Dreampepper

I tie our hair together in looping knots, gold twined with red and purple, my hair wrapped in his like set gemstones. We match our garnet earrings, I think, we match and are beautiful, here in this place, this tent of our tangled hair, in this moment where we've erased the entire world but ourselves.

I think of the violence in Iran, the students shot for protesting, the plain clothes agitators hired by the police state to enact violence in the name of the wronged, and I am especially glad for this small green hill, our hair braided together, our eyes shining together like light. Such perspective is deeply important to me. There are no fires here, no government shootings, no rigged elections for despots. We are not threatened here in Canada, the country we've made of a million languages, stronger together, we are safe here, and no matter how complex or stressful our lives might be, we will not die from politics. We are not persecuted and can help those that are.

How to fight from afar: seemingly levelheaded advice on aiding the protests online #iranelection via Eliza

#iranelection cyberwar guide for beginners

The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through twitter.

1. Do NOT publicise proxy IP’s over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DM them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.

2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.

3. Keep you bull$hit filter up! Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don’t retweet impetuosly, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.

4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.

5. Don’t blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don’t publicise their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don’t signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind.

6. Denial of Service attacks. If you don’t know what you are doing, stay out of this game. Only target those sites the legitimate Iranian bloggers are designating. Be aware that these attacks can have detrimental effects to the network the protesters are relying on. Keep monitoring their traffic to note when you should turn the taps on or off.

7. Do spread the (legitimate) word, it works! When the bloggers asked for twitter maintenance to be postponed using the #nomaintenance tag, it had the desired effect. As long as we spread good information, provide moral support to the protesters, and take our lead from the legitimate bloggers, we can make a constructive contribution.

Please remember that this is about the future of the Iranian people, while it might be exciting to get caught up in the flow of participating in a new meme, do not lose sight of what this is really about.

Images from Iran, unfiltered, unedited - this is reality.

The BBC has turned green in support of the Tehran protesters.

Sullivan running "a constantly updated feed of the best tweets [from] the resistance, real time."

Reuters: The US State Dept is asking Twitter to delay their maintenance plans.

Kiosk, by Bruce Sterling.

I didn't make it to Sweet Nothings last night, instead I was caught in a crime-scene on my way to the art gallery/tattoo parlour where Claire and Noah have their paintings up. I knew going down that there had been a murder, two people shot in a black SUV outside Gotham, the overly expensive steak-house across the street, but what I didn't know was that by the time I arrived, the police were locking down the entire block.

I had perfect timing. As I walked from the bus-stop, cutting between buildings, they literally blocked off all the exits with police tape around me. I tried stepping under it to get out onto Seymour where the gallery is, as I tried to find my way out, and I was shouted at to get back, this is a crime scene, then I tried the alley to the same results, then the way I came in to the same results. Finally, having used up three of the four cardinal directions, I decided to hell with their shouting, I was going to breach the damned line, and ducked under the tape out onto Dunsmuir.

Next thing, I was sitting hand-cuffed on the hood of a police car as four cops shouted at me for sneaking in, possibly tampering with evidence, and theatening to arrest me for obstructing the law. It must have made an odd little scene. Four large men shouting at me in my long black coat, a top hat with a pretty ribbon, and gold lipstick, as I explained as patiently as I could that no, I had simply gotten off the bus, I was not involved in any way, and yes, you can go through my things as much as you like and would you please take these damned things off me, I am not twelve years old, thank you, stop treating me as such.

There were so many police present at the scene that I can't imagine there were any left in the rest of Vancouver, so it took twenty minutes for them to find anyone who could verify my story. When it finally came crackling over the radio, "what, you mean that chick in the top hat?" I was testy enough to bitch them out for being unprofessional enough to call me a "chick".

The rest of the night was lovely, however. Frank and Claire, once they were allowed out, picked me up at the Tim Horton's across the street, and we stayed up immensely late taking incredibly silly cleavage-filled photos at their place. So there you are, internet, you've been warned. Breasts are imminent.

 Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.

I actually have to leave the house today. I'm feeling sort of nervous about it. I have to collect my keys, and the money - and leave. Walk outside. Step from the house into the open air.


The day before yesterday, I was walking home through the dark alley that runs parallel to Victoria, and two bicycle police stopped me to ask, "Have you seen a rather large man with a fire axe?" . He had robbed the gas station down the road about 30 minutes earlier, and was presumed still in the neighborhood.

I have to leave the house?? A strange man tried to kidnap me this month! I'm being asked about psychotics with FIRE AXES! Fire axes are serious frightening things!


I dearly hope there's someone available to spend time today.