When we buried Jonathan in the pit near the propane tank, I decided to plant a tree over him, but I couldn’t decide what kind of tree I wanted. I really miss the crepe myrtles which are so commonly seen in the New Orleans area, and I’ve seen some beautiful ones in the nearby town of Hoquiam. But when I talked to a nursery about it, they told me it takes about three years for them to get established, and even a single hard winter in that time can stunt or even kill them. The lady told me that if I wanted a southern flowering tree that would grow well here, I should consider a magnolia. Grace liked magnolias very much, and when I mentioned to Chekhov that I was thinking about getting one for the spot, he immediately told me that he had seen them at Home Depot in Aberdeen and offered to buy one for me. So on Sunday the 19th he brought it in his van and we planted it together; it wasn’t difficult because the soil over the grave was still very loose, and it only took a few minutes of fairly light effort to clear a properly-sized hole for the root ball. Yellowbird is an avid gardener and advised me to water it every day without rain until the rainy season starts again in October, but luckily we’ve had several rainy days in the past week (unusual for this time of year) so that took care of the watering on those days. Then on one of the days I was watering it last week, it occurred to me that the area beneath the tree would be a fitting place for most of Grace’s ashes; I’m going to give the tree a few months to be sure it’s taking well, then I’m going to do a little ritual on the Day of the Dead to bury the ashes. And from now on, I will think of her every time I see it bloom.
Posts Tagged ‘Day of the Dead’
Diary #839
Posted in Diary, Philosophy, tagged Day of the Dead, holidays, Sunset on July 28, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Teenage Throwback Thursday
Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, tagged bad customers, blogging, Day of the Dead, fantasy, holidays, hysteria, imaginative fiction, Mexico, psychology, sex work is work, Thanatopsis, Throwback Thursday on November 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The lurid, sensationalized tragedy porn narratives that make up the body of “sex trafficking” mythology are nothing more than Gothic horror tales that opportunists pretend are real. – “Unreal Horrors”
Every…sex-work[er]…has had clients fall for her; it’s a natural outgrowth of a situation in which a lonely man spends a lot of time in the company of a beautiful, alluring woman who only shows him her best side. – “Out of Bounds”
You are going to die. Soon. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. – “Thanatopsis”
Sex and death are but two sides of the same coin: the former is the door through which we enter the world, and the latter the door through which we leave it. – “Eros and Thanatos”
That experience of being a stranger in one’s own community, of being treated like a living oracle, like a weird visitor back from the underworld with divine wisdom to share…that, I think, is the experience which defines the old.
– “Let There Be Dark”
Day of the Dead 2023
Posted in Holidays, Philosophy, tagged Day of the Dead, holidays, paganism on November 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Though all things must pass, none are so ephemeral as those good times with good friends that, in retrospect, seem almost magical.
– “Day of the Dead 2022”
“Every single thing in the Cosmos is mortal, and will pass away in its time. [Organisms and empires alike] rise, thrive, decline, and fall, to be replaced by younger ones which then decline and fall in their time…crumbling into dust and passing first into memory, then legend, and eventually beyond the horizon of sentient knowledge.”
Day of the Dead 2022
Posted in Holidays, Philosophy, tagged Day of the Dead, holidays on November 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Every year on this day for the past 12 years, I have written about the inevitability and goodness of Death, and reminded my readers that “…every single thing in the Cosmos is mortal, and will pass away in its time. [Organisms and empires alike] rise, thrive, decline, and fall, to be replaced by younger ones which then decline and fall in their time…crumbling into dust and passing first into memory, then legend, and eventually beyond the horizon of sentient knowledge.” That includes this tradition; I have, I think, already said enough in the past, and you can find an index of those in last year’s post for the day. I do, however, wish to add one bittersweet thought: Though all things must pass, none are so ephemeral as those good times with good friends that, in retrospect, seem almost magical.
Books of the Dead
Posted in Philosophy, tagged Day of the Dead, holidays, paganism, psychology on November 1, 2021| 4 Comments »
I…have followed in the footsteps of my many-times-great-grandmeres by offering to others the wisdom that mortality is not a thing to fear, but rather a blessing to accept when it comes to us in the fullness of time. – “The Mysteries“
Every year on this day, I write about the inevitability and goodness of Death. Every year on this occasion, and in innumerable other essays, tweets and statements, “I have reminded my readers that every single thing in the Cosmos is mortal, and will pass away in its time. [Organisms and empires alike] rise, thrive, decline, and fall, to be replaced by younger ones which then decline and fall in their time…crumbling into dust and passing first into memory, then legend, and eventually beyond the horizon of sentient knowledge. The wheel turns inexorably, and all there is to say about it has already been said countless times; there is, I think, little point in saying it again…” And so, as I did earlier this year and will again on Friday and next week, I present a collection of statements I’ve previously made on this topic:
That experience of being a stranger in one’s own community, of being treated like a living oracle, like a weird visitor back from the underworld with divine wisdom to share…that, I think, is the experience which defines the old. – “Let There Be Dark”
Western culture’s impending demise is being driven by tyrants whose destruction of freedom and justice is enabled by the masses willing to give them any power in exchange for their impossible promises to delay death, both personal and cultural, just a little longer. – “Eros and Thanatos”
Death is what gives life meaning, and fighting excessively against it is as childish and futile as the behavior of a toddler who refuses to let another child take his place on the carousel once his ride is done. – “Thanatopsis”
People believe what they want to believe, and some of them even seem wedded to the delusion that they can indefinitely avoid this riverbank, though none ever has since the dawn of the world. – “On the Riverbank”
When [the Reaper] at last come to collect me it will be a rendezvous rather than a capture, a meeting (whether anticipated or unexpected) of old friends rather than the cornering of a terrified animal by a hunter who has never in the history of the world ever failed to run down his prey. – “A Necessary End”
Sex and death are our constant reminders that for all our pretensions we are still animals; no wonder those uncomfortable with that fact try to disguise and sanitize both of them, to hide them from the children and speak about them in whispers, to bind them in legal codes and bury them under layers of ritual. – “Even This Shall Pass Away”
Death is the one great universal experience, the sacrament shared by every dynamic thing from the most ephemeral of microbes to the stars and galaxies themselves, the inescapable conclusion to every form of existence not already dead in its immutability. – “The Dance of Death”
You will die, and so will I, and there is absolutely nothing any of us can do about it…yet vast numbers are so obsessed with this simple and indisputable fact that they waste much of their time on Earth in a struggle they absolutely cannot win. – “The Day of the Dead”
The Mysteries
Posted in History, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged Day of the Dead, drugs, Greece, holidays, psychology, Rome, Thanatopsis on November 1, 2020| 3 Comments »
Death is what gives life meaning, and fighting excessively against it is as childish and futile as the behavior of a toddler who refuses to let another child take his place on the carousel once his ride is done. – “Thanatopsis”
Every year on the Day of the Dead I write about the inevitability and goodness of Death. Yes, I said “goodness”; as I wrote in “Eternity“, “Eternal life wouldn’t be a gift; it would be a horror literally beyond imagining.” I’ve never been especially afraid of death; part of that is due to the fact that “I was a strange, wild, moody Wednesday Addams of a child, born on Halloween night and fascinated with horror lore and imagery. Autumn was both my native season and the one in which I felt most comfortable…” The rest, of course, was a combination of chronic depression and ruthless pragmatism; for much of my life I endured long periods in which I would have viewed death as a welcome release, and even when I was in a cheerier frame of mind I was still rational enough to recognize that the continuance of life for any given creature requires the regular deaths of countless others. But it wasn’t until my forties that I started become really philosophical about mortality, and only five years ago did I really start to deeply ponder its spiritual dimension. The latter development was not merely due to age, though that undoubtedly helped put me in the right headspace; a catalyst was required, and that catalyst was edible cannabis. I started experimenting with what are typically and not-entirely-correctly called “recreational drugs” near the end of 2014, and though several of them gave me very rewarding experiences with others, it was the psychedelic experiences I had from using largish doses of edible cannabis alone (or more accurately, without human company) that opened the doors to the Infinite and gave me a perspective on death, the soul and my place in Everything which eventually led to a spiritual peace unlike any I had ever known. I was far from alone; those who refuse to be bound by the Puritanism which has trapped modern humanity in a death-grip have for decades tried to tell everyone else about the healing and mind-expanding power of psychedelic drugs, and since the 1990s studies have increasingly demonstrated the power of such substancies to alleviate depression, PTSD and other mental health issues. But this is not a new discovery, it is, rather, a rediscovery of truths known to our ancestors millenia ago:
…sacred tripping was not simply a function of prehistoric religious rituals and shamanism, but an integral, even central part, of the world of the ancient Greeks….The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion With No Name, by Brian Muraresku…shows…the centrality of psychedelic use…in an elaborate and mysterious once-in-a-lifetime ceremony at the Temple of Eleusis, a short distance from Athens. We’ve long known about…the Mysteries…and the rite of passage they offered — because it’s everywhere in the record. Many leading Greeks and Romans went there, including Plato and Marcus Aurelius…The Greeks and Romans went to Eleusis only once in their lives, like the Muslim hajj, to participate in a nocturnal rite, and were sworn to secrecy as to what went on. But the constant theme in the ancient literature around this ritual is that it somehow took the sting of death away. “Death is for mortals no longer an evil, but a blessing” was the phrase attached to it…Historians and classicists have long pondered what this meant and what exactly happened, but all agree that it required drinking a special brew. And new discoveries of ancient chalices and cups — and new techniques of testing ancient residue — have begun to suggest what made these archaic potions so special…they contained countless herbs and spices and ingredients, among them, critically, elements of ergot, a fungus that infected barley and rye and had potent hallucinogenic effects…Another re-examined excavation in Pompeii found the preserved remains at the bottom of large barrels jars dated to 79 CE: chemical analysis found it included seeds of cannabis, opium, and hallucinogenic nightshades. The recipe for the psychedelic brew and the preparation of it was restricted to women, who passed on the secret recipes from mother to daughter, and was the particular preserve of older women. The effect, we’re told in the sources, was transformative: you saw past life and death, you became unafraid of your own mortality, you gained perspective and inner peace…
Fictional Interlude: Let There Be Dark
Posted in Fiction, Philosophy, tagged Day of the Dead, holidays, imaginative fiction, paganism on November 1, 2019| 6 Comments »
Long-time readers know that I’m scornful of the notion that greatly-extended human lifespans would be a boon, and every year on this day – the Day of the Dead – I write about the goodness and inevitability of death. But this year I thought to myself: what would a society of near-immortals look like? And how would creatures who were essentially immortal (unless killed by mischance) face the prospect of impending death?
When both I and the world were much younger, I believed I would know when I had become old; I thought there would be some clear line of demarcation, at least as obvious as rooting, and that when I crossed it I would be able to say, “Now I am no longer young”. But though the differences between unrooted youth and rooted adult are obvious, the difference between relatively young adults and old adults are not so at all. We slowly grow larger, and wiser, and less active, and communicate more slowly and deliberately. But at every point in my long, long life when I have considered the issue, there were some adults in the community who were younger than I, and others older; and though I can now definitively state “I am very old” without fear of contradiction, I cannot tell you at which point in my many millions of years I crossed over into that territory.
If I were pressed to choose such a line, I reckon it would have to be when I awoke from my first hibernation. The young are far too busy and energetic for such pastimes; they have so much to see and do and learn and think about, so many worlds to explore, so many mysteries to solve and wonders to marvel at, that the notion of spending a few thousand years asleep is quite beyond their comprehension. Moreover, it isn’t even possible to enter such a state without putting down roots, and few who do that ever get around to pulling them up again without mighty provocation. And yet there is no set age at which one must root, nor any determinate length before hibernation; I’ve awoken to find individuals who were not yet sprouted when I fell asleep securely rooted within sensory range when I again became conscious, and heard news of others from my own season who were still flitting about the cosmos long after I had settled down to spawn. And while I took my first hibernation some fifty thousand years after rooting, I’ve known others to go for hundreds of thousands before seeking the peace of slumber. But when one awakens from that first deep, long sleep, one soon finds oneself the center of attention, pressed on all sides by eager, yet reverent queries from young ones enthralled by the miracle of actually being able to converse with a time-traveler just arrived from an epoch before they even existed. Sometimes they actually want to touch, reaching out their tendrils in awe as if they could absorb the knowledge of a bygone era by osmosis. And that experience of being a stranger in one’s own community, of being treated like a living oracle, like a weird visitor back from the underworld with divine wisdom to share…that, I think, is the experience which defines the old.
I remember the first time I as a green youth conversed with such an individual, one of the very first settlers on this world, who arrived so long ago the gentle hills to the south of that land had then been a jagged range of mighty crags, appealing to the romantic sense of a youngster who had journeyed across vast gulfs of space and visited hundreds of worlds in search of just such a wild, beautiful place to settle. I listened almost in disbelief as we were told that at that time there was a clear demarcation of night and day, and the myriad stars were clearly visible in the sky when the world had turned so that the then-younger sun no longer was. I was frightened by the depth of the abysses this most ancient of elders had crossed; I myself had always been a homebody, content with the occasional short foray out into space, never going far enough that my native sun was not clearly larger and brighter than the other stars. And so, perhaps foolishly, I used the narrative as justification for my decision to remain on this world, to root and spawn here and never face the dangers of the vast unknown which swallows up so many wanderers before they find a place to call home. If this world was so beautiful and clement that it had won the loyalty of so courageous an explorer, so perfect that it stood out among multitudes, what were the chances I would find its like before being lost forever or destroyed by one of the countless dangers of deep space? Very low, I thought, and so I lingered there, learning all I could from that elder and many others, conversing with visitors and reaching outward with my mind to hear the faint songs of other spheres echoing against our shores from across the fathomless void. Eventually my teacher passed again into hibernation, and I set out to find the perfect spot in which to spend the rest of my years.
I was not in a hurry; I flew slowly from pole to pole, lazily taking in the terrain below, until at long last I had returned to the place where the ancient one slept. And then I carefully considered my observations, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each memorable locale, until I at last decided upon the one in which I still reside all these long ages later. At that time I was alone here, and the nearest other was at the outer limit of comfortable communication; all who reside in the area now are my descendants, except for a few who settled from elsewhere. I have hibernated so many times I long ago lost count; after one of those, perhaps thirty or forty million years ago, I awoke to the news that my ancient teacher was gone, drowned mercifully in sleep when that land had been swallowed up by the sea in a mighty earthquake. Some say that I am now the eldest resident of this world, and I can well believe that is so; it has been a very long time since I conversed with anyone who can recall the time before I rooted, nor even received word of any others of my season who still reside elsewhere. Even beings as long-lived as ourselves must eventually succumb to misfortune as my teacher did; given long enough, even the most unlikely event becomes a certainty. And though my aversion to risk has kept me alive far longer than most, my time also must come at last.
I do not believe it will be a great deal longer; though worlds and suns are considerably longer-lived than we, they too must eventually perish in the fullness of time. The conditions on this once-perfect world are no longer what they were; it has grown distinctly hotter and drier, and my raiment, matching the sun, is far redder than the images in my oldest recollections. The population has aged remarkably, and no young have sprouted here in a very long time; the only mobile individuals are the occasional visitors from elsewhere, and even many of the younger adults have undertaken the monumental task of de-rooting and shedding enough mass to undertake the migration to some younger orb. But I shall not be joining them; I am far too tired, far too massive, and far too feeble to even contemplate such a tremendous effort, and my roots are so inextricably intertwined with the soil not even I can guess how far they go. I sprouted on this world, and came of age here, and spawned here, and grew old along with it, and I am content to perish with it as well; as the songs and stories and teachings of the ancient one have lived in me far beyond the physical existence of their source, so will mine live on in countless students long after I myself am gone. At long last I will explore the great unknown I have shunned since my youth; after ages of daylight and an eon of twilight, I am no longer afraid to face the dark.
Frozen Smoke
Posted in Current Events, History, Philosophy, tagged animals, Catholicism, Day of the Dead, France, paganism on April 19, 2019| 8 Comments »
Readers who follow me on Twitter may have noticed that I had very little to say about the news that Notre Dame de Paris was heavily damaged by fire this week. I equally ignored those lamenting the loss of an architectural masterpiece, those using the tragedy as an excuse to pontificate about the many sins of the Catholic Church, those failing to comprehend why there was no anguish when recent and unsophisticated buildings used as churches burned down, and those complaining that the destruction of other medieval architectural gems not located in the exact center of one of the greatest cities of the West was not publicized by Western media. In fact, the only comment I made on it was to tweet that this article in The Onion was the only one I had seen that approximated my feelings on the matter. Though I agree that the building is gorgeous and understand the sense of loss, and I find rejoicing in the destruction of an artwork to be an act of incredibly bad taste, I also understand what many others are choosing to ignore: that no matter what is done to restore the cathedral, it will eventually burn down again or succumb to some other disaster. And the same is true of the Eiffel Tower, the Tower of London, the Empire State Building, the Sydney Opera House, the Taj Mahal, St. Basil’s and every other building in the world. Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, only one is still standing and it, too, will eventually crumble, as will every building in every city on Earth. In Oklahoma, my ranch was situated on the top of what was a mountain a hundred million years ago, and the very shape of the continents has changed dramatically in that time. Similarly, people wring their hands and moan lugubriously about the extinction of animal species, despite the fact that a species is nothing more than a temporary configuration of genes; it is as permanent as a sand dune, albeit on a much longer time scale, and we can no more “save” a species than we could freeze the column of smoke from a burning cathedral into some interesting or beautiful shape. As I remind my readers every November 1st, all things must pass, and although we may lament those which happen to pass in the flickering moment we exist upon the Earth, they are no more or less mortal than those which have already passed before we were here to see them, or those which will pass in the uncountable eons after we ourselves are gone.
Eternity
Posted in History, Philosophy, tagged Day of the Dead, ethics, psychology, Thanatopsis on May 7, 2018| 8 Comments »
Regular readers know that I am not afraid of death, and in fact consider it a positive good. And so, though I understand why people might want to have a little extra time on this plane, I can’t understand ruining the quality of the whole merely to drag the end out for a few extra years. Nor do I understand the obsession with or demonization of a natural process; all things die, including nations, species, worlds, suns and even the observable universe itself. Furthermore, the idea that extending human life would also extend productive life is science fiction; even now people tend to “run out of steam” over time, and even though people in developed countries live longer on average than they once did, there’s no evidence that canalization of the brain takes place any later than it did in ancient times. What that means is, if you like working your arse off to support the decades-long retirements of a bunch of old dinosaurs whose cognitive norms formed a generation before you were born, just imagine how much you’d love it right now if 90% of the population were born before the Second World War, and a sizeable fraction of the people voting on stuff like sexual rights came of age in an era when it was still considered OK for humans to actually, legally own other humans. The current rulers of our world were mostly born in the 40s-60s, and their ideas provide ample proof of that; imagine how it would be if most of them had been born in the 19th century.
Even if you believe in souls (as I do), you have to recognize that most of the popular ideas about such life-forces (such as the belief that they are somehow connected to rotting corpses after death) are absurd, childish and impossible. There is no such thing as changelessness; there are only differing rates of change. The idea of a changeless entity existing literally forever is utterly ridiculous, and frankly, I think people who imagine they want to live forever – even as a disembodied soul – have not done much thinking about what eternity actually looks like. Compared to Eternity, the 15-billion year life of the current observable universe is exactly the same as Planck time. I don’t mean similar; I mean exactly the same. Indistinguishable. 15 billion years, or 15 trillion, or 15 googols of years (that’s 150,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000), or 15 googolplexes of years, are all exactly the same compared to Eternity. Eternity is an infinite amount of time, which means any finite number, no matter how incomprehensibly large, is exactly as insignificant in comparison to that as the tiniest number one can define. Eternal life wouldn’t be a gift; it would be a horror literally beyond imagining.
In the News (#817)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged activism, agency denial, China, cops, Cops and Robbers, Day of the Dead, dehumanization, dirty, Do As I Say, Florida, Indonesia, Ireland, Laura Lee & Sex Work Stigma, Malaysia, Negative Secondary Effects, New York, pathologization of males, politicians, rape, RIP Laura Lee, sex rays, South Africa, Standard Operating Procedure, streetwalkers, stripping, To Molest and Rape, underage, United Kingdom, video, Where Are the Protests? on March 4, 2018| 2 Comments »
[Prohibitionists] would rather see [sex workers]…dead than listen to what we have to say. – Bristol Sex Workers Collective
Middle-class American women don’t give a shit about this, because it doesn’t involve sex:
Almost 500 people…gathered…for a candlelight vigil…for victims of human trafficking…they also demanded justice and voiced outrage over…the death of Adelina Lisao, a domestic worker in Penang, reportedly following torture by her employer…Lisao…died on February 11 of multiple organ failure just a day after being rescued by a migrant workers’ protection group. She reportedly faced torture for more than a month and was forced to sleep outside with her employers’ dog…[Eni Lestari of the International Migrants Alliance] said…“Both Malaysia and Indonesia…have to recognise us as workers”…she said banning the export of Indonesian workers to Malaysia would not solve the problem. “In fact, it makes it worse. Because of the poverty, people are forced to use illegal channels. It increases the smuggling and trafficking of people”…
In which poor women trying to earn a living are described as “ridiculous”:
…While most residents have already retreated to their beds for the night, [politician Martin] Meyer, together with about a dozen other residents, has taken to the streets of Morningside…Donning bright reflective vests the group, made up largely of [white men], have decided it’s time to “take back the streets”. They have formed a street patrol to try to “deter or hinder” [mostly black sex workers] in the area, which, they all agree, are out of control…Percival Gumede, who’s lived on Lilian Ngoyi Road for eight years, calls the…prostitutes “ridiculous…It’s like a cancer that’s eating at our society, right in the suburbs”…Phil Tribe…says he worries about property values, and is not certain whether to invest more into upgrading his home…Ariff Saib [said]…“We want the riff-raff out of the area”…
When you see quotes like this from South Africans, it becomes more clear how apartheid happened.
Less chauvinistic question: “Why don’t Western funerals include strippers?”
…China renewed a clampdown on strippers performing at funerals, wedding and temples, calling it “obscene and vulgar”…It’s just the latest in a series of campaigns over the years by the Chinese government to end the practice of funeral strippers [which originated in Taiwan]. China’s Ministry of Culture has deemed such performances “uncivilised” and announced that anyone who hires a stripper to entice people to a funeral will be “severely punished”…The Ministry of Culture’s new campaign will target in particular the Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu and Hebei provinces. The government has also set up a hotline for the public to report any “funeral misdeeds” in exchange for a monetary reward…
I’m sure the practice’s origin in a place that’s a continual embarrassment for Beijing has nothing to do with this.
These “objections” are hilariously petulant:
…the owner of both Central Chambers and Urban Tiger strip clubs has applied to renew its Sexual Entertainment Venue (SEV) licences with Bristol City Council. Several [prohibitionist] groups want Bristol City Council to reject the applications on…grounds [such as]…“I am unable to avoid seeing Urban Tiger whenever I go to the city centre area…it is not appropriate to have strip clubs…close to areas used by families with young children.” [And]…“Central Chambers promotes harmful attitudes towards women…This is not because it is a sex-related business”…women who work at the club [correctly] say these objections come from a small group of closed minded “so called feminists” and they should not be punished for choosing to do a job which some find distasteful…[one] dancer…said the flexible hours allow her to care for her son and she is sick of being thought of as a “victim of degradation” or “some sort of social deviant”…
Do As I Say, Not As I Do (#783)
Abusive men often try to gaslight their victims, but this cop’s trying to gaslight other cops:
A Bronx cop accused of having sex with a 15-year-old prostitute refused to admit that he knew his victim — even when he was shown pictures of the two of them in bed together…Raul Olmeda wouldn’t admit that he was the man…in the…photos…[even though they] were found on his computer and cellphone…The department trial will determine if he should get kicked off the force. Rape allegations for having sex with the minor, identified in court only as SG, will be adjudicated in…criminal court at a later date. Advocate Anna Krutaya said Olmeda…claimed he couldn’t identify the furniture in his own home when confronted with the photos, which were taken in his bedroom and living room. Yet, when cops executed a search warrant at his address, the furniture in the photos was inside…Olmeda made his bold denials after he was confronted with an audio file of a recording [from his computer] where[i]n he tells SG to “lay low” because Internal Affairs was investigating him. “Technically you are a minor,” Olmeda told the teen on the recording, according to Krutaya…
Yeah, a 15-year-old is “technically” a minor. And we all know how cops hate “technicalities”.
Standard Operating Procedure (#814)
Hey NGOs: About 70% of sex workers’ clients are married, and most have kids. Pleasant dreams.
Jan Weuts, a humanitarian adviser at Caritas Belgium, says the NGO has a way to avoid its staff engaging with sex workers in developing countries. “Ninety percent of our representatives in the field nowadays are women or couples…we go for relatively young women, or men in a stable family situation…you make an analysis, and one of the analyses is ‘how will this person behave in an environment where there is a lot of prostitution?’”…A spokesperson for Caritas Belgium confirmed this…“it kind of guarantees that there is more stability and you don’t have a bunch of guys with a lot of testerone [sic] living together in a compound”…
This will continue as long as cops have power over peaceful individuals:
…The case looked weak, Detective Michel Toro of the Miami Police Department warned M.B. in a pair of text messages on Feb. 4, 2016, five days after he’d taken her statement accusing her ex-fiancé of sexual assault. Then, his tone shifted. “Well I can’t lie, your [sic] such a beautiful and attractive woman…I just wanted to let u [sic] know that I’m someone u [sic] could trust”…[t]he text…[was] the first of many…increasingly suggestive messages…Three days later, shortly after midnight, Toro showed up outside M.B.’s apartment after texting that he wanted to see her…M.B. went outside to sit in his unmarked squad car, and…Toro made his move, leaning over to kiss her and eventually putting his finger inside of her. She was shaking in fear, so much so that Toro stopped and asked if he’d done anything wrong, M.B. said, but she was afraid to tell him to stop…[he forced] two more sexual encounters over the next nine days…during his shift in the middle of the night wearing a suit, with his radio, gun, and badge still on his belt, she said. M.B. couldn’t ignore him, given his role in investigating her case, but she felt increasingly stuck…So on Feb. 27, four weeks after she’d reported being raped, M.B. told police that Toro pressured her into a sexual relationship…Toro wasn’t charged with a crime. He wasn’t even fired. Instead, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office let Toro resign. M.B.’s ex-fiancé also wasn’t charged. By the time prosecutors informed M.B. about the dismissed cases, she was living in a homeless shelter…35 states have loopholes that allow cops to evade sexual assault convictions by claiming that a..[rape] was consensual. Florida isn’t one of them…but it does not specifically say that a [cop] is forbidden from having sex with a witness or an alleged victim in a case they’re investigating — another major loophole that exists in all 50 states…
Laura Lee, Sex Work Stigma, and the Limits of #MeToo
Scientist and author Dr Brooke Magnanti…alleges Hot Press journalist Olaf Tyaransen drugged, sexually assaulted and beat the late Dublin-born sex workers’ rights campaigner Laura Lee. Mr Tyaransen, who denies the allegations and has promised unspecified legal redress, interviewed Ms Lee at a Dublin hotel in October 2014 for Hot Press magazine, where he serves as a staff writer…Hot Press said…Tyaransen would be stepping down from the magazine by “mutual agreement” while “he deals with these allegations”…Tyaransen sent us the following statement: “It’s completely untrue. I will be taking legal action”…
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