Hello, World at Large!

At the bar of Caffetto, W 22nd St, Minneapolis, December 2017.

Initial disclosure(s): what you learn about me here won’t astound you like some “introduceyourself” posts have astounded me. I’m interested in privacy, so (though conditions may change) you might not ever learn my given name. But you will know something else about me, after performing your own triangulations of sympathy, because you will know why I picked the username “@riotdog.”

   

Kanellos

 

As you've probably guessed by now, this isn't an official Steemit account for the “riot dog”: not for Kanellos, not for Thodoris, not for Loukanikos nor any dog in Athens, and neither for Matapaco in Santiago de Chile. Instead, @riotdog merely represents a human male (current age: 29) with an inveterate fondness for dogs, riots, and "riot dogs."

   

Thodoris

 

I understand one convention (perhaps now out-of-fashion) for Steemit posts tagged "introduceyourself" requires an included photograph of the account owner holding a sign reading "Steemit" and the date of the photograph. I don't have a dog around, but I will carry some paper and a marker to take this photo with the first dog I can find. (Likely, of course, with the sign covering my face.) Until then, however, some pictures of the four "riot dogs" named above will have to suffice.

   

Loukanikos

 

Of course, "I love dogs, riots, and riot dogs" doesn't stand as much of an introduction. Let me take a second, then, and explain why I love riots in particular. Looking at the world today, I see one about which could appropriately quote Karl Kraus in saying, "Let Chaos be welcome, for Order has failed": a world, in other words, suffering unforeseen consequences that stem from the actions of its most successful species, which has organized itself around structures and ideologies that are both harmful to the species itself as well as unsustainable for the planet. Therefore I like riots, because they happen in response to, and with the intent of disrupting the operations of, those structures and ideologies.

   

Matapaco

 

I am, in short, an anarchist. (An "anarcho-syndicalist," if you like your nouns hyphenated, but I won't spend any time now on political theory.) Certainly my posts on Steemit will cover this subject from time to time.

 

Finally, I happened to create my “sign for introduceyourself conventions” on the morning after a snowstorm. Since I didn’t meet anyone walking their dog on the sidewalk, the barista took the following photo of myself at my local coffeeshop (@caffetto) next to a picture of a dog captioned “What Cat?”

    @riotdog  

As far as I’m concerned, that’s much better.