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Archive for the ‘History’ Category

In lying fashion you ignore what even children know.  –  Martin Luther

Although I’m not especially fond of this song, its lyrics make it the appropriate sendoff for the man who wrote it.  The links above the video were provided by Anarres Ansible, Mike Siegel, Ryan Cooper, Nun Ya, Alex Vitale, and Shiv Ramdas, 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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Change one single vowel in this headline, and it would be a VERY different story.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-20T01:59:52.797Z

Probably the same way that holding a knife to a child's throat can open a guarded door.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-20T18:03:29.896Z

Beware of Davros.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-25T03:17:35.675Z

#3 is a very, very bad idea.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-25T17:50:01.254Z

Spring this on family members in New Orleans, and they may not stop at disowning* you.*And disowning people is mighty difficult under Napoleonic Code.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T17:26:22.068Z

It's fascinating to watch men with severe, easily-recognized mental illnesses publicly blaming others' mental illness on behaviors that the speakers are incapable of due to their own undiagnosed, untreated psychopathologies.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-27T17:09:35.827Z

My teen self would be confused by this.1981 Maggie: So there are new "Star Trek" shows all the time, but you haven't watched one in 20 years?2026 Maggie: CorrectM81: Ditto "Star Wars"?M26: YepM81: Plus all kinds of D&D fantasy stuff?M26: Right again.M81: I DON'T KNOW YOU

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-28T17:19:00.870Z

Reporters: doing something willfully is not a "failure", regardless of what politicians call it. If a party refuses to comply with some illegal diktat, that party has not *failed* to comply with said diktat; he has REFUSED to comply. The former is an omission; the latter an active rejection.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-29T16:55:44.729Z

This monster's face appears to have been designed by Jack Pierce. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm06823…

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-30T17:38:45.538Z

"Dabbled in cross-dressing" makes it sound like alchemy or some other occult practice.(Yes, I know about the shamans and mystery religions; this isn't that, so let's not)

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-31T17:37:38.961Z

Oh please, PLEASE let them use a chatbot as architect, so we can have a "Galloping Gertie" moment on live TV soon after it's done.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-01T17:35:58.519Z

This is how partisanism warps minds.Distrust of politicians *in general* for wholly rational reasons is subjected to the duopoly's Procrustean bed, then for 21st century readers must be trivialized & infantilized. So anarchists & true libertarians are described by the asinine tag "double haters".

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-03T17:28:10.591Z

WAAAAAAAAAH! I'VE POOPED MYSELF AND I DEMAND SOMEONE CHANGE IT! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-04T17:16:42.139Z

Please, people, I beg you not to rely on spellcheckers at the cost of your own vocabulary skills.Trade languages have nothing to do with birds.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-07T17:10:46.810Z

Meanwhile, books on my shelves which were published as far back as the 1920s, and which I purchased as far back as the 1970s, are still 100% readable. And all I have to do to access them is walk over to my bookshelves.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-08T17:13:17.853Z

Due to the high volume of "You were right all along" emails, I will not be responding to them individually. Thank you for your understanding.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-08T17:29:33.587Z

A friend who grew up on Country/Western was unfamiliar with Zeppelin, and when "Ramble On" came on she asked me what it was about. I replied, "A dude who gets his girlfriend stolen by Gollum."

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-10T07:34:41.637Z

Trump is someone who consistently cheats at Solitaire and still repeatedly loses, and when he's done the deck only has about 49 cards. And some of those are from kids' game decks, like one with a picture of an old maid.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-12T17:44:13.156Z

 

We need Captain Kirk.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-13T03:26:13.653Z

If you want to reveal a crypto-authoritarian, just start him talking about virtually anything to do with cars.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-13T17:21:33.262Z

THIS.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-16T17:53:47.686Z

Your regular reminder that it is 100% legal to fictionally depict murder, rape, and mayhem in movies.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-17T17:19:44.529Z

I especially love that the stupid thing flew apart on impact.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-17T19:17:10.473Z

First Palantir came for the sex workers, but nobody cared because "sex trafficking".Then Palantir came for young minority men, and nobody cared because "gangs".Then Palantir came for migrants, and nobody cared because "illegals".Now it's coming for you, and I think you know the rest.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-19T17:28:11.213Z

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The search bar replaced the reference desk without replacing the skills behind it.  –  Hana Lee Goldin

When I was in library school in the early ’90s, the internet was very young and largely accessed by libraries, universities, and research corporations via several companies such as Dialog which charged by the minute for access.  Because of this, it was considered important for librarians to learn how to formulate effective Boolean searches which would return roughly half a dozen good, solid articles on the topic.  It was recognized that a search delivering dozens or hundreds of results was a poor one because it would take too much (expensive) time and (professional) effort to sift through all that to find what one was actually looking for.  And I was really good at it; I excelled at crafting “Goldilocks” searches which would return a manageable number of relevant articles, neither too many nor too few, usually on the first try.  Then two things happened: AOL started offering unlimited connection time, and Google came up with its non-Boolean search engine which delighted non-librarians by returning thousands of items in the pretense that more is better.  And so an entire generation of people has grown up with absolutely no idea how to craft an effective search, leaving them helpless in the face of Google’s rapid enshittification, and therefore easy prey for its predatory and typically-wrong chatbot.  As Google has rapidly decayed I’ve tried several other search engines, but none of them are remotely as good as classic Google was.

That’s why I was so excited to discover this article by reference librarian Hana Lee Goldin, explaining not only how to get around Google’s loathsome practice of dishing up swill instead of what you ordered, but also how to use Boolean operators which have apparently always been hidden in the system.  Goldin explains the reason for her article concisely:

Google…constantly…swaps in synonyms, personalizes results based on your history, and decides what you probably meant rather than returning what you typed. Most of the time that interpretation is invisible. These tools are how you override it.

Beyond that, I’m not going to quote her excellent article because you should read it all.  The link above is to her Substack blog, but to head off the possibility of link rot I’ve also backed it up.  And if Hana happens to read this: from a retired reference librarian, thank you!

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There really isn’t an excuse for repeated attempts at social engineering that aren’t even tied to some kind of grift, pork, or fascist collaboration.
–  “In the Dark

Being able to look out a window and see grass and trees and animals…is so much better for my mental and spiritual health then being subjected to a “view” which consists of nothing but concrete, glass, and automobiles.
–  “Diary #664

“Innocence” is merely a fanciful euphemism for “ignorance”.  –  “Tweetenstein

For me, no sorrow is ever experienced in isolation; new tears falling into the pool immediately cause it to overflow, and then it’s impossible to tell how much of my anguish is due to the proximate source of the grief, and how much is old pain which has never been fully resolved.  –  “Pool of Tears

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So many people still feel the need to wait for some business entity to temporarily carry a show they want to see, typically polluted with commercials, when home video has existed in one form or another for over 40 years and most shows can be permanently purchased for the price of a decent meal.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-15T18:02:27.299Z

Trump really does believe what he sees in movies.Here we see him attempting the Jedi mind trick.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-17T03:04:37.228Z

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" – Upton Sinclair

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-17T19:00:27.452Z

People who do not eat chips could be ‘left behind’, says Frito-Lay’s CEO

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-18T19:55:52.543Z

Funniest thing I've seen this week.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-20T08:52:14.194Z

It's garbage. It's shit. It's noise. It's paint hurled at a canvas. It's an overflowing toilet. It's hated by anyone who knows anything about art. It enriches fascists. It ignores consent and good taste. It's stupid. It's bad. It's a disease. It's random. It reeks. It's unwelcome. It's everywhere.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-21T18:50:08.193Z

Over a decade ago, I was warning young women not to let random people who aren't doctors inject filth into their butts.Now I'm warning young men not to hit themselves in the face with hammers.Really, y'all, plastic surgery is not something you can learn by watching YouTube videos.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-24T18:24:12.301Z

In traditional scholarship, caring about what other educated people thought about one's ideas was called "peer review", and it was considered intrinsic to the process.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-24T18:39:40.974Z

Concentration camps. Go on, you can type the words if you try. I believe in you. Just keep repeating the mantra, "I have a backbone, I have a backbone, I have a backbone", and you should be able to either type the words or just copy paste from here: "concentration camps".

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-25T17:54:59.340Z

Stolen. The word you're looking for is "stolen", not "taken away"; that is a term reserved for parents disciplining their own children, ie "she took away his bb gun until he stopped shooting cats". The term for strangers permanently taking others' possessions is "stealing". They STOLE the crayons.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-26T17:56:06.044Z

Do history classes in New York teach students about William the Acquirer and the Acquisitions of Genghis Khan?

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-27T18:20:18.610Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nGK…

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-28T17:52:47.390Z

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-02-28T19:35:46.602Z

Those of you who weren't adults at the time of the Gulf War may not remember that it, more than any other event, created the 24-hour news cycle which has bedeviled the US ever since. It turned CNN from a low-rating sideline into a high-rating main event, and gave us the nauseating term "scud stud".

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-02T17:39:49.401Z

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-03T18:01:27.024Z

Honestly, I don't know how you young gals put up with this. In my day (points with cane) all we had to worry about beside cops and bad clients was the puritanical old woman whom the publisher of the Yellow Pages (Barry Co IIRC) allowed to ban certain words in escort service ads.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-04T08:21:33.548Z

Trump replaces Barbie with Mr. Potato Head.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-05T20:02:33.887Z

Challenge for those who aren't religious fanatics: explain to those who *are* that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that the burden of proof is NOT on those demanding such evidence.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-07T17:31:04.244Z

This is called a "win-win" scenario.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-08T17:44:05.190Z

If they simply phrased the headline truthfully as "women are falling in love with a fantasy of romance", people would recognize that this is nothing new.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-09T17:41:07.413Z

How quaint. Those of us who still play real old-fashioned D&D are going to start looking like people who bake all of their own bread instead of buying Wonder Bread.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-10T17:00:58.084Z

There's illiteracy, and then there's *functional* illiteracy, and then there's…whatever this is.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-11T03:40:34.394Z

People who are terminally online habitually type out bizarre, unpronounceable sequences of letters and symbols which attest to how little of their lives are spent actually speaking to normal people in real life.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-11T19:07:51.122Z

Future history students will refuse to believe it when their professors tell them that one of the factors that precipitated the 21st-century dark age was gambling fanatics intentionally falsifying records for profit. Having taught history, I can hear the adolescent voices already: "That's stupid!"

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-13T17:28:41.148Z

On Bluesky this morning, I'm seeing the usual mixture of political & aesthetic posts.On Twitter, I'm being attacked by incensed Millennials apparently unable to comprehend why a 60-year-old woman who neither has kids nor watches TV doesn't know about a gimmick kid food first sold in the late '90s.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-14T18:22:27.167Z

"Police shoot black man in the back."There, FIFY.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-15T17:24:47.878Z

Boo hoo hoo, his diaper is wet and nobody wants to play with him.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-16T02:40:56.057Z

I think @ryanlcooper.com called it correctly: Trump will go down as one of the Great Idiots of History.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-17T17:24:50.126Z

Deep respect for Tony Moore.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-18T17:14:20.090Z

So THIS is where Big Balls went.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-19T17:41:07.379Z

Après moi, le déluge.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-20T18:08:32.460Z

People idolize flawed human beings, creating statues of them as though they were pharaohs & literally putting them up on pedestals, only to tear them down again as soon as the flawed human is found to have been flawed.We could save so much time and energy by simply not setting up humans as gods.

Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-03-21T07:47:25.342Z

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Don’t be so careful in time of death.

In the ’50s and early ’60s, it was typical for TV sponsors to feature the show’s characters in commercials which aired during the show.  I’ve been re-watching The Beverly Hillbillies lately, and I was delighted to find this PSA from an episode which first aired in September 1963.  The links above the video were provided by IncarcerNation, Nun Ya (x2), Stephen Lemons, Franklin Harris, Violet Blue, and IncarcerNation again, 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 surest way to lose my cooperation is to accompany the demand with a phrase like “you must”, “you are required to”, “it’s the law”, etc.  –  “Off the Green

Some of life’s greatest pleasures are pleasant precisely because they’re so ephemeral; if rainbows were always a feature of the sky, few would ever bother to look up at them in wonderment and appreciation.
–  “Diary #663

Baby-step reforms…are mostly intended to distract activists and hush timid human rights campaigners.  –  “Lack of Evidence (#1421)

[Trump] wants to make the US status as the world’s cop official, complete with the cop power to terrorize whoever he likes on a whim without anything resembling consequences.  –  “Client Kingdoms

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Every day felt like a week. Every week felt like a month. Every month felt like a year.  –  Owen Ramsingh

I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now

Cops will victimize anyone they can catch:

An 80-year-old man was recently arrested in Plattsburgh, New York…[during a Father]land Security [raid]…on…a massage business…the Clinton County Sheriff’s Office [collaborated with Father]land Security [to] execute…the [raid, with cops getting]…the…[white male victims while Father]land Security [gets]…the…Asian women [who are typically raped and robbed prior to deportation]…

The Puritan Recrudescence (#1057)

It’s sad that in the 21st century we’re still debunking claims that semen has magic powers:

…the…centuries-old myth…that sex or orgasm before a competition diminishes athletic performance…has repeatedly failed to [be] support[ed by]…numerous studies…whi[ch]…have shown that sex and orgasm are more likely to increase testosterone than decrease it.  Now, a particularly well-designed laboratory study…[by] Spanish researchers…[has shown that] masturbation produced small but statistically significant improvements in certain performance measures…[including] increased total exercise time…[and] greater handgrip strength…there were no negative effects…[and] testosterone levels were actually higher in the masturbation condition.  Cortisol levels were also elevated, suggesting increased physiological arousal rather than depletion…

Thought Control (#1443)

Politicians really want to be able to define anything as “obscene” at will:

A new Ohio bill seeks to [penalize] companies who provide online resources for the state’s public schools and libraries…[if a politician later points at anything in those resources while belching the magic word] “inappropriate”…the companies would [be subjected to] a three-strike rule, in which they would be notified…and given the ability to “cure” the resources [by censoring them on demand]…The bill would [also censor] resource[s including]…drugs, tobacco, alcohol, gambling, [any] illegal activities…or…LGBT…[people]…

I Spy (#1569)

Elon Musk and all his “DOGE” goons should spend the next few decades in prison:

…a [typical and representative “]DOGE[” goon named John Solly who]…had access to two highly sensitive [Social Security] databases…share[d] the information with his [new] private employer…a c[ompany named Leidos]…an unprecedented breach of security protocols…[foolishly enabled by SCOTUS.  Solly bragged] to…several co-workers that he possessed two tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information…on a thumb drive.  The databases…include records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names…he a[sked]…the whistleblower…[for] help transferring data from a thumb drive “to his personal computer so that he could ‘sanitize’ the data before using it at [Leidos” and]…the…colleague…refused to help him…because of legal concerns, [but Solly bragged] that he [did not care that it was]…illegal [because the mad emperor would pardon him]…

To Molest and Rape (#1592)

Good riddance to bad rubbish:

A [typical and representative Pennsylvania cop named]…Francis Connell Collier…was…killed…in a [shootout]…with [other cops]…who…[were trying to arrest him for] rape of a[t least two] child[ren]…beginning when they were about five or six years old…from 2001 through…2004…

Walled Garden (#1616)

The only way to ensure data is not abused is not to collect it:

Spain’s data protection authority…imposed a total fine of €950,000 on Yoti Ltd, the British digital identity and age verification company, after finding three distinct violations of [law]…the AEPD has [also] ordered Yoti to implement corrective measures within six months…Yoti’s…app allows users to create a verified identity account by uploading a government-issued identity document and taking a selfie…Yoti [claimed] that the facial scan it performs does not constitute biometric data…because…the purpose is not to uniquely identify users but to authenticate them.  The authority [sensibly] rejected this [ridiculous] argument…

Torture Chamber (#1620)

Some of these “suicides” are murders; others are people driven to suicide by barbaric abuse:

S[crews] at the nation’s largest [concentration camp] have placed bets on which [of their victims] will be the next to die by suicide…Camp East Montana [was refurbished from a WWII-era concentration camp used to falsely imprison US citizens of Japanese descent]…On an average day…around 3,000 [ICE victims] are [imprisoned there without adequate]…food [or]…medical care…

 

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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Is this idiocy starting again?  From the 1920s to the early 1960s, animation was correctly viewed as a format everyone could enjoy.  The theatrical cartoons of the Golden Age of animation (late 1930s to mid-1950s) were largely intended for adult theatrical audiences, and the animated TV shows of the early ’60s (such as The Flintstones and Jonny Quest) were prime-time shows intended for all ages.  It wasn’t until the late ’60s, around the time that the eldest Baby Boomers were reaching adulthood, that American nitwits suddenly decided en masse that “cartoons” were only for “children”; Japan and Eastern Europe never bought into that, so their animation art developed while America’s sank into a kiddie ghetto from which it did not begin to emerge until The Simpsons premiered on The Tracy Ullman Show in 1987.  Let’s not return to the “animation is for kids” fallacy, please.

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The first prohibitionist laws date to the late 19th century, but it was in the 20th that the concept…penetrated the minds of the general public so thoroughly that most took it for granted that for governments to tell people what they could consume, what they could own, and even what thoughts they could have…was not only normal, but desirable.  –  “Leaving the 20th Century

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.  –  “Rabbit Hole

Copsucking reporters waste considerable space quoting boss pigs oinking about how typical and representative cops aren’t really typical or representative.  –  “Creepy Coppers (#1418)

I have never broken a promise to [Grace] in the past and I’m not going to start now merely because she’s not in a position to remind me.  –  “Diary 766

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