The Owen Blacker mentioned here is someone I was friendly with on the old LGBT social site Thingbox, and subsequently connected with him on Flickr and LiveJournal.

After years of loyalty to Blogger I finally took the plunge and registered on Livejournal, after reading this post on Owen Blacker's LJ.

Seems like I've not the only only one been dingyed by a certain dude on Flickr. Basically all this started when I joined the Mundo Uno group. From their description:

This group was created to keep people united, to develop a culture of peace, share some knowledge, to support actions for peace, like the "ceasefire vigil" and the "ceasefire campaign", and others that would come (and not only about the Midle-East crisis).
During the IDF/Hezbollah conflict in the summer, a lot of members, including myself, changed our flickr buddy icon for a black ribbon, for all the innocent people, on both sides, who were getting caught up in this war.

And then on Aug 10, I get a message all in caps titled "RIBBON IN YOUR HAIR" from this guy. Now, this guy- I don't want to link to him because he's blocked me- he's basically a well off US dude who jets down to Brazil a great deal to have sex with cute Brazilian guys, who he also showers with gifts. (Some of you probably know exactly who I'm talking about at this point.) And he posts rather low-quality pics of them on his Flickr account. (I've seen far better on Newbienudes.). He also runs a few gay "erotica" groups on Flickr.

So basically he's a bit of a sugar-daddy and a wannabe porn king. Not that I have a problem with that per se, you understand. The guys are cute (Imagine what Djuliet or Eros Leafar would be able to do with them), and only a sense of cultural imperialism (I am big American with money! I am sex god! I bring you gifts and nookie from the Land of the Free!) sours his work.

And so I get "RIBBON IN YOUR HAIR" one day which goes:

NO ONE IS KILLING CIVILIANS EXCEPT FOR THE ARAB TERRORISTS WHO ARE HIDING WITHIN THEM. TO MAKE SUCH A STATMENT IS TO SUPPORT TERRORISTS. SURLY YOU ARE SMART ENOUGH TO SEE THAT ? GO ON VACATION IN IRAN, SEE WHAT THEY ARE PLANNING FOR YOU ( BEING GAY AND ALL ) THEY WILL BE KIKCKING YOUR DOOR NEXT. WILL YOU WEAR THAT RIBBON IN YOUR HAIR THAN ? IDIOTIC.
Owen Blacker got exactly the same message, so this is obviously a boiler plate written in the heat of the moment under  a red mist, which presumably obscures all the black ribbons he saw on Flickr. (And there were a lot at the time.) Apparently this dude is one of those who think thats you've got to be on one side or the other, and if you're of opinion that the whole bloody thing stinks, then you're on the other side. There's no real point in responding to any of the above (talking) points since the whole premise is wrong. I'm not actually supporting one or the other side, but the innocent civilians on both sides getting dragged into the thing.

Of course, I did want to respond in some way, but by then he had blocked me and kicked me off 4 of his groups. Probably got too many emails from people pointing out the irony of getting lectures about international politics from a sex tourist.