Presents
A Webzine Created and Edited by 
Number 11
Table of Contents
"Where dreams are the stuff reality is made of"
- Opening a Can Of Worms, an editorial
- Melanie's Transition Diary continues
- Are Support Groups Self-Deafeating? by Denise
- The "Be All You Can Be" convention by Stephanie
- My Coming Out by Danielle
- A Symbiotic Friendship by Karen
- Letters FROM the Editor
- Happy in a Hug: by Karen
Explorations
by , Editor
"Opening A Can Of Worms"
Last edition, I wrote an editorial about the "C" word: Censorship. In it, I introduced a sister publication to The Subversive to be called Can Of Worms. This month, the first issue of COW was published to very positive response. The thoughts I chose to address in my first editorial for Can Of Worms seem to me to be the best follow up for the Censorship editorial in the last Subversive. So, here are the concluding thoughts in the concepts begun last time in The Subversive.
From Can Of Worms:
"Chaos Realizes Synthesis"
DECLARATION OF PURPOSE
"Truth lies like the grain of sand at the heart of a pearl. It may not be elegant, it may not even be pretty, but it is the core of the sugar coating we call our lives. The more we protect our heart, the more it suffocates, locked in by the pressure of its own protection. Can Of Worms exists to crack through the lemming layers that insulate us from our own truth, binding our minds in a vice-grip of ignorance. What we find at the center may be red and raw, but it will respond. We may be enraged or hurt, but we will be aware. And through that awareness, we will grow again."
ORDER AND CHAOS
I began the electronic magazine, "The Subversive" a year ago to foster insight. Today, I inaugurate a new publication, "Can Of Worms" to incite. Whereas The Subversive seeks order through understanding, Can Of Worms seeks motivation through chaos. All the understanding in the world is useless until it is applied. Yet all the effort in the world is useless until it is focused. The moment you arrive at an understanding and move on it, chaos ensues. Eisenhower once said (and I can't believe I'm actually quoting Eisenhower!) "Planning is vital, plans are useless. And Ziggy expounded, "Every time I find out where its at, somebody moves it..."
Yet we have all had the experience of getting nowhere fast, or "the harder I work, the behinder I get" syndrome. This points up the other side of the equation: that motivation without focus is non-productive at best, counter-productive at worst. Clearly both understanding AND motivation are required to get anything worthwhile done. And that doesn't just mean physical endeavors but mental as well.
The Subversive continues to be a forum of new perspectives that encourage synthesis. Yet it is not designed to enhance the "ooomph" factor to get things moving. That's where Can Of Worms (COW) comes in. You may not find new meaning in what you see here, but you'll more than likely be moved by it.
Let me tell you about the guidelines for submissions to Can Of Worms: there are none. That's right, anything goes! Now this may mean that there will be anything from prejudicial slurs to gutter language to pornographic material. Certainly many of the articles to come will even offend me! But I'm not going to censor content. If its balance you want as a reader, its up to you to provide it.
Do you take exception to a point of view published here? Well then submit a rebuttal. Put in your own article to balance the one-sided nature of the other. As far as I'm concerned, the only sin in Can Of Worms is for a reader to sit there like a sponge and sop and squirt but not contribute.
Can Of Worms is an experiment in free speech. Traditionally, highly rhetorical incendiary editorials are found in publications biased to that point of view. I hope that we can set a new trend here, attracting hot-headed, biased diatribes from ALL sides of an issue. This will make Can Of Worms an equilibrium of balanced inequities, neutral not because of its blandness, but as a result of its spectrum of intensity.
So, I greet you all to the first edition with a hearty welcome and an open invitation to speak your mind.
Melanie's Wise Words of the Month
"Speak up an be heard,
or , Shut up and be herd."
- Wilma Snakestare (map)
