Hi. Brian Joseph Johns here.
Shhhh! Digital Media has been growing substantially with the addition of many of the books and story lines that made the original site a popular destination for many. The numbers currently aren’t anywhere near what they were during the original Shhhh! Digital Media’s height, but its growing and I’m happy with how this site is turning out so far.
What’s Ahead
I’ll be moving all of the original content to this site and am in the process of doing so now, though I’ve been editing and updating where I can, and adding new or upgraded artwork to each of the stories as I go, hence the not-quite-as-fast as I’d like this to go presence of content.
Over the last two weeks I moved A Lady’s Prerogative II: Wounded Aerth (all twelve chapters), Three for Women and Butterfly Dragon: What Different Eyes See – Vietnam Special Addition to the this site, with extensive additions in terms of artwork and also some edits as well, to make them consistent with the new canon.
I won’t be focusing as much on new content as I will on the transfer over the next few weeks, but I do have most of the unfinished episodes and stories mapped out in my head, and will get to writing and finishing them very soon. There will be some new episodes and as well a new standalone episodic series that will take up where aspects of the Two Butterflies left off.
Recent Politics?
Sometimes when I make a post and it seems to cause a bit of a cafuffle in the world, I sometimes choose to step back rather than to jump right into the fray, as was the case with my making it very clear where the Haven of the True is located on one of the new pieces of artwork included near the beginning of each part of A Lady’s Prerogative II: Wounded Aerth.
In prior publishings of that book, I never really made it clear where the Haven or West View or Alivale or Sharlesbury were. They were located somewhere in North America and I left it purposely vague as at the point I’d started writing the story, I didn’t want it to be about geopolitical borders. After all, most of the land the story takes place within belonged to the Indigenous people of North America, so I wanted to distinguish between aggressive colonization and peaceful co-existance, and the fact that aggressive colonization is connected to a sort of ideology made possible by groups like the Strangers of Lorr and the Wytch Hunters. A sort of secretive ideology that seems to have pervaded much of humanity, and is still quite prominent until this day.
So the Haven kind of represents the place where that sort of thing won’t take roots, and where those who’ve been cast asunder by such abusive and dangerous ideologies, can find solace and freedom so long as they do their part for the whole. Not via a system of debt, but rather by ensuring they live up to what’s expected of them on a daily basis. That Haven is located in the Greater Toronto Area, though I really intended it to represent Toronto right through to the Niagara Falls region, with all of the Southern Ontario cities between Toronto and Niagara representing this sort of Haven. Where people go to get away from the abusively expansionistic greed of some form of ideology who uses politics to create the casus belli for such expansion: ie the Wytch Hunt.
Nowadays, that sort of aggressive might come to fruition in something like… a trade war, or perhaps some other underhanded extension of politics, or possibly through the expression and action of religion and ideology, insofar as it manifests in the social climate and behaviour of many people. Thankfully, most people are full of enough sense not to engage in such activity, and there are a few people who actively are able to put a stop to it before its madness runs away with everyone, and everything else.
Lake Ontario? Yes, it is Lake Ontario. I’ve stood by the United States as a loyal neighbour and fan, standing with them through every crisis, even to the risk of my own life. However, ever since an executive order was given to force Canada to arrest and detain Meng Wanzhou and to rescind her into the custody of the United States as per our extradition treaty, is exactly when that entire connection I had to the United States gave out. I stood against it staunchly, and wrote several letters to the Prime Minister, including with them all the necessary reference files that I’d uncovered by going through the published treaties that the United States had enacted to make that very moment possible, starting from the Obama administration, who created the treaty that prevented China, or any other big players from trade with Iran, allegedly in the name of preventing them from acquiring the kind of technology (including centrifuges) they’d need for a uranium enrichment program, but the treaty was more aimed at preventing them from leveraging their oil resources to become a major player in the global economy, and to ensure that countries like Russia, India and China were unable to conduct business with them on those grounds. That “card” was eventually turned in by the Trump administration in the form of calling into action the extradition treaty we share with the United States, when Meng Wanzhou set foot on Canadian soil back in December 1, 2018, at which time she was arrested.
She was singled out and detained for a over a year and kept under house arrest, while the worst of the perpetrators of the Epstein case came and went as they pleased. I personally believe she was singled out because she was a female CEO, who had demonstrated that she was capable of playing hard ball in the so called “big leagues”. Once again, I remind you that at that point, nobody, not a single party from the Epstein case had been brought to justice, but the moment she enters into trade negotiations with Iran, she’s immediately scooped up by authorities. None of the other male CEOs or world leaders who’ve crossed that line (had trade dealings with Iran) have ever been rounded up via extradition request. Just her. Thankfully, Canadian authorities and our policy and law makers saw through this situation much the same, and the case was drawn out in court, as we protected her from the pit of despair she’d have likely ended up in if the extradition request had been successful.
I don’t want to single out male CEOs as being responsible for the ills of society, because that simply isn’t the case, and the entire Epstein affair is just one example of a situation where association can be used to dirty the names and reputations of many by proxy. As a result of that entire affair, it has given many people a poor gauge and regard for mature responsible intimacy and sexuality, which is one of the healthiest and most enjoyable aspects of adult life, when consensual and responsible of course. Situations like that one become a political weapon, further exploiting the life of Virginia Roberts Giuffre for purposes that benefit how she was used, especially when people see what a potential political weapon it can become. Encouraging future such measures as political weaponry and thus the lives of young women. The context I’m however using it here is to illustrate the disparity between male and female CEOs, especially those who dabble in politically risky trade.
Regardless, from that point, there has been a long history and growing list of grievances that have ever further compounded my bond with the United States. Not necessarily the people thereof, but the direction that the leadership seems to be taking things. It isn’t just a strain on Canadian/United States relations. Its obviously a strain on the United States political system (state versus federal law) and most certainly, the citizens of the United States.
The most recent shenanigans involving the renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America seem to be where this wave has crested, and I don’t know if it was done in response to my having made it very clear where the colony townships of my book A Lady’s Prerogative II: Wounded Aerth were located, on the north shore of Lake Ontario (as opposed to the United States) with the Haven being located “south” of the colony townships of West View, Alivale and Sharlesbury (all of them are a fictitious renaming of existing towns along the lake, and places I’ve been to a few times in my younger years). There is a lot of obsession with my content, especially to take its attribution from me unfortunately, and most people who do I’ve noticed are takers. No give. Just take.
I’ve struggled keeping Shhhh! Digital Media going through this and despite the worst of it, and believe me, it has pushed me to my limit a few times and I almost threw in the towel for good. But I kept going because I love doing it, and because I know there are lots of fans out there who truly appreciate the inspiration a bard such as I can extend in such uncertain times, for similar such bards have long existed throughout my life and lifted my spirits when I was in the depths of difficulty. I know how important that is, but at the same time, Shhhh! Digital Media is a business and an income model that supports it has been notoriously difficult to develop, but I do know that once that is in place, it will be around for a long time. Long after I’m gone.
So getting back to the Lake Ontario situation. Its known that I’m a Scorpio, and that Scorpio is a water sign, so the way that someone underhandedly in trying to bring about the most shallow of reactions from a person like myself, would be to take away water. A water sign without water is like a rider without a bike, and that’s coming from someone who’s ridden thousands upon thousands of kilometers in Ontario, including Toronto to Kinmount several times. I used to get on a bike, and 200 clicks later, crash on a beach on the shores of lake Simcoe. Regardless, taking water away I think was meant as a sort of stab at us in Canada as a whole, but also as a stab to water signs.
If I had immediately jumped into the fray and responded, then we might not have got the wonderful responses that we did from Mark Carney and from Doug Ford with regard to Lake Ontario and the growing sense of Canadian identity amongst us. A sort of appreciation of the sense of kindred spirit we can have with us being Canadians, and living and thriving upon this land which has given us her bounty for all of our lives, and those many ancestors for countless years into the past.
I do want to say this, and that the name will always be Lake Ontario, and Trump is correct in a way that I don’t think that he himself intended, because Lake Ontario is in fact in America.
Its in North America.
So Lake Ontario, in North America? That’s what I’ll tell anyone who asks, but it will never not be Lake Ontario. It was named that by the original land lords of this land, the Huron/Wyandat people and respected by the Iroquois, Cree and Sioux nations and has been respected by the colonizers until this very day. It has been Lake Ontario longer than the United States has been the United States. Far longer. United States Jr, and Lake Ontario Sr.
So, welcome to Lake Ontario, in Ontario, Canada, in North America. 😉
In the meantime, you might want to watch some movies or series on video. Can I suggest the movie The Dead Zone (based on a book by Stephen King), which stars Christopher Walken as a man who wakes up from a coma with an incredible psychic gift. He, Brook Adams, Tom Skerrit and Martin Sheen really make this an incredible and insightful film.
There’s also another one of my personal favourites, the movies and series Lexx (its definitely available on Amazon Prime Video TubiTV), a science fantasy show about an oppressive galactic regime and three misfits who manage to steal the weapon it had planned to use to enforce its rule throughout the League of 20,000 Planets.
I’ll be back with some more content over the weekend, and of course next week, the whole week where I’ll be working on the most recent stories, and adding legacy content from the original Shhhh! Digital web site.
See you soon 🙂
