Fantasy Gay Pride Starts Today!

I received this press release through my friend Garth Raleigh, my reliable liaison in Gay Archipelago.

The Fantasy Gay Pride starts at 1 PM SLT today Friday and continues throughout the week.

Your transport to the event! (SLurl)

From the press release:

"We have the most big and beautiful Mer Area you have ever seen! Take a look at the names and photos below!  There is all this and a lot more!

There will be an amazing sim wide Hunt with stunning prizes!

We are, as ever, raising awareness of and encouraging tolerance and acceptance of all sexualities worldwide and this year having even more fun as the theme is "Erotic Fae"! Fantasy Gay Pride will be officially opened by Wolfgang Glinka reading his poem written specially for the festival called "Fae".  

There are many Dances and Parties, live music and a special live performance of the Fairy Show - "The Fascination of Cemanos"."  

Cemanos & Fireann

Asstastic Gallery

1001 Nights - Ali Baba

Mer Area

Goldifrocks & the 3 Bears

Phalis in Wonderland

Miss Fantasy Gay Pride

Sweet BDSM Island

The Purple Penis Palace

The Scottish Referendum

Yesterday more than 3.6 million Scots turned out to answer the question: ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’

The much honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm, prince of Cascade Falls, Sovereign Ruler of the Commonwealth of Southern Enchantment Region and Outer Territories and finally UN appointed Protector of the Solace Island and Mount Whitney sims in SecondLife, has monitored the referendum with much interest and some anxiety. Although the laird himself was not eligible to vote in the referendum, he has had much empathy for the trials and tribulations of his distant cousins in deciding this issue.

In the days before the referendum the all three of the largest parties in the United Kingdom visited Scotland and promised a greater devolution of powers to the Scottish parliament on issues of taxation, spending and welfare if the voters voted for ‘No’. 

The votes have now been tallied and the result of the referendum is shown in the graph below.

Graph quoted from guardian.com

The ‘No's won all except four of the 32 counties, the four ‘Yes’-counties being Dundee (57,3%), West Dunbartonshire (54,0%), Glasgow (53,5%) and North Lanarkshire (51,1%).

Following the result of the Scottish referendum the largest political parties have now also promised a greater devolution of powers for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

SP Board Meeting Tuesday

The Board of Directors of Second Pride will have a General Meeting Tuesday September 23, 2014 at 06:00 PM SLT in the Second Pride Headquarters Conference Hall.

Proposed Agenda for Second Pride General Meeting:

1. Call To Order:

2. Department Reports:
    A) Build:
    B) Events:

    C) Community Relations
    D) Security
    E) Treasurer Report

3. Chair Selection

4. New Business

5. Proposed Date for Next General Meeting Saturday

6. Motion to Adjourn

Source: Notice in the Second Pride Festival group

Picture of the Day - 186

"mediterranean sundance" by Eva Gummibaum

If you wish to see more of Eva's (ʟɛs ƐnfaɴŧS ĠâtéS) photography, please visit her Flickr photostream here.

Picture of the Day - 185

"And the pain that we left at the station will stay in a jar behind us..." by ~ Cody Zaytsev ~

If you wish to see more of Cody's photography, please visit his Flickr photostream here.

New SP Board to be Installed Today

The recently elected board of Second Pride will be seated at the board meeting today, Saturday September 13, 2014, at 11 AM SLT in the Second Pride Conference Hall (SLurl).

I hope to see you all there!

Is Facebook Homophobic?

Facebook, also lovingly known as F*c*book or FuckFace, is a social networking site located in the U.S.A. with 1.28 billion monthly active users worldwide (March 2014).

I have been using FuckFace on and off, both in my first and second lives, for the last four years or so. I have left Facebook voluntarily twice and I have had my account deactivated or disabled six-seven times (I lost count). Twice Facebook has given me a reason for deactivating/disabling my account ("reason to believe that I was not using real name"), but mostly it has been done without any justification given for their action.

During my time on FuckFace I have experienced several pogroms from the company directed against my LGBT friends, but no such actions have ever - to my knowledge - occurred against any of my straight friends. Neither have I ever heard or read of such concerted actions directed against straight SecondLife avatars on the site (with two individual exceptions, Barcelonamaria and Pieni).

If anyone of you reading this have such information, please do enlighten me as I realize that my knowledge is only empirical, limited and may be slanted ("With eyes sensitive to green", as a line in a Swedish song goes, ones perception of the color green is enhanced but other colors may be obscured.)

However, based on my experience, I am prepared to make the charge that FuckFace is homophobic - or at the very least - applying it's rules in a homophobic way. So my answer to the question I posed in the title of this post is: "Fuck yes, definitely!"

Moving on to another of my pet peeves concerning FuckFace, there is the issue of "real identities". The company seems to completely ignore that there many times are valid reasons for someone not to use the name on their drivers licences. These reasons can range from being a victim in an abusive relationship to actually being better known in different times or circles under a "nom de plume" (pen name), alias or artistic name.

During my online existence over the last twenty years I have, besides Bock McMillan, during periods been best known as Markus Bock, LundaMats, WWW, Lunds nästkåtaste karl or 70244 (among others).

I am Bock McMillan and Bock McMillan is I. We are one and inseparable, the only difference is that one is better known in one of my lives, while the other is better know in the other life. It should be my decision which of my names I use and when, not FuckFaces.