Thoughts on “The People’s Prostitutes”

Today a man was arrested in connection with the string of murders in the little town of Ipswich.  Over the past few weeks, five prositites have turned up murdered, naked, around the town, and the serial killer dubbed the “Suffolk Strangler.”  Today, 37 year old ex-police officer Tom Stephens was arrested, although as of the writing of this article it seemed unclear whether he was actually guilty or just involved in some John Mark Karr-esque bid for attention.

I will spare you, gentle reader, the discussion of why when a series of women are killed it isn’t a “hate crime,” although that is certainly something that we could talk about later.  But for the moment I have bigger fish to fry, having read an article by a man I can only assume is the Rush Limbaugh of the UK, one Richard Littlejohn of The Daily Mail.

 Littlejohn’s recent article, “Spare Us the ‘People’s Prostitute’ Routine,” is just about as ridiculous and offensive as the title suggests.  Sure, it starts off with a couple of paragraphs of disclaimer, designed to prevent people from saying about him all of the things which I am about to say.

Littlejohn opens his abomination of an op-ed with,

“Let’s get the caveat out of the way from the off. The five women murdered in Ipswich were tragic, lost souls who met a grisly end. I sincerely hope whoever killed them is caught, charged and convicted.

No one with a shred of humanity would wish upon them their ghastly lives and horrible deaths. But…” 

Wait for it…  Here it comes…

“Mother Teresa, they weren’t.”

Now, that is a fair point.  They weren’t Mother Teresa.  And lest you forgot, we aren’t supposed to get upset or feel indignant about murders unless the victims are nuns from Calcutta.  So calm down already!

In case you think I am overreacting, here are some other choice excerpts from the article:

“They weren’t going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur. The only kind of missionary position they undertook was in the back seat of a car.”  Lest you call the man tasteless for making jokes about the recently murdered, may I remind you that these women were dirty prostitutes and therefore it is acceptable – nay, fantastic and worthy of publication! – to laugh at their deaths.  And in case you are tempted to shortsightedly accuse Littlejohn of sexism just because he makes fun of dirty whores, I should tell you that in addition to writing for the Daily News, Littlejohn himself does cure cancer and volunteer in Darfur, thereby affirming his superiority over you (and needless to say, over aforementioned filthy whores), and - more importantly - sealing his right not to be murdered and then made a joke of.  [See if you can find the sarcasm in this passage.]

The thing is, the yelping of all these bleeding hearts has old Liljohn just plain tuckered out!  “Frankly, I’m tired of the lame excuses about how they all fell victim to ruthless pimps who plied them with drugs. These women were on the streets because they wanted to be. “  Unfortunately, not everyone is as sensible as our friend Littlejohn, and apparently the UK has recently “been treated to the All Men Are Bastards/Rapists/Murderers mantra from assorted Glendas who ought to be old enough to know better.”  Now, I haven’t heard anyone say that all men are those things.  I think the idea was generally that the bastard who raped and murdered these women – just that guy is who we’re talking about – is a Bastard/Rapist/Murderer.  And I guess I find that point kind of hard to argue.

The thing about these women, Littlejohn argues, is they weren’t just prostitutes.  They were dirty prositutes.  (Cleanliness, apparently, being the requisite quality for being treated with an ounce of respect upon one’s violent death.)  I’m not even twisting his words here.  In sum, he writes that people are always talking about how we should legalize prostitution, but that is not necessary because “we already have legalized prostitution” in the form of massage parlours.  But “these five women were on the streets because even the filthiest, most disreputable back-alley “sauna” above a kebab shop wouldn’t give them house room.”  They were able to make a living, our sage reporter notes, because some men are attracted to “filthy, drug-addled street whores.”

I don’t want to wind up defending prostitution as a practice, because generally I think it’s a bad idea because of its effects on all parties involved, the moral implications of trading sex for cash, and the air of female objectification that is at the heart of it.  But what makes this essay so outrageous is that, faced with a killer and a prostitute, Littlejohn seems to find the prostitutes more offensive.  And while I am not a fan of the oldest trade in the world, prostitutes don’t even come close to murderers in terms of moral turpitude.  Anyone callous enough to sit around in the aftermath of a killing spree and talk what can only be characterized as mad smack about the victims because they were prostitutes (oops, I mean filthy whores) borders on the sociopathic, if you ask me. 

So, at the risk of being some “Glenda” who calls all men bastards, let me just say this:  in this case, it’s unclear who the Rapist/Murderer is, but the Bastard is most certainly Richard Littlejohn.

Cool Mommy & Daddy Syndrome

I can only imagine how tough it must be to to turn 30, get married, have babies, and hang on your cool 20-something self.  Since I am 24, unmarried, and definitely babyless, this issue shouldn’t even be hanging around in my consciousness.  Unfortunately, my neighborhood is absolutely teeming with uber-hip parents and their far-out way-cool retro-stylin babies.  These fab young families force me to think about this every time I go to the grocery store, where a beautiful big-eyed baby gurgles up at me from within its SUV of a stroller as it listens to Sufyan Stevens on its tiny iPod.  If your baby loves the Ramones and is really sad about CBGB’s closing, the shops of Park Slope have the gear he/she needs to express himself.  Or rather, if you think that you can stay young forever by dressing your baby in miniature versions of the t-shirts you wore in college, Park Slope can help you with that. 

Every time I walk by a window displaying shirts for infants that are cooler and hipper than anything I own, or an ad for a Disco Baby event like this one, I get a little cranky.  I want to make pronouncements about Trying Too Hard.  That’s right, I went there.  Every junior high kid in America knows that nothing is more fatal to Cool than Trying Too Hard.  And dressing your baby in a t-shirt that says “Daddy is a Geek” in trendy san serif lettering inspired by the Studio 54 logo?  Trying.  Too.  Hard.

Do I feel a little sorry for the trendy offspring because their parents are using them as living accessories?  A little bit.  But mostly I’m just really jealous their fancy tees and swingin disco parties.  And I really really want an A-Team onesy.

Merry Christmas Grinches! love, Peter Singer

This Sunday’s New York Times Magazine will feature an article by Peter Singer about what obligation wealthy people have to give to charity and/or the government, and what obligation you have to do the same.  His answers are likely to make you feel uncomfortable and/or guilty and/or Scroogey.  Because he doesn’t think that the used tricylce you donated to Toys for Tots constitutes a fulfillment of your moral obligation.

 I love Peter Singer.  He was my absolute favorite part of Moral Reasoning class in college.  Here is a Princeton University professor who will convince you, with air-tight logic and not an ounce of touchy-feeliness, to become a vegan and give away lots of money. 

The article discusses the value of human lives (if we value all life equally, why do half a million African children die of diarrhea every year when we would never let that happen at home?) and then does a tour of the salient philosophical and current events related to philanthropy.  Hobbes on alms-giving, Kant on duty, Gates and Buffett dutifully giving alms – all covered.  He writes smart and troubling passages like this:

  “I could have quoted Warren Buffett’s acknowledgment that society is responsible for much of his wealth. “If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru,” he said, “you’ll find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil.” The Nobel Prize-winning economist and social scientist Herbert Simon estimated that “social capital” is responsible for at least 90 percent of what people earn in wealthy societies like those of the United States or northwestern Europe. By social capital Simon meant not only natural resources but, more important, the technology and organizational skills in the community, and the presence of good government. These are the foundation on which the rich can begin their work. “On moral grounds,” Simon added, “we could argue for a flat income tax of 90 percent.””

Zing!

Don’t worry, Peter is smart and knows about disincentives, so he does not propose anything this drastic.  He does suggest a specific sliding scale scheme, though, and it affects only the top 10% of the population.  The top .01% of the population (about 14,400 people), all of whom make at least $5 million a year, could give away 33% of their annual earnings and not really feel the pinch, Singer argues.  The top 0.1% would give 25%, the top 0.5% would give 20%, and the top 1% would give 15%.  If you are starting to feel sorry for these gazillionaires and think that Peter is perhaps a bit over the top in his suggestions, you should know that in this top 1%, the minimum annual income is $276,000 and that their collective 15% would raise $35 billion.  $35 billion could go a long way toward saving little starving disease-ravaged babies.  (I said Singer would convince you without resorting to touchy-feely guilt-inducing tactics; I never claimed to do the same myself.)  Finally, the top 10% would give 10% of their income, and all together these donations would raise $404 billion.  Sh-zam.

I work at a non-profit, and every year we have a fundraising gala, where rich folks come and spend several hundred dollars on dinner and fancy wines and we have an auction and its all very ritzy and lovely.  Sometimes the riztiness seems misguided, when you consider that the money is for homeless services programs, and if our donors had more highly developed senses of irony they would just cut a check to the organization instead of slathering themselves with diamonds and nibbling pate together.  Ok, sorry.  They do give money, and it lets the organization do really great things.  I know I shouldn’t talk like that about our generous patrons.  But it just calls to mind how much, people – even really generous ones – don’t want to give away their money.  Or at least, if they are going to give it away, they want to do it in public.  They want it to feel like an act of massive generosity, not the fulfillment of a moral obligation.  Yes, Bill Gates gave away a ton of cash, and good for him.  But whether the publicity motivated him to do it or not, his name is now synomous with not just computer genius and Microsoft, but also other words like Foundation and Carnegie.  Whereas most of us, even if we cut a check that is really really generous when measured against our salary, won’t have any buildings named after us, or even get to nibble pate and sip champagne with other donors.  We have to settle for putting the check in the mail and knowing that some little baby just got some penecillin, or some owl gets to keep its tree, or a scientist’s breast cancer research just got a little more funding – or whatever you’re into.  Actually, put that way, our end of the stick sounds OK.

As much as I love Peter Singer, I have yet to cut a check to a philanthropic organization this holiday season.  And if I do donate something, it’s more than likely going to be a used tricycle.