ZOID CITY -- Symbols, Legends and Lore

Introduction

Nearly every voting and visiting competition community has its own iconography, symbols or at least a theme that says something about its history and ideals. Site Fights features the story of a mysterious boxing coach or champion fighter called DMan. Web Brawls, which arose from a Site Fights team called the Wolf Pack, uses wolves on many of its pages. Fantasy Fights has a theme of romance and fantasy, and Peace Trail is Native Americcan. The ZOID site too, is rich in symbolism. Here are the stories behind the pictures and names.

What does ZOID mean?

ZOID is the Hebrew word for secret. The secret is that voting and visiting competitions are a great way to create a community that brings diverse web site creators together. I learned that secret when I fought at Site Fightes. Of course the other half of the secret is that one can have a web site community that is founded on fairness, open communication, intellectual freedom, and the encouragement of personal growth. Because web space is inexpensive and the cgi needed to run the ballots is free, a third secret is that there is no need to "sponsor" such a community by plastering it with advertisements. The ZOIDs or secrets are of course out.

Who is ZOIDRubashov, and how did she get her handle?

ZOIDRubashov is Eileen H. Kramer, Head of the Board of Trustees at ZOID CITY. ZOIDRubashov began as the email address nsrubashov@lubyanka.ru. N.S. Rubashov was the main character in Arthur Koestler's, novel, Darkness at Noon. Rubashov was a Communist Party functionary in the Soviet Union of the 1930's. He was ready to die and would kill for the Party. Unfortunately, the Party gave him the opportunity to do both. Despite his loyalty, they put him in prison, tortured him, subjected him to a show trial and executed him. The novel is searing, especially the accounts of life in the bowels of Lubyanka prison in Moscow. It is also the story of loyalty betrayed. As my relations with the Site Fights soured, Rubashov became a metaphor for me.

Moreover, I read Darkness at Noon when I was in eighth or ninth grade. My parents did not believe in sheltering me, and my father was concerned with raising a left winger. I lay on the couch with tears streaming down my face as I read about poor Rubashov. Of course, the reasons the prison scenes make such an impression is that Arthur Koestler, the author, actually lived them, when he was held for several months by the Facists in Spain during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930's. Dialogs With Death, the real life story of Koestler's imprisonment, would have been a better choice. In any case, a diet of Koestler, Sozhenitzin, and Steinbeck as well as a voracious interest in history and current events made me a kid who was interested in more than pop culture. That is another reason I became ZOIDRubashov.

And what about that ugly yellow background?

If you are from the United States, you should recognize the eye-ease yellow ruled background as what is called a legal pad. These are inexpensive pads of 8.5 by 14 inch paper used in homes and offices for jotting down ideas, writing, doodling, and drawing. Legal pads are where ideas take shape so that they can become action and where creativity takes root. Both adults and children use legal pads; for creativity knows no age restriction. Like a legal pad, the web is a place for creativity.

What do all those pencils mean?

The word is mightier than the sword, and the pencil, crayon, or pen, far more powerful than any magic wand. On the web, the place for both words and images, the instruments that create them are the true tools of power. With our writing instruments, we are armed and mighty.

And what about those ugly flowers?

The flowers for ZOID came to me in a dream, but their meaning is beauty with strength. The white sunflower is unusual but tough and strong. White sunflowers are the product of human ingenuity and selective breeding, yet like their half wild cousins, they reseed themselves year after year. The physalis or Chinese Lantern is a perrenial. It's beauty lies in its bright orange fruits not its small white blssoms. The fruit can be dried to last for months, providing beauty in the dead of winter, and next spring the physalis returns to make more flowers and fruits.