Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

First, I obviously object to military attacks on Afghanistan on principle. That said, I am very impressed at how effective they have been in minimizing civilian death — even Afghani reporters are saying only about 20 civilians were killed. That's remarkable. Assuming that the thirty or so targets they were shooting at weren't just rocks, 20 civilians is an incredibly low number given the power of the weapons in use. I'm actually quite shocked they could be used so accurately at such range.

Of course, I'm not sure I should believe any of it, and realistically, the war may well be fought in hand-to-hand combat, in which case the Afghani's will eventually win, although it will mean even further destruction of their land, and murder of their citizens. I'm not sure who's responsible for it… I suppose we all have blood on our hands. I probably have blood on my hands personally. All of the conditions that helped this happen have been public news for fifty years. Did I ever even spend five minutes to write a letter to my member of parliament to voice my opinion? I didn't, and under our democratic system, that makes me guilty and in part responsible for it. Did YOU do everything you could?

Let's hope that first of all this calls the extremists bluff and that we don't find New York City being anthraxed or LA being nuked by terrorists… And let's hope that the propaganda they manage to generate from this means that things like the PATRIOT act are simply shelved…

By the way, I forgot to link to Jim from Cloud 9's IAM page. He's the guy that did the very cool eyebrow piercing currently on the cover of BME. Anyway, his IAM page is steel.

I guess that the long term result of this war is that we'll start getting lots of heroin again… Dealers were starting to get a bit dry. The rather shady Northern Alliance, who “we” are now allied with and are supporting and I suppose trying to put into power, are one of the world's largest supplier's of opium/heroin. That's part of the reason why the US handed the Taliban about $150 million this year alone — to slow them down… Of course, we've just switch allies, but hey, I'm sure it won't be too long before the Northern Alliance get crazy as well (oh wait, they already are) and something will have to be done about them as well…

There will be no good end to this.

I'll tell you the real winner in this war. Cheap capitalists. China as well is making a fortune — where do you think most US flags are made? They're made in China.

And now let me ask you… Why isn't the image below what you see when you wake up. It should be. It could be.

On Monday a run of COBM/Canada shirts will be going off to the printer. They're not for sale… However, we will be sending them out to all the people who've been helping us out with stories, donations, time, advice, etc.. We still do need stories about the following subjects:

• How you used body modification to get through a tough point in your life.
• Body modification or body ritual events in your life that have had a spiritual effect on you, positive or negative.
• Times when you have been denied (or attempted to be denied) either work or eductation because of your mods. For example, if you were told you had to take out a piercing to keep from getting expelled from school or fired from a job.

In either case, we'll need as many details as possible. If it's pending, let us know and we'll do what we can to help. Also, let us know how your article should be signed — it really should be a name, not just an alias. For example, mine would say “Shannon from Toronto”, not “Glider from the great frozen north”.

Oh, and you don't have to be Canadian to help out. It's not like any of this is a purely Canadian issue!

Important: The church email isn't up and running yet, so just IM your stories to me here.

And now, the shirt (click it)… In about two weeks, when they're back from the printer, we'll be emailing you if you've helped out and I don't have your address/size from BMEshop so we can get a thank-you gift your way. If for some reason we miss you and you feel you should be on that list, don't hesitate to message me: