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Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Street - One

Street - One

She is in the market, two spread out blankets in front of her, books, and carvings. Corner spot, ideal. Room for people to stand or kneel down, look at things, pick up books. One fold out chair, come and sit. Emily. Her name, is Emily. Clear day, afternoon in December. Teenager runs up. She doesn't know him. Drops to his knees right in front of her.

"Your son went down. On the corner. Howe. Paramedics with him now. They don't think he's doing so well."

She gets up, hustles the two blocks to the corner where flashing lights and paramedics are feeding her boy oxygen through a mask.

Six days in a hospital she holds his hands.

Cold hands.

As his organs fail.

On the sixth day. They take him off the machines. He never wakes. They shake their heads. He never woke up. She never got to look him in the eye again.

Carfentanil. A new street opioid, fifteen times more potent than fentanyl which is the buzz word on every media person's lips.

You want to talk about how do we make lives better?

Here.

There are six overdoses a day.

Fifty deaths a week.

They're dying there on the streets.

Dying invisibly while you fight your war. While you talk about money. While you talk about power. While you talk about equality.

Her son's name was Sean. He sold cigarettes on a street corner and he slipped through the cracks invisible.

He was aboriginal. He left behind a wife and a child.

He wasn't anyone. And he isn't anyone anymore.

It's not safe.

Fuck you.

Help, Me.

Quotes - Gus Speth

Quotes - Gus Speth

I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change.  I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address those problems, but I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and Apathy...and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation - and we scientists don't know how to do that.
-Gus Speth

Monday, December 12, 2016

Humans of New York - Obama

Humans of New York - Obama




“I first ran for Congress in 1999, and I got beat. I just got whooped. I had been in the state legislature for a long time, I was in the minority party, I wasn’t getting a lot done, and I was away from my family and putting a lot of strain on Michelle. Then for me to run and lose that bad, I was thinking maybe this isn’t what I was cut out to do. I was forty years old, and I’d invested a lot of time and effort into something that didn’t seem to be working. But the thing that got me through that moment, and any other time that I’ve felt stuck, is to remind myself that it’s about the work. Because if you’re worrying about yourself—if you’re thinking: ‘Am I succeeding? Am I in the right position? Am I being appreciated?’ – then you’re going to end up feeling frustrated and stuck. But if you can keep it about the work, you’ll always have a path. There’s always something to be done.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Life - Wytai

Life - Wytai

n. a feature of modern society that suddenly strikes you as absurd and grotesque—from zoos and milk-drinking to organ transplants, life insurance, and fiction—part of the faint background noise of absurdity that reverberates from the moment our ancestors first crawled out of the slime but could not for the life of them remember what they got up to do.

#DictionaryOfObscureSorrows

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Musings - Art and Love

Musings - Art and Love

The nature of the artwork you do changes a lot when you're in love. I also find myself working more often in both darker and lighter headspaces at the same time.

It's very confusing.

Sometimes I still want to tear myself apart, working on subjects that make me look critically at the very worst of the world.

Then I don't.

I suppose I don't really understand.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Charity - Desert Bus 10

Charity - Desert Bus 10

Desert Bus 10 just ended. This year, we raised some 690 thousand dollars for children's hospitals, domestic violence shelters, and charity. The donations continue to trickle in, but for a week, it is important to think about making a concerted effort at bringing more light into the world. It's a dark time everywhere right now. We are plagued by an uncertain future, and concerns that what we understand to be ethically, morally forward thinking are perhaps not shared with our fellow denizens of the planet. But instead of hiding, instead of running away, it is important to stand up and do action to push further and higher.

Voting is one step to an engaged populace. Volunteering, which you can do any day, volunteering and donating money are conscious decisions you can make every day to ensure the world for tomorrow is a better place.

Alex gave a speech about doing more, about making choices and about being better human beings.

I'm linking it in below here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq1qB5QkOmk&feature=youtu.be


I'm also linking in the Desert Bus Documentary. I hope it resonates with you the way it does me. Desert bus represents 8 years now of commitment I've had. For 8 years, about proving that humans can, should, and will do good things. I've never been really rich, this is the first year I've been able to donate three figures worth of money, but whatever the amount, giving anything is a demonstration. In a modern world that belabours the ideas of nihilism, a demonstration of charity is a striking action of ethical protest.

DB10 - Desert Bus Documentary Trailer


Monday, November 14, 2016

Ethics - Safety Pins

Ethics - Safety Pins

I've been reading about safety pins. And I get it. I understand why.

And I disagree.

I don't disagree with the spirit of what is happening by wearing a safety pin. But I do disagree with the practicality of it. I also disagree with the shifting onus that it represents.

For those that are interested, there's a "safety pin campaign" that has been going on over the last week since the lamentable results in America. I'm not going to comment on that yet, I'm still digesting, and likely might be for the next 4 years. But that safety pin campaign says wear a visible safety pin to demonstrate to marginalized groups, (LGBTQ, Minorities, Immigrants), that you are an "Ally."

The safety pin is supposed to symbolize that you are "safe", that you are an "ally". People of those marginalized groups can come to you for safety.

Fuck off.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Dungeon World - Refuge of the Once-Many

Dungeon World - Refuge of the Once-Many

Just a short piece of world building writing for this week.


Thursday, September 22, 2016

Politics - Attacking Trump Supporters

Politics - Attacking Trump Supporters

Drew Magary wrote this inflammatory 'open letter' attacking Trump Supporters. It's awesome.


Sunday, September 4, 2016

Politics - Standing, Sitting, Anthems

Politics - Standing, Sitting, Anthems

A piece of writing by Jim Wright, an American Veteran, on the Colin Kaepernick, not standing for the Anthem.

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

I've been away from the internet all day.

I came home from a family picnic on the Blackwater River to find my inbox, as usual, overflowing like a ripe Port-O-Pottie.

One of the first messages I read was about 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, quoted above, who last Friday night at the beginning of a preseason game suddenly decided to become the most hated man in America du jour by deliberately not standing for the National Anthem.

Yes, that's right, a football player didn't stand for the National Anthem.

As you know, this means Kaepernick is scum, a horrible human being, a likely member of ISIS, a Muslim terrorist, a black thug, a communist, a socialist (and not the cool share your weed Bernie Sanders kind of socialist but the Red Brigade kind of Socialist who sleeps under a poster of Chairman Mao), a radical, a Black Panther, and he probably has Fidel Castro's phone number in his contact favorites.

Yeah. Okay.

I answered the message and went on to the next one.

The next message was about Kaepernick. As was the next one. And the next one. And...

They all begin pretty much the same way: Jim, AS A VETERAN, what do you think about this? Well?

Let me answer all the messages at once

Monday, August 29, 2016

Shadowrun - We Are The Future

Shadowrun - We Are The Future

There is a very good reason why Shadowrun has taken pains to be inclusive in its character options and in the universe that those of us currently writing have been lucky enough to work on in its nearly thirty year history. It’s not only because making the world inclusive is the right thing to do; and it’s not just because the Player Characters are presumed to be from the marginalized, downtrodden, and ignored parts of society that are now and are in the Sixth World reserved for or otherwise filled with racial, ethnic, gender, religious, and other minorities (or majorities—numerosity doesn’t necessarily translate to political power); but at the end of the day, being an inclusive and open world is the right business decision.

This criticism is the desperate cries of dinosaurs as they struggle against the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction. It’s loud and violent, and in the end it’s just as successful.

While this tumblr is supposed to represent the Shadowrun tabletop game, the entire universe and all of the properties share these same traits and considerations. Shadowrun, in video game or tabletop RPG or novel or any other format, will continue to move forward and I expect that D&D, Pathfinder, etc. and Beampod will also continue to move forward because the future is open and inclusive. And if you don’t like it, too bad.

UPDATE: To be clear, these negative comments are in no way “criticism” of the game. It’s whining by bigots trying to impose their own biases on commercial enterprises that have made their position on their fictional universes and in who they hire and promote to continue those universes. This whining does not deserve anything more than to be ignored.

If you don’t like it, you’re free not to buy the product.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Secret - Begin

Secret - Begin

Here is the secret. You will never be ready to make that piece of art, write that book, screenplay, sculpture, design that video game, build that perfect website. You will never read the book that makes it 100% fall into place. Find the perfect toolset. String the perfect guitar or arrange the perfect composition of music before you begin.

You will never be ready before you begin. So you may as well just begin.

Get going.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Internet - Moderation

Internet - Moderation

The trouble with communities is that at some point, they grow large enough to attract undesireable elements.

The actual trouble is that we have this notion that it is acceptable and a foregone conclusion that there will always be undesireable elements given a certain criticality of human perspective and opinion. As though the perpetual state of the human condition is to eventually default to hatred and ignorance.

Are we not troubled by that as a thought?

That given enough free opinions, our communities automatically become toxified?

Friday, July 8, 2016

Politics - Fuck All Lives Matter

Politics - Fuck All Lives Matter

With the recent spate of news regarding "Black Lives Matter", there again is the ever present rebuttal that "All Lives Matter." This happens over, and over. It happens with gender, it happens with culture, it happens with religion, it happens with sexual orientation. The thing is, like others have posted, until we started saying #BlackLivesMatter nobody ever said #AllLivesMatter. Until we had #GayPride, there was never a #HeteroSexualPrideDay. #WhiteHistoryMonth sounds ludicrous against #BlackhistoryMonth, and the idea of #MensRights makes us all cringe.

Here's the problem. All Lives Matter, is 'strictly true'. But it's also tone deaf. It's tone deaf because it's not about finding nuance, it's about maintaining status quo. It's about silencing the very real problems people have with what is going on in society right now. GeekAesthete wrote this about why it's not okay.

Friday, June 17, 2016

Catholicism - Marriage

Catholicism - Marriage

In sharp rebuke, the Pope said that many Catholic marriages are not valid because when people are getting married, they are not taking seriously the vows they make before god.

A lot of straight Catholics are angry with the Pope, for shedding light on something which was previously kept in the dark.

I wonder if they understand the irony, of the Pope savaging their perceptions and calling their marriages invalid, when they themselves have done so for decades against LGBTQ pairs.

I suppose that might be too self-aware though.

Too bad.

Friday, June 3, 2016

Rest In Peace - Muhammad Ali

Rest In Peace - Muhammad Ali

Don't Count the Days. Make the Days Count. Rest In Peace Ali.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Drabbles - Fish and Robots

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime. Build a robot to fish; do all men eat or do all men starve?

Friday, May 6, 2016

Drabble - Anything

Drabble - Anything

Once, in the twilight of his years, Cartier was in his study working when he was approached by an apprentice. The young woman had an air of sleep about her, dressed in sleepwear and with a small clay mug of milk. Cartier was behind his drawing desk, an array of sketches before him in flimsiplast, his gaunt face was shadowed from the glow of screens.

His apprentice waited for a long moment, seemingly content to sip her clay mug of milk, before finally she spoke up, unbidden.

"If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?"

The old master didn't look up.

He didn't even hesitate in his answering.

"In love."

Later, the apprentice, a master herself would recount the tale, of what a person who had everything could possibly want more than anything.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Writing - Missed

Writing - Missed

I should have told you I loved you.

Before I packed my bags and walked out the door.

I should have kissed you for longer.

I regret.

That when you kissed me on the lips.

I turned aside.

For what could have been.

And wasn't.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Racism - On Hollywood and Whitewashing

Racism - On Hollywood and Whitewashing

Originally I wrote this rant about Hollywood, and whitewashing stories. It was angry, and inspired by the most recent stab in Ghost in the Shell, where they've decided to cast Scarlet Johansson (whom I love as an actress) as the quite Japanese Mokoto Kusanagi.

Then I thought about my rant. It's not just that I'm angry, but actually, it is more that I'm hurt. And I'm hurt not only for Hollywood, which I'm angry at, but I'm hurt for everyone culturally that shares the plight with me. I'm hurt for everyone who has gone before me and seen mainstream media evolve this way. I'm hurt for my generation, caught in this weird precipice of knowing better and not being able to express ourselves on what we want or how to get it.

And I'm hurt for the generation that is coming after mine, that deserves better.

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Life - Dekay

Life - Dekay

The slow dekay of friendships into acquaintances, and from acquaintances into passing strangers. Where once you talked every day, and now are not fish to even wish each other good tidings. You both yearn for what was lost, but can't quite put your finger on when things started to break down so thoroughly. Only that they did. The passing of days and weeks into months and years, until you can't recall each others' faces anymore except what you see, carefully crafted and manipulated in digital print.

You can't be friends with everyone. You say to yourself. You rationalize. There are only so many hours in a day, so much energy and attention to spread around. And you do a damn good job with the friends you have. But maybe you yearn for the ease of what you once had. But maybe. But maybe...

But the decline runs through, and you see each other on the train. And instead of recognizing, you turn away and walk down the space between cars, and put your headphones back in.

It's easier to forget.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Worlds - On Internet

Worlds - On Internet

I was just thinking fondly of the internet, when I was a young man, a boy. The places we would frequent, the spaces we created when only the people most passionate MADE spaces. It was a wild world of personality and people before the corporations came, and before the whole Web 2.0 ideas took hold. Where putting out words required technical skills.

The world is a different place now. Those spaces are gone and return 404s. Where are you lizzard, or elvy. or pandora? Where did we all go?

Who did we grow up into?

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Thoughts - On Tomorrow

Thoughts - On Tomorrow

It's not enough that when we look at bigots, racists, and the discriminatory that we shake our heads and ponder how they will be on the wrong side of history one day. That day is today. That moment is now. Unless we fight to correct attitudes of belittlement, othering, and discrimination, 'history one day' will always be a tomorrow that never comes.

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Musings - Son

Musings - Son

The greatest failing I have as a son, is that I cannot seem to make myself known to my father. I am an extension of an idea, an archaic concept, but not a human. I am this collection of synapses in error.

To him, I am not a being, but a thing.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Thoughts - Reversing Diversity

Thoughts - Reversing Diversity

When someone responds to my posting that has the hastag #BlackLivesMatter, with their post of #AllLivesMatter...

I usually just block them immediately. Here's why. Because that person doesn't understand. They are replying to the intentionality that I have for a social plight with attempting to undermine mine. That's the problem. They are hoping to make one cause into every cause. But one cause isn't every cause. Every cause, whether it's LGBTQ, Suicide Prevention, Racial Discrimination, Sexism, or the myriad of other ways humans find ways to hate each other....requires different approaches.

Some of the steps we use to bring empathy to the 'other side' so to speak are common, but in many cases, the societal battles we fight for equality and justice are very different.

To conflate them into one thing, is to demean the struggles many of us have with our skin colour, our gender, our identity, our personal struggles, or our ethnicity or cultural heritage.

If you don't understand that, then the truth is that your understanding of plight is ignorant at best, and destructive at worst.

Friday, January 22, 2016

Life - Weird

Life - Weird

Don't you think it's weird? How we sometimes just walk right through other people's lives? This fleeting moment of almost contact for a minute, an hour, a day. This compounded entire other existence of memories, moments, words, and truths and we interact with that other for this minuscule thing. And then we're done.

And we might never see that person again?

Don't you think that's weird?

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Writing - Shattered Moon

Writing - Shattered Moon

A shattered moon rose over the night sky. Over the silt-salt oceans boiled away as they watched from the heights of a half-crumbled cloudtower. Beneath, the wilds of concrete seethed and burned, but up here, with the winds and grit for company, a dystopic peace had settled. His hand clutched in hers, the slow crawl of stars plied their soft twinkling dance through the sky.

They were lonely.

In an empty place, devoid in heart of courage there was little to do but watch, wait, and wonder. Until the slow crash of stone and steel sent them plunging cold to the embrace of ash.

Life - Early Morning

Life - Early Morning

So I went out to see the planets aligned because I was awake anyway. And instead of taking a blurry picture of the sky, I just enjoyed it.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Life - Unhelpfulism

Life - Unhelpfulism

Jerry (Tycho) Wrote this. I copied it here to archive it while I think on it.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Writing - Honor

Writing - Honor

Did they tell you this thing? Did your officers, your generals, your advisors put you up to it? They said to you that if you slipped me a poisoned dagger this night, or pressed small powder into the wine that you would save the lives of so many men?

That if you suffered this tiny indignity, this small lie, this small loss of honor, that you would instead be heralded a hero, you who prevented the loss of so many lives on the morrow.

Here we sit, us two, and roll dice on the night before a battle. As old comrades, as though we are friendly. I offer you terms, you deny them. We reminisce for days gone by.

Sip your wine.

Tomorrow, no quarter.

Monday, January 11, 2016

Life - On Kindness

Life - On Kindness

Rhoner wrote this story, about blown out tires, kindness and doing right.

Today you, tomorrow me.


Sunday, January 10, 2016

Quotes - Duty

Quotes - Duty

'To do what ought to be done, but would not have been done unless I did it, I thought to be my duty.'

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Writing - Dead Oceans

Writing - Dead Oceans

Once I stood on the shores of the ocean, looking out towards the horizon. It was dead. I was staring at the washed up remains of an empire. Plastic and refuse floated, the grave site of a million souls unfettered. The lap of pollution and garbage as they plyed their dance across the shoreline. As far out as I could make, where sea met sky there were but the jagged bones of all that had been lost, and refused to sink.