I’ve been putting this off for months. But I simply don’t have the bandwidth and energy now to keep publishing the Great Lakes Den. Effective now, the Den will be on hiatus for at least two months. I have burnt out on publishing and on my community activities. I actually hit burn out back in…
Less than one week. Let that sink in, in less than one week’s time, not even seven days… A person who was chosen to be an international title holder was verbally attacked. This person was called a “chicken shit” because they chose to follow their heart and compete in a contest that was more them.…
By Rhee Metzel This past few months really has me thinking, possibly too much. That is not a bad thing. When I came out about my own abuse I was in 8th grade. So 13 or 14. The amount of shit I heard was awful. I was trafficked as a child prostitute for men by…
By Jeff Gberg “Little Alice fell down the (rabbit) hole, bumped her head and bruised her soul.” – Lewis Carroll If you were an outsider, a newcomer, or someone looking to find where they belong… what would you think based on what we have seen, read, or heard the last many weeks, months, or even building…
I’ve gotten a lot more entries on the Great Lakes Den survey (thanks!) and hope to get more. And I’ve launched the survey for The Illinois Eagle. I wanted to explain a bit why I’m doing the surveys and what I’m finding so far. I need to know there is a need and desire for…
It’s 2018 and in the Leather Community, victims are the enemy.
Not just any victims, mind, just the ones who choose not to be. “Drama” is the sin, not injustice. “Exclusion” is the virtue, not change. We have always been at war with East Asia.
The “1984” allusion might have been a tad hyperbolic, but in light of “International Leather Victim 2018”, an article published by an IML 2017 top 20 contestant, we’re forced to ask ourselves how did this happen?
What a time to be alive. The previous year filled itself with threats from multiple sources which threaten to tear the social fabric apart. The potential victims are numerous and varied. Yet little did we know that our own leather community was amongst their number. Thank heavens, then, for the article “International Leather Victim 2018,” without which this terror may have gone unnoticed. In the short read, the author Pup Chomper bemoans the imminent collapse of our community brought on by the whippersnappers what with their social media self-victimization.
This past weekend, I attended the LION Publishers Conference here in Chicago. LION stands for Local Independent Online News. The majority of news sites there were mainstream news. They often function like a local daily newspaper. In a few cases, they were the only daily news source for their towns. However, that wasn’t the only…
Dear fellow Americans, The next two years will test the fortitude of our democracy. It will be a worldwide lesson in how America functions as a nation and how its founding principles ensure tyranny never goes unchecked. Donald Trump’s executive order to ban certain populations from entering the United States goes against the grain of…
Who do I tell what happened? I cannot tell anyone, who would believe me? How did I let this happen to me? These are the questions that pop into your head when it is happening to you, after it has happened to you, and for months, years, for most the rest of your life. This…
