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Archive for the ‘Current Events’ Category

You’re going to kill me.  –  Lisa Edwards

Since every one of this week’s links, all provided by Cop Crisis, was just horrible, I’m sure y’all will understand if I inject some levity by way of the video.

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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The Nordic model has a stronger effect on increasing rape than criminalization does.  –  Huasheng Gao and Vanya Petrova

Full of Themselves (#755)

How pompously puritanical need one be to believe that consensual sex constitutes “a dangerous criminal record”?

…in Illinois, a dangerous criminal record may not stop people from becoming licensed massage therapists…A conviction of sexual misconduct, prostitution, rape, or any other offense requiring registration as a sex offender automatically bars an applicant from obtaining a massage therapist license.  But this is not the case for first-degree murder, armed robbery, aggravated battery…assault, stalking…and kidnapping…so [politicians want even more]…regulations for massage therapy license applicants…

Capricious Lusts (#788)

Another study shows what’s already been shown over & over again:

Liberalizing prostitution laws “leads to a significant decrease in rape rates,” according to a study published in The Journal of Law and Economics, “while prohibiting it leads to a significant increase”…researchers Huasheng Gao and Vanya Petrova of China’s Fudan University looked at data from 31 European countries, spanning a period between 1990 and 2017.  During this time period, eight countries (Spain, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovenia, Latvia, and Romania) liberalized their prostitution laws while six countries (Sweden, Croatia, Norway, Iceland, France, and Ireland) cracked down on prostitution…liberalizing…was linked to a significant decrease in rape rates, while prohibition was linked to a significant increase—but…”the magnitude of prohibiting commercial sex is about four times as large as that of liberalizing it”…The average rape rate in the sample countries was nine rapes per 100,000 people.  Countries that liberalized prostitution laws saw a decrease of approximately three rapes per 100,000…[while] countries that…further criminalized…saw an increase of around 11 rapes per 100,000…

A Moral Cancer (#991)

Prohibitionists always claim surprise when the predicted effects of one of their bans appear:

[Since] Massachusetts became the first state…to ban the sale of all flavored tobacco and nicotine products…four additional states have…imposed…similar policies…but the latest data from Massachusetts highlight the ban’s [predict]ed consequences [coming to pass]…As opponents of the flavor ban predicted, the law has incentivized black market sales of menthol cigarettes and flavored e-cigarettes…Revenue officials are s[teal]ing so many [smuggled] products, in fact, that they are running out of room to store them…tobacco tax revenue has fallen by approximately 22.6 percent over three years…[and] the decline in cigarette sales in Massachusetts coincided with substantial increases in sales in counties bordering the state…

To Molest and Rape (#1225)

This is a cop’s idea of “friendship”:

New Mexico [cop] Kevin Keiner [was rewarded with a paid vacation for]…raping a…woman [who foolishly believed he was her friend]…the woman…called…Keiner…to pick her up…after she’d gotten into a…[drunken] argument with her brother and another woman…Keiner [was wearing his magical clown costume when]…he picked the woman up [in his pigmobile] and took her to his home…The woman…blacked out….[and] the next thing she remembers is that Keiner was on top of her….Keiner [is of course claiming she wanted it and came onto him]…

Torture Chamber (#1287)

The government needs to be buried in lawsuits before this will stop:

[Young people] detained [without having been convicted of any crime] at the Baltimore County Detention Center are locked up for 23 hours a day in rat-infested cells that sometimes flood with sewage water…The jail is [refusing to] comply…with federal laws governing juvenile detention, said Deborah St. Jean, director of the public defender’s Juvenile Protection Division.  She asked for the “immediate transfer” of detained youth to the Department of Juvenile Services…

The Mob Rules (#1311)

The primary principle governing politicians’ behavior is “monkey see, monkey do”:

a bill that would require Arkansans to provide identification to use social media sites…is [being] sponsored by [a politician named] Tyler Dees…who [also] has another bill that…would require pornography websites to provide age verification…Th[e first] bill, seemingly modeled on one that recently passed in Utah, would open up the social media companies to civil and criminal penalties…

The Last Shall Be First (#1317) 

“Bathroom bills” are back after blessedly vanishing for over three years:

A bill that would criminalize transgender people using restrooms that match their gender identity won initial approval in the Arkansas Legislature…The bill…would allow someone to be charged with misdemeanor sexual indecency with a child if they use a public restroom or changing room “of the opposite sex while knowing a minor of the opposite sex is present”…The legislation goes even further than a North Carolina bathroom law that was enacted in 2016 and later repealed following widespread boycotts and protests.  That law did not include any criminal penalties…

 

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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Lifetime registries are wrong.  –  James H. Maynard

The End of the Beginning

A precedent here could be used against all such evil “registries”:

In New Jersey, individuals found [guilty of]…any act of child abuse or neglect are [condemned to] the state’s child abuse registry for life…one New Jersey man is challenging [that]…in court [because]…those on the registry are barred from working in a wide range of fields, including some that do not involve work with children, like substance abuse programs, county mental health boards, or jail diversion programs.  While the registry is not publicly accessible, a person’s registry status will show up in some background checks…K.C…was placed on the registry after he admitted to committing a sexual offense against a sibling when both were minors.  Even though K.C. has not re-offended in the 25 years since…and has since been removed from the state’s sex offender registry—he is stuck on the state’s child abuse registry…

If Men Were Angels

Clearly “lay pastors” are no better than “youth pastors”:

A [typical and representative] lay pastor at a Big Rock [Illinois] church was sentenced…to 15 years in prison after being convicted of sexually assaulting and abusing a 9-year-old…Mark Rivera…will have to serve at least 11.7 years before being eligible for parole but will receive credit for the approximately three years he has spent in jail or on electronic home monitoring…

To Molest and Rape

A cop from the original of this title is trying to weasel out of the consequences of his actions:

A [typical and representative] Syracuse [New York] cop [who tried] to silence one of his victims in…2019 is hoping to use his veteran status to avoid yet another criminal conviction.  Chester Thompson…is seeking to resolve…witness tampering and criminal contempt charges by undergoing a program designed for military veterans beset by [PTSD]…It’s unclear whether prosecutors will accept Thompson’s application for the program, which could also include probation and other supervision…Thompson lost his job in 2015 [but suffered only] two misdemeanor official misconduct convictions after admitting to [rap]ing…two…women…[by] using his authority to coerce them…His [rape]s have cost city taxpayers $900,000 in a civil settlement.  But…in July 2019…he…tr[ied] to talk one of his victims out of continuing her lawsuit…[despite] a court order prohibiting…contact with his victim…

Shame, Shame (#1087)

And yet bird-brains still believe realistic porn cartoons are the worst use for this technology:

U.S. Special Operations Command, responsible for some of the country’s most secretive military endeavors, is gearing up to conduct internet propaganda and deception campaigns online using deepfake videos…The plans, which also describe hacking internet-connected devices to eavesdrop in order to assess foreign populations’ susceptibility to propaganda, come at a time of intense global debate over technologically sophisticated “disinformation” campaigns, their effectiveness, and the ethics of their use.  While the U.S. government routinely warns against the risk of deepfakes and is openly working to build tools to counter them, the document from…SOCOM, represents a nearly unprecedented instance of…a…government — openly signaling its desire to use the highly controversial technology offensively…

Panopticon (#1256)

Amazon’s fascist collaboration with cops just keeps getting worse:

The week of last Thanksgiving, Michael Larkin…[of] Hamilton, Ohio…[let cops have] footage from [hi]s…Ring video doorbell, one of…21 Ring cameras in and around his home and business…The [cops] were [spy]ing…on a neighbor, and…wanted videos of “suspicious activity” between 5 and 7 p.m. one night in October.  Larkin [foolishly]…thought that was all the[y]…would [deman]d.  Instead, it was just the beginning.  They asked for more footage…the[n]…a week later, Larkin received a notice from Ring itself: The company had received a warrant, signed by a local judge….[demanding] footage from [all of his] cameras…[including those inside his home and business]…whether or not Larkin was willing to share it…

The Prudish Giant (#1263) 

Why does anyone still trust Facebook?

In the immediate aftermath of the reversal of Roe v. Wade, women worried data from their period-tracking apps could be used to prosecute them…Now, women…need to consider what they write in chat logs, direct messages, and search bars online….ProPublica…found that at least nine online pharmacies that sell abortion medication — Abortion Ease, BestAbortionPill.com, PrivacyPillRX, PillsOnlineRX, Secure Abortion Pills, AbortionRx, Generic Abortion Pills, Abortion Privacy, and Online Abortion Pill Rx — were sharing information like users’ web addresses, relative location, and search data with third-party sites like Google.  That kind of exchange opens that data up to discovery as part of [cop rooting, as in]…the case of Jessica Burgess…who is accused of helping her daughter…[obtain medica]tion in their home state of Nebraska….key…evidence…[included] chat logs…[eagerly handed to rooting pigs] by…Facebook…

A Broker in Pillage (#1266)

Absolutely nothing is “safe” if government actors know where it is:

The [FBI]…regularly s[teal]s cash, cars and other valuables that belong to people who aren’t accused of any crimes.  Months later, many of those people receive a dense, boilerplate notice stating that the FBI plans to keep their property forever, without any explanation of why—a blatantly unconstitutional practice.  That’s what happened to Linda Martin.  When the FBI [stole] her life savings from a safe-deposit box during a 2021 raid of US Private Vaults in Beverly Hills, Calif., she [naively] assumed her money would be returned [by the robbers]…but several months later, she—and hundreds of other innocent people who had their safe-deposit boxes taken—received a notice stating that the government wanted to [keep] her money…the Institute for Justice [has] calculated that from 2017 to 2021 Justice Department agencies gained more than $8 billion through forfeiture, with the FBI taking in more than $1.19 billion of that bounty…In an earlier lawsuit…regarding the US Private Vaults raid, a federal judge declared the FBI’s notices “anemic” and immediately halted forfeiture proceedings…Unfortunately, that ruling applied only to the named plaintiffs in that suit…So [Ms. Martin has]…filed a new class-action lawsuit…seeking to help anyone nationwide who received one of the FBI’s [robbery-justification] notices…

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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When I was in library school in the early ’90s, one of the topics of discussion of interest to students training to be children’s librarians was the problem of classic children’s literature becoming inaccessible to modern readers.  There are two factors in determining the proper age range for a children’s book: the first is of course its level of difficulty, and the second its subject matter.  If a book is too difficult for most children of the age it’s intended for, few will be able to enjoy it, and if the subject matter is too mature or too childish for the kids who can read it, it will languish unread.  Children of the period in which children’s literature first flourished, the late 19th and early 20th centuries, read at a level well above that of their average modern peers, with the result that by the time modern children are able to read a book, its subject matter and/or tone is too juvenile to hold their interest.  As a result, many books regarded as classics are now mostly read by nostalgic adults.  And as I recently discovered, the problem has only worsened in the past 30 years:

The Scarlet Letter is not remotely difficult to read for people who have a normal high-school level of literacy; Hawthorne’s style is pretty clear and direct by the standards of Gothic literature.  But I suppose it’s difficult for people who think “your” and “you’re” are both spelled “ur”, capitalization is optional, and punctuation is “rude”.  If it’s been years since you read Hawthorne, judge the clarity of his style for yourself with this example, my favorite of his stories.  And then consider that if Harvard students can’t read something so simple, we’d better hope politicians start making immigration easier so people from countries with functional educational systems can come here to do the brain work.

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No one wants to hear the Cookie Monster say he’s going to kill their family.  –  LA business owner

Some of you may know the name of Wayne Shorter, the great jazz saxophonist whose passing is commemorated by this week’s video. But few will know the name of Ricou Browning, the diver, underwater stunt man and underwater cinematographer who played the “gill man” in The Creature from the Black Lagoon and also directed many underwater action sequences in movies of the ’50s & ’60s, notably Thunderball.  The links above the video were provided by Jesse Walker, Franklin Harris, Jesse again, Franklin again, Scott Greenfield, Joe Lancaster, and Fiona Harrigan, 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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[The SAFE TECH Act] takes nearly every single idea that people who want there to be less speech online have had, and dumped it all into one bill.  –  Mike Masnick

If Men Were Angels

One would think by now that the title “youth pastor” would be a big red flag:

Gary Buckaloo…[has been] charged with…[repeated] sex[ual] abuse of a child…under 14…Buckaloo is listed as [something called] a Life Skills teacher [in] Buffalo [Texas]…and…is…also…the Youth Pastor and Worship Leader for First Baptist Church Normangee…

Choke Point (#629) 

“Abortion…will be vulnerable…if a different administration adopts this same thuggish approach toward the businesses that it dislikes”:

…Texas [politician]…Drew Spring [has] proposed a bill…that would make it a felony for credit card companies to “process a transaction” for abortion pills sales…[and] allow any citizen to sue a credit card company for allowing that sale to happen…[meanwhile, politician] Steve Toth introduced a bill that [demands] internet service providers [illegally censor]…”information…intended to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug”…

You Were Warned (#1131)

You can’t keep a bad bill down:

…This year’s SAFE TECH Act is a redux of a bill first introduced in 2021.  That version—which Techdirt Editor in Chief Mike Masnick called “a dumpster fire of cluelessness” — failed to go anywhere (thank goodness).  But now the SAFE TECH Act is back…[for] yet another stab at undermining Section 230…The first change [it]…would make is to…open up a huge range of tech companies to more liability.  Blogging platforms like WordPress and newsletter and podcast distributors like Substack would be vulnerable, as would any social media platform that provides a paid tier level…[and] all sorts of web hosting services—creating huge incentives for providers to cut off…access to any person or group even slightly controversial…the bill [also encourages lawsuits against] content likely to cause “irreparable harm”…a vague phrase that could open a floodgate of lawsuits over anything…objectionable on social media…particularly speech that is unflattering to the rich and powerful…this…is a dangerous bill that would have far-reaching consequences for content creators, activists, people exposing police violence, whistleblowers, citizen journalists, and basically anyone who uses the internet…

The Clueless Leading the Hysterical (#1285)

It was only a matter of time before cops tried to combine their fentanyl hysteria with panicmongering over edibles:

Three days after the Montgomery County District Attorney stood behind a podium and held up packages of THC gummies that he [claimed] contained heroin and fentanyl, his office [had to admit that] lab tests [proved that to be a flagrant lie]…DA Kevin Steele announced an investigation into THC gummies after two people purportedly overdosed after eating them…Steele [was forced to admit]…that his [publicity stunt]…was based on testing done with a [notoriously unreliable] portable device [of the sort typically used by cops to generate false “probable cause” in order to arrest people]…The gummies in question contain legal byproducts of hemp that are increasingly popular for recreational use…[despite] low…potency…[cops and other prohibitionists keep babbling about overdoses and “children” despite there being no known LD50 for THC]…Around Halloween, officials [tried to drum up panic] about so-called rainbow fentanyl, colorful fentanyl pills purportedly marketed to children, that [were of course proven completely bogus]…

To Molest and Rape (#1303)

In the UK, “disciplinary action” can mean telling rapists to “think about what they did wrong”:

Nearly 80 [cops] in 22 [cop shops] in England and Wales have faced disciplinary action for [raping, sexually assaulting, molesting] or s[talking]…victims, witnesses and suspects since 2018…the majority of those facing disciplinary action…resigned before they were [sack]ed.  However, 10…remained in their jobs, facing lesser sanctions such as [stern words from superiors.  Only]…two faced criminal proceedings.  Nearly all of the offending officers were men, and all but two of the victims female…

To Molest and Rape (#1312)

The lengths to which spokespigs and their media lackeys will go to imply that rapist cops aren’t typical and representative specimens of their predatory breed are increasingly absurd.  This story from Puyallup, WA (not far south of Seattle) contains almost no actual information, such as the name or picture of the rapist; it does, however, include at least four distancing maneuvers.  The rapist “was still in training and had never worked alone as a police officer”; he was “off duty”; the rape was only “third degree”, implying less serious; and roughly half of the sketchy story is taken up with pompous oinking by the boss pig about how the rapists’ actions are “not representative” of cops, when it should be clear by now (to anyone whose mind isn’t completely rotted by copaganda) that such actions are most certainly representative.

The Widening Gyre (#1313)

It’s nice to see a journalist getting it for once:

[Disguised San Francisco cop] have recently been [fantasy role-play]ing as sex workers and [claim] they’ve busted 30 “johns” in a pointless exercise on Capp Street, in an ongoing effort to crack down on solicitation on that Mission District alley.  One sex worker already told a local TV station what would likely happen if SF police continued cracking down on the sex trade on Capp Street, which dates back decades: The sex workers will just shift over to another nearby street…

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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Rabbit Hole

This blog has a lot more infrastructure than most people probably realize.  Over the past few years, it has become obvious to me that the majority of readers don’t understand how I create the subtitles in my news columns, so I’ve decided to provide a brief demonstration.  I think it’s obvious that the tags collect items of similar subject matter, but some of y’all may not realize that they also help organize specific themes within a topic.  Take, for example, this recent example from the “The Mob Rules” tag:

There have been quite a few examples of this tag since it began two years ago, so why #1311 specifically?  There weren’t any other examples of politicians encouraging lawsuits against schools which don’t discriminate against trans students, but the item in #1311 was about politicians using the same mechanism to try to prevent young people from getting information their parents don’t want them to have (which naturally includes LGBT teens):

That one in turn references #1307, which as you can see is a much more direct connection: busybody Utah politicians trying to control the internet using the current porn panic as an excuse:

#1303 was the report on the Louisiana law referenced above:

And #1231 was the article which first mentioned this terrible law when its sociopathic sponsor first introduced it:
This one brings us back to the original article which spawned the tag.  If you explore that tag, you’ll notice a couple of other subthreads; there’s even the beginning of a spur from this one:

As you can see, that one references the original Utah article, which in turn leads back to the Louisiana one; any future articles on similar laws will refer back to this one, while future laws encouraging anti-trans lawsuits will link to the one at the top of this column.  Clicking on a subtitle link will take you directly to the article it names; as you can see, it’s possible to follow a rabbit hole all the way back to its origin, and multiple rabbit holes can lead to the same origin point; it’s all interconnected in one big warren.  So if you find an article interesting, infuriating, or whatever, you can follow the thread of references back through similar articles, often for years, while marveling at the obsessive lengths and depths to which my librarian’s brain will go to impose order on chaos.

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Encryption is either protecting everyone or it is broken for everyone.  –  Meredith Whittaker

To Molest and Rape

No female motorist is safe while the state continues to pay sexual predators to harass us:

A [typical and representative]…Tennessee [cop named]…Jonathan Kelly…was charged with…aggravated rape a[fter he raped]…a woman during a traffic stop…Kelly t[threatened to arrest] the woman [for a bogus]…crime if she [refused to submit to]…him…

Where Are the Protests? (#945) 

I’m sure the “anti-trafficking” crusaders will be going after this any day now:

Migrant children, who have been coming into the United States without their parents in record numbers, are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country…This shadow work force extends across industries in every state, flouting child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century.  Twelve-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee.  Underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi and North Carolina.  Children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota.  Largely from Central America, the children are driven by economic desperation that was worsened by the pandemic.  This labor force has been slowly growing for almost a decade, but it has exploded since 2021, while the systems meant to protect [them] have [been allowed to break] down [because money is instead going to grow the apparatus of surveillance, censorship, and carceral violence]…

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#1117)

Fanatics’ crusade to control all human thought is never-ending:

A…[pack of censorious politicians]…studying [ways to impose harsher censorship] in the United Kingdom [wants people to believe] that not only is porn a major contributor to real-world violence, it is violence…the group echoes old radical feminist tropes about pornography—that there is no such thing as ethical porn, that it’s all “exploitation,” and its mere existence is “a form of violence against women”…All-Party Parliamentary Groups “have no official status within Parliament…[but] can sometimes be influential“…So it’s worrying to see statements like these from Diana Johnson, a [politician with a long history of working to increase violence vs sex workers]…

I Spy (#1207)

Nothing infuriates violent, self-important busybodies more than private affairs that are none of their business:

The head of the messaging app Signal has warned that it will quit the UK if the forthcoming online safety bill [demands the intentional weakening of] end-to-end encryption…Meredith Whittaker said…“we would absolutely 100% walk rather than ever undermine the trust that people place in us to provide a truly private means of communication”…The bill has been criticised by privacy campaigners for a provision allowing Ofcom, [a surveillance agency], to order a platform to use certain technologies to [spy on users] and [censor anything the government demands as long as it belches out “THE CHILDREN!!!” first]…the bill could force encrypted messaging services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage to [spy on] users’ messages and create vulnerabilities in their platforms that could be exploited by rogue actors and governments.  Whittaker told the BBC it was “magical thinking” to believe there can be privacy “but only for the good guys”…Whittaker also criticised a system called client-side scanning, where images are scanned before being encrypted…[because] such a system would turn everyone’s phone into a “mass surveillance device that phones home to tech corporations and governments”…

The Vultures Descend (Vulture Watching)

Medical confidentiality has gone the way of the dodo:

A Greenville [South Carolina] woman was arrested…and charged with performing or soliciting an abortion.  In October 2021…[she] sought medical help at St. Francis Hospital after having labor pains…an[d naively believed she could trust] medical personnel [with the knowledge that] she had taken abortion pills to end a pregnancy…[of course one of them called the cops on her]…

The Cop Myth (#1303)

Cop deals with others exactly as he normally does, and the press is shocked:

An Opa-locka [Florida cop has been] arrested…on…domestic abuse charges [because he regularly beat] and threatened to kill [his wife and children] for almost a decade…The wife of Johane Hendrik Taylor [reported] that [many] times dating back to 2014 her husband hit her with closed fists, once even breaking a rib and trying to drag her outside while she was unconscious.  Another time…he…hit one of h[is]…children over the head with a vacuum cleaner…he…has abused the children since the oldest…was three…she is currently 13…Taylor…is the youngest son of former Opa-locka Mayor Myra Taylor and the brother of the city’s current Mayor John Taylor…[which may partially explain] how he was hired as a…[cop] despite twice failing his police exam and having a criminal past involving domestic battery.  He resigned in 2013 when [reporters] discovered th[is but]…was rehired…about two years later…[and soon] promoted…

The Last Shall Be First (#1309) 

Trans people have become another canary in the civil rights coal mine:

Mississippi [has] bec[o]me the seventh state to enact a restriction on…transition-related health care for minors.  Gov. Tate Reeves…[turned the signing into a political event, babbling culture-war nonsense centered around THE CHILDREN!!!]…the…bill also bans public funding from going to any institution or individual that provides such care to minors.  Health care providers who infringe the law can have their licenses revoked.  The law also allows minors who receive transition-related care to sue providers for 30 years after they receive care…In the last two years…Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and, now, Mississippi…have [enacted] such measures into law, though judges have blocked Arkansas’ and Alabama’s laws…pending the outcome of lawsuits…

 

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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You want next, dude?  –  cop, identity hidden by State, to teen

Although this video is two years old, I had never seen it before Radley Balko recently tweeted it, and it was much too clever, funny, and British to pass up.  The links above it were provided by The Onion, Cop Crisis (x4), C.J. Ciaramella, and Mistress Matisse, 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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Sex workers…would never want their child to feel the way we felt when our parents rejected us for becoming sex workers.  –  Annie Temple

Whore Madonnas

A good article about why the madonna/whore duality is pure bullshit:

Social wisdom would have us believe that sex industry workers are terrible parents who routinely jeopardize their childrens’ safety by bringing “perverts” around, leaving them to raise themselves, and setting an example of depravity.  Social wisdom is INCORRECT.  Children of sex workers that I know are more likely to be level-headed, socially aware, critical thinkers.  Rather than putting their parents through a lot of grief, they are strong allies of their parents.  Gutsy, confident, young people who speak their minds and care about others…

Confined and Controlled

The appalling levels of confusion about sex workers in this article, plus the Nevada model proselytizing, do not inspire confidence:

A San Francisco [politician] who wants to legalize red light districts has scheduled meetings with five sex workers…in order to better understand how legal brothels operate in Nevada…Ronen [claims to understand that]…”sex workers…want decriminalization, not legalization”…[yet also babbles about state-prescribed]…protections needed to keep [sex workers] safe…[while] meeting…with [Nevada model proponent] Alice Little…who [apparently doesn’t understand that 99% of sex workers have no interest in being] finger print[ed and interrogated by cops four times a year, nor enduring]…random checks [by cops to enforce state-mandated licensing and] STD testing.  “The sheriff will show up completely unannounced,” said Little. “It makes us feel safe”…

Feeling “safe” when armed cops come barging into one’s workplace unannounced demonstrates complete disconnection from the reality of most sex workers’ lives, and that’s not even considering that 99% of Nevada sex workers cannot (due to criminal background checks, privacy needs, etc) or will not work in the brothels.

Monsters

The headline is a bit misleading, since he was found guilty of manslaughter:

Hector Enrique Valencia Valencia killed 69-year-old Kimberley McRae by pressing a lamp cord against her neck before leaving her lifeless body inside her apartment in Coogee, New South Wales, in January 2020…the 23-year-old student went to McRae’s home and paid $100 for oral sex…when he realised she was trans…he punched her before she grabbed a nearby lamp…the pair wrestled over control of the lamp and its cord, which the student subsequently used to strangle her…the…prosecution [failed to]…prove…beyond a reasonable doubt that Valencia intended to either kill or cause serious harm to McRae, meaning he could not be found guilty on the murder charge…[but he] had already pleaded guilty to manslaughter…He…will face sentence proceedings in May…

If Men Were Angels

One would think by now that the title “youth pastor” would be a big red flag:

Tupelo [Mississippi cops] arrested a youth pastor for…[molesting] a 16-year-old girl.  Alexander Blackwelder…was…denied…bond…

Lack of Evidence (#998)

Authoritarians don’t give a damn if your kind of sex work is (temporarily) “legal”:

Hex makes a living in virtual reality.  She’s an online sex worker, hosting shows and posting photos and videos from social VR platform VRChat to…a subscription site for erotic content.  She streams from behind a virtual 3D avatar that tracks her movements, often wearing fuzzy animal ears [and] fantasy-inspired neon outfits.  Hex had plans to travel from the UK to visit her friends in the U.S. this year, and applied for a tourist visa.  But in late January, she said, she received a letter stating that she was permanently ineligible for admission to the U.S.  The reason given was the code for “prostitution”. “My reaction to the notice was honestly ‘what the hell? How is this possible? What I’m doing is completely legal’”…

Being a “legal” sex worker will not protect you, not even from arrest, so maybe you ought to stand with other sex workers to demand rights for everyone rather than hiding behind a screen of arbitrary “legality”.

Thought Control (Censorship Ascendant)

The most Orwellian case of censorship so far this year:

Owners of Roald Dahl ebooks are having their libraries automatically [replac]ed with the new censored versions containing hundreds of changes to [the author’s words]…Readers who bought electronic versions of the writer’s books…before the controversial updates have discovered their copies have now been [vandaliz]ed…Puffin Books, the company which publishes Dahl novels, [bowdleriz]ed the…novels…on devices such as the Amazon Kindle.  Dahl’s biographer Matthew Dennison…accused the publisher of “strong-arming readers into accepting a new orthodoxy in which Dahl himself has played no part”…

The Last Shall Be First (#1305) 

The war on trans people has expanded to include drag queens:

The Tennessee legislature [has] passed a bill expanding the state’s definition of “obscenity”…to criminalize anyone who “engages in an adult cabaret performance on public property or in a location where [it]…could be viewed by a [minor].”  SB0003’s redefinition of “adult cabaret performance” was crafted by Republican legislators specifically to target drag shows, although the actual phrasing is expansive enough to criminalize many other trans-inclusive public events, such as…Pride Parades…[or] any performance by any person not presenting as their assigned-at-birth gender that does not take place in a venue…explicitly zoned as an “adult cabaret”…

 

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