GA Announces New Lead and Vice Lead

Today I received some long awaited news from the Gay Archipelago group.

Several months ago Rico Bluestar stepped down as Lead of the GA, since then there has been a selection process in the owners group to find a new Lead to replace him. The selection has now come to a successful conclusion with today's announcement.

The new lead-team of the Gay Archipelago will consist of Chris Magic as Lead, Weylin Vale as Vice Lead and with Parvin (Xcept Atlas) continuing as Public Relations Lead.

The new GA Lead-team courtesy of the GA WeBlog
Chris (center), Parvin (left) & Weylin (right)

Today's full press release:

Three years ago we mourned the passing of our founder, Fabrice Snook. Days ago we grieved with our friends when we learned that Avacar Bluestar had also left our Earth. 

Today, we welcome long overdue good news, the appointment of a new Gay Archipelago Lead and the creation of a new role, the GA Vice Lead.  They will join the current GA Public Relations Lead to serve our growing community.

We are proud to announce that after months of searching and vetting candidates for the positions the leadership committee completed their arduous task and have selected our new GA Lead and GA Vice Lead. 

Our GA Lead, Christope Magic, of Britain, has a long history of service to the Gay Archipelago and our LGBT community.   His roles include events manager for GA Summerfest 2014 and Winterfest 2014, our master of ceremonies for Miss Wigstock, a performer with Corinthia Isle Concerts, owner of the Remix Room, DJ, and host. 

Our GA Vice Lead, Weylin Vale, of Australia, brings real life LGBT event management experience to our team.  His resume includes participating, event managing and a Director of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, as well as event management for multiple governmental agencies. In Second Life he is owner of the sim Lycan Moon, a club owner, DJ, and established member of our community.

Together with our current GA PR Lead, Xcept Altas, of the USA, these appointments will give our community access to leadership without the boundaries of timezones, and clear, consistent responses to hurdles we will overcome together.

They are tasked with promoting unity and inclusion across our diverse international LGBTIA Second Life community. Each are committed to utilizing their skills to foster acceptance, offering support, and guiding teams and volunteers so that we may plan for and together embrace our future.   

Gay Archipelago brand represents our shared values, the knowledge that we are stronger together, and our belief that we can assist our member estates and our community, as well as our supporters, to live and grow in an environment that is tolerant and accepting of our common goals.

We thank the leadership committee; Garth Raleigh, Savannah Christensen, Leroy Voorhees, Evan Greymyst, Sangi Phaeton, and Draghan Marksman, for their service. Their diligence and care has given us leaders who will set us on a defined path towards tomorrow. 

In a two short weeks we will celebrate together as a community at our annual Winterfest. Please join us in welcoming our leads as they embrace their new roles.  

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.” [Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, June 26 1963] ― John F. Kennedy

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Greetings GA. 

I would like to introduce myself as your new GA Lead. Thank you so much to the GA Lead search committee, for all their hard work and time over the last few months. Thank you to Parvin for his hard work and amazing dedication to the GA, as interim Lead. You are truly awesome, never change. Today, i accepted the chance to guide the GA into the future. I feel very honored, and humble to be given this amazing opportunity. I have a huge task ahead of me, but one i will gladly take. I will not being doing this alone. Weylin who will be my vice lead, along with Parvin who will stay as PR Lead. Together, we will strive to constantly improve, strengthen your experience as member estates, sims and owners. 

Every estate, sim, owner will play an important role in the future of the GA. You are all vital to the GA. Without you, there is no GA. You will be heard, your voices are what we need to bring forward the organization. Let us work as a team, in harmony.  Together, we are one. United we stand. As the Lead team, settle into our new roles, please do bear with us over the coming weeks. I look forward to meeting you all to start this journey together.  Never change, be you.  Stay fabulous. 

This is your GA. Thank you, for your amazing support. 

"The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance" ― Brian Tracy

 Sincerely,
 Chris Magic

"Ich Bin Ein Prim Teamer"

The title of this post of course alludes to a famous speech given by the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Berlin, West Germany, on June 26, 1963,

On February 21, 2012, a new Swedish virtual worlds blog appeared. The blog, called Prim Team, was not really discovered by anyone before blogger Blanche Argus posted about it on her blog Blanche´s Arena on  February 28.

Little or nothing was known of the blogger/bloggers as they chose to remain anonymous, other than that they claim to be a group of people with technical interests "who together have more than 25 years of experience in virtual worlds". All might have run smoothly for them if they had not chosen to unearth and regurgitate the old Scandinavian civil war in SecondLife by four posts focusing on the old witch hunt theme again.

With those four posts Pandora´s box was opened and the scab was ripped off the old wounds which have seemed to be healing since summer. Their rehashing of history made it very interesting to know who was really behind the "insightful" blog.

For me knowing who wrote something is of interest in determining how much faith to put in what they write. Admittedly most of us in the SecondLife blogosphere go by our avatar names, all except my bosom buddy Apmel Goosson who is out there with his first life information also. But even if it is "only" avatar names that in itself is important information, because we know them as well or little as we know people in first life by their identities.

Three people came forward and declared emphatically they had nothing to do with the blog. These three were Blanche Argus, Gittrika Mint and Walentine.

In comments on the Prim Team blog and/or on other Swedish SecondLife blogs it has also become apparent that neither the mudslinger or her"cousins" are part of that particular team. The team behind the blog have also chosen to clearly state in a post that my buddy NEO Timeless is not part of the team.

I am rather sensitive to the use of language and after reading the blog for more than a week I ventured a qualified guess, by the language used in and the topics chosen for some of the posts, that one of the persons in the Prim Team is in fact Sven Idyll, latest known in the virtual world blogosphere for his blog Svens(k) Idyll (recently shut down).

Strangely this time the Prim Team chose to respond that "maybe he is or maybe he isn´t". Based on the fact that they have previously stated outright if someone wasn't a member of the team this answer - in my mind - is a confirmation though non-denial that Sven Idyll in fact is a member of the group.

In my response to this I decided to declare myself as part of that team. I still await their answer to that claim, which should be interesting however it turns out.

Oh and I should add that I have a growing suspicion about another member of the team. She is a highly intelligent woman, who has always been kind to me but is vehement in her dislike and disapproval of the so called "witch"

They should have discussed their policy on the anonymity issue better.

I Remember When I Heard It

I am told every person alive in the world remembers when and where they got the news when John F. Kennedy, the President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22^nd 1963. 

I wasn’t alive then, but I do remember when and where I heard the news that the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme had been killed. It was the first murder of it´s kind in Swedish modern history, of course I remember it still.

Olof Palme (January 30^th 1927 – February 28^th 1986) was a Swedish politician. Palme was the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 until his assassination in 1986. He was also the Prime Minister of Sweden twice during this period, heading a Privy Council Government from 1969 to 1976 and a cabinet government from 1982 until his death. 

A police truth says that a criminal assault by unknown perpetrators must be resolved almost immediately after the crime otherwise it will become very difficult.  

Hans Holmer, then head of the Stockholm police, immediately usurped the leadership of the investigation from the prosecutors. This crippled the investigation for more than two years and also to a great extent politicized the investigation. Once the investigation started to seem like a total waste of time it also led to paralyzing fights between Mr. Holmer and the responsible prosecutors.

Mr Holmér had a predetermined idea of where the murder should be found. It had to be a political conspiracy, it just had to be that and most likely – in his mind - there was a Kurdish angle; Palme could never ever have been killed by someone so mundane as a Swedish alcoholic and drug abuser.

While Holmér directed the searchlights towards the Kurdish PKK it delayed the examination of those who moved around the murder scene at the time of the killing. 

The investigators last real chance to get someone convicted for the Palme murder came in the trials of Christer Pettersson. The evidence was totally spoiled by a witness confrontation where the only good eyewitness the widow Mrs. Lisbet Palme in advance was told – quite possibly by Hans Holmér himself he always was good at chatting - that the suspect was an alcoholic. That led to her pointing out Pettersson as the man that killed her husband saying "Well, it is easy to see who is the alcoholic." This of course brought her testimony into doubt, no matter how she tried to repair the damage afterwards.

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The statute of limitations for murder used to be 25 years in Sweden, it was changed due to this botched up investigation so that the search could continue. Christer Pettersson is dead also.

Now I don´t believe that anyone will ever be tried and convicted for Palme´s murder.

Oh where and when I heard the news? It was when my mother woke me up on Saturday morning March 1, saying "Its time to get up, (Bock). Palme was killed last night." She sounded afraid and I saw tears in her eyes, even my father seemed very worried.

We lost a bit of our innocence that night, all Swedes living at that time did.