Hate is not love and love is not hate.
Victoria Day or Fête de la Reine (Monday EST in Canada)
Victoria Day in Canada is the celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday who is considered the Mother Of Confederation. It is often referred to as the May Two Four long weekend and many often use it as the point from which to kick off summer, celebrating the Queen's Birthday. There are usually festivities the country over and on Monday night there are often a fireworks displays to be found just about everywhere.
Happy Victoria Day to everyone in Canada and Happy Birthday to the Queen!
To the rest of the world, why don't you come over and join us for a party?
International Day Against Homophobia
I`ll start with today and work my way backwards. Today, Saturday is of course International Day Against Homophobia. Fear is often the root of any hate and not knowing is often the root of fear. So to alleviate this not knowing I'm going to talk a little bit about how history might have been different if not for some people who were of course a part of the gay community and part of our history.
Cryptography has been a growing science from ancient history and has become imperative to protecting everything from our economy and banking system, to intellectual property, online transactions and most private communication.
During World War II, the Nazi regime had developed an advanced encryption scheme known as Enigma, which kept most of their forces synchronized and kept their plans out of the hands of the allies. To combat this, the United Kingdom formed a school of cryptography known as the Cypher School at Bletchley Park. Alan Turing, a mathematician, cryptanalyst, computer scientist and biologist worked at Hut 8 devising methods to decrypt German naval communications.
His efforts there in combination with the efforts of many researchers lead to the breaking of the Enigma code, often giving the allies a window into the entirety of Nazi plans and orders ahead of time. It is estimated that their contribution and Turing's who was regarded as the star player of the team may have saved millions of lives and most certainly has shaped our history. Using this peek into the Nazi plans, they were able to feign intelligence leaks that led the Nazi's to deploy their forces in such a way as to create the opening in their lines that led to the D-Day invasion. He was a member of the gay community which was not widely accepted at that time and was perhaps one of the best kept secrets. Many of us today might not be alive if not for their work at Bletchly Park and the efforts of a member of the gay community there named Alan Turing.
Alan Turing would go on to develop the idea of a stored program of operating instructions, a concept important in the world of computing. As well he devised a test, a measure of machine learning or artificial intelligence that would evaluate whether a machine possessed the abilities of our own human learning and intelligence call the Turing Test.
Maybe people being aware of such facts is one way to curb homophobia and to foster a culture of acceptance.
On Creating A Culture Of Acceptance
Hopefully this culture of acceptance will also include the dissociation of the Germans and the Japanese from Nazism an ideology which has snuck its way into many other ideologies of late. The stigmas and ill imposed debt are often the very seeds that lead to world conflicts such as the debts and constraints imposed against Germany for World War I created the fertile ground for someone such as Hitler and the Nazi party to prey upon and sew the seeds of bigotry disguised as national pride.
Let's sew the seeds of acceptance for the future rather than debts imposed upon people that lead to fertile ground for bigots and despots to reap the resentment that sprouts thereto as a result.
Wesak (Buddha Day)
Tuesday of this past week was Wesak or Buddha Day a day celebrating the life and birth of the Buddha and his impact upon the world in regard to his philosophies and way of life. Buddhism has branched out to many places in the world each merging with its own cultural signature into the teachings and practice.
It is celebrated on the full moon of May every year. There are many conflicting stories about his origins and his path to enlightenment which of course is not as important as the impact of his life philosophies the world over amongst many others whose ideas and actions have changed the world.
May those of you celebrating it find inner peace, which is really what the philosophy is about and through finding inner peace, people are able to make peace with the world.
Some might argue that we are only truly alive when we are at our extremes, but while there, we are also most susceptible to manipulation and misperception of the world around us and only the most disciplined of minds can endure their own extremes. Because our extremes are often the result of our internal biochemical processes, it is utmost important that we not lose our ability to steer ourselves during the experiencing of our extremes.
Perhaps that idea is where the topics above are connected and may be the key to acceptance and to use our extremes consciously to protect.
Updates To Stories
The last few updates include: Testament Of Time (which received a chapter and a half) and Heroes Of Our Own which received quite an update which brings us to the doorstep of the Treadwater Island Resort and begins the process of really bringing Monique into the story. As well we see the return of another character back into the fold, but what are her motives? These additions are still first draft so please do forgive it if it is not up to par.
Stay Safe And Be Well
Brian Joseph Johns
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