The Rise and Fall of the Arisia Convention

 Arisia? Oh, that's a WHOLE can of worms! 🤣

The original Boston convention (actually New England) was Boskone, named after the planet of evil masterminds from the Lensmen series. It ended up developing the problems that most successful cons of the time had; too many attendees, lots of them young and looking for alcohol and sex (which they found). Result: lots of salacious stories in the news about the science fiction sexathon freaks, Right Here In Our City!

Also the usual chaos; people foaming the hotel hallways with fire extinguishers and doing high speed sledding, pulling multiple fire alarms over the weekend, drunken orgies, etc. Boston hotels basically decided as a group to no longer host science fiction conventions.

It was a fun con, by all accounts. But the people at the top (Boskone was a fan-run con, as all good cons are) finally had enough. They moved the con out of Boston (I think it was once held in Springfield, which is as far away from Boston as you could get and still remain in Massachusetts) and clamped down HARD. No cosplay. No parties. No alcohol. NO FUN OF ANY KIND!

Also they instituted a strict membership cap.

The result was an extreme reduction in the size and popularity of Boskone.

Years passed. A group of younger fans decided to start a Boston con for general science fiction and fantasy. They named it "Arisia", after the secret planet of •good• masterminds from the Lensmen series (a little jab at Boskone, which still exists to this day in diminished form). They found a hotel in Boston's financial district that was willing to host. And so the first Arisia was held in 1990.

That was my first con, by the way. A friend got me to go. It blew my mind. We entered the amateur video contest that year and won first place.

I attended the con faithfully for the next 25 or 27 years. Became a panelist there early on, and did hundreds of panels (no exaggeration). Taught origami classes to young kids several times. Read books to kids. Helped a friend with some prize-winning costumes at the big costume competitions. Helped my young son make cosplay costumes; they made him the regular closer of the kids' part of the show. Had a lot of amazing adventures.

But nothing lasts forever. A new group of young insiders took over, and they had big plans. Bathrooms would be unisex. Gluten would be banned. The old guard would be eliminated. Older, experienced panelists would be excluded. Topics that offended their refined sensibilities would be forbidden; for example, an outstanding series of events for dialog between theists and atheists was cancelled because "only straight white guys are atheists" (which was absolutely untrue; the audience and panelists were among the most diverse I saw in my whole time at the Con).

Within a few years, everyone I knew had either been banned or chose to no longer attend or serve as staff. The number of annual attendees crashed from nearly 5,00 to under1,000. It also came out that some of the new leaders had been harassing and r@ping some of the attendees and lower-level staff, but that was covered up by the Con Committee for years.

I was one of the banned. My crime was wearing a costume that included a latex balloon, although that wasn't forbidden. I also committed the signal offense of talking about the changes the leadership had made online, which I was told was absolutely unforgivable.

#Arisia #Convention #cons #ScienceFiction #Boskone

A Brainful of Spoon

Recent studies have found evidence that we all have plastic in our brains - as much plastic as in an ordinary plastic spoon, in microscopic deposits. It seems that nanoplastics can penetrate the blood-brain barrier quite easily. 

How do we get the plastic out again? I'm guessing we never do.

What is it doing to us? I suspect we won't know for decades, if ever. But I'm sure it's nothing good. 

But it bothers me. I can't shake the thought of a plastic spoon buried in my brain. I know it's not literally a spoon, but it bothers the hell out of me nonetheless.

Response to a Democratic Supporter

Eventually you'll realize that you've been played. The Democrats aren't the progressive party they were in the 1930s and 40s; they sold out to the oligarchs long ago. They're NOT "failing" to represent the people; they're doing exactly what they intend to do. Which is to lose. Lose elections, or lose legislative battles. Haven't you noticed that when they're in the majority they're helpless, and the Republican minority blocks everything the Democrats claim to support? They meekly bow to the parliamentarian, or to whichever right-wing Senators are playing the bad guy role that week. The most they'll do is pass weak-tea Republican policies such as RomneyCare. And when the Dems are in the minority, they're HELPLESS - except when it comes to begging us all for money and stabbing progressive candidates in the back. 

They don't even pretend to try to keep their promises any more. Student debt forgiveness? Intentionally undermined by using an approach that experts warned in advance wouldn't make it past the Supreme Court. A $2000 check for every American? They didn't even offer an excuse for that one. Ditto for the public option; Biden promised it, and then never mentioned it again after the election.

Their job is to keep people like you constantly trying to kick that football, even though they pull it away EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. They occupy the left/populist spot on the political spectrum to co-opt any real populist left movement, but their policies are cosmetic at best and always right-wing. They discredit the whole concept of leftism by pretending that it's purely a matter of identity politics carried to extremes, and spitting contempt at the vast majority of the American people who are dying under the boots of the health insurance "industry", the oligarchs, and inflation. 

That's why people voted for Trump. Believe it or not, they're smarter than you think; when offered a choice between hypocritical fascists who support the status quo and a fascist who at least acknowledged that the people are being screwed (even though he's just going to make it worse), they chose the option that recognized that there was a problem.

Stop playing the game. Recognize that we're being slowly exterminated by the upper class. We had it better under King George the Third. The political parties will NEVER allow a solution, because THEY'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM. It's time to work towards overthrowing this murder-suicide of a political system. A better world is possible, but no politician is going to hand it to us on a silver platter. We have to make it happen for ourselves.

Ceasefire?

I'm VERY dubious about the ceasefire that #GenocideJoe announced today between Israel and Hezbollah - or is it Israel and Lebanon?

The terms seem to be entirely in Israel's favor. It could be that the government of Lebanon just sold out Hezbollah under pressure from the US. Or Biden could be lying again; he's certainly done that before.

It's hard to imagine that Hezbollah would just give in, abandoning not only the people of Gaza but their own people as well. I'm hoping they don't go along. Israel MUST be abolished. Genocide must be punished!

An idea that might work?

It seems to me that the biggest problem that Jill Stein's campaign faces is the near-absolute blackout imposed by the Democratic Party and the mainstream media. Most people have no idea that's she's even running! 

If voters knew there was a candidate standing for universal health care, housing, peace, a $25 minimum wage, getting corporate money out of politics, and canceling all student debt, I suspect she'd win. But the Democrats and the oligarchs are absolutely desperate to make sure that nobody even knows she exists. 

Here's a thought: what if every Jill Stein supporter printed out five or 10 (or more) Stein/Ware 2024 flyers? Standard letter size, with just a few bullet points for her primary positions. For those who only have access to black and white printing, maybe add a dash of green with a crayon or marker. Then everyone puts them up around town, across America, all on the same day. The media would still ignore it, probably, but people would see. At least some of them would. It just might be a way around the media blackout.

---

Postscript: I've written to the Stein/Ware campaign but only got a canned response. But it seems to be such an obvious move! The Democrats and Republicans have the advantage of money and the media, but they're scared; if we can get the word out, voters will go Green. Printing fliers is cheap. It's a decentralized project. We can post them on telephone poles and other public places. If we all did it on a single day, the impact could be considerable.

In the meantime I'm thinking about what the fliers might say. How about "Stein/Ware 2024", with "Healthcare for All", "$25 minimum wage", and "PEACE"? With a link to her webpage at the bottom? I'll work something up and post it here soon.

You're Up!

 

What a choice!

 

Sad but true

 

ARRET PARAR

 

Revoked

 

Lies

 

How much more?

Nearly 300 bodies have been found in a mass grave in Gaza INCLUDING CHILDREN. They show signs of torture and in some cases were buried alive.

The White House calls the reports "deeply disturbing", and have therefore closed their eyes, put their fingers in their ears, and are chanting "nah nah nah nah I can't HEAR you!" over and over.

What will it take to end this nightmare? How much longer will it go on?

The real issues:

Between climate change and ubiquitous PFA/plastic contamination leading to infertility, the human race faces existential struggles for the next thousand years at least. More likely 5,000 years. And yet no one in power is even willing to consider that simple truth.

The human outlook in the years to come (assuming that our species survives, which is by no means certain) will be very different from modern sensibilities. With a steady decline in human fertility, protecting children will be a primary social obligation. Abortion will become irrelevant except out of medical necessity. War and its concomitant environmental damage will be universally unacceptable, although I fear that we're going to see a lot of wars in the meantime for habitable land (with the zone of habitability moving inexorably towards the poles) and resources.

The food chain will be...well, if we're lucky we'll only lose an incredibly broad range of flavors. Spices and luxuries such as vanilla and chocolate will be stories of legend at best. Local production will be the primary source of nourishment. Knowledge of preservation techniques will be extremely valuable. The worldwide contamination of water supplies will boost cancer levels through the roof. Anxiety and depression will hit levels heretofore unimagined, as will suicide and deaths of despair. The average human lifespan will be shorter than it has for tens of thousands of years.

And none of this was necessary. That's the thing that's hardest to take. Things didn't have to be this way. We knew better.

Welcome to my hole in the ground

Once again I'm effectively homeless online. I quit Reddit after the whole API thing; for some reason I didn't miss it. But I got involved again on Facebook, which I'd abandoned for years. I guess I really wanted a place to talk about politics.

It's probably me. There's an undeniable pattern. I get involved in political groups online, and end up being censored and/or banned for what I'm told are extremist comments. Now, as I see it, my comments are anything but extremist; the oligarchs are literally killing off the human race and rendering the Earth uninhabitable for life, but we're not allowed to even TALK about fighting back.

The latest round was particularly ironic, I think. I was on a Facebook group that was originally called "Guillotines for Billionaires", but was later called "Guillotines For A Better America", or something like that. I think the implication of violence was pretty clear, no? In fact, I was quite surprised that Facebook itself allowed the group to exist. It was pretty clear that the group wasn't hidden or anything, since we were hit by a surprisingly high number of DNC trolls. But in any case, I had fun making memes and being involved with the group. Until...

Someone posted a photo of a sign on a pillar that said something like "Thank a cop today", with a stick underneath that said "And pepper spray them". I commented "And kick them in the balls. HARD. And then take their gun." Okay, a little harsh, but all cops are bastards in my book. Nonetheless the INSTANT I tried to post that comment I got a message that my comment went against community standards - and that if I deleted it immediately I might "avoid potential account restrictions".

Now, there's nothing that gets me more angry than being told to shut up. So I quit the group and Facebook on the spot.

That's free speech in these days of late-stage capitalism; censorship by software, with no appeal allowed. The only places that have free speech are those where no one will hear you...like here.

So I'll be writing here and in the other digital holes in the ground, for now.

Israel's stalling game

As the grandson of four child survivors of a a genocide which is still denied by the descendants of the perpetrators, I can testify to the truth of this: nobody cares. Our land and homes remain stolen. The one and a half million men, women, and children dead remain unrecognized. Pundits and elites roll their eyes and say "get over it, already!".

For a little extra irony, Israel itself continues to refuse to recognize the historicity of that genocide, even though the International Association of Genocide Scholars has recognized it for over half a century. The government of the United States waited over a hundred years before recognizing the genocide. Prestigious American schools including many of the Ivy League have accepted millions of dollars from the government descended from the perpetrators to endow chairs that can only be filled by professors who deny the genocide.

Our people are dispersed throughout the world. In the decades following the genocide, some of us took what reprisals we could, assassinating some of those who'd given and carried out the orders. For a while, the activist organization of my people were the most feared terrorists in the world. But that was long ago. The last of the survivors died in the last ten or twenty years. And that's where things stand. There will never be an admission of guilt, never be any reparations. Which is exactly what Israel AND THE US plan for the Palestinians.

A response to a Vote Blue No Matter Who "leftist"

Refusing to support genocide is neither vote shaming nor purity testing. You put a lot of links in your post, but most of them seem to come from the mainstream left such as PBS and Robert Reich. I don't consider such sources particularly credible.

That said, you're not going to convince me that the genocide of Gaza is in any way a "lesser" evil. Genocide can only be the greatest evil. So unless you can prove that that Joe Biden isn't complicit in genocide, you aren't going to convince me to support him.

Of course, there's a lot more that Joe Biden has done that renders him absolutely unacceptable to any person with a conscience. Luckily I don't have to support either one of the major party candidates, since Jill Stein is running in my state.

Lesser evil voting only works on behalf of the lesser evil, and in this case that's Trump. It also requires that we accept the notion that voting for the lesser evil won't end up contributing to increasing the evil of the entire system, which is exactly what has been going on for decades.

Clearly you have bought into the DNC's assumptions about Trump being the ultimate evil and genocide somehow being a price worth paying to save us from Trump. I don't agree. To be honest, I don't see how anyone could agree.

I'll point out that the DNC ALWAYS portrays the Republican presidential candidate as the ultimate evil, the newest incarnation of Hitler. Trump was a shitty President, but he wasn't Hitler. We survived him. The children of Gaza are not surviving Biden.

That said, it's incredibly naive to believe that a political solution is possible for America any more. The blatant rigging of the 2016 and 2020 primary elections showed that; Bernie sold us out each time, for whatever reason. The oligarchs own both parties, the voting machines, the media, the legislators, the judiciary...they own everything except we the people ourselves. That's why they are doing everything they can to destroy us.

We will not find salvation in the political process. We cannot vote the boot of the oligarchy off our throats using the oligarchs' own political system. That's not how it works. There is only one way to try to assure the survival of our species, and that is ending the murder-suicide economic and political system which is killing our planet.

It's really quite simple: We fight, or we die. No other solution is possible. Throwing children into the maw of the military-industrial complex not only won't help anything, but makes us complicit in the most inhuman act imaginable.

Biden/Trump 2024

Donald Trump just told Israel that they were doing the wrong thing on Israeli TV. Here's the thing: Trump's a scumbag, and a professional heel (as in professional wrestling). He's a real-estate con man and narcissist.

But he's not a mass-murderer like Biden. He knows what appeals to his audience. That's pretty much the stock in trade of a con man. So he talks big and says all kind of shit that he knows his audience loves to hear - or do you believe that he's really an evangelical Christian?

War scares him. It's too big for his level of relatively petty criminality and graft. That's why he was the only President in decades not to start a new war. He even tried to shut down a war, and the generals and military-industrial-Congressional complex jerked the reins out of his hands and flat-out refused to end it. They only ended it for Biden because they knew the resources were needed for the upcoming war in Ukraine.

The DNC has been pushing the idea of Donald Trump as the Antichrist, Satan, and Hitler all rolled up in one turgid package. They see terrifying their voters about Trump as the only way to get them to swallow the shit sandwich that is #GenocideJoe. But Biden is actually killing children every day, probably close to 20,000 by now. He's jailing more refugee children at the border than Trump did. He's happily denying millions of American children (and their parents) basic health care, while he and his family enjoy the best health care in the world for life, paid for by our tax dollars. And don't get me started about Biden's penchant for grabbing little girls and smelling their hair. The guy's a senile creep!

Biden's the genocidal fascist. Trump's a sleazy crook and con man. They're both rapists, of course. But between the two, Trump is clearly the lesser evil. Because genocide, particularly of a population which is half children, can never be anything but the greatest evil possible.

Biden also serves the oligarchs and the military-industrial complex with unquestioning loyalty (or at this point his puppetmasters do, since his brains seem to be mostly tapioca). He's brought the world closer to the brink of World War III than any President since JFK. Trump's ego is so huge and his need for applause is so deep that sometimes - only sometimes, mind you - he unintentionally foils the will of the oligarchs.

Both of them belong in jail. Neither of them deserve to be within a hundred miles of the White House. They're both contemptible. But selling the DNC's painfully-concocted lie that Trump is the Ultimate Evil (a lie they've used in every single election for the past forty years) is just ridiculous.

Inspired by the bumper crop of DNC shills this year, it's:

 

But this time they really mean it...right?

 All Americans ever receive is meaningless, contemptuous grandstanding from politicians like Kamala Harris' appearance today at an abortion clinic. Tell me, will she roll back time and codify Roe as the Democrats promised to do for decades but never did? No? Will "Union Joe" turn back time to undo his blatant backstab of the railroad workers union?

The only thing we can count on ANY politician to do is kill the innocent and enrich the elite. Israel will never be short of bombs while #GenocideJoe is in office - or ANY Democrat or Republican. At this point anyone who believes that there's a political solution to ANY problem is part of the problem themselves.

Too Damn High

The average monthly rent in my state is $3,313. The average annual income is $39,666. Let's crunch some numbers, shall we?

An annual income of $39,666 is a monthly income of $3,305.50. We can stop there. We're done. You're $7.50 short. 

Except, well, not quite. Approximately 40% of your income is taken up by income tax, social security, etc. That means your actual take-home pay is $1,983.30. So now you're $1,329.70 short. There's not a chance in the world you're going to find a place that much cheaper than the average, unless it's a refrigerator box in a gutter somewhere under a bridge. And not a very nice refrigerator box, either!

Are there any mitigating factors we can dig up? Of course. That $3,313 is the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment. So what if you get a studio apartment instead?

That's $2,765 per month. Progress! Now you're only $781.70 in the hole every month.

Except for a few minor necessities. Food. Utilities. Health insurance. A car if you need one to get to work. Fuel for the car. Forget about having a family, of course. Those are all impossible dreams.

How about a second job? If you're lucky enough to find a second full-time job, you can double up that income to $3,966.60 per month. Success! $3,966.60 minus $2,765.00 leaves you $1,201.60 for your other monthly expenses. Okay, with inflation doubling the cost of just about everything that might be a bit tight. And you're going to be pretty short of sleep. But it's at least in the ballpark of survival.

Have we missed anything? Well, $3,966.60 is the average income. God help you if you make less than that. And you'd better pray that inflation stops dead this minute, because you absolutely cannot afford any increase in your expenses. If your landlord decides to raise your rent, you're out on the streets.

Anyway, good luck. Me, I'm looking to move to a shithole in a rural state. My landlord has been raising my rent at least 25% every year since COVID ended.