Sex, Index Cards, and the Proto Internet Occult Conspiracy

A late fix for a fantastic Tuesday.
This by way of Kenneth Hite and Rob Mcdougal:
"The wise and devious robotnik gave me a pointer to this entry in Paul Collins'³ blog, which contained the following snippet of almost unimaginably pregnant occult metaphor:

In the US, for instance, the War Department struggled with mountains of haphazard medical files until the newly touted method of card filing was adopted in 1887. Hundreds of clerk transcribed personnel records dating back to the Revolutionary War. Housed in Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC -- the scene of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination a generation earlier -- the initiative succeeded a little too well. Six years into the project, the combined weight of 30 million index cards led to information overload: three floors of the theatre collapsed, crushing 22 clerks to death.

Can anyone say Ascension of the Bureaucrat in 1894? [EDIT: Per Wikipedia, on June 9, 1893.] Blood sacrifice to begin the Information Age? Creation of the "mass man" from data (which is to say, DNA) and crumpled flesh (of 22 people -- where was the 23rd, necessary to complete the full chromosomal pairing?), intermingled on the blasphemous regicidal altar of America? The possibilities are limitless."

Also I definitely want to link to this.

Debauchette apparently had an interview with Diane Sawyer, and has written two very great blogs on sex work. So yeah. Worth seeing that if you haven't. Good stuff.

An excerpt:

"In some ways, I feel the way I felt when I was sitting across from Sawyer. I feel like I can only sigh, because I doubt I can begin to penetrate the many layers of misunderstandings and preconceptions, let alone that relentless working assumption that a woman’s value as a human being decreases as she gains sexual experience. (Sawyer asked me about preserving the ’sanctity’ of my body, as though sex without the imprimatur of love were inherently degrading.). I’m glad my mother didn’t lash out in anger or patent disgust — what’s come across in her note is some mix of restraint, confusion, and extreme discomfort. That deserves some kudos, even if I still feel miles away from having a real conversation with her about this, which, unsurprisingly, is exactly how I felt when I sat down with Diane Sawyer. We just don’t see eye to eye."