I recently resigned from the WASFF Board, and from my role on the Convention Steering Committee, because I could no longer cope with the sustained negativity, insults and general reluctance to make difficult choices. I have largely lost faith in the ability of the Swancon community to actually achieve the goals it set itself to grow its membership and create a larger, more vibrant, more diverse convention.

But there is a small group of people who still have not lost faith. They're people who put in hours of work on Swancon every week, who care about doing the hard work that building Swancon requires. So for them, I am putting out this call for help.

( Read more )

No you shouldn't bother. You aren't the victim and you still aren't welcome.

Thank you to everyone who has already signed up as a member of Swancon Thirty Six | Natcon Fifty. Online payment is now up and running, so you can pay online using the Paypal links provided, or register for membership online and send us a cheque in the mail.

You have until 18 April to take advantage of our earlybird rate of $150/$120, and the earlier you sign up, the longer you have to take advantage of the generous 10% discount from Planet Books and Fantastic Planet.

Click here to download a copy of PR0.

I really can't say it any better than this or this.

This is a problem for the community, and so all members of the community need to stand in solidarity and say: don't come to Swancon, you aren't welcome.

Call for Expressions of Interest



Natcon50 would like to invite expressions of interest for the exhibition ʻFuture Imperfect: Exploring the future from the pastʼ, to be held at Easter 2011 in Perth, Western Australia.

ʻFuture Imperfect: Exploring the future from the pastʼ will explore the way people have historically imagined our present. We are seeking aspiring and semi professional Australian artists to examine this theme in a tight body of work. In order to be considered, please submit 2-3 low resolution images of your current work that best represents you.

For successful applicants, the Natcon50 art show will provide an attractive space to display your works of art to members of Natcon50 and the general public at no cost. The exhibition will be promoted widely, and will provide you with the opportunity to sell your works. Natcon50 will collect a 10% commission on the sale of each item.

Submissions are invited for artists working in any media. Due to the exhibition space preference will be given to two dimensional pieces, however three dimensional works of art or other media will be considered.
Please send all queries and responses to the attention of Kate or Amanda at natcon50@gmail.com and ensure that your expressions of interest are lodged by 10 April 2010.

Download a pdf to circulate amongst your friends and colleagues here.

I'm using a Mac, which very kindly displays attached images in the body of an email as well as being an attachment. That's usually a good thing, except when people receiving my images have MS 2007. They only get an embedded image, not an attachment.

Does anyone know how to fix this? At the moment I have to zip everything.

Tony Abbott, [...] has told a Sydney conference a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband, but that is better than no boss at all.

"He might be a bad boss but at least he's employing someone while he is in fact a boss," he said.



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Tagged by girliejones and I think we all know that one must not disobey Ms Jones

1. I am ridiculously addicted to Mocha Chills

2. That thing in your head that's supposed to make you worry about consequences is set to only kick in once it's too late to back out of stuff. This has me doing stuff like saying yes to running a Swancon and quitting my job to work freelance. Thankfully it's given me mad skills in meeting deadlines and surviving the what-the-hell-am-I-doing freak-outs, but the laws of nature says that caution needs to go somewhere, and for me it's usually re-doing embarrassing moments and arguments past over and over in my head.

3. Spiky things, like those fish and caterpillars and porcupines - sometimes even pin cushions - make my skin crawl.

4. I find it annoying when people break rules because they don't know what they are, but I enjoy it when people break them on purpose. I refuse to read blogs by people who don't know how to use apostrophes, but I love LOL speak. And I find it rude when people barge in to social situations and don't bother to learn how things work, but I find it amusing when people do it knowingly.

5. According to my physio I have hypermobile joints. I used to hate wearing heels because I fell off them all the time. It was a relief to discover that it wasn't due entirely to a lack of coordination.

6. I love lifting weights, and I am more proud of my biceps than is probably justified.

7. I can usually tell you what I wore to any given event.

Kate Harding writes:

I mean, that's what's so fascinating to me about the pro-Polanski arguments here. In many cases, there's overlap between two of the most common defenses of him: "He only pled guilty to sex with a minor, not non-consensual sex," and "We should listen to what the victim says -- she doesn't want him prosecuted!" We should listen to what the victim says now, as a 45-year-old woman, when it fits with the narrative that Polanski's already suffered enough and shouldn't endure further indignities. But what about listening to what the victim said then, at 13? What about listening to her testimony that she said no, that she asked him to stop, as he raped her orally, vaginally and anally? Some people are making very curious arguments about when, exactly, it's important to listen to the victim.

Read the whole thing.