Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Making Money From the Internet



There is some faint concern from the Kentucky governor that the Ark theme park will discriminate in hiring — I doubt that it will become a major sticking point. But still, it's true, they will be selective in their hiring based on religious belief. They say that isn't true, but one thing we know about creationists is that they lie.



"There will be positions that will require Bible knowledge because...we have certain things in there that are requiring biblical knowledge," he explains. "That doesn't mean, though, if you don't have that you can't work over in the restaurant or some other part of the facility."



Oh. Since atheists tend to know more about religion and the Bible than Christians, can we expect a larger proportion of them to show up in those jobs requiring biblical knowledge? No. Because they have a requirement that people sign a testimonial of their faith, which means they're actually going to discriminate on the basis of whether you agree with them or not.



Liars. Like I said.



There's also an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (something intelligent on the WSJ opinion page? Amazing in itself) that waffles unfortunately over the conflict with the principle of separation of church and state that giving privileges to the Hamites brings about — there really is a problem here, it's just that the professional liars of creationism have gotten very good about making excuses for themselves. But what I agree with is the recognition that modern creationists are a bit cleverer and better at exploiting the modern world than many give them credit for.



What is more interesting about Ark Encounter is what it tells us about the paradoxes of American evangelicalism, a non-worldly belief system with a restlessly entrepreneurial and commercial spirit. The term "fundamentalism" generally denotes a comprehensively anti-modern movement. But this is only partly true. Far from being a counter to modernity, American fundamentalism often embraces it with far greater enthusiasm and finesse than its mainline competition.


Look at the effectiveness with which conservative evangelicalism has made use of television, radio and the Internet. Or consider the eagerness of "creationism" to claim the mantle of science, which is quite a different matter from rejecting modernity altogether. In commercial enterprises like the Christian music industry, or Ark Encounter, the packaging of products is the same as it is in the most successful secular businesses; only the content is different. Evangelicals assume that all such modern techniques can be redeemed through certain proper uses. The medium, in this view, is not the message.



That's the striking thing about the Creation "Museum": it is not a reverent place. It does not exhibit any of the serious religious solemnity of the so-called sacred: it is a place dedicated to making money, and to aping the trappings (but not the substance!) of modern science. It's as if a church opened a gift shop, and the shop was so successful that it grew and grew, and people stopped coming for the church and instead came for the sales, and eventually the church part was quietly demolished and nobody noticed.



When you go through it, too, the way it slickly copies the façade of a real museum — a rather cheesy and commercialized children's museum — is weird and disturbing. They will put on a display of some detail of the construction of the ark, for instance, and present it as a real museum would a collection of ancient tools, but it's all fake, completely made up, a model of an imaginary effort. As the op-ed states, this is a capitalist enterprise that has fully embraced modern packaging and marketing.



I suggest a compromise. If the state wants to recognize the Ark Encounter as a commercial effort to bring money into the state, fine; but then Answers in Genesis should be stripped of its tax exempt status and recognized as a beard for a profit-making enterprise. Alternatively, if they get to keep their status as a church-like entity, yank any attempt by the state to prop up their shell game with government support.



And anyone ought to recognize their phony legal games as a sham. They've set up multiple entities, some that are claiming religious status, others that are the admitted for-profit commercial arm, but all of them are funneling money in to support the promotion of a religion.






The last time she hooked up, she said, it was because “his personality put me at ease. He was straight to the point. He asked me the same questions I was asking him.” Plus, she liked that his real name matched his email address. From there, she was able to find his Facebook page, with numerous photographs. When Ashley (not her real name) finally had her rendezvous, she took down his license plate number and texted it to herself on a second cellphone, which she’d left on her kitchen table along with a note for friends and family, just in case she didn’t return. And then she collected her $500 an hour.


Welcome to prostitution in the Internet era.


Fifteen years ago, it was hard to find hookers on the Web. Now they are all over the place. The Internet has given rise to a new generation of sex workers who have more autonomy than ever before, and by and large enjoy a level of safety not shared by their street-walking sisters. Nonetheless, Internet prostitution is a risky business, and those hazards were underscored this month when the bodies of four women were found decomposing on the side of the road near Jones Beach on Long Island. Attention quickly turned to two missing call girls who’d been using Craigslist as their primary means of making connections. It turned out that neither woman was among the victims, but the grisly discovery put an unwanted spotlight back on Craigslist, which in September took down its U.S. erotic-services directory under pressure from law enforcement and human-rights groups. Last week, it pulled its worldwide adult-services ads. (Though Craigslist has managed to get most sex solicitation off its site, it hasn’t completely succeeded, as Ashley can tell you.)


David Henry Sterry has numerous stories about how the lives of prostitutes have changed in the past decade. Last year, he edited Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Prostitutes Writing on Life, Love, Work, Sex, and Money, an anthology that received a stamp of approval from The New York Times. He’s also a former sex worker himself, a rare example of a man who earned his living pleasing older women. (The only common thread connecting his clients, he said, was that they all had money and “most felt powerless because they were housewives, bored, and rich.”)


One of the women who appeared in his book called herself Kat, worked on Craigslist, and had an elaborate screening process in which she would force potential johns to drive up to the location of the assignations, get out of their cars, and stand there while she examined them from a nearby window with a pair of binoculars. Kat refused to talk to anyone with a blocked number. She also chose not to text. If you sent her a photo of your genitalia, a common mistake among potential johns, you were out of contention. “She had developed what she called a ‘hooker’s radar,’” Sterry said. “The tone of the guy’s voice, his walk, she had learned how to instantly size someone up. And if the guy looked sketchy or too much like a toad, she would stop returning his phone calls.”


“People who think they’re going to eliminate prostitution or violence in prostitution by shutting down Craigslist are wildly deluded,” said David Henry Sterry.








Another Internet-era phenomenon that’s friendly to business and helps boost security for prostitutes and johns alike is “the mixer.” This is a cocktail party-like event at which “hobbyists”—the current euphemism of choice for high-spending porn aficionados obsessed with bonking their favorite screen stars—get to meet potential dates. No sex typically takes place on site, explained Daily Beast contributor Richard Abowitz, a chronicler of life in Las Vegas, where the parties frequently occur. “It’s more like a job fair,” he said.









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