Filed under: hookers, people from rhode island | Tags: crime, prostitution, rhode island, sadness
The anti-prostitution bill passed the Senate tonight. Here’s the Providence Journal story, and my (admittedly highly opinionated and angry) take. The governor will, I think, sign the bill tomorrow, and then it goes into effect immediately. That means no time for the women in the spas to find other jobs, or even look for them, mainly in a county pushing 14% unemployment and a real unemployment rate of over 21%. It also, of course, means a lot more rape and violence and women going to jail for non-violent crimes; the first offense is punishable by up to six months in prison. During the House committee meeting the other night, one Representative asked how much implementation would cost; nobody had checked. Later, that same Rep suggested job training, counseling and HIV risk education in lieu of jail time; he was told by the committee chairman that the state probably couldn’t afford that. But hey, they’re sure fixing that Asian spa problem! Right?
Filed under: design of a decade, lists, music | Tags: 2003, 50 cent, design of a decade, lil kim
[Onward with the good songs...]
8. Lil Kim featuring 50 Cent, Magic Stick
The early ’00s was the era of the hip-hop duet. Sean Paul and Tweet. Missy and Wyclef. Nivea and Jagged Edge. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.
But many a hip-hop duet was marred by the aggressive reinforcement of crappy gender stereotypes, particularly on female-fronted tracks where male guest rappers phoned in performances from some other studio in some other city. Tweet’s Oops (Oh My) is a great ode to self-love until Fabolous shows up and turns it into a song about facials. And Sacario’s dreary guest-rap transforms the spirit of Angie Martinez’s If I Could Go! from bouncy escapism to miserable self-delusion.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Willem Defoe’s penis was just too big for Antichrist, so they had to have a stunt cock. Willem Defoe is one of those actors I’ve always just assumed had a giant penis, actually. I’m not sure why.
The Catholic League thinks that the phrase “opposite-sex marriage” is offensive. “Marriage means one thing,” they say, “and attempts to make it a smorgasbord are pernicious.”
Speaking of loons, the Culture and Media Institute has spoken out against the ACT UP retrospective at Harvard. (I’m hoping to see the show this weekend.) “According to a Harvard Art Museum press release,” they say, “‘important and commemorative exhibition” “shows the critical intelligence that artists bring to bear when it comes to movements for social change.’ That, and filthy pictures.”
Oh, and the rich may eventually evolve into their own species.
Even when Ewan McGregor is looking really dorky he’s still a big dreamboat. I’m pretty excited about The Men Who Stare At Goats, by the way.
And the people who make that dumb French rugby calendar that the gays love so much may actually choose players based on player attractiveness. That’s what one fired coach says, anyway.
Filed under: hookers, people from rhode island | Tags: prostitution, rhode island, sadness
I testified at the State House last night against the proposed amendment to change the prostitution bill here in Rhode Island. I hadn’t been inside the building since a fifth-grade field trip, and it showed. I was overwhelmed. Clearly, visibly overwhelmed. As soon as I got up to speak my mouth dried up, I lost my voice, and all of a sudden I couldn’t read any of my own notes. I don’t know how I made it through, or if what I said made any sense. Either way, it didn’t make a difference. The bill passed the Judiciary Committee the way it is, and will be voted on by the full House tonight.
About twenty other people also testified. Signups to speak are first-come, first-served, but the first bunch were all people who supported it. The rep who introduced the bill, the governor’s office, the attorney general’s office, Citizens Against Trafficking (who are apparently up to three members now), and two people from the state police. The people who opposed the bill–at least the part of it that involves jail time for first offenders–included angry citizens (ie. me), the ACLU, a couple of lefty social organizations, a lawyer who defends spa workers, the Coalition Against Human Trafficking, and the local rape crisis center.
An amendment was offered by one rep to get rid of the jail time and replace it with counseling and HIV education and job training, but that got shot down by the others. The speaker said the state probably didn’t have enough money to offer job training (although it apparently does have enough money to pay for six months in prison for a first offense.) I don’t disagree with most of what you’re saying, one of them said. [I'm paraphrasing.] But we’ve all worked so hard on this compromise that it’s too late in the game to be changing anything. Why don’t we just pass this and maybe we can look at it again next year?
That kind of logic makes me sad. Very, very sad.
The Providence Journal article is here.
[UPDATE: RI Rep David Segal--who voted against the bill yesterday--has an article about everything up until two days ago on the Huffington Post now.]
[The House is talking about the proposed (and probably inevitable) prostitution criminalization today at 4. I'm very, very nervous, but if you're interested in supporting what few legislators aren't blindly committed to this terrible, terrible idea then you might want to come to Room 35 of the Rhode Island State House today at 4.]
Today:
fucking craigslist
tennessee milfs
nude pics josh zuckerman
girl stripping to missy elliot work it
best of celine dion mixtape
Yesterday:
donna m. hughes blackberry
pete hammond remix
the bukakke burger
knife “everything is terrible” remix video
kalomira sex with her boy friend
(more…)
Filed under: art, gay, heterosexuals, magazines, movies | Tags: advertising, afghanistan, cancer, cell phones, gay marriage, iraq, meat, monaco, montenegro, murder, nicole kidman, photography, prince albert, teenagers, the census, women
Sorry for the lack of a news post yesterday. I spent much of the day hungoverly traveling home from a wedding (almost reaching Boston before I noticed I was on the wrong highway) and then the rest of the day hanging out with the BF, who just got back from two weeks hanging out with porny people in Berlin.
This morning I was reading about the lawsuit that’s being brought against Prince Albert by his (alleged) former chief of intelligence. There are so many weird aspects to this and, because it’s the Grimaldi family, I find all of them fascinating. I mean, the British royals are really dull and unattractive, whereas the Monaco royals are all about glitz and glamor and sunny beaches and shady dealings and gambling. The British like fox hunting, and the Monegasque are Olympic bobsledders. Which one sounds better to you? Also, they’re called the Monegasque. (The spy, meanwhile, sounds pretty crazy himself, having been profiled by Salon in 2001 after he did some espionage work on behalf of Ringling Brothers.)
The Times of London also has this intriguing paragraph about his work:
[Robert Eringer, the spy] was particularly proud to have drawn agencies from other European mini-states into a “micro Europe” intelligence union. He claims he would regularly meet the spymasters of Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Andorra, San Marino and Malta for weekends of wine tasting when they would share information about money laundering and organised crime. They would also share jokes.
That’s amazing to me. Completely, wonderfully amazing. Even more amazing than the fact that all the articles are structuring this lawsuit as a sex tape scandal and not a crazy-in-every-way scandal.
But anyway. In other news…
Filed under: hookers, people from rhode island | Tags: insanity, prostitution, rhode island
If you’re following the prostitution situation in Rhode Island at all–and, I admit, I haven’t done a very good job of keeping you updated lately–you’ll want to read this. It’s about the alleged anti-trafficking organization pushing the bill, and the fact they clearly have no interest in things like facts or truth or human trafficking. Since the state’s real anti-trafficking coalition, the state chapter of the National Organization for Women, and the Students Against Human Trafficking groups aren’t supporting the bills, it ought to make legislators stop and wonder. (Probably it won’t. But it should.)
Anyway, the anti-prostitution bill comes before the state legislature late next week. There’s public hearings in the House on Tuesday and the Senate on Wednesday. I haven’t actually been inside the State House since a field trip when I was ten, so I’m not sure what happens, or how, or where, but Tara at the Happy Endings? blog probably does.
I don’t know if you saw my other post, but the Church of Sweden approved gay marriage yesterday. As soon as November 1, same-sex Lutheran couples will be able to walk down the aisle and get hitched. The best coverage of the decision is on the English-language Swedish news site The Local, but even better than that is one comment that someone left there:
12:40 October 22, 2009 by TexrussoWell, I think if Jesus was born in the 21st century and living our time, he would have approved Gay marriage as Jesus is a nice guy. Also if St. peters and all of Jesus appostles were living in our time, they would have approved gay marriage. Jesus for example would have shaved his beard and had a clean hair cut. Jesus would have had a website for example www.jesus.com and he would have propably wore Suits for his presentations and probably own a laptop and use a wicked car for mobility.
I’m still trudging, slowly, through John Rechy’s memoir About My Life And The Kept Woman. It’s not that it’s bad–it’s not–but I’m just not reading very much lately. Mainly it’s because I’m online sixteen hours a day (I only woke up three hours ago and this is my sixth blog post) and when I’m not in front of the laptop I have no attention span.
But anyway, I just got up to the part where Rechy befriends Christopher Isherwood at a dinner party. Which is something of a coincidence, since tonight I too plan to be at a dinner party with a wonderful writer. Well, a potluck, but that still counts, I think. (more…)
Filed under: design of a decade, lists, music | Tags: 2003, design of a decade, hey ya, outkast
[At this rate, I'll only finish my recap before the end of the year if I do one of these a day. Ha!]
9. Outkast, Hey Ya!
The best thing about Andre 3000′s bouncy Hey Ya is, I think, the fact that it has so many different parts. Like pop classics going back to Reach Out In The Darkness and Rock Lobster, Hey Ya throws out something new every twenty seconds or so, and every new part is crazier than the crazy thing that came before it. To laziily quote myself, “It goes from the Beatly opening to the two-word chorus (which sounds, for some reason I can’t figure out, like the Moody Blues’ Your Wildest Dreams), to the sad break-up part, to the not-wanting-to-meet-your-Daddy part, to the call-and-response part. And then there’s the shaking it like a Poloroid picture part, which might actually get kind of annoying except that it’s so random.* And then the chorus again. All that’s missing are the narwhal noises.”
