Letters to the Editor
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Women do not hang themselves.
It almost never happens.
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Competent Police Investigation
Well, for once I have to agree with Mr. Robot. How many people wanted this woman dead?
A competent police investigation, and by that I mean one that does not assume this is 'suicide,' should be performed on the site and body, etc. Odds of that happening are almost nil, though.
Like many other 'convenient' deaths in the U.S., this one too is fishy.
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Makes me wonder
Daniels worked in the corporate world before getting into escorting for the money. "I think there's a misconception that women in the business are all sexually louche, and that we're damaged. When I started I'd had sex with eight people." In high school, she could have been voted least likely to become a call girl. "Most people always said I looked like a librarian."
The word librarian makes me think. Where have all the female geeks gone in the past before they were allowed into physics? A lot of them ended up working in libraries, building up the stereotype of the socially awkward bookworm spinster librarian.
If people said she looked like a librarian, maybe they were really saying she acted like she had Asperger's. Hmm.
Okay now this makes me wonder whether there could be an Asperger's component to upper middle class prostitution, where the women are not motivated by a need to escape poverty, and not entrapped by global organized crime syndicates.
Aspies often do not understand social conventions regarding sex that neurotypical accept without question, and they sometimes they can develop unrealistic expectations about their abilities to defy social convention without getting hurt or hurting others.
David Brooks wrote a column that more or less explained Eliot Spitzer's behavior as stemming from his inability to relate other human beings socially without the structure of professional or academic rank to hold him up. Basically, he accused Spitzer of having Asperger's traits that led to his consorting with hookers instead of obeying social convention and bonding deeply and intimately with his own wife.
It's interesting. Maybe someone should do a study.
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The disconnect between mainstream media and web reportage
Mainstream media promotes the idea that Palfrey hanged herself, the web points out that she pointedly stated that if "anything happened to her" it would not be suicide.
Why is Salon falling in line with the mainstream media? Where is Ms. Palfrey's box of evidence? Missing, right?
Move along, citizen, nothing to see here... business as usual...
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Interesting idea Silenced
I have read recently how inappopriate sexual behavior can result from nutrition problems. For example Wilson's disease, where people have excess copper in their body, can result in pedophilia and other neurological problems. Knowing that, and considering autism has been linked by some to diabetes, it makes me wonder how much of our non-infectious diseases and other behavior problems are a function of poor nutrition. It would certainly explain the increases in all of the degenerative diseases over the past 30 years - coinciding perfectly with the poisoning of our food supply with high-fructose corn syrup and vegetable fats while being told to stop eating unimpeachably healthy foods like eggs and butter.
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So what happened to the book
What happened to the evidence that she had? Did she have to turn it over to the judge? What's he doing with it? What about the customers who she was going to call to prove that she was not running a prostitution ring. What happened to those people? Was she railroaded so that no one would have to testify? I have so many questions, but unfortunately no answers seem forthcoming.
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She left handwritten notes
And she had talked about her horror at going back to prison. She said that she would be raped and beaten and even tortured. She said she would not go back to prison.
Can we stop trying to turn this into a conspiracy to protect the men involved and focus on the sheer tragedy of this? A woman died because she coudln't face decades in prison for the terrible "crime" of helping other women voluntarily sell their bodies to men. She was not a pimp who beat her drug-addicted slaves and took their money. She was more like an intermediary who helped them find clients and took care of the paperwork. There is no reason that she should have been facing the kind of penalties she was facing.
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No matter what, this points out the idiocy of vice laws
I have to admit it was awfully convenient for some politicos that she hung herself, perhaps too convenient. Her saying she wouldn't go to jail and threatening suicide might have been the perfect out for someone wanting to do her in. Or, perhaps she did commit suicide.
Either way, it points out the problems of our vice laws that criminalize non-coercive behavior. Certainly, prostitution is not a great career choice. But, it's a choice that should be left to the individuals involved, and NO ONE ELSE. I'll never understand the mindset that wants to criminalize non-coercive adult behavior. A month or so ago Glenn Greenwald's column brought up a storm of people who insisted it was to these women's benefit that prostitution be illegal. Tell that to Ms. Palfrey, or her mother. Tell that to one of her workers who killed herself not too long ago. There can be no moral justification for these laws, and people who support them speak volumes about themselves. They always make me think of someone who wants to operate on you after dipping their hands in sewerage, because there's something unclean about them.
Of course, it should go without saying (but there are too many people who can't figure this out), that none of this applies to someone who would coerce another into prostitution (or any vice), or to minors, I'm only talking about adults.
--Ron Robertson
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People don't care about prostitutes
It's true. Palfrey could well have been murdered - the circumstances of her death are at least 'suspicious.' The law enforcement presumption from the moment of the 911 call has been "suicide" - a conclusion reached before any forensic examination of the crime scene. Because of this presumption, the local police have not investigated the scene as if it were a possible homicide. The questioning by local police has all been oriented toward finding evidence of "suicidal intent." At this point, the only evidence of such "intent" comes from statements made by Palfrey, a woman known for, shall we say, hyperbolic rhetorical tendencies. Examine the numerous statements she's made in her years and you'll find as many statements against "suicidal intent" (insisting she is stronger than that). Law enforcement personnel, operating from this presumption, do not have to be bribed, coerced, or otherwise controlled: they will simply fail to investigate other possibilities. There are few recent actions on her part which suggest suicidal ideation. Generally, "actions speak louder than words" - unless you're a dead hooker with a list of important clients.
But no one cares. Aside from other "sex workers" and a few people who will be labeled as "conspiracy nuts," no one cares about Palfrey's death. Americans are more interested in debating the morality and utility of prostitution; to many, Palfrey got what she deserved, suicide or not. (Arguably, even those pushing for more investigation care more about abstract notions of justice than persecuted prostitutes.) Even Salon, whose editor is on record as stating she wants the site to be known for its "investigative journalism," concurs without he conclusion of suicide, without analysis of the so-called evidence.
News outlets which hammer us for months over white sorority girls who go missing exhibit no desire to push for an investigation into this mysterious death. Just another dead whore to journalists (including apparently Salon). And after all, some of their favored politicians might be on those phone lists - not to mention valued sources and (gasp!) perhaps other journalists!
No one cares if you're not white, blond, and sexy - and even then, if you're a hooker, well... Go ahead and die by strangulation in a hot tin shed behind your mama's house. No one in America is going to push for investigation into your mysterious death - not if you're a prostitute.