After I published “I Couldn’t Do It Without You” last month, a couple of readers asked how they could make larger recurring donations. As it turns out, both of these readers were already long-time donors who have repeatedly demonstrated their generosity for years, and both already carry on correspondence with me in various ways. But it occurred to me that in general, most of my readers have only my email, blog, and Twitter as points of contact; that’s just fine for most folks, and as I check my email frequently it’s certainly not an inadequate means. But there’s a certain immediacy and a kind of quasi-intimacy that comes with texting, so I’ve decided to add two higher subscription levels in the zone between reader and client; both of these come with texting privileges. NO, I don’t mean sexting; that would be much more expensive even if I were offering it, which I’m not because I’m not any good at it. Now, it would feel strange and even creepy to me to set some frequency or number of texts a week, and I honestly don’t think I have to; my patrons, both readers and clients, have never made a habit of trying my patience or pushing my boundaries, and I hardly think it likely y’all are going to start now. So the only real difference between these two is, which one can you afford? Maybe I should have some strict delineation, but that’s over the line into salesmanship and, as I’ve pointed out before, I’m not really comfortable with that. I’ve made it this far without paywalls and bribery, and I’m too old to start using those tactics now even if I wanted to, which I don’t. At all.
Anyhow, the two new levels are $10 per week and $25 per week(converted into monthly sums of $45 and $110 respectively so you’re not getting pinged every damned week). Those are PayPal links, and there’s nothing wrong with going that route if it works for you; however, I find Zelle a lot more trustworthy and it doesn’t take a percentage of your donation. The only catches are: 1) Not every bank is part of the network, and I don’t believe it’s international; and 2) The only way to do a recurring Zelle payment is to set it up from your end, using my email address (maggiemcneill@earthlink.net). Of course, if you’re setting it up yourself you needn’t use those specific amounts; as long as you’re donating at least $31/month (the long-established “$1 a day” subscription level), I’ll be happy to text with you (and yes, that definitely applies to those of you already at that level; just email for my contact number). If you want to tease me a bit you could even make it some weird arbitrary number just to irritate my OCD. And if you’re affluent enough and think my work is important enough to go another price step higher; email me and we’ll discuss an arrangement with regular (conversation and advice) phone calls.
When you opened this page, did you notice the big paywall notice blocking your entire screen and demanding you pay to remove it?
No?
How about the huge popup bragging that my content is FREE if you’ll give me your information so I can constanty pester you with spam and sell your data to other spammers?
No?
Surely you saw the big autoplay video at the top of the page blaring out a commercial, which when you hit “stop” merely shrunk down, moved to the corner of the page, and immediately tried to play again?
Not that either, eh?
But you must have noticed the box telling you that I use cookies to IMPROVE your reading experience and demanding you accept them? Or the adblocker blocker? Or the barrage of blinking, flashing, jumping, sliding, up-popping ads that make it difficult to concentrate on what you’re trying to read even when they don’t block your view?
The reason why you don’t see any of these is of course because I DON’T USE THEM. That doesn’t mean I’m independently wealthy and can comfortably provide content every day for free, yet still pay my bills out of some endless pot of cash; it means my principles won’t allow me to hold your wish to read my work for ransom. So please consider subscribing via one of the handy plans in the right-hand column, or contact me using this link to custom-design an arrangement that works for you. Because though I’ll never actually put a block between your eyes and my pages, I may soon need to start letting advertisers share the screen with my thoughts in order to keep the lights on. As of right now, I’m $3000 short of my operating budget for this year; from now until the last day of Christmas I’ll be displaying a little fundraising thermometer in the right-hand column. I won’t be harping on it, but I do want to keep a reminder around for awhile that while you aren’t billed for a resource like this blog, that doesn’t mean it costs nothing to produce.
Most of y’all have probably noticed the new postscript following most of my columns:
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 very much!
The four levels spoken of in that paragraph are visible in the right-hand margin under “Become a Blog Patron”; 10¢/day takes the form of an annual payment of $36.50; 25¢/day takes the form of monthly payment of $7.75; 50¢/day takes the form of monthly payment of $15.50; and $1/day takes the form of monthly payment of $31.00. But as two gentlemen pointed out (though not quite in these words), there’s a fairly wide gap between my highest subscription rate and my lowest “arrangement” rate of $400/month. And since such a gap is rather irritating to my OCD, I’ve decided to create two new categories to bridge that gap, $70/month and $165/month. I’m not going to do these via PayPal buttons like the subscriptions, because they’re a new status, more than a reader but not quite a client; I’m also not going to rigidly define the privileges of those higher tiers, because everybody is different so I want to keep it flexible (but think phone and text based rather than in-person). So if you think you’d like to support my work at higher than a regular subscription level, and would enjoy regular social interaction with me, but don’t live near enough for us to regularly meet in person, just use this link to email me and we’ll custom-design an arrangement to fit your needs and preferences. And you don’t even need references or screening!
I finally figured out why I haven’t started a Substack or otherwise paywalled my writing: it’s a conflict between my whore ethics and my librarian ethics, and the librarian ethics are winning. It’s no secret that I find paywalls distateful; their existence is one of the reasons most of the links on my blog are now archived versions of the originals (because archive sites circumvent about 95% of paywalls). I’m not saying I don’t think people should be paid for their writing; not only is that completely untrue, I’d be a hypocrite for claiming it because I do charge for my writing, in book form. Maybe it’s just that I’m old-fashioned; a book feels like a thing to me, whereas my thoughts seem like…something else? Look, I didn’t promise you this would make sense; I’m just telling you how I feel, and I only recently figured it out myself. But at the same time, I obviously need to pull in more money from my writing, since my semi-retirement income has been eaten into by inflation (and other factors I’ve discussed before). So other than getting a wealthy patron to underwrite me (and if you have a large amount of money you feel like bestowing upon me in order to enable me to keep doing what I’m doing, please let me know), I think the best bet is to start taking advertising. Here again, there’s a conflict; due to my principles I find the idea of letting just anybody advertise on my blog without my approval (am I misunderstanding how “ad delivery” services work?) utterly revolting, and though my principles won’t pay the bills I refuse to be a hypocrite and allow my readers to be attacked by the same blinking, flashing, jumping, drifting, popping ads which I find necessary to eliminate via an adblocker lest they assault my vertigo and aggravate my anxiety. So if you know about an ad service which displays static ads that don’t intentionally harass and irritate the viewer, and further can help me get connected with them, please email and let me know. Please don’t contact me to say, “Oh, you just Google it” or “go to Cash4u.com and sign up” or anything like that, because if I were capable of doing it myself I’d have done it over a year ago. I know it’s hard for some (many? most?) of y’all to grasp that there are some things I’m really just not good at, but it happens to be the truth; if I’m going to do this I’m going to need my hand held through the whole process. So if you think you have the knowledge and inclination to help me through this; and you’re willing to take the time and spend the effort to walk me through it step by tiny step (despite the fact that the difficulty of the task will likely fall somewhere between “teaching a cat to swim” and “teaching a gibbon to drive”); and you really respect my work and want me to continue being able to do it, please let me know ASAP. Or alternately, if you want to play Medici to my Leonardo, that would work too.
A Fresno County minster was arrested [for molesting a girl under 14 years old in 2017]. Bernardino Villalobos…is a registered sex offender [who] previously served time in prison for convictions of rape and sodomy….[but] owns a church and serves as a minister at La Obra De Jesus Christian Church in Del Rey…
A…Florida [cop] was arrested and suspended without pay after…[rap]ing his friend in the parking lot of a Krispy Kreme in early July…Alaindy LouisXVI was [only] charged with sexual battery…[despite raping his] “best friend”…[while she was] blacked out [drunk]…on July 25, detectives had her make a call to LouisXVI that was being secretly recorded by police where he…admitted to [rap]ing [her]…
California [politician]s have again given approval for…major cities to experiment with supervised injection facilities that would provide users a place to inject drugs under the supervision of health workers…S.B. 57…allow[s] San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland to approve organizations to operate these injection sites, following a lengthy approval process that includes public meetings…[an earlier] attempt…to launch these injection facilities in San Francisco…[was vetoed by] then-Gov. Jerry Brown…[supposedly] partly because he worried that he couldn’t protect operators from federal prosecution (which everybody involved already knew was a risk) but really because his nanny state–style approach to addiction was to use government force to mandate people into drug treatment…
A [typical and representative] Assistant Chief Probation Officer [in Massachusetts named]…Brian Orlandella…was sentenced…to 17 years in prison and five years of supervised release…[plus] a $5,000 [fine for sending] a…13-year-old girl…images of himself masturbating and [cajoling] her [in]to send[ing] him sexually explicit pictures and videos of herself…The Kik account’s IP address was traced to Orlandella’s residence in Massachusetts…[and] one of [his phones] contained…the [pictures the girl sent]…
A Connecticut state trooper [named Jaime Solis] was arrested twice [in one] week…[for] multiple incidents of domestic abuse that finally sent [his] unnamed female [partner] to the hospital. The…victim told police that within the last year [Solis] had attacked her “approximately forty times,” hit her with his belt, threatened to kill her, and threatened to harm a dog. Some of the…abuse occurred when the victim was pregnant…
[Alaska cops claim they found] fentanyl…inside a folded one-dollar bill that [was] dropped on the ground…at the police department…[by] a woman…[named] Sarah Dailey..the [cop who] found it…[panicked like a little girl and] called for medics to get checked out…[of course] he was fine…[but that didn’t stop them]…charg[ing the woman] with…[“]reckless endangerment[” for dropping a harmless piece of paper on the ground]…
…a New York Times investigation…has found that the [Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] program has repeatedly become a place where retired military officers prey on their teenage students. In the past five years…at least 33 JROTC instructors have been criminally charged with sexual misconduct involving students, far higher than the rate of civilian high school teachers…Victims have reported sexual assaults in classrooms and supply closets, during field trips or on late-night rides home, sometimes committed after instructors plied students with alcohol or drugs. One [victim] said her instructor told her that sexual submission was expected of women in the military. A[nother]…said her JROTC instructor warned that he had the skills to kill her without a trace if she told anyone about their sexual encounters…[Another] said she was forced to kneel at her instructor’s bedside, blindfolded, with a gun to her head…
A federal appeals court in Texas has sent a case back down to a lower court after deciding that a…sheriff’s deputy who…forced a woman to expose her genitals to him while he masturbated isn’t entitled to a qualified immunity defense…On Sept. 18, 2018, [Melissa] Tyson’s husband [foolishly] called the Sheriff’s Department of Sabine County, Texas, to request a welfare check on his wife…while [he] was out of town. [David] Boyd called Melissa Tyson that night…telling her…that he handled welfare checks because he was a preacher, although…[his] “ministerial credentials had actually been revoked eleven years prior because”…[he] had…been sued by church members for [repeat]ed sexual misconduct…
…Overall, the 2022 version of the human trafficking bill is shorter than many earlier iterations and lower on the sort of carceral solutions and surveillance initiatives that defined them…at least isn’t simply throwing more money at cops for prostitution stings. And a section pressuring hotels to [indoctrinate] staff on spotting human trafficking (an endeavor without a great track record) was removed…But there are…repeated references to “trafficking transmitted through technology”…[censorious asshats and their] lawyers have been trying to broaden the scope of sex trafficking laws to cover not just underage or forced prostitution but also the transmission of certain pornographic images by commercial tech platforms…it will…likely mean going after tech platforms in a way that jeopardizes a wide variety of free speech related to sex…
…I’ve obtained a copy of [a]…research paper…[in which researchers] “used machine learning and custom web crawlers to collect and analyze a data set of online ads for escort and sex work services”…you need sex trafficking ads to train an ML system to recognize sex trafficking ads. I suppose it’s possible in theory: They could have searched police human trafficking case files to find instances where the victims were the subject of online sex ads and then used those ads for training and testing the ML model against ads tied to actual sex trafficking. The problem…is that actual sex trafficking cases are…too rare to build up a large enough corpus of online ads to train an ML classifier. So where did the researchers find those ads? How did they know the ads were for human trafficking victims? The short answer is that they didn’t. Instead, they used a manual classification system to deem some of the ads as possibly related to sex trafficking…[using] a list of trafficking indicators from [typical prohibitionist propaganda]…
[Flint, Michigan cop] Forrest Bradley…was one of two deputies who [had panic attacks]…after previously [subduing] a…[prisoner] who had overdosed from fentanyl-laced heroin…[the other hysteric was named] Justin Hall…[neither described any of] the [known] effects of a fentanyl overdose [but that didn’t stop local media from gullibly lapping up every word drooled by “authorities” about it]…
People who consume more than 17 units of alcohol in a week – equal to about five large glasses of wine or eight pints of beer – were found to have “older” DNA…The study…[claims] that consuming alcohol in excess can wreak havoc on DNA by causing damage to telomeres — like protective caps at the ends of a chromosome — which could eventually lead to age-related diseases and the formation of cancer…
Cancer is probably inevitable for anyone who doesn’t die of something else first, but don’t tell that to puritans, who want people to believe they could live forever by simply eliminating every single pleasurable activity from their lives. Of course, then there’d be little point to an extended lifespan, but one can’t have everything.
New Jersey police…use…blood samples taken from babies to in[criminate their parents]…the practice came to light after a case in which [cops]…subpoenaed a…lab for a blood sample drawn from a child. Police then performed DNA analysis on the…sample that [suppos]edly linked the child’s father to a crime committed more than 25 years ago…a…lawsuit…filed jointly by the [Office of the Public Defender] and the New Jersey Monitor, now seeks to compel the state…to disclose…the full extent of the practice. All babies born in the state of New Jersey are required to have a blood sample drawn within 48 hours as part of a mandatory [disease] testing program…if police are able to…obtain the samples through subpoena, then…the…screening…is entering all babies…into a DNA database with no ability to opt out…
A government powerful enough to bully tech companies into obscuring information about anti-abortion centers is also one powerful enough to bully tech companies into hiding info about how to obtain an abortion. – Elizabeth N. Brown
A [pastor and] assistant principal at Union Grove Christian School [in North Carolina]…has been sentenced to five consecutive 10-12 month sentences…for a series of sex crimes that he committed…from 2008 to 2009…with a high school student…
Under Xi, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has steadily beaten the population into ideological conformity. For ethnic and religious minorities, that has meant erasing their identities and remaking them as Han Chinese. Most far‐reaching has been the campaign against the Muslim Uyghurs…the…vi[ctims of a]…far‐reaching campaign of…Orwell[ian]…surveillance…and…[repress]ion …more than a million Uyghurs [are caged] in reeducation camps…[whose] purpose is also Orwellian—to produce CCP‐controlled automatons. Even after release, many Uyghurs are not free…[they are] forced…[to] work…in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well‐known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen…Even when [Uyghurs]…find…safe haven outside China…Beijing is also determined to control [them]…A new report by Bradley Jardine, a fellow with both the Wilson Center and the Kennan Institute, explores how China is exporting repression abroad, including into the United States…
…some politicians…think Google should be serving up only government-approved information. In the latest iteration of this phenomenon, 21 senators have sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai complaining that people who search for information about abortions may be led to websites for crisis pregnancy centers…The[se] often draw people in by purporting to be neutral sources of information and support for people facing unexpected pregnancies, but their goal is to convince people to continue those pregnancies…But while some have been found to misrepresent themselves in ways that amount to fraud, most operate within legal limits and have every right to exist, to advertise, and to try to persuade people…standing in contrast to the much more drastic tactics of trying to…criminalize abortion [entirely]…
For years, TikTok has responded to data privacy concerns by pr[etend]ing that information gathered about users in the United States is stored in the United States, rather than China, where ByteDance, the video platform’s parent company, is located. But according to leaked audio from…internal TikTok meetings, China-based employees of ByteDance have repeatedly accessed nonpublic data about US TikTok users…Despite a TikTok executive’s…[perjur]y in an October 2021 Senate hearing that a “world-renowned, US-based security team” decides who gets access to this data, nine statements by eight different employees describe situations where US employees had to turn to their colleagues in China to determine how US user data was flowing. US staff did not have permission or knowledge of how to access the data on their own…
New Mexico [cop]…Robert Jesse Strand…was…charged with c[hild porn]…possession…[he was caught in] June 2021 but…once [the investigators] learned Strand was [a member of their gang, they tried to bury]…the case…
…sex workers could be subject to unwanted visits from police — and more profiling from strangers — if the Manitoba government passes new legislation i[ntended to infantilize sexworkers and make it easier to persecute them and their clients, whom the bill’s sponsors label]…”exploiters”…Winnipeg police [are promoting the usual idiotic “]signs of exploitation[” on their website, and the]…new legislation…would compel hotels and temporary accommodations…to keep a record of guests’ information, including their names and addresses, and turn it over to police on [demand] without…a warrant…Families Minister Rochelle Squires [lied that the bill]…won’t go after people involved in consensual sex work. The province wants to [call all sex work “]human trafficking[” so the government can pretend the bill]…is not intended to push sex work further underground…
Operation Underground Railroad has a pattern of exaggeration and misrepresentation…its founder, Tim Ballard…claimed…in a video posted on…Instagram, in a Tweet, and in a Facebook post…to be doing a “collaboration” with American Airlines this month, with the airline showing a video about its work…a spokesperson for American flatly said there was no such collaboration…“We do not have any partnership or affiliation with them, and the content is not available on our in-flight entertainment”…Turns out…[that in actuality,] the organization bought an ad with a third-party service provider, Clearwind Media, which…never actually ran on [American’s] in-flight entertainment…this is qualitatively different from a “collaboration” with American…
The Department of Justice has charged [Adrian O. Pena,] a Deputy U.S. Marshal for…using access to a controversial phone tracking service offered by a company called Securus to track the physical location of people he had personal relationships with as well as their spouses…between September 2016 and October 2017…He did this by uploading fake documents to the Securus platform that he claimed gave him authority to obtain requested location data…Securus is a massive prison and law enforcement contractor that, among many other things, previously offered a service for geolocating nearly all phones in the United States called Location Based Services…
According to [fantasists at] the…DEA…teens simply message a sequence of emojis that symbolize the substance they’re after so that their dealer can avoid any kind of digital detection. The secret codes also help youngsters keep their habits a secret from their parents, who likely have no idea what the emojis actually represent. Now, the DEA has released a chart titled “Emoji Drug Code: Decoded ” to [spread disinformation] about the [reasons for]…the soaring number of adolescent overdose deaths…
A [professional “survivor”] who brought a civil lawsuit seeking [to cash in with a FOSTA-enabled nuisance “]sex trafficking[” lawsuit]…against Craigslist [is out of luck, as he lawyers should’ve told her, because]…the online service is immune from the claims under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act…
Maryland [cop] Daniel Morozewicz…has…pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing over 12,000 files of child pornography…on the BitTorrent file sharing network. Morozewicz also used multiple electronic devices to download and distribute child pornography involving [toddlers] and infants…
The Kansas City, Kansas Police Department is [spread]ing [moronic copaganda] about…fentanyl…[an important medicine which, despite a fantasy popular among cops, is not an aerosol and cannot be absorbed through casual] exposure…[a hysterical pig named] Dallas Thompson [suffered a panic attack when he thought he was exposed, and] his [gang wasted] five rounds of Narcan [despite that medicine only being effective vs opiates, not panic attacks. But] the [prohibitionist gang] is still e[ager to tell tall tales about drugs and brag about what might heroes they supposedly are]…
Hint: if five doses of Narcan doesn’t help, you’re not overdosing on opioids.
The New Yorker…staff writer Sheelah Kolhatkar wrote a lengthy feature detailing horrific allegations of child sexual abuse material allegedly uploaded to Pornhub…[and] spend[ing] thousands of words praising #Traffickinghub creator…Laila Mickelwait for [supposedly] helping women…Kolhatkar…describes Mickelwait designating Pornhub a sex-trafficking ring before highlighting her supposed mission: holding Pornhub’s parent company MindGeek “accountable”. The problem is that despite Mickelwait’s protestations, her goal isn’t to save victims. It’s to abolish the porn industry…
The arrival of COVID two years ago derailed the process of distributing and promoting my documentary, The War on Whores. So now that things are at least starting to go back to some state vaguely resembling what we used to call “normal” in the 21st century (which was, of course, already pretty abnormal compared to what we used to call “normal” in the 20th, but that’s a topic for another day), my director/producer Paul Johnson decided we should put the film on YouTube for free until February 15th to generate some new buzz. This is a low-res version, but still completely watchable; if you want a full-res version to keep you can buy it at Vimeo (or even email me for a physical DVD). If you’ve never seen it, here’s your chance; next month I’ll switch this link out so there isn’t a dead grey box here.
…a BBC [news show claims it]…has evidence that…pimps are using Vivastreet to advertise multiple women under their control…one mobile phone number was being used for 78 ads on the site – which suggests the women might be controlled by a single person [because obviously, women are much too stupid to hire answering services like other businesses do]…some of the adverts for sex contained [what prohibitionists, cops, and others who wank to fantasies of passive, doll-like women enjoy calling] the warning signs of sexual exploitation. One such sign is when multiple women [use the same phone answering service]…Diana Johnson, chair of the [politicians’] Group [trying once again to impose Swedish criminalization on the UK, barfed up childish nonsense about]…”a pimp’s paradise”…Stuart Peall…a…Lancashire [vice cop, made furtive movements in his pants while burbling about how]…”it’s like a takeaway menu”…
It’s really sad that the BBC has sunk to the “IT’S LIKE PIZZA!” level of journalism.
Police have arrested a man believed to be the serial killer responsible for six murders and several shootings that happened in St. Louis…and Kansas City…during a span of several weeks in September and late October…Perez Reed…used the same gun to shoot all of the victims…He is also suspected of multiple other homicides in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas…[but his] motive remains unknown. Most of the victims were women…some were involved in sex work. And other[s appear to have been transwomen]…Some…were shot in the back of their heads…some victims didn’t fit into any type of pattern and some survived. One man was waiting for a bus when he was shot but survived…most of the…[victims]…did not know their killer — who does not have much of a criminal history…
Missouri cops of course had to demonstrate what they are by misgendering some of the dead.
EU [politicians want to]…e[conomically] sa[botage] Minsk…[for allowing] large numbers of [brown people into]…Belarus…in hopes of [stopping them] crossing into Polish territory…European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called…[the migration of brown people a] “hybrid attack”…[and said] that the EU “will explore how to…blacklist…third-country airlines” that a[llow brown people to buy tickets, referring to the sales as]…”human trafficking”…[another politician bloviated that] “All airlines of the world should understand that they cooperate with the criminal regime by flying to Belarus”…
The Israeli military has been conducting a broad surveillance effort in the occupied West Bank to monitor Palestinians by integrating facial recognition with a growing network of cameras and smartphones…a…technology called Blue Wolf…captures photos of Palestinians’ faces and matches them to a database of images so extensive that one former soldier described it as the army’s secret “Facebook for Palestinians.” The phone app flashes in different colors to alert soldiers if a person is to be [harassed], arrested or left alone. To build the database…soldiers competed last year in photographing Palestinians, including children and the elderly, with prizes for the most pictures collected by each unit…The surveillance program was described…by…soldiers…to…Breaking the Silence…an advocacy group composed of Israeli army veterans that opposes the occupation…
John Eisenman [of Spokane fantasized] that his underage daughter’s boyfriend had…sold her into a [“]sex trafficking organization[“] in Seattle. [After the daughter returned home, an event described by] Eisenman…as…rescue…[he stalked] the boyfriend, 19-year-old Aaron Sorensen…[and murdered] him…by beating and stabbing…[then put his] body in the trunk [of a car, which he] then abandoned in North Spokane County where it sat for nearly a full year. In October 2021…[someone found the car and] drove [it] back into Spokane…On Oct. 22, [police] received calls from [someone]…who discovered the body when rummaging through the abandoned vehicle…
The family of Andrew Sorensen…[pointed out that this supposed “trafficker”] “was born with cerebral palsy, autism, and [was] developmentally delayed…Both the FBI and Washington State Patrol said there is no sex trafficking investigation”…John Eisenman…is facing the charge of first-degree murder and is being held in jail on a $1 million bond…
A paraplegic man was left to physically deteriorate until his penis had to be amputated. A man with undiagnosed, untreated lung cancer lost 90 pounds and died “slowly and agonizingly” without pain medication. A woman’s multiple sclerosis was ignored and misdiagnosed until she was left, at age 36, nearly completely paralyzed. Arizona’s prison system is on trial once again in a long-running civil lawsuit over [systemic] medical neglect…and a doctor’s testimony in the case paints a stomach-churning picture of unnecessary suffering, malpractice, and death…medical neglect is widespread in American prisons and jails, despite the Eighth Amendment’s supposed guarantee of basic medical care, hygiene, and living conditions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and several law firms have been litigating the case since 2012…
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After I published “I Couldn’t Do It Without You” last month, a couple of readers asked how they could make larger recurring donations. As it turns out, both of these readers were already long-time donors who have repeatedly demonstrated their generosity for years, and both already carry on correspondence with me in various ways. But it occurred to me that in general, most of my readers have only my email, blog, and Twitter as points of contact; that’s just fine for most folks, and as I check my email frequently it’s certainly not an inadequate means. But there’s a certain immediacy and a kind of quasi-intimacy that comes with texting, so I’ve decided to add two higher subscription levels in the zone between reader and client; both of these come with texting privileges. NO, I don’t mean sexting; that would be much more expensive even if I were offering it, which I’m not because I’m not any good at it. Now, it would feel strange and even creepy to me to set some frequency or number of texts a week, and I honestly don’t think I have to; my patrons, both readers and clients, have never made a habit of trying my patience or pushing my boundaries, and I hardly think it likely y’all are going to start now. So the only real difference between these two is, which one can you afford? Maybe I should have some strict delineation, but that’s over the line into salesmanship and, as I’ve pointed out before, I’m not really comfortable with that. I’ve made it this far without paywalls and bribery, and I’m too old to start using those tactics now even if I wanted to, which I don’t. At all.
