Period stuff(ed)...

[Chris Walden]

In this debate about what heraldry is and is not politically correct and 
appropriately sensitive to all comers, I've got a few quesitons:

PUG, are you serious?  Are you really supporting the view-point that you 
profess, or are you just hopping on the debate-the-hell-out-of-anything 
bandwagon?

Can everyone hear themselves and each other?  From reading the posts on this 
discussion mailer thingie, were I not a participant in the SCA, I would have 
to assume that the SCA was a social sporting group that had suddenly been 
overrun with fanatics who were shoving unwanted history lessons down 
people's throats.

Is there anyone who did not know that the SCA was related to the exploration 
of life in the Middle Ages and Renaissance?  Is there anyone who did not 
want to be exposed to the history?  Do all of you get your historical 
perspective from the latest Dr. Who where they visited a planet where people 
were kinda stuck in the Middle Ages?

Now I know I'm going off half-cocked here.  (Aren't you glad I didn't wait 
until I was fully cocked?)  But I am just amazed at the attitudes that I see 
expressed here.  You people are so hung up on "enforcement" and people 
trampling on your rights.  If you want to draw 3-D penises and have 
camoflage T-tunics with winky-blink lights all over them and call yourself 
Arnold the King of Prussian Land Fills, I just couldn't care less.  If you 
don't want to crack a book, or look around or listen to anyone or do 
anything except espouce your own version of what you want to do, GO FOR IT!

As long as you keep to the marshalate rules and don't hurt anyone or break 
mundane law, I am proud to uphold your rights as an American Human Being.  
Please, be an elf!  Be a Nazi thrown back in time.  Be the Middle Ages the 
way you jolly well want them, with RVs, laptop computers and all!  Let's 
bear Pepsi adds on our shields at Pensic and sell the add space.  Let's just 
take everything that we understand of our world and dress it up in funny 
clothes, but only if we want to, because we, as modern ultra developed 
people realize that those pathetic superstitious primitives have nothing 
enlightening for us today.

If you don't care, fine.  DON'T CARE.  

Surely at least one of you started to play with this group because you found 
romance, beauty and enlightenment from a time when they had a different 
point of view, and in some cases a different set of priorities.  Surely 
someone has found more here than just another RAT RACE where they can 
compete and prove that they are the smartest and most aggressive person to 
creep up the ladder.  Surely there is someone here who really gives a damn.

Well, if you exist, you know where to find me.  Because I'll be doing what I 
do, the best that I can, and hope that I get better as I go.

I remain Yours, etc.
Antonio Bastiano
or cmwalden at bga.com