This is not very long and may be a bit rambling but I think it is germane to the health and vitality of this community. Some of you may have noticed that Zanna, one of my partners, and I have put three 1024 contiguous lots up for sale in LA. Why have we done that? We were developing two art galleries that were to act as a backdrop for a SL university and were locating it in Locus Ameonus. We initially wanted to place it in CDS for a number of reasons: A democracy of sorts, numerous very attractive builds, and a community of some duration involved with itself. These are facts that remain, so why are we moving the University elsewhere?
Democracy: A democracy that supports significant discrimination is a democracy in name only. Example: There are many but I will cite a recent one involving the entity Stonebender. After months of almost total silence Stonbender emerges from their sleep issuing me a dictum in essence saying shut up or I will turn you off. This is after months of the most vile and often personal of insults being brandished about on these forms. Forgive me for being presumptuous, Stonebender, but what I got from you message was three things: I am all powerful and can turn you off in an instant, I am highly discriminatory, allowing some to say anything that they want and censuring others for the same or similar transgressions, and those transgressions better not be ad hominem in nature. I detest censorship. I realize that there needs to be some restriction relating to libel and slander. I do support the dictum that one crying fire in a crowded theater where there is no fire should be punished. To some degree I agree with the notion that ad hominem attacks are not in order, but I believe there are exceptions. What does one do with an individual who emerges with offensive rhetoric that is devoid of concepts? How does one rebut such an individual? Let’s take your entry Stonebender. As I mentioned there are three rather vague concepts contained therein, the three that I have already mentioned. What do I attack? I don’t have issue with someone being all powerful. I am a retired neurosurgeon and in the surgical theater I was both king and queen, people jumped to my commands or they were dismissed. No legal mumbo jumbo, a life was entirely in my hands. I do oppose discrimination realizing that we all discriminate; I am partial to the color blue. However when it is extreme as it was in your intervention and threat it needs to be challenged.
Now, back to the reasoning behind our decision to locate the University elsewhere. A democracy that is a democracy in name only will never be respected. Given that, we will never be able to attract and retain good teachers. Political squabbling to the extreme as it is here in CDS is a burden. I also, as I have noted elsewhere, have difficulties accepting the current leadership. Let me give you an example. I was at a gathering that Rose was putting on, a dance concert. Twenty or thirty folk were there and all seemed to be having a good time; I was. Then out of nowhere flashed An IM, it was Cindy. Kas took issue with what Cindy was saying and an IM fistfight ensued, that continued for some time. It got quite nasty. It reminded me of a barroom brawl between two women in rl, with pulling of hair, gouging of eyes and tearing of dresses (figuratively, that is). I know it ruined a number of party goers evening. I am horrified that individuals like this are at key posts in this, “democracy.”