When Papa Cast Vision

An open reply to the message Grubs Grizzly sent before banning from the Greymuzzle group.

For those who know me on Greymuzzle Group on Facebook, I am no longer part of the group. Grubs Grizzly, the owner of the Group has help me make the decision to part ways.  I will still call for discernment and seek multiple sources than rely on one vocal vision casting spokesperson. My crime is to disagree over his decision to ban AI art on his group, which is one of many disagreements I have with his action thought the years. I may have confirmed in his last post to me before I gracefully deleted it that Grubs is engaging in vision casting.

Vision Casting comes out of the megachurch movement.   The idea is one sets them self as leader, in the case the pastor, The job of the leader is to create a vision for the community one feels they oversee. As a member of the community of the vision casting leadership, their duty is to carry out the vision cast by the leader.  The terrible final aspect of vision casting is no can question the vision of the leaders; objectors are cast out of the community. One notable example was Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church, with his throwing detractors under the Mars Hill Bus rant.  I was threatened to be written off by the pastor of a Baptist Church I was a member for asking accommodation and compromise by standing up for our elderly members the pastor had written off in the pastors attempt to reshaping the church to attract a younger generation, and now Grubs Grizzly ejecting me from The Grey Muzzle group. If Grubs Grizzly thinks his act will hurt me, it will. Am I grieved about what I said, yes, but I still stand by my words. I am used to it, and I grew stronger. So, Goody Bye. I will not quarrel with you. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left. I will leave you this warning Grubs: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

An open letter to anonymous 15-year-old

Whan Papa bear offers bad advice.

Recently   the administer of the Greaymuzzle group and advice columnist posted a letter to his advice column from a 15year old called They Hate Us for Being Free:

“Hi Papabear,

I’ve been seeing a lot of furry hate recently on the internet, and to be honest, I am tired of people hating on us, thinking that we are all zoophiles or thermals [I think he means therians, or maybe feral], and to see that even though we hate them (zoophiles/therians) as well, people still don’t see that! I feel like the fandom is dying, and you know what? We should destroy the furry community to make a new community like it, except with thermals or zoophiles, and to not have inappropriate things like murrsuits. It should be child friendly!

Do you think we should recreate the furry fandom and have a set of rules with it? To keep everyone more safe and to stop furry hate all together?

Anonymous (age 15)”

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Furry has LGBTQ, but not all Furry is LGBTQ

There is a tread in the Furry Fandom of gender identity activists stuffing their political ideology with good helping of intersectionality into a hollowed out fursuit and declaring their ideology as the defining expression for the entire Furry Fandom, even to say furry is a subset of Queer as in LGBTQ.

Now let me throw a flag on this play: Sweeping Generalization Fallacy, ten-yard penalty. Yes, there is LGBTQ element in furry fandom, so there are heterosexual, Christian, liberal, conservative, etc. elements in the fandom, but no one group can declare themselves the one defining authority in the furry fandom and appoint themselves at the gate keeper of the fandom.

My response to the activist is you are part of the fandom you are not the owner of the furry fandom.    Furries are fans of anthropomorphic animals in art, literature, and fursuiting; one’s race, religion, politics, sexual identity is irrelevant when one is a talking animal. It is why in the past many of us furs got along by concentration on furry culture despite our ideological beliefs. The Furry fandom belongs to all and is not just entity for an activist to shove their ideology into the fandom. It is not my fandom; it is our fandom.

Some thoughts about Coronavirus and Fan Conventions.

This post is  a response to a question about the future of fan Conventions  in light of  COVID-19.

This is a speculation about the future of conventions if we can control COVID-19. I use my experience as a Sanrio fan.  One option is similar to Hello Kitty Friendship Festival and the recent Hello Kitty Around the World tour. In each case one bought a ticket for a session lasting two to four hours.  Only a fixed amount of tickets was sold per session. The session could have a show, panel, displays and a trip though the dealer’s den.

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Washington Examiner Hypes RBCC Comment and Gets it Wrong

The Washington Examiner turned a molehill into a mountain based on a single word in a RNCC Tweet.  One can ask was necessary for the NRCC to throw out the furry word.  Still this much ado about nothing. I find the Washington Examiner more at fault by twisting the RNCC post. Second the Examiner  paints a distorted and inaccurate  overused media statement that  Furries area subculture that dress up in animal costumes and  for twisting  of the Fur Science 2011 data out of context.

“A number of studies have demonstrated that some of those interested in furry fandom view the subculture as a sexual fetish as well. According to a 2011 study by the Anthropomorphic Research Project, one-third of furries interviewed said that “sexual attraction to the content in the fandom is an important part of their furry participation.” The author of the story  gave a poor  attempt of a apology on Twitter.

Better would be the 2018 statement on sexuality

“This is in line with several other findings from past studies suggesting that, despite the perception by many of furry as a fetish, for most furries this is not the case, though furries may themselves be prone to erroneously believing this stereotype about other furries. It should also be noted that this is not to say that there are not furries for whom the fandom is a fetish – prior research suggests that this is likely the case for about 5-10% of the furry fandom. Nor is there anything wrong with furry being a fetish for these folks. Instead, we are simply pointing out that it would be inaccurate to categorize furries as a group as being fetish-based, as it would be describing the group as a whole based on a minority within the group.” 1.

If anything good, the mainstream press has ignored this story.

I still find fault with RNCC. There are very good reasons to oppose Beto O Rouke, why bring up furry and twist him wearing a mask as part of a band.

 

Now let say for the record, I became a Furry during the peak of my involvement with the Republican Party (i.e. before Trump). My Fursona is a more conservative than I am, and a Republican Black Bear.    I often joke around wanting to be the highest ranking elected Furry Republican and my favorite comic strip is Mallard Fillmore a comic about an anthropomorphic conservative Duck.  I see this as just silliness to bring up furry as something negative.

  1. Anthrocon 2018 study