The War on Macro-Terrorism

Well, it's high time somebody did something about this. It's too bad it's my old nemesis Gareth Kirkby who is, but he's at least somewhat better than no one.

When I lived in Ottawa (I believe it was the late Cretaceous period) I wrote a couple of times for the gay paper there, which at that time was called GO Info. It was sponsored by what was then just plain Gays of Ottawa. In fact, GO INfo was the first paper to publish me, and I still have nightmares about my editor there, one Gabriella Goliger.

We had an awful time in those days (1989ish) getting retailers to carry the paper; it would seem, then, that nothing has changed in my nation's capital. GO INfo was superseded by Capital Xtra and they're still having the same problem.

Of course, even here in super-tolerant Vancouver, Xtra West paper boxes are the most damaged of all. I frequently find them propped open so that the papers inside will be destroyed by rain. Despite my prickly relationship with Xtra West I always repair their boxes when I find them like this.

One of the things I'm going to do once I'm getting paid to produce this site is to stake out the ones most frequently targeted and catch some motherfucker in the act and have him arrested, take his picture getting arrested, and schmear his face and name all over the Internet as a warning. Unless it's some homeless guy.

You know, it's all very easy to see terrorism as a big event - a car bomb, say - and feel there's nothing we can do about it. But terrorism is also a hundred little things, such as this. Preventing people from finding community and accessing information that is pertinent to them (but otherwise unavailable) is what I like to call macro-terrorism, and it needs to stop too. Fortunately, individuals can stop macro-terrorism, so let's, shall we?

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