Military Sin

'Fire and I went to the fifth annual Military Sin City last night.

It was quite the experience, very crowded and lively, but at the same time somewhat subdued. We danced to some of our favorite club songs, and ran into some acquaintances, and saw some suspension bondage being done live (very cool!).

But mostly we people watched and enjoyed the atmosphere. Watching 'Fire chair dance and groove to the beat is always enjoyable. And the multitude of monitors had the old exploitation flick 'Ilsa, She-wolf of the SS' playing in the background. Talk about a flash from my ill-spent teen years...

We had been hoping to meet our friend Padme at Sin (it was to be her first, and one of the things she wanted to cross off her bucket list), but a family emergency arose, and she had to cancel at the last minute. We wish her and Anakin the very best at this difficult time.

All in all it was a good night.

Random bits.

It's been a little while since I have posted. Things keep popping up that distract me. SO I have decided to sit down and write at least one post a week until such time as the Internet is no longer viable.

So here are some random things that have been occupying my mind recently:

• I have been acting as a mentor recently to a young lady who is interested in the BDSM/kink lifestyle. Now I will admit I am by no means and expert, but it feels good to share what I know, and to help someone else work out for themselves who they really are. I have been saying that to really live you must be honest, not only with those around you, but with yourself.
• In being honest with oneself, you have to admit all of your shortcomings to yourself, and be willing to either cope with them, heal them or adapt to them.
• The most deceptive people you will encounter in this life are politicians. These people lie, twist and deceive for a living, and we keep letting them. SO be honest... do we really need them?
• Other professional liars are PR flaks and admen. And our entire lives have become little more than an ad campaign to get us to buy even more into a flawed and deceptive system. Time to live your lives as real individuals, caring about others, but remaining free to your own life.

Some things to think about...

On mortality.

I was talking with my sister today about the disposition of my mothers estate. I have some legal paperwork to sign and file before her estate can go through probate.

But it was during this very brief conversation that my sister informed me my father will likely not see the end of the year either, having been recently diagnosed with masses in his lungs and COPD.

I never really had to consider my parents mortality.

But after my mother died this August due to complications from a lifelong battle with alcohol, I was forced to acknowledge that all who we know are mortal, and will eventually pass from this plane.

We must remember them well, and celebrate the good times and memories. We should be able to forgive the bad.

At this time of year especially, during the festival of Samhain, better known as All Hallows Eve, or Halloween. It is a time to remember and celebrate our honored dead, all those who have gone before.

Peace be to them.

'Great Read' recommendation from a dear friend.

I was just named a 'Great Read' by my friend and fellow kinkster and blogger Padmeamidala, blogger of 'Journey To The Darkside'.

I really must thank her, because I have just started down this road, and am still very much a newbie at the whole 'blogging' thing. It was a bit of an emotional 'yay me!' thrill to be seen among those she thinks are worth reading.

Now I'm supposed to give you my Great Reads. I don't know if I have ten, but here goes:

- The Archdruid Report

- Survival Guide to Homelessness

- Journey To The Darkside

- Sapphire's View

- The Urban Survivalist

Five. Five are all I have.

But there are several fantastic progressive news sites that I think more people should read. I know they're not technically blogs, but c'mon, give 'em a look. You never know, you might learn something:

- Common Dreams

- Alternet

- Anti-war.com

- Counterpunch

- Oil Drum.com

And then there are the blogs on other networks:

- Ran Prieur

- Survival Topics

- SurvivalBlog.com

- Den of Geek

- Signs of The Times

- The Steampunk Workshop

There are several philosophical schools who say that you should learn something new everyday. Perhaps one of the sites I listed will do that for you.

Walk in peace.

Ch-ch-changes (Gah, my face is strange)

Last Wednesday I shaved off my mustache and goatee at the request of my lady.

You see, she has known me for about ten years, and had never seen me without said dashing facial hair.

So when I came home from work, I got out my scissors and razor, ran some hot water and proceeded to lay my face bare for the first time in twenty-three years.

Right after the first swath of whiskers had been shaved away, 'Fire turned to me and said: 'You know, you really don't have top do this if you don't want to." Luckily she said this before I had set in seriously on the area my beard covered.

But I told her it was alright, and that it would grow back. And continued, shaving away the fur that had concealed my jaw and chin for two decades. 'Fire watched, her apprehension growing as the lather and whiskers were scraped away.

All too soon my face was bare, and I rinsed away the last of the lather. 'Fire was ... shocked. The first thing she said was : "Gaaaah!", followed by 'I was WRONG! GROW IT BACK!"

It's not that I am hideous or anything, or that I have a weak, receding jawline. It was just that she was so used to me with the beard. She said I no longer looked like myself, that I looked mundane, vanilla. Boring. And young.

And she was right. Over the next few days people I know all commented that it looked odd, that I did not really look like myself. Many said I looked ten to fifteen years younger.

I realized that much of my self image was tied up in that beard. It did more than keep my face warm, or look rakish. It was part of my middle finger to the Establishment. It was part of me that like the Celts of old, determined I was no longer a child. I was one of those who chose to alter their appearance in a manner that was not permanent modification like tattoos or piercing, but was still a step away from greater society's mainstream.

Beards are still regarded as something of being rebellious. Once upon a time they marked the passage into manhood, into responsibility. But ever since the Fifties, beards have been associated with radicals, with thinkers and poets, with dreamers who want more out of life than just 'going along to get along'. Many employers still have doubts about hiring those with beards, but hide their discomfort with nonconformity behind dress codes (conformity) and health regulations (fear).

I miss the 'wizard stripe' that ran down the middle of my goatee. And the skin my beard concealed is more sensitive to chill breezes in the coming Autumn and Winter days.

So I am growing my beard out again, back to it's former stylish, defiant and decadent glory.

It is, after all, just hair.

But it's MY hair.

Dark Dreams Coming True

I have something to admit to.

Some few years ago, I used to play a RPG from R. Talsorian games called Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., known to the faithful as C-punk 2K20. It was based on the writings of Bill Gibson and other cutting edge science fiction authors who looked at the world, what was happening and where it could go.

Their prognostications were dark and cassandran, full of corruption and greed, where human life was cheap and easily wasted. They predicted the rise of a corporate elite, and their mercenary armies.

They, and the RPGs that they spawned, foresaw a place where people turned away from reality, lured into computer 'cyberspace', willfully cutting themselves off from the rest of humanity. The city streets were haunted by broken military veterans and rebellious rockers while the gleaming glass towers held sararimen who had sold their souls to climb the corporate ladder.

It seems that they were more right than they could have ever predicted.

Over the weekend, the G-20 met in Pittsburgh, where the economic elite met to decide how the looting of what was left of the world economies would proceed. Outside, the common people had been herded behind 'security' barriers, their sheeplike minds programmed by the media that terroristic protestors would descend on their homes and shop fronts like maddened locusts, smashing and destroying their hard work. The downtown core was emptied by decree.

Instead, it was the Pittsburgh police, bolstered by testosterone fueled 'volunteers' from across the country, and assisted by 25oo National Guardsmen recently returned from tours of duty in Iraq who committed acts of violence and brutality.

Even before the G-20 meeting had begun, protestors had their phones and e-mails tapped and intercepted, the leaders harassed and preemptively arrested. A bus carrying food for the protestors was stopped repeatedly and searched for non-existent weapons. People on the street were stopped because they matched a nebulous police profile of what a 'protestor' looked like. Legal requests to hold a protest march were denied out of hand for no reason.

And it gets worse.

During the actual meeting, brave souls who dared to enforce their rights were met by hundreds of heavily armed police. The protestor were unarmed, mostly young and college students. In every case they were herded away from the G-20 meetings, forced into side streets, then ordered to disperse. If they did not flee fast enough, the police turned on them. Sometimes there would be black masked renegades, dressed to look like 'anarchists', but very likely police agent provocateurs or informants, who would smash a few window when the crowds were near concentrations of police, then conveniently 'escape' when the police closed in.

Truncheons, shotgun bean bags, rubber bullets, CS tear gas, pepper spray, flash-bang grenades, physical assault by the armored police officers. All were used against the unresisting protestors.

But the worst was the police use of the LRAD.

The LRAD, or Long Range Acoustic Device, is basically a loud speaker. In reality, it is a sound cannon, capable of delivering 150+ dB at a distance of 500 meters. The Pittsburgh police deployed them at 50 meters or less.

The LRAD is capable of causing permanent hearing damage in less than a second, and is deliberately tuned to a frequency that affects the inner ear, even if you have ear protection. At close ranges it can drop you in your tracks.

The Pittsburgh police used this weapon, which was field tested by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, and then by US forces in Iraq, indiscriminately on the streets of PIttsburgh. They were granted blanket permission by the city government.

Not only did the police attack the protesters, they also assaulted people in their homes, who happened to be watching the police actions from their balconies.

People who recorded police actions had their cameras and recordings seized or destroyed by the police. The police also assaulted passers-by whop were in no way involved with the protests.

So what, do you ask, does this have to do with roleplaying?

Well, everything that was written as fiction fifteen years ago is coming true.

The future is closer, and darker, than you think.

BC Liberal Idiocy

During my morning commute I enjoy reading the free daily rags that pass themselves off as newspapers. Occasionally they actually do their job, and impart useful information beyond the usual break-ins and gang shootings.

This was one of those days.

The BC Liberals are planning to implement the forcible detention of Vancouver's homeless, under the guise of 'helping' them in the colder winter months. Strangely, under the wildest coincidence, this plan will take place during the 2010 Winter Olympics. Color me shocked.

The Liberals have had nine years to implement programs to actually help the homeless. All they have done is cut programs and services, reduced mental healthcare, and cut social services spending, forcing even more people into a marginal lifestyle, if not right onto the street.

Under the Liberals, the number of homeless in the province, many with mental heath and substance abuse issues has exploded.

Now, rather than do something constructive the BC Liberals have rolled out the open salvo of criminalizing poverty.

How much longer will we tolerate the lies, deceit and abuses heaped upon the people of this province by these three piece suited thugs?