Intergalactic Summit

Today is transportation day when those we have rescued travel to one of our larger centers in Dresi where they can live and work until they find new homes in the Republic or possibly other places. We also have slavers, some exotic dancers, and hounds to transport to various places. The complication this time around comes with the fact that not that long ago, I rescued a small group of people, six in number. They had just been checked into the temp center, when the call came to prepare for transport to Dresi. This was a bit disorienting. I can't full imagine the sense of "What is really going on here?" "Where am I being taken?" "What is happening to me?" Thankfully, the other recently rescued people, the center staff and Elders all helped to orientate these most recently rescued people. We told them that if would like stay behind with the staff at the temp center and wait until the next transport time to move on, that was fine. They chose the leap of faith and went with the other 1082 on to Dresi. They disembarked there a little while ago. They seem OK. Even when life changes for the better, it is still change and change can be hard. They will have access to a great community there in Dresi to make themselves ready for life ahead.

I asked the question of 10 Exotic Dancers who were nearly killed a while ago while being transported to work in Jita, "Where do you want to go?" "Where do you think we should go?" was the question returned to me. I told them that if they wanted to do something other than exotic dancing, we had plenty of work in any one of out centers. They kind of wanted to stay together and so they chose to go to our Homeless Shelter in Gallente space and work there. I think that was a good choice. For now, they will wait in Korama until the good Dr. has time to transport them

Wall of Shame:

114/07/30 12:03 Jim Celetrum 6 people

Transfers made:
(1088-Dresi, 10 dancers, 4 hounds, 16 slavers)

Mmm, something good is always cooking in the temp center kitchen. You can smell good aromas when you walk into the center dining area. One of the advantages of being a capsuleer is the way the technology has allowed us to experience sensory feedback that would normally be impossible in the vacuum of space. We can send out out camera drones and see, hear, and sometimes even feel what is happening, all through technology. One thing the pod experience can't do is to duplicate the sensation of drawing in a deep breath through the nose and enjoying the smell of spices and steam and bread. Pair that with the sound of untranslated conversation in any number of languages, and you have the sensation of being in the center dining hall. Some take their meals in their quarters, but many prefer the social atmosphere of the dining hall. It is a good place to be. It is there in the dining hall that the people we rescue really become oriented to what has happened and how life has changed. It is there that the sounds, smells and sights of people sharing a meal connect me with the intimacy of the human community.

47 more now join their voices at the table.

Wall of Shame:

114/07/31 18:29 Duuv Rasa 47 people

114/08/01 has been, I believe, the busiest rescue day I have had. This is not in the number of people rescued but in the number of jettisons encountered while on patrol.

Something happened to day that almost went unnoticed but then came as a heavy awareness upon me. It was the fact that it was almost unnoticed that became heavy. Let me explain. In the process of logging our rescues, we record information on the pilot who is the registered owner of the jet can. These can be seen on our Wall of Shame. I used to react strongly when I saw Minmatar pilots trading and then almost killing their own enslaved brothers and sisters. When I first encountered it, I was incredulous. But as today, it didn't immediately register that there were Minmatar pilots on the wall of shame. As I asked myself why it was that I no longer felt a reaction, I became aware that I have come to "expect" these pilots on the wall of shame just as I would expect anyone. When I first began this work, I sincerely thought that those tribes-people so gifted to be capsuleers would surely desire to see their brothers and sisters free and would surely not engage in the slave trade themselves.

I grieve the loss of shock and dismay I used to feel on such occasions. I know that these changes are inevitable in this kind of work and it reflects the reality that some my own naivete is being lost in reality. In the final analysis, the wall of shame equalizes all offenders. Perhaps no particular pilot should be considered more culpable than another. Ultimately we are all of the same tribe of humanity.

Wall of Shame:

114/08/01 12:44 Boldone 16 people
114/08/01 18:01 Xenomorphus 73 people
114/08/01 19:55 Cpt Napoleon 22 people
DJ Chottu 10 people
billibonskirill 8 hounds, 10 people

Afraid to play. That is what a mother told me about why her daughter wakes up from nightmares screaming and crying. Afraid to play? I'm afraid I don't quite understand. What exactly do you mean? She went on to explain, "On the plantation where I was a slave together with my husband and my daughter, we were allowed to marry and raise families as were most of the other slaves. Children were not worked until they reached the age of 8. But they were strictly controlled and the rules were strict about where they could go. All the children pretty much played together. We were decently cared for. Slaver hounds were used to patrol and keep the slave population where they were supposed to be at all times and to discourage escape attempts. The plantation was large and even the areas that were fenced were patrolled by hounds. A hound can tear the windpipe and jugular out of a grown man's throat in about three seconds. No one messes with them. One day my daughter and her friends were playing kickball near one of the dilapidated fences in the barracks compound. The ball rolled under a gap in the fence. One of the little boys squeezed under the gap to retrieve the ball. Seconds later, he was dead. This was witnessed by my daughter.

She is now afraid to play. "

Our Elders and the counseling staff at our centers will be spending all the time needed to help her. I later learned that the main reason that the little girls family was sold to a local broker was because of her nightmares and that the whole barracks was losing sleep. The Holder sold the whole family to the broker, but the broker sold the woman's husband separately. The woman and her daughter were being sold for domestic help somewhere out of Empire space. Where, they did not know. And, if they will ever see their husband/father, they do not know. Brokers who illegally sell out of the empire do not exactly keep detailed sales records.

Wall of Shame

114/08/03 21:15 Sangetsu Attayaneskena 20 people.
114/08/04 01:25 danil kulincov 5 slavers, 5 hounds, 29 former slaves

Yesterday, these 27 people made it to safety from a deathcan found where I would expect to find one. I am paying more attention to out of the way places and places where it might be somewhat unusual to find such.

No time to reflect further today.

Wall of Shame:

114/08/09 12:50 Codename Vendetta 27 people

While I continue to read the IGS, I feel less and less compelled to respond to what I read. It seems that more and more, we capsuleers have become adept of self-justification. To be dissuaded is a humility that we refuse to bear. I include myself in malady for my own pride and hubris can just as easily raise its ugly head. One might become cynical and overly self-doubting if this line of thought is pursued too far. Perhaps there are a few useful concepts that can be converted into practice that will help us sort thought it. First, Belief. I am not using this term in the full blown epistemological sense, just is a practical day to day sense of the basic beliefs we hold. The second term is conviction. Conviction I term as a drive to adhere to our beliefs.

Belief of not sufficient to generate moral behavior. Some of the people on the wall of shame believe that slavery is wrong and that what they have done is wrong. They simply don't care. They lack conviction to convert their belief into what they would even say is right action.

Belief and conviction is not sufficient to generate right action in the absolute sense. Here is where we struggle. We should live according to our convictions. However to claim an absolute and dogged reliance on our own convictions as the guarantee of right action is a sort of self-deification and cheats us out of personal moral growth. In other words, while living according to our convictions, we should be free to change our minds if confronted with a superior moral position.

Caution: I do not refer to a better argued moral position. That depends only on the skill of the rhetoric. A superior moral position will engage our convictions so as to change them. The best moral arguments are not made with words, but with the exemplary lives of those who hold the conviction.

Finally, I believe it is right to rescue and help people abandoned in space. I also feel strong conviction to do so. So far I have not encountered any compelling argument to the contrary.

Wall of Shame:

114/08/15 12:44 Strictler1990 31 people
114/08/16 12:51 moonlight sculpter 15 people

Elder Verin and I returned from a visit to Ealur recently where we spent a couple days talking with the Cottons and Greenhands about how our large centers are doing and how to help the populations there while they wait for opportunities to safely repatriate. We concluded that the best we can and should do is to strengthen our educational systems, facilitate community development and leadership and build infrastructure to enable the communities to be self-supporting.

I have not had much time to patrol and need to get back to that work this week.

Wall of Shame:

114/08/17 18:27 MACIEK MIKOSZ 10 people

Names and titles are an odd pastime of the capsuleer. We seem to have a need for them. From military ranks to self-assigned accolades, titles serve as a form of entertainment mostly, having lost most of their true function. Perhaps the military might maintain some of that original function. Pilots call themselves a number of interesting names, probably to hide their true identity and to keep from having to be truly honest with themselves. Lady Deliverance for example has these words in her public biography:

Lady Deliverence

Release, Rescue,

An Authoritative Judgment

Now an then, I find such obvious irony. For those we rescued from her death can, they were delivered to death and not rescued, at least by her.

But, back to titles. The titles that mean the most are those unofficially given to us by others who observe our lives and make those judgments that are the product of what they see over the stretch of time. Lady, Gentleman, Friend, Honorable Warrior, Peacemaker, etc. These come not by virtue of our birth or societal caste, but by virtue of the life we live.

Wall of Shame:

114/08/23 19:19 Lady Deliverance 4 people

Yesterday at 19:46 hours, I came across 10 people abandoned to die by a pilot who refers to herself as Hunzibal. Her avatar portrays soft feminine features and kind eyes. Her deed was cold, icey, and barbaric. This is the case so many times as reflected on the wall of shame. I just finished commenting on the "Caldari's are Ugly" thread, noting that looks have much more to do with personality in the long run. The beautiful become ugly through ugly deeds and the homely become attractive through good deeds. I have never considered myself to be a kid magnet and some have said I look rather goblin like. But since beginning this work I have receive more hugs from children and slobbery kisses than I care to recall. Your looks mean nothing if your heart is a cesspool.

Wall of Shame:

114/08/25 19:46 Hunzibal 10 people

Brother do you find these men, women, and children abandoned in canisters in space?