Lorde

This is great.

And below Lorde at 12 singing โ€œUse Somebodyโ€ (audio only). Overnight successes? Yeah, thereโ€™s no such thing. Lorde was already a pro then. She was joining bands of her own accord (parents not pushing her as is the usual case) at ~10. Her precocity reminds me of myself, but she is way more talented than I am.

It also shows her present singing is very much a style (and one that I like). She has superb vocal control and a large range.

D

Now that Iโ€™ve realized that systemd is just a way for Red Hat to take over control of Linux indirectly (since itโ€™s impossible to unseat Torvalds at this time), all makes a lot more sense.

Guess itโ€™s a good thing Iโ€™m getting that Red Hat cert.

It seems

It seems most peopleโ€™s attitudes to prostitution and sex work stem from if they have any wolf_3_25-625x321visceral distaste for the work and/or sex. (Usually sex, Iโ€™d guess.)

It never seems to have a bit to do with the evidence, what the women (and some men) involved say, or what would actually help or even harm them.

I know, people hate anecdotes, but a close friend of mine when I was in the army had been a sex worker about a decade before I met her, and she was not the least regretful about what sheโ€™d done and in fact missed a lot of it โ€“ most specifically not having a 9-5 job.

Sheโ€™d used the money she made to attend the University of Florida and to become a nurse practitioner. The last time I heard from her, she was making somewhere north of 100,000 a year, and that was back in the late 1990s.

She told me that sheโ€™d never been able to afford that degree without the work she did stripping and occasionally escorting.

So even though it shouldnโ€™t be necessary, knowing someone pretty closely who had been a sex worker really served to make me re-evaluate a lot of the propaganda Iโ€™d heard about how evil it all was.

martin_goold__the_pool_of_london__i__pastel__43x57cm__1273582440I know, most people who hate sex work and sex workers will talk about how all thatโ€™s just anecdotal, these women who like the work donโ€™t exist because no one actually likes sex work, blah blah blah, but no one likes working at fucking McDonaldโ€™s either, or Wal-Mart, so why the obsession with shaming and belittling sex workers alone? Why not go ahead with your bad selves and shame Wal-Mart workers, too?

Oh yeah, itโ€™s sex phobia. Thatโ€™s all it is.

I can assure you that this person did exist. Her name was Mary and because I was getting into photography in a big way then (and I was training to be a photojournalist) I have hundreds of photos of her โ€“ because she was a willing and enthusiastic subject and also very lovely.

Thanks, Mary, wherever you are now for making me appear to be a better photographer than I was! You got me an A on many assignments in those classes.