances of character development and interaction, and of course a lot of the subtler jokes and dialogue flew right over my head.  But for the most part, it was the ideas in these shows which ignited my imagination.  Even when I watch shows I haven’t seen in the neighborhood of half a century, I still clearly recall some plot points, characters, terminology, and even exact lines or phrases.  Yet there are other bits I don’t remember at all despite their really grabbing my attention in our current viewing.  Sometimes that means rolling my eyes at things I thought were really cool when I was ten, but sometimes it means gaining a new, adult appreciation of a childhood favorite.

Read Full Post »

This ain’t your fucking funeral home.  –  Wilson Chavis

Another Rube Goldberg machine from this guy, courtesy of Jesse Walker; the links above it were provided by Mistress Matisse; Phoenix Calida and Franklin Harris; Walter Olson; Mike Siegel; Marc Randazza; and Kevin Wilson, in that order.

From the Archives

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!

Read Full Post »

The government’s request…is ballsy, bonkers, and an egregious overreach.  –  Elizabeth N. Brown

Surplus Women

Your “leaders” want this to happen more often:

80-year-old…John Apelgren…[has been] accused of murdering Eileen Cotter in Highbury in 1974 when he was 31.  Advances in DNA profiling led to a breakthrough in the cold case as Apelgren’s DNA was found to match samples from Eileen’s mouth and anus…22-year-old Eileen was a sex worker who was found lying face down half naked in front of some garages…on June 1, 1974.  Apelgren is alleged to have had sex with Eileen, then attacked and strangled her…

Above the Law

Your “leaders” at work:

A…[typical and representative politician named Matthew R. Reilly] in Rhode Island who was arrested earlier this month after a…[cop] found him asleep in his car with a crack pipe and a lighter in his hand is behind bars again…for…sexually assaulting and molesting a child…

Creepy Coppers (#1109)

The people the government empowers to police your sexuality:

…42 women, including 10 minors, plan to file lawsuits against the West Virginia State Police…[because] hidden…cameras were placed and operated inside the female locker room at the State Police Academy…female [molestation grooming] program attendees accessed and used the…locker room…during the time the…cameras were in use….taping of [women at] the Academy did not end until 2020, the same time the [grooming] Program was discontinued…

Hey, female cops; how’s that collaboration with the police state working out?

Like Houses (#1129)

Government can always be counted on to use any excuse to expand tyranny:

…censorship during the pandemic…became a popular pastime among functionaries convinced they are the embodiment of science—or, at least, the arbiters of truth…the state and social media companies [conspired] to muzzle voices not just in the U.S., but also…in the U.K.  “A secretive government unit worked with social media companies…to curtail discussion of controversial lockdown policies during the pandemic,” The Telegraph reported June 2.  “The Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) was set up by ministers to tackle supposed domestic ‘threats’, and was used to target those critical of lockdown…[who] had posts removed from social media…[or] stop[ped from] being promoted, circulated or widely shared after being flagged by the CDU”…Among those [censored]…were prominent epidemiologists and medical researchers who challenged official data and restrictive policies.  Activists who opposed lockdowns were also targeted.  The Telegraph, a prominent newspaper which has run articles skeptical of pandemic authoritarianism, was itself singled out.  Implicated in monitoring content and penalizing dissent at the behest of government officials were companies including Facebook, Google, Twitter (under the old management), and the BBC…

Eggs and Bacon

Kansas politicians want to circumvent the will of the voters:

Abortion providers [have] sued Kansas…over a law enacted this year and…a decades-old requirement that patients wait 24 hours after first seeing a provider to terminate their pregnancies…the…[new] law…will require providers to [lie, claiming] a medication abortion can be stopped using a regimen that major medical groups have called unproven and potentially dangerous.  The lawsuit…argues that Kansas has created a “Biased Counseling Scheme” designed to discourage patients from getting abortions and to stigmatize patients who [do, pointing out]…that the requirements have become “increasingly absurd and invasive” over time and spread medical misinformation…in August [Kansas voters] decisively affirmed abortion rights, refusing to overturn a state Supreme Court decision three years earlier that declared access to abortion a matter of bodily autonomy and a fundamental right under the state constitution…[thus preventing] Kansas [politicians from] greatly restrict[ing] or ban[ning] abortion…

Dangerous Speech (#1345)

Just when you thought the wildly-incompetent, shockingly-illegal, and wholly tyrannical prosecution of the former owners of Backpage couldn’t sink any lower:

In a series of motions…the government seeks to prevent the Backpage defendants’ legal team from making basically any reasonable attempt to defend against the charges against them.  Most egregiously, prosecutors want to bar them from mentioning the First Amendment…and “free speech” at any time in the presence of the jury…they [also] want to legally prohibit the Backpage team’s lawyers from arguing that the ads [they hosted] were not illegal…[from] referenc[ing] Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act…[from] defend[ing] themselves against accusations that they knew they were breaking the law by pointing out that Backpage lawyers repeatedly assured them they were not breaking the law…[from] point[ing] out that…the [government demanded they]…charge for ads because this would create a financial paper trailfrom commenting on the legitimacy of the prosecution and or any tactics employed by prosecutors; from referencing the 2021 trial that was declared a mistrial because of the government’s conduct; or from mentioning previous legal cases where courts ruled in Backpage’s favor…it [also wants to ban] references to…the defendants’ families, to the defendants’ personal lives, [or] to Lacey and Larkin’s extensive history in the journalism industry…in other words, the defendants may not attempt to humanize themselves…

Torture Chamber (#1347) 

New York prison bureaucrats are determined that as little information as possible get out about the conditions in their cages:

…the agency that runs New York’s prisons is set to block…incarcerated writers, artists, and poets from getting their work outside prison walls.  Last month, the agency quietly handed down new rules severely curtailing what incarcerated writers and artists can publish — and forbidding them from getting paid for it.  The…directive, which went into effect on May 11, establishes a stringent, months-long approval process for people in its c[ages] to publish creative work, including books, art, music, poetry, film scripts, and other writing.  It gives prison superintendents the power to block work from publication if it violates any of a number of [vague] rules — including bans on mentioning the artist or author’s crime and portraying [prisons, screws and bureaucrats honestly]…

 

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!

Read Full Post »

Annex 111

So as you can see, the vestibule is starting to shape up. Jae is spending most of her time getting the bathroom decor finished, but she’ll sometimes veer off and do another little project on the side.  Last weekend she suddenly decided the coat & robe hooks should be installed, et voilà!  That multicolored board was her first attempt at doing one of the side panels for the fountain stage (picture next week, most likely); she decided to do it a different way, but this board was already done so waste not, want not.  Later on we’ll add a boot brush, a seat for putting on boots, etc.  I decided this was also the right place for the atrium garbage can, handy but not in direct sight from most of the area; it also why I decided the bug zapper should be here, near the garbage can.  If you look at the outlet it’s plugged into, you can see there’s another cord that goes up into the wall; that’s the extension cord that runs up one of the steel rafters to supply power to the multicolored light strings on the ceiling.  On the other side of that wall is the gas water heater; there’s another outlet there, controlled by the same breaker as this one, which the heater’s electric igniter is plugged into.  And pretty soon, it’ll be supplying water to the bathroom sink, which I got the parts to finish earlier this week.

Read Full Post »

Since we’re coming closer to wrapping up my annex project, it seems likely that before too long before I won’t have enough going on to ensure a weekly column on the topic; I’ll need to start throwing other things into the Friday space a couple of times a week, and eventually I’ll be completely finished and any updates will probably just appear in the diary columns.  That leaves room for a new weekly feature, because my days of being able to come up with a whole new essay several times a week are gone, and I think it unlikely they will ever return because one can only burn a candle at both ends for so long before there’s nothing left.  That doesn’t mean I plan to start leaving unsightly gaps in my perfect record, however.  As of July 10th, I will have been making a new post every single day for 13 years; that’s 4748 posts altogether, most of which the majority of y’all have never read.  Now, I’ve often said that the one moral concept from my Catholic upbringing which has remained steadfastly lodged in my head is that waste is a sin, and there’s a lot of good material there going unread; I sometimes even impress myself when I encounter some old witticism from Days of Yore.  So starting four weeks from today, on July 13th, the first Thursday of my 14th year of blogging, I’m going to start a new feature in which I peruse old columns from past years and share interesting quotes, links, pictures, etc.  As of right now I’m unsure of which years I’ll be looking at, how much I’ll quote from each, what the layout will look like, etc, but experience tells me that I’ll probably tweak it here and there for a few years until I get it the way I want it.  I already do something similar with my weekly links column and the monthly archive columns, but those are pretty dense for the sake of completeness; this will not attempt to be complete, but will instead be a kind of “best of” to introduce new readers to notable posts and remind old readers of ones they liked.  And with any luck it will free up enough time for me to start putting together a few books I promised myself I’d try to finish this year.

Read Full Post »

Librarians should be able to do their jobs rather than be forced to tiptoe through the minefield of…political positions.  –  Rita Christensen

Bad Girls

How to be a stupid, greedy whore:

A[n Irish] sex worker [named Lorna White] and her…boyfriend [Jason Hamill]…have been sentenced to [about] four years [in prison each for]…us[ing] threats of police involvement and exposure to extort £7,900 from their victim…[it is unclear whether White is a bona fide sex worker or an extortionist who merely takes clients in order to set them up, because] in July 2019, the couple were handed [similar] sentences after they admitted extorting more than £3,000 from [another]…man White had sex with…making repeated demands [for money] between July 1, 2017, and May 10, 2018…

Imaginary Evils (#1133)

Another sign the moral panic is over: prosecutors have backed away from labeling this “sex trafficking” as they initially did:

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn indicted Nicole Daedone, founder and former CEO of the cultish sexual wellness company OneTaste, and former head of sales Rachel Cherwitz…on forced labor charges…[US attorney] Breon Peace…said…“the defendants are alleged to have sought complete control over their employees’ lives, including by driving them into debt and directing them to perform sexual acts while also withholding wages.”  If sentenced, Daedone and Cherwitz will face up to 20 years in prison…

The Course of a Disease (#1152)

Maine is once again attempting to impose Swedish-style criminalization:

Maine [politicians] are on track to…rechristen prostitution as commercial sexual exploitation…institut[ing]…the “Nordic Model”…a scheme…linked to…[increased] rates of sexual violence…

Served Cold (#1248)

Tim Ballard’s newest shtick: falsely claiming others are collaborating with his “sex trafficking” antics:

…Despite the founder of O.U.R., Tim Ballard suggesting in January 2023 that [Mel] Gibson was involved in [a supposed] four-part docuseries, Gibson’s representative [says]…that [this is] no[t]…accurate…the Twitter page Leading Report…claimed…[the] alleged…series [is about] the [imagined] “$34 billion global child sex trafficking market involving countries like Ukraine“…The site wasn’t the only one to [share] the [claim, and there are]…several [supposed] links…between Gibson and…O.U.R…Though he’s not credited on IMDb, Ballard [also] claims Gibson did the final edit for his [long-delayed] movie Sound of Freedom

Thought Control (#1256)

I’m glad to see FIRE getting involved in this:

[Politicians] in Orem, Utah, have banned its public library from setting up displays highlighting Pride Month, Black History Month, and Hispanic Heritage Month, along with other heritage-themed holidays.  And then they banned librarians from criticizing the city’s decision—threatening to discipline them for “insubordination.”  But now, the Utah Library Association (ULA) has threatened to sue, teaming up with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)…to warn the city that it could soon face a lawsuit for violating librarians’ First Amendment rights…

Thou Shalt Not (#1341)

Crypto-moralists believe that people enjoying a food is sufficient reason for declaring it “unsafe”:

America’s favorite artificial sweetener could…damage…your DNA.  Splenda is the brand name for sucralose…It’s…600 times sweeter than sugar and is the best-selling artificial sweetener…But sucralose has been found to be genotoxic [in petri dishes], meaning it breaks apart the DNA in chromosomes [when cells are soaked in huge amounts of the stuff in petri dishes]…The new study adds to earlier [bad] research that [claim]s sucralose…can also cause intestinal damage…[actual] health experts…question the relevance of the new study.  “The findings…do not practically reflect what occasional or even frequent ingestion of sucralose-sweetened food and beverages have on health,” [said] Dr. John Damianos…[of] Yale School of Medicine…

Unsurprisingly, this one has the same buried lede (including the verb) as the previous attempt to demonize artificial sweeteners, only last month: “Instead of…diet soda, switch to seltzer water…Instead of…[diet] foods…grab fruits…”

Torture Chamber (#1345) 

Any country in which “officials” can get away with this has no business calling itself “free” or “liberal”:

Nineteen Rikers Island [prisoners] died last year, marking a high the New York jail complex hasn’t seen in more than 20 years.  Each death has received significant media attention…[so] New York City…[plans to eliminate the bad publicity by] no longer inform[ing] the press when [one of its victims] dies.  This comes after two [of those victims], Rubu Zhao and Joshua Valles, died in May.  The department didn’t publicly report either death.  Zhao died after reportedly falling or jumping over a railing on the top floor of [the] psychiatric facility…and…the…Department…has attempted to claim that Valles’ death wasn’t “in custody” because he was compassionately released on May 24 after he was sent to the hospital [due to a fractured skull] and [put]…on life support…

 

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!

Read Full Post »

Diary #676

When I started planning the paddock extension, I knew I’d need some short cut around the house to avoid having to walk all the way down to the gate.  I could’ve put in a small gate, but I realized a stile would do the job just as well, so I threw one together out of concrete blocks we had lying around.  I can get over it easily, even while carrying a small load (such as the fencing-tool bucket), but it’s both too narrow and too steep for a llama, pony, or pig.  The dogs and cats can either pass over or through the space between the post and the corner of the house, and it’s actually much sturdier than it looks, especially considering that I just threw it together in under 20 minutes from stuff I didn’t have to buy.  Jae has griped about the way it looks, but it’s a pasture, for goodness’ sake, not an ornamental garden; besides, I’ve already told her that if she’d like to rebuild it more neatly later, perhaps with some of the scrap bricks we’ve found in great abundance along the southern border of the property, she’s more than welcome to do so.  She’s quite good at things like that, but for right now I’d rather use her talents to finish up the atrium and do a little bit of more visible landscaping before moving on to beautifying things that already work, even if they don’t look all that great.

Read Full Post »

When something is typical in an environment, it quickly becomes invisible.  Now, I don’t mean camouflage or protective coloration, but rather the tendency of the mind to ignore what it sees regularly.  I mean, after a while objects on one’s desk, kitchen counter, or workbench begin to fade into the background until one actually goes looking for them, even if they’re largish or brightly colored or the like, because if they didn’t one would constantly be focusing on them rather than on whatever else one was supposed to be looking at.  That’s why every so often I like to remind my readers that I rely on your financial support, even though this appears at the bottom of my column three days a week:

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!

This isn’t to say things are especially tight right now; since as most of y’all know I’m nearing the end of my annex project, I don’t have as many expenses on that account as I’ve had in several years, and I’ve figured out a number of ways to trim my household budget to give myself some breathing room.  But inflation is higher than it has been since I was a teenager, my property taxes were dramatically hiked this year (because Washington politicians think of homeowners as inexhaustible cash cows), and disasters are always a possibility no matter how carefully-planned the budget.  Plus, I do occasionally lose a subscriber, probably because their budget is getting tight.  So this is just a more direct request for support; if you can manage one of the higher levels, that would be especially nice.  But if you can’t, the regular subscription levels in the right-hand column will do nicely.  And if that’s still more than you can commit to, a one-time gift from my Amazon wishlist is always appreciated.  Thank you for reading!

Read Full Post »

There’s globes everywhere.  Every movie, every TV show, news media…it doesn’t make sense.  –  Kandiss Taylor

It’s easy to commemorate a singer’s death when she only has one major it.  The links above the video were provided by Ricardo  Cortés, Dan Savage, Stephen Lemons, Cop Crisis, Prostasia, Amy Alkon, and Dave Krueger, in that order.

From the Archives

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!

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »