If you can do it to them, you can do it to any of us. – Rabbi William Gershon
A Whore in Church
Matthew 21:31 seems pretty straightforward to me:
Professionally, I now openly represent myself as a Christian dominatrix who uses Christian rituals to heal the connection between sexuality and spirit. My clients often come to me because I work specifically with the deconditioning of the religious wound that has caused harmful beliefs around their sexuality…Out of the shadow of shame, they are no longer “wicked” or “evil”― they are holy…Jesus…spen[t] time with and perform[ed] miracles for prostitutes…Jesus never cast anyone out, and he never denied anyone the miracles, signs and wonders that flowed through him; he wanted everyone to have a personal relationship with God, free from the constraints of organized religion. So even though many Christians would view me as “sinful” and even undeserving of a relationship with God,
I reject that view, because I know Jesus loves me and wants the best for my life…
Creepy Coppers
[An Illinois cop named Eli Barthel] has been arrested for child pornography offenses…after [he was caught in an] FBI [trap]…
Welcome to the Future (#1265)
New forms of intrusive surveillance are always justified as “safety”:
…[moral imbeciles] have come up with…an electronic tattoo, stuck to the forehead …[to spy on the moods of] pilots, healthcare workers and other professions where managing mental workload is crucial to preventing catastrophes…[by giving bosses] “some warning and alert so that they can [be relieved]…of [duty],” said Dr Nanshu Lu, an author of the research…[ignor]ing the [obvious fact that data from such a] device [would be compiled in]…workers[‘ files and used to judge their performance]…Lu and colleagues describe how using questionnaires to investigate mental workload is problematic, not least as people are poor at objectively judging [whether they should be demoted or fired]…the “e-tattoo” is a lightweight, flexible, wireless device [constantly]…attached to the forehead [during work hours to]…detect…brain activity…and…eye movements…[allowing human beings to be monitored by] a machine-learning algorithm [as though they were machines themselves]…
Click on the subtitle to see the “demoralizing, humiliating, and toxic” abuses already possible with existing employee-monitoring technology.
Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1391)
This would be hilarious if it were their own money these idiots were throwing away:
The [US] Senate is considering a fentanyl exposure bill that would fund “containment devices”…TruBLOC LLC, a company that manufactures the type of…devices in question, sells 1.5-ounce canisters as a set of 12 for $359.40, or as a set of 48 for $1,437.60…TruBLOC [claims]…“Inhalation is the main route of exposure”…[which] would [not be entirely wrong] if the term were being used to refer to sniffing or snorting fentanyl, but in this context the term is describing passive inhalation — i.e. breathing air while standing somewhere in the vicinity of fentanyl…a…video [lies that]…“Small amounts of opioids can kill an officer”….then shows the gloved hands of a…paid actor awkwardly peeling the orange residue off the seat in a manner that strongly recalls attempting to peel off sour candy that’s melted. The hands remain gloved, despite the fact that the threat that did not exist to begin with has been contained…
Virtual Imperialism (#1472)
As I’ve explained under this tag before, Beijing’s campaign to silence Chinese people outside China has become far more aggressive. Rolling Stone published an excerpt from Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized, a new book detailing Chinese surveillance, harassment, intimidation, and sometimes abduction or assassination of activists who flee China. The excerpt tells the story of Serikzhan Bilash, an ethnic Kazakh human rights activist who was pursued by Chinese agents from Xinjiang to Almaty and Astana in Kazakhstan, then to Istanbul, and eventually to Washington DC and New York, always trying to terrorize him into shutting up and dismantling his organization, Atazhurt. If you don’t know about the extent of China’s terrorism of expatriates and its willingness to violate other countries’ sovereignty, you really should read it in its entirety.
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#1524)
Much more of this, please:
An isolated tribe in the Amazon…[has sued] The New York Times over [yellow journalism] in the newspaper [claim]ing their people’s recent access to the internet…[has led to] members of the tribe…develop[ing] pornography addictions [even though there is no such thing]. The Marubo tribe…filed the defamation lawsuit…seeking $180 million in damages…[over the paper’s] “portray[al of] the Marubo people as a community unable to handle basic exposure to the internet, [and pretending]…that their youth had [developed narcissistic personality disorder as a result]”…After the piece was published, other outlets, including TMZ and Yahoo!, published their own versions of the [accusations], which in many cases…exaggerate the [already-dishonest] claims [even further]. That prompted The Times to run a[n attempt at a semi-retraction en]titled “No, A Remote Amazon Tribe Did Not Get Addicted to Porn”…But it wasn’t enough. The Marubo [correctly point out] that the original statements were “inflammatory” and conveyed that the tribe “had descended into moral and social decline as a direct result of internet access”…
Business Opportunity (#1527)
This sort of NIMBY bullshit is exactly why there are so many homeless people in the first place:
…the town of Toms River, New Jersey is planning to use eminent domain to condemn a church, raze it, and build a park and pickleball courts on the spot. The planned condemnation [is obviously] motivated by a desire to prevent the church from opening a small homeless shelter on part of its…11 acres of land…the church, which was founded in 1865…[rents space to] an affordable housing nonprofit…[which] asked to create a small homeless shelter [but] the mayor [insists pickleball is more important than housing the needy because local NIMBYs said so]…the town’s interfaith council [are] united in their opposition to the [scam]…and…there is substantial public opposition…[so] the condemnation…will likely be challenged in court under the state and federal constitutions…
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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Case in point, this recent tweet attacking a Trump talking point, which quotes a Washington Post story whose headline intentionally attempts to mislead readers about the point’s origin. “300,000 missing children” is indeed a “ginned-up figure”, but it isn’t from “the 2024 campaign”. It’s from a shitty sociology paper from 2001 which was distorted and quoted endlessly by politicians and media, including the Post, for two decades to justify attacks on sex workers. The entire US political establishment from Bush II to Obama to Trump to Biden was happy to use these imaginary “300,000 children” as cudgels to attack female independence, young people’s autonomy, and immigration; to justify swollen police budgets and increased surveillance and censorship; and as an all-purpose excuse for state violence on every level from the municipal to the international. For 14 years, all any cop or politician had to do was vomit the phrase “sex trafficking”, accompanied by disgusting wanking fantasies, onto the upturned, open-mouthed faces of the moronic masses in order to get them to allow themselves to be violated and oppressed even further. Both “sides” of the kindergarten “political spectrum” participated equally in this evil fantasy, until it began to mutate into “QAnon” and Trumpists won control of it. Then and ONLY then did “progressives” and Democrats suddenly start calling this toxic narrative that they themselves built half of, a “right-wing conspiracy theory“. And now they’re trying to fight a monster of their own creation, a monster which has spawned the ICE atrocities you now see and the swelling tide of internet censorship. If you ever retweeted a stupid meme about 13-year-olds, donated to a “rescue” organization, watched panicmongering shows and movies about brave heroes “rescuing” vegetable-like “victims” from mustache-twirling “pimps”, or otherwise supported the panic, you are partly responsible for Trumpism. Look at the pogroms against migrants, the demolition of the internet, the wreckage of the US scientific and medical establishment, and the warmongering and rampant insanity spewing forth from Washington daily, and think to yourself, “And I helped!” Good job, America!
