Monthly Archives: March 2003

Spamarama

Friday, March 21, 2003

My email lately has been flooded with stuff like this:

From: The Last Judgement
Subject: Signs from God

The Messiah comes. We have the end of the World and already 3th World war. The Mankind faces the Doom and as well the biggest ever experienced Holocaust. Each second Humanbeing ends up in the Pond of Fire. If the Messiah is not coming now (Jesus Christ, Son of God, King of the Jews), God will come as Devil-and Germany brought the entire Mankind into Hell. Owing to the Brandenburger Nazigate in Berlin every Human will be punished as hard as Adolf Hitler. That means Hell forever:Final Solution (Endloesung) .... [blah blah blah]

I don't know… At least they're not trying to sell me anything. Is this better than being offered some “virgin sluts” or a chance at an “enormous tubesteak”, or even some “generic viagra”? Anyway, with the level of fog we have here I'm guessing there's a good chance this satellite is going to cut out soon.

ANYWAY. I got the following question for an interview that I'm doing with someone that I can't remember the details of. Someone in Seattle I think…

Hi Shannon -- here's one final question for you. Is there any point at which you would draw the line in body modification? To clarify, is there a line you wouldn't cross and don't feel others should either? A point at which you would say "Okay, that's not modification. That's mutilation." Whatever your answer (yes or no) please explain.

I was going to turn it into a larger article, and I'd love to get some feedback from other people. I've created a comment forum below, and if anyone wants to include their take on the question, please feel free. I may use some of the posts as quotes in the article and pass them on to this reporter… If you don't want me to for some reason, please make that clear in your post.

(Original forum unavailable, sorry)*

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Oh no!

Friday, March 21, 2003

People will believe anything if it's on the news. It doesn't matter how stupid it is. It doesn't matter how unsupported by fact it is. It doesn't even matter if they were told the opposite story yesterday. I know I said I wasn't going to comment on this “world war to defend our planet” but this is a little silly:

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Good night.

Thursday, March 20, 2003

What do you need to be happy? If you can answer that question, you will be happy… (PS. If you know your answer, I'd love to hear it — what do you need for joy?)… I tried to make my own list:

  1. Personal autonomy (that is, deciding what I do and when I do it)
  2. Good food (yummy)
  3. Good sex (hell yeah)
  4. The ability to communicate with my friends

And that's really all I want. Guess what? It's pretty easy to get. Being happy isn't hard at all… That's the big scam in life. They try and sell you all kinds of crap to be happy, and it's not until you've wasted millions of dollars (and I really have wasted millions of dollars on everything from drugs to toys to weapons to education to girls to property to military ventures) that you realize happy is how you started.

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YAY!

Thursday, March 20, 2003

First, big congratulations to TattooedRedhead/Liz and kromedome/Dave — in her words, “London: approximately 8:00 pm GMT – He asked… I said yes”.

Just got back from eating my vegan dinner at the local steakhouse (yeah, the “we make a stirfry even better than a chinaman” place). Since I've been out lately, I've been trying to follow people's eyes and see if they at all notice my tattoo. It's like it's invisible; it's really weird to be honest. I don't know if people can't see it because it's subtle, or if they are somehow erasing it in their minds, but I really expected more people acting stupid about it. (And no, I'm not complaining!)

Anyway, I'm just working out the software upgrades that will allow pro's to be properly tagged in forums so we can set up “ask a pro” areas (there are so many forums out there with people giving truly insanely bad advice) — assuming I'm not too hatemail flooded tomorrow that's on the menu.

I've been biting my lip on this, but I had to share a paraphrase of an application that got entered. Please let me emphasise that under no circumstances will I reveal who this is from, and that I consider all applications, including ones that are turned down, confidential.

What does “sterile” mean? Clean
What does “to disinfect” mean? To get rid of infection
What is “cross contamination”? It happens when you don't wash your hands enough.

I post this because I want people to know that there are people with these holes in their knowledge working at reputable shops. There's nothing wrong with giving your piercer a little quiz like the above — most will probably get a kick out of it if you're cool about it… And if you get answers like the above, I'd strongly urge you to seek an alternate studio.

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On the subject of murder

Thursday, March 20, 2003

I just wanted to remind people exactly what is getting bombed. I don't care what you think of Saddam or what your views on the legitimacy of this conflict are. Those are separate issues, and they ignore the overwhelming underlying moral question. I think everyone needs to know just who's getting killed and what's getting destroyed as the US murderers continue their killing spree.

Baghdad is a city of four million people. While it has irreplaceable cultural value, it's also a modern city of skyscrapers and everything we expect from a Western city — I think that perhaps people have been misled into thinking it's a bunch of mud huts… Anyway, a couple photos:

How different does that look from where you live?

People live there. People like you. People as innocent and unrelated to the butchers ordering and facilitating these attacks as you. They will die for the multitude of fanatics and businessmen fueling this atrocity… But none of those evil men will die, will they?

You may be seeing the ruling class in all the countries around Iraq freaking out — I've seen it all morning… “Death to the Americans” they shout. These are Saddam's enemies shouting this. They hate America even more than they hate him, and Osama bin Laden and his followers are rejoicing in the victory they're winning today.

But…

Two thirds of that region is under thirty thanks to the brutal sanctions and horrific rulers that have killed much of the population. Those two thirds want dialogue with the West, and want to enjoy the same freedoms and wealth. The only reason they haven't is because of the religious fanatics leading them and American efforts to stop it from happening.

KEEPING IT FROM HAPPENING IS WHY THIS WAR EXISTS.

By invading, Bush guarantees that extremists stay in power. He guarantees that the youth becomes radicalized. He guarantees that the Middle East stays repressed, and never rises to Western modernism, freedom, and, to be blunt, power.

This is about ensuring that the global pyramid game keeps its Pharaoh.

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