Enter Bear Stage Right

[Acton]

Hello, nice place you have here my (fursona) is Acton Rand Shafer but you can call me Acton. I am a bit big for a Bear. What I do for a living in my furry world I am conservative talk show host and political operative; the from was due to the original host had a breakdown on the air and threated to blow up the station.

out of character
I am a furry who resides of Peoples Republic of Portland Oregon. I joined the fandom in 2006 but had knowledge of the existence of the fandom since 1999. My interest is in furry fandom. My interest in Science Fiction predate furry by 36 years or so. I also a big collector of Sanrio plush ans other items.

[Daryn]

Hey and welcome to you Acton! I am sorry you had registration issues, but I did my best to resolve them for you. Either way, good to see you on the boards and I hope you'll enjoy your stay here at SciFiFur!

[Wolfgang of Borg]

Very much not right wing but i totally applaud your desire for Portland, OR independence.. there should totally be more experimental cities like that

What scifi are you into?

[Acton]

Very much not right wing but i totally applaud your desire for Portland, OR independence.. there should totally be more experimental cities like that

What scifi are you into?

I need to watch Portlandia on Itunes when the price is right; good satire contains element of truth. The city government dives me nuts.
As for Scifi I am all over the place from space opera to alternative history a l Harry Turtledove.
I currently reading a lot of Allen Steele finishing the Coyote trilogy( Coyote, Coyote Rising ,Coyote Frontier.) and The Coyote Chronicles

Favorite book include Joe Haldeman Forever war and Nancy Kress' Beggars in Spain

I often load up my MP3 player with stories from Anthropomorphic Dreams, Escape Pod, Starship Sofa and Light speed

[Slate]

I was in Portland yesterday hanging out with some friends. Totally forgot the Rose Festival was going on (haven't been to it in a few years).

Anyway, welcome! Hope you enjoy your stay!

[SliceOfDog]

Yes, welcome Acton! Always nice to see new faces here! I'm very curious about your conservative persona vs. People's Republic of Portland. As far as I can tell from a quick Google search, 'PRP' is a nickname that reflects how Liberal Portland is, so are you using it ironically, or is your fursona's political ideology different from your own? I don't mean to pry, I'm just interested

Also, I've just come back from recording the intro to our podcast, XAP, and I've started listing the new members. Unfortunately, I was lacking net access until I got back, so I didn't see that you'd joined us and so didn't give you a shout-out. Just letting you know that I've not ignored you, just bad timing!

Finally, much love for the Shakespeare reference, I find it very amusing

[Dusty]

Hola! Welcome to the forums. So your from the West Side, I can understand the PRP

[Wolfgang of Borg]

Totes didn't occur to me that it was sarcasm >:P
i'd love to live somewhere like that, or Berlin, or Brighton...

(iirc in Atlas Shrugged Rand kept referring to places doomed due to Socialism as like "the People's Republic of ...".)

[Acton]

Yes, welcome Acton! Always nice to see new faces here! I'm very curious about your conservative persona vs. People's Republic of Portland. As far as I can tell from a quick Google search, 'PRP' is a nickname that reflects how Liberal Portland is, so are you using it ironically, or is your fursona's political ideology different from your own? I don't mean to pry, I'm just interested

Also, I've just come back from recording the intro to our podcast, XAP, and I've started listing the new members. Unfortunately, I was lacking net access until I got back, so I didn't see that you'd joined us and so didn't give you a shout-out. Just letting you know that I've not ignored you, just bad timing!

Finally, much love for the Shakespeare reference, I find it very amusing

Yes it is a bit of sarcasm and humor are the best way for me to deal being a right of center Black Male in Portland Oregon less I become a permanently disgruntled conservative talk show host. My fursona has a bit of a back-story that describes my real life self or my beliefs and experiences. For example Acton full name comes for three philosophers that helped shaped my views: Lord Acton, Ayn Rand and Francis Shaefer. (miss spelling due to an overly helpful spell checker). I was involved with conservative politics until recently over disagreements populism that crept into conservatism and disagreement with social conservatism over theological issues. The talk show host was more about a commentary. I have about my problem with conservative talk radio, it became more rhetoric and drama than thought.

I would like to learn political cartooning and use Acton and other furry characters in my mind for political and social commentary with a huge dose of humor one of these days.

Oh yes I regularly download Sf and furry podcast to listen to while working, I had listened to the first episode of XAP, I have to say well done and look forward to future episodes.

[SliceOfDog]

Ah, that's very interesting! I'm firmly in the camp of the left, but I absolutely love reasoned political discussion, even with, or perhaps especially with, people who hold different views. I don't think it will come up often, because obviously this isn't a political forum, but just in case we do eventually get into a debate over something I'll say this now; please don't mistake my passion for distaste of other opinions! Every opinion is valid, so even if I disagree it's not a personal slight!

And with that out of the way, I'm very interested that you mention this:

I would like to learn political cartooning and use Acton and other furry characters in my mind for political and social commentary with a huge dose of humor one of these days.

I absolutely love comics and political cartoons. I made a couple myself, but I'm no artist, so most of my political cartoons never get out of the sketchbook. I did do two, and maybe you'll get a kick out of them, I'm not sure;
http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs42/f/20...SliceOfDog.png
http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs45/f/20...SliceOfDog.png
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs44/f/20...SliceOfDog.png
*Edit: This one is British, but oh well: http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs45/f/20...SliceOfDog.png

Oh, and thanks for checking out XAP! I hope the next one should be out this Sunday

[Acton]

Very much not right wing but i totally applaud your desire for Portland, OR independence.. there should totally be more experimental cities like that

What scifi are you into?

Well I go from Space Opera to Post Apocalyptic
A sample of my favorites include
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Orson Scott Card: From Ender's Game to Shadow of the Giant
Nacy Kress Beggars in Spain and the whole series.

ps. my orginal message was blocked, to many links ?

[Daryn]

Well I go from Space Opera to Post Apocalyptic
A sample of my favorites include
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Orson Scott Card: From Ender's Game to Shadow of the Giant
Nacy Kress Beggars in Spain and the whole series.

ps. my orginal message was blocked, to many links ?

That post may have had too many links, yes. I don't think it should be a problem anymore, you've got enough posts now that the spam catcher won't check them anymore. Again sorry for the inconvenience, but you should be all set now.

[Wolfgang of Borg]

Yeah that invisible comments thing happened to me too (i like to link a lot).

Beggars in Spain sounds weird, like a reverse-Gattaca where it's the supermen who are in the minority?
(If you have the tech to create superbabies why wouldn't you offer it universally? Even if the plan fails disastrously, the Amish'll always be around to pick up the pieces, and if you succeeded, just imagine what a world population of geniuses might accomplish...)

LIBERTARIAN ENGINEER SAVES THE UNIVERSE books normally mostly just infuriate me (that bit in Atlas Shrugged when they took the wreck of the prototype motor to the King of Physics and his response wasn't to immediately announce it publicly struck me as a prime example of how oddly Rand's characters think -- something like arXiv.org would be an anathema to them!), but otoh i saw this really neat documentary the other week which made me want to try to understand her ideology again, seems it had a big role in influencing some history that i'm particularly interested in (the rise of Silicon Valley and the computer revolution (which imho still hasn't happened yet)). Also i'd love to know how that bit of Class War judo whereby poor people in America now vote to support the interests of rich people was done.

So anyway thanks, i'll check that one out!

Also yay for Leibowitz! Fantastic book that, if you liked it i recommend this Neal Stephenson one which had a quite similar premise, only instead of Canticle's ending the cycles of history have been going on for far far longer. Only problem was the length of the thing (nearly a kilopage, gah!), but at least for once he managed a satisfying conclusion.

[Wolfgang of Borg]

I need to watch Portlandia on Itunes when the price is right; good satire contains element of truth. The city government dives me nuts.
As for Scifi I am all over the place from space opera to alternative history a l Harry Turtledove.
I currently reading a lot of Allen Steele finishing the Coyote trilogy( Coyote, Coyote Rising ,Coyote Frontier.) and The Coyote Chronicles

Favorite book include Joe Haldeman Forever war and Nancy Kress' Beggars in Spain

I often load up my MP3 player with stories from Anthropomorphic Dreams, Escape Pod, Starship Sofa and Light speed

Portlandia was very hit and miss for me, but then i've never been there. Also i found the all guest actors very distracting, tho one was perfect (Kyle MacLachlan as the mad Mayor).

I'm with you on The Forever War, one of the very few military scifi stories that held my interest (loved both the realistic time dilation and the social engineering subplot).

Thanks for the podcasts, i'm always looking for more of those. I used to be mad keen on Escape Pod but kinda went off it after Steve Eley left / went crazy.
In case you don't know of it Clarkesworld has covered some good stuff.

[Wolfgang of Borg]

Gruh sorry for the SELF-REPLY x2 COMBO it's just that i just found a new (to me) podcast you might like: http://transmissionsfrombeyond.com/

(was looking up a Greg Egan link for a blog post when i found it)