Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

First, huge thanks to Jim Ward — probably one of the most significant influences many of us have had — for hamming it up in this photo, and thanks also to Sean for making it happen!

I wrote this for the scrapbook. Haven't decided yet whether I'll squeeze it in or not:

Persecution

It's commonly said that “the difference between tattooed people and those without tattoos is that tattooed people don't care if you're tattooed or not.” That is, we don't have a problem with them, but they have a problem with us (even though we've done nothing to them).

I find it truly frightening when I hear about young people — generally bright creative young people — who are threatened with expulsion from school for choosing to have body piercings. What does it say about our society that we feel that a person who modifies their body does not deserve even basic rights such as education (which it should be added they have paid for via taxes)?

You want to make fun of us? Fine, parade your ignorance; it reflects poorly on you, not on us. You want to try and deny us our survival by using every heavy handed means at your disposal to take away our right to express ourselves? That is a declaration of war, and it is an act of genocide.

For while we are not overtly born into this appearance as with race, neither have we simply chosen it on a whim. It is who we are, and to take it away is to murder a part of us.

glider

Went to Toronto yesterday — nice to be back, but not as nice as being out here to be honest. First we went to the BME/office and taped out some loft lines for the construction crew (it's a 56'x41'x17' space, with a 12'x56' loft along one side and a full wall of windows on the other side). Let's hope the bathroom and all that is installed by the 26th since that's where we're meeting.

And wow, the 26th sure is the day of events — there's the trip to Taronga Zoo (in Australia, with a half dozen people confirmed), my bowling and ID party (about 30 people confirmed), the Halloween BBQ in Delhi, Ontario (near Brantford/Hamilton, with about 20 people confirmed), the IAM.scary BBQ in Kentucky (with over 30 people confirmed), the Halloween Party in Salem, MA (two dozen people confirmed), and the Florida BME BBQ (over 20 people confirmed). So… Which to go to?

Yesterday we also went to beazer's birthday party at the Red Room, along with ://trinity, techknight, enthalpy, bodmodbetty, |triBal|, MiL0, and Bradford (I hope I didn't forget anyone). I think I ate something that disagreed with me (a veggie noodle broth at the Big Bowl) and I was super sick for the rest of the day unfortunately, and still feel rather ill from it.

So I found an old poster when I was going through my files — it's a photo of scarification, and underneath it says, “the only blood we have the right to spill is our own“. I don't know if I made up the quote, or if someone else did, but if everyone decided that was fair, the world sure would be a better place.

I haven't commented on Bush's speech on Monday yet — in part this is because the thing was so ludicrous and lie-filled that I assumed that none of you were taking it particularly seriously anyway. Yeah, like we really believe that Saddam is going to attack America any day by crashing into it with planes loaded with chemical and biological weapons. Yeah, we really believe that Saddam and al Qaeda (which regularly advocates the overthrowing of Saddam as well) are buddies.

It's flat-out made up. I really hope Americans don't believe this stuff. But Bush continues to enjoy high across-the-board support, so who knows… Will the average American support any war if they're told — even if they know it's a lie — that they are at risk?

You'd think the “we can't give you evidence — once we have hard evidence, it's too late, so we have to attack now” type of pre-emptive strikes would be recognized as fundamentally wrong. Let's start applying that theory to every day life. How about we start allowing police to kill anyone that might commit a crime. Because that's what it being proposed with Iraq…

Sorry I haven't updated yet today — I've spent the entire day working on the scrapbook. 384 pages are totally full — every submission from now on is getting squeezed into the cracks (so please understand if I can't post lengthy texts).

The scrapbook currently contains 1077 images (plus a pile of text). Every one of those images had to be checked, labelled, resized, color corrected, touched up, and then placed into the document. So feel free to do the math as to just how much time I'm putting into this personally. But I wouldn't do it if I didn't believe in it.

I thought a bit about modern revolution. Most countries have effectively disarmed their public. Even America, the land of guns, is cracking down on its militia groups more and more heavily, even though they represent not just a bunk of crazy rednecks, but a final defense against tyranny.

Anyway, I realized that since Bush doesn't have the average American's support for his warmongering — even though you'll see many a deceitful (check the fine print) poll claiming it — he has to make Americans feel powerless to continue. I'm sure many of you are saying, “this war is wrong, but everyone seems to support it. they've ignored my voice — what am I supposed to do?”

But the American people do have a voice: MONEY.

If enough people organized and simply refused to pay their taxes (it would have to be a significant percentage of the population, maybe 1% to 5%), and took their money out of the system (where the government can seize it), it would literally knock any government out of power, and non-violently too.

Remember, you pay Bush.

I don't know if it would work or not, but hey, nobody likes paying taxes, so I suspect it would be a lot easier to convince people to do than actually pick up weapons and march to Washington to overthrow the government physically.

PS. That's not the real/final cover.