It all began to go wrong when I started writing a post for Maggie's Friday the 13th call for support, about how the sex work community on Twitter was responding to the one-two punch of FOSTA/SESTA and the Backpage raid. The post needed a lot embedded tweets from sex workers, and while I was reviewing the post I noticed something odd: My blog was not displaying the tweets … [Read more...] about Headway Themes, WTF?
The DOJ Performs As Expected on Backpage
On Friday there was a big news splash about the Department of Justice coming down hard on Backpage.com executives for their involvement with child sex trafficking. The Backpage.com site was taken down, and there were reports and rumors of seizures, searches, arrests, and a 93-count indictment. We didn't get to find out much more, because despite all the publicity, the … [Read more...] about The DOJ Performs As Expected on Backpage
You Bastards! You Killed Backpage!
Well, it looks like the bastards finally took down backpage.com.I hate these website confiscation notices. The agencies involved always plaster their logos all over the damned thing, like they're so proud of how they wrecked someone's business, like a bunch of dogs pissing all over to mark their territory. It makes me sick.The reaction from sex workers on Twitter is … [Read more...] about You Bastards! You Killed Backpage!
Cultural Literacy With Darmok and Jalad
My favorite source of ranty things to blog about, Jack Marshall, has a post up about that great bugaboo of conservative pundits, our lack of cultural literacy, and I want to rant about it, because just the phrase "cultural literacy" makes my skin itch.I blame it on early childhood exposure to the writings of Allan Bloom, who for some reason felt it necessary to write … [Read more...] about Cultural Literacy With Darmok and Jalad
Does Safer Heroin Use Mean More Heroin Use?
Megan McArdle is one of my favorite columnists, and she has a new gig over at the Washington Post, where she recently wrote an article about a fascinating just-released economics working paper that caught my eye. The authors, Jennifer Doleac and Anita Mukherjee, studied how the opioid addict population has responded to the drug naloxone becoming more readily … [Read more...] about Does Safer Heroin Use Mean More Heroin Use?