Filed under: hookers, people from rhode island | Tags: prostitution, rhode island, the law
The Senate passed the bill.
Now, either Paul Jabour’s bill (which fines prostitutes and their clients equally) needs to pass the House, or Joanne Giannini’s bill (which is theoretically more lenient to victimized women) needs to pass the Senate. Or they can come up with some sort of compromise. Which may or may not happen, given Jabour’s tone in the Journal article: “Representative Giannini has done a tremendous amount of work on this,” Jabour said Thursday. “If she wants something passed, I want Joanne to consider amending her bill.”
This bill wasn’t even on the Senate’s calendar yesterday. Another one, aimed at human trafficking, was supposed to be voted on. That bill was sponsored by Rhoda Perry, who opposed the anti-prostitution bill until yesterday but ended up voting for it anyway. I have no idea whether her bill was voted on, or what the changes were that led her to change her mind.
I’ll let you know more as things develop, although I’ve got an article due today for someone else and at 11:30 I have a press conference to go to. So we’ll see.
A potentially very alarming blog comment about tonight’s anti-trafficking legislation:
“It just passed, but the -entire- text of the law was replaced with different wording that seems odd to me, sentences are dramatically reduced, and the wording is possibly unenforceable. Is it -legal- to require STD testing of criminals? I was unaware that people forfeit their bodies to the state unless they’re incarcerated.”
I wasn’t there, unfortunately, so this is all I know right now.
It’s kind of a sad day for celebrity news, with Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both dying. But on a brighter note, director Paul Morrissey seems to be doing better after being hit by a U-Haul truck the other day. Though the internet is almost completely devoid of information on this subject, Bruce LaBruce’s Twitter reports that the filmmaker is doing better and isn’t, as previously reported, brain-dead.
According to the website contactmusic.com–I don’t know either–the seventy-one year old director of two of my favorite films–Flesh and Blood For Dracula–was more concerned about his accident upsetting the health of his ninety-six year old mother. Morrissey was a regular at Warhol’s Factory, despite the fact that he was straight-edge and not super-gay. I have no idea why he stuck around, but his work with Warhol, especially Trash, is (sometimes) really beautiful.
[image: Joe D'Allessandro in a still from Flesh]
Filed under: hookers, people from rhode island | Tags: prostitution, rhode island, taiwan
Tonight the Rhode Island senate is going to be voting on the anti-prostitution bill. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to pass, which is a good thing, and it also doesn’t seem like people are even that interested; the Providence Journal article about the senate hearings mentioned that six of the ten senators on the committee didn’t even stay to hear all the testimony.
That didn’t stop URI professor Donna Hughes from calling the event a circus, though. In an editorial published yesterday she describes the “outrageous appearance” of people who didn’t support the bill, mentioning, basically, that one had tattoos and the others were Asian (!). Megan from Oh Megan–the one with the tattoos pictured above–responded with a letter that’ll be published in tomorrow’s Journal:
Putting quotation marks around my profession was insulting. And yes, it is not “made up” that I am a contributor to the sex-workers magazine $pread. Is it so shocking that sex-workers can read?
It’s true, Hughes does like to use quotation marks, even referring to sex in her editorial as “it.” If she were my grandmother, that would make sense and be fine, but this woman teaches women’s studies and was presumably raised at some point after 1930. You’d think her views of sex would be a little less spinsterish. But no. At least the editorial has a bright side, in that she’s pessimistic about the bill actually passing.
In other news, Taiwan today (or yesterday, I guess, or maybe tomorrow–I don’t understand time zones) opted to decriminalize prostitution, thanks to sex workers advocating for their own rights.
A Connecticut news team reported on a story about the Manifest Glory Ministry, a Bridgeport Church that perfomed a gay exorcism and then put it on YouTube. It’s pretty grim, despite the usual hilarity/awkwardness about local television news using YouTube as source material.
It’s kind of easy to forget that stuff like this happens in New England and not just in the rural South. (I don’t mean that in an anti-South way. It’s just that this kind of zealotry and homophobia is completely foreign to me.)
I went to the Eagle last night to see Team Robespierre and the Chinese Stars. Team Robespierre are awesome live, despite the fact that their recorded output sounds like a Brooklyn-y version of They Might Be Giants. In a live setting, the singer’s voice isn’t nearly so grating and the melodies are a lot more memorable. Highly recommended, if they come to your town. Also, the drummer is wicked hot.
The Chinese Stars are probably–and have been for a while now, probably–my favorite local band, and they were awesome as well. Formed a while ago now from the ruins of Arab On Radar and Six Finger Satellite, they’ve managed to pull off the noisy hipster dance-punk thing a lot better than most people who go that route, probably because they’re a little older and not so American Apparel-oriented. (Although the show was attended by a number of girls wearing glasses three times the size of their head. What the hell.)
[FYI: In the last five days I've put together an art installation, hosted an opening, DJed a wedding and held two fundraisers. I'm beat. But regular posting will resume soon.]
Today
lylloo website
coed hookers video
muppets porn
lady gaga huh muffin
poke comin through on you
Yesterday
fred phelps bitchburger
nina hartley at home
karen o make up
song called return of the man oh my god
martha burger naket pics
terry richardson topless group
henrik zetterberg and his girlfriend
italo gay porno (more…)
Filed under: gay, hookers, lists, movies, music, not hot, people from rhode island | Tags: abortion, amber rhea, bloc party, blogs, geneology, hiv, hoaxes, mcsweeney's, michelle rhee, movies, porn, the 700 club, the gays, timbaland
Former Rhode Island senator/current gubernatorial candidate Lincoln Chafee came out in support of gay marriage this week, with an editorial in New England gay rag Bay Windows.
Speaking of Rhode Island, our ridiculous governor made an appearance on The 700 Club the other day.
The Washington Post had a pretty fascinating report on Michelle Rhee, who heads the DC school system. (Not particularly relevant to this blog, but worth the five-page read nonetheless.) The most disturbing part of the story, I think, is the part about how lots of kids can’t graduate each year because bureaucratic nonsense prevents them from getting the credits they need.
Audacia Ray guest-posted on Feministing about the HIV scare in the porn world.
Amber Rhea is done, uh, being.
Timbaland’s getting sued for unauthorized sampling.
McSweeney’s is looking for new columnists.
Bloc Party just announced a new non-album single, which will be out in August.
Al Capone’s possibly-grandson has a website that came across my path last week. I don’t even remember how.
Anti-abortion website April’s Mom was, it turns out, a hoax. Allegedly created by a woman pregnant with a terminally ill child, social worker Becca Beushausen eventually birthed a doll. In a fit of crazy, Beushausen says that the had originally created the site only for a few of her friends. Because, I don’t know, who doesn’t think it’s a lot of fun when their friends make websites devoted to their imaginary terminally ill fetuses?
Unreality came out with a list of the ten most polarizing movies of the last decade. The list is all Hollywood, so Demonlover and Irreversible aren’t on there. I’m pro-Eyes Wide Shut and anti-Moulin Rouge, for what it’s worth.
David Archuleta’s dad was caught up in a sting at the Queens of Reiki massage parlor in Utah this past January.
Finally, if you’re looking for something else to follow on Tumblr, I really like Nashville Needs More Metaphors.
Superqueer Art Happening opens tonight, you hear! E-mail yurigellerbentme@gmail.com if you don’t know where to go. It’s 6-9 tonight, and then I’m keeping it open all next week (by appointment, thought it’s closed for sure on Sunday and Monday.) I’m so excited!
It will be infinitely better than whatever Pride-related activities you might have had planned for tonight, though your odds of getting laid/buying drugs are probably slightly lower at the art show. Although really, who am I to say who you’ll meet here?
Is this an insanely funny person or someone just trying to score a book deal? Who knows, really, but I totally love Keggers Of Yore, which was just brought to my attention by sofresh.
In other news, I’m very tired, but made the mistake of making my nightcap a little too strong. Now I’m positively giddy and listening to old Jennifer Lopez singles. I completely forgot about the amazingly awesome smorgasbord of cheese that is Let’s Get Loud. It’s kind of a masterpiece, in its way. That, or I’m drunker than I thought…
