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Archive for December, 2024

However destructive a wildfire may be, it’s at least possible to fight it when there aren’t hordes of fools running around throwing lit matches everywhere they go.  – “New Year’s Eve 2023

Though “sex trafficking” hysteria has imploded, that does not mean we will soon enter a new golden age of sex workers rights; as I wrote two years ago today,

When the last iteration of “sex trafficking” hysteria died in the 1920s, the laws it spawned remained and are still being used to persecute people for thoughtcrime to this very day; the laws passed over the past 20 years will likewise long outlive the moral panic which spawned them.

Furthermore, no massive structure built over 15 years disappears without leaving debris.  Trumpists are still vomiting out “sex trafficking” myths in support of their anti-migrant, anti-LGBT, anti-porn, and anti-brown people agendas; cops still use the propaganda to justify raping Asian sex workers; gullible stenographers who dare to call themselves “journalists” still uncritically repeat copaganda; and even those who have finally admitted that the “trafficking” mythology is a load of dingo’s kidneys now label it a “right-wing conspiracy theory” and refuse to admit their own culpability for the society-wide toxic effects of the racist, misogynistic wanking fantasy they helped spread for so long.  The ascendance of Trumpism and the re-criminalization of abortion across much of the US are the direct results of that ugly narrative, and both book-burning crusades and the widespread demonization of anything to do with LGBT people are other offshoots of the same noxious root system which, had it been dug out and burned in the Oughts, would have been neither robust enough nor extensive enough to engender such toxic growths.  The moral panic is over, but its rotten fruit have burst, spewing xenophobic, anti-sex, authoritarian poison all over American society.  It’s going to take many years of arduous, unremitting effort to clean it up, and that’s assuming there are more willing to do so than are actively engaged in making it worse.

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Diary #757

We intentionally did a little “smaller” Christmas celebration this year, because I knew Grace might not have the energy for a lot of noise and bustle.  On top of that, the radiation is taking its toll on her throat, which often hurts her too much to swallow; her oncologist prescribed a viscous solution of lidocaine that she can swallow a few minutes before eating to make swallowing anything rougher than liquid bearable.  But she did just fine; after she had a little breakfast we gathered beside the tree and fire and exchanged presents with the friends who usually gather with us on holidays.  My friend Sophie helped out quite a bit, bringing a couple of dishes and helping me with logistics just in case I needed to attend to Grace, and though I had to puree her turkey and gravy she was able to eat, and she didn’t even get too tired to socialize.  Everyone seemed to like their presents, and in addition to the nice ones Grace got a very important one: Sophie took up a collection from her usual donors and presented me with $1000 toward her dentures, which means we now have enough!  As soon as her doctors declare her in remission, we’ll get the impressions taken and her dentures ordered, and by the time they arrive she should be getting over the throat pain; that’s a good thing, because although she loves soup I’m sure she’ll be ready for something more substantial by then!

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The four accused her of “interfering with the dead.”  –  Kevin Underhill

Alice Cooper and Rob Halford are featured in this video I recently happened upon; it’s not amazing or anything, but it’s certainly interesting.  The links above it were provided by Jesse Walker, The Onion, C.J. Ciaramella, Phoenix Calida, Walter Olson, Nun Ya, and IncarcerNation, 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!

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I’m not guilty, and they’re not gonna make me believe I’m guilty.  –  Brandy Moore

Property of the State (#1149)

Some light enters the defective brain of a moral imbecile:

Leake County, Mississippi…District Attorney Steven Kilgore…[has] for years deployed patently frivolous criminal charges in an attempt to [force] drug-using mothers [into] the help he thought they needed, whether they wanted it or not…[the] legal ordeal…[of one of his victims wa]s detailed in a Mississippi Today story…and…remarkabl[y], Kilgore, who seems to have previously overlooked the human consequences of treating mothers as criminals based on hospital drug tests, had an awakening of his own as a result…”I’ve reevaluated our stance on the topic and have decided not to handle these cases anymore,” Kilgore [said]…after learning how his decisions had harmed…women, several of whom received stiff prison sentences because they failed to [jump through all the hoops set up by] the…drug court program…including paying hundreds of dollars in fines and fees each month…submitting to home searches and drug tests, and waiving medical privacy…for up to five years…

The Vultures Descend (#1323)

Moral imbeciles can always be trusted to abuse any power they’re given:

[Psychopathic South Carolina politicians] are renewing their push for a piece of legislation that would allow [psychopathic] prosecutors to charge a woman who got an abortion with homicide…[she] could then be…[condemned to] death…

Thought Control (#1345)

It’s always nice to see authoritarian fanatics hoist with their own petard:

The head of a Texas school district says the Bible had to be removed from school libraries because of a new state law prohibiting…books…[containing] sexually explicit or vulgar content…even though [cherry-picked] portions of the Bible remain available in the district’s libraries…The [announcement] sparked outrage from local parents [who have never actually read the Bible and cannot comprehend the plain text of a law], with many expressing disbelief at the [100% predictable consequences of a law they want to use only to censor books they dislike]…

The Widening Gyre (#1401)

Cops keep pissing into the wind, so it’s inevitable some will spray back on them:

In a December 16 Instagram post that received more than 190,000 likes, user Ernest Carter shared a video of a Coca-Cola delivery truck that he claimed was found “full of kids”…and that the video showed police getting the children off the truck.  “The same video and false claim have circulated elsewhere on Instagram, [Twitter], Facebook, Threads, TikTok, Bluesky, YouTube, Rumble and Gettr — including in Spanish and French,” AFP reports…In a follow-up video, he said that his initial post about trafficked children was wrong but there were two abandoned kids found on the truck.  This was also wrong.  The truck and the police depicted were actually outside a mall in Davenport, Iowa, where the local police association was running a toy…drive…

I Spy (#1452) 

Cops everywhere are moral imbeciles, and those who facilitate their evil are enemies of humanity:

Serbia[n cops] have repeatedly used Cellebrite tools to unlock mobile phones so they could then infect them with potent malware, including the phones of activists and a journalist, according to a new report from…Amnesty International…Amnesty…says it, along with researchers at Google, discovered a vulnerability in a wide spread of Android phones which Cellebrite was exploiting.  Qualcomm, the impacted chip manufacturer, has since fixed that vulnerability.  And Amnesty says Google has remotely wiped the spyware from other infected devices….Cellebrite is a…[fascist] Israeli company that sells its mobile forensics technology to [anyone who can pay] all over the world…[and] in multiple cases…these arrests or detentions appear to have been orchestrated specifically to infect a device…

Welcome to the Future (#1461)

Don’t let computers call them, either:

Schools are employing dubious…software to accuse teenagers of wanting to harm themselves and sending the cops to their homes [using that excuse] — with [typically] chaotic and traumatic results…the…software…tracks every word [students] type [on school-issued devices and]…unsurprisingly…[often] woefully misinterpret[s] what the students are actually trying to say.  A 17-year-old in Neosho, Missouri, for instance, was woken up by the police in the middle of the night…[because] a poem she had written years ago triggered the alarms of a software called GoGuardian Beacon, which its maker [markets to control-freak educational bureaucrats] as a way to “safeguard students from physical harm”…

Feudalism Redux (#1472)

Paxton is a dangerous psychopath Texans have empowered to destroy as many human lives as possible:

The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, has sued a New York doctor…[named] Megan Carpenter [for] sen[ding] abortion pills to a 20-year-old Texas woman through telemedicine…After the woman sought medical attention for severe bleeding in July, the [abusive sire of the 9-week fetus rooted through her belongings]…and found the abortion pills…Because Carpenter is based in New York, Paxton’s lawsuit will come up against New York’s shield law, which dictates that officials in the state not cooperate with attempts by other states to sue or prosecute providers who send abortion pills to people in states that ban abortion.  Seven other states have passed similar shield laws…[which have] helped providers send pills to more than 9,700 people [per month] who live in [wannabe totalitarian] states…

 

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!

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Back Issue #138

Hypersuggestible people…can be induced to “remember” all sorts of fantastic things which are not even physically possible, much less grounded in actual events.  –  “False Witness

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Boxing Day 2024

Just a reminder of what this day is for: relaxing and sharing with the less fortunate. And they needn’t be strangers. Happy Holidays, and Blessed Be.

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Christmas Day 2024

A Very Merry Christmas to all my readers, and Blessed Be!

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Christmas Eve 2024

Merry Christmas, dear readers, and may you all find everything you hope for under your tree!

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Diary #756

I expected the first couple of weeks of Grace’s chemotherapy to be difficult, but last week was positively grueling.  On Monday I had to get up two hours before dawn to get Grace to surgery to install a “power port” below her collarbone so the chemo won’t require as much needle-sticking; of course they didn’t actually take her in until 11, despite telling us she had to be there at 8:30 (we had already done all the admission paperwork the week before).  And then there were minor complications, so she wasn’t back in the room until 2, forcing us to postpone that day’s scheduled radiation treatment.  Then on Tuesday it was raining cats and dogs all day, and after I left Grace at the clinic so I could get groceries, somebody decided he didn’t need to yield the right-of-way to me despite the fact that he had a stop sign and I did not (he was wrong).  Luckily, I was only doing 25; unluckily, the pavement was much too slick to slam on brakes, and there was someone coming the other way.  The damage is limited to what you see here, and his insurance company has already accepted liability, but now I have to go through all the crap of finding someone to fix it during the holidays.  And though the car is still completely roadworthy, accidents always upset me out of proportion to the damage.  Still, I’m not going to let this mar my Christmas.  And since I had to go to Seattle two days after the accident, at least my driving until mid-January will be strictly local.

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Iran launched a mothership…It’s off the east coast of America.
–  Jeff Van Drew

On St. Nicholas Day, I decided to use “Santa Baby” for my Twitter “Video of the Day” and discovered this animated video I found very cute, so I’m sharing it with you today.  The links above it were provided by Mistress Matisse, Jesse Walker, Stephen Lemons (x2), Jesse Walker again, and The Onion, 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!

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